🧵Why does Ireland want ICJ to “broaden its interpretation” of genocide as legally defined? Why did Amnesty find law “cramped” and change it? Because ICJ 2015 ruling in Croatia case clearly proves no genocide in Gaza. Here is review of case. Worth a read to really understand: 1/
Core issue is the very high bar ICJ required to prove “special intent” under the Genocide Convention. For acts by an accused party to be genocide the “ONLY reasonable conclusion to be drawn” from those acts is to kill the group. A strict hurdle that requires hard evidence. 2/
ICJ ruling notes that Croatia argues that Serbia’s crimes are in fact such that the “ONLY reasonable inference to be drawn is that Serb leaders were motivated by genocidal intent.” But if ICJ accepts that Serbia had other specific aims, then this hurdle of intent is not met. 3/
Amazingly, part of Serbia’s response is that it agrees it committed crimes! Forcible transfer, to “punish” the population – but not to destroy all Croats. So because killing the Croat group is not the ONLY inference for their actions, they argue it’s not genocide. 4/
ICJ ruling again notes standard for evaluating Serbia’s actions: Pattern of conduct has to be “such that it could ONLY point to the existence of such intent.” So for Gaza, one has to prove the ONLY reasonable intent for Israel's actions is to kill the Palestinian people. 5/
The ICJ determined that Serbia committed crimes (as Serbia admitted), but their goal was to ethnically cleanse Croats, not to kill them. The war crimes were not “committed with intent to destroy the Croats” but to force them to leave – so bad stuff, but simply NOT genocide. 6/
Even though there were many crimes, killings, extensive destruction of homes and churches, actions intended to force out non-Serbs, which resulted in just that – it still does not evidence genocide. No “holistic” approach is used by the ICJ as Amnesty fraudulently uses. 7/
ICJ also noted that Serbs could have killed Croats on many occasions but did not, which supports ruling that killing Croats was not the ONLY inference that could be made by the pattern of conduct. Meaning that genocide really means you kill them all when you have the chance. 8/
ICJ even looked at number of Croats killed vs total Croat population, noting Serbia could have killed many more, but number killed was relatively small. Since Serbia did not take opportunities to kill many more Croats when they could have, it proves lack of genocidal intent. 9/
ICJ dismissed the case against Serbia because there was no evidence of “dolus specialis.” Again, because Croatia could not show that the ONLY reasonable inference of Serbia’s conduct was to kill the Croat people. Croatia case thus invalidates genocide claim against Israel. 10/
Fact that Hamas attacked Israel first, promises to do it again, and one can't say the ONLY inference of Israel's actions is to kill Palestinians, destroys the case for genocide – which is why Ireland & Amnesty are so frustrated. They badly want genocide to apply to Israel. 11/
ICJ’s focus on fatality counts in Croatia case also demolishes case against Israel. There is no doubt Israel could have killed a million Gazans by now, a million elsewhere too, even inside Israel. Based on ICJ ruling, this fact alone proves no intent to genocide. 12/
This is why Amnesty notes in context of war it can “effectively preclude” a finding of genocide (deliberately forgetting Holocaust happened during WWII) so they changed law for their fake “report.” Ireland noticed and wants to rewrite law so Israel can be guilty of genocide. END
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