Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 1/26/24 BREAKING: ICJ Finds GENOCIDE RISK, ORDERS Israel To Comply

Episode Date: January 26, 2024

Ryan discusses the ICJ ruling Israel must "take all measures" to avoid acts of genocide in Gaza but stops short of calling for a ceasefire. He's joined by Trita Parsi from the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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We have breaking news this morning. The International Court of Justice released its preliminary ruling, and we're also going to be joined here by Trita Parsi to talk about the ruling, which is being heralded as a victory for South Africa because the court has allowed the case to go forward. I'm kind of new with some of these devices here, so I'm going to try to put this clip up here. As Huffington Post is calling it, UN stunner top court finds genocide risk in Gaza.

The court has given Israel one month to change its military operation to reduce the risk of genocide. It found that South Africa has made a plausible case. Let me play real quickly a little bit from the American judge who issued the ruling, which we do not have yet in kind of full PDF form, but they issued it from the Hague. Here we go. In the court's view, the aforementioned facts and circumstances are sufficient to conclude that at least some of the rights claimed by South Africa and for which it is seeking protection are plausible. This is the case with respect to the right of Palestinians in Gaza to be protected from acts of genocide and related prohibited acts identified in Article 3 and the right of South Africa to seek Israel's compliance with the latter's obligations under the convention.

And so we're joined now by Trita Parsi, who, let me pull up, Trita, what you had said in a breaking fashion. You wrote, the ICJ just ruled against Israel and determined that South Africa successfully argued that Israel's conduct plausibly could constitute genocide. This is a devastating blow to Israel's global standing. Unpack that for us. Why is this considered a devastating blow when South Africa's most kind of expansive demand was an immediate cessation of all hostilities? Thank you so much, Ryan. Good to be with you.

This is still devastating. The fact that South Africa asked for all of those things, of course, in an immediate cessation, was a bit optimistic at the end of the day. But what the court has ruled is overwhelmingly in favor of South Africa. And also, the division between the judges was, I think, stronger than expected. It was essentially only two judges that at times objected to the ruling. This is devastating because at the end of the day, this means that the South Africans have made a plausible case that genocide is taking place. Genocide is the crime of all crimes. You have to put yourself in Israel's position in terms of a historical effort by the Israelis to break out of its international isolation, which has largely been very successful. Remember, up until 1991, most countries in the world did not recognize Israel, did not have

diplomatic relations with Israel. That all changed because of the Oswald process. And since then, it's been very, very successful. And Israel has been able to normalize itself to a very large extent, at least in the West. Now you have Israel in the last couple of years increasingly being associated with apartheid. That term is increasingly publicly being used to describe it. And now you also have a genocide ruling against it. Of course, the final ruling has not come in yet, but essentially enough evidence has been presented to warrant a court to say that an injunction is needed and this needs to be investigated further. What that will do to Israel's international isolationist standing, I think, is going to be very significant. And if I could just add one point, Ryan.

Sure. Keep in mind, in the last couple of years, they have worked so hard to delegitimize the BDS movement and pass laws against it, laws that are arguably unconstitutional in the United States. And this has not been done because they were worried about the economic impact of the BDS movement on Israel. It's because of the diplomatic and political impact in terms of essentially delegitimizing Israel. Well, nothing has delegitimized Israel more than this court ruling and the fact that one of the primary evidence that was being used in the court was Israeli political statements themselves that were used against Israel in order to show

the intent for genocide. Let me play a response real quickly from Netanyahu here, if I can. Israel's commitment to international law is unwavering. Equally unwavering is our sacred commitment to continue to defend our country and defend our people. Like every country, Israel has an inherent right to defend itself. The vile attempt to deny Israel this fundamental right is blatant discrimination against the Jewish state, and it was justly rejected. The charge of genocide leveled against Israel is not only false, it's outrageous, and decent people everywhere should reject it. On the eve of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, I again pledge as Israel's Prime Minister, never again. Israel will continue to defend itself against

Hamas, a genocidal terror organization. On October 7, Hamas perpetrated the most horrific atrocities against the Jewish people since the Holocaust, and it vows to repeat these atrocities again. Our war is against Hamas terrorists, not against Palestinian civilians. We will continue to facilitate humanitarian assistance and to do our utmost to keep civilians out of harm's way, even as Hamas uses civilians as human shields. We will continue to do what is necessary to defend our country and defend our people. All right, so that's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responding, calling it discrimination, calling it outrageous, pledging to continue the war effort. What did you make of his

response there? It's very defensive and very predictable, of course. At the end of the day, the court is not in any way, shape, or form saying that Israel doesn't have a right to defend itself. But what it is saying is that what Israel calls defense is plausibly genocide and that it needs to investigate that further. And it's giving the Israelis, as you mentioned, 30 days to address some of these things. And it also calls on Israel to prosecute those members of government that have been making genocidal statements. That includes Benjamin Netanyahu.

This is putting the United States in a very significant bind because, as the court reminded Israel, its rulings are binding. But it is the Security Council that is tasked with enforcing the implementation of this. And that means that there's very likely going to be a resolution at the UN Security Council this coming week, and it presents the United States once again with that dilemma. Does it actually stand with international law and approve this, or does it go against it, further isolating the U.S. by casting it? I want to pick up on that exact point, because the New York Times wrote, in its fairly slanted report on this ruling, at one point they wrote, the court has no means of enforcement, and it is not clear how Israel will respond to the decision. Well, we now have

Netanyahu's response, but you would never see the New York Times write, the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, but it has no means of enforcement, although that is true. Like Alexander Hamilton made that point about the Supreme Court. Andrew Jackson has made that point about the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has made its ruling. Now let it enforce it. It has no actual mechanism of enforcement other than the kind of norms around the court and the respect that other institutions have for the court rulings and the respect that the population has for the court rulings. So it is not true that the court has no

means of enforcement. The United Nations does, in fact, have means of enforcing its rulings. So the question is, can it enforce those rulings? And so what are the means of enforcing those rulings? And what process can we look for going forward? So Israel has in one month, Israel has to report back to the court. Let's presume they continue to participate with this process. What then happens if the court in a month decides that Israel is not taking steps to minimize the risk of genocide? So what I think will happen first is that you will have a UN Security Council resolution. The Algerians are already discussing it.

And that would then adopt the ruling and essentially give it the enforcement capability of the UN Security Council, again, binding international law. And again, will the United States veto that again, as it has vetoed previous calls for a ceasefire? And this is really, you know, it's stretching the ability to be able to tolerate the double standards of the U.S.'s conduct when it comes to matters of this kind. If the Israelis then come back with a report, it's a question as to whether they will. They may actually choose not to engage at all and try to dismiss the legitimacy of the court altogether. But if they come back and it is not acceptable, I mean, it's going to be a legal wrangling for quite some time.

But the issue is that the political consequences and costs for Israel will continue as long as this is a live case and they're not living up to what the court is demanding. And that is going to inflict the political cost of the U.S., even more so perhaps of the Europeans, from whom international law and international institutions actually matter much more than it does to the U.S. political culture. And this has just become a massive headache. And I've asked this on your show before. For what? For what reason are we accepting paying all of these different costs when there actually is a pathway to a ceasefire that actually couldn't put an end to not only the fighting, to the plausible cases of genocide, but also to the political dilemmas that the U.S. is inflicting on itself. As well that I earlier today, where you said that you thought that so far the ICJ in South Africa have had more influence on Israel's actual behavior so far than the Biden administration. What change in behavior have we seen that you think can be linked to this international effort? We saw a very clear effort by the Israelis to try to ethnically cleanse Gaza by pushing the Egyptians and the Jordanians,

as well as some African countries trying to see if they would take essentially 2 million Gazans and they would depopulate Gaza. We have seen a decline in those efforts, certainly a decline in the public statements about that. I think it is quite reasonable to suspect that that has something to do with the court, because if the court is investigating Israeli war crimes, and in the midst of that, the Israelis are very openly lobbying to see if countries will aid them in ethnically cleansing Gaza. That's obviously not going to be helpful for them in the case. And if that is the case, and that suggests that this idea that international law is completely toothless,

in this specific case, you know, just a mere application of South Africa's complaint to the ICG may have had a greater impact on Israel's conduct than what the Biden administration claims that it has achieved with all of its quiet whispers in the background. Who you know, who is with the Center for International Policy, has released a statement I want to read real quickly. He said, today's ruling of the International Criminal Court, which ordered Israel to undertake provisional measures to ensure that Palestinians in Gaza are protected from acts of genocide genocide is enormously significant. International legal fora, such as the ICJ, are appropriate venues for the handling of such consequential matters, especially in situations

as dire as that in Gaza. If we support the creation of a global community based on shared rules rather than simply might makes right, it is absolutely essential that all countries, including the United States, acknowledge the legitimacy of this ruling and take necessary steps in response. And to that point, I wanted to, last question, because I know you got to run, and I appreciate you jumping on with us early this morning. I wanted to quickly play my exchange yesterday with State Department spokesperson Veenam Patel about this exact question of whether or not the U.S. would respect whatever the ruling was the next day. Here, I'll play that and then get your response. To the ICJ question, setting aside opining on how the how the preliminary verdict might come out, would the U.S. at least commit to not vetoing enforcement

of whatever the court rules one way or the other? I'm not going to commit to any action from up here. But to pick up on Matt's question from earlier, doesn't that undermine the U.S. insistence that other countries ought to follow these court rulings? What does it leave of the kind of rules-based order if countries can pick and choose decisions? That's certainly not what I was indicating. Again, I think we need to take a step back here because a decision has not come

down and no one here knows, unless you can tell the future what exactly that will be. I'm not going to commit any US government action from up here within the auspices of any body. What I can say is that we believe that the allegations that started this process, that Israel is committing genocide, we believe those to be unfounded. Simultaneously, though, we'll continue to raise with our Israeli partners the moral and strategic imperative that they take additional steps to minimize deaths on civilians. That's more or less his response. How do you feel the State Department will evolve after today's actual ruling now that they can't do the, well, we don't know how they're going to rule?

I think it's been problematic enough for the State Department to continue to defend the U.S.'s refusal to push Israel in the direction of a ceasefire already. This is just going to make matters worse. Let me make two points on this. First of all, it is quite fascinating. I don't remember exact numbers, but we looked into it, that senior Biden administration officials have more or less stopped using the term rules-based international order since October 7th. There's been a significant decline.

And that tells you something, a clear awareness in there that they know very well, that there is no consistency whatsoever. And there's no legitimacy or credibility talking about it, given how the United States under Biden has acted on that in the case of Gaza. And it's been the time frame is so short after, you know, Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine, so that the discrepancy, the double are just so blatant. Secondly, I think it's also important to note here that Biden's beer hog, unconditional support for Israel in all of this may actually have contributed to this because had Biden adopted a more measured approach and

actually pushed back against Israeli excesses in a much more potent way, the Israelis may not have ended up engaging in activities that the court then would find plausibly constituting a genocide. And that, I think, tells you again how problematic it is when the United States gives blank checks to some of its partners, whether it's Israel, Saudi Arabia, whoever. It undermines U.S. national interest in security. It certainly undermines the partners' interest as well, because look at where Israel is finding itself right now. So paradoxically, perhaps, the very excessive amount of support that Biden has provided Israel with has actually backfired in the final analysis and undermined it.

Thank you so much. Trita is the Executive Vice President at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. I'm Ryan Grimm. I'm the Washington Bureau Chief for the Intercept and also co-host of CounterPoints. You can watch Breaking Points every morning at YouTube, Spotify, and elsewhere. You can actually go to BreakingPoints.com. We have a 25% off

premium memberships right now, which enable us to do this reporting. And I've got my book right here behind me, which is the final plug, The Squad, AOC and the Hope of a Political Revolution, which is heavily about the way that the pro-Israel lobby has shaped what is possible within Democratic Party discourse when it comes to Israel-Palestine. So, Trita, once again, thank you so much for joining us this morning. This is fascinating. We're going to continue to cover this.

Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case.

If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. High key. Looking for your next obsession? Listen to High Key, a new weekly podcast hosted by Ben O'Keefe, Ryan Mitchell, and Evie Oddly. We got a lot of things to get into we're gonna gush about

the random stuff we can't stop thinking about I am high key going to lose my mind over all things Cowboy Carter I know girl

the way she about to yank my bank account correct and one thing I really love about this is that she's celebrating her daughter oh I know listen to High Key

on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts Oh, I know. Don't worry about a setback. Just save up and stack up to reach them. Let's put ourselves in the right position. Pre-game to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispretirement.org. Brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. This is an iHeart Podcast.