It is on the darkest nights that the stars appear to be at their brightest. As the human family continues to witness the devastation of civilians in Gaza — the death toll is now in excess of 22,000, with many children among the dead — a star has appeared.

The Government of the Republic of South Africa is bringing light by offering principled global leadership through taking the matter of the Israeli collective punishment of the 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza to the United Nations’ International Court of Justice in The Hague — aka “The World Court”.

In its submission, South Africa makes the case:

The acts and omissions by Israel are genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group — in violation of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, to which Israel is a signatory.

Some weeks ago the South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, made it clear that the country that had transformed the system of apartheid would not quietly sit on the sidelines to witness what was happening in Gaza. The former trade union leader, who was the activist that symbolically led Nelson Mandela out through the prison gates after 27 years of incarceration, made a declaration in December:

“The collective punishment of Palestinian civilians through the unlawful use of force by Israel is a war crime. The deliberate denial of medicine, fuel, food and water to the residents of Gaza is tantamount to genocide.”

Note that Ramaphosa does not mention the saturation bombing of this tiny “prison camp”, which is six times the size of Bermuda. Nor does he include the air attacks on most hospitals, schools and UN shelters, etc. And he doesn’t mention the unvarnished statements of intent by the leading political and military leaders of the Israeli regime.

Of course, these details will be the subject of the ICJ’s hearing, which has been set for January 11 and 12 at The Hague.

This historic case reflects the completion of a proverbial circle with the representatives of the people of South Africa who had experienced more than a century of settler devastation, and then 50 years of formal apartheid. The apartheid regime was formally established in 1948, just months after the establishment of the state of Israel, which led to the removal of hundreds of thousands of Muslims and Christians from the lands they had occupied for much more than a millennium — a tragedy referred to as the Nakba.

The anti-apartheid movement that emerged in the 1950s included representatives of the various African tribes, Coloureds and some Whites. Some of the more notable were of Jewish origin, including twins Norman and Leon Levy, Lionel “Rusty” Bernstein and Jackie Arenstein, and the couple Joe Slovo and Ruth First. They all were subjected to long prison terms and police torture, except First, who escaped to Mozambique but was assassinated in 1982 by South African police via a parcel bomb.

That said, the Zionist regime of Israel maintained a close relationship with the apartheid regime of South Africa, notwithstanding that many citizens supported the anti-apartheid movement. The Israeli regime collaborated closely with the South Africans on military matters to help keep a lid on this while the culture of anti-Semitism was rife among the hierarchy of the Afrikaner regime.

A vital part of that circle was the immense solidarity of the global anti-apartheid movement, which responded to the reality that the system of apartheid was enabled by key global players, notably the governments of Britain, United States and some other European regimes.

Those of us in small Bermuda played our part: six members of the Black Beret Cadre, in our late teens and early twenties, burnt a Union Jack on Nellie’s Walk in 1970 to protest the intention of the British Government to sell weapons to South Africa in violation of UN sanctions.

Our close collaboration with the British Anti-Apartheid Movement and the American Committee on Africa helped to leverage what our small cadre of activists could facilitate. This led to the development of the historic, Bermuda Anti-Apartheid Coalition, which was supported by most on our island.

In fact, some of the negotiations in the early 1990s took place in Bermuda, at the former Lantana Hotel in Somerset. I was able to provide the senior negotiator, Cyril Ramaphosa, a brief tour of some parts of the island.

In recognising their stewardship of this circle, Ramaphosa and the leadership of the Rainbow Nation are submitting this historic case before the World Court on behalf of the freedom and peace-loving people of the globe.

Francis Boyle, Professor of Law at the University of Illinois, who successfully won provisional protection for the Bosnians facing genocide by the regime of Yugoslavia in the 1980s, believes the South African legal team has a solid case.

However, the professor warns that the president of the ICJ is Joan Donoghue, who has served for a substantial period in the US State Department, and he worries that she remains under the influence of that agency.

Boyles’s concern is not unfounded, given that any ruling in favour of the South African position would damage the Biden Administration, which has supported Israel from the start.

In light of same, we are all called to offer our thoughts and prayers — in the spirit of Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Steve Biko and Ruth First — that justice will be served at the World Court.

• Glenn Fubler represents Imagine Bermuda