In its very essence, the International Court of Justice’s Order last
Friday to Israel to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza and punish
incitement for genocide accepts the possibility of Israel being a
perpetrator of genocide and not just its historical victim. As it
continues to investigate the plausible claim of genocide submitted by
South Africa and to pursue it to a final ruling, which may take months
(hopefully not years) to complete, it has already made history on this
point.

Mouin Rabbani cogently remarked in his analysis thread on X:

“History – with a capital H – was made today. As of 26 January 2024,
Israel and its Western sponsors can no longer mobilize the Holocaust
to shield themselves from accountability for their crimes against the
Palestinian people”.

Unsurprisingly, the Israeli judge ad hoc Aharon Barak desperately
tried to save the monopoly on being victims forever.

Barak’s long dissenting opinion on the ICJ Order consists of 49
points, including a whole section titled “GENOCIDE: AN
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL REMARK,” where he describes his own experience in the
Holocaust as a child in Lithuania. He waxes emotional about how “the
Nazis succeeded in murdering many of our people, but they could not
take away our humanity.”

Barak goes through the tiresome hasbara claims that “Israel is a
democracy with a strong legal system and an independent judicial
system” (which is an apartheid state with a supreme court that has
legalized its most central aspects, not least under his presidency),
bizarrely claims there is a lack of evidence for Israeli “intent” for
genocide (rarely has a genocide case been so explicit on that matter),
and returns to the Holocaust in his last point:

“Genocide is a shadow over the history of the Jewish people, and it is
intertwined with my own personal experience. The idea that Israel is
now accused of committing genocide is very hard for me personally, as
a genocide survivor deeply aware of Israel’s commitment to the rule of
law as a Jewish and democratic State”.

That it’s hard for Barak to accept this is understandable. Nobody said
this was supposed to be easy. Indeed, realizing that you have become a
perpetrator of genocide after having lived a lifetime narrative of
singular victimhood is indeed a difficult turn.

But Barak is a judge. Waxing emotionally and personally in this
context is simply narcissistic, and it suggests that Barak is simply
too emotionally involved to be judging such a case.

But I don’t think many people were expecting Barak to be impartial –
he was, as expected, biased toward the Zionist ideology and the
Israeli state.

It is, therefore, also unsurprising that he voted against the majority
of the six provisional measures – except numbers 3 and 4 concerning
genocidal incitement and humanitarian help. Those were no-brainers –
Barak wants to be seen as a liberal, so he voted for preventing
genocidal talk1, and who could be so unhinged as to literally vote
against basic humanitarian help?2

The overwhelming unanimity of the voting in the 17-judge panel – it
was either 15-2 or 16-1 in all votes – demonstrated how isolated
Israel is among the unambiguous world legal consensus that Israel is
plausibly committing genocide.

The Holocaust card no longer serves to shield Israel from scrutiny for
the most grave crimes against humanity. That Israel commits the crime
of Apartheid is already a consensus in the international human rights
community. The ICJ has just recently said that it is not merely
capable of genocide as well but that it appears to be actively
committing it, and must desist from genocidal acts.

This is clearly a shock for Israelis. Not only did they expect to live
a long life of impunity for their initial and cardinal crime of
ethnically cleansing the Palestinians – they also expected to maintain
the role of the historical victim, the victims of a singular genocide
that would maintain their victimhood status forever. But the genocide
of the Palestinians, which in truth has always been there as a part of
the eliminationist, settler-colonialist Zionist project, is now being
broadcast around the world.

The state of Israel has been so spoiled by impunity that its leaders
had no concerns about spouting outright genocidal incitement; its
soldiers are so used to doing whatever they want that they filmed
themselves perpetrating grave war crimes. They don’t care anymore.

Golda Meir once told Shulamit Aloni that “after the Holocaust Jews can
do whatever they want.” It seems, however, the day of judgment has
perhaps arrived. The world hasn’t forgotten the Holocaust. It just
turns out that “never again” applies to everyone.

https://mondoweiss.net/2024/01/the-icj-just-took-the-holocaust-monopoly-away-from-israel/