{"id":31959,"date":"2024-02-23T20:32:54","date_gmt":"2024-02-24T04:32:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=31959"},"modified":"2024-02-23T20:32:55","modified_gmt":"2024-02-24T04:32:55","slug":"lawsuit-accuses-german-leaders-of-complicity-in-gaza-genocide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2024\/02\/23\/lawsuit-accuses-german-leaders-of-complicity-in-gaza-genocide\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawsuit Accuses German Leaders of Complicity in Gaza Genocide"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Olaf<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (L) shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) during an October 17, 2023 press conference in Tel Aviv.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0(Photo: Michael Kappeler\/picture alliance via Getty Images)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This lawsuit sends a clear message to German officials: You cannot continue to remain accomplices of such crime without consequences.”<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

BRETT WILKINS<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feb 23, 2024 (CommonDreams.org)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lawyers in Germany representing Palestinian families announced Friday that they are suing senior German officials, including Chancellor Olaf Scholz, for “aiding and abetting” Israel’s genocide in Gaza.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The criminal complaint, filed Thursday with federal prosecutors in Karlsruhe in the southwestern state of Baden-W\u00fcrttemberg, accuses Scholz, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, and Economy Minister Robert Habeck of “complicity in the genocide in Gaza” by approving the export of approximately $350 million worth of military aid to Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The suit also lists the German government’s diplomatic support for Israel and its suspension of payments to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine<\/a> Refugees in the Near East\u2014even as Israeli forces have killed and maimed over 100,000 Palestinians, forcibly displaced around 90% of the besieged strip’s 2.3 million people, obliterated the territory’s infrastructure, and pushed hundreds of thousands of Gazans to the brink of starvation<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We Palestinians in the diaspora will not stand by and watch a genocide being committed against our families and our people.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Our governments in Europe have a legal obligation not to provide Israel any support in perpetrating the current genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza. This has to stop and this is what we hope to achieve by going to court,” Nadija Samour, a Palestinian German lawyer who co-filed the suit, said<\/a> Friday at a Berlin press conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This lawsuit sends a clear message to German officials: You cannot continue to remain accomplices of such crime without consequences,” she added. “We want accountability.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last month, a provisional International Court of Justice ruling that found<\/a> Israel is “plausibly” perpetrating genocide in Gaza and ordering the country’s government and military to “take all measures within its power” to prevent genocidal acts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Noting that German law requires initial suspicion for such lawsuits to proceed, Samour said that the ICJ’s interim ruling “clearly showed that there is such ground for initial suspicion when it comes to the crime of genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/The_NewArab\/status\/1761085844931150021?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1761085844931150021%7Ctwgr%5E792119346354613bbb2a615aeea146d03465cceb%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fgaza-genocide-2667351559<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Germany staunchly opposes the South Africa-led ICJ case. Berlin’s stance has infuriated much of the Global South, including Namibia, which was colonized by Germans who perpetrated<\/a> the 20th century’s first genocide in the African nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Namibian President Hage Geingob, who died<\/a> earlier this month, said<\/a> in January that “Germany cannot morally express commitment to the United Nations convention against genocide, including atonement for the genocide in Namibia, whilst supporting the equivalent of a holocaust and genocide in Gaza.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Legal experts<\/a>, genocide scholars<\/a>, human rights campaigners<\/a>, world leaders<\/a>, and others have accused Israel of genocide in Gaza. Raz Segal, one of Israel’s leading Holocaust scholars, has repeatedly said<\/a> his country is perpetrating a “textbook case of genocide” against the people of Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nora Ragab, a Palestinian German migration scholar and plaintiff in the lawsuit whose uncle was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza, said<\/a> in a statement that “we Palestinians in the diaspora will not stand by and watch a genocide being committed against our families and our people.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We will use all means at our disposal… to hold the German government accountable for its complicity in the genocide in Gaza,” she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Advocacy groups supporting the German lawsuit include the European Legal Support Center (ELSC), the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy, and Law for Palestine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Germany “is one of the countries that has shown some of the strongest political and material support to Israel in its assault on the Gaza Strip and the Palestinians, with many German officials also inciting to genocide in their statements,” ELSC said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the wake of the ICJ ruling on Gaza genocide risk, Germany faces legal scrutiny for its arms exports to Israel. With the criminal complaint filed today, the call for accountability echoes loud. #EndGenocide<\/a> #StopWarCrimes<\/a> #AccountabilityNow<\/a> \u2696\ufe0f\/2<\/p>— European Legal Support Center (ELSC) (@elsclegal) February 23, 2024<\/a><\/blockquote>