South Africa Targets Israel at International Court of Justice
Summary
Transcript
But already today, some very hostile anti Israel language used right away in the court case. Do we have that bite? Right away? I want to play it for people, because when you start the court case that way, you know exactly where South Africa is going in our application. South Africa has recognized the ongoing Nakbar of the palestinian people through Israel’s colonization since 1948, which has systematically and forcibly dispossessed, displaced and fragmented the palestinian people, deliberately denying them their internationally recognized, inalienable right to self determination and their internationally recognized right of return as refugees to their towns and villages in what is now the state of Israel.
When South Africa gets up in court and says, we understand the Palestinians living under the Nakpah, the great catastrophe, which is the independence of Israel as a jewish state, understand that South Africa is not much different than Hamas and Hezbollah in what their aim is, which is the non existence of the jewish state. Yeah. Saying Nakbade is equivalent to saying from the river to the sea. Exactly. There’s no difference.
Israel should not exist. Yeah, exactly. And what’s interesting here is that the way this proceeding is, it’s an interesting proceeding because it’s a full trial. But at the end of the day, even they make a decision does not mean there’s no enforcement mechanism. Right. So South Africa has asked for a provisional order, and that is what the oral argument is addressing today from South Africa and tomorrow from Israel.
So South Africa has asked for this provisional order and basically asking for Israel to immediately halt their military operation, which would be devastating. We have filed a 13 page single space legal document, and it has gone far and wide. We’ve sent it to the Minister of diaspora affairs in Israel, the speaker of the Knesset, the chair of the Knesset’s constitution and justice committee, the International Legal forum. All these are in Israel.
The EU ambassador to the United States, UK lawyers for Israel, Minister of strategic affairs, foreign policy advisor for the israeli prime minister, the minister of justice and deputy attorney general, Minister of foreign affairs. And then we’ve sent it to countries, or we are in the process of. To ministers of foreign affairs for countries that have judges sitting on this panel. Cece, in this brief that we filed. What have we alleged? Well, we point out right off the bat that the accusation of genocide is legally erroneous, factually untrue and morally reprehensible.
And blatantly there is. They totally ignore South Africa’s claiming that Israel has committed genocide. They totally ignore that Israel was attacked by Hamas and that they are in a military action and that the international humanitarian law or law of armed conflict controls. They totally ignore that Israel is simply paragraph defending themselves. They put in two paragraphs in their, like, 84 pages, 84 pages of documents, two paragraphs about the attack on Israel by Hamas, and they never call that genocide.
The easy thing to do would be say nothing. But you can’t say nothing in this because it is stacked against Israel from the start. It is. This is Israel being victimized by South Africa for reasons that, I don’t know what they are, what ties that the South Africans have with the Middle Easterners and so forth. But clearly, this is not an act of genocide by the Israelis. It’s an act of self defense against a horrific and terrible assault that was perpetrated by Hamas on Israel at a time when the Israelis had no provocation against them.
And the Israelis are simply defending themselves. And to turn this into an allegation of genocide with the vigor that the South Africans have pursued it is absolutely ridiculous. I think what’s going to be important is tomorrow, when Israel is able to present its case uninterrupted to this court, that the government in Israel, the media in Israel, supporters of Israel, organizations like ours, are able to take that and really distribute it to the world so people see and hear the facts about what Israel has faced.
If you want to go back, as South Africans have, to 1948, I’m sure those attorneys can do that as well and talk about all the wars Israel has had to face, wars trying to destroy the jewish state of Israel. And also, of course, then focusing on what happened on October 7. So tomorrow, also a very important moment for the world and for Israel to get its message out.
That’s right. And Jordan, it’s an important moment for the world in another way. In truth, this is not a trial of the state of Israel. This is not a trial of the jewish people. This is a trial of the world in terms of morality, decency, the notion that the rule of law is supposed to protect people in humanity as opposed to attack people in humanity. That’s really what’s happening.
This is a trial of the world. And so, yes, we are on the right side. I’m glad that we took the effort to make the clearest possible case and distributed around the world so they understand that millions and millions of people are watching them and judging them for their behavior now towards the jewish people in the state of Israel. .
