WATCH: White House Dismisses South Africa’s Claim of Israeli ‘Genocide’ in Gaza

White House national security spokesman John Kirby dismissed accusations by South Africa that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza on Wednesday, calling such claims “meritless, counterproductive, and completely without basis in fact whatsoever.”

Last week, South Africa filed a claim at the United Nations International Court of Justice accusing Israel of violating the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, to which Israel is a signatory.

South Africa claimed, falsely, that Israel is committing “the indiscriminate use of force and forcible removal of inhabitants” in Gaza (Israeli attacks are targeted at Hamas and no civilians have been forcibly removed). Israel called the claim a “despicable and contemptuous exploitation of the Court.”

In a statement to the Israeli Cabinet last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed South Africa’s claim, saying:

I would like to say a word about South Africa’s mendacious pontificating to the effect that Israel ‘is perpetrating genocide.’ No, South Africa, it is not we who have come to perpetrate genocide, it is Hamas. It would murder all of us if it could. In contrast, the IDF is acting as morally as possible; it is doing everything to avoid harming civilians while Hamas is doing everything to harm them and is using them as human shields.

I ask: Where were you, South Africa, and the rest of those who are preaching at us, when millions were murdered and uprooted from their homes in Syria, Yemen and other areas. You were not there because everything you are doing now is only hot air, lies and vanity. We will continue our defensive war, the justice and morality of which is without peer.

The South African government backs the Palestinians in the war, and the ruling African National Congress party met with Hamas.

South Africa has aligned itself with a series of rogue nations, including Russia. Critics of its foreign policy, both within South Africa and abroad, have warned that it is risking its relations with the United States, and may jeopardize efforts to reauthorize the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a trade agreement from which South Africa benefits, when it expires next year.

Journalists at the White House briefing, the first of the year, focused their questions to Kirby on the issue of the war in the Middle East. Many appeared to be making the case against Israel, and the United States, as in one bizarre exchange with a reporter who tried to blame the Biden administration for “escalation” in the Red Sea:

The White House / YouTube

The Houthi rebels from Iran have been attacking commercial shipping through the Bab-el-Mandeb; the Biden administration has tried to deter attacks but has not attacked the Houthis directly.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the 2021 e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now updated with a new foreword. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.