Bolaji Akinyemi: US Can Stop Israel’s Gaza Bombardment But Biden Won’t Risk Re-Election Bid

Nigeria’s former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, has said that the United States of America has the ability to put an end to Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, but the country will not move to stop the war because President Biden will not want to put his re-election bid at risk as the US conducts its elections this year.

The former minister said in an interview with ARISE NEWS on Monday, where he also noted that South Africa had taken a stand from moral compulsion to file a Genocide Case against Israel in the International Court of Justice.

As Akinyemi gave his thoughts on the ongoing Israel/Hamas war as the war clocked 100 days, he said, “The only country in the world that actually has the power to stop to Israel is the United States, and the United States isn’t going to do that because of the electoral power of the Jews in the United States. This is election year. Biden is not going to risk his presidency by putting the kind of pressure that you need to stop the Israelis. He’s simply not going to do that. 

“It’s a shame that we are sacrificing our morality for electoral purposes. God is not going to forgive us. And when the history of this time is written, people are going to ask each one of us, what did you do? What position did you take? They will ask, and what will we say?

“I think South Africa has stuck its neck out, a good moral position. This is what I once referred to as the ‘Mandelisation’ of South Africa. South Africa simply did this because it had that moral compulsion to do so. So, I’m afraid we’re stuck. The Palestinians are stuck, and it’s a shame.”

Professor Akinyemi was then asked if South Africa has a winning chance in their genocide suit against Israel, to which he replied, “In war, people die, in war, buildings are destroyed, infrastructure is destroyed. All those don’t constitute genocide. Genocide is constituted by two things. One, the element of elimination of an identifiable group of people, and two, the intention to eliminate them. And here, South Africa did brilliantly in its presentation because there were sentences on record by Herzog, the President of Israel, Netanyahu the Prime Minister, Defence Minister, and high officials of Israel saying we must wipe out Hamas.”

He went on to say that although Hamas is not a racial group, it had been seen that it was that the Palestinians were being wiped out, and that “there are statements on record where Hamas and Palestinians are used alternatively.”

The former minister then said it was ironic that the genocide convention was made due to the Holocaust that the Jews suffered in World War 2, and now, the nation of Israel is before the International Court being charged with genocide against Palestinians.

“There is no doubt that the case of South Africa is trendset by the case that Israel brought, and I must emphasize this. Israel’s defence was to talk about what Hamas has done, fine. But in international jurisprudence, genocide is one of the few conventions for which there is no justification, none whatsoever. You cannot defend your actions, so, that has to be borne in mind,” he said.

Ozioma Samuel-Ugwuezi

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