A legal battle over whether Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza amounts to genocide opens Thursday at the United Nations’ top court. Two days of preliminary hearings at the International Court of Justice will examine South Africa’s call for judges to order an immediate suspension of Israel’s military actions. Israel stringently denies the genocide allegation. The case that is likely to take years to resolve strikes at the heart of Israel’s national identity as a Jewish state created in the aftermath of the Nazi genocide in the Holocaust. It also involves South Africa’s identity: Its ruling African National Congress party has long compared Israel’s policies in Gaza and the West Bank to its own history under the apartheid regime of white minority rule.
