(Ottawa) The High Commissioner of South Africa and the representative of Palestine to Canada encourage the Trudeau government to join the case accusing Israel of genocidal acts brought before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
“We must act to put an immediate and urgent end to these brutal, systematic and organized massacres of Palestinian civilians,” Pretoria’s representative in Ottawa, Rieaz Shaik, said in a virtual speech on Wednesday.
“As South Africans, whose experience has been shaped by centuries of apartheid, we know precisely the lived reality of apartheid,” he said. We lived through apartheid and we suffered from apartheid. »
“We know apartheid when we see apartheid,” continued High Commissioner Shaik.
On the phone, the diplomat insists that he is not “asking” anything from Canada, but rather “encouraging” it to side with South Africa’s arguments. Because there is a difference between “supporting Israel and supporting genocide,” he argued.
Based in The Hague, Netherlands, the ICJ will begin hearing South Africa’s application to initiate proceedings on Thursday. Pretoria says Israel’s widespread bombing of Gaza and siege of Palestinians living there “is genocidal in nature.”
The State of Israel called the allegations “disgusting” and “unfounded.”
The second pillar of the case, which would normally be decided before the substantive issue, is a request to impose provisional measures in order to protect the Palestinian population. “If approved, the bare minimum for Canada would be to follow the principle of do no harm [do no harm] “, says Rieaz Shaik.
The Green Party abounds
The Green Party of Canada, which has two MPs in the House of Commons, believes that Ottawa must side with the Palestinian camp – especially since the Trudeau government’s “unconditional support” for the Jewish state has “provided diplomatic cover for too long [aux] abuse” by the IDF.
Welcoming South Africa for its initiative, the group argues that Canada must “support such efforts to clarify the current situation and the search for justice,” it was decided in a statement published Tuesday.
The Trudeau government has still not taken a position on the matter.
Liberals divided
Within the liberal ranks, this new development clearly shows that the dividing line between some of the deputies persists.
On the one hand, Anthony Housefather and Marco Mendicino took up the arguments put forward by retired Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, Rosalie Abella. The Jewish magistrate took up her pen to denounce the judicial approach in an opinion letter published in the Globe and Mail.
“We share Rosalie Abella’s opinion […] that South Africa’s assertion before the ICJ that Israel is committing genocide is baseless and inadmissible,” the two elected officials wrote in a joint letter shared on social media.
On the other hand, their colleague Salma Zahid endorsed the South African process and urged Canada to add its voice. The request instituting proceedings, she argued in a missive also published on social networks, “raises serious questions” about the way in which the Jewish state behaves.
With The Canadian Press