(Washington, D.C. – 1/26/2024) – The U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO), the nation’s leading umbrella group of national, regional, and local Muslim associations, and American Muslims, while disheartened that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) did not order an immediate cessation of Israeli military operations to save the Palestinians of Gaza against a clear genocide, recognizes the Court’s ruling today against the Israeli government under the Genocide Convention as significant, and welcomes the ICJ ordering of the Israeli government to take quantifiable measures to prevent acts of genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza.
It means that the Court suspects Israeli genocide in Gaza and will take up this case, as such, which was the primary judicial aim of the provisional landmark genocide hearing brought by South Africa against the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians.
We express our heartfelt gratitude and deep respect to South Africa and its people for having the outstanding courage and character in the face of intimidation and slander to bring this case against Israeli genocide before the ICJ and international community on behalf of the battered and decimated Palestinians, who face annihilation before an otherwise silent, by-standing world.
The Court’s specific order that the Israeli government “shall … take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts — killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or member harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction and imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group” has major repercussions and virtually requires by implication a cessation of Israeli military operations.
Yet in the face of the open and unambiguous destruction of Palestinians, their properties, and their culture in Gaza, the ICJ judges should have explicitly ordered an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Still, this landmark ICJ ruling establishes important precedents that if the Israeli government were to follow would necessarily lead to a ceasefire:
- It establishes that the ICJ has jurisdiction in the case.
- It establishes that South Africa has standing to bring the case.
- It establishes that Palestinians are a protected group within the Genocide Convention definition, and this means that Palestinians in West Bank and historic Palestine are part of this protected group.
- It establishes that some of the Israeli acts against the Palestinians in Gaza that fall within the definition of the Genocide Convention are, in fact, taking place, as South Africa claimed.
- It establishes that Israeli leaders have expressed genocidal intent.
- It orders the Israeli government to take measures to prevent all acts that could lead to genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, and report back on these specific measures to the Court in one month.
- It orders the Israeli government to prevent and punish incitement to genocide in Gaza.
- It compels the Israeli government to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.
- It orders the Israeli government to take measures to protect Palestinians, which means that the Israelis must stop their indiscriminate bombing.
“We fear that the Israeli government in its unmatched arrogance and heartless brutality will, in the face of this ruling, escalate the genocidal assault on the Palestinians of Gaza, and that the military and illegal Israeli settlers will increase their homicidal killing sprees and land grabs in the West Bank,” said Oussama Jammal, USCMO secretary general.
“Already, we’ve seen the haughty defiance of the Court in the statements of the genocidal Israeli leadership,” he added.
The ICJ’s speedy ruling, however, makes clear to the world that the Israeli government is engaged in acts of egregious assault defined by the Genocide Convention.
In addition to the Israeli’s unprecedented relentless, indiscriminate bombing, the Court has shown it recognizes that Palestinians in Gaza face other imminent dire threats to their lives, including now starvation and disease.
In other words, the Court is saying in its ruling there is plausible Israeli genocide in Gaza. This will further isolate the Israeli government (and its supporters) among the community of nations as likely perpetrators of genocide.
This ruling puts all other countries on notice that likely genocide is taking place in Gaza in which they are liable for any complicity. This will significantly ramp up the pressure on the Israeli government and its primary supporters who are bound by international law as signatories to the Genocide Convention to do everything in their power to stop enabling the genocide the ICJ has now shown is a genuine risk and to take every possible measure to prevent it.
It is crucial, moreover, that the Court has compelled the Israelis to facilitate all essential and necessary humanitarian aid into Gaza to restore all basic necessities – water, food, and power – and to rebuild Gaza’s destroyed healthcare infrastructure and services.
In this light, USCMO demands immediate and unconditional implementation of the ICJ provisional ruling, including the complete protection of the lives and well-being of all the people of Gaza and the absolute cessation of all Israeli restrictions on all humanitarian aid.
We pray for the beleaguered and suffering people of Gaza, and all of Palestine, that God rescue them from this horrific, open genocide.
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