Martin Suchanek
“Favouring genocide”: this is the charge against Germany, which has been on trial at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague since 8 April. The “value-orientated” and “feminist” foreign policy, which Foreign Minister Annalina Baerbock and others like to hold up to all the villains of world politics as a beacon of democracy, is now itself on trial.
For years, she has not been the only one talking up every arms delivery, every intervention, every sanction against other states, every interest-based policy as “democratic”. The ICJ has long been seen as Germany’s preferred weapon, albeit a rather symbolic and moral one, against other imperialist rivals such as Russia. In March 2022, for example, people applauded when the Court called on Russia to stop its reactionary war of aggression against Ukraine. Likewise, people were outraged when Putin and his military machine boycotted the hearing and dismissed the judgement out of hand.
What do I care about yesterday’s gossip?
The German government is following Konrad Adenauer’s example today. What do we, the Baerbocks, the Scholzs, the Habecks and Linders (and of course the conservative opposition) care about yesterday’s gossip?
International courts are apparently only considered a real “democratic” achievement if they pursue charges and pass judgements in line with the geopolitical orientation of Germany, the USA, the EU and their allies. Furthermore, Germany advocated a broad interpretation of the term genocide when it joined Gambia’s lawsuit against Myanmar, whose regime is accused of genocide against the Rohingya, in November 2023.
Apparently, no one expected that Israel, a close geostrategic ally and economic partner, could end up in the same dock. Yet the right-wing ministers in Netanyahu’s cabinet had never made a secret of their reactionary, pogromist intentions. Around 40,000 deaths since the beginning of the Israeli attacks and occupation, the displacement of well over a million people in Gaza and the threat of famine speak for themselves.
The German government, however, does not want to know anything about this ongoing genocide. The unconditional solidarity with Israel that has been elevated to the status of raison d’état apparently also includes the obligation to deny reality, and double standards in any case. At best, regular calls for moderation are made to Israel, while at the same time funds for the UN Refugee Agency for Palestine are blocked and deliveries of armaments to Israel have been increased tenfold to a value of 326.5 million euros in 2023.
How Germany is reacting
After the ICJ affirmed the risk of genocide in Gaza following South Africa’s complaint, Germany deservedly followed Israel into the dock. The accusation is “favouring genocide” by supplying weapons and blocking aid for refugees. It was brought by Nicaragua.
The reaction? Not only does it deny all guilt. The ICJ itself, which could still be used against unpopular regimes, is not criticised, even if its jurisdiction is doubted. As in the case of South Africa, the plaintiff, in this case, Nicaragua, is to be discredited all the more vehemently. Now, there is no question that both the South African and Nicaraguan governments oppress their own people, especially the working class and the poor, nor is there is any doubt that their complaints come with a good dose of double standards. But they are in good company in the international community, not least with Germany.
The government, which supposedly places the rule of law and especially international humanitarian law above all else, is trying to “invalidate” the subject of the complaint by discrediting the plaintiff. This would be like a person accused of murder arguing that the court should dismiss the charges because the plaintiff had committed crimes in the past. The federal government and its legal representatives should know that any defendant relying on such a defence would be doomed to fail in a civil court. And, of course, the lawyers defending Germany know this, too.
A fiction as a defence strategy
However, the government, its spokespeople and the majority of the media are sticking to a defence “strategy” vis-à-vis their own population, which basically consists of denying Nicaragua any right to sue. And there is a good reason for this. Any serious engagement with the accusation of aiding and abetting genocide and war crimes in general would call into question Germany’s entire justification for “unconditional solidarity with Israel”, which is as mendacious as it is moralistically charged. It would reveal that this does not serve the fight against antisemitism, but is rather a cheap excuse for the Holocaust and the crimes of the Nazis on the one hand, and Germany’s own geostrategic interests on the other.
The German government must therefore cling to its own fiction that even the accusation of genocide against Israel, even the hearing of a lawsuit, would constitute a “monstrosity”.
But the monstrosity is taking place in Gaza – with help and weapons from Germany. While even other Western bourgeois states are distancing themselves from the barbarity of the bombings and, like Canada or courts in the Netherlands, are stopping arms deliveries to Israel, the German government is clinging to the fiction that the Zionist state under Netanyahu is waging a kind of defensive war. Most of humanity can only shake its head at this. Even the majority of Germans have long since stopped following the German government. What’s more, a growing minority of the Israeli population can only marvel in disbelief at the German government’s slavish loyalty to the Israeli war cabinet.
Even if the hearing of Nicaragua’s lawsuit drags on for weeks and the outcome is closely linked to whether the ICJ upholds South Africa’s lawsuit against Israel, the lawsuit will achieve at least one thing: it will contribute to further undermining the justification of the war against Gaza in the public eye. And that poses a real problem for the government’s current course. In the long term, it is difficult to maintain the supply of weapons for genocide and unconditional solidarity with a state that is carrying it out through extensive media synchronisation, repression and the undermining of democratic rights if an ever-increasing majority of the population nevertheless rejects this policy.
In addition, it is by no means impossible that the ICJ will allow Nicaragua’s complaint. Even if it were to find Germany guilty “only” in part, the government would still face a dilemma. The ICJ does not have the material means to enforce its judgements against the will of convicted states – and in this respect, Germany could continue as before. After all, other states such as Israel, China, Russia and the USA do the same. But they have never made a secret of the fact that their national interest takes precedence over any judgement that runs counter to it. Germany, on the other hand, peddled the idea for years that international humanitarian law was above all else and binding for everyone. Of course, this was always a lie, as can be seen from the recent de facto abolition of key elements of asylum law in the EU.
However, in the event of a judgement by the ICJ, Germany would have to make a decision. Either it follows the decision and snubs its ally Israel, which it has constantly assured of “unconditional solidarity”, or it ignores the ruling and makes it clear that it only upholds international humanitarian law, democracy and human rights as long as they serve its own foreign policy goals.
No one should be under any illusion that a conviction by the court in The Hague will stop German support for the Zionist regime. But the trial, the public complaint and even more so a possible conviction undermine the already increasingly fragile legitimacy of German policy. It is precisely the task of the Palestine solidarity movement to deepen this crisis of legitimacy by pillorying the German government and the imperialist powers. This is an important prerequisite for turning the increasing rejection of government policy among the population into a movement on the streets and in the workplaces that can actually stop this policy.