Judging Freedom - Amb. Craig Murray: Fallout From ICJ Ruling Against Israel

Episode Date: February 2, 2024

Amb. Craig Murray: Fallout From ICJ Ruling Against IsraelSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, February 1st, 2024. Craig Murray joins us now. Ambassador Murray is the former United Kingdom ambassador to Uzbekistan, now a world-renowned journalist. To refresh your memory, Ambassador Murray was our eyes and ears in the courtroom when the South African lawyers and then when the Israeli lawyers made their presentations to the International Court of Justice a few weeks ago. Ambassador, welcome back to the show. We deeply appreciate your time and your thoughts and your analysis. It's good to talk again.

Thank you. Thank you. The ICJ ruling, which didn't say as a matter of law there's genocide, which didn't say stop all military violence, but which did seem to say don't commit any genocide and report back to us in 30 days. Did that ICJ ruling burst the Israeli self-proclaimed bubble of moral rectitude? I think for most of the world, it did. I don't think there's been any sign of self-knowledge from the Israeli government or the settler movement or the extreme Zionists. There's no sign of admission of culpability or any feeling that they've done anything wrong coming from the Israeli authorities. But certainly it ended the perception of Israeli infallibility in the West. And it made a nonsense of people like Joe Biden saying that the claim is meritless when the ICJ said there was a plausible case of genocide have in any way been put off or are showing much sign of exercising any more caution.

Has the annihilation of the people and the land of Gaza abated at all since the ICJ ruling? No, not at all since the ICJ ruling? No, not at all. In fact, I think the very day after the ICJ ruling, over 250 Palestinians were killed, which is one of the highest daily totals. One of the interesting things about this genocide is how systematic it's been you know Israel claims this is a an armed conflict and normally in armed conflicts you get highs and lows in casualties as battles rage and the next one is prepared for but this hasn't been

like that if you look at the casualty figures and of course we only have confirmed casualties we don't know how many people lie dead under the rubble well over 10,000 people are now missing and probably dead under the rubble but if you look at the confirmed casualties, the toll is remarkably regular. It's 150 to 250 every single day. This is a systematic and planned killing of genocide, not spontaneous battles. Here's the South African foreign minister, not ecstatic with the ruling,

but giving her understanding of it, which Ambassador is substantially comparable to yours. I'm satisfied that the provisional measures that we sought to be addressed would be addressed by the court and I believe if you read the Convention very carefully the matter of how a war or conflict is conducted is not elaborated. I would have wanted that the word cessation is included in the judgment. I have no way that I'm going to say I'm disappointed. I hoped for it, but the fact of delivering humanitarian aid, the fact of taking measures that reduce the levels of harm against persons who have no role in what Israel is combating, for me, requires a ceasefire.

And I believe Israel would have to attend to how it conducts its search for the hostages and for those Hamas individuals who carried out the October 7 attack. What's the next step? I have never really been hopeful about Israel but Israel has very powerful friends who I hope will advise Israel that they should act. Sounds like that has fallen on deaf ears in Prime Minister Netanyahu's government. I fear that's true and of course we had at the weekend at least 10 members of his cabinet attending a conference of which the only subject of that conference was the decolonization of Gaza by Israel and the expulsion of a population of Gaza from the Gaza Strip.

It was a conference to promote ethnic clearing and genocide. And that was one third of the Israeli cabinet present at that conference. So, you know, plainly, this has had no effect on the behavior of the Israeli government in the short term. But then I think few of us believed it would. Here's a clip from that very rally, that very conference of which you speak. Now, these are the two most extreme, most fanatical members of the cabinet, Smotrich and Ben-Gavir, and they're addressing Prime Minister Netanyahu, who's not there.

They're speaking very passionately in Hebrew, and there are translations. I'll be anxious to hear your thoughts on this. Mr. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, I'm addressing you from this stage. It's a shame to wait another 19 years to understand that Gush Katith and northern Samaria must be returned. The responsibility of brave leadership

is to make courageous decisions. We are settling our land from width to length, courageous decisions. We are settling our land from width to length, controlling it and fighting terror always and bringing with God's help security to all of Israel. You know what the answer is. Without settlement, there is no security. You're not surprised to see this at all, are you? These two, by the way,

are the linchpins for, you know this, Prime Minister Netanyahu's government, because they bring in that extremist right-wing element, which gave him his coalition, the majority in the Knesset. So they're not only members of the cabinet, they're not only each an administrator of an administrative department in the executive branch of the Israeli government, they're also members of his war cabinet. Okay, your thoughts. Yeah, these are far-right racists from far-right racist parties, and it is extraordinary to me the way that Israel gets a free pass, particularly from the government of the United States and, of course, President Biden and President Biden's supporters, who would probably not support a far-right, fascist, racist-influenced government in any country except for Israel. And the International Court of Justice,

in saying that provisional measures were necessary and that Israel had to follow the law, also said Israel must stop and must punish statements of genocidal intent. And the International Court of Judgment, in its ruling, gave three examples of Israeli ministers making the lack of genuine response from the major Western powers to this obvious evidence of genocidal intent is really worrying. Well, you know, the United States has statutes that prohibit providing aid to countries that engage in genocide, war crimes, or are animated by racism. I mean, you could put Israel in all three of those categories. United States under the pretext of this is a national emergency for the national security of the United States bypasses the Congress and sends hundreds of millions of dollars

in aid there. So there obviously is a double standard. You put your finger right on it, Mr. Ambassador. Here's Prime Minister Netanyahu responding to the ICJ ruling. 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 7th, Hamas perpetrated the most horrific atrocities against the Jewish people since the Holocaust, and it vows to repeat these atrocities again and again and 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. Mr. Ambassador, he begins by saying Israel restates its commitment to international law. I

can't imagine any mature, intelligent observer taking that seriously or giving it one iota of credibility. I mean, it's plainly a nonsense. Israel today is continuing to kill hundreds of Palestinian civilians, including women and children, overwhelmingly women and children. The proportion of women, children, and male civilian non-combatant killed to Hamas members is overwhelming. And you can't say, oh, well, Hamas was using these people as human shields, so we had to kill 10 of them to get at one Hamas member. And there's no evidence

whatsoever but the vast majority of of bombs and missiles and shells that have killed these people killed any Hamas members it's indiscriminate you can't kill 15,000 children and say it was a targeted military operation. Plainly, it's in breach of international law. But one thing which worries me enormously is so many of his nonsensical remarks have been repeated by Western media and Western politicians, particularly the claim that somehow the International Court of Justice reaffirmed Israel's right to self-defense, because it most definitely did not. It nowhere

cites Israel's right to self-defense, except that it notes that Israel said that. It doesn't. And it then proceeds to ignore it completely in its judgment and deliberately and order Israel to stop killing Palestinians. It directly orders Israel to stop killing Palestinians. So the judgment does not say what Netanyahu says it says and what sadly we have seen leading Western politicians and a lot of the Western media pretending, it says. Do you think that by its ruling, telling Israel to stop or not to participate in genocide and report back in 30 days, who knows what kind of a sanitized report we're going to get? We'll see. But do you think by that ruling, the court either put the United States on notice or anticipates another complaint from South Africa or elsewhere that the United States government, by funding this genocide, is equally culpable under international law. It did, undoubtedly, and the court does mention complicity in genocide. And yesterday at the UN Security Council, South Africa mentioned complicity in genocide, and I noted that the foreign minister of Norway yesterday made a statement in which he said countries supplying

weapons to Israel are in danger of complicity in genocide. So that's clearly on the table. There was also a meeting of another UN committee yesterday, the Committee on the Inalienable Rights of Palestinians. And the South African ambassador spoke to that, giving a briefing, I was slightly disappointed because while she acknowledged and stated straight out that plainly Israel is not following the court judgment, she said that South Africa will wait and see what comes at the end of the month, in 20 days from now, to see what comes in the report, what Israel has to say for itself.

Whereas it would be open to South Africa to go back to the court and say, look, Israel is plainly not complying, you need to take more measures. South Africa's apparently not thinking of doing that. I don't know that might change in the next few days, but Western countries are definitely on notice that action against them for complicity may well follow. In the United States, the court ruling seems to have disappeared from the newspapers, so to speak, and even the websites.

Very few people talk about it. Is it still of current conversation in Western Europe or stated differently, how do the countries in Western Europe, where you are now, view the South Africa, the ICJ ruling and the Israelis thumbing their noses at it? Well, it differs across Europe. There's actually a split in Europe on this question at the moment. I should say that the ICJ ruling was never front page news across Western Europe, almost anywhere.

In the UK, it was almost entirely buried. Only the Financial Times gave it proper full coverage and front page coverage. All the other papers buried it. There was one mention on page 42 of Rupert Murdoch's The Times. That was the full coverage of the ICJ ruling by the Murdoch media. So they've done their best to bury it. And the BBC had a 90-second segment on the ICJ ruling.

The next day they led all their news bulletins with an eight-minute report on the Israeli allegations about UNRWA and the coordinated Western attempt to destroy UNRWA by stopping donations. So the bias of the media and political class debate couldn't be more plain. But there is a difference which is becoming apparent. France has been very critical of Israel's failure to comply with the ICJ ruling, whereas Germany has been entirely supportive of Israel and then of other states. There are some, I mentioned Norway, there's Ireland, Spain has announced it's doubling its aid to UNRWA. There's quite a substantial split on this issue

in Western Europe at the moment. Here's the American view of the ICJ ruling. You may record, we're going to play Admiral Kirby, who's the spokesperson for the president's National Security Council. He initially said when the complaint was filed that the Biden administration viewed it as meritless. He stood by that meritless contention even after the ruling. Here's cut number three. The fact of the matter is that IACJ has not dismissed the allegations against Israel with respect to genocide. They do believe that those allegations warrant further investigation and deliberation. So do you stand by the words that you used earlier this month to characterize those

allegations, that they are meritless, counterproductive, and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever? MR. Yes, ma'am. And what are you basing that off of if the U.N.'s top court believes that there is a plausible risk of genocide? They're specifically directing Israel to prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to commit genocide and, again, have not found that they are committing genocide. MR. But they do, they are not dismissing the case. And again have not found that they are committing genocide. They are not dismissing the case and they do believe they are committing genocide. We

have no indication that that's going on, Sabrina. We just have no indication that they are deliberately trying to exterminate the people of Gaza. Well, the ICJ specifically cited inflammatory statements that were made by Israel's defense minister referring to human, Gazans as human animals, the president of Israel saying the entire population of Gaza is responsible. Do you not see that as risking incitement? Comments like that are certainly also counterproductive and unhelpful. No question about that.

But we haven't seen indications that the Israeli defense forces are getting up out of the rack every day, putting their boots on the floor and saying that their design, their whole effort is to go exterminate the Palestinian people. They're trying to eliminate the threat that Hamas poses. Oh, boy. One wonders how he became an admiral. I mean, he's blind. I don't mean it literally. He's morally blind for the statements he just made. Ambassador, your thoughts? Yeah, I mean, I suppose you can believe he became an admiral because he plainly doesn't actually believe what he's saying. He's just standing there lying and he doesn't actually believe that. And I expect that kind of Machiavellian ability is necessary to rise that high up the ladder in the armed

forces. And one thing that really annoys me is, again, he stated, well, the court did not find there is genocide. Well, the court cannot find at this stage there is genocide. This is a hearing on,

this was a hearing on jurisdiction and standing to take the case and whether there is a plausible case. The court hasn't heard the evidence on both sides yet in full. The court made some findings of the evidence and announced the evidence they feel shows a plausible case. I believe in the United States legal system, this is called a hearing for probable cause. You can't make the substantive judgment on the case. So to claim that the court found there was no genocide, the court did not find there was no genocide. The court did not find either way,

but it found there was a plausible case that genocide was taking place and that there was enough risk of that to necessitate the court to issue orders to prevent it. Nicely put, Mr. Ambassador. What's your personal view as to where this goes next? Do you think that a wider war will come about because President Biden wants to run for re-election as a wartime president? You certainly don't see Netanyahu backing down, do you? I don't see Netanyahu backing down. I do think the ICJ ruling helps moderate opinion in the West. It will heal off some of the softer Western countries, if you like.

It will reduce the possible coalition of the United States as it wants to embark on the war. And the thing with embarking on wars is they're very popular if they're quick and successful. Whereas I think the American people would view Biden as having admired them in yet something else, again, that is endless and not going anywhere and has no claim aim. I can't believe Biden is mad enough to actually start a war with Iran, at least I hope not. Whether a more limited war, you know, an occupation of Yemen, but occupying Yemen has been a graveyard for imperial troops for centuries,

rather like Afghanistan. So that again would be a terrible thing to mire yourself into. It's very hard to see, it's hard to see any solace for the Palestinians, but it's also hard to see what precisely Biden hopes to gain or what the US administration hopes it's doing. If they hope the Israelis aren't going to do anything utterly outrageous by way of ethnic cleansing, they're wrong, because the Israelis are going to do that, and then they'll look stupid because the Israelis have done

what they told them not to do. I just don't see any sense in the American foreign policy here. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. I hope you can come back with us perhaps in two weeks or so when the Israeli report is due at the court. We'd love to have your analysis, or sooner, if events in that unfortunate, unhappy part of the world warrant. But thank you very much for your time, my friend. Of course. Another very, very astute analysis that I am very happy to share with you. At two o'clock Eastern today, Kyle Anzalone with our now weekly anti-war wrap-up. Who's writing about anti-war

activities around the world? At three o'clock, the great Professor John Mearsheimer, and at four o'clock Eastern, the intrepid, the inimitable Max Blumenthal. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.