OPPOSITION PARTIES HAVE called on the government to join South Africa’s genocide filing against Israel at the United Nation’s International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Senior politicians from Sinn Féin, Labour, Social Democrats and People Before Profit joined with Independent Senator Frances Black and the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) today to make the call. 

At a press conference in Dublin, Sinn Féin’s foreign affairs spokesperson Matt Carthy said it is his party’s view that it is unacceptable that Ireland has refused to join the case. 

Last week, South Africa submitted a case to the UN’s top court accusing Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Israel has rejected the accusation and said it will defend itself at the Court. 

The first hearing in the case is set to take place this week in the Hague in the Netherlands. 

On Sunday, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar ruled out joining the case after he and Tánaiste Micheál Martin received a letter from four senators that called on the Government to support it.

Varadkar said he believes it is an area where “we need to be very careful”.

Speaking at today’s press conference, IPSC vice chair Fatin Al Tamimi said she was disappointed by the Taoiseach’s remarks.

“10,000 children were murdered by Israel and our government still and the international community hasn’t done anything to stop it,” Al Tamini said.

She called on people to join the national demonstration organised on Saturday to demand a ceasefire and demand that the Irish government take action.

Matt Carthy said the government’s position “smacks of double standards”.

Carthy said these double standards have been all too evident since the war in Gaza began and pointed to the fact Ireland and other governments made a referral against Russia for its actions in Ukraine, but now refuse to make a referral against Israel.

“Russian aggression against Ukraine has resulted in the deaths of over 10,000 civilians, including 560 children, from a pre-war Ukrainian population of 43 million people within 20 months, and Russia must be held to account for its brutality.

“But Israeli aggression in Gaza has resulted in the killing of almost 23,000 civilians, including almost 10,000 children from a population of just 2.27 million in only three months. And therefore Israel must be held to account on the Israeli aggression,” Carthy said.

Meanwhile Independent Senator Frances Black and People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett both accused the government of inaction because of deference to Washington and Brussels. 

Black said: “There is no credible or legal or moral argument of not joining with South Africa at the ICJ. The government is making a shameful political calculation out of deference to Washington and Brussels, and Ireland needs to act decisively and comprehensively to ensure that we live up to our obligations under the Genocide Convention.”

Boyd Barrett said he believes Ireland’s “consistent failure to act under the Genocide Convention as they are obliged to or to take any measures to sanction Israel is because they don’t want to embarrass their counterparts in the European Union or the United States for their complicity in continuing to support Israel’s genocide.” 

Social Democrats foreign affairs spokesperson Gary Gannon asked “At what point do we say ‘okay, now it is a genocide?’”.

“How many people have to die? How many more children have to be buried under the rubble before the Irish state, or those who consider themselves to be statesmen either in Ireland, throughout Europe or in the US to then turn around and say, well, that constitutes genocide,” Gannon said. 

He referred to comments made at the weekend by the Taoiseach about the genocide in Armenia and said: “to have the audacity to bring up the Armenian Genocide in the same interview, does history not demonstrate what happens when you call a genocide after the fact?”.

Gannon also referred to the Taoiseach’s stated desire to act multilaterally on action against Israel and said: “I haven’t heard anything more cowardice in my own political life of the fear to act unilaterally – why not?

If you believe something is happening, why are you waiting for the bigger boys to tell you it is okay to act?”

Labour leader Ivana Bacik added that the action taken by South Africa is not a symbolic one. 

“South Africans has filed a very, very clear, over 80 page dossier documenting how they say Israel is committing genocide.

“So the case is made very clear and international lawyers are very strongly of the belief that there’s a very strong case there, but it’s not just about that definition of genocide,” she said.

Bacik made the point that in order to address the real suffering of the people of Gaza, South Africa has called for provisional measures to be ordered by the ICJ which could be done “very swiftly” and would effectively see a ceasefire put in place.

Bacik noted that the provisional ruling could be issued by the ICJ in a matter of weeks.