Germany in the dock – complicity in genocide and the powerlessness of international law

“Abetting genocide” – that is the accusation of Nicaragua, which accused the Federal Republic of Germany at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague more than two years ago. In addition to providing political support for Israel, according to the justification from Managua, Germany should be among those who first created the necessary material conditions for the genocide - we are now talking about well over 70,000 confirmed deaths¹, but the number of over 100,000 is considered more realistic²– have created. For the first time, a state has to answer to the highest UN court for supporting a war, i.e. without being a direct party to the war. The first hearings by both parties took place on Monday and Tuesday and statements were scheduled for the following days.

By Georg Ackermann

Federal Republic 4 genocides?

Germany is currently Israel's second largest arms supplier behind the USA. Nevertheless, Nicaragua's urgent application for 2023 was initially rejected. The requested immediate stop to arms deliveries did not occur. According to the ICJ, the evidence presented did not provide any evidence for the prosecution. Before any export permit is issued, the German federal government checks whether the weapons supplied will be used for crimes. Stopping the supply of weapons will continue to be made more difficult in the future because the ICJ, in its usual bureaucratic manner, first has to clarify whether Israel is actually committing genocide in Gaza. South Africa accused Israel of genocide at the end of 2023. However, the hurdles for a judicial conviction of the well-known facts are so high that the murder can practically continue in peace of mind, while the ICJ in its chambers is allowed to examine individually which Israeli minister is said to have said what and to what extent this would actually speak for the entire state despite the fantasies of annihilation expressed. It was the atrocities of the Second World War, particularly committed by the German fascists, which led to the adoption of the Genocide Convention in 1948, which is now referred to in the indictment.

If the case against Germany goes into the main hearing, it will definitely take years. In fact, the Federal Republic had already switched exports to mostly technical components before October 7, 2023, after having exported pure firepower in the past. The exception to this was the delivery of 3,000 portable rocket-propelled grenades and 500,000 rounds of ammunition for automatic rifles, which were delivered shortly after October 7, 2023 and justified by the “right to legitimate self-defense of Israel”.³Looking at the technical components that have been delivered since the beginning of the war, it is striking that they mean nothing less than spare parts for Merkava tanks and fighter aircraft. These are not considered weapons of war, but merely armaments, the export of which generally does not require a permit.⁴

In the second quarter of the current year alone, Germany delivered armaments worth 736 million euros to Israel.⁵The main cost item, a nuclear-equipped submarine from the weapons factory of the company TKMS (Thyssen Krupp Marine Systems), is currently on its way to Haifa, subsidized by €540 million from the federal budget. The fact that the money comes from the pockets of the working population, the majority of whom reject the actions of the Israeli state, is less important than the justification for the delivery, which, according to the federal government, arises from a special responsibility and as a gesture of compensation for the mass murder of Jews.⁶⁷

Five submarines were delivered to Israel during the Merkel era. Merkel advisor Christoph Heusgen said at the time: "This is a matter of state. And that was the German consensus, yes, we support Israel's security and that's why we also subsidize the procurement of submarines with taxpayers' money." It was only the delivery of the sixth boat that briefly led to a scandal when the advisor mentioned conditions for it, such as stopping the expansion of settlements that violate international law and the prospect of a two-state solution. In the end the boat was delivered. The whole deal, it later became clear, was an entanglement of various interests that even led to a major corruption scandal.

The then Thyssen-Krupp sales agent, a certain Michael Ganor, is currently in the dock in an Israeli court because he is said to have distributed bribes for the purchase of the submarine in the Netanyahu circle.⁸Meanwhile, the proceedings against unknown people that were initiated in Germany have already been discontinued. A rogue who thinks evil, namely that the company bosses in Germany were informed or even arranged for the bribes.

Paper Tiger UN

The United Nations was certainly never an instrument with which national liberation could be achieved or even global dependencies could be dissolved, but it did at least provide a platform that created a certain balance between the world powers. Today one can watch as the UN digs its own grave - condemned to the spectator seat by the powers that created it to advance their own interests, as they fall behind world historical developments and are no longer of any use in the multipolar world in the sense of their original founders.

The special thing about the accusations against Israel by South Africa and Germany by Nicaragua is that states of the Global South are using the instruments that were originally created by the states of the Global North to stabilize the world order they dominate. But this isn't the first time this has happened: Nicaragua had already gone to the ICJ against the USA in the 1980s (for mining its ports and supporting the Contra rebels) and even won in 1986 - whereupon the USA suspended the court's binding jurisdiction over itself.

In a sign of the times, the ICJ has also become a paper tiger, whose rulings should actually be binding, but have no means of implementation. Even a positive ruling by the ICJ in the current proceedings against the Federal Republic would most likely have no consequences. Similar developments can be observed with regard to the International Criminal Court, which cannot sit in court over states but only over individuals. An interview⁹According to former chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda on Al-Jazeera, former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen is said to have threatened her with the aim of stopping investigations into Israel's war crimes. Cohen sometimes referred to her and her family's safety and strange men, presumably working for the Mossad, checked on her at the door of her apartment. In 2023, Bensouda's successor, Karim Khan, applied for arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Gallant. Khan has since had to resign from his position as chief prosecutor because of allegations of sexual assault against a female employee. Khan, for his part, denied the allegations and suspected a conspiracy because he had applied for the arrest warrants.

Israel, for its part, sees the opportunity has come and is pushing for the arrest warrants and war crimes investigations to be lifted.¹⁰In addition to Israel, the ICC is also a thorn in the side of Israel's patron saint, the USA, which will have to be crushed in the future if Trump has his way.¹¹Secretary Rubio put it so drastically that the ICC would wage war not with “bullets or missiles, but with statutes, agreements and the power of international law” and in the same breath announced sanctions against the institution.

The international institutions are on shaky ground and have demonstrated their own inability to act in the face of the genocide in Palestine. Even if the United Nations and its affiliated institutions did not exactly represent a beacon of hope for national independence, self-determination and the overcoming of global dependencies in the period after the Second World War, they were at least a platform on which the existing conditions could be denounced. Likewise, despite numerous inactions, the UN missions in war zones still represented a bargaining chip in the settlement of wars, which can now only be filled with the military presence of individual state powers.

In times when international law is being replaced by the pure discretion of the most militarily and economically assertive states, the political settlement of wars is moving further and further out of the realm of conceivability. The logical consequence of this is the need for militarily weak and economically dependent states to join a wide variety of alliances from NATO to BRICS+ and to subordinate their political interests to the existing poles of power. Those who cannot fall back on state power will have an even harder time in the future. After the Soviet Union ceased to be a geopolitical ally for states in the Global South, the UN was an institution in which at least a political lobby could be created. These mixed experiences may also be on the part of Nicaragua, where, after the fall of the Somoza regime, the UN played at least some role in resolving the unfolding civil war between the Sandinistas and the US-backed Contras.

The fact that the Federal Republic must answer for aiding and abetting genocide before the ICJ is an important signal. But it will not change the ongoing genocide and the military enforcement of a Greater Israel. The question of how alternative political forums and thus a political lobby can be created for those who do not have a hegemonic power on their side in a time of long knives seems all the more urgent today.

Photo:https://commons.wikimedia.org

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