Canada and Germany rallied to Israel’s side on Friday, hours after Israeli legal representatives delivered their rebuttal to South Africa’s claim of “genocide” at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Netherlands.
South Africa presented its arguments on Thursday, claiming that Israel did not even have the right of self-defense against terror. Israel responded with a demolition of that argument Friday, saying South Africa’s logic would allow Hamas to commit genocide.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — who has been faulted by conservative critics for backing a ceasefire resolution at the United Nations — criticized South Africa’s case in harsh terms, implying that it risked the integrity of the ICJ as an institution.
The Times of Israel noted:
“Canada is engaged in five cases at the ICJ because we believe in the importance of that as an institution,” Trudeau says during a press conference.
“But our wholehearted support of the ICJ and its processes does not mean that we support the premise of the case brought forward by South Africa,” he adds.
Germany went even further, saying that it would file a motion to intervene as a third party to argue that Israel was not, in fact, committing genocide in Gaza in defending itself against terrorism by Hamas.
In a statement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office reported that he had personally phoned German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to thank him:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke a short while ago with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and thanked him for Germany’s decision to join as a third party in the proceedings instituted by South Africa against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
The Prime Minister told Chancellor Scholz that all Israelis were moved by his and Germany’s standing on the side of truth, and that this blood libel, which is pure hypocrisy and malice, could not be allowed to triumph over the moral principles that are shared by our two countries and the entire civilized world.
Though South Africa tried to put on a brave face, and insisted Israel had not dented its case, even South African observers were impressed by Israel’s solid presentation: “Israel fought South Africa with far more technical legal arguments than politically-charged soundbites,” one wrote.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the 2021 e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now updated with a new foreword. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
