Inevitably, contempt breeds disgust.
Anybody with a scintilla of consciousness and sympathy for the horrors that Palestinians have endured for generations is aware of the abiding ache that churns within us like a dormant volcano able to blow up with righteous anger.
So, we take to the streets, bridges and nationwide malls in a vital show of irenic solidarity and to level an accusatory finger on the hypocrites and their enablers who deny the inhumanity and injustices that we are able to all see being perpetrated in Gaza and the West Financial institution with deliberate, deadly effectivity by a fanatical regime seized with a “killing rage”.
These days, the hypocrites and their enablers, have labored arduous – as they all the time do – to disclaim or discredit our South African allies who’ve accomplished the precise and honourable factor by holding Israel to account lastly for the crimes it dedicated yesterday and the outrages it’s positive to commit right now and tomorrow.
South Africa is eager on seeing by means of its principled cost in a courtroom: that Israel has, by cautious and deliberate design, carried out genocide and turned a lot of Gaza into mud.
The outcome: regardless of the dangers and recriminations, South Africa has succeeded in placing Israel within the dock – the place scores of nations who signed on to the historic authorized gambit imagine it has lengthy belonged.
The hypocrites and their enablers have responded – as they’re additionally apt to do – with howls of hyperbole and indignation as an alternative of addressing the substance of South Africa’s detailed, persuasive indictment delivered with quiet, devastating precision at The Hague.
True to condescending, colonial attitude-reeking kind, the hypocrites, and their enablers – who imagine that Israel isn’t at fault, by no means accountable, by no means guilty, and, in fact, by no means responsible – have derided South Africa’s stinging submission as misguided, “unhelpful,” and “counterproductive.”
Their pat, predictable response not solely fuels sweeping disgust, however invitations an admittedly rhetorical query: When is the pursuit of justice and accountability ever misguided, “unhelpful”, and “counterproductive”?
And what, within the disingenuous calculus of the hypocrites and their enablers, would represent being “useful” and “productive” within the odious, prevailing circumstances?
Silence? Blindness? Apathy?
That could be their alternative. It isn’t ours.
Whereas the hypocrites and their enablers are content material to spout meaningless bromides and feign concern for the harmless casualties of an unfolding humanitarian disaster, we, together with our steadfast South African mates, are ready to boost our voice, to behave, and to exhibit as a result of historical past and decency demand it.
These of us who witness genocide and are moved by our conscience to cease it, turned South Africans in spirit this previous week. We should be grateful to a nation and a individuals who know and have skilled the calumnies and indignities inherent to a diseased, apartheid ideology.
South Africa’s good struggle is our struggle. South Africa, to its everlasting credit score, took the lead when others refused or hesitated to return to the defence of imprisoned Palestinians, bearing the presents of hope and empathy.
In shameful distinction, the presidents and prime ministers of so-called enlightened Western democracies have opted to allow, encourage, and excuse the perpetrator’s wanton wrath moderately than to guard, present for, and console its principally younger, profoundly broken victims.
South Africa was compelled to take a stand, since, because the immortal freedom fighter Nelson Mandela as soon as mentioned, “The histories of our two peoples, Palestinian and South African, correspond in such painful and poignant methods.”
The ache is obvious day after dreadful day. The scenes of demise, destruction, and humiliation in Gaza and the occupied West Financial institution are harking back to the terrible pictures that a number of a long time in the past dominated TV screens and pierced the guts and soul.
We bear in mind when the leaders of so-called enlightened Western democracies performed collaborator to an apartheid state brimming with racists out of “strategic” curiosity.
Their complicity was as repugnant then as it’s right now.
Nonetheless, in a poignant reminder of their shared battle for freedom and self-determination, a gathering of Palestinians who’ve made a house in South Africa welcomed again members of the nation’s authorized group at an airport in Johannesburg on Sunday.
“We have to stand towards oppression no matter the place it’s,” a girl sporting a keffiyeh and holding a Palestinian flag mentioned, smiling.
In that second, on that day, South Africans and Palestinians stood collectively as one folks certain by one conviction: that justice, nevertheless belated, will be accomplished and will probably be accomplished if the need exists to pursue it.
In the meantime, a gallery of timorous presidents and prime ministers have, on cue, closed ranks behind Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, rejecting South Africa’s accusations that Israel has dedicated a litany of crimes towards humanity in Gaza and the occupied West Financial institution.
Their unanimity reveals their rank hypocrisy.
In early April 2022, US President Joe Biden declared that Russia had engaged in “genocide” in Ukraine.
“Sure, I referred to as it genocide,” Biden said on an airport tarmac amid the whir of close by engines. “It’s develop into clearer and clearer that Putin is simply making an attempt to wipe out the concept of even being Ukrainian and the proof is mounting.”
Biden didn’t share any of his “proof” past insisting that Russia had accomplished “horrible issues” in Ukraine.
“We’ll let the legal professionals determine internationally whether or not or not it qualifies, nevertheless it positive appears that strategy to me,” Biden mentioned.
Ever the dependable “junior associate”, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau parroted – close to verbatim – Biden’s “genocide” writ.
“I feel, as President Biden highlighted, there are official processes round determinations of genocide. However I feel it’s completely proper that an increasing number of folks be speaking and utilizing the phrase ‘genocide’ by way of what Russia is doing, what Vladimir Putin has accomplished,” Trudeau told reporters.
He cited Russia’s “focused assaults” towards civilians and Ukraine’s tradition and identification as “proof” of genocide.
Who wants a panel of judges on the Worldwide Court docket of Justice when the legislation agency of Biden, Trudeau, and Quickdraw decides unilaterally that Russia is responsible as charged?
When South African legal professionals offered a brief filled with concrete, not bombastic, “proof” of Israel’s intent and execution of genocide, Biden, Trudeau, and firm retreated to the consolation of denial and ignorance.
Similar to “apartheid”, “genocide” is a verboten phrase among the many craven leaders of enlightened Western democracies when Israel is accused of “horrible issues”, together with the concentrating on of civilians and the wholesale erasure of the culture and identification of Palestinians all through their ancestral lands.
If Israel receives its comeuppance, South Africa ought to take a well-earned bow on behalf of humanity and the tattered remnants of worldwide legislation.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
