RON UNZ—The obvious Israeli intent has been to render Gaza totally uninhabitable and kill enough Gazans to drive them out into the Sinai desert, thereby allowing the Israelis to annex the land as many of their political leaders have proposed. The South African legal case filed before the ICJ included 90-odd pages quoting numerous top Israeli political and military leaders who publicly declared their explicitly genocidal plans towards the Palestinians of Gaza, and their attacks over the last four months have certainly amounted to the greatest televised slaughter of helpless civilians in the history of the world.
Under such a combination of facts, I think it was very reasonable for the near-unanimous ICJ ruling that there was strong evidence that the Gazans were at serious risk of suffering a potential genocide at the hands of the Israelis.