On 28 October 2024, South Africa filed its Memorial to the International Court of Justice, in its case on the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel). President Cyril Ramaphosa wrote the following statement here:

“The filing of this Memorial takes place at a time when Israel is intensifying the killing of civilians in Gaza and now also in Lebanon. This Memorial has generated overwhelming national and international interest. It contains evidence which shows how the government of Israel has violated the genocide convention by promoting the destruction of Palestinians living in Gaza, physically killing them with an assortment of destructive weapons, depriving them access to humanitarian assistance, causing conditions of life which are aimed at their physical destruction and ignoring and defying several provisional measures of the International Court of Justice, and using starvation as a weapon of war and to further Israel’s aims to depopulate Gaza through mass death and forced displacement of Palestinians.

“The evidence shows that undergirding Israel’s genocidal acts is the special intent to commit genocide, a failure by Israel to prevent incitement to genocide, to prevent genocide itself and its failure to punish those inciting and committing acts of genocide. It contains over 750 pages of text, with exhibits and annexes of over 4,000 pages. It is a reminder to the global community – and to you – to remember the people of Palestine, to stand in solidarity with them and to stop the catastrophe.

“The UN was created to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war. Israel has been granted unprecedented impunity to breach international law and norms for as long as the UN Charter has been in existence. Their continued shredding of international law has imperilled the institutions of global governance that were established to hold all states accountable.”

The importance of this statement about the future of the United Nations is deadly serious.

I concluded my letter to Kamala Harris with this:

“I call on you to withdraw US backing for genocide. Trump won you my vote in the election. Now win my respect and support.”

The text of my letter to her, except for these last two lines, is taken from the statement of President Ramaphosa to the International Court of Justice on 28 October 2024, of evidence of Israeli genocide in Gaza since 1948. I shortened it very slightly because the White House website where I wrote to Kamala Harris allows a limited number of words.

There is still time for everyone (including you, dear reader) to try to convince Kamala Harris to commit publicly to withdrawing US support for Israel’s genocide, first and foremost by stopping the continuing delivery of weapons of mass destruction to Israel by Genocide Joe Biden. And secondly, by urging your governments to condemn the genocide and Israel’s publicly stated intention of razing everything in Gaza to the ground, starving and pushing everyone they have not yet massacred out of the country and creating a (sic) greater Israel, which includes the Occupied West Bank too. You too can write to Kamala Harris here to protest: https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/vicepresident/.

And in case you were not aware, 60% of the population of Gaza is under the age of 16. That is one of the reasons why more children than adults have been massacred by Israel there. Lastly, to learn what is happening, I urge you to read and watch Al Jazeera, as they are the only international media who have been on the ground and shown what is actually happening — as it happens — for the past 13 months, every day and night. If Israel is not stopped from banning UNRWA, the devastation will be beyond belief.

I have been a member of the US Democratic Party all my adult life but I have also campaigned against the violence of US Democratic Party presidents to declare war on and destroy other people’s countries — in Latin America, in Asia, in Africa, and especially in the Middle East — in pursuit of US global domination and economic and political interests. As US citizens, no matter where we live, I believe we have a duty to oppose all such violations of human rights and to support peace and the human rights principles that led to the founding of the United Nations.

As for the UK, where I have lived most of my adult life, it is time we got out from under the wing of the US government and rejoined regional efforts to make the foundering European Union, increasingly threatened by a growing number of right-wing leaders, into a supporter of human rights and peace with justice as well.

Marge Berer, 30 October 2024