Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - Israel Special 1/11/24: Israel Warns Of Regional War, Bibi Freaks Over Genocide Case, Norm Finkelstein Predicts Outcome Of ICJ Case

Episode Date: January 11, 2024

Krystal and Saagar discuss Israel warning hospitals to prepare for a possible regional war, Benjamin Netanyahu freaks over South Africa genocide case, and Norm Finkelstein predicts the outcome of the ICJ case.    To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show 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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Listen to Outlaws with T.S. Madison on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, honey. Hey, guys. Ready or Not 2024 is here, and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show. Huge developments in the Red Sea. You guys will recall that the Houthis have been basically blocking traffic through the Red Sea. The U.S. has formed this sort of very weak coalition and a lot of countries haven't wanted to be involved with it. But the UK is

standing strong alongside of us. And so the US and British naval forces actually shot down 21 drones and missiles fired by Yemen-based Houthis on Tuesday towards the southern Red Sea. We have the CENTCOM announcement here. We can put this up on the screen. So the Houthi attack on international shipping, they say, on January 9th at approximately 9.15 p.m. local time, Iranian-backed Houthis launched a complex attack of Iranian-designed one-way attack UAVs, anti-ship cruise missiles, and an anti-ship ballistic missile from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen into the southern Red Sea towards international shipping lanes where dozens of merchant vessels were transiting. 18 OWA UAVs, two anti-ship cruise missiles, and one anti-ship ballistic missile

were shot down by a combined effort of F-A-18s from USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, USS Gravely, USS Laboon, USS Mason, and the UK's HMS Diamond. This is the 26th Houthi attack on commercial shipping lanes in the Red Sea since November 19th. There were no injuries or damage reported. On January 3, 14 countries, including the US., issued a joint statement stating the Houthis will bear the responsibility for the consequences should they continue to threaten lives, the global economy, or the free flow of commerce in the region's critical waterways. So that is a bit of a threat there at the end. In terms of what the Houthis are saying, they said that in a statement that they attacked an American ship as part of a, quote, preliminary response to the U.S. shooting down three of its ships on December 31.

In that incident, we killed 10 people. The Houthis carried out a joint military operation with a large number of ballistic and naval missiles and drones against a U.S. ship it accused of providing support to Israel. They go on to say the Yemeni armed forces continue to prevent Israeli ships or those heading to the ports of occupied Palestine from navigating in the Arabian and Red Seas until the aggression stops and the siege of our steadfast brothers in the Gaza Strip is lifted. So just making it very clear this is tied to what is happening in the Gaza Strip. Yeah, and unfortunately, though, the escalation ladder continues to climb. A lot of these Israeli ships are not actually transiting. You know, most of the cargo at this point, it seems, and some 90 percent has been redirected around the Horn of Africa. The reason that the U.K. is involved here is actually it goes back to a lot of their historical dominance, colonialism in the region,

and their historical pledge to protect some of this on top of the U.S. mission, Navy specifically, in order to protect the free flows of commerce. The big problem here, and we can go ahead, and as we saw with the British Defense Secretary, is that by telegraphing that we will be bombing Yemeni territory now, we are going right back to the original problem where, look, I have no issue bombing Houthis if they're gonna fire on a US flagship. The problem just comes back to, will this actually stop the bombing? And what we've seen consistently through the Houthi campaign is that Saudi Arabia can drop the entire arsenal that the US supplied them with pretty sophisticated military. The Houthis have no air power, but they were still capable of amassing all of these ballistic

missiles, which really threatened Saudi territory and the Saudi military for quite some time. And it would only more likely lead to some sort of escalation in the waters in the Red Sea, which would only dramatically increase the insurance rates, the price of commerce. I mean, we're really stuck between a rock and a hard place because clearly the military action is tied to what's happening in Gaza. Now, we say we're just not going to do anything about what's happening in Gaza. So now we're tied into this coalition. The real problem, I thought, with the coalition is that it's not just the U.S. and the U.K., which almost goes back to like some Iraq war thing.

It's like France and all of these other countries, which have just as much of an incentive in order to defend commerce on the high seas. They don't want to join us in a military. I mean, honestly, Crystal, we had more military support in our anti-ISIS coalition than we do on something like this. It's extraordinary because, frankly, there's way more at stake whenever it comes to this than whatever the hell was going on in Syria at the time. Honestly, from a military perspective, strategic, this has been a disaster for us. There is essentially no one in the region who has joined us. Bahrain is the only regional ally that

is publicly involved. That's number one. Number two, some of the countries that originally said, all right, we'll help you out, backed out and did not want to be associated with this in any regard. Number three, I will not be the first to point out that the US seems to be much more concerned about container shipping than they are about the Palestinian babies being massacred in the Gaza Strip. And number four, yes, they are between a rock and a hard place, as you put it, Sagar. It is a position completely of their own making. So as we covered previously in the week, there's all these leaks from the defense establishment and the intelligence establishment freaking out about the possibility

of a regional war and warning that especially, you know, the escalation with the Houthis, but in particular, the escalation in Lebanon, which we're going to talk about in just a moment, that this does not end in a good place for the U.S., period. And yet nowhere in this coverage does it suggest the very obvious answer that all of these hostilities go away overnight if you have a ceasefire and that the U.S. has a lot of say in whether or not there is a ceasefire. We know when there was even a temporary ceasefire, and this is a point that Dr. Trita Parsi has been making, we know that this is the case because these attacks slowed in some instances completely stopped during that period of the temporary ceasefire. So while they're winging their, oh my God, what do we do?

And how do we deal with this? And we don't have this coalition isn't backing us. And maybe we've got to hit Yemen directly. They leave off the table, the very obvious answer to avoiding a gigantic war that inevitably pulls us into it, which is to push Israel for a ceasefire using our immense leverage in the region. So I just mentioned we also have huge escalation. I mean, at this point, you can't say like, oh, it might be a multiple front war. The Israelis themselves are saying they're fighting a seven front war and taking action

on six of those fronts. So they are warning, the Israelis are now warning hospitals in Israel to brace for casualties as a result of the escalation between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Let's take a listen to that. Put this in its proper proportion, Israeli hospitals have been working with the IDF Home Front Command to drill these scenarios for years. So the protocol of drilling it is not new. And they have to be ready for that kind of scenario because at any time, we could have entered into a full scale war situation with Hezbollah.

The timing is of course relevant because we are facing continuous exchanges of fire with Hezbollah. And the scenario of this escalating into a much larger conflict is very much on the table, it's possible. So we don't know what the breaking point is, okay? We have to be honest and say we don't know when that moment will come, when we're going from low intensity to high intensity, when it's dozens of rockets or drones to thousands. Hezbollah can hit northern Israel with 10,000 rockets a day in a full scale war situation.

It can hit central Israel with at least 1,000 rockets a day in a full scale war situation. We don't know when or if that moment will come. And it's absolutely the duty of hospitals and emergency responders and the IDF home front command to make sure that if it does come that they're ready. Netanyahu of course has every incentive to expand this war, to keep the war going indefinitely, to try to have something that he can bring back to the Israeli people, that he can call a quote-unquote victory, especially as he comes under increasing pressure within his own coalition and also from the Israeli public. And we have one more, yet another warning from a prominent official, put this up on the screen.

This is War Cabinet member Benny Gantz, who is saying the Lebanese government should think about whether they are Iran's front shield. If Hezbollah continues, we will act in southern Lebanon as we act in the northern Gaza Strip. This is not a threat to Lebanon. It is a promise to the residents of the north. And, you know, there's a lot of language to Sagar that has made it very clear that one of the intentional goals of the action of the assault on Gaza is not this quote unquote hunt for Hamas, but it's to show that they are so brutal to act as a deterrent to groups like Hezbollah.

And so that's why from the beginning, you've had this language of like, hey, we could turn Beirut into Gaza City. We could copy paste what we did in Gaza to Lebanon. That is part of the strategy here is to be as destructive and as horrifying as possible so that groups like Hezbollah and the Lebanese people react in horror to the idea that that could be done to them as well. Yeah, I mean, if you look through history, it's not exactly a novel military strategy. Certainly has worked, I guess, in the past. The problem that they have is that Hezbollah is not Hamas. You know, these people, as he even lays out in there, a thousand rockets a day, rockets are the least of their problems. They've got actual missiles that would

have to deal with. These are, you know, missile defense systems and others. Already what's happening in the Red Sea that we originally opened with, Crystal, is a far more technologically advanced war than what's currently happening in Gaza. Gaza is actually much more of an older style of conflict. Yes, they have 21st century technology, but only on one side. In Hezbollah, that's not what we're talking about at all. In some military analysts and others that I've looked at, including people who are pro-Israel, people who are warning. Jonathan Shanzer, we played on our Tuesday show.

He would liken the Hezbollah military arsenal to that of a small European nation. are pro-Israel, people who are warning, Jonathan Shanzer, we played on our Tuesday show, he would liken Hezbollah military arsenal to that of a small European nation. So we need to understand that the parity of military capabilities and technology is so much higher. That was underscored on our Monday show when 100 IDF soldiers were wounded in a single day, the vast majority of them by Hezbollah. So that shows us that we can have no real hot war, but the mere anti-tank missiles that they have and have been exchanging fire with the IDF have been enormously destructive. So the overall impact right now on global shipping, on the global situation and others is a level of immense precarity. And it also shows us one of the warnings that there's been

a lot of triumphalism. People have said, oh, see, nothing has emerged into a full-blown war. We are only three months removed from October 7th, and we're just not that far, frankly, into this conflict. Part of the reason why we're so critical, I guess, in the beginning is because it was so clear, I would say October, what, 20th or so onward from the ground invasion. I'm like, okay, you have just now committed the same mistakes as Iraq. It took us nine months to a year for us to reap the reward of our invasion. It took a long time before we really start to see the massive strategic fallout. I would honestly argue that most of what we're seeing today is continuing of that, and that's 20 years or so after they're removed. So when we think about what the know, what the timescale is here and what

they have opened themselves up to, this is just the, you know, the beginning of the beginning. We really have no idea what the diplomatic situation, the military situation is. So I think it is a very, very dangerous moment here for the United States, specifically with regard to the global shipping standard, because what we can see there is that that has the most potential to massively change and impact the overall U.S. economy. And look, let's, I mean, you said, you know, care more about shipping. I mean, to be honest, we should care more about shipping because that's what's going to affect us directly in our lives. That would actually massively impact the overall

U.S. economy, the global situation. And that's what makes people care. That's what makes people be like, hey, what is going on here? Why can't I get X or Y or Z from the grocery store? It seems to me like plenty of people care about the images of horror that they see coming out of Palestine that is being funded by our taxpayer dollars. And if you don't care about that, you might care about the fact that you are radicalizing millions of people to absolutely hate the United States of America because of the 2,000 pound bombs that are being dropped on us. But these are not concepts which directly affect us in the moment. What I'm saying is that in general- Clearly it does.

Well, not today. Clearly there are a lot of people who are very affected by it and they're concerned about it. But it's not the vast majority of the American public. All right, so the vast majority of the American public is definitely gonna care if prices go up or oil. The majority of the American public wants a ceasefire for exactly this reason because they don't wanna be party to atrocities. There are things that I want. Then there are also the things that of the American public wants a ceasefire. But not enough. For exactly this reason, because they don't want to be party to atrocities. There are things that I want. Then there are also the things that of the, there are a hundred things that I want. There's maybe one that I'm going to act the most on, right?

Of that one, that's how most people think in terms of priorities. There are a lot of things on your priority list. Yes, majority of Americans want a ceasefire. I don't disagree with you at all. But if you were to look, let's say, at polling of what is most important to you, it's not even going to be what in the top 10. I don't know. If you ask people, do you care more about the babies who are being bombed in the Gaza Strip or shipping lanes in the Red Sea right now? What do you think they're going to do? Well, I would flip it and say, do you care more about what you're paying at the grocery store for oil and for that other thing or

for whatever's going on in a third world conflict which doesn't affect you? I would absolutely say number one. I don't think I'm alone in that. And I think that bears out in our presidential election and everything else. The number of people who have said that foreign affairs is their top priority in this coming election is effectively unprecedented right now because of the concern of what's being done in Gaza Strip. Yeah, but it's not, again, the economy is still going to be number one. I mean, I'm just, all I'm saying is in terms of what is actually impactful to people's lives. If you actually, if your number one concern is the freaking shipping lanes, then there's

a very clear answer here that dovetails alongside the concern over the babies who are being massacred in the Gaza Strip. And that's a ceasefire. And that's left out of our government's calculation. You know, there was reporting that people in the Biden ministry, like they don't even try to make this case to Joe Biden because he's basically so obstinately against it, period, end of story, that he's willing to risk a massive war in order to unconditionally support Israel. It's left out of the media context when these articles are written about like, oh my God, they don't know what to do. And this is so bad. And the military is really

concerned about what's going to happen. That context is left out completely. The Houthis have put out statements saying, listen, we're upholding our part of the genocide convention and our obligation to not only not participate in genocide, which the US is doing right now, but to try to prevent it. So that's the big picture here that I don't want to get lost, is that all of these various concerns, which are all important, I don't want to diminish the cost that could escalate as a result of the Houthis' actions here. All of these various concerns are solved by having a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. No, I actually don't disagree with anything that you said at all. I'm more talking about in terms of how it would impact overall US politics. And so I don't disagree in terms of the obfuscation of the way that we think and talk about the

conflict and about our overall leverage of Israel. Actually, I'm totally in agreement. If anything, what we have signed ourselves up for is both unconditional support for Israel and unconditional bearing of all the costs, which is what drives me the most insane about the entire US relationship with Israel. We have a piddly little country out in the middle of nowhere that somehow all of U.S. politics has to evolve around, including the U.S. military, which is nuts, you know, when we think about it from a strategic position. If anything, you could make a case that Ukraine matters, and I don't even think it matters more than Israel, and I don't

even think Ukraine matters all that much to overall U.S. national security. So it's a difference in perspective, I think, of the two ways that we're looking at it. But regardless, you generally arrive at the same conclusion, which is that the U.S. is not impacting the situation in Israel enough, both to its own benefit. There are humanitarian side effects to that as well. But the problem that I see right now is that we don't, with Biden in particular, and a lot of the overall U.S. establishments, they're so wholesale committed that they have not even allowed themselves to look outside of whatever was, you know, exists within the Overton window of pre-October 7th. They're not updating their thinking and their language in this overall strategic situation. Frankly, you see the same, you know, in terms of thinking about Ukraine. It's like everybody thinks it's like 1972 in the middle

of the Cold War. It's like, no, we're living in a totally different global environment. And I think, you know, post-October 7th, this is something that we're probably about to get to with the genocide trial happening right now at the ICJ. We need to really prepare ourselves for the fact that Israel is not the Israel of before. Maybe they're okay with that. But I don't think a lot of people in that country have grappled with that. And same with this country in terms of our relationship with that. Joe Biden still thinks it's like 1970s Israel, Golda Meir is the prime minister. And I mean, in some ways, as we've said before, and as Daryl Cooper always points out, like the right wingers like Netanyahu and Smotrich and Ben-Gavir,

they're the more honest narrators of what Israel actually is and what the goals really are. So there is a difference, obviously, between Netanyahu and previous prime ministers who are actually interested in the Oslo peace process, etc. But a lot of the sort of bedrock direction of Israel has not really changed. It's just that the U.S. political class and especially Joe Biden has constructed some fantasy Israel that has really never existed in his head and certainly does not exist today. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved

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Angelica Ross. We ready to fight? I'm ready to fight. And Gabrielle Yoon. Hi, George. And storytellers with wisdom to spare. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So let's move on to the ICJ hearings, which started this morning. So let me explain a little bit of how this is going to work and a little bit of the context and backstory here. In fact,

if we can put up the Reuters tear sheet first here, guys, that gives some of the context, and then I'll get to a little bit of playing some of the sound from the hearing. So this is via Haaretz. Reuters reports that South Africa and Israel are exchanging allegations on the eve of hearings at the UN's top court, which will hear South Africa's claim that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza war. They're going to hold sessions on Thursday and Friday in a case brought in late December accusing Israel of failing to uphold its obligations under the 1948 Genocide Convention. Okay, on the South African side, they are saying, as a people who once tasted the bitter fruits of dispossession, discrimination, racism, and state-sponsored violence, we are clear

that we will stand on the right side of dispossession, discrimination, racism, and state-sponsored violence, we are clear that we will stand on the right side of history. An Israeli government spokesperson responded that the state of Israel will appear before the ICJ to dispel South Africa's absurd blood libel as Pretoria gives political and legal cover to the Hamas rapist regime. There will be a panel of 17 judges, including South Africa and Israel, can both appoint one judge themselves. Those are called ad hoc justices. And each judge represents a different nation. Actually, the U.S. judge is sort of leading the proceedings. And a ruling on the provisional measures could be expected later this month.

So what they're arguing right now is not the merits of the case. They're trying to meet a legal standard of it is plausible that genocide is being committed here, that it's plausible. And South Africa is pushing for effectively an injunction where the ICJ would order Israel to cease all activities that are furthering the harm of the Palestinian people. Now, Israel is a signatory to the Genocide Convention. The U.S. is a signatory to the Genocide Convention. And although our complicity here won't be a center of these hearings, you know, there are clear follow-on ramifications for us

since we are the ones supplying Israel with these bombs. So we are not an uninvolved party here. This morning, you had South Africa presenting their side of the case. I did a breakdown over the weekend of the 84-page filing that they had submitted to the court, giving their analysis of both the actions that are being taken that they say are consistent with violation of the Genocide Convention, as well as statements from various ministers, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, various defense ministers as well, and soldiers, rank-and-file soldiers on the ground that they say demonstrate genocidal intent as well.

So that's sort of the backstory here. This morning, we got to hear South Africa's case that they are making for this injunction. Let's take a listen to a little bit of that. In the first three weeks alone, following 7 October, Israel deployed 6,000 bombs per week. At least 200 times, it has deployed 2,000 pound bombs in southern areas of Palestine designated as safe. These bombs have also decimated the north, including refugee camps. Two thousand pound bombs are some of the biggest and most destructive bombs available. They are dropped by lethal fighter jets that are used to strike targets on the ground by one of the world's most resourced armies. Israel has killed an unparalleled and unprecedented number of civilians with the full knowledge of how many civilian lives each bomb will take.

So, Sagar, I actually watched these hearings this morning. South Africa had a number of different individuals making the case. Israel will make their case in defense of these allegations tomorrow, so I'll make sure to tune into that as well so we can break that down for you too. Many of the numbers, statistics, the facts about the percentage of the killings that are women and children, the amount of destruction, the imposition of a siege, which has led to hunger, starvation conditions, and also the lack of medical supplies, the complete collapse of the health care system. We've covered a lot of this extensively on the show, so you'll be familiar with a lot of the arguments that are laid out here. They also spent quite a bit of time talking about the various statements that, as I mentioned before, they claim establish intent. They spent, in particular, a lot of time on comments that we played at the beginning of the war when Netanyahu himself compared the Palestinians

to Amalek, biblical foes of Israel, who they are charged with destroying in their entirety, including the camel, including the oxen, including the suckling, etc., etc. And then they showed how soldiers on the ground took these comments seriously. And we are told that part of Israel's defense will be, oh, these comments, people are just popping off. They don't really mean it. You know, this is just populist rhetoric that doesn't really mean, they don't really mean what they're saying. And yet they showed soldiers who are on the ground repeating the words of

Netanyahu and then using that justification to enact and celebrate war crimes that they're committing there on the ground. So I thought that connection was sort of novel and something that, a case that I hadn't seen fully fleshed out before. Yeah, I mean, when I was reading through, so the Article 2 of the convention, I know you went through this, but Article 2, Part C,

is deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part. The biggest problem they have is actually a lot of the, this is really fascinating to think because so many turning points happened from October 7 prior to the actual invasion. And the implication of putting on that siege of all of Gaza and eventually then bargaining about right of return for people in exchange for hostages, that seems to me like the biggest problem that they're going to have. We should also, though, be honest here in terms of what the ICJ and all of that implication is. They have no

enforcement mechanism. So this is the bigger problem with the entire United Nations. It's like I was reading that in 2004, the ICJ said that the fence between Gaza and Israel needs to be taken down. Okay, well, it's still up. Nobody can do anything about that. To a certain extent, you know, the UN and international law and all that other stuff is fake because it all comes down to the enforcement. But on another extent, in a rules-based technical international order, at least allegedly, what matters more is becoming a pariah state and losing your overall trading relationships. And this is something you and I were talking about a little bit before. But if you do look at the largest top 15 trade partners of Israel, number one is the United States, but number two is Germany. Number two, number five,

or whatever, is France. Huge number of G7 nations in there. And the rest of the G7, they're much more likely to take something like this seriously, specifically because if you think about it, the European Union and many of these other European countries are much more subject to respecting multilateralism, international institutions than the U.S. is. So they may not lose their number one, but if they, let's say, have a 40% reduction in trade or maybe 30% or whatever, that's still devastating to the overall economy, not to mention visa rights. You know, Israeli citizens are all over the world. I mean, what if they're not able to travel? Freedom of, you know, moving about and all that. That's

massive implications. You know, it's an underrated part of being an American is you can mostly just land in whatever country you want. But if you're Israeli, I mean, that could be a big problem for you. Ask a Russian, you know, what it's like to fly through Istanbul today. That's exactly right. I think that's the biggest problem of this. Well, you know, you can say whatever, Yugoslavia. I mean, it took forever to even try and bring those people to justice, and their country didn't even exist anymore. Or if we think about Rwanda or some of the other fallouts from there. Israel is a powerful nation.

They have the sponsorship of the global superpower. They won't face any real, like, quote- real like quote unquote actual consequences even if they were to be found guilty. But in the soft power realm, I certainly think this could be a big problem. My initial reaction when I saw South Africa's filing was like, okay, that's nice, but it's not gonna matter at all. Yeah. Right, because I mean, we see the US and our allies, we operate with impunity.

We make the rules, we ignore them when it's convenient. We try to weaponize them when it's convenient, when it's against our adversaries. We see the way that this plays out. And nowhere is that more the case than with Israel, as you're pointing out, historically, for many years at this point. What sort of changed my thinking about like, oh, this could actually, this could have some bite, was the Israeli reaction. Yeah. Because they started putting out these sort of panicked missives, urgent cables to their embassies around the world, trying to get countries to come on board and issue

these statements very similar to the statements our government was making about how this is meritless and it's anti-Semitic and et cetera, et cetera. So that showed me that they were concerned about it. The fact that they're even going to defend themselves shows a measure of seriousness about it. And then you think about it, okay, well, what do they have to lose? As you said, Sarah, I mean, France has already said they're going to abide by whatever the ruling is here. So, you know, we're kind of on an island in terms of our willingness to just flagrantly

disregard what the ICJ rules. And even with us, you know, we have laws on the books like the Leahy Act that are designed to prevent US weapons from going to massacre civilians. And so even though our State Department is saying like, oh, we're not going to look into whether there are any war crimes here, but we don't think there are and we're just going to continue business as usual. Actually, we're going to expedite these weapon shipments. It gives those who are dissenting voices a tool to use to try to compel and try to pressure the U.S. government Joe Biden himself and to force a different direction. So it gives U.S. dissidents a tool to use. And, you know, Israel is a global nation. It is very proud of its high-tech sector. It is very reliant and very

covetous of foreign direct investment. This has been an incredibly important part of building Israel into a truly first-world developed economy. And so for them to face the prospect of becoming like South Africa was in the waning days of apartheid, this sort of pariah nation, where no longer this is what they said in Haaretz and in Abed Haaretz. Listen, no longer are people talking about us as occupiers. They're talking about us as genocide with the words ethnic cleansing, with the words genocide. This is a very different deal.

So those things have apparently impressed the Israelis as being serious and being significant. We can put up on the screen, this actually list has changed the number of countries that are supporting South Africa's case here. This number rose overnight. But as of yesterday, you had Malaysia, Turkey, Jordan, Bolivia, Venezuela, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Maldives, Namibia, Nicaragua. You had Brazil join overnight. And significantly, you had the Arab League, which includes Saudi Arabia, very noteworthy here,

joining on to this case. So I believe there are 13 countries individually signing on to the case. And then you have the Arab League. And there's another Islamic country association that includes 57 different nations that have signed on as well. And apparently, Sagar, the reason they do it that way is to try to avoid the greatest opprobrium from the United States of America. But think about Saudi. I mean, this is, Israel and Saudi have been the bedrock of our Middle Eastern policy forever. And obviously, we have this tight-knit relationship with the Saudis. We give them tons of money as well. They were this close to normalizing relations with Israel before October 7th, and now they're signing on to a case of genocide against Israel at the ICJ. That is a

dramatic turn of events. The two most important ones that are listed, number one is actually Turkey. Turkey is one of their largest trading partners. Netanyahu and BBEs actually have a decent relationship, and they are a member of NATO. That's why that one matters. I would actually say they're probably the most important. Saudi Arabia and the Arab League is going to be number two. The reason why is that currently the U.S. plan for bringing an end to the war is to have Saudi Arabia normalize relations with Israel officially as a continuation of the Abraham Accords, and then also include some sort of language about a two-state solution. So if, I mean, you can't really say that you're going to normalize relations with somebody if you say they're also committing genocide. So

it's going to be a little bit of a difficulty. It's going to be uncomfortable. I think a problem demonstrates also some of the Gordian knot I think that these people are in. And to underscore that, I also agree, and before we're about to play this, it's Bibi basically walking back some of the things that have been said in Israeli society, is something that occurred to me when you were talking is, Israel doesn't even have to become a pariah state. I have to be sensitive in the way I talk about this, but let's be honest. The worst thing for Israel is for them to be a normal state. What have they always been? They've been the home of the Jews post the genocide by the Nazi regime, which has imbued them, I think, let's all be honest, with special status in the way that

they were talked about in the United States. Very, very difficult, you know, conflation of saying anti-Semitism is anti-Zionism. And one of the things that they often reach for is they're like, well, our ancestors were killed by the Nazis, which has imbued them kind of with a special character where they've been able to brush off criticism, I think, for some 70-part year of their history. I know this is very sensitive, but I think we have to be real about the way that they've been able to have that. The imbue around them of the post-Nazi era was such that it gave them almost like a moral standing. If they're just elevated to what I've always wanted to treat Israel as, which is any other country, pluses and minuses of our relationship with anybody else, well, I think that's the biggest problem, is that if they're just bumped down

from special status to normal status, well, that's actually a big change in their global position for a long time. And as you said, their economy, I mean, it's not America. They've got big problems. They're surrounded on all sides. Yeah, high-tech sector is great, but you've got to sell it to somebody. And you can sell it to America, but America's not the whole world. You've got to import a lot of oil. You have, you know, obviously you've got surrounded by the Red Sea. They've had hostile partners for quite some time, but they roughly were able to reach some sort of middle ground. I think they threw a lot of that away, and they don't really think about really think about what does Israeli society look like in 25 years. I think that is a fundamentally different question post-October 7th, which is a problem for them. But let's play a little bit of

what Bibi Netanyahu said yesterday. Keep this in mind, in English, tweeted out by the Israel account. Clearly this is targeted to America and to the world. Here's what he had to say. I want to make a few points absolutely clear. Israel has no intention of permanently occupying Gaza or displacing its civilian population. Israel is fighting Hamas terrorists, not the Palestinian population. And we are doing so in full compliance with international law. The IDF is doing its utmost to minimize civilian casualties, while Hamas is doing its utmost to maximize them by using Palestinian civilians as human shields.

The IDF urges Palestinian civilians to leave war zones by disseminating leaflets, making phone calls, providing safe passage corridors, while Hamas prevents Palestinians from leaving at gunpoint, and often with gunfire. Our goal is to rid Gaza of Hamas terrorists and free our hostages. Once this is achieved, Gaza can be demilitarized and de-radicalized, thereby creating a possibility for a better future for Israel and Palestinians alike. Pretty shocking actually to hear that in English. I mean, it actually hasn't said that in a long time. We went back and looked. And I don't think it's a coincidence necessarily,

Crystal, that it does come the day before the beginning of these genocide proceedings. But I also think a huge part of this is American domestic politics is that Biden, apparently behind the scenes, what I was reading yesterday is that Blinken went there and Jake Sullivan and others with a message to Ben Gavir and others like, you guys got to cut this out. Like, you guys keep saying this stuff and especially putting out these tweets and all that screwing us in English. What are we supposed to do? I mean, you're causing big problems for us back in America because everybody knows how

to use Google Translate and everybody can read. So this was a message. Effectively, what is he? He's, I wouldn't say he's disavowing per se, because he's the master of saying things in English and saying very different things in Hebrew. But it's different. He hasn't said it before. It hasn't really been something that he said since around October 15th. And the reason why is because he has such immense pressure from his right flank. Ironically, this type of statement, which probably is better off for Israel in the long run in terms of their international standing,

makes his domestic political situation much more precarious. I don't know, though, if Ben-Gavir and if these others, or Smotrich, would be willing to force him out specifically for then disavowing their stated desire to reoccupy and settle Gaza. Yeah, it's very hard to say. I suppose that we don't know what he's telling them behind the scenes. Like, listen, I gotta tell the Americans. I mean, he famously was caught on a hot mic a while ago, like, I know how to handle the Americans. Don't worry about it. So in contrast to these statements, we have a raft of reporting about how he wants to, quote, thin out the population of Gaza, about how the preferred outcome is to push them out into the Sinai Desert, about how they want to pressure the US to leverage our aid dollars to regional countries to pressure them into accepting refugees.

We have reporting that they have been in active talks with the government of Congo about accepting refugees. So, the reporting that exists and the statements not just of Smotrich and Ben-Gavir, but other Likud party members, other ministers in his own government are directly at odds with these comments. So I would not take them all that seriously in terms of their content. I think the timing of them that you're pointing to, Sagar, is what's so significant here. Both that you had the US political class so humiliated and embarrassed by the fact that Ben-Gavir and Smotrich were just so brazen in what they're saying and repeatedly saying and making incredibly clear that ethnic cleansing is their goal, that they even felt the need to put

out this statement of like, listen, that's not, we don't support that. But also that's not the stated, you know, that's not the policy of the Israeli government. Well, there was no evidence that that wasn't the policy of the Israeli government. So perhaps the Israelis were pressured by Blinken or Biden, who actually hasn't talked to Netanyahu apparently in 20 days, but by Blinken and others to put out some sort of ass covering statement. And then I do think the fact that this comes the day before the ICJ trial commences is no accident. I mean, this is almost like cramming for the test the night before. And you saw some other comments like this coming out from Israeli government officials trying to tell us war crimes. Of course not. Of course, we're not at war with the Palestinian civilians.

Very different from the seed of Amalek. These are human animals and they'll be treated as such. This we want Nakba 2023, very different from the sort of comments that we have heard throughout this conflict, which again, I think shows that while the ICJ doesn't have any enforcement mechanism, apparently Israel is at least somewhat concerned with what they may rule in this case. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders.

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Listen to Outlaws with T.S. Madison on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, honey. This Pride Month, we are not just celebrating. We're fighting back. I'm Georgiam Johnson, and my book, All Boys Aren't Blue, was just named the most banned book in America. If the culture wars have taught me anything, it's that pride is protest. And on my podcast, Fighting Words, we talk to people who use their voices to resist, disrupt, and make our community stronger.

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Angelica Ross, and Gabrielle Yoon, and storyt? I'm ready to fight. And Gabrielle Yoon. Hi, George. And storytellers with wisdom to spare. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What might happen here? Because as much as we would love to imagine that this court is just going to look at the case, rule on the merits, we all know, just like in American context, politics reigns supreme. And that's why the big

Israeli push prior to this hearing was to pressure countries around the world. And so, you know, there's, we wanted to present you with both a counter argument that, you know, the ICJ will probably find that Israel is not plausibly committing genocide and will rule against South Africa. And also an argument that, no, we actually think on the merits they are going to side with South Africa. In this case, let's see, which one of these do we have first? Is it Norm we've, of course, had on the show multiple times, who is, you know, life like his entire adult life has been spent devoted to this cause and understanding the nuances of it. He is actually very pessimistic that the ICJ is going to side with South Africa because of the politics I was just alluding to. Let's take a listen to a bit of that.

So on the merits, I would say they make a plausible case. But these things are never decided by the merits. They're not decided by the law. They're decided by politics. You can't get around that. And so what do you have now? The ICJ consists of 15 judges. The 15 judges members. They have representatives on the ICJ. So you think to yourself, oh, great. Okay, we lose with the US for sure. We lose with the UK for sure. France is a question mark, given the statements it's been making about what's going on in Gaza. I would call it a question mark. And then we say, oh, great. We have one question mark, and then we have Russia and China.

And you think, okay, we have Russia and China on our side. Well, Russia is now being challenged or accused of genocide in Ukraine. And that's a pending case in the ICC, the International Criminal Court. So do they want to open up the Pandora's box of that genocide convention, which might backfire of genocide against the Uyghurs. So do they want to open up the Pandora's box of the genocide convention and it's used against them? I would say very unlikely. So right now we have one of five, which is France, maybe, maybe. Then Germany's on this year. They'd vote for it. They'd be worse than Israel on it. They would vote for the genocide.

So he's doing the math there and saying, eh, based on the politics. I mean, I think he's right. Doesn't look great. Every single thing he laid out, especially with Russia and China and the contravening interest as to why both don't want to open that thing up. I think it's certainly- I mean, the only question on that one is, you know, they're not afraid of being hypocrites either in plenty of instances. So do they see this more as a way to thumb their nose at the US? Poke us in the eye? You know, do they want to posture like, oh, look, they've, you look, the US has dropped the ball on being the

arbiters of international law and standing up for humanitarian rights. So we're picking up the ball. We're the real beacons of humanitarianism in the world. I think that's possible. But I also think that Norm's analysis is very possible as well. Certainly. We have the counter case. Yeah. So international law expert Francis Boyle, I played this on CounterPoints yesterday, but I wanted to highlight it as well. He's argued successfully at the ICJ multiple times, in fact, and specifically on the Genocide Convention. So he is like probably the most expert person on this that you could possibly imagine. And he believes quite strongly that South Africa will win this order against Israel.

Let's take a listen to a bit of his analysis. I was the first lawyer ever to win anything under the Genocide Convention from the International Court of Justice that goes back to 1921. won two world court orders for the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina against Yugoslavia to cease and desist from committing all acts of genocide. And based on my careful review of all the documents so far submitted by the Republic of South Africa, I believe South Africa will win an order against Israel to cease and desist from committing all acts of genocide against the Palestinians. And under Article 1 of the Genocide Convention, all contracting parties, 153 states, will then be obliged, quote, to prevent, unquote, the genocide by Israel against the Palestinians. Second, when the World Court gives this cease and desist order against Israel, the Biden administration will stand condemned under Article 3, Paragraph E of the Genocide Convention that criminalizes

complicity in genocide. So he basically makes the case like, listen, based on my expert opinion and historic knowledge of the cases I've argued, this is even more clear cut than the victories he's been able to obtain. And Sagar, I think he points out something really important argued, this is even more clear cut than the victories he's been able to obtain. And Sagar, I think he points out something really important there, which is worth underscoring. That is, if there is an order issued here from the court against Israel, that order isn't just about what Israel has to do. It's also that all signatories, of which we are actually a signatory here, must act to try to prevent the genocidal acts. And that's, I guess, the quote unquote enforcement mechanism.

It's obviously dependent on those countries actually doing the thing that they're supposed to do. But that's why there's sort of broader implications here. I have no idea, right? I am total novice in understanding the workings of the ICJ. I have no idea just how nakedly political it is, what happens behind the scenes, what the precedents are. I really can only take the opinions of people I respect like Francis Boyle and Norman Finkelstein. So there you go,

those are the cases on either side. Yeah, my cynic's heart is with Norm. I know. In general, betting on cynicism has worked out well for me in politics here, everywhere, and I don't know. I don't see a world where anyone allows this to happen. But hey, who the hell knows? We'll see. It could be totally wrong. We will see what happens. And just last thing on this, in terms of the timing, I mean, they're having hearings today, tomorrow, some hearings over the weekend, and then the expectation is that they will rule on this temporary injunction in the next couple of weeks, then there will be an argument on the

merits. That will take multiple years, likely, based on how this has played out in the past. But we actually should know in a couple of weeks what happens with this specific case. This Pride Month, we are not just celebrating. We're fighting back. I'm George M. Johnson, author of the most banned book in America. On my podcast, Fighting Words, I sit down with voices that spark resistance and inspire change. This year, we are showing up and showing out. You need people being like, no, you're not what you tell us what to do. This regime is coming down on us.

And I don't want to just survive. I want to thrive. Fighting Words is where courage meets conversation. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is your girl T.S. Madison and I'm coming to you loud, live

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