Nixon's War at Home

The Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies published the book Genocide or the Crime of Crimes: Proceedings of Israel’s Trial in The Hague, which is a translation of five basic documents in the lawsuit filed by the Republic of South Africa against Israel before the International Court of Justice in The Hague on December 29, 2023, in accordance with the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948, accusing it of committing the crime of genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, in light of the war that began in October 7, 2023. The book is 632 pages long, including an introduction and introduction by Dr. Azmi Bishara, five sections, and a general index. The book includes a complete translation of the documents submitted to the International Court of Justice, including the indictment filed by South Africa and its pleadings, in addition to Israel’s plea, and the report submitted to the United Nations Security Council, which documents with evidence the existence of an Israeli intention to commit genocide, through official statements and systematic military actions targeting the Palestinians as a national group, with the aim of physically destroying them or forcibly displacing them. It presents the court sessions that were held in January 2024, leading up to its issuance of an order implementing the agreement on the 26th of the same month, and shows that South Africa then continued its legal and diplomatic efforts by submitting additional evidence to the Security Council in May of the same year. Dr. Azmi Bishara devoted this work to an in-depth analytical introduction that addresses the legal concept of genocide, dismantles attempts to deny or circumvent it through claims of “self-defense” or invoking the Holocaust, monitors the biased position of the West that prohibits criticism of Israel on the grounds of anti-Semitism, and contemplates the legal and moral paths that lead to proving intent to genocide, talking about this crime from defining the law to evading politics, as genocide Since the dawn of history, collectivism has been an act that goes beyond killing to affect human existence and distort cultural identity to the point of extinction. As for the concept of genocide, it did not appear in its legal form until the twentieth century, when Raphael Lemkin formulated it during World War II, influenced by what happened in the massacres of Armenians and Assyrians, defining it as the erasure of the collective spirit, not just the loss of lives. The 1948 United Nations Convention came in response to the Holocaust, but, despite its importance, it ignored vital dimensions, such as cultural destruction, and excluded political and class groups. What weakens the comprehensiveness of the definition of crime. While the law criminalizes genocide, its recognition remains dependent on politics and the interests of states, as was clearly demonstrated in the contradiction of Western positions towards Rwanda, Ukraine, and Israel’s crimes.