A documented racist, Isaac Herzog’s intent to manufacture consent for the murder of a population, based on their identity alone.
Israeli President, Isaac Herzog, has become the subject of criminal complaints during his visit to the Davos based World Economic Forum, say Swiss prosecutors.
This comes as South Africa accuses Israel of committing the crime of Genocide at the International Court of Justice, where Herzog’s comments were quoted to prove Israeli genocidal intent.
Although the position of the president in Israel is considered primarily a ceremonial role, with the Prime Minister bearing the pivotal decision-making power, it is still an influential position and Isaac Herzog directly reflects state policy.
In this respect, he is largely being considered complicit in the ongoing war crimes that the Israeli military is committing against the people of Gaza.
Intent of Genocide
South Africa’s historic case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), whereby it accuses the Israeli leadership of carrying out the crime of genocide, has been a difficult charge to prove intent for in the past.
This is down to states never admitting to committing Genocide. In fact, there has never been a single national leadership that has admitted this and thus proving intent was a difficulty.
However, in the case of Israel’s war on Gaza, proof of intent is rather extensive and the Israeli President’s comments have been included in a number of compendiums; that have compiled over 500 genocidal statements from Israelis since October 7.
Dozens of Israelis Protest outside Blinken, Herzog Meeting in Tel Aviv
One comprehensive database was compiled by Law for Palestine – which collated Israeli genocidal intent from every level of society, drawing from various politicians, military leaders, prominent TV personalities, activists and soldiers who are fighting in Gaza – has been an invaluable tool at proving intent and the complicity of those driving Israeli policy.
Infamously, Isaac Herzog remarked that “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible,” for the Hamas military offensive of October 7.
He also went on to state the following: “It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true. They could have risen up. They could have fought against that evil regime which took over Gaza in a coup d’etat.”
The clear inference here was that after Israel had announced its intent to fight what Israeli defense minister, Yoav Gallant, called “human animals” by cutting off water, food, fuel and electricity, that the civilian population of Gaza is complicit in the conduct of Hamas and should suffer as a result.
Through the Sight of a Rifle
However, it should be no surprise for those familiar with Isaac Herzog’s past and failed Labour Party campaign for the position of Prime Minister, that such statements would be issued against Palestinians from a long time anti-Arab racist.
A veteran of Israel’s spy agency Unit 8200, notorious for using blackmail and violence to target the entire Palestinian population, his 2015 campaign bid for prime minister featured racist ads in which Arabs were demonized, stereotyped and depicted as valid targets for assassination.
Crimes against Humanity – Israeli President Hit with Criminal Complaint in Switzerland
Isaac Herzog ran one ad during his 2015 campaign, in which he said that “he saw the Arabs in many different circumstances. He saw them through the sight of a rifle, and he saw them behind the sight of a rifle.”
During that same campaign, he went on to refer to Eritrean refugees as “infiltrators from Africa” and even tried to prove he was more racist than Benjamin Netanyahu by stating that his government was “only good at talking” about kicking them out.
An ‘Actual Plague’
Herzog, after losing his bid for Prime Minister, remarked at an Israeli Labour Party meeting that one of the problems with the campaign they had run, was that the Israeli society had seen them as “Arab lovers”, advising against being portrayed this way.
Making things even worse, Isaac Herzog has publicly expressed his view against mixed marriages, stating that marriage between Jews and non-Jews is “an actual plague”.
Although we do not know what the criminal complaints filed in Switzerland, against Isaac Herzog, actually entail, the assumption has been that the legal file has something to do with his complicity in war crimes committed by the regime he represents.
On top of this, a number of interviews were given by the Israeli President, where he makes a number of unsubstantiated claims about October 7.
In one case he holds up an image of an “Al-Qaeda document” and claims it is a manual on how to make chemical weapons that was extracted from Hamas fighters.
A documented racist, his intent to manufacture consent for the murder of a population, based on their identity alone, through fact-free atrocity propaganda, is evident through his public statements as one of the most prominent Israeli officials.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.
