SA uses ICJ submission to maximise anti-Israel narrative

The South African government made a submission at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on 28 October in its ongoing case accusing Israel of genocide. A press release issued by the president’s office said it had filed a 750-page brief and 4 000 pages of accompanying annexes. This memorial – the technical term for the document – is for the moment secret, and probably won’t be revealed until oral hearings take place, perhaps not until 2026. Nevertheless, the statement and media surrounding the move highlight how anti-Israel narratives are created and enforced in the political war against the Jewish state.

Some background on the ICJ is required. The ICJ is a creation of the United Nations (UN), and above all else, is a UN court. It does not function the way courts do in a democratic system. Rules of evidence, procedure, and ethical standards aren’t well-defined. The ability to challenge evidence in real time isn’t possible. The quality and competence among the judges varies widely, and hinges on political factors. Many appointees to the ICJ are academics or politicians who have no prior real-world experience in evidence collection or judging disputes. There’s no right to appeal a decision of the court, and few, if any, checks and balances exist to hold this body accountable.

Most importantly, the court doesn’t possess the capability and resources to verify evidence independently in highly fact-intensive situations. And because it’s a UN court, it automatically gives deference to UN reports and materials regardless of their provenance or accuracy.

These problems have already been apparent in the earlier proceedings before the court where there was almost exclusive reliance on claims made by UN bodies, most notably UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East), without any evaluation of their credibility.

South Africa has capitalised on these due-process gaps and exploited them to maximise their public relations benefit. Indeed, the government launched a media push to coincide with its filing, garnering international coverage of its case and generating dozens of news articles. Announcing that it had filed thousands of pages of “evidence” with the court creates a facade of validity to its claims, and leads to a conclusion that surely there must be at least some truth to the allegations if the government was able to collect such a significant amount of material.

The bulk of this material, however, is almost certainly copies of highly tendentious nongovernmental organisation and UN publications. But because its latest filing is secret, the government can control its narrative that there is substance to the genocide charges while at the same time, preventing any actual review or testing of the contents of the brief and annexes. By managing the actual publication and press on the filing, South Africa is also able to block any contemporaneous Israeli response or serious media scrutiny of its claims.

In this way, South Africa can continue to attack Israel in the media and advance its false genocide narrative. Indeed, the press release issued by the government repeatedly invoked the political warfare objective behind this entire case. The release completely erases the events of 7 October, including the massacre of more than 1 200 Israelis and the taking of more than 240 hostages. The word “Hamas” appears nowhere in the release, and the role of Iran is similarly absent. That Israel is fighting a seven-front war, defending against attacks on its population centres from Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Iran, is flipped on its head. The fact that Iran and its Islamist terrorist proxies launched a war to carry out their genocidal objectives has been perverted by South Africa into a false narrative that Israel’s aim is to depopulate Gaza through mass death and forced displacement.

The government purports to endorse “peace” in the region, but echoes the Islamist 1948 rhetoric, demonising Israel and claiming that the country since its founding is one of settler-colonialism and apartheid. It’s a specious and ahistorical charge used to undermine Israel’s legitimacy.

South Africa spuriously accuses Israel of not complying with international obligations, while it’s silent as to the ICJ demand that the hostages be immediately and unconditionally released. It freely fraternises with members of Hamas, Russian President Vladimir Putin – an International Criminal Court-indicted war criminal – and the Iranian regime.

If South Africa was really concerned about the lives of Palestinians and the conditions in Gaza, it would investigate how, since 2006, Hamas was allowed to take over Gaza and turn the entire territory into a fortified military installation. It would seek to find out how the terrorist organisation was allowed to divert billions of dollars in humanitarian aid. It would ask how UN offices, schools, and hospitals were commandeered by Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine to store heavy weaponry and launch rocket attacks on Israeli cities. It would be curious as to how a tunnel network more extensive than the London Underground system was built to shield Palestinian combatants and hold hostages captive instead of providing shelters for the citizens of Gaza. It would demand to know why UNRWA indoctrinated generations of Palestinian children to antisemitic hatred and violence rather than preparing those children for peace, coexistence, and economic prosperity.

While South Africa’s exploitation of the ICJ might gain the country political favour in Tehran, Moscow, and Beijing, it does nothing to promote lasting peace in the region. Its exploitation of international institutions to advance false anti-Israel political narratives not only damages the credibility of those bodies, it damages the trust of South Africa’s citizens in its government at home.

• Anne Herzberg is the legal advisor and UN representative of NGO Monitor, a Jerusalem-based research institute.