To: 'senator.dreyfus@aph.gov.au' South Africa's submission to ICJ

 To: 'senator.dreyfus@aph.gov.au' <senator.dreyfus@aph.gov.au>
Subject: South Africa's submission to ICJ

Dear Senator Dreyfus,

Like many Australians, I am deeply concerned about the government’s silence in relation to the South African government’s recent submission to the IJC, which clearly and unequivocally sets out the charge of genocide in relation to the Israel government’s onslaught against the Palestinian population of Gaza. The South African government’s submission is very detailed, well documented and rooted in an examination of the facts on the ground. Put that together with daily reports of the relentless bombing and shelling of the Gaza Strip, the mounting death toll, the forced displacement of people towards the border with Egypt, the deliberate targeting of civilians, hospitals, schools, UNRWA facilities, and civil infrastructure, then it seems impossible not to conclude that the Israelis are committed to a strategy of ethnic cleansing and genocide.

The Israelis can no longer pretend, and nor should its faithful allies in the West, that its response to the 7^th October attack on its territory by Hamas militants is a proportionate military response. It is not. This is all part of an ongoing strategy of discrimination, oppression and displacement of the Palestinians since the Nakba of 1948.

Australia is a sovereign nation. We should not follow slavishly in the footsteps of the US, as we have so often in the past, and always with terrible consequences. Nor should we allow ourselves to be lured into the trap that seeks to conflate anti-Israel and anti-Zionist sentiment with antisemitism.

Australia is a signatory to the UN Genocide Convention. Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip clearly contravene the Convention, and I therefore urge the Government to support the South African submission.

Mike #####

 

Satellite imagery shows a residential neighborhood in Gaza City which has been hit by Israeli airstrikes. Oct. 10, 2023.