Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 1/26/24 Trita Parsi on the Significance of the ICJ Ruling

Episode Date: February 2, 2024

Trita Parsi talks to Scott about the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) ruling in South Africa’s case that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Parsi argues that this is a huge blow to Israel and that it puts the Biden Administration in a very difficult position. Discussed on the show: “ICJ lands stunning blow on Israel over Gaza genocide charge” (Responsible Statecraft) The ICJ Order Trita Parsi is the Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and the author of Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran and the Triumph of Diplomacy. Parsi is the recipient of the 2010 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. Follow him on Twitter @tparsi. This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Moon Does Artisan Coffee; Roberts and Robers Brokerage Incorporated; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; Libertas Bella; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott. Get Scott’s interviews before anyone else! Subscribe to the Substack. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show. I'm the director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of anti-war.com, author of the book, Fool's Aaron, Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and The Brand New, Enough Already, Time to End the War on Terrorism. And I've recorded more than 5,500 interviews since 2004. almost all on foreign policy and all available for you at scothorton dot for you can sign up the podcast feed there and the full interview archive is also available at youtube.com slash scott horton's show all right you guys special friday episode of the show this week it's treata parcy he is of course as i'm always telling you the author of treacherous alliance and also other books but especially treacherous alliance and he is the co-founder and vice president at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. And thank goodness for that.

Welcome back to this show. How are you? Doing well. How are you? I'm doing good, man. So early this morning, our time, the 26th of January, that is, the International Court of Justice issued their ruling, or at least a ruling, I should say, regarding South Africa. case against Israel for what they call genocide in the Gaza Strip. And so, I guess just on the very face of it, all the critics are claiming victory,

except for some who say they're disappointed, it's a sellout. And on the other side, Netanyahu and his government ministers are saying it doesn't mean anything to them. They can do whatever they want. The Hague Schmeag said, I forget the foreign minister, I think it was. and the Jerusalem Post and the New York Times and many other publications are saying, aha, well, they didn't order Israel to stop, so that's a victory for Israel. And so all of these people violently disagree about what it says in that opinion and what it all means,

treat us, so set us all straight. Obviously, everyone's going to try to spin it their own way, but trying to spin this as some sort of a victory for Israel is, I mean, it's Baghdad Bob level of self-delusion. On everything except for the request, the explicit request, that the court orders a ceasefire, the South Africans won, and they won with overwhelming. margins. But at the same time, if you take a look at what the court is ordering, it's next to impossible for Israel to achieve it without a ceasefire. So in practice, what the implications of the case is, is that it will have to go towards a ceasefire. On the more important aspect for a longer-term matter, which is, did the South Africans show enough evidence that there is a plausible case to be made that what Israel is engaging in right now does constitute genocide,

then clearly the South Africans won because the court did not dismiss the case, ask for more evidence, it's going to do his own investigation, but said that the evidence that has been provided so far has been so convincing that they even ordered South Africa to prosecute its own senior politicians who have been issuing statements that are genocidal. interesting you mean that includes you know minister post in the israeli government you said south africa but you meant israel there i'm sorry i mean it meant israel yeah just make sure um this is you know at the end of the day this is a huge huge blow to israel and just to put it in context i think you and i have talked about this a little bit in in the past you know the israelis

have gone to great lengths trying to prevent the spread of bDS the boyd s the boy call divestment and sanctions movement, you know, to the point that they've actually successfully outlawed in several U.S. states. And there's a clear question as to whether that's actually constitutional. They made sure, for instance, I think it is in Texas, you cannot get a government contract unless you sign a form saying that you will never boycott Israel. They didn't do this because the boycott divestment and sanctions movement was going to have a particularly impactful negative consequences for the Israeli economy. They did so because they saw it as a way that would delegitimize Israel. Well, nothing delegitimizes Israel more than having the

International Court of Justice essentially agreeing with South Africa that what is happening in Gaza right now can constitute genocide using South Africa's own actions and sorry Israel's own actions and statements as evidence for that and going forward with a fuller investigation this is a complete PR and diplomatic disaster for Israel and in extension for the United States because we under the Biden administration are obviously the ones that are enabling Israel to do what it is doing in Gaza and actively actively blocked the rest of the world from pushing for a ceasefire.

Yeah. All right. Forgive me. I have to add a little disclaimer here. I'm against the UN and the whole UN system, the post-war, so-called collective security and rules-based international order. Because why? Because America is the world government. Without the United States to enforce all this, it doesn't really mean anything, which is something that actually you bring up in your article here.

Oh, which I mean to say, by the way. that aside, all other things being equal, Israel is a signatory to the UN Charter and to the Genocide Convention and to the International Court of Justice, you know, structure and whatever. So all other things being equal, they've signed up to be subject to this international law. But it does leave us in a position where I think, as you say, well, now is Joe Biden going to veto this on the UN Security Council and say, you know, all of their prescriptions here? Their injunctions that they're imposing are null and void and that Israel can go ahead. And then what does that mean for the rules-based order when they do that? Because the answer, I think, is probably yes, right? Yeah, I mean, this is, again, interestingly enough, we looked into it.

And the Biden administration, senior officials have more or less stopped using the term rules-based international order since October 7th. They use it almost daily as long as their focus was on Ukraine. But now when we have Gaza in the mix, I think they themselves recognize that the depth, the magnitude of the double standard is just too great, that they just essentially stopped using the term. In fact, on Twitter this morning, on Twitter this morning, you wrote that in the previous cases of Myanmar, Ukraine and Syria, the U.S. has stressed that ICJ provisional measures are binding and must be fully empty. That's the U.S. talking about this particular court when things are going their way. Exactly. So this is also something that, you know, other countries have been looking to, which is going back to what you mentioned earlier on about the U.S. system as a whole. If the courts only actually are effective when it is prosecuting countries that are at odds with the United States, then obviously that is not satisfactory since at the end of the day, the United States and its allies are also.

also prolific violators of human rights and commit crimes that are highly problematic. This was in many ways a test for the court itself to see with such overwhelming evidence, would it follow the law or would it be politically swayed to essentially use a different standard here? The court seems to have lived up to the standards they need to live up to. The question is, will the United States now live up to the same standards? Yeah. Well, it's a pretty safe bet that they're going to veto it, right? They're not going to go against it.

If it goes forward and it's calling for a ceasefire, it seems pretty clear that the administration will do so. But even if it's a different variation of it, it's going to be very interesting to see how the administration handles this. I can assure you, I would be shocked if anyone in the White House on October 8th had envisioned and predicted that this is where. the US would end up being three months into this conflict because look how isolated we are right now in the world and we will be even more so if we end up being the only country that is essentially trying to block the ICJ particularly after you know the US's position on all of these other cases in regards to and I think it's also very important to recognize another factors here, which I think you and I have talked a lot about in the past, which is, ultimately,

when the United States is providing such a blank check to some of its partners, is it good for the U.S. and is it even good for those states? Because here we have a situation in which the U.S. provided a complete blank check, no public criticism of Israeli conduct, some very, very meek private criticism that clearly didn't amount to anything. And what did the Israelis do? They just completely berserk and they've acted in such a way that the court has now found them preliminarily engaging in genocide imagine if the united states had actually had a much more measured approach to this had provided some support to israel but had pushed back hard against israeli excesses we would not be in a situation today most likely in which the court would have

found israel potentially being liable for genocide so this is i think a direct consequence as well of how we have approaches. So ironically, perhaps paradoxically, this massive amount of support Biden has provided to Israel has actually been bad for Israel, and it's certainly bad for the United States. Yeah, absolutely. Well, hey, y'all, Scott here. Let me tell you about Roberts and Roberts Brokerage, Inc. Who knew? Artificial bank credit expansion leads to price inflation and terribly distorted markets. If you've got any savings left at all, you need to protect them. put some at least into precious metals. Well, Roberts and Roberts can set you up with the best deals on silver, gold, platinum, and palladium, and they've been doing this since 1977. Hey, if you just

need some sound advice about sound money, they're there for you too. Call Tim Fry and the guys at 800, 874-970. That's 800-874-970, or check them out at r-rbi.com. That's R-RBI.co. That's rbi.co. You'll be glad you did. Hey, y'all, you should sign up for my substack. It's Scott Horton's show.substack.com, and if you do that, you'll get the interviews a day before everybody else, but not only that, they'll be free of commercials. How do you like that? Pretty good, huh? Scott Hortonshow.substack.com. Hey, y'all, libertosbella.com is where you get Scott Horton's show and Libertarian Institute shirts, sweatshirts, mugs, and stickers and things, including the great

top lobstas designs as well. See, that way it says on your shirt, why you're so smart. Libertasbella, from the same great folks who bring you ammo.com for all your ammunition needs, too. That's libertasbella.com. You know, when we say it facetiously, Israel first, but that is what it means. And for Biden's own politics, too, everywhere he goes now, even where his people go now. They got the left attacking from the left. and over this issue

more than any other thing and it very well could cost him the presidency. Like every Muslim in Michigan has got their arms folded across their chest. Lost my vote and so this is you know Israel, pardon me

the phrase America first, it sounds kind of selfish. I think we may have talked about this before but remember where that came from was David Sanger was trying to frame Donald Trump as an anti-Semite because that was supposed to associate him with Charles Lindbergh. But the problem is nobody even knows that Charles Lindberg is the hero who flew across the ocean, much less that he was accused of being an

anti-Semite, which he was said some bad things sometimes. But it didn't work. When he hung it around Trump's neck, Trump was like, hey, America first. That sounds pretty good. And the American people are like, yeah. And that does, it means defend America first. It doesn't mean be a selfish jerk and do whatever you want and violate other people's rights. It means leave the world alone. And here we're really talking about putting Israel first where America's entire standing, even from the empire's own point of view, is being severely undermined here from, as you're saying, giving a blank check to this brutality and right in front of everyone on Twitter and Instagram and everything, where everyone can see

what's going on. Yeah. I mean, look, Biden, you know, came in and said that he's going to restore America's standing internationally. And I think it would be fair to say that two of a very logic stand he had succeeded in doing so up until october 7 yeah by starting a war in ukraine they love that in europe you know yeah i mean you and i can agree uh on our disagreements with biden uh on ukraine however um it's it's it's not inaccurate in my view to say that it certainly restored the u s standing in europe in some other quarters in the world perhaps not in the majority But, you know, it's incomparable to where the U.S. is standing is now, given how Biden has acted on this specific issue and it's just getting worse and worse because on the very same day that this ruling comes out, the U.S. announces that it's going to cut funding to the U.N. mission in Gaza that is providing an overwhelming amount of resources, food, education to children in Gaza. Yeah, because they say, and do you know anything about this story?

They claim that two members of it were somehow involved in the October the 7th attack? I don't know the details, but even if that is true, we're talking about two members in an organization that has thousands of thousands of people. And, you know, it seems to me just to an excuse for them to do something to please the Israelis on this. If I'm not mistaken, this is also what Trump did, and then Biden restored it, and now it's doing this. I mean, it's frankly painful and embarrassing to watch how many of their policies are shifting back to identical policies that the Trump administration pursued, policies that they severely criticized when Trump was pursuing it, and now they're pursuing it themselves. Yeah, Trump should just say that. I'm running on, I'm going to restore America standing in the world after four years of Joe Biden. Now, so, Trita, can we go through a little bit of the details here about what they found?

because some of the language is pretty stark here about, you know, preliminarily, it looks like you could conclude that they're seeking genocide. And they explicitly order the Israelis to cease doing what all. And there's a list, but it's only four or five different things that they stipulate here, right? It is. I actually, I don't have it in front of me. But as I, you know, they have to make sure that aid is coming in. They have to make sure that they are avoiding, targeting civilians, children, they have to come in with a report within 30 days that declares and provides evidence that they have achieved doing all of these different things. And that's where I think the South African foreign minister made the argument that none of these things actually can be achieved

without a ceasefire. So even short of explicitly calling for a ceasefire, in practice, Israel has to go along with a ceasefire in order to be able to meet the demands of the court. And even at one point they say they like issue an injunction against destroying any evidence that may be necessary later. Yeah. So that was a pretty big one. And then so when they write. But also, you know, they're, you know, they reminded Israel in the court that its ruling is binding and that Israel has to prosecute its own officials. Many of them are seen as the moderates within the net.

Tanyahu government that have made clear genocidal statements, such as calling all the gardens human animals. And under this convention, those statements by government officials are criminal incitements to genocide. It's not the same as some schmuck with a blog or a podcast. These are government officials and essentially giving orders, right? We've seen where Netanyahu, when he gave a speech where he called the Palestinians Amalek, but he also said that in a message to the troops, who apparently internalized that, you know, logic, that the entire population of Gaza is one guilty thing to kill. So, yeah. So does that mean, wait, do they say that? You got to prosecute these people?

Because that would include the prime minister then. I don't know if they call out the prime minister himself, but others, they did. Let me see if I can quickly find that for you. I mean, it really is stunning. And again... Oh, you're right. It does say that. Number 79.

The court is also of the view that Israel must take all measures within its power to prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to commit genocide in relation to members of the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip. And then it lists Yuav Galant, who said human animals, Isaac Herzog, which obviously is seen as a significant moderate, an entire nation is responsible. Israel Katz said they will not receive the drop of water, which again is a war crime to deprive them of water.

So, you know, this is extremely problematic for the Israelis. And even if they manage to ignore large parts of it, just as much as the term apartheid increasingly is publicly being used to describe Israel, I suspect that if the Israelis are not doing a good faith effort to actually abide by the court rulings, we're increasingly also going to hear the term genocidal as being a description of the Israeli state unless the Israelis change course. Okay, one more question before I let's go. You can talk a little bit about the major media, the TV, and the papers.

There have been some reports even in the Washington Post, which I guess there's a younger generation of reporters at the Washington Post who maybe could be expected to be like this a bit. But, you know, the Wall Street Journal did a thing, Trita, that said, this is like Hamburg and Dresden and Tokyo. This is like Truman at his absolute most Hilarian right here. And this is what they're doing to these people of this poor ghetto. Like they're the Third Reich? Come on. And that's in the Wall Street Journal. And then I saw this thing today.

I'm skipping a few here, but for the sake of the question, today Clarissa Ward, who is a reliable handmaiden of the war party, going back to, say, Syria, for example, in Ukraine. absolute mouthpiece of the center left establishments point of view on you know whatever take it rush a gate whatever you got and she did a special here about i forget if it was three or four different circumstances where it's essentially a proven fact that the israelis murdered people with white flags including this old grandma or her mother and her little son uh or no while she was walking with her son. Yeah.

A grandson. Yeah. Oh, it was grandson, yeah. And so how meaningful is that? Do you think that this, there's a real shift here where the liberals are saying that, geez, the left kind of has a point about this.

Not that they're paying attention to libertarians or anything, but that maybe things really are, as you say, this is way worse than any bad publicity from 2014 or the BDS movement or something. This is light years beyond. the public relations situation that Israel was in before.

Absolutely. And again, we may be in a point right now in which there's going to take a bit of time for the mainstream media and the United States to actually adjust to this reality because you can just imagine the distance they have to adjust, right? But there's going to be adjustments. They're going to have to. They're not going to be able to continue to ignore this. I mean, it's the same thing as with apartheid.

remember it was extremely controversial but then suddenly you had the report from amnesty from the Israeli human rights organizations from human rights watch and it dramatically changed the discourse I think this will make that as well because this is not even an NGO we're talking about we're talking about a centerpiece of the very same international system um the u.s system that at the end of the day despite your opposition to it Scott um is impossible to ignore yeah all right well thank you very for your time, treated. Great to talk to you again. Thanks so much. Talk to you. Bye.

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