Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 8/1/24 Jeremy Hammond on the ICJ’s Ruling Against Israel’s Occupation

Episode Date: August 6, 2024

Scott interviews Libertarian Institute Research Fellow Jeremy Hammond about the International Court of Justice’s recent ruling against Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory. He and Scott give some historical context to the ruling and the UN’s involvement in creating the situation between the Israelis and Palestinians in the first place. They also discuss the implications of the 2024 presidential election on American Israeli policy, the absurdity of labeling Israel a democracy and more.  Discussed on the show: “ICJ Declares Israel’s Occupation Illegal” (Libertarian Institute) “If Israel’s Apologists Insist ‘From the River to the Sea’ Is Genocidal…” (Libertarian Institute) Jeremy R. Hammond is an independent journalist and a Research Fellow at The Libertarian Institute whose work focuses on exposing deceitful mainstream propaganda that serves to manufacture consent for criminal government policies. He has written about a broad range of topics, including US foreign policy, economics and the role of the Federal Reserve, and public health policies. He is the author of several books, including Obstacle to Peace: The US Role in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Ron Paul vs. Paul Krugman: Austrian vs. Keynesian Economics in the Financial Crisis, and The War on Informed Consent. Find more of his articles and sign up to receive his email newsletters at JeremyRHammond.com. And follow him on Twitter @jeremyrhammond This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: 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

Hey, you guys, it's fun drive time again at the Institute. Help me pay my writers. The Institute is awesome. You don't need convincing by me. You just need the address. Libertarian Institute.org slash donate. Check out all the great kickbacks, including our latest book, Israel, winner of the 2003 Iraq Oil War by Gary Vogler.

And we've got $10,000 in matching funds, so you can double your support without even trying. And William Van Wagonin's Syria book is almost done too. It's so good, just you wait, but it does take resources to edit and publish these books, so your help is greatly appreciated. I'm working on provoked every day, I promise. Libertarian Institute.org slash donate. And thanks, y'all. 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 2003, almost all on foreign policy and all available for you at scothorton.4. 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, on the line, I've got Jeremy R. Hammond, and he is now a research fellow at the Libertarian Institute. I'm very proud to say. Of course, as you all know, he is the Libertary Movement's foremost expert on the Israel-Palestine conflict, having authored the book, Obstacle to Peace, which is right up there with the best of them anyone ever wrote, explaining the controversy about Israel-Palestine there and maybe better. so very happy to have you here welcome back to the show jeremy how you doing thanks scott doing well uh good good so you wrote this piece icj declares israel's occupation illegal and you know pardon me suffered through this for me a bit here um i'm conflicted and i got a disclaim that i'm just against world government and even slight forms and the whole post world war two order led by the UN and all of its little adjunct agencies that mostly serve as a fig leave for the American Empire anyway. And yet, obviously, it's still important what they say, how binding it is. I don't know. We can debate. We can talk about that. The UN charter has been ratified by the U.S. Senate.

It is the law. The U.S. certainly uses the U.N. against everybody else. So there's a, you know, obvious kind of question about whether it's a rule of law at all, whether it ought to apply to America and its allies and all that. So these things are complicated and I don't take it for granted that, oh, like some ICJ says something. On the other hand, I'm very interested about what they say, and especially on this very important issue where there's so much at stake and where they're clearly not clowning around. And this is, you know, very important judicial rulings going on here. you know, to what effect they have is also a separate question. But, um, so I just have to disclaim that a little bit at the beginning because I'm just pretty right wing on the UN when it comes down to it from leftover from my old days.

But, um, you know, anyway, that being said, ICJ declares Israel's occupation illegal. Well, what occupation is that? And tell us about this ruling. Sure. Well, uh, you know, just along the lines of your, if your little copy. Yeah, I kind of view things pretty much the same way. In fact, I might want to make the point to preface that the UN has great responsibility for creating and causing the Israel-Palestine conflict in the first place, which is kind of a topic for another discussion. But yeah, I agree with that. But that being said, you know, essentially international law consists of essentially contract agreements between states. And we might not agree with the institution of. statehood itself, I certainly don't. I'm opposed to the entire institution of statehood because I think that it's holding us back from becoming civilized as a race on this planet. But at the same time, the ICGA ruling is really significant. I can't understate the significance because it

essentially repudiates the entire framework of the U.S.-led so-called peace process, which had always been premised on a rejection of the applicability of international law to the conflict. And in fact, you know, Israel opposed the ICJ's involvement at all, objecting that the ICJ has no jurisdiction because it's a bilateral dispute between Israelis and Palestinians. And the court rejected that argument on the grounds that, well, actually, the UN has been, it's not a bilateral issue. It's a international issue involving the UN, going, dating back to before Israel ever existed, to the mandate era, including the UN General Assembly's involvement in the 1947 partition plan resolution, resolution 181. So, you know, it's interesting to me, essentially that the ICJ has now not only ruled, in 2004, the ICJ had already ruled, at the request of the General Assembly, it issued an advisory opinion, and the legal consequences

of the wall that Israel was building in the West Bank and the settlement regime in the West Bank. And it had already ruled back then that the settlement regime was illegal, and the construction of the wall within the West Bank was illegal, a violation of international law. So the occupation we're talking about, to answer that part of your question, is the occupation ongoing since the June 1967 war, which Israel began on the morning of June 5th, with a surprise attack on Egypt that destroyed most of its Air Force while its planes were still on the ground. And that was the war in which Israel invaded and occupied the Syrian Golan Heights, the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula, and the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which at the time

were being administered by Jordan and Egypt, respectively. So in the wake of the 1967, so-called six-day war, which is what Israelis call it, because it was over in six days, the CIA, incidentally, had warned Johnson that if war was going to outbreak, it would be started by Israel, which proved prescient and true, and that Israel would have such qualitative military superiority that it would defeat the combined Arab armies. within a couple of weeks. And that turned out to be inaccurate because it only took Israel six days. But otherwise, the CIA's assessment was pretty accurate. And so the occupation has been ongoing since 1967. And in the wake of the war in 1967, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 242. And this resolution is at the heart of the whole deception and the whole framework. that the so-called peace process was grounded on because, and this is another important point about the ICJ ruling is that it essentially, essentially it verifies my analysis that I wrote

about Resolution 242 in obstacle to peace, because I was pointing out in my book that there's a misinterpretation of that resolution. So Israel has its own unilateral interpretation of that resolution that the U.S. accepted as the basis, as the framework for the peace process. So the legitimate interpretation of Resolution 242, which we can go back to the meeting records, as I do in my book, to demonstrate this unquestionably, the interpretation was that Israel was required to withdraw its armed forces to the positions they held before the morning of June 5th, which were the same as the 1949 Armistice Line. So sometimes they're called the 1967 lines, sometimes the 1949 armistice lines and sometimes they're called the collectively called the green line

for the color with which they were drawn on the map in 1949 um so the the resolution required israel to withdraw its forces to the to the armisticeice lines um in compliance with the principle of international law that the acquisition of territory by war is inadmissible um and so that's that's been the the basis for the what's called the two-state solution in favor of which there is a near international consensus Israel and the U.S. being notable exceptions to the consensus view. But this is formed essentially the legal foundation for the two-state solution, which is premised on the applicability of international law to the conflict. That's entirely different from the framework for the peace process, which, as I mentioned, is premised, or was premised, is defunct now, thankfully, but was premised

on the rejection of the applicability of international law. And so under the framework of the peace process, the people living under Israel's occupation must negotiate with their oppressors over how much of their own land they can keep and maybe someday potentially exercise some kind of limited autonomy over, which is completely incompatible with the requirements of international law. So the ICJ ruling is really significant in that it has essentially affirmed my analysis from my book and said that, no, there is no conditioning of the right of the Palestinian people to the exercise of self-determination.

They have that right. It's an inalienable right. Israel cannot place conditions on it, which the ICJ didn't explicitly repudiate the framework for the peace process. implicitly they did so, which I think is one of the more significant points about the ruling. Yeah. Now, so one thing that sticks out here, and I'm definitely not the expert on this, but the Geneva Conventions come right around the same time as the UN Charter, and they have all of these prohibitions against, for example, moving your civilian population into Concord Territory

and all that, separate from what the UN Charter says on that issue, right? Yeah, the, well, the, the, the fourth Geneva Convention specifically prohibits the transfer of an occupier, you know, occupied, occupier's population into occupied territory. And so that is essentially the basis of the ruling that the settlement regime is illegal. It violates the fourth Geneva Convention specifically. I see. So it's not based on a chapter of the U.N. charter, but the Geneva Convention separate. On the fourth Geneva Convention. I see.

Okay. Well, all right then. So, I mean, and also, and it's hard to argue, by the way. It's also, it is also a violation of UN resolutions because, of course, the UN Security Council resolutions are binding on member states. Israel is a member state. And Israel has perpetually violated UN Security Council resolutions. You know, again, you know, reiterating the requirements of Resolution 242 and, you know, condemning. Israel's settlement activities as a violation of international law. So it is both. But those resolutions

of the Security Council are essentially premised on the prohibition of such transfer of population that is contained within the Fort Geneva Convention. So just to clarify that. Yeah. Okay. I mean, I guess I'm just part of me is a crotchy old right winger and I just am kind of projecting onto the audience too that people, they just share, must share my revulsion against that baby blue flag, but I mean, the Geneva conventions, nobody thinks that that's world government, right? That's just a contract between states about just how brutal they'll be in war or not. And whether we should have any rules governing how we fight, I think pretty much there must be, if they know anything about them, unanimous consensus for the Geneva Conventions in the country. I'll go ahead and say, you know,

when we abolish the government, we get rid of those last. You know what I mean? So, uh, yes. Anyway, it's probably dumb and beside the point. Maybe everybody's just rolling their eyes at me and taking it for granted. But to me, it's like, well, look, you could have the Geneva conventions in a world without the UN at all, right? And it would still be smart to have them too.

And then we wouldn't call that one world communism, right? It would be a, just a contract about what's a war crime. what's not before we get started on the worst killing sprees and so this is the deal though right is after world war two that hitler ruined the whole leban's realm contact uh concept for everyone right so now he was so brutal about stealing all that land in the east they were like you can't do that anymore and yet that's what israel is doing writ small here um yeah essentially um israel has And this is one of the points that the ICJ made, you know, and went on in great detail about was how Israel's occupation involves numerous violations of international law.

So the, but again, previously, previously the Security Council and the ICJ had looked at elements of the occupation and determined that those elements of the occupation were a violation of international law, the construction of the wall, the, you know, the building of settlements within the West Bank, for example. But in this case, this goes beyond that because the ICJ in this case has ruled that the occupation itself is a violation of international law. That, you know, the idea of an occupation is that there is a military necessity. And the occupying power is obligated under international law, again, the Geneva Conventions and other conventions to administer the territory for the benefit of the residents of that territory, of the inhabitants of the

territory. And so that there's all kinds of obligations that the status of an occupying power places on Israel. And by the way, what does it say about or doesn't say anything about and you must withdraw as soon as possible too. Yes. Well, this is another, again, this goes back to the two different interpretations of UN Resolution 242. There's the legitimate one, which logically follows from the explicitly stated intent of the Security Council members going through the meeting records. And then there's Israel's unilateral interpretation. You know, I was telling this to Bob Murphy the other day. If I have it right, you can be very specific for us, Jeremy. But I was summing it up to Bob Murphy. And he's like,

wait, what? And if I have it right, it's basically that the Israelis argument relies on their claim, at least, that the French version of the resolution doesn't have the article the in it. And that way, they can use that to mean they can just withdraw from any little bit of territory they were ever occupying and say that they've satisfied it, because it doesn't say the, in other words, implying all of it. Yeah, actually, it's the English version of of the resolution that doesn't contain the article the oh really i'm sorry i screwed that up sorry bob i'll email him right now but yeah but i mean apart from that that that's correct i mean that's that's literally the argument

well there's there's two mainly but that's one of the arguments maybe the french deal was and i had it just switched around that the argument was see the french version does have the in it right correct is that what it was okay and the french version of course is equally um authoritative of is the English version. Sure. And, but the other point about that is that the absence of the article V before the phrase territories occupied, you know, in the clause referencing that the territory is occupied during the 1967 war, has no bearing on the extent of the withdrawal that is required.

You know, just in terms of English grammar, it has no bearing on that. So the extent of the withdrawal is determined by what's stated in the preambulatory section of the resolution, which emphasizes, again, the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war. And so, and it was explicitly, it was also, again, explicitly stated during the meeting records that the intent of the Security Council was for Israel to fully and immediately withdraw to the armistice lines. So this argument about the article V missing from before the phrase, you know, territory is occupied is just complete nonsense. And, you know, we could say you could kind of apply the same logic to another clause of Resolution 242 that Israel doesn't object to, which was, you know, there was a clause about the need to respect, you know, states access and passage through international waterways. And it didn't say the international waterway, you know, that was with reference to the Egyptian blockade of, you know, the straits there. And so, you know, they just apply that logic kind of selectively. It's really absurd and ridiculous.

But yeah, that is that is. And the other, the second big argument, so the first one is just this nonsense about the article missing. And the second one was, give me a moment, it was also related. to that other oh it was it was that the the clause requiring israel to withdraw was conditional on another part of the resolution stating that you know that there ought to be an end to claims of belligerency and so this kind of became what's called the land for peace formula so yeah we'll we'll withdraw from occupied territories once you recognize the state of israel and and, you know, and all states of belligerency.

But, of course, you know, people living under an occupation under the UN Charter is a recognized right for people living under foreign military belligerent occupation to take up arms against their oppressors. That's an explicitly recognized right under international law. Well, look, even if the security force, such as Arafat's PLO, essentially surrenders and renounces violence, as long as there's a male between the age of 17 and 31 or something who's willing to swing a fist then they can say that they don't have

complete and total peace so it's just an out it's an obvious excuse because and they'll say that too right it doesn't matter what the official security forces say as long as there's any violence at all a guy with a knife that's enough

yeah and you know Israel's policies as we've discussed before, are essentially designed to provoke, you know, violent reactions from groups like Hamas, you know, Islamic jihad, because Israel depends on acts of terrorism and acts of violence against Israeli civilians to perpetuate its policies. Because that's the whole, that's the whole means by which it claims legitimacy for its policies. But the ICJ rejected this outright in its ruling. It said that, you know, again, you can't prejudice the Palestinians' right to self-determination. And going back to what I was saying earlier, you know, the idea of an occupying power,

that an occupation is meant to be a temporary situation. But you have here a persistent occupation, you know, going for many decades. So, now, Jeremy, let me. There's no, there's no security or military justification for it. Right. Well, yeah, I mean, they'll always make up one. But I guess what you're saying here is, yeah, it doesn't matter, though. Excuses come second. You have to end the occupation now. But so then that does raise the question about, you know, as Andrew Jackson would say, well, you made your ruling. Let's see you enforce it. And as long as they have genocide Joe up there or Donald Trump coming next, I'm sure it wouldn't be any different with Kamala Harris in charge. then the law doesn't apply to Israel because there's nobody to make it so. If there's a world government, it's got to have the U.S. Army as its enforcement mechanism, you know. And America's on Israel's side.

And so just like with the genocide ruling, the Israelis are like, man, we're not even listening to you. You know, forget you. They're not even bothering, you know, acting like the ICJ has any jurisdiction over them whatsoever. however so I don't know yeah what difference does it make in the world I think the primary significance is the impact it's going to have on the public discourse um you know and I always say this that you know there's no government you know we we want we want to see peace in the Middle East right but I always say that there's no government that's going to get that job done it's up to us and there needs to be a paradigm shift among the American population this is another

thing I always say that you know if we want to see peace in the middle Middle East between Israelis and Palestinians, step one, the prerequisite condition is an end to the U.S. policy of supporting Israel's crimes against the Palestinians. And so, you know, there needs to be this shift in perceptions and this paradigm shift. And I think this can help affect that. But speaking to your point, yeah, again, going back to, you know, the whole caveat, your whole preface to our conversation here. So that this is the problem that the, number one, the ICJ has no enforcement mechanisms. It has no authorities to actually enforce its advisory opinions or its judge. judgments. And so the ICJ pointed this out in its ruling saying that, you know, we were

requested to issue this advisory opinion by the General Assembly, and it's up for the UN General Assembly and the UN Security Council to decide how to apply its ruling to further the cause of peace. And of course, you know, UN General Assembly resolutions are non-binding. member states. They're essentially reflections of the will of the international community. UN Security Council resolutions are binding. The problem there is the U.S. use, you know, its habitual use of its veto power as one of the five permanent members to protect Israel from international, you know, censure and accountability. And so this is a real problem here because it kind of just tosses the ball back into the court of the UN, which, again, has been

complicit from the start in causing the Israel-Palestine conflict, and has, you know, despite certain rhetoric and certain, you know, resolutions, whether General Assembly or Security Council, to the contrary, but really the UN role has been to essentially to give its rubber stamp to the so-called peace process, even though it was grounded on this framework that was completely contrary to the actual meaning of Resolution 242 and so forth. So the UN has really played a complicit role in this. But, you know, there's, there is, it's kind of like there's this, the international community is kind of working against the actual UN system itself in this respect, because the international

community, of course, generally favors the idea of an immediate withdrawal. It generally, you know, the view that the ICJ's ruling kind of reflects that the view of the international community. And it's really more that the international community is really limited within the UN organization by the whole framework of the UN and the way it was organized where that you would have these five powers that would have this ability to exercise veto power. And that's one of the fundamental problems with the UN system itself. But another consideration is that it also does put additional pressure on the international criminal court, which is a separate body, which is not a U.N. body, that was established under a separate treaty, to actually prosecute individuals as a result of violating international law. and it's interesting to see that finally you know because the ICC has actually had an investigation underway since 2014 that has gone essentially nowhere in all these years but you know it has an ongoing investigation to investigate war crimes committed by both the Israeli government and Palestinian armed groups and that dates back to the 2014 operation which one was it a pillar pill not not it wasn't pillar of defense

um protective edge operation protective edge in 2014 so after that the i cc um kind of got involved with this investigation it just again it just kind of has gone nowhere and it was kind of surprising to me to see earlier you know a few months ago um i think it was may when the prosecutor for the iCC actually uh issued a statement uh you know where he publicly stated that he was requesting arrest warrants for two Israeli leaders and I think it was three Hamas officials for you know violations of international law war crimes and crimes against humanity and the two Israeli leaders were of course Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defense minister gosh his name is slipping my mind at the moment

but the Israeli defense minister. And so that was kind of an interesting development to see. And it kind of reflects, I think, the pressure on the ICC from the international community and from the public at large. And so, you know, the way I see this playing out is, again, you know, I don't see that it's going to be a top-down solution to the conflict where, you know, it's going to be governments getting the job done. I see it being public opinion and public perceptions.

Essentially, there needs to be enough of awareness of the actual true nature of the conflict where it no longer becomes, it's no longer politically feasible for the U.S. to, you know, continue this policy of supporting Israel's crimes against the Palestinians. And that's step one. And then, of course, you know, citizens of other countries have their own role to play in terms of their country's policies. But, you know, I'm kind of focused on Americans and the U.S. government. Galant was the name you're looking for there. Thank you. Yes. Hey, guys, I've had a lot of great webmasters over the years,

but the team at Expanddesigns.com have by far been the most competent and reliable. Harley Abbott and his team have made great sites for the show and the institute, and they keep them running well, suggesting and making improvements all along. Make a deal with Expandesigns.com for your new business or news site. They will take care of you. Use the promo code Scott and save $500. That's expanddesigns.com. Man, I wish I was in school so I could drop out and sign up for Tom Woods' Liberty Classroom instead.

Tom has done such a great job on putting together a classical curriculum for everyone from junior high schoolers on up through the postgraduate level. And it's all very reasonably priced. Just make sure you click through from the link in the right margin at Scott Horton.org. Tom Woods' Liberty Classroom. Real history, real economics, real education. Well, I guess it was just a matter of time. I drank so much coffee I turned into some. Hey, guys, check out the Scott Horton Show's special blend at Moondoseartisancoffee.com.

It's a blend of organically grown Ethiopian and Sumatran coffee beans. Two very different coffees combined to create a unique blend. Ethiopia is smooth and medium-bodied. Sumatra, rich, heavy-bodied coffee. and it's got caffeine, lots of it, which is good for if you have to drive drunk or get up in the morning. Click through from the link

in the right-hand margin at scothorton.org to save 10% on your order. It's the Scott Horton Show Blend from Moondose Artisan Coffee. What did your ancestors really do all day? Beyond names, what were their lives like? With Ancestry's global historical records, you can discover incredible stories

about how your ancestors lived and worked. And for a limited time, you can explore select occupation records for free. Imagine finding your great-grandfather's R-CMP records or discovering your ancestor's name in the UK and Ireland Nursing Register. Don't miss out. Free access ends August 24th.

Visit Ancestry.ca for more details. Terms apply. So, but you know, the thing is, well, I don't know about Kamala Harris. I mean, she's just such an empty suit. I'm sure she'll just do, like, in the consensus and not stray very far. maybe say words sometimes but Donald Trump is a real worry I mean

Sheldon Adelson is gone but his wife is still here and I forgot if I learned this from you or who pointed this out recently that oh I think it was Michael Tracy actually pointed this out recently that Trump actually said at a recent somewhat recent like within the last year or so anyway a meeting of the Republican Jewish coalition. He pointed right at Miriam Adelson. It was like, yeah, I moved the embassy to Jerusalem because of your husband gave me all that money, and he wanted it real bad. And that's why I did. I hope you're happy, lady. Which, well, I mean, why is that a big deal where the embassy is, Jeremy? Well, this also is a, the U.S. embassy move was actually illegal.

It's actually a violation of international law because it violated the U.N. Charter, because it violates the UN Security Council resolution, actually numerous, numerous U.N. Security Council resolutions pointing out the fact that, again, the acquisition of territory by war is inadmissible. Therefore, when we talk about the occupied territories, people need to understand that that includes all of Gaza and all of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. So the media commonly, you know, accept Israel's framework of rejecting the applicability of international law. And so they'll refer to East Jerusalem as disputed territory, for example. But it's not disputed territory. Under international law, East Jerusalem is occupied Palestinian

territory. And Israel's legislation to annex East Jerusalem is, according to UN Security Council resolutions, illegal, null, and void. And it's an obligation of UN member states not to recognize Israel's illegal annexation of East Jerusalem. And to that end, UN member states are prohibited from moving their embassies to Jerusalem. And so when the U.S. moved its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, that actually violated numerous UN Security Council resolutions. Well, I mean, the bottom line is what they're saying is the entire city belongs to Israel, as they say whole and undivided and eternal and always will, which means it does not belong to the Palestinians, not any part of it, not the old city, not the east side. They'll be lucky if they get to keep that little suburb

where they were talking about moving their capital to in the end of the thing. Now is the real point of it. The symbol there is you lose. America is on Israel's side 100% here. There is no international law when it comes to what the Likud wants. Right. And, you know, kind of a, if you want to at the glasses being half full with that whole event, it essentially, one positive thing from it was that, you know, Trump essentially surrendered the pretext of the U.S. as being, you know, some kind of neutral mediator. He essentially declared, no, we're on Israel side. You know, so that was kind of a good thing because there's a lot of people, especially under the Obama administration, You know, like, people had this delusion that, you know, he was, under the Obama administration,

that the U.S. government was being this kind of neutral mediator. And, you know, that he was even being criticized or being too tough on Israel and stuff. Just like these outright delusional perceptions. And Trump kind of just, like, did away with all that. So, you know, he got rid of that whole facade. So that was actually, you know, in my view, one of the positive outcomes of the whole thing. You know what, though, man, it could get much worse. and I don't know

maybe you won't be this bad I'm not saying I predict this or whatever but it's like it's within the realm of imagination to me that they just take the Gaza ward of the West Bank and start carpet bomb in the major cities there and forcing all of those people out

see if you can swim to Jordan good luck and then you know what I mean and who's going to stop them if the president of the United States is on their side and says well I don't know that's one solution to the problem and shrugs and says go ahead then there's really no other power on earth's going to intervene at that point or would be able to yeah and well another another point

i don't know about that maybe that's not right maybe that would lead to revolution across the region and and god knows what but i don't know yeah that's that's that's easily be at war war three situation as well but you know i i think uh there's been some you know kind of interesting observations with U.S. policy under Biden with respect to Israel's genocide in Gaza, where, you know, increasingly Biden has had to try to manage public perceptions and to distance himself from, you know, from Israel's destruction, from Israel's efforts to render Gaza uninhabitable and its indiscriminate warfare. And it's a policy of using starvation as a method of warfare. And, you know, obviously, Biden has suffered in the polls greatly as a result of his support for Israel's genocide.

And you see him kind of trying to make, you know, public relations efforts to distance himself from it. And I think one of the reasons for that is obviously it's an election year. But the second reason for that is, you know, the people in the Biden administration understand that they too could be prosecuted by the ICC for violence. the 1948 genocide convention, because the genocide convention doesn't just prohibit states from perpetrating genocide. It also prohibits them from facilitating genocide, including by rendering support for a genocide, such as the U.S. government has been doing with its arm shipments, in addition to blocking ceasefire resolutions in the UN Security Council and so on. And so, you know, U.S. officials could be also be prosecuted under international law.

And so I think a restraint, you know, in terms of this kind of nightmare scenario that you're talking about with extending it to the West Bank, I think the restraint on that would be, you know, the knowledge, number one, you know, the political pressure based on populations perceptions of the conflict. Because even, you know, even Americans among Americans, I mean, especially you look at the Democrat Democratic Party. Like they're generally as in favor, you know, of the status quo as they tend to be in both parties, you know, you see among Democrats just kind of like open rebellion against the Trump administration because of just the outright gruesomeness of Israel's actions. And so there's kind of a, you know, that kind of does place. of a restraint on government's actions. And so I think we would see that, you know, kind of in global terms, that there would be a restraint on Israel and the U.S. that would kind of prevent it from doing that. But, you know, again, I don't roll out the possibility, but I think there are restraints. But they really come from, again, it's what I emphasize the point, that

those restraints really come from the bottom up. And so it's about just kind of like the perceptions of people. And one of the problems with U.S. policy is that, you know, Americans consent to it. they consent to this policy of U.S. support for Israel's crimes because they really don't understand the conflict. We say that most of what people think they know about it just isn't true. And so it really is a matter of just like people need to become aware of the actual situation. And I think this ICJ ruling is really going to, you know, I think, again, one of the significant points about it is that it can be greatly utilized. We can really use it effectively to help shift perceptions. And And, you know, and people, you know, can be awakened to the fact that, you know, is the idea that the Palestinians ought to negotiate with Israel and that they have to come to some kind of final peace settlement before Israel is obligated to withdraw is actually totally incompatible with the requirements of international law.

And Israel has a legal obligation to withdraw its forces now, fully and immediately. And so I think that's kind of one of the more important points to make about this ruling. Yeah. Well, okay, so, but now on the public pressure front, we have a problem. I mean, I'm assuming Trump's going to win at this point because at some point they're going to have to show Kamala Harris trying to think on her feet in front of people and it's just not going to work. I don't know. He's also got problems. So either of them could blow it. I mean, it's a dead heat, they say right now. I buy it. but for the sake of argument presuming Trump wins

and even if he doesn't we have a real problem with the wonderful return of the anti-war left and we kind of lamented that they were gone because we needed an anti-war movement but then they came back and they're burning flags and spray painting George Washington statues

and whatever kind of crap and identifying the the cause of the Palestinians' rights with people who hate and want to overthrow America, which is really stupid. And, you know, it doesn't have to be the case at all, but very well could be that you have pro-Zionists just infiltrating these groups and leading them to do the stupidest things. And even if that's not true, if there's any anti-war leftists listening, if you go to

rally and people are burning flags, you should start screaming, FBI informant and point your finger at them and have them thrown out of there. Yeah. Because they're making you look like a dick and that's really important and I know that leftists just want to free moon Mia and bring in every other thing in the world

but you know and whatever other bad politics but we do need the left to pressure the liberals. They need to be you know the Democrats. We need them but they're just giving all their power away when they're blocking the highway and

burning flags and making jackasses out of themselves and and totally unfairly making jackasses out of the Palestinians who don't deserve to be so humiliated by doofuses you know yep agreed yeah it's really too bad and but so it means that it's kind of all the more incumbent upon conservatives and libertarians who understand this issue well to be out there and show people that you don't have to be one of these protesting leftists in order to see what's going on here. And so you're definitely serving a very important role in that case. Yeah, you know, they ought to be carried out with sense and reason and, uh, an understanding of how their behavior is perceived by everyone else.

It's funny, you know, it'd be funny to think of Trump, like just overdoing it on purpose to try to create a backlash against it or something. I think Obama did it at one point. Like, if you remember when the only people in Washington that wanted him to bomb Syria in August of 2013 was just like Winep, you know what I mean? And the Center for Security Policy and, you know, like there was nobody but the Israel lobby that wanted that war. And Obama was like, even at one point, because I remember making fun of them on Twitter about it, even at one point was like, I think I got this from Phil Weiss, was calling them. Like had the White House calling Israel lobby groups and saying, I really need y'all's help, you should really stick your neck out and declare how much you want this war. And then he didn't do it, you know, just to make them look like jerks. That's what it kind of look like to me. I don't think Trump is, I mean, he is that mean, but I don't think he'd do that to them, unfortunately, to the lobby. But I'd sure like to see him. And if anybody could do it, it would be him to just flip flop and be like, actually, I'm sick of y'all's bullshit. I remember the way you. endorse Biden, you know, although he already declared he's over that. I don't know if you saw that. Somebody asked him and he said that, you know, he had a great meeting with Netanyahu and

that was no big deal at all and whatever. So I don't know. Yeah. We needed Ron Paul and we got this clown. Just something that just kind of popped into my head that I forgot to mention so far. But another really, really important point about the ICJ ruling is that it addressed you know again it declared that the occupation itself was a violation of international law but again one of the elements of the occupation is Israel's discriminatory legislation and policies and practices in the West Bank and in Gaza and it's a really also significant thing that as you know in prior years numerous international human rights organizations including human rights watch amnesty international

Israeli human rights organizations like Batsalam and Gisha have all issued papers and statements declaring Israel's occupation regime to constitute the crime of apartheid. and interestingly the ICJ pointed out that these policies the discriminatory nature of Israel's policies and practices under its occupation do violate international conventions and they specifically mentioned article three of what's called the international convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination and that article specifically mentions specifically uses the label of apartheid to describe, you know, these types of discriminatory practices. So although the ICJ didn't explicitly describe Israel's occupation regime as constituting the crime of apartheid, it implicitly did so, which is another kind of interesting point that I think is worth emphasizing. Yeah. Well, I think it's also very telling that when people deny that Israel's an apartheid state,

they'll many times exclude the occupation. Just be like, nah, come on. Palestinian citizens of Israel don't have it that bad. Yeah, there's members of Knesset that are Arabs. It's like, well, actually, they're sort of second-class citizens treated like blacks in the Old South, you know, before the Voting Rights Act. But then again, you know, that's really not the point. We're talking about the five million people living under military occupation. what kind of obfuscation is that right and and to that point i mean even even if we just even if we do

accept that narrow framework because look let's let's look at that more carefully so um there's actually a law in the books um in israel that you know to be able to part to be able to run for the knesset israel's legislature that um you know your party has to accept um Israel as the basically as the state of the Jewish people. And if you don't accept that, like if you believe that all citizens ought to be treated equally and have an equal right to self-determination, which of course, you know, the Jewish nation state law explicitly states that Israel is that the right to self-determination is a right exclusive to Jews in the territory under Israel's control and so on. And so there's kind of

a precondition for someone to be able to even run for the Knesset that they have to essentially accept, you know, for an Arab is to run. They have to accept their status as a second-class citizen as a precondition for even participating in elections. And so, you know, the people who make that argument that you just mentioned, you know, they don't like to talk about those types of things. Yeah. Isn't it funny how in America, separation of church and state is one of the most important things to everyone? I mean, there are some sects who imagine that at some point they'll be the ones to get to force everybody to be a Methodist or something like that but you know what I mean like at the end of the day everybody wants that ever since the 13 colonies

and everybody had all these different types of Protestantism basically you know at the very start and so the idea that America would be so much behind this ethno religious state that breaks things down in such a way I mean the nation state law is that what you're referring to because there were a bunch of different aspects to it. Yeah, but... Well, I mentioned two laws there, and I was talking about a different law, but in the middle of that discussion, I thought so. Yeah, because 2018, Asian state law was the one that explicitly defines self-determination

as a right exclusive to Jews. Yeah. I mean, think about the outrage, even on the right, if they passed a law like that in America saying, oh, yeah. I mean, even among Christians, well, what kind? You're going to make all the kids pray in school? The Baptist prayer or the Methodist prayer or the Presbyterian prayer or the Catholic one? Right?

Or, oh, I know what we should do. We should all fight about it instead of just being free and leaving each other alone on those issues. I know we'll just make it where, like, in Ohio, Catholics don't have any rights anymore. or in Pennsylvania, the Protestants, or what, I mean, it would be insane to think of implementing any kind of Israeli-oriented type situation in the United States. It sounds just absurd for me to even mention it. It's completely crazy. It is completely crazy. And what is astonishing to me is how so many Americans delude themselves into thinking that Israel is some kind of democracy, you know, that it has democratic government.

when the whole country is founded in the most profound rejection of the right of the land's indigenous inhabitants to self-determination. I mean, the entire mandate, the entire British belligerent occupation of Palestine after World War I, the whole purpose of it, first of all, the mandate was drafted by Zionists themselves for the benefit of the Zionist to implement. the Sinus Project. The mandate for Palestine violated the League of Covenant's own charter. And the whole purpose of Britain's belligerent occupation was to prevent the Palestinians from being able to exercise their right to self-determination by declaring their own independent state

and establishing their own independent state. And, you know, it was the Arab's proposal back then during the mandate. What they were proposing was let's have, you know, we'd like to see it independent state of Palestine as promised to us by Britain in exchange, you know, that's the Britain promised the Arabs, you know, you support our war effort against the Ottomans and, you know, will help you gain your independence from Ottoman rule. And so, you know, Arabs were on the side of Britain, including Palestinians. You know, when Britain conquered Jerusalem, there were Arab fighters fighting alongside the British forces. And again, so the whole purpose of Britain's occupation was to prevent the, to be renege on that promise and to prevent the Palestinians

from being able to exercise the right to self-determination. And the Arabs were proposing, you know, a single independent state with a constitution, with democratic government, with a constitution, you know, guaranteeing, protecting the rights of the minorities, which of course meant Jews, because Jews were still the minority. And of course, the Zionists rejected that. The Zionists literally rejected the democratic solution in favor of the means by which Israel was actually ultimately established. It wasn't established by the UN. That's a myth. It's completely false. UN Resolution 181, the partition plan resolution was never implemented. Israel was established by ethnically cleansing most of the Arab population from their homes in Palestine. So it's established through

force and violence and ethnic cleansing, the crime against humanity. And, you know, people, So to describe Israel as a democracy, when it exists as this apartheid regime found it in the most profound rejection of democratic principles that you can imagine, it's just, it's really delusional. And yet so many Americans, and the biggest, you know, here's the elephant in the room, Scott, is Christian Zionists, of course. You know, we hear a lot about the Israel lobby, but not so much about the influence of Christian Zionism. And so, you know, like A-PAC money, I put it this way. A-PAC money isn't required to explain, you know, lawmakers, congressional congressperson's positions on Israel when they are themselves ideologically Zionist, right? And that's another huge problem.

And of course, the Republican Party tends to pander greatly to the Christian Zionists, including Trump. They all do. And that's another really big problem. And like you, I- It's millions of votes. Millions of votes. And my assumption like you is that Trump is going to win the election. I mean, he's the most famous guy in the world.

It's his to lose anyway. That's for sure. You know? But on the other hand, all the reasons that Democrats had to stay home for Biden are basically over. Right? He's genocide Joe. She's not genocide Kamala. And they're not going to hang this on her.

She's going to get away with, you know, not having that responsibility for his god. of war. Yeah. And for the rest of it, whatever he did wrong. Inflation, this, that, the other thing, she's just the vice president. And nobody thinks that she's Dick Cheney. Like when we ask, who's really running things up there? Nobody thinks that it's Kamala Harris and her staff, right?

Like, it's not. It hasn't been. So she's in their mind not guilty of everything and particularly the age thing. And now who's the old man? It's funny that the Republicans, they push that, you know, demented old man thing, which they're completely right about. But they weren't planning for the day after. Now he's twice as old as her.

And so now who's the daughtering old fool and who can walk up and downstairs fast and whatever? You know what I mean? As far as all that stuff goes, I saw Dave kind of downplaying that. Like, that doesn't mean much, but I think it means a lot. In other words, for the Democrats, oh, good. Someone to support. And she's basically a blank slate. She doesn't have like all that mean old Hillary Clinton baggage.

She's like, whatever they want to believe in. And she's got time to stay vague enough for them to believe in her. She ain't Obama, but she'll do for them, I think, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was just going to say that, you know, that's kind of my perception of Biden's running for president after Obama. You know, he was, it was an extension of the Obama administration because he was the VP under Obama. Washington Times said today. They're still just trying to extend to the Obama administration as far as I can tell.

Yeah. I mean, the Washington Times said today that whatever, Nate Silver, one of these guys with the, one of these statisticians was saying, looks to them right now, she's going to win the popular vote, but he's going to win the electoral college. That's how it's breaking down as of the 1st of August here, which I could, in other words, she's not going down in smoking flames. She is a reason for Democrats to rally. And they've taken to it at least so far. Now, maybe she'll just completely stumble over. and make a jackass out of herself for the next few weeks straight, but I think they'll probably keep her in the basement more or less, you know, or like keep her on script. Yeah. So tell her to stop making up new cliches. They don't work well. You know?

The Palestinians, unburdened by what Israel has been. There's one. I'll buy into that. Anyway, all right, I should let you go. Thank you so much for your great insight here. I also want to make sure that people take a look at your column archive at the Libertarian Institute. You've got a bunch of great stuff there, including this one, which is called If Israel's Apologists insist that from the river to the sea is genocidal, well, I'm going to direct your attention to some things here lately. And then, of course, this one is called ICJ declares Israel's occupation illegal.

And that is, oh, this one's actually running on the blog at the Institute. Thanks very much, Jeremy. Appreciate you, man. Hey, it's great talk to you again. Thanks for having me on. The Scott Horton show, Anti-War Radio, can be heard on KPFK, 90.7 FM in L.A. APSRadio.com, anti-war.com, Scotthorton.org, and Libertarian Institute.org.