The Duran Podcast - ICJ delivers ruling in favour of South Africa

Episode Date: January 26, 2024

ICJ delivers ruling in favour of South Africa The Duran: Episode 1815

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the ICJ ruling that has just come out, the International Criminal Court. In the Hague, they have ruled 15 to 2 in favor of South Africa. They have ruled that Israel has indeed committed war crimes, and they found in favor of South Africa. many of the points that South Africa brought to the court. I would say with the exception of one big, big point that South Africa brought to the court, one big argument that South Africa brought, which is that the ICJ is not ruling that Israel stop

the war in Gaza. So South Africa has scored a big win, that's the way it looks, but the ICJ has not ruled that, that the conflict has to end. And the other question that a lot of people have with this ruling is how the ICJ's ruling is going to be enforced. It doesn't really have any mechanisms to enforce the ruling that it made. But let's get your initial thoughts, Alexander, on this breaking news.

And I just want to say that you are feeling under the weather, and it is difficult for you to talk. But we'll get through this video and you can give us your initial thoughts on in this breaking news. Absolutely. I have laryngitis for which apologies are somewhat croaky voice today. Briefly, a few things. First of all, this is a conclusive, overwhelming win for South Africa. I'll come to the ceasefire issue in a moment. It is an interim. ruling. They're not saying Israel has definitely perpetrated or is perpetrating genocide. But they said that there is an arguable case, one that they're prepared to hear. Of course, it will take years and years to come to a final decision. But 15 judges think that there is a strongly arguable case.

They clearly believe that Israel is committing war crime. and they've given a whole series of orders, strong orders, that Israel must comply with in order to stop the activities that they say amount to genocide. Now, let me deal first with the ceasefire issue, the fact that the court didn't grant a ceasefire. I don't know what the South African legal team, what advice they had or what they were assuming

when they made that request. but realistically there is no way the ICJ could have ordered a ceasefire. And the reason they could not have ordered a ceasefire is that that would have prejudged the entire case. It would have basically said, well, not only do we see a plausible case that a genocide is being committed. but if they'd granted a ceasefire, they would in effect have said that a genocide is being committed because bear in mind Israel is claiming that it is exercising a right of self-defense. So this is a very strongly arguable point and the ICJ, in my opinion, from a juristic and legal point of view, took the correct decision not to order a ceasefire.

Had it done that, I mean, people would have been entitled to say this was a political judgment, it anticipates the final outcome, and so they didn't do that. But that actually makes the actual judgment, the one that there is a plausible case, the genocide is being committed. That makes the actual judgment, the one we have, with a 15 to 2 ruling by the panel.

That makes it stronger. And I think that's the thing people need to understand. It's clear that the court is taking this thing very seriously. It's considering what its powers are. And it's coming up with all of these various orders. Now, the orders are of the sort that you would expect in this situation. They're not denying Israel its right to self-defense, which is what a ceasefire would arguably have done. They're saying, you know, you don't have to stop fighting, but you've got to start fighting in a completely different way from the one that you're doing.

And they set out a whole list of things that Israel must do, and they gave Israel a month in which to come back to the court and to show how it is complying with those instructions that the court has given. The risk Israel runs is if it defies this part of the ruling, if it just carries on doing what it's doing now and ignores these orders, then of course that will make it even more likely than it always. already is that when the final judgment is made, it will be a finding that Israel is committing genocide because the fact that it is defying the court obviously will make the court conclude that it is defying the court because it wants to carry on doing what it is doing, which in the

circumstances looks like genocide. So a dangerous thing for the Israelis to do. So where does this leave us? The court itself has no enforcement powers. It is only a court. It is, however, a part of the UN system. The decision, the judgment is mandatory. Israel is required to comply with it. So what the court now does, what will now happen, what the South Africans will presumably do, is that if Israel doesn't comply with the instructions of the court, they will take it to the Security Council. Now, this is something we've been talking about ever since this conflict started,

that people are underestimating the effectiveness of the UN system. It takes a very long time to reach its conclusion, but eventually, gradually, it will start to grind. the situation down become more and more difficult for Israel and the United States and its supporters to resist, you know, what is going through the United Nations. So a couple of days ago, we had a massive debate in the Security Council. Sixty countries participated. Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, came to the UN, specifically to New York, specifically. to address the Security Council. Of those 60 countries, I think all but three, Israel, the United States and Britain,

called for a ceasefire. There were countries including amongst that list were countries like Slovenia, Malta, Switzerland, France, allies of the United States. Now, unless there is a radical change in Israeli policy. We're now going to have another meeting of the Security Council, probably in a month's time. South Africa coming forward and saying, Israel is not complying with the decisions of the International Court of Justice, which are mandatory under international law.

Accordingly, the Security Council is now obliged to take action. now that puts the United States and Britain in an incredibly difficult position they have talked endlessly about the rules-based order they've leaned on countries to enforce the international criminal courts warrant against Vladimir Putin over you know the fact that the Russians have evacuated children from a war zone in some cases, reunited them with their families. What do they do?

Do they defy the decision of the International Court of Justice on this key issue, which is remembering an issue of genocide, or do they support a ceasefire? And with all the problems that that might cause with Israel. It's a very, very difficult position if the United States blocks calls for a ceasefire. then I think we've now come much closer indeed to a situation where it will be referred back to the General Assembly and the General Assembly, and there's now a clear big majority in the General Assembly much more than two-thirds, which is now crystallising.

It becomes more plausible that they will start to make mandatory orders against Israel, perhaps under the Uniting for Peace formula, which we've discussed in other programmes. But conceivably also, they could refer Israel and refer specific Israeli officials to the international criminal court. Remember, that is a criminal court.

And so to the ICC. The ICJ, a superior court. to yourself is now saying Israel is committing war crimes. It says that there is a plausible case. The genocide is being committed. And in light of this, you can no longer defer taking action. In which case, the ICC will be under immense pressure to issue warrants against Israeli officials.

And, well, at that point, what does the United States, Britain and the Western powers all do? Yeah, the ICJ, one of the points that they made is that Israel has to start documenting and keeping track of any war crimes that are committing, that are being committed has to do a better job of that. And I think that's pointing to what you're saying, which is that if Israel doesn't change the way it's conducting this war, then there are going to be specific people, specific names that will be brought to the, ICC and given everything that they've done with with Vladimir Putin and Russia, the U.S. and the West is not going to be able to wiggle their way out of, out of something like that on behalf of Israel, if that does happen. The United States can, I mean, one can make the argument that the United States can figure out a way to ignore this decision.

Israel, one can argue that Israel can figure out a way to ignore this decision. given that the United States also backs Israel to ignore this decision. So say Israel doesn't change the way they're conducting this war, which is essentially what the ICJ has told them. You need to change how this war is being conducted or else. I mean, that's the way I read it on a very basic level. The problem that I see with this ruling, one of the big problems for the collective West,

is the problem for the collective West, West, which is, yes, Israel can try to ignore this. The U.S. can back Israel and try to ignore this. But Europe will not be able to. Germany will not be able to. The entire collective West begins to fracture. The EU, which is already fractured, will fracture further. And this coalition, which was not so strong to begin with, really starts to crumble. And, and, And what you are left with is a very isolated Israel and United States in all the international institutions, including the United Nations. You mentioned France, Malta, Slovenia. You already have U.S. allies and Israeli allies starting to move away from this coalition that came to form on October 8th.

So what do you think of what I've just said? I think you're absolutely correct. I think Germany, by the way, has got itself into a terrible mess. Very unwisely, they came along and they joined the case in the ICJ as a third party, and they did so to support Israel. And arguing that, you know, as a country that has committed genocide in the past, they know better than everyone else what genocide is, and the genocide is not what the Israelis are doing in God.

there and now they've come after making all those points and they've got a decision from the ICJ which says look this is 15 to two decision by the way decisive decision it's not a you know sort of you know split court it's a clear majority of the court the ICJ says you know Germany you're just wrong we don't agree with you I mean there is clearly there is clearly a plausible case here anyway Germany is a terrible mess. Again, Olaf Schultz and Annalina Berbock, presumably was those two who thought about this. They have again massively miscalculated and they put Germany in a very, very difficult position.

And Britain as well, by the way, because Britain has been furiously lobbying countries around the world to enforce the ICC warrant against Vladimir Putin. So, I mean, they're all in a very, very difficult position. And it is exactly, as you said, the collective West is going to fracture. I cannot believe that Germany will simply ignore this decision of the ICJ. I think if they do that, knowing, you know, how Germany works, I think this is going to create so many problems going down the line, that I just don't think they can do that.

and if the ICC starts issuing warrants, well, they have no choice but to say that they support them because Germany's whole pitch is that, you know, it is a state that upholds international law. So I completely agree with you. I think the United States and Israel do very much risk being isolated. Every step that has been taken in the UN and remember the ICJ is a part of the UN system

has been planned and choreographed very carefully in advance now I say that I know people like Craig Murray and who's a friend of mine by the way is saying that you know the South African cabinet were reading some of his papers some of the articles that he wrote about you know how Israel was preaching the genocide convention and this is influence them in bringing this case to the ICJ.

And I accept that that is probably true, but much more important is that South Africa clearly is not acting by itself. It is a member of the BRICS. It is consulting with Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, India, all of these countries. They've worked closely, Brazil as well. They've worked very closely, bringing forward one resolution, draft resolution after another to the Security Council.

They have worked very closely bringing one resolution after another to the General Assembly. They've been piling on votes against the US and Israel in the General Assembly. Now they brought this killer of a case to the ICJ. The ICJ has ruled in their favour. They're now in a very much stronger position to move. forward again with more resolutions, more action in the Security Council and in the General Assembly as well. And that is precisely what they will do. Now, I just want to add one other thing. If you look at the decision, if you look also at the application, the very, very carefully drafted

pleading that South Africa brought, what has... made Israel's position absolutely untenable from a legal perspective is this incredible language that Israeli officials and cabinet ministers and even Prime Minister Netanyahu himself engaged in, have been engaged in since the events of 7th October. If they'd chosen their words very carefully, if they'd insisted that, despite all the people being killed in Gaza, all the indiscriminate bombing, all of that kind of thing. Israel was doing what it could,

and was simply exercising its right to self-defense. It's been stuck to that line. I think it's much more difficult to imagine the court making this decision. I don't know what came over the leadership in Israel. I suspect that they've become so accustomed for so long to the fact that, you know, the West, the collective West,

and in particular the United States will protect them. That they became arrogant and callous and said these things, which they know play well with a certain part of the Israeli public. And here we are. There is now action.

There's the actual events in Gaza themselves. And there is also in these words of these Israeli officials, there is signs of clear intent. And what has happened is the ICJ has put the two together and they've said that there is an arguable case. And again, in program, after program, we said this would happen, we warned that this would happen,

and here we are. And, you know, Prime Minister Netanyahu, who is an extremely clever man, should have understood this best of all and making speeches in which he references Amalek I mean that was disastrous

and squirreling into these speeches you know other sub sentences in which he said that Israel you know should nonetheless act in a lawful way and take care not to you know do bad and wrong things if he'd consulted any lawyer, they would have told him that simply won't wash.

You can't make statements that can be interpreted as having a genocidal intention and then give yourself what you think is a get-out-of-jail card by making qualifications like that. So I think that the cabinet in Israel behaved unbelievably recklessly, and incredibly, they continued to do so even after South Africa brought this case. And I am incredulous that Israel's friends in the United States, in Britain, and in Germany, didn't tell them, warn them about this, and did not. tell them to shut up. Well, you know, I was going to say the same thing that you, that you said when, you know, you kind of posed the question, you know, why did Israel make the comments that they made, which essentially made South Africa's case.

South Africa built much of their case on the rhetoric that came from the Israeli officials even all the way to the top from Netanyahu. And it's clear why this happened. And that's because the United States, UK, Germany, the entirety of the collective West, they don't have the experience in diplomacy to tell Israel don't say these things. This all goes back to Biden and Blinkin's trips, which we've talked about in many videos, their first trips to Israel where they effectively. gave Netanyahu a blank check, do whatever you want, and we're going to protect you.

That was a catastrophic decision and failure in diplomacy from the United States. And, of course, the Europeans being the Europeans and the UK being the UK, they just followed along with it. They did whatever the United States was, they just followed whatever the United States was doing. And so there was nobody to put the brakes. on much of the rhetoric and the actions, of course the actions, but the statements that were coming out of the Israeli officials, there was no one there to tell them, stop. And it also shows that the collective West, once again, as in the case with Ukraine, as in the case with the conflict of Ukraine and with Russia, they underestimated the global South, the rest of the world, Bricks. And they didn't

think that Bricks had it in them to work within the institutions that they control in order to lead to some sort of outcome that would be in in the favor of Bricks and of the global South. So, you know, one of the questions that we always get when we do live streams when it comes to the United Nations and Bricks is how come Bricks doesn't create it, it creates its own institutions. Why do they rely on the United Nations, which is controlled by the United States and seems to always fail? And we always give the same responses that many of the foreign ministers in Brick's nations also give when this question is posed to them, which is that they prefer to work within the United Nations and try to work the system of the United Nations and change

the way the system of the United Nations works in order to to move things along. And I think what we're seeing in this case with South Africa and this ICJ ruling, and the way Brazil was putting forward resolutions, Russia was putting forward resolutions, United Arab Emirates was putting forward resolutions, China was calling for peace conference. I'm naming Brick's countries now, and the way they were working within the United Nations, within the institutions, that the

the United States effectively controls, but they managed to work within those institutions, and to outplay the collective West and specifically the United States. And they completely outplayed them. On their pitch, it's like a team, it's like a visiting team coming to the pitch of the home team and beating them. And that's what they did, and that's where they're heading towards. And I think this is an interesting case to look at it to study, because it shows that Lavrov and many of the foreign ministers within the Briggs Nations, Wang Yi, and all of these foreign ministers, when they said that we want to work within the United Nations

and change the United Nations from within and get the United Nations to work properly, we see that they accomplish that in this instance, in this case. You're absolutely right on every conceivable point. You are completely right. They have completely outplayed them. They have not only played game set and match in the Security Council and in the General Assembly and now in the ICJ. And let me say again, this was the toughest decision that the ICJ could properly have made. If it had ordered a ceasefire, I think it would have exceeded.

It would have gone beyond what it was appropriate to do in this kind of situation. and I think this is very, very carefully judged. So they have outplayed them at every conceivable level. And they've also, by the way, importantly, won over to their side on this issue, the secretariat, the bureaucracy of the United Nations, which up to this point has been completely owned by the United States. they've won over the bureaucracy in part because several members of the bureaucracy

about 150 of them at the last count that I saw had themselves been killed in the fighting in Gaza so altogether this is becoming the biggest conceivable debacle and a little bit further up down the line we now have reports about this Saudi peace plan, which MBS is putting together, which is, of course, also a BRICS peace plan. Remember that? Saudi Arabia is now de facto. I think it's a day to-day jury, a member of BRICS.

I mean, BRICS doesn't have an official membership. The point is it will be invited to the next BRICS summit meeting and it will attend as a full member. So this is going to be a BRICS peace plan. I mean, it's going to be a BRICS peace plan. I mean, it's going to be be coordinated with all the Briggs countries, and it's going to call for an Palestinian state, which is, of course, precisely what Prime Minister Netanyahu and his cabinet have set their face against, but probably the next step they will take is they'll go to the General Assembly. They will say, let's recognize Palestine as a fully fledged state, and let's give it a seat and full voting rights in the General Assembly. And again, I suspect most of the European countries will vote in favour,

because I don't see now how they can avoid doing that. Anyway, so they have done exactly what you said, but they could only have done this, going back to your very first words, by capitalising on the catastrophic series of blunders that the US administration, the Biden administration, took right at the outset of the crisis. That disastrous trip by Tony Blinken going around lobby Arab leaders, the King of Jordan, the president of Egypt, MBS himself to try to agree to a displacement of people from Gaza,

you know, their removal to Sinai, a tent city in, you know, funded by Qatar. I mean, that was a disastrous idea. And then Biden himself, coming along to Israel, embracing Netanyahu, telling him, you know, you got all our support.

You know, we are 100% behind you. In effect, giving Netanyahu in public a blank check, not considering what Netanyahu might have been prepared to do, not looking at the political pressures

Netanyahu himself is under, not asking whether an uncontrained war in Gaza is in fact in US interests, never mind Israeli interests, miscalculating how complex that operation in Gaza would turn out to be, bear in mind, you know, we're weeks away since it began,

and it doesn't seem to be anywhere close to being concluded. They made a series of catastrophic decisions, and it is those decisions taken back in October, which the bricks have capitalised on, and which have led us exactly to this outcome. All I would say is, if you really want to understand diplomacy and why the United States,

States is being outplayed which it is just look at the caliber of the foreign ministers of the major briggs countries lavrov Wang Yi jai shankar in india and then just look at sullivan and blinkin i mean is it is there any possibility that the blink and sullivan team are going to win any rounds against a Brick's team as strong as that. Absolutely. And let's not forget the foreign minister

of South Africa. Of South Africa, absolutely. Nalediipat Pandor, yeah. Absolutely. All of them. They did a big role in all of this. Absolutely. I mean, they know how to conduct diplomacy. Lincoln doesn't know how to conduct diplomacy.

He is a complete non-entity. He is a full. They're not trained diplomats. They're appointees because they did something to help the campaign of Bidens or of Olives Schultz or their party leaders of the Green Party or something and they've been appointed this position because they have a coalition government or something like that. The positions in the collective west of foreign minister and finance minister and even

head of the ECB or head of the European Commission, these are appointed positions given to people because they're being rewarded for for being loyal to to the powers that be that's it that's exactly these aren't trained yeah they're not trained diplomats that's just the bottom line they're getting outplayed over and over again they got outplayed here just one final question it could be a yes or no because um you are having trouble speaking but this could just be a yes or no response, isn't it time now for the Biden White House to understand that they need to go to to Israel and they need to offer Netanyahu an off-ramp because of his domestic political issues, which everyone knows exists, and everyone knows this is driving Netanyahu to continue this

conflict. Search for an off-ramp for Netanyahu and speak with Israel and figure out a way to wind this thing down because this is a catastrophe. It's not working. This has been a complete catastrophe. After this ruling, the best thing that the Biden White House could do is to go to Israel to speak with the government, to speak with the Nanyahu, find his off-ramp, and just start to end this horrific war. That would be the most likely. That would be the most logical, rational thing. You're absolutely correct. That is exactly what they should do.

And they should also tell Israel to comply with these rulings, you know, to start providing that kind of information because of the mounting risks of what might happen if they don't. And I would add, if the Israelis are minded to pretend compliance by, you know, spinning things out, providing some information here, but withholding other information there, the kind of thing that bad lawyers do, if I can say it like this,

I suspect, given that we're dealing with the genocide case, that will go down even worse. Remember, the court has granted interim measures. There's nothing that prevents them, as far as I understand it, from granting more and harder interim measures, right up to a ceasefire, if Israel is found to be non-compliant with these orders. So just saying, but, you know, they won't do that.

What they're much more likely to do, what they're much, much more likely to do is to say that they don't agree with the decision of the ICJ, and the hard line is amongst them, the neocons, people with no reverse gear, are going to be going around saying to each other, look, we're losing control, we've got to get control back,

that means we've got to intensify our preparations for a wider war. Israel is now definitely seems to be working towards some kind of conflict with Hezbollah. I was reading only yesterday in the Financial Times that the Americans are now saying that it's 50-50 that there might be a war between Israel and Hezbollah. I predict this is getting to make the war with Hezbollah even more likely. we're still having the attacks, the missile attacks on the Houthis in Yemen, and I've already discussed both in my program on my own channel, and in the live stream we did yesterday with Brian Balletti,

why I believe that any decision to pull out US troops from bases in Iraq, which is confirmed, and from Syria, which is denied, is really a measure of getting American troops out of harm's way in order to clear the decks for an attack on Iran. So I think that is what they're going to do. This is not going to cause them to rethink their strategy. It's going to cause them to escalate even more because that's the kind of people we are dealing with.

Yeah, that's exactly what they're going to do. I agree. They're going to say, you know, we need to create a wider war. in order to just distract away from this decision. To nullify this decision, we need to create complete chaos. That's what the neocons are going to push for. And the Biden White House will go along with it. You know, they don't have the diplomacy.

They don't have the skill to wind this conflict down to the benefit of everybody involved. They don't have that type of skill. So what they're going to do is they're just going to take the hammer to the nail and we're going to see more chaos come out of this decision. Unfortunately, that's going to be the road that they take. Anyway, all right, we will end it there. The durand.com. We are on Rumble, odyssey, bitchchutes, telegram, rockfin, and Twitter X,

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