Former UK Supreme Court judge claims Israel's Gaza assault is ‘grossly disproportionate'
LONDON: Jonathan Sumption, a former UK Supreme Court judge, has described Israel's military actions in Gaza as 'grossly disproportionate,' and added there was 'at least an arguable case' that they were genocidal.
Speaking ahead of the release of his new book, 'The Challenges of Democracy: And The Rule of Law,' Sumption explained to The Guardian newspaper why he signed a letter last year accusing the UK government of breaching international law by continuing to arm Israel.
He said: 'I thought — and I still think — that the conduct of Israel in Gaza is grossly disproportionate and there's at least an arguable case that it's genocidal. One can't put it higher than that because genocide depends on intent. That's quite a difficult thing to establish but I read the provisional decision of the International Court (of Justice) and it seemed to me that they were saying that that was an arguable proposition.
'Given that the obligation of parties to the genocide convention is proactively to prevent it happening and not just to react after the event, I thought that the authors of the letter — and I wasn't the draftsman — had got a point.'
Israel has denied committing genocide, maintaining that its military operations were acts of self-defense while also rejecting the ICJ's findings.
Sumption's book, which is published on Thursday, focuses on perceived threats to democracy, including restrictions on free speech. He expresses concern over how certain opinions, particularly those supporting Palestinian rights, have been suppressed in some countries.
He said: 'I think that supporters of the Palestinian cause have had a rough time in a number of European jurisdictions, notably Germany, where there's been direct — and government — moves to suppress that strand of thought altogether.
'We haven't got anywhere near as close to things as that … but there's certainly been a lot of calls for toughness on pro-Palestine demonstrations, which assume, without actually saying, that it's perfectly obvious that support for Palestine is wrong. I don't think it's wrong.'
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