SA lawyers consider legal action against Trump and Israeli politicians for war crimes
Image: AFP
LAWYERS in the South African chapter of the Anti-Apartheid Movement for Palestine (AAM) are examining the possibility of legal action in South Africa and international courts against US President Donald Trump and several Israeli politicians for genocide or war crimes – over and above those whose warrants of arrest have already been issued. These include Israeli ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smortich.
This was announced by the council of the AAM after its biannual meeting in April.
The meeting expressed alarm at the expansion of Israeli and US genocidal crimes to Lebanon and Iran. Such activities become all the more concerning when we remember that both Israel and the US are nuclear weapons’ powers.
Trump’s infamous apocalyptic threat that Iran’s “whole civilisation will die tonight, never to be brought back again”, as well as the US-Israeli destruction of schools, hospitals, mosques, a synagogue, bridges, power plants and centuries-old cultural and historical sites, are war crimes. No country, however powerful, should be allowed to commit war crimes or crimes against humanity with impunity. International law should apply equally to all states.
The rhetoric and action of Trump and his fellow warmongers in Washington must require them to be charged under the Genocide Convention – alongside Israel. The AAM council also condemned the passing of the racist death penalty in Israel which applies only to Palestinians. It adds to scores of racist laws which entrench apartheid in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory. This makes the release of all Palestinian hostages more urgent. They include doctors, academics, journalists, and other civilians abducted illegally by Israeli occupation forces.
The AAM council called for the release of Palestinian political prisoners, especially Marwan Barghouti, who has been in jail for more than 20 years. Israel also refuses to return 670 Palestinian bodies of prisoners of war, who died in Israeli dungeons – subjected to systemic torture by Israeli prison guards and military personnel. We call on the international community to pressurise Israel to release these hostages and bodies of those who died in Israeli prisons and detention centres.
We called on all states to support South Africa’s ICJ case of genocide against Israel. It also called on the South African government to adhere to its obligations under the Genocide Convention by ending all ties with Israel, and, immediately, to stop the export of South African coal that fuels the Israeli genocide.
REVEREND FRANK CHIKANE
Chair, SA chapter of the AAM against Israel's settler-colonial and apartheid regime
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.