The most documented genocide in the world

While the crime of genocide committed by Israel in Gaza continues at full speed and in all its barbarity, this week on Thursday and Friday this crime against humanity begins to be heard at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. Thus a first will have occurred in the history of genocide in the world. That while a genocide is continuing, indeed continuing to be committed with all its savagery without slowing down at all, the judicial process is continuing at the same time.

The simultaneous continuation of a genocide and its trial is, from whatever side one looks at it, strange in fact. That a genocide complaint brought to the International Court of Justice has begun to be heard this quickly is partly due to the destructive effect of the crime committed, to its being plainly caught in the act, and to the fact that no effective measure can be taken to stop it. Because those who are in a position to take measures are partners in this crime of genocide. Everyone knows that, other than the US, there is currently no power that can restrain Israel from the crimes against humanity it is openly committing, but that power does not even want Israel to approach a ceasefire at present. It itself incites and encourages Israel to commit these crimes and provides every kind of aid and abetment in its aggression.

Will the ICJ also look at this part of the matter, how much will it see and how much will it be able to judge? Before this question, of course, comes the question of whether the ICJ will really be able to conduct a fair trial. Against the genocide the US aids and abets, no serious objection at the political level has been seen from Europe either so far. On the contrary, there are still serious restrictions in European media, academia and streets against those who support Gaza and make statements condemning or criticizing Israel. Whatever has been claimed so far in the name of European Values has been sacrificed before Israel. In such an environment, how the International Court of Justice, which has acted by the rule upon South Africa's application, will see and manage this case in the middle of Europe will be a truly advanced-level test for Europe.

In fact, although the very beginning of this process at the ICJ is important in itself, it has very great limitations in terms of authority and effect. For example, it has no authority to try persons accused of war crimes or crimes against humanity, and since it is not a criminal court it has no prosecutor who could initiate a trial. The Court also has no authority to take up a dispute on its own initiative, and the Court can take up a dispute only at the request of one or more states. Moreover, the states party to the dispute must also have accepted the Court's jurisdiction, in other words, they must consent to the ICJ's hearing the dispute in question.

Israel's agreeing to take part in this process begun at the ICJ with South Africa's application does not stem merely from regarding the Court's decisions as binding. Even though Israel is a party to such international institutions, it does not hesitate to show the insolence of not recognizing their binding force. In this matter it has an exceptionalism that it always uses to the hilt, relying on the US. Despite this, its agreeing to take part in the ICJ comes from a wish to treat that ground, again insolently and spoiledly, as a place of challenge.

But these spoiled-brat antics we have been used to seeing from Israel since 7 October give neither it nor its masters and patrons the result and the opportunity they want. Israel, which has based its existence and its unjust legitimacy on a claim of genocide, is for the first time officially forced to face a claim of genocide, and whatever the outcome, this will be on the record for the first time.

On the other hand, unlike other genocide cases, the genocide in Gaza is a genocide documented instantly, in the heat of the moment, and making the whole world a witness at once. The documents of the genocide that the US, Israel's accomplice and patron, carried out against the Native Americans, of the Apartheid regime it applied against Africans even after enslaving them and then granting them freedom, and of the genocide it carried out in Vietnam and Hiroshima could be laid before humanity's eyes only months later, and only a very limited flow of documents on the subject was possible. The genocides France carried out in Algeria and its colonial territories in Africa, and Britain in India and its other colonial territories, the crimes against humanity could be seen and documented only after they had become history. In Germany the news of the Holocaust could reach people only much later. Even so, along with those who committed those crimes, even those who heard of those events and did not raise their voice have been cursed in terms of the ethics and law later built against genocide.

Yet in Gaza today the genocide is taking place before the eyes of the whole world. It is an event that has been recorded as the most documented, most witnessed, most indisputable crime of genocide in the history of genocide.

Undoubtedly, the possibilities of social media, which today transcends borders, play a very great part in this witnessing, but so, at the same time, does the death of journalists, which itself constitutes part of the crime of genocide. The number of journalists martyred so far while trying to report what is happening in Gaza has reached 103.

Prof. Dr. Hatem Bazian of the University of California, whom we also know from his articles in Tezkire Magazine, says in a statement to Anadolu Agency that journalists are, in the literal sense of the word, live witnesses of the genocide. In fact they bear witness to the genocide both with the news and images they convey and with their own deaths.

"Thanks to them we will have millions of documents recorded minute by minute, second by second, about this ongoing genocide. Documents showing the destruction and how people died. For the first time in history, an ongoing genocide is being documented moment by moment."

Let us see how the world's most documented genocide will be heard at the International Court of Justice.