After more than three months of Israel’s merciless assault on Gaza, Friday’s judgment from the international court of justice (ICJ) has come as some vindication for the 2.3 million Palestinians trapped in the hell that the enclave has become. Fifteen out of 17 jurists, legal experts from around the world, found it plausible that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians.
But this is not the first time Israel has been accused of genocide – and what happened last time is instructive. In 1982, the UN general assembly found Israel responsible for an act of genocide against the Palestinian people living in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut, Lebanon. The vote was 123 to 0. The US abstained. The three days of killings, of mostly women and children, were overseen by Ariel Sharon, a man who would later become Israel’s prime minister. Though an Israeli independent commission found Sharon indirectly responsible for the massacre, no one was ever held to account.
