Embassy confirms Germany won’t support Israel in South Africa’s ICJ genocide case

Germany won’t be supporting Israel in its genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) after all, it emerged on Thursday.

Andreas Peschke confirmed in a written message to /explain/ via his spokesperson: “As it is, Germany will not file an intervention as a third party in the case”.

Peschke, who speaks fluent isiZulu, is a popular figure in South Africa, where the German Embassy and other European diplomats have shown strong support for the country in the face of US attacks over false claims of a genocide of white people in South Africa. But the embassy and the country have come under strain for their support of Israel. A source close to the German embassy in Pretoria acknowledged to Daily Maverick previously that this “is going to be a very difficult topic between our countries”.

Israeli newspaper Haaretz had earlier published the news on Thursday.

Following South Africa’s filing of a genocide case against Israel at the ICJ located in The Hague in late 2023, Germany controversially announced its intention to intervene as a third party in support of Israel.

International relations expert and political scientist Dr Sithembile Mbete previously told /explain/ that European countries especially have a serious blind spot when it comes to Israel. “They’ve come to view the formation of Israel as a direct atonement for Germany’s sins when it comes to the persecution of Jewish people,” she said.

She went on to note: There’s actually been a lot of decolonial work around how there’s this view like the Holocaust was perpetrated by aliens or something, that it’s a crime that is so unique and egregious that it compares to nothing that ever came before. There’s a socialisation to imagine that nothing could ever be that bad or compared to it. It is considered blasphemous to compare what happened in the Holocaust to anything else that ever happened, even though there’s a direct line from the genocide that Germany committed in Namibia to the Holocaust.”

In January 2024, Namibian President Hage Geingob urged Germany to “reconsider its untimely decision to intervene as a third-party in defence”.

In 2021, Berlin acknowledged committing genocide in Namibia.

Mbete noted that they’re also a practical element. “Countries like the USA and Germany have sold arms to Israel and have, in fact, increased arms sales since October 7 to levels not seen before… So they face the horrible situation of being complicit in genocide, potentially. I’m therefore not surprised that they’ve come out and claimed that South Africa’s case is illegitimate and there’s actually no genocide charge to answer to because they have to protect themselves in case the court ruling goes against them. So it’s cynical in political terms, but this is laying the foundation to claim innocence and deny it when the time comes.”

Al Jazeerah has noted that Germany is Israel’s second-largest arms supplier, fifth-largest export partner, and one of its staunchest supporters. It has repeatedly defended Israel’s actions in Gaza.

In November, Amnesty International slammed Germany’s then-decision to lift a suspension on the issuance of certain arms export licences to Israel for use in the occupied Gaza Strip. “Germany’s decision to lift its partial suspension of weapons shipments to Israel is reckless, unlawful and sends entirely the wrong message to Israel: that it can continue committing genocide, war crimes, and apartheid against Palestinians and unlawfully occupy the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza without fear of consequence,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas at the time, Amnesty International’s Senior Director for Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns.

As we reported in this week’s Wrap, Israel has finally filed its response to SA’s genocide case after two deadline extensions. Pretoria is now deciding whether to reply or go straight to oral hearings at the International Court of Justice. Our 2023 case argues Israel’s military campaign in Gaza amounts to genocide – a charge Israel denies, but a conclusion also reached by the UN. Eighteen countries have since joined SA’s application, including Ireland and Spain. Three countries support Israel, including the US, but Germany has now had a change of heart.

The ICJ is the highest court of the United Nations and adjudicates disputes between countries. Under the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, any country party to the convention can take another to court to prevent genocide. In 2019, Gambia brought a case against Myanmar for the genocide of the Rohingya minority population.

Israel has waged a war in Gaza since October 7, in which members of the Hamas group launched an attack on Israel, killing hundreds of civilians. According to independent research published in the world’s leading medical journals, more than 75,000 “violent deaths” were verified by early 2025, Al Jazeera reports.