[Salon] Don't Blame the Gatekeepers for the Genocide-inciting Extremists in Israel's Government

https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2024-01-05/ty-article-opinion/.premium/dont-blame-the-gatekeepers-for-the-genocide-inciting-extremists-in-israels-government/0000018c-d646-daf6-a5df-d77e470c0000

Don't Blame the Gatekeepers for the Genocide-inciting Extremists in Israel's Government

Carolina Landsmann Jan 5, 2024

The true guilty party has been found for the suit filed by South Africa with the International Court of Justice in The Hague: Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara.

In its statement to the court, South Africa made two claims: that Israel is , and that it is not taking action to penalize those who incite to genocide, which could attest to Israel's genocidal intentions. Well, that makes it clear who the real ones to blame for "this mess" are: It must be Baharav-Miara and State Prosecutor Amit Eisman. Had they only dealt "very firmly" with the "defamatory words" of the inciter, perhaps it wouldn't have been possible to construct an indictment against Israel in The Hague.

Here is just a partial list of the folks whose words the South Africans are finding handy in order to establish Israel's intentions: Benjamin Netanyahu, Isaac Herzog, Yoav Gallant, Israel Katz, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich, Avi Dichter, Amichai Eliahu, Galit Distal-Atbaryan, Boaz Bismuth, Nissim Vaturi, Tally Gotliv, Eyal Golan, Kobi Peretz, Yinon Magal, Eliahu Yossian.

One really has to wonder how the gatekeepers of our democracy didn't do anything about this. "Hello Police Chief Kobi, it's Gali, you hear me? I'm sending you a list of some people who need to be investigated on suspicion of incitement to genocide and war crimes. Do me a favor, take care of it personally, there's some public sensitivity involved here – you know – VIPs, the prime minister, president, ministers, MKs, journalists, singers and so on."

I purposely created a caricature here to show that the kind of mood Israel is in, certainly since October 7, is something that's beyond the attorney general's purview. I feel pretty confident asserting that MK Moshe Sa'ada didn't shock anyone in the least when he said this week that wherever he goes, people say to him, "Destroy them." All you have to do is turn on the TV or radio, listen to a random conversation in a coffee shop, or among your close circle of acquaintances, to hear similar things said. What is the attorney general supposed to do to keep them from concluding that our national frame of mind indicates an intention to commit war crimes against Palestinians – throw 9 million citizens in jail? She's just the attorney general, not Superwoman. In a normal country, most of us would have no idea what her name was.

If everyone is breaking the law, it's impossible to enforce. Think back to the pandemic – and how there were some communities where police handed out fines and others where they didn't bother since there was no point. Enforcement is based on a norm of cooperation and respect for the law. If a tsunami hits, a breakwater isn't going to help. Historical, sociological and ideological processes are forces that cannot be held back by a single courageous gatekeeper, not even by the Supreme Court. The state's "intention" is something that represents a mass of people, and the only way – if there is one – to halt it or change it is by a mass of people expressing a different intention.

Every time an extreme statement is made by one of the coalition members, we're told it does not represent the government. This is also what Israel plans to say in its defense at The Hague to refute the intention being ascribed to it. But maybe we ourselves don't know what Israel's intention is. The time has come for us to ask: Are the extremists in the government really not expressing Israel's intention? In what way is the separation maintained between their intentions and "the state's" or "the government's" intention? In a democratic country, the government expresses the intention of the state. If Benjamin Netanyahu had wanted to reject the statements of the extremists in his government, he should have ousted them in disgrace. And by the same token, if we want to reject our extremist government, instead of putting the onus on Baharav-Miara, we need to oust it. Now.