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Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here

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Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of

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Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.

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Speaker 2: We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade

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Speaker 2: the studio ad staff give you, guys, the best independent

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Speaker 2: coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about,

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Speaker 2: it just means the absolute world to have your support.

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Speaker 2: But enough with that, let's get to the show. Hello, everybody,

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Speaker 2: there's some major breaking news I wanted to bring everybody tonight.

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Speaker 2: It's about seven thirty pm here on the East Coast.

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Speaker 2: Let's put this up there on the screen. US and

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Speaker 2: British military have officially launched massive retaliatory strikes against the

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Speaker 2: Iranian backed who Thi's in Yemen, striking approximately a dozen

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Speaker 2: sites all across the country of Yemen on the Iranian

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Speaker 2: back to militia, which has launched several missiles and attacks

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Speaker 2: on ships in the Red Sea. So this is obviously

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Speaker 2: a breaking news situation, so we don't have a full

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Speaker 2: amount of the details. What we do know are that

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Speaker 2: the militaries and the governments that were involved. While it

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Speaker 2: was just the United States and the UK, it was

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Speaker 2: quote with support from Australia, the Netherlands, Bahrain, Canada. All

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Speaker 2: these joint air strikes. These strikes involved US aircraft, US

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Speaker 2: ships and submarines as well as whatever the Brits were

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Speaker 2: able to bring to the table. We have a little

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Speaker 2: bit of the video. I want this to just play

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Speaker 2: while I'm talking a little bit about this. We can

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Speaker 2: put that up there right now. Yemeny sources have confirmed

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Speaker 2: that the strikes actually occurred. All of this within the

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Speaker 2: last thirty or forty minutes or so, series of ballistic

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Speaker 2: missiles apparently launched from Yemen towards targets in the Red Sea,

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Speaker 2: possibly in retaliation. Now we have a very short reaction

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Speaker 2: from the Houthy Group, a statement that they put out

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Speaker 2: on telegram. They say, quote, we are with Palestine, we

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Speaker 2: will not back down from our position, and we will

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Speaker 2: respond to any aggression against us. To reiterate here, the

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Speaker 2: HOO these the Iranian back group. This has been the

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Speaker 2: twenty seven now attacks that they have mounted since November nineteenth,

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Speaker 2: where they decided to begin attacking both ships moving through

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Speaker 2: the Red Sea that were going towards Israel, and it

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Speaker 2: later began basically a full scale operation that has mounted

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Speaker 2: now major response from the United States, from the UK

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Speaker 2: and a so called coalition which eventually fell apart. Of course,

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Speaker 2: the reason why the Red Sea is so important is

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Speaker 2: that it is one of the major thoroughfares of traffic

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Speaker 2: for global shipping. It has caused hundreds of billions of

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Speaker 2: dollars already to be lost because many ships have had

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Speaker 2: to divert their traffic around the Horn of Africa, particularly

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Speaker 2: hurting European markets Israeli's ports as well. Specifically, they are

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Speaker 2: ships which had been targeted by who, the suicide drones

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Speaker 2: and others. This has frankly just been a long time coming.

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Speaker 2: Now the United States hasn't been engaged not only with

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Speaker 2: anti ballistic anti ship missiles that they've had to shoot

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Speaker 2: down from the US guided missile destroyers, We've also had

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Speaker 2: multiple other instances. The latest last one it appears to

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Speaker 2: be the quote unquote straw that books the Camel's back

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Speaker 2: just yesterday two am Yemen time with an anti ship

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Speaker 2: ballistic missile. But there previously had been instances where you

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Speaker 2: had boats that were literally shot from US military helicopters.

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Speaker 2: Now all of this obviously has happened after the war

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Speaker 2: in Gaza the Israeli bombing specifically now the Hoho Thies

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Speaker 2: Iranian back group, say that they are doing this in

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Speaker 2: response to Israeli military action. They claim that they will

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Speaker 2: stop their strikes if there is a ceasefire in Gaza,

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Speaker 2: and there was diminished activity whenever a ceasefire had previously occurred.

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Speaker 2: Now this is clearly the United States decided that's not

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Speaker 2: something they're going to push for, and the Israeli certainly

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Speaker 2: aren't as well. So now the US the UK are

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Speaker 2: the ones who are militarily involved. This is especially significant.

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Speaker 2: This is the first United States military strike on the

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Speaker 2: territory of Yemen since twenty and sixteen, so it's been

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Speaker 2: quite a long time. And just to take people a

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Speaker 2: little bit back for the context, the Hohothis have been

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Speaker 2: involved in a brutal civil war inside of Yemen now

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Speaker 2: for years. They were actually the target of a nine

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Speaker 2: year bombing campaign from the Saudi Arabia and the Amarants

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Speaker 2: the UAE, largely because they are Iranian backed, and these

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Speaker 2: are regional rivalries between Iran, Saudi Arabia and the ua

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Speaker 2: for control of Yemen, which has been very strategic position

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Speaker 2: as we can all see as for Wry this happened. Now,

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Speaker 2: the problem in the question mark here is going to

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Speaker 2: be if this US response, which the United States and

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Speaker 2: initial statement said was quote unquote proportional, whether this will

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Speaker 2: deter action. Now, previously we had a statement from the

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Speaker 2: WHO thies that said that if there was any action

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Speaker 2: against them, quote, any American aggression will never remain without

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Speaker 2: a response. That response will not be at the level

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Speaker 2: of the operation that was recently carried out in targeting

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Speaker 2: the American at sea with more than twenty four aircraft

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Speaker 2: and a number of missiles. The response is greater than that. Again,

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Speaker 2: that's according to the WHO these This attack seems to

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Speaker 2: have been coordinated with some of the other powers in

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Speaker 2: the region. President CSI of Egypt apparently received a call

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Speaker 2: earlier today from the Prime Minister of the UK, Rishi Sunak,

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Speaker 2: who telegraphed quite a bit you know, given there, and

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Speaker 2: they had a full meeting of their cabinet and others

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Speaker 2: who were notified, and there was quite a bit of

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Speaker 2: advanced knowledge that the strike was going to occur. Nonetheless,

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Speaker 2: I mean the strike is still significant just for the

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Speaker 2: main reason that this is the first expansion and direct intervention.

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Speaker 2: Now you know, at the behest of the United States,

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Speaker 2: the UK, two NATO allies into this situation and to

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Speaker 2: this war. It really does, you know, raise a lot

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Speaker 2: of questions about where this goes. The Huthis have they

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Speaker 2: are not Hamas, They are much more on par with Hesbaala.

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Speaker 2: Their military capability is pretty big. I mean, they've got

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Speaker 2: ballistic missiles, They've had the capacity now to shutdown shipping

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Speaker 2: in the Red Sea. They've got a decent amount of

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Speaker 2: military capability that they've been supplied from Iran for almost

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Speaker 2: a decade now. Who knows how many strongholds that they have.

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Speaker 2: As I said, you know previously on our show, the

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Speaker 2: main concern about knocking out quote unquote who the infrastructure

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Speaker 2: and all of that is that they're very well equipped

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Speaker 2: to sustain bombing as they showed us and the situation

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Speaker 2: with Saudi Arabia and with the UAE and their bombing campaign.

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Speaker 2: There's also currently an international peace negotiation that was previously

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Speaker 2: going on inside of Yemen, and this could turn this

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Speaker 2: even to more of a catastrophe. Don't forget before the

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Speaker 2: humanitarian situation in Gaza, Yemen was one of the worst

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Speaker 2: humanitarian situations in the world and there was even bipartisan

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Speaker 2: outrage here in the United States about the Saudi bombing

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Speaker 2: campaign in Yemen, So we can't forget that this is

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Speaker 2: a volatile situation. It very much could lead to an

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Speaker 2: expanded American presence inside of the war end. It's one

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Speaker 2: of those where you know, this leads to all kinds

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Speaker 2: of possible scenarios. The Houthi's very unlikely to just simply

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Speaker 2: stop as a result of this. Who knows if the

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Speaker 2: United States did you know, really carry out the strikes

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Speaker 2: on significant military targets. We know what they say we'll

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Speaker 2: see right now.

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Speaker 3: It's literally in the.

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Speaker 2: Middle of the night, gemon time, so I think we'll

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Speaker 2: get a little bit of video and others in the

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Speaker 2: morning that we'll be able to assess whether we were

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Speaker 2: able to do some damage. But the big question mark

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Speaker 2: is that, like I said at the beginning, there's been

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Speaker 2: some initial reports now that there were a hoothy response

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Speaker 2: retaliatory attacks. Now we don't know their night vision capabilities,

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Speaker 2: what their radar systems and all that look like, whether

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Speaker 2: there's self functional after the site. But when we wake

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Speaker 2: up in the morning, we certainly could see continued retaliatory

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Speaker 2: strikes as the hoo. Theies have mounted daytime and nighttime

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Speaker 2: attacks now in the past, but overall that's what we

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Speaker 2: know so far from the US the UK. This has

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Speaker 2: been confirmed from the Pentagon. President Biden originally was supposed

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Speaker 2: to make a statement, according to the UK media, but

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Speaker 2: he did not do so. Like I said, recording here

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Speaker 2: now seven thirty approximately Eastern time, just checking to make

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Speaker 2: sure that we haven't seen anything. Oh actually, here we go.

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Speaker 2: Literally just came flashed across the wire. Statement from President

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Speaker 2: Biden quote, these strikes are in direct response to an

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Speaker 2: unprecedented hoothy attacks against international maritime vessels in the Red Sea,

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Speaker 2: including the use of anti ship ballistack missiles for the

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Speaker 2: first time in history. These attacks have endangered US personnel,

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Speaker 2: civilian mariners, and our partners, jeopardizing trade, and threatened freedom

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Speaker 2: of navigation. More than fifty nations have now been affected

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Speaker 2: in twenty seven attacks on international commercial shipping. Crews from

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Speaker 2: more than twenty countries have been threatened or taken hostage

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Speaker 2: in acts of piracy. And so in that basically in

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Speaker 2: that statement giving a lengthy, pretty long justification for the

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Speaker 2: reason that the strikes did occur. So that's the initial

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Speaker 2: response confirmation there from the White House. We will see

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Speaker 2: whether we're going to get any more detail and color.

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Speaker 2: We will bring all of you the news of that

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Speaker 2: in the morning, but just wanted to give you a

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Speaker 2: little bit of a little bit just of an initial

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Speaker 2: reaction the breaking news that situation. Here. I have the

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Speaker 2: full now White House statement that I'm looking here, and

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Speaker 2: it just says the ending says today's defensive action follows

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Speaker 2: this extensive diplomatic campaign and HOOTI rebels escalating attacks against

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Speaker 2: our commercial vessels. These targeted strikes are a clear message

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Speaker 2: the United States and our partners will not tolerate attacks

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Speaker 2: on our personnel or allow hostile actors to impareil freedom

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Speaker 2: of navigation in one of the world's most commercial shipping routes.

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Speaker 2: I will not hesitate to direct further measures to protect

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Speaker 2: our people and the free flow of international commerce as necessary.

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Speaker 2: So there you go. That's everything that we've got right

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Speaker 2: now so far. As we said, probably going to see

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Speaker 2: initial and more battle damage assessment and all that whenever

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Speaker 2: we wake up in the morning. Wishing you all good night,

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Speaker 2: and I hope you can sleep. Unfortunately, though it does

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Speaker 2: appear that you know the prospect of regional war, probably

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Speaker 2: probably higher than it's been in a long time, and

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Speaker 2: a fearful moment now almost one hundred days into the

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Speaker 2: war in Gaza. So there we go, and like I said,

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Speaker 2: we will have more information for all of you tomorrow.

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Speaker 2: Shout out to our premium members who make all of

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Speaker 2: these possible. Our crew all been stand by all day

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Speaker 2: and they helped me put together this video, the elements

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Speaker 2: and all of that. So if you can help us

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Speaker 2: out at Breakingpoints dot Com and I will see you

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Speaker 2: all later.

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Speaker 4: Hey, guys.

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Speaker 1: As you know, the International Court of Justice has been

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Speaker 1: hearing this week South Africa's case against Israel. South Africa

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Speaker 1: alleges that Israel is committing genocide and that they are

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Speaker 1: also failing to prevent genocide, and they are seeking right now,

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Speaker 1: not a complete finding on the merits, but simply a

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Speaker 1: temporary injunction. That finding would basically be that it is

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Speaker 1: plausible that Israel is committing genocide and thus immediate measures

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Speaker 1: need to be taken in order to protect the rights

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Speaker 1: of Palestinian civilians. So yesterday on the show, we broke

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Speaker 1: down for you some of what South Africa had to

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Speaker 1: say in their statements in presenting their case, and this

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Speaker 1: morning I took a listen to what the Israeli defense was,

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Speaker 1: so I wanted to spend some time breaking that down

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Speaker 1: for you before I jump into the arguments that they

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Speaker 1: are making. Of course, they are necessarily responding to the

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Speaker 1: allegations that South Africa laid out, and so I wanted

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Speaker 1: to start by putting some of the context of kind

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Speaker 1: of the high level view of the core of South

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Speaker 1: Africa's arguments on the merits. And I'll talk a little

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Speaker 1: bit later about some of the legal technical issues that

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Speaker 1: are also in dispute, and we can discuss those and

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Speaker 1: what the South Africans are saying and what the Israelis

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Speaker 1: are saying as well. But this is the overall context

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Speaker 1: that Israel has to respond to and that they attempted

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Speaker 1: to respond to in their response in front of the

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Speaker 1: International Court of Justice today. So South Africa spent a

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Speaker 1: lot of time, understandably, since they're alleging genocide on the

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Speaker 1: mass death that Israel has caused in the Gaza Strip

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Speaker 1: and the large vast amount of destruction of civilian infrastructure.

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Speaker 1: EUROMED Monitor has been tracking this.

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Speaker 5: Now.

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Speaker 1: The South Africans used a lot of un assessments euromed

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Speaker 1: Monitor both uses un assessments and also their own analysis,

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Speaker 1: so the numbers are not exactly the same, but this

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Speaker 1: is just to give you a sense of the top

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Speaker 1: level case the South Africans were making yesterday, so this

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Speaker 1: is an article for euromed Monitor. They say, in the

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Speaker 1: fourth month of Israeli genocide, four percent of Gaza's population

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Speaker 1: is dead, missing, or injured. Seventy percent of the strip's

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Speaker 1: infrastructure is destroyed. They go on to reiterate these numbers

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Speaker 1: and they also talk about the number of injured gosins

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Speaker 1: with long term disabilities. The rights group said, noting that

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Speaker 1: the genocide, and this is their assessment that it is

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Speaker 1: a genocide, is a mass disabling event. They highlightighted Israel's

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Speaker 1: continuous AirLand, and sea attacks that have destroyed about seventy

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Speaker 1: percent of the Gaza Strip civilian facilities in infrastructure since

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Speaker 1: October seventh, citing the clear Israeli aim of implementing collective

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Speaker 1: punishment against the entire population and making the strip, which

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Speaker 1: has been under siege for over seventeen years, uninhabitable. Israel

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Speaker 1: is pushing hundreds of thousands of civilians towards mass forced displacement.

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Speaker 1: According to their estimates, thirty thousand, six hundred and seventy

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Speaker 1: six Palestinines have been killed. That includes those who have

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Speaker 1: been declared killed and also those who have are buried

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Speaker 1: under the rubble and presumed dead. Their assessment is that

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Speaker 1: that includes twenty thousand, two hundred and one civilians, so

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Speaker 1: overwhelming number of civilians, and includes twelve thousand and forty children,

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Speaker 1: six one hundred three women, two hundred and forty one

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Speaker 1: health workers, and one hundred and five journalists. An additional

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Speaker 1: fifty eight thousand, nine hundred and sixty individuals have been injured,

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Speaker 1: hundreds of whom are currently in serious condition. So that

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Speaker 1: is the context of the mass death in the US,

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Speaker 1: extent of the destruction that has been inflicted both on

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Speaker 1: the you know, civilian population, also on all the civilian infrastructure,

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Speaker 1: on aid workers, hospital workers, women, children. That was a

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Speaker 1: major focus of South Africa's case presented yesterday. The other

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Speaker 1: piece that we've talked a lot about and that they

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Speaker 1: spent a good bit of time on yesterday was establishing

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Speaker 1: what they claimed to be genocidal intent. And this is

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Speaker 1: not an easy task. Normally, you don't have political officials

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Speaker 1: and military officials walking around saying, hey, guys, we're doing

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Speaker 1: a genocide. And so they had a list and also

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Speaker 1: some video evidence of officials up to and including BB

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Speaker 1: NETANYAHUO who were talking about, you know, the destruction of

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Speaker 1: the Palestinian people, the destruction of Gaza, et cetera. And

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Speaker 1: so just as a reminder of some of what they

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Speaker 1: really focused on, because I think they anticipated that Israel

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Speaker 1: would say, oh, well, a lot of these people, you know,

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Speaker 1: the Minister of Antiquities or whatever, they don't really have

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Speaker 1: any governing authority. They're not the ones in charge. So

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Speaker 1: what matters is the people at the top and the

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Speaker 1: policy that they're setting. So in light of anticipating that

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Speaker 1: argument from the Israelis, which they did make a version

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Speaker 1: of today, they spent some time on comments from Prime

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Speaker 1: Minister Benjamin Nenyaho, who no one could argue doesn't have

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Speaker 1: some influence here and isn't in control of what's going on,

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Speaker 1: and then connected those to comments that were being made

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Speaker 1: by rank and file soldiers on the ground who clearly

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Speaker 1: took those comments seriously and were then implementing them in

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Speaker 1: the way that they were going about, you know, their

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Speaker 1: assault on Gaza there on the ground. So just as

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Speaker 1: a reminder of that. Let me go ahead and play

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Speaker 1: those comments from NETANYAHUO talking about Amelek, the historic biblical

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Speaker 1: foe of the Jewish people, which you know the Bible

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Speaker 1: tells them to destroy the seat of Amelek, the camel,

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Speaker 1: the sheep, the suckling, the oxen, everything. Here is what

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Speaker 1: he had to say very early on in the war

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Speaker 1: about their aims. Take a listen.

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Speaker 5: You must remember what a Malek has done to you,

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Speaker 5: says our Holy Bible. And we do remember, and we

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Speaker 5: are fighting our grave. Troops and combatants who are now

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Speaker 5: in Gaza or around Gaza and in all other regions

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Speaker 5: in Israel are joining this chain of Jewish heroes.

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Speaker 1: And talking about Amelek. And then I can also show

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Speaker 1: you the response from the soldiers on the ground. This

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Speaker 1: part is in Hebrew, so I will read you the

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Speaker 1: subtitles as well. Here we go. This is soldiers who

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Speaker 1: are cheering and singing this song where they talk about Amelek.

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Speaker 1: And they also showed another one where they echoed the

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Speaker 1: words of President Isaac Hertzog saying there are no uninvolved civilians.

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Speaker 1: Here is that portion of South Africa's presentation. Okay, so

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Speaker 1: this was part of their attempt to establish intent. Of course,

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Speaker 1: as we've covered extensively on breaking points, and I did

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Speaker 1: as well in my original video breaking down the South

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Speaker 1: African filing to the ICJ, that was a preview to

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Speaker 1: the arguments that they laid out yesterday. They had numerous

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Speaker 1: pages of Israeli top Israeli officials, of top military officials,

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Speaker 1: people who are in a position to influence government policy,

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Speaker 1: you know, per their filing, and the comments that they made,

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Speaker 1: things like you know, we want knock, but twenty twenty

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Speaker 1: three were fighting human animals, they should be treated as such.

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Speaker 1: Were instituting a complete siege that was you have Glant,

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Speaker 1: the Defense minister. So those were the two sort of

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Speaker 1: primary components on the merits. Like I said, there were

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Speaker 1: some other legal technical issues, but those were the major

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Speaker 1: claims that Israel was then tasked with responding with today.

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Speaker 1: So let me go ahead and play for you a

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Speaker 1: little bit of how they approached that. Those of you

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Speaker 1: who have been listening to Israeli rhetoric even just you know,

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Speaker 1: since October seventh, a lot of these arguments won't be

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Speaker 1: surprising to you. The first thing that they did was

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Speaker 1: to try to establish that the context that South Africa

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Speaker 1: put before the court that that was not the right

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Speaker 1: way to think about this conflict that you know. They

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Speaker 1: first started by saying, listen, we understand better than anyone

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Speaker 1: with this side convention is about because of the horrors

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Speaker 1: of the Holocaust. They went on to say that effectively,

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Speaker 1: this is was presented by South Africa as this one

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Speaker 1: sided assault. In reality, this is a war between two actors.

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Speaker 1: You know, I would say left out of the Israeli

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Speaker 1: analysis is the fact that one of these actors is

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Speaker 1: a state power, funded and equipped with the by the

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Speaker 1: world's superpower, and with incredible offensive capabilities, and the other

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Speaker 1: is a non state actor with very limited capabilities, very

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Speaker 1: limited ability to inflict damage on the Israeli people in

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Speaker 1: October seventh. They also talked, obviously, aside from October seventh,

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Speaker 1: where they were able to inflict absolute horrors on many

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Speaker 1: Israeli people, they also talked a lot about October seventh,

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Speaker 1: and that that context was missing from the South African complaint.

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Speaker 1: I don't think that's particularly fair because the atrocities that

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Speaker 1: were committed on October seventh, South Africa doesn't dispute that

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Speaker 1: their argument is simply which is true. According to international

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Speaker 1: law that even if you were subject to atrocities, it

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Speaker 1: does not then justify you turning around and also committing atrocities,

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Speaker 1: and it certainly doesn't justify genocide. So they also abhor

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Speaker 1: the violence and attacks on civilians that were committed on

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Speaker 1: October seventh. But their argument is, you know, this is

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Speaker 1: essentially irrelevant given the acts that Israeli's have committed, the

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Speaker 1: idf at the Beha of top Israeli officials that are

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Speaker 1: being committed on the ground against Gazans. So in addition,

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Speaker 1: and this is the part that I'll go ahead and

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Speaker 1: play for you so you can get a sense of

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Speaker 1: some of these arguments, they basically argue that listen, if

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Speaker 1: anyone is committing genocide here, it is hummas. So let's

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Speaker 1: take a listen to that argument.

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Speaker 6: Appreciate three core aspects of the present proceedings which the

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Speaker 6: applicant has obscured from view. First, but if there have

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Speaker 6: been acts that may be characterized as genocidal, then they

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Speaker 6: have been perpetrated against Israel. If there is a concern

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Speaker 6: about the obligations of states under the Genocide Convention, then

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Speaker 6: it is in relation to their responsibilities to act against

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Speaker 6: Tarmas's proudly declared agenda of annihilation, which is not a

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Speaker 6: secret and is not in doubt the annihilises language of Kamas.

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Speaker 6: This chapter is repeated regularly by its leaders, with the goal,

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Speaker 6: in the words of one member of Hamas's political bureau,

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Speaker 6: of the cleansing of Palestine of the filth of the Jews.

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Speaker 6: It is expressed no less chilling in the words of

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Speaker 6: senior member Razi Khamad te Lebanese television on October twenty fourth,

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Speaker 6: twenty twenty three, who refers to the October seventh attexts

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Speaker 6: what Hamas calls the alaka fla.

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Speaker 3: As follows, Ani asked, yes them. At the moment.

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Speaker 6: In the continuation of this interview, Hamas is asked Kramas asked,

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Speaker 6: does that mean the annihilation of Israel? Yes, of course,

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Speaker 6: he says, the existence of Israel is illogical, and then

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Speaker 6: he says, nobody should blame us for the things we do.

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Speaker 6: On October seventh, October tenth, October one million, everything we

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Speaker 6: do is justified end quote. Given that on October seventh,

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Speaker 6: before any military response by Israel, South Africa issued an

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Speaker 6: official statement blaming is quote the recent conflagration essentially blaming

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Speaker 6: Israel for the murder of its own citizens. One wonders

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Speaker 6: whether the applicant agrees.

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Speaker 1: So a few things of note there. I mean, you

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Speaker 1: could very glibly describe as portion of their defense as

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Speaker 1: but Hamas and you know, legally, again, South Africa does

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Speaker 1: not dispute that whorse and likely atrocities were committed by

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Speaker 1: Hamas on October seventh. That does not justify or allow

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Speaker 1: for genocide then to occur. You can also hear at

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Speaker 1: the end there there's some very strong insinuations made about

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Speaker 1: South Africa that South Africa is basically in league with Hamas.

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Speaker 1: This is a portion of their defense that they previewed

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Speaker 1: going into today's hearing in stronger and less diplomatic words

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Speaker 1: that were said for consumption for the public. They said

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Speaker 1: something like, you know, they're in league with Hamas's rape

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Speaker 1: regime or something of that nature, so effectively trying to

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Speaker 1: cast dis versions on the character of the South African

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Speaker 1: leadership and effectively say, you know what, they're basically Hamas

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Speaker 1: as well. In addition, they spend some time casting some

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Speaker 1: doubt on the overall numbers of deaths, saying, you know,

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Speaker 1: these are numbers that come from Hamas themselves, So how

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Speaker 1: can you trust them? And this is something that you

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Speaker 1: know they've said repeatedly from the beginning. Now, one way

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Speaker 1: you could alleviate that concern over the veracity of the

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Speaker 1: numbers is if you allowed in international observers who could

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Speaker 1: independently assess what the actual death toll is. That has

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Speaker 1: not been allowed. We can also say that in previous conflicts,

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Speaker 1: after when international observers were able to check out what

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Speaker 1: the held Maas led health ministry was producing in the

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Speaker 1: way of death toll, that it ended up being quite accurate.

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Speaker 1: In addition, they also called into question how many civilians

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Speaker 1: were actually being killed, So there was an effort to say, okay,

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Speaker 1: these numbers, Yeah, it sounds bad, but it's not really

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Speaker 1: clear that these are even accurate numbers. And then you

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Speaker 1: will also be unsurprised to learn if you've been listening

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Speaker 1: to Israelis during this conflict and previously, they also spent

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Speaker 1: a lot of time saying, well, listen, of course we

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Speaker 1: abhor any violence against civilians, but the real reason that

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Speaker 1: this is occurring is because of Hamas using them as

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Speaker 1: human shields, being under their hospitals, being under their schools,

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Speaker 1: there were pictures showed, I believe, of like a child's bedroom,

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Speaker 1: of Hamas using a residential house. And so they say, yes,

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Speaker 1: there is a lot of destruction, you know, in the

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Speaker 1: Gaza Strip, but this is because Hamas is using the

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Speaker 1: civilian infrastructure for military purposes. And so even though we

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Speaker 1: really regret it, we have to go in and destroy

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Speaker 1: this because and it's because of Hamas that we have

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Speaker 1: to do this now, you know, you might say on

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Speaker 1: the other side, I might say, on the other side,

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Speaker 1: Israel has used an amount of firepower and created a

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Speaker 1: level of destruction. And this is something South Africa pointed

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Speaker 1: to yesterday that is nearly unprecedented. I mean, this has

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Speaker 1: been a short period of time already surpassed years of

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Speaker 1: Allied bombing of dressed In for example. The entirety of

434
00:25:44,240 --> 00:25:48,879
Speaker 1: the Gaza Strip is effectively already rendered uninhabitable. Hospitals have

435
00:25:48,960 --> 00:25:52,600
Speaker 1: been you know, hospitals have been attacked and rendered unusable.

436
00:25:52,640 --> 00:25:56,240
Speaker 1: This is another thing that South Africa talked about yesterday.

437
00:25:56,359 --> 00:25:59,320
Speaker 1: And so Israel's response to that is basically to say, yes,

438
00:25:59,480 --> 00:26:02,440
Speaker 1: maybe there's a lot of civilian infrastructure that has been destroyed,

439
00:26:02,640 --> 00:26:05,199
Speaker 1: but it is really because of Hamas. They are the

440
00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:08,879
Speaker 1: ones to blame for this. There was also a discussion

441
00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:12,240
Speaker 1: about whether Israel does in fact have a right to

442
00:26:12,320 --> 00:26:15,440
Speaker 1: defend themselves. One of the arguments made by South Africa yesterday,

443
00:26:15,440 --> 00:26:19,000
Speaker 1: which is backed up by some scholars, is that since

444
00:26:19,000 --> 00:26:21,760
Speaker 1: they are an occupying force, they don't actually have the

445
00:26:21,840 --> 00:26:24,240
Speaker 1: right to defend themselves. So they spend some time on

446
00:26:24,280 --> 00:26:29,760
Speaker 1: that as well. In addition, they to try to explain

447
00:26:30,040 --> 00:26:34,280
Speaker 1: the very high civilian death toll and to try to

448
00:26:34,359 --> 00:26:37,800
Speaker 1: show that the reason there are so many civilians who

449
00:26:37,840 --> 00:26:41,359
Speaker 1: have been killed in their bombardment is not because of

450
00:26:41,400 --> 00:26:45,840
Speaker 1: their actions, but in spite of their actions to try

451
00:26:45,880 --> 00:26:49,080
Speaker 1: to you know, Russian aid and to take these extraordinary

452
00:26:49,080 --> 00:26:52,919
Speaker 1: measures to protect civilians. So they spend a lot of

453
00:26:52,920 --> 00:26:55,240
Speaker 1: time making the case that they are in fact going

454
00:26:55,280 --> 00:26:59,800
Speaker 1: to extraordinary lengths to try to protect the civilian population

455
00:27:00,040 --> 00:27:02,320
Speaker 1: in the Gaza strip. Let me play for you a

456
00:27:02,359 --> 00:27:04,080
Speaker 1: bit of that argument and the.

457
00:27:04,040 --> 00:27:06,640
Speaker 4: Time allotted, I have been able to describe only some

458
00:27:06,680 --> 00:27:11,160
Speaker 4: of Israel's efforts to mitigate civilian harm and to address

459
00:27:11,160 --> 00:27:15,680
Speaker 4: the humanitarian situation in Gaza. But even this mere fraction

460
00:27:16,520 --> 00:27:21,959
Speaker 4: is enough to demonstrate how tendentious and partial the applicants'

461
00:27:21,960 --> 00:27:27,080
Speaker 4: presentations of these facts is and certainly enough to conclude

462
00:27:27,720 --> 00:27:31,800
Speaker 4: that the allegation of intent to commit genocide is baseless.

463
00:27:33,480 --> 00:27:37,399
Speaker 4: If Israel had such intent, would it delay a ground

464
00:27:37,440 --> 00:27:42,399
Speaker 4: maneuver for weeks, urging civilians to seek favor space, and

465
00:27:42,440 --> 00:27:48,360
Speaker 4: in doing so, sacrificing operational advantage. Would it invest massive

466
00:27:48,400 --> 00:27:53,440
Speaker 4: resources to provide civilians details about where to go, when

467
00:27:53,480 --> 00:27:57,160
Speaker 4: to go, how to go to leave areas of fighting.

468
00:27:58,680 --> 00:28:02,560
Speaker 4: Would it maintain a detical units staffed with experts whose

469
00:28:02,640 --> 00:28:06,439
Speaker 4: sole role is to facilitate aid and who continue to

470
00:28:06,520 --> 00:28:12,560
Speaker 4: do so despite having their staff killed and kidnapped. When

471
00:28:12,600 --> 00:28:16,919
Speaker 4: a population is ruled by a terrorist organization that cares

472
00:28:17,000 --> 00:28:21,200
Speaker 4: more about wiping out its neighbor than about protecting its

473
00:28:21,240 --> 00:28:26,879
Speaker 4: own civilians, there are acute challenges in protecting the civilian population.

474
00:28:28,240 --> 00:28:32,960
Speaker 4: Those challenges are exacerbated by the dynamic and evolving nature

475
00:28:33,200 --> 00:28:36,840
Speaker 4: of intense hostilities in an urban area where the enemy

476
00:28:36,880 --> 00:28:43,480
Speaker 4: exploits hospitals, shelters, and critical infrastructure. Would Israel work continuously

477
00:28:44,040 --> 00:28:48,520
Speaker 4: with international organizations and states, even reaching out to them

478
00:28:48,600 --> 00:28:52,280
Speaker 4: on its own initiative, to find solutions to these challenges

479
00:28:52,280 --> 00:28:57,680
Speaker 4: if it were seeking to destroy the population. Israel's efforts

480
00:28:57,720 --> 00:29:00,840
Speaker 4: to mitigate the ravages of this war on civilians are

481
00:29:00,880 --> 00:29:07,200
Speaker 4: the very opposite of intent to destroy them. Under these circumstances,

482
00:29:08,040 --> 00:29:11,120
Speaker 4: Far from being the only inference that could reasonably be

483
00:29:11,200 --> 00:29:15,840
Speaker 4: drawn from Israel's pattern of conduct, intent to commit genocide

484
00:29:16,480 --> 00:29:18,600
Speaker 4: is not even a plausible inference.

485
00:29:18,960 --> 00:29:22,000
Speaker 1: That language. They are very specifically chosen because the legal

486
00:29:22,040 --> 00:29:24,520
Speaker 1: standard that South Africa is attempting to meet here and

487
00:29:24,520 --> 00:29:28,719
Speaker 1: seeking a temporary injunction is it's plausible that there is

488
00:29:29,160 --> 00:29:32,840
Speaker 1: a genocide being committed right now by Israel. So she

489
00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:36,200
Speaker 1: cites there. Things that we hear from israelis a lot

490
00:29:36,280 --> 00:29:39,760
Speaker 1: about listen, we do everything we can. We leaflet, we

491
00:29:39,840 --> 00:29:42,600
Speaker 1: publish this whole map that shows people where they can

492
00:29:42,640 --> 00:29:45,080
Speaker 1: go and where they can be safe. And we gave

493
00:29:45,120 --> 00:29:47,920
Speaker 1: them time to leave the northern Gaza Strip. This is

494
00:29:47,960 --> 00:29:50,920
Speaker 1: over a million people who were displaced from the northern

495
00:29:50,920 --> 00:29:53,600
Speaker 1: part of the Gaza Strip. We gave them time to leave,

496
00:29:53,640 --> 00:29:57,680
Speaker 1: We protected their safe corridors. This flies in the face

497
00:29:57,720 --> 00:30:00,640
Speaker 1: of the testimony from South Africa. Yes, and what we've

498
00:30:00,640 --> 00:30:04,160
Speaker 1: seen reported out during this war that even the places

499
00:30:04,200 --> 00:30:08,040
Speaker 1: that they told people to flee to were not safe

500
00:30:08,360 --> 00:30:12,440
Speaker 1: came under heavy bombardment, that there was massive civilian death

501
00:30:12,560 --> 00:30:15,200
Speaker 1: in those places that had been declared quote unquote safe.

502
00:30:15,680 --> 00:30:17,360
Speaker 1: You'll recall people, you know, we're told to flee to

503
00:30:17,400 --> 00:30:20,719
Speaker 1: the south. They fled to Communist conunis, came under massive bombardment,

504
00:30:20,840 --> 00:30:24,640
Speaker 1: they fled to Rafa, Rapha is now being is now

505
00:30:24,680 --> 00:30:29,160
Speaker 1: the center of hostilities. And even the little area that

506
00:30:29,200 --> 00:30:32,320
Speaker 1: they told people to flee to, claiming that there were

507
00:30:32,440 --> 00:30:35,080
Speaker 1: provisions aid provisions there that didn't even exist. It's just

508
00:30:35,120 --> 00:30:38,040
Speaker 1: basically a desert wastelane. Even that area wasn't safe. South

509
00:30:38,040 --> 00:30:40,840
Speaker 1: Africa also talked about that people came under fire and

510
00:30:40,920 --> 00:30:44,240
Speaker 1: under bombardment even as they were fleeing along these so

511
00:30:44,320 --> 00:30:50,320
Speaker 1: called safe corridors. On the aid provision piece, she argues

512
00:30:50,400 --> 00:30:54,560
Speaker 1: that listen, we're working with humanitarian organizations. We've increased the

513
00:30:54,640 --> 00:30:58,000
Speaker 1: amount of aid that is going into the strip. This

514
00:30:58,160 --> 00:31:00,640
Speaker 1: is counter to the original, you know, in the original

515
00:31:00,680 --> 00:31:03,240
Speaker 1: comments in the war that they were implementing a complete siege,

516
00:31:03,280 --> 00:31:05,720
Speaker 1: no medicine, no food, no fuel, no water, et cetera.

517
00:31:06,320 --> 00:31:10,880
Speaker 1: And inconveniently for her argument, I'll mention two things. First

518
00:31:10,880 --> 00:31:13,280
Speaker 1: of all, we just had actually two democratic US Senators

519
00:31:13,360 --> 00:31:15,480
Speaker 1: Christmin Holland keep forgetting who the other one is. I'm

520
00:31:15,480 --> 00:31:18,120
Speaker 1: just like standard issue Democratic senator who are just in

521
00:31:18,160 --> 00:31:22,200
Speaker 1: the region saying that Israel has created a process that

522
00:31:22,280 --> 00:31:25,880
Speaker 1: is impossible, that is blocking the provisioning of aid and

523
00:31:26,040 --> 00:31:29,360
Speaker 1: severely limiting what is able to come into the strip.

524
00:31:29,760 --> 00:31:32,680
Speaker 1: And you know that is borne out by the evidence

525
00:31:32,760 --> 00:31:36,640
Speaker 1: of the suffering that Gosins are going through on the ground.

526
00:31:36,640 --> 00:31:39,160
Speaker 1: This is a UN report, and again the ICJ being

527
00:31:39,160 --> 00:31:41,880
Speaker 1: a UN body, it's significant this comes from the UN.

528
00:31:41,960 --> 00:31:44,680
Speaker 1: Of course, this isn't like you know, the Hamasuled Health

529
00:31:44,720 --> 00:31:47,680
Speaker 1: Ministry says, this is part the UN. Half of Gosin's

530
00:31:47,680 --> 00:31:50,440
Speaker 1: are right now at risk of starving. According to the UN,

531
00:31:50,480 --> 00:31:52,880
Speaker 1: more than ninety percent of palest means in the territory

532
00:31:52,960 --> 00:31:56,200
Speaker 1: say they have regularly gone without food for a whole

533
00:31:56,280 --> 00:31:59,520
Speaker 1: day according to the United Nations. I'll just read you

534
00:31:59,560 --> 00:32:02,880
Speaker 1: a little bit of this report, because as much as

535
00:32:02,960 --> 00:32:08,240
Speaker 1: the visuals of the bombing and the bullets are horrifying

536
00:32:08,400 --> 00:32:13,680
Speaker 1: and shocking, even potentially more deadly in the end will

537
00:32:13,720 --> 00:32:16,320
Speaker 1: be the hunger and the disease that is running rampant

538
00:32:16,400 --> 00:32:20,320
Speaker 1: through the Gaza Strip. So they start with this speaking

539
00:32:20,360 --> 00:32:23,720
Speaker 1: with a father here. Whi la Zat's four children have

540
00:32:23,720 --> 00:32:26,560
Speaker 1: been hungry for weeks, but she's sorry. A mother here,

541
00:32:26,600 --> 00:32:28,800
Speaker 1: but she can barely find them food they ask for.

542
00:32:28,840 --> 00:32:31,600
Speaker 1: Sandwich is fruit juice, homemade Palestinian dishes like she used

543
00:32:31,600 --> 00:32:33,520
Speaker 1: to cook before the war began, and a fleeting moment

544
00:32:33,560 --> 00:32:35,800
Speaker 1: of internet access. She said. She once caught the children

545
00:32:36,080 --> 00:32:39,040
Speaker 1: huddled around her phone to watch a YouTube video of

546
00:32:39,080 --> 00:32:42,160
Speaker 1: someone eating French fries. The most they can hope for

547
00:32:42,200 --> 00:32:44,480
Speaker 1: these days, she said in a recent telephone interview, is

548
00:32:44,480 --> 00:32:47,200
Speaker 1: a can of peas, some cheese and an energy bar

549
00:32:47,280 --> 00:32:49,440
Speaker 1: distributed as a family's rations by the UN once a

550
00:32:49,480 --> 00:32:51,960
Speaker 1: week in Rafa City in southern Gaza, where they fled

551
00:32:51,960 --> 00:32:55,400
Speaker 1: to in early December to escape Israeli embardment farther north.

552
00:32:55,720 --> 00:32:58,320
Speaker 1: Is not nearly enough to feed her family of seven.

553
00:32:58,680 --> 00:33:01,760
Speaker 1: It is a daily ruggle, said mid Zetor, thirty seven,

554
00:33:01,800 --> 00:33:04,800
Speaker 1: whose children range in age from nine months to thirteen years.

555
00:33:05,040 --> 00:33:07,600
Speaker 1: You feel you are under pressure and hopeless and you

556
00:33:07,640 --> 00:33:12,800
Speaker 1: cannot provide anything. And here again are the numbers. Israel's

557
00:33:12,800 --> 00:33:16,080
Speaker 1: war in Gaza has created a humanitarian catastrophe, with half

558
00:33:16,080 --> 00:33:18,400
Speaker 1: of the population of about two point two million at

559
00:33:18,440 --> 00:33:21,720
Speaker 1: risk of starvation and ninety percent saying that they regularly

560
00:33:21,760 --> 00:33:24,720
Speaker 1: go without food for a whole day, The UN said

561
00:33:24,800 --> 00:33:28,720
Speaker 1: in a recent report. Now, in an attempt to further

562
00:33:28,920 --> 00:33:34,760
Speaker 1: rebut those numbers, the UN numbers that fifty percent are

563
00:33:34,920 --> 00:33:38,200
Speaker 1: on the verge of starvation. Other experts have said that

564
00:33:38,480 --> 00:33:42,880
Speaker 1: they have not seen this level of famine and certainly

565
00:33:43,280 --> 00:33:45,920
Speaker 1: how quickly it's set in that this has already surpassed

566
00:33:45,960 --> 00:33:50,320
Speaker 1: the horrible famine that Yemen has grappled with, you know,

567
00:33:50,440 --> 00:33:53,520
Speaker 1: during Saudi bombardment, that we also work complicit with, by

568
00:33:53,560 --> 00:33:56,520
Speaker 1: the way, So in order to attempt to rebut that,

569
00:33:56,840 --> 00:34:01,560
Speaker 1: the Israelis also showed videos of Hamas militants taking control

570
00:34:01,640 --> 00:34:05,600
Speaker 1: of AID trucks coming in and according to them, comandeering

571
00:34:05,640 --> 00:34:10,040
Speaker 1: the aid supplies for their own fighters. That is very

572
00:34:10,080 --> 00:34:12,120
Speaker 1: possible that there is some of that going on. I

573
00:34:12,160 --> 00:34:14,759
Speaker 1: don't doubt it whatsoever. But we can go back to

574
00:34:14,800 --> 00:34:18,880
Speaker 1: the overall numbers which AID agencies have repeatedly sounded the

575
00:34:18,920 --> 00:34:22,520
Speaker 1: alarm on and said, this is nowhere near sufficient for

576
00:34:22,760 --> 00:34:26,560
Speaker 1: what needs to come into the Gaza strip, especially given

577
00:34:26,560 --> 00:34:29,960
Speaker 1: the fact that all of the agricultural not I shouldn't

578
00:34:30,000 --> 00:34:32,680
Speaker 1: say all but some significant amount of the agricultural land

579
00:34:32,760 --> 00:34:34,520
Speaker 1: in the Gaza Strip has been raised. There is no

580
00:34:34,600 --> 00:34:38,640
Speaker 1: ability for Gosins to produce their own food. At this moment,

581
00:34:39,160 --> 00:34:42,960
Speaker 1: all but one of the World Health Organizations or the

582
00:34:43,320 --> 00:34:48,000
Speaker 1: World Food Programs affiliated bakeries had been shut down. So

583
00:34:48,320 --> 00:34:52,440
Speaker 1: there are unbelievably difficult situations unfolding on the ground, not

584
00:34:52,480 --> 00:34:55,279
Speaker 1: to mention disaster in terms of famine and spread of

585
00:34:55,320 --> 00:34:59,759
Speaker 1: communicable diseases, incidents of diarrhea and children. These sorts of

586
00:34:59,760 --> 00:35:03,080
Speaker 1: things have wildly surged because of the attacks on the

587
00:35:03,080 --> 00:35:07,840
Speaker 1: civilian infrastructure, because of the blocking of sufficient aid to

588
00:35:07,920 --> 00:35:11,960
Speaker 1: come into the Gaza Strip. I also thought this was

589
00:35:12,000 --> 00:35:15,200
Speaker 1: another interesting thing I wanted to highlight for you guys.

590
00:35:15,840 --> 00:35:20,400
Speaker 1: We covered on Breaking Points how the day before South

591
00:35:20,440 --> 00:35:24,839
Speaker 1: Africa was set to mount their case bb Netnah who

592
00:35:25,040 --> 00:35:28,920
Speaker 1: came out and made the statement that was like, we

593
00:35:28,960 --> 00:35:32,279
Speaker 1: are not at war with the Palestinian citizens, We are

594
00:35:32,320 --> 00:35:36,120
Speaker 1: only at war with Hamas and also repudiating the idea

595
00:35:36,160 --> 00:35:39,319
Speaker 1: that they had any interest in ethnic cleansing. He didn't

596
00:35:39,400 --> 00:35:42,120
Speaker 1: use those words, but in you know, pushing Gazans out

597
00:35:42,160 --> 00:35:44,560
Speaker 1: of the Gaza Strip. This in direct odds, not only

598
00:35:44,640 --> 00:35:47,560
Speaker 1: with the statements of extremist ministers Ben Kafir'smochrich, but also

599
00:35:47,600 --> 00:35:50,400
Speaker 1: with reporting about Netnah who's own comments and own goals.

600
00:35:50,719 --> 00:35:54,040
Speaker 1: So he very notably put this out the day before

601
00:35:54,400 --> 00:35:59,600
Speaker 1: South Africa begins their case at the ic J, and

602
00:35:59,640 --> 00:36:04,480
Speaker 1: in fact, those very comments were cited by Israel in

603
00:36:04,520 --> 00:36:07,319
Speaker 1: their case today to say, yeah, he said that thing

604
00:36:07,360 --> 00:36:09,480
Speaker 1: about Amelek, but what you really need to listen to

605
00:36:09,719 --> 00:36:12,279
Speaker 1: is what he said two days ago where he said, no,

606
00:36:12,320 --> 00:36:15,680
Speaker 1: we're not at war with the Palestinian civilians. And they said,

607
00:36:15,719 --> 00:36:20,120
Speaker 1: you know, yes, you have these ministers who are popping off.

608
00:36:20,120 --> 00:36:24,000
Speaker 1: They're very upset about what happened on October seventh, very understandably,

609
00:36:24,239 --> 00:36:27,880
Speaker 1: but the people who actually set power, they are the

610
00:36:27,880 --> 00:36:32,080
Speaker 1: ones that you know, are much more cool and even headed.

611
00:36:32,160 --> 00:36:34,000
Speaker 1: And take a look at these other comments that they've

612
00:36:34,040 --> 00:36:38,600
Speaker 1: said are at odds with those that can be construed

613
00:36:38,640 --> 00:36:42,160
Speaker 1: as having genocidal intent. I also, in that same vein,

614
00:36:42,239 --> 00:36:47,160
Speaker 1: I thought this was interesting. They also argued that the

615
00:36:47,200 --> 00:36:52,040
Speaker 1: scope and intensity of Israel's operations have been decreasing, and

616
00:36:52,200 --> 00:36:55,000
Speaker 1: claims that Israel's repeated pleasures to observe international law are

617
00:36:55,160 --> 00:36:58,520
Speaker 1: enough to make provisional to block provisional measures and the

618
00:36:58,560 --> 00:37:00,839
Speaker 1: reason I found that noteworthy as well. We did, and

619
00:37:00,920 --> 00:37:03,319
Speaker 1: I believe we covered this on the show too, Yeah,

620
00:37:03,360 --> 00:37:06,600
Speaker 1: we did. There have been recent comments from Defense Minister

621
00:37:06,719 --> 00:37:09,279
Speaker 1: you Off Galana and others that they are moving into

622
00:37:09,320 --> 00:37:11,640
Speaker 1: another phase. It's going to be more targeted, it's going

623
00:37:11,680 --> 00:37:15,000
Speaker 1: to be less massive bombardment as the early phases were.

624
00:37:16,120 --> 00:37:18,719
Speaker 1: And so the fact that they raised this in this

625
00:37:18,840 --> 00:37:20,960
Speaker 1: case raised a couple of questions for me. I mean, first,

626
00:37:21,000 --> 00:37:23,200
Speaker 1: we got to see it before we believe it. The

627
00:37:23,239 --> 00:37:25,839
Speaker 1: civilian tech toll has continued to be very high, so

628
00:37:25,880 --> 00:37:28,359
Speaker 1: we need to see evidence of this first. That's number one.

629
00:37:29,160 --> 00:37:33,200
Speaker 1: Number two, it made me wonder if those comments about

630
00:37:33,200 --> 00:37:36,359
Speaker 1: the new phase of war were actually that they were

631
00:37:36,400 --> 00:37:40,160
Speaker 1: pressured into making those to try to bolster their case

632
00:37:40,239 --> 00:37:44,120
Speaker 1: at the ICJ, basically saying like, look, yeah, the first

633
00:37:44,120 --> 00:37:46,680
Speaker 1: part it was really brutal, it was really horrifying, lots

634
00:37:46,719 --> 00:37:50,360
Speaker 1: of civilian infrastructure destroyed, people were hungry, people were being killed.

635
00:37:50,760 --> 00:37:54,200
Speaker 1: But that's all over now already we're moving into another phase.

636
00:37:54,280 --> 00:37:57,600
Speaker 1: So why would you issue this temporary injunction when we

637
00:37:57,719 --> 00:38:00,520
Speaker 1: already are done with that part. We're already moving into

638
00:38:00,600 --> 00:38:04,480
Speaker 1: this other phase. So that was noteworthy to me that

639
00:38:04,520 --> 00:38:07,400
Speaker 1: they cited both BB's comments that he literally made the

640
00:38:07,480 --> 00:38:10,000
Speaker 1: day before this all started to say, look, what are

641
00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:12,839
Speaker 1: you talking about. BB's saying very reasonable things here at

642
00:38:12,880 --> 00:38:14,920
Speaker 1: odds with many other things that he has said, and

643
00:38:14,920 --> 00:38:17,680
Speaker 1: that all of the various cabinet ministers have said as well,

644
00:38:18,239 --> 00:38:22,520
Speaker 1: and also that they are citing this purported shift to

645
00:38:22,760 --> 00:38:25,880
Speaker 1: another phase of war. A lot of the media reporting

646
00:38:25,920 --> 00:38:29,320
Speaker 1: had been that this change in tone from the Israelis

647
00:38:29,320 --> 00:38:31,880
Speaker 1: was because of Biden administration pressure. I never really bought

648
00:38:31,880 --> 00:38:36,279
Speaker 1: that this could be more accurately. What was going on

649
00:38:36,520 --> 00:38:38,920
Speaker 1: is that they felt pressured by this case, which again

650
00:38:39,040 --> 00:38:42,400
Speaker 1: is very interesting to me because my initial reaction when

651
00:38:42,440 --> 00:38:46,319
Speaker 1: South Africa filed this petition was good for them, but

652
00:38:46,719 --> 00:38:50,120
Speaker 1: I doubt it will matter. The fact that the Israelis

653
00:38:50,160 --> 00:38:55,000
Speaker 1: have responded in such a vociferous way, and in such

654
00:38:55,040 --> 00:38:58,680
Speaker 1: a I think you can accurately say, panicked way sort

655
00:38:58,680 --> 00:39:00,759
Speaker 1: of demonstrated to me that perhaps there is more to

656
00:39:00,840 --> 00:39:05,560
Speaker 1: this than I initially assumed. Let me talk just briefly

657
00:39:05,560 --> 00:39:08,480
Speaker 1: about a couple of the legal technical matters, which I am,

658
00:39:08,520 --> 00:39:12,520
Speaker 1: of course in not an ideal position to analyzes because

659
00:39:12,560 --> 00:39:17,560
Speaker 1: I'm not a lawyer, but South Africa argued effectively that listen,

660
00:39:17,640 --> 00:39:19,520
Speaker 1: there is you have to establish that there is an

661
00:39:19,520 --> 00:39:24,200
Speaker 1: actual dispute between two countries to have standing to bring

662
00:39:24,280 --> 00:39:27,839
Speaker 1: this case to the ICJ. South Africa yesterday late on Hey,

663
00:39:27,880 --> 00:39:29,560
Speaker 1: we reached out to them here, we reached out to

664
00:39:29,600 --> 00:39:32,120
Speaker 1: them there. We issued a statement, they didn't respond, they

665
00:39:32,120 --> 00:39:35,040
Speaker 1: didn't change, and so there is very clearly a dispute

666
00:39:35,080 --> 00:39:38,200
Speaker 1: here with merit and that's why we have standing to

667
00:39:38,239 --> 00:39:42,319
Speaker 1: bring this case. Israel disagreed with that. They said there

668
00:39:42,400 --> 00:39:44,800
Speaker 1: wasn't that much time given it wasn't a serious engagement.

669
00:39:44,840 --> 00:39:47,839
Speaker 1: It was just more of a perfunctory box checking in

670
00:39:47,920 --> 00:39:51,560
Speaker 1: terms of establishing this standing and that there is actually

671
00:39:51,640 --> 00:39:55,480
Speaker 1: technically a dispute. So who's right on that? I really

672
00:39:55,760 --> 00:39:57,520
Speaker 1: I am not in a position to say, I don't

673
00:39:57,520 --> 00:40:00,200
Speaker 1: really know. It certainly seems to layman's perspective there a

674
00:40:00,200 --> 00:40:03,239
Speaker 1: dispute here, but I don't know the technical legalese and

675
00:40:03,280 --> 00:40:06,640
Speaker 1: whether that enables some members of the ICJ to not

676
00:40:06,800 --> 00:40:09,960
Speaker 1: have to actually weigh in on the mass death and

677
00:40:10,080 --> 00:40:13,440
Speaker 1: starvation and bombing of civilian infrastructure and hospitals, et cetera,

678
00:40:13,800 --> 00:40:16,600
Speaker 1: gives them that little technical legal loophole to get out

679
00:40:16,600 --> 00:40:19,480
Speaker 1: of having to deal with any of that. That's possible,

680
00:40:19,760 --> 00:40:24,720
Speaker 1: just don't know. In addition, the argument for South Africa

681
00:40:25,000 --> 00:40:29,160
Speaker 1: is that we need a temporary injunction. And I'm using

682
00:40:29,160 --> 00:40:31,000
Speaker 1: that language because that's how we talk about in the

683
00:40:31,040 --> 00:40:33,399
Speaker 1: American court system. They use a different word in terms

684
00:40:33,440 --> 00:40:35,719
Speaker 1: of the ICJ court system, but the idea is the same.

685
00:40:36,160 --> 00:40:40,360
Speaker 1: We need a temporary injunction to stop is the Israeli

686
00:40:40,440 --> 00:40:44,560
Speaker 1: government from impinging on the rights of Palestinians. Effectively, we

687
00:40:44,600 --> 00:40:47,600
Speaker 1: need a ceasefire now while this case is being tried

688
00:40:47,680 --> 00:40:50,440
Speaker 1: on the merits to figure out whether there is a

689
00:40:50,520 --> 00:40:54,600
Speaker 1: violation of the Genocide Convention. So our interest is in

690
00:40:54,640 --> 00:40:59,839
Speaker 1: protecting the rights of Palestinians. The Israeli argument was, well,

691
00:40:59,840 --> 00:41:02,840
Speaker 1: if you do that, you're not protecting the rights of

692
00:41:02,880 --> 00:41:05,279
Speaker 1: Palestinians because anyway, by the way, we've shifted to this

693
00:41:05,360 --> 00:41:10,239
Speaker 1: other phase now anyway, but you will be infringing on

694
00:41:10,560 --> 00:41:13,920
Speaker 1: our rights to self defense. So those are the rights

695
00:41:14,040 --> 00:41:17,160
Speaker 1: that you really need to focus on protecting. Here is

696
00:41:17,200 --> 00:41:20,480
Speaker 1: our right to defend ourselves in the wake of October seventh.

697
00:41:21,480 --> 00:41:24,440
Speaker 1: The last thing I'll show you is after Israel concluded

698
00:41:24,440 --> 00:41:27,680
Speaker 1: their presentation. There was a bit of a response from

699
00:41:27,760 --> 00:41:32,719
Speaker 1: South Africa and I thought this part was particularly poignant, relevant, etc.

700
00:41:33,160 --> 00:41:36,880
Speaker 1: It's a good point. South Africa's legal team basically said, listen,

701
00:41:37,040 --> 00:41:39,960
Speaker 1: if Israel's right. If they're right now I'm adding this part.

702
00:41:40,040 --> 00:41:43,719
Speaker 1: They're right about the their intent provisioning of aid. If

703
00:41:43,719 --> 00:41:46,080
Speaker 1: they're right about that, you know, these various things are

704
00:41:46,120 --> 00:41:51,440
Speaker 1: Hamas's fault. If they're right that the death estimates are overestimated,

705
00:41:51,520 --> 00:41:55,000
Speaker 1: that there's far less civilian death far fewer children who

706
00:41:55,000 --> 00:41:58,160
Speaker 1: have been murdered here. If they're right about those things,

707
00:41:58,280 --> 00:42:02,080
Speaker 1: then they would have allowed international investigation teams to enter Gaza.

708
00:42:02,640 --> 00:42:05,319
Speaker 1: And I think that's a very good point because on

709
00:42:05,360 --> 00:42:08,759
Speaker 1: a lot of this you just have to take Israel's word.

710
00:42:09,360 --> 00:42:12,680
Speaker 1: To take their word that they're really working hard to

711
00:42:12,760 --> 00:42:15,239
Speaker 1: try to avoid civilian casualties, you have to take their

712
00:42:15,239 --> 00:42:18,239
Speaker 1: word about the various supplies that they claim that they

713
00:42:18,320 --> 00:42:22,520
Speaker 1: are shipping in and providing, and the responses that they

714
00:42:22,520 --> 00:42:27,400
Speaker 1: are enabling. And so without having international observers in to

715
00:42:27,440 --> 00:42:31,040
Speaker 1: actually see those things, you can't prove or disprove what

716
00:42:31,239 --> 00:42:34,839
Speaker 1: Israel is claiming in their own defense. So I think

717
00:42:34,880 --> 00:42:38,000
Speaker 1: that is an incredibly valid point, and effectively, you know,

718
00:42:38,040 --> 00:42:40,240
Speaker 1: the fact that Israel does not allow that to occur

719
00:42:40,320 --> 00:42:43,359
Speaker 1: means we have to rely on things like the media

720
00:42:43,400 --> 00:42:46,800
Speaker 1: loves to put it Hamas led Health Ministry for data

721
00:42:46,880 --> 00:42:49,480
Speaker 1: about what is actually happening, because no one else can

722
00:42:49,680 --> 00:42:52,640
Speaker 1: really get in to assess what is happening. But we

723
00:42:52,719 --> 00:42:55,680
Speaker 1: certainly know, you know, based on the UNS report, the

724
00:42:55,800 --> 00:42:59,040
Speaker 1: level of hunger, the threat of starvation, the threat of

725
00:42:59,200 --> 00:43:03,120
Speaker 1: a famine, and you know, the horrors that civilians have

726
00:43:03,200 --> 00:43:07,720
Speaker 1: been subjected to. Israel doesn't really dispute that. They don't

727
00:43:07,800 --> 00:43:11,960
Speaker 1: really dispute that this has been horrendous for civilians, that

728
00:43:11,960 --> 00:43:16,720
Speaker 1: there has been massive pain and suffering as a result

729
00:43:17,040 --> 00:43:19,759
Speaker 1: of these hostilities. They just say, listen, you're focusing only

730
00:43:19,800 --> 00:43:23,200
Speaker 1: on us. Really, most of this is Hamas's fault. They

731
00:43:23,200 --> 00:43:27,280
Speaker 1: could end this now. If anyone it should be accused

732
00:43:27,280 --> 00:43:31,840
Speaker 1: of genocide, it's Humas, not us. And that was the

733
00:43:32,360 --> 00:43:35,879
Speaker 1: sort of bulk of their presentation to the International Court

734
00:43:35,880 --> 00:43:39,040
Speaker 1: of Justice. I spoke for Crystal Colin Friends with Norman

735
00:43:39,040 --> 00:43:43,160
Speaker 1: Finkelstein yesterday and he had originally which we played on

736
00:43:43,200 --> 00:43:47,280
Speaker 1: the show. We asked him or Katie Helper had actually

737
00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:49,680
Speaker 1: asked him, what do you think is going to happen here?

738
00:43:49,840 --> 00:43:52,839
Speaker 1: And he went through the list of the judges and

739
00:43:52,920 --> 00:43:55,759
Speaker 1: what countries they're affiliated with, because even though we're talking

740
00:43:55,800 --> 00:43:58,279
Speaker 1: a lot about the merits, a lot of this ends

741
00:43:58,360 --> 00:44:03,080
Speaker 1: up being quite political. And he felt very pessimistic in

742
00:44:03,120 --> 00:44:07,040
Speaker 1: that interview with Katie Halper that South Africa would prevail.

743
00:44:08,120 --> 00:44:11,040
Speaker 1: When we talked to him yesterday, Kyle and I, he

744
00:44:11,160 --> 00:44:14,920
Speaker 1: was somewhat more optimistic that based on the merits and

745
00:44:14,960 --> 00:44:17,120
Speaker 1: based on the fact that much of the data that

746
00:44:17,239 --> 00:44:19,319
Speaker 1: is relied on in the South African case comes from

747
00:44:19,360 --> 00:44:22,399
Speaker 1: the UN and the ICJZUN body, he felt a bit

748
00:44:22,440 --> 00:44:25,200
Speaker 1: more optimistic. Now. He didn't think that it was open

749
00:44:25,239 --> 00:44:27,640
Speaker 1: and shut, there was no guarantees, but he was a

750
00:44:27,640 --> 00:44:30,319
Speaker 1: bit more hopeful that they might prevail. As for me,

751
00:44:30,680 --> 00:44:33,360
Speaker 1: you know, I'm new to really understanding the workings of

752
00:44:33,360 --> 00:44:36,480
Speaker 1: this process. I have no idea where things go from here.

753
00:44:36,560 --> 00:44:39,080
Speaker 1: They could find some legal technicality, like I said, to

754
00:44:39,080 --> 00:44:41,640
Speaker 1: try to sort of find a loophole to get out

755
00:44:41,680 --> 00:44:45,920
Speaker 1: of really weighing in. They could find it is plausible

756
00:44:46,040 --> 00:44:49,440
Speaker 1: Israel's committing in genocide and order and injunction and then

757
00:44:49,520 --> 00:44:52,399
Speaker 1: it just is ignoring it doesn't really mean anything, or

758
00:44:52,560 --> 00:44:55,520
Speaker 1: they could actually, you know, find on behalf of South

759
00:44:55,520 --> 00:44:58,279
Speaker 1: Africa that it is plausible Israel is engaging in a

760
00:44:58,280 --> 00:45:02,200
Speaker 1: genocide and it could actually sting, especially given the number

761
00:45:02,200 --> 00:45:04,080
Speaker 1: of countries that have signed on to this, in countries

762
00:45:04,120 --> 00:45:06,000
Speaker 1: like France that have said they'll abide by the ruling.

763
00:45:07,280 --> 00:45:10,160
Speaker 1: We just don't know. So that's the latest, guys. That's

764
00:45:10,160 --> 00:45:11,960
Speaker 1: what I've got for you, and I'll see you guys, doon.

765
00:45:15,520 --> 00:45:18,680
Speaker 1: I watched some of South Africa's presentation this morning. We're

766
00:45:18,680 --> 00:45:21,600
Speaker 1: recording this on Thursday, just so everybody knows. I understand

767
00:45:21,640 --> 00:45:24,000
Speaker 1: you were able to watch most but not all of it.

768
00:45:24,520 --> 00:45:27,759
Speaker 7: Yeah, I wanted to just say that's very unusual for me.

769
00:45:28,239 --> 00:45:31,200
Speaker 7: I usually watch or read everything twice, and I want

770
00:45:31,239 --> 00:45:33,440
Speaker 7: to apologize to that. It's just, you know, it's a

771
00:45:33,480 --> 00:45:37,600
Speaker 7: part of my so to speak, scholarly bona fides. I

772
00:45:37,680 --> 00:45:41,160
Speaker 7: had misunderstood it to be that their presentation would last

773
00:45:41,200 --> 00:45:45,280
Speaker 7: two hours. In fact, according to the screen, it lasts

774
00:45:45,480 --> 00:45:48,839
Speaker 7: four hours. I got through three hours before I had

775
00:45:48,920 --> 00:45:52,200
Speaker 7: to do your interview for which we were scheduled, and

776
00:45:52,320 --> 00:45:53,920
Speaker 7: immediately after this because.

777
00:45:53,640 --> 00:45:56,040
Speaker 3: They have a whole lot of interview scheduled to day.

778
00:45:56,400 --> 00:45:59,400
Speaker 7: I'm going to go back, go through the end to

779
00:45:59,520 --> 00:46:01,359
Speaker 7: the end, and then tonight I'll watch it again.

780
00:46:02,239 --> 00:46:04,600
Speaker 1: So the portion that I was able to watch this

781
00:46:04,719 --> 00:46:08,040
Speaker 1: morning lay down what I would describe as a pretty

782
00:46:08,040 --> 00:46:10,840
Speaker 1: compelling case, once again relying on a lot of un

783
00:46:10,880 --> 00:46:15,279
Speaker 1: official statements and analyzes, also relying on the statements of

784
00:46:15,360 --> 00:46:19,520
Speaker 1: various Israeli officials up to and including Bbnatan Yahoo himself

785
00:46:19,600 --> 00:46:21,840
Speaker 1: of course is Prime Minister. I wanted to play for

786
00:46:21,880 --> 00:46:25,360
Speaker 1: people just a snippet of part of the presentation talking

787
00:46:25,400 --> 00:46:28,200
Speaker 1: about the level of mass death that has been inflicted

788
00:46:28,239 --> 00:46:30,360
Speaker 1: on Palestinines in Gaza. Let's take a listen to that.

789
00:46:31,000 --> 00:46:36,560
Speaker 8: In the first three weeks alone following seven October, Israel

790
00:46:36,680 --> 00:46:45,080
Speaker 8: deployed six thousand bombs per week at least two hundred times.

791
00:46:45,600 --> 00:46:51,680
Speaker 8: It has deployed two thousand pound bombs in southern areas

792
00:46:51,680 --> 00:46:57,960
Speaker 8: of Palestine designated as safe. These bombs have also decimated

793
00:46:58,040 --> 00:47:05,120
Speaker 8: the North, including refugee two thousand pound bombs are some

794
00:47:05,200 --> 00:47:10,080
Speaker 8: of the biggest and most destructive bombs available. They are

795
00:47:10,200 --> 00:47:15,560
Speaker 8: dropped by lethal stojets that are used to strike targets

796
00:47:15,560 --> 00:47:19,680
Speaker 8: on the ground by one of the world's most resourced armies.

797
00:47:21,760 --> 00:47:27,759
Speaker 8: Israel has killed an unparalleled and unprecedented number of civilians

798
00:47:28,640 --> 00:47:33,080
Speaker 8: with the full knowledge of how many civilian lives each

799
00:47:33,160 --> 00:47:34,120
Speaker 8: bomb will take.

800
00:47:34,560 --> 00:47:37,640
Speaker 1: Doctor Finkelstein, what were some of the major takeaways for

801
00:47:37,760 --> 00:47:41,000
Speaker 1: you from the portion of the South Africa presentation you

802
00:47:41,000 --> 00:47:41,920
Speaker 1: were able to hear today.

803
00:47:43,840 --> 00:47:45,080
Speaker 3: There were many reactions.

804
00:47:45,080 --> 00:47:50,879
Speaker 7: There were personal reactions, and then there were professional scolarly reactions.

805
00:47:51,640 --> 00:47:54,279
Speaker 7: I can leave the personal reactions for later if you

806
00:47:54,400 --> 00:47:56,799
Speaker 7: care to hear them. You may want to focus on

807
00:47:56,840 --> 00:48:01,520
Speaker 7: the scollarly side. First of all, we have to begin

808
00:48:01,600 --> 00:48:04,160
Speaker 7: with the fact that South Africa was at a serious

809
00:48:04,200 --> 00:48:10,200
Speaker 7: disadvantage in this case. The disadvantage is this South Africa

810
00:48:10,280 --> 00:48:14,200
Speaker 7: presented an eighty four page complained to a brief to

811
00:48:14,280 --> 00:48:19,560
Speaker 7: the ICJ, so we knew exactly what they were going

812
00:48:19,600 --> 00:48:27,560
Speaker 7: to argue, and the presentations were elaborations on or reiterations

813
00:48:27,600 --> 00:48:30,839
Speaker 7: of what was in that brief. But they don't know

814
00:48:30,880 --> 00:48:34,520
Speaker 7: what Israel is going to argue because Israel did not

815
00:48:34,600 --> 00:48:39,959
Speaker 7: present a brief, and so they had to speculate if

816
00:48:40,000 --> 00:48:42,839
Speaker 7: this is going to be your then we say this.

817
00:48:43,600 --> 00:48:46,600
Speaker 7: If that's going to be your argument, then we say that,

818
00:48:47,239 --> 00:48:52,280
Speaker 7: So in effect, they had to squander a large amount

819
00:48:52,400 --> 00:49:00,439
Speaker 7: of time trying to anticipate and preempt the argument which

820
00:49:00,480 --> 00:49:03,000
Speaker 7: in fact South out excuse me, which in fact Israel

821
00:49:03,040 --> 00:49:06,640
Speaker 7: may not make tomorrow. We don't know what, so they'll

822
00:49:06,680 --> 00:49:12,720
Speaker 7: have the full time to make their case, whereas South

823
00:49:12,840 --> 00:49:19,319
Speaker 7: Africa had to expend or squander a large amount of

824
00:49:19,400 --> 00:49:23,760
Speaker 7: time trying to figure out what their argument might be

825
00:49:24,360 --> 00:49:25,840
Speaker 7: and trying.

826
00:49:25,440 --> 00:49:27,040
Speaker 3: To respond to it.

827
00:49:28,120 --> 00:49:32,400
Speaker 7: So in my opinion, that was a significant disadvantage for

828
00:49:32,760 --> 00:49:33,640
Speaker 7: South Africa.

829
00:49:33,760 --> 00:49:37,040
Speaker 3: And I'm surprised. I don't know the protocol of the court.

830
00:49:37,320 --> 00:49:42,520
Speaker 7: I was surprised to learn that you're not obliged to

831
00:49:42,680 --> 00:49:48,719
Speaker 7: submit a complaint, a written complaint in events that you

832
00:49:48,760 --> 00:49:53,160
Speaker 7: can just spring whatever arguments you want the next day.

833
00:49:55,320 --> 00:50:00,279
Speaker 7: So having said that, I would say my prediction, because

834
00:50:00,280 --> 00:50:03,480
Speaker 7: I did a program with my close friend and comrade

835
00:50:03,600 --> 00:50:07,640
Speaker 7: Mueen Rabondi, my prediction last night was more.

836
00:50:07,520 --> 00:50:08,799
Speaker 3: Or less born out.

837
00:50:08,920 --> 00:50:11,600
Speaker 7: Everybody likes to claim they were right, and I have

838
00:50:11,680 --> 00:50:14,520
Speaker 7: to be careful of that kind of hubris, but it

839
00:50:14,560 --> 00:50:18,479
Speaker 7: was more or less born out. South Africa had two

840
00:50:18,640 --> 00:50:23,759
Speaker 7: possible approaches. One approach would be to focus on the

841
00:50:23,840 --> 00:50:28,560
Speaker 7: law and to say, legally, this is a genocide, and

842
00:50:28,640 --> 00:50:30,759
Speaker 7: if you look at this text and that text and

843
00:50:30,800 --> 00:50:35,600
Speaker 7: that text, it meets the textual requirement of a genocide.

844
00:50:36,520 --> 00:50:39,440
Speaker 3: Another strategy was to.

845
00:50:39,880 --> 00:50:45,640
Speaker 7: Pile on one layer after another, layer after another, layer

846
00:50:45,680 --> 00:50:50,799
Speaker 7: after another layer of the horrors that Israel has inflicted

847
00:50:51,040 --> 00:50:58,279
Speaker 7: on Gaza, such that whether it is or not technically

848
00:50:58,400 --> 00:51:03,360
Speaker 7: a genocide, and whether it squeezes into that definition or not,

849
00:51:04,239 --> 00:51:10,359
Speaker 7: it puts the court into an completely impossible position of saying, well, yes,

850
00:51:10,480 --> 00:51:13,240
Speaker 7: what you describe is horrible, what you describe as terrible,

851
00:51:13,480 --> 00:51:16,520
Speaker 7: what you describe as awful, what you describe as ghastly,

852
00:51:16,920 --> 00:51:19,240
Speaker 7: what you describe as horrendous.

853
00:51:18,600 --> 00:51:19,879
Speaker 3: But it's not a genocide.

854
00:51:20,640 --> 00:51:23,800
Speaker 7: So I would say, if you look at the bulk

855
00:51:23,880 --> 00:51:28,960
Speaker 7: of the proceedings, there were two lawyers, or two lawyers,

856
00:51:29,560 --> 00:51:33,399
Speaker 7: John Dougaard and the second fellow whose name I can't

857
00:51:33,480 --> 00:51:34,480
Speaker 7: quite not remember.

858
00:51:35,000 --> 00:51:36,040
Speaker 3: They focused on the.

859
00:51:36,120 --> 00:51:40,439
Speaker 7: Legal issues, and the legal issues are essentially number one.

860
00:51:41,160 --> 00:51:45,320
Speaker 7: It will sound very technical to listeners whether this constitutes

861
00:51:45,360 --> 00:51:52,600
Speaker 7: a dispute under international law, under the protocols of the ICJ,

862
00:51:54,120 --> 00:51:57,200
Speaker 7: that is to say, whether you have standing to bring

863
00:51:57,280 --> 00:52:01,880
Speaker 7: this case before the ICJ. And it's a very technical

864
00:52:01,960 --> 00:52:08,040
Speaker 7: question what constitutes a dispute. So John Dugard, who I

865
00:52:08,080 --> 00:52:11,400
Speaker 7: think it's fair to say is the most eminent, also

866
00:52:11,440 --> 00:52:17,400
Speaker 7: the eldest of the representatives in South Africa, he handled

867
00:52:17,400 --> 00:52:23,000
Speaker 7: the question of dispute because he anticipated that Israel might

868
00:52:23,200 --> 00:52:26,600
Speaker 7: argue that this does not qualify as a dispute under

869
00:52:27,080 --> 00:52:31,680
Speaker 7: the protocols of the ICJ, and therefore they should dismiss

870
00:52:31,719 --> 00:52:35,880
Speaker 7: it out of hand. That's called the jurisdictional question. Does

871
00:52:35,920 --> 00:52:40,640
Speaker 7: the court have jurisdiction over this particular issue? And another

872
00:52:40,719 --> 00:52:47,520
Speaker 7: lawyer focused on the legal question. You have to prove that,

873
00:52:47,840 --> 00:52:52,760
Speaker 7: since they're bringing the case under the Genocide Convention, you have.

874
00:52:52,719 --> 00:52:55,279
Speaker 3: To prove that Israel's.

875
00:52:54,920 --> 00:53:02,120
Speaker 7: Actions can only be traceable back to a genocidal intent.

876
00:53:02,840 --> 00:53:07,440
Speaker 7: So let's say all of these actions are horrible, terrible, awful, horrendous.

877
00:53:07,440 --> 00:53:13,120
Speaker 7: However they didn't the intent wasn't genocidal. Let's say the

878
00:53:13,160 --> 00:53:18,440
Speaker 7: intent was to defeat the enemy, not to destroy in

879
00:53:18,680 --> 00:53:23,160
Speaker 7: whole or in part a national, religious, racial, or ethnic group.

880
00:53:24,239 --> 00:53:30,400
Speaker 7: You have to prove that the intent was genocidal.

881
00:53:30,920 --> 00:53:33,280
Speaker 3: And there are several issues there.

882
00:53:33,320 --> 00:53:38,439
Speaker 7: First of all, this is only a preliminary case, so

883
00:53:38,800 --> 00:53:41,600
Speaker 7: all South Africa has to I don't want to say

884
00:53:42,040 --> 00:53:44,840
Speaker 7: all although that term was constantly used, they think it

885
00:53:44,880 --> 00:53:48,880
Speaker 7: did harm to the South African case. You have to

886
00:53:48,920 --> 00:53:53,799
Speaker 7: prove there's a plausible case for genocide. You don't have

887
00:53:53,920 --> 00:53:57,680
Speaker 7: to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt at this

888
00:53:57,800 --> 00:54:03,680
Speaker 7: point in the What you have to prove is a

889
00:54:03,920 --> 00:54:10,040
Speaker 7: plausible case. So he argued on that ground that our

890
00:54:10,640 --> 00:54:13,360
Speaker 7: we just have it. He said, we merely have to

891
00:54:13,400 --> 00:54:17,280
Speaker 7: make a plausible case. And the other argument is that

892
00:54:18,200 --> 00:54:23,240
Speaker 7: you can commit war crimes, crimes against humanity, all sorts

893
00:54:23,280 --> 00:54:29,320
Speaker 7: of crimes. They may not be genocide, but the crimes

894
00:54:29,520 --> 00:54:35,560
Speaker 7: in the real world often overlap with genocide. So the

895
00:54:35,640 --> 00:54:39,360
Speaker 7: fact that these might be war crimes, crimes against humanity,

896
00:54:39,440 --> 00:54:46,520
Speaker 7: and so forth doesn't preclude that simultaneously they also might

897
00:54:46,600 --> 00:54:56,360
Speaker 7: be genocide. So if Israel were to argue, Okay, we

898
00:54:56,440 --> 00:54:59,960
Speaker 7: don't agree, but we're not going to dispute that your claim.

899
00:55:00,000 --> 00:55:02,080
Speaker 7: We're not going to dispute your claim that war crimes

900
00:55:02,160 --> 00:55:02,800
Speaker 7: were committed.

901
00:55:03,320 --> 00:55:04,799
Speaker 3: That's still not genocide.

902
00:55:05,320 --> 00:55:10,400
Speaker 7: And the South African argument was, well, the fact that

903
00:55:10,400 --> 00:55:13,960
Speaker 7: they were war crimes or crimes against humanity doesn't preclude

904
00:55:14,040 --> 00:55:18,920
Speaker 7: that they were simultaneously acts of genocide or genocide. So

905
00:55:20,239 --> 00:55:24,279
Speaker 7: those were the two legal the main legal briefs. Oh,

906
00:55:24,320 --> 00:55:28,160
Speaker 7: and there's the third. The third was by Vaughn low

907
00:55:29,040 --> 00:55:30,400
Speaker 7: I have to say, you know, I know a lot

908
00:55:30,440 --> 00:55:34,120
Speaker 7: of these personalities through correspondence. I know John Dugard personally.

909
00:55:34,800 --> 00:55:35,680
Speaker 3: Vaughan Lowe.

910
00:55:36,239 --> 00:55:42,080
Speaker 7: He argued another case before the ICJ, pertending to Israel,

911
00:55:42,200 --> 00:55:45,560
Speaker 7: namely the wall that Israel was building in the West Bank.

912
00:55:46,000 --> 00:55:48,160
Speaker 3: That was in July two thousand and four.

913
00:55:49,000 --> 00:55:52,160
Speaker 7: And I was in correspondence with Vaughan Lowe back then

914
00:55:52,600 --> 00:55:56,759
Speaker 7: and he had some really very kind words to say

915
00:55:56,800 --> 00:56:00,960
Speaker 7: about something I wrote. And I had written extensively on

916
00:56:01,080 --> 00:56:04,239
Speaker 7: the wall case, and it was you know, for me,

917
00:56:05,160 --> 00:56:08,000
Speaker 7: here are two people who I had who are very

918
00:56:08,040 --> 00:56:08,560
Speaker 7: kind to me.

919
00:56:08,960 --> 00:56:10,640
Speaker 3: I'll just tell them for one half of.

920
00:56:12,600 --> 00:56:17,520
Speaker 7: So John Dugard, who's the as I say, the most

921
00:56:17,520 --> 00:56:24,000
Speaker 7: eminent and also the oldest of the representatives.

922
00:56:24,600 --> 00:56:27,280
Speaker 3: For one of my books, Oh yeah, the Godsep book

923
00:56:27,719 --> 00:56:28,120
Speaker 3: he wrote.

924
00:56:28,160 --> 00:56:32,200
Speaker 7: Norman Finkelstein, probably the most serious scholar and the conflict

925
00:56:32,239 --> 00:56:35,640
Speaker 7: in the Middle East, has written an excellent book.

926
00:56:36,480 --> 00:56:37,760
Speaker 3: So to be told by.

927
00:56:39,520 --> 00:56:43,040
Speaker 7: John Duguard that the most let's see, the most serious

928
00:56:43,280 --> 00:56:47,080
Speaker 7: scholar on the whole subject was a comminent and lawn

929
00:56:47,160 --> 00:56:51,440
Speaker 7: Law was equally generous in his praise. Now you might

930
00:56:51,480 --> 00:56:54,759
Speaker 7: think this is me toothing my own horn, but it's

931
00:56:54,800 --> 00:56:58,160
Speaker 7: so rare that I get praised by professional scholars. I

932
00:56:58,200 --> 00:57:01,319
Speaker 7: got praised by people like yourself, But for people from

933
00:57:01,320 --> 00:57:05,480
Speaker 7: within the academic world, it's a very rare event, you know,

934
00:57:05,600 --> 00:57:08,719
Speaker 7: sort of like spotting a dodo bird.

935
00:57:08,760 --> 00:57:09,759
Speaker 1: You've more than earned it.

936
00:57:10,280 --> 00:57:12,920
Speaker 3: So I take a certain amount of pride in it.

937
00:57:13,600 --> 00:57:19,480
Speaker 7: So one law also he stressed the legal side, and

938
00:57:19,560 --> 00:57:22,200
Speaker 7: he made a very you know, he made a very

939
00:57:22,240 --> 00:57:27,040
Speaker 7: strong point. He says, however horrendous October seventh might have been,

940
00:57:27,760 --> 00:57:32,360
Speaker 7: and South Africa has acknowledged the horrendousness of October seventh,

941
00:57:32,800 --> 00:57:37,720
Speaker 7: he made a point that nothing under international law can

942
00:57:37,960 --> 00:57:39,240
Speaker 7: justify a genocide.

943
00:57:39,840 --> 00:57:42,800
Speaker 3: So if you're going to come along and say how horrible,

944
00:57:42,840 --> 00:57:44,040
Speaker 3: how terrible, how.

945
00:57:43,840 --> 00:57:47,640
Speaker 7: Awful October seventh was, how it shocked and how it

946
00:57:47,720 --> 00:57:53,960
Speaker 7: traumatized Israel, then we're not disputing that. But that can't

947
00:57:54,200 --> 00:57:59,360
Speaker 7: justify a genocide, right, So I want to just stress again,

948
00:58:00,120 --> 00:58:02,560
Speaker 7: as you could see from what I've already just said,

949
00:58:05,600 --> 00:58:07,840
Speaker 7: they didn't know what the arguments are going to be

950
00:58:08,960 --> 00:58:13,640
Speaker 7: by Israel, So they were trying to cover every possible contingency.

951
00:58:14,240 --> 00:58:20,280
Speaker 3: Now Israel may uh may not make any of these arguments, uh.

952
00:58:20,320 --> 00:58:25,200
Speaker 7: And then the other presentations were and with no uh,

953
00:58:25,560 --> 00:58:28,360
Speaker 7: no attempt at disparage me at all.

954
00:58:29,000 --> 00:58:30,280
Speaker 3: But you could say the other.

955
00:58:30,160 --> 00:58:34,800
Speaker 7: Presentations that were I think about seven presentations the other

956
00:58:34,880 --> 00:58:41,560
Speaker 7: presentations were. The other four were overwhelmingly emotive, but emotive

957
00:58:41,640 --> 00:58:45,800
Speaker 7: in the sense, well, you know, it is a crime

958
00:58:45,880 --> 00:58:50,880
Speaker 7: that shocks humanity. You know, that's how these crimes are described,

959
00:58:50,960 --> 00:58:55,440
Speaker 7: A crime that shocks humanity, and shock is the emotive feeling.

960
00:58:56,200 --> 00:59:01,960
Speaker 7: Shock is not a reasoned uh response, It's a response

961
00:59:02,040 --> 00:59:06,320
Speaker 7: of your whole being, of your viscera, and of your mind,

962
00:59:06,480 --> 00:59:08,720
Speaker 7: and of your soul and of your conscience.

963
00:59:09,200 --> 00:59:17,440
Speaker 3: So there's soul, conscious mind which uh so which are emotive.

964
00:59:17,960 --> 00:59:22,439
Speaker 7: They touched They go to feelings, and of course that's

965
00:59:22,480 --> 00:59:28,600
Speaker 7: completely in my view, it's legitimate. And they did exactly

966
00:59:28,640 --> 00:59:31,160
Speaker 7: what I expected they would do, and what anyone would

967
00:59:31,160 --> 00:59:36,400
Speaker 7: expect they do. They simply layer upon layer upon layer

968
00:59:36,520 --> 00:59:39,920
Speaker 7: upon layer of the horrors that have been inflicted on

969
00:59:40,000 --> 00:59:41,240
Speaker 7: the people of Gaza.

970
00:59:41,920 --> 00:59:47,040
Speaker 3: Or one gentleman he quoted a I guess it was

971
00:59:47,240 --> 00:59:51,000
Speaker 3: either I think it was either one of the major

972
00:59:51,080 --> 00:59:52,600
Speaker 3: humanetarian organizations.

973
00:59:53,160 --> 00:59:58,200
Speaker 7: He said, in all of his life's experience, he had

974
00:59:58,280 --> 00:59:59,880
Speaker 7: never seen something like this.

975
01:00:00,480 --> 01:00:01,520
Speaker 3: And he said it has.

976
01:00:01,400 --> 01:00:09,680
Speaker 7: Three characteristics, the size, the speed, and the size speed.

977
01:00:09,840 --> 01:00:15,720
Speaker 7: And it'll company with three words that began with S

978
01:00:15,720 --> 01:00:19,440
Speaker 7: size What make me scope? Yeah, I don't think it

979
01:00:19,560 --> 01:00:24,880
Speaker 7: was gope, size, speed, and severity in terms of size

980
01:00:25,160 --> 01:00:26,200
Speaker 7: size of the scope.

981
01:00:26,200 --> 01:00:27,760
Speaker 3: But yours is a better word than size.

982
01:00:27,760 --> 01:00:33,120
Speaker 7: Igish you had you scope, size, speed, and severity. He said,

983
01:00:33,160 --> 01:00:36,360
Speaker 7: in his whole life, he had never experienced it. And

984
01:00:36,400 --> 01:00:41,120
Speaker 7: then one of the other lawyers said, there are people

985
01:00:41,200 --> 01:00:43,840
Speaker 7: in this in these organizations that go back to the

986
01:00:43,960 --> 01:00:46,080
Speaker 7: killing fields in Cambodia.

987
01:00:46,960 --> 01:00:51,280
Speaker 3: They go back seventy nine. You know, I'm old enough

988
01:00:51,320 --> 01:00:53,880
Speaker 3: to go back that far. I remember it quite vividly.

989
01:00:54,640 --> 01:00:56,880
Speaker 3: And he said, there are people who go back to.

990
01:00:56,880 --> 01:00:59,920
Speaker 7: The killing fields of Cambodia and they've never seen any

991
01:01:00,080 --> 01:01:06,080
Speaker 7: thing like this. And another person, one of the earlier presenters,

992
01:01:07,200 --> 01:01:10,000
Speaker 7: who went through intent where you start to quote all

993
01:01:10,040 --> 01:01:13,760
Speaker 7: the statements by the government officials, he made, you know,

994
01:01:13,840 --> 01:01:15,320
Speaker 7: a perfectly valid point.

995
01:01:15,400 --> 01:01:18,520
Speaker 3: He said, no country ever admits the genocide.

996
01:01:19,080 --> 01:01:23,920
Speaker 7: They're always very cautious about what they say in public.

997
01:01:24,320 --> 01:01:26,520
Speaker 7: And even if you read the Nazi statements, you know,

998
01:01:26,680 --> 01:01:30,000
Speaker 7: during the genocide, there were kinds of what you might quote,

999
01:01:30,040 --> 01:01:36,720
Speaker 7: allusions to allusions to what's happening. But remember the Nazi

1000
01:01:36,800 --> 01:01:43,360
Speaker 7: genocide occurred in the dark. Technically, the German people weren't

1001
01:01:43,360 --> 01:01:45,680
Speaker 7: supposed to know what's going on, let alone the world.

1002
01:01:46,840 --> 01:01:52,480
Speaker 3: And you will remember that when the first reports start

1003
01:01:52,560 --> 01:01:53,120
Speaker 3: to come.

1004
01:01:52,960 --> 01:01:55,320
Speaker 7: Out of the genocide, when the first reports of the

1005
01:01:55,360 --> 01:01:59,720
Speaker 7: Jewish genocides start to come out, there were some people

1006
01:01:59,720 --> 01:02:03,960
Speaker 7: who leaked out information, some emissaries who leaked out information.

1007
01:02:05,440 --> 01:02:06,960
Speaker 3: Most people didn't believe it.

1008
01:02:07,920 --> 01:02:12,120
Speaker 7: Even Jews couldn't believe what they were being told, which

1009
01:02:12,160 --> 01:02:17,200
Speaker 7: is another way of saying the genocide wasn't in the open.

1010
01:02:18,000 --> 01:02:20,080
Speaker 3: And as the person said, most of.

1011
01:02:20,040 --> 01:02:23,800
Speaker 7: The times, government leaders are very cautious about what they say.

1012
01:02:24,200 --> 01:02:27,680
Speaker 7: That even before there were the conventions, you know, making

1013
01:02:27,720 --> 01:02:30,360
Speaker 7: this illegal, you didn't say that.

1014
01:02:31,240 --> 01:02:36,600
Speaker 3: And he made the point that the Israelis have said

1015
01:02:36,600 --> 01:02:37,640
Speaker 3: it that every level.

1016
01:02:37,800 --> 01:02:42,360
Speaker 7: He made the point every level of government, every level

1017
01:02:42,400 --> 01:02:51,240
Speaker 7: of society, and throughout the military. So he saysh Prime

1018
01:02:51,280 --> 01:02:55,320
Speaker 7: Minister notta Home makes us standing about Amelek so then

1019
01:02:55,400 --> 01:02:58,800
Speaker 7: you could say, well, maybe he was just being figurative,

1020
01:02:58,960 --> 01:03:02,240
Speaker 7: maybe he was just being up local. But then in

1021
01:03:02,280 --> 01:03:05,760
Speaker 7: one of those rare moments in the hearings, they showed

1022
01:03:05,840 --> 01:03:11,240
Speaker 7: video footage, and they showed video footage of the soldiers

1023
01:03:11,800 --> 01:03:18,320
Speaker 7: repeating what Netsan Yahoo said and saying this is amelek.

1024
01:03:18,400 --> 01:03:20,560
Speaker 7: We're going to kill all of them, and they're dancing

1025
01:03:20,560 --> 01:03:25,160
Speaker 7: and they're very cheerful. That particular footage was targeting not

1026
01:03:25,360 --> 01:03:28,960
Speaker 7: Hamas but Hezbolah. So I assumed that was footage from

1027
01:03:29,000 --> 01:03:33,560
Speaker 7: the North Front, but the general idea that the soldiers

1028
01:03:33,600 --> 01:03:39,760
Speaker 7: had internalings what the senior government officials were saying. So

1029
01:03:39,840 --> 01:03:46,000
Speaker 7: you can't detach the statements at the upper tier from

1030
01:03:46,120 --> 01:03:48,000
Speaker 7: the actions at the lower tier.

1031
01:03:48,080 --> 01:03:51,680
Speaker 3: There's a straight arrow line. Uh.

1032
01:03:51,920 --> 01:03:57,640
Speaker 1: It was not really significant too. They also showed the

1033
01:03:57,680 --> 01:04:00,919
Speaker 1: soldiers talking about uninvolved there are no uninvol of civilians,

1034
01:04:01,080 --> 01:04:04,120
Speaker 1: which is something I believe President Hertzog had said. And

1035
01:04:04,200 --> 01:04:06,840
Speaker 1: this is again an anticipation of Israel saying, oh, we

1036
01:04:06,880 --> 01:04:10,160
Speaker 1: didn't mean those things. They're just sounding off. This is

1037
01:04:10,240 --> 01:04:11,320
Speaker 1: just populous.

1038
01:04:10,960 --> 01:04:12,600
Speaker 2: Rhetoric, multiple positions.

1039
01:04:12,680 --> 01:04:15,320
Speaker 1: One of the theories of their defense.

1040
01:04:15,040 --> 01:04:19,080
Speaker 2: That multiple politicians threatened nuking Gaza.

1041
01:04:19,400 --> 01:04:20,080
Speaker 1: That's on the record.

1042
01:04:20,200 --> 01:04:21,560
Speaker 3: Jim there was.

1043
01:04:21,600 --> 01:04:28,520
Speaker 7: Fun a junior member of the cabinet, he's the person

1044
01:04:28,600 --> 01:04:32,200
Speaker 7: in charge of the cabinet minister for antiquities. He said,

1045
01:04:32,240 --> 01:04:38,160
Speaker 7: that's nuke Gaza. And again they were anticipating because then

1046
01:04:38,320 --> 01:04:42,960
Speaker 7: he was demoted, and so they had to anticipate again

1047
01:04:43,120 --> 01:04:45,480
Speaker 7: and they said, well, he's still a standing member in

1048
01:04:45,480 --> 01:04:49,320
Speaker 7: the Kanesset. They had to figure out every possible defense

1049
01:04:49,400 --> 01:04:52,760
Speaker 7: that was going to be made and then tried to

1050
01:04:52,840 --> 01:04:53,760
Speaker 7: respond to it.

1051
01:04:55,720 --> 01:05:00,880
Speaker 3: But that presentation, you know, it's a just a brief

1052
01:05:00,920 --> 01:05:01,760
Speaker 3: bit of history.

1053
01:05:02,560 --> 01:05:08,439
Speaker 7: Israel during its previous operations in the past, was very

1054
01:05:08,520 --> 01:05:09,680
Speaker 7: free with its language.

1055
01:05:10,160 --> 01:05:12,480
Speaker 3: It said stuff like they're saying now.

1056
01:05:13,800 --> 01:05:21,360
Speaker 7: However, in after Operation cast Led, those statements came back

1057
01:05:21,400 --> 01:05:25,920
Speaker 7: to haunt them with what was called the Richard Goldstone Report.

1058
01:05:26,840 --> 01:05:31,120
Speaker 7: Richard Goldstone was also a South African, but unlike those

1059
01:05:31,240 --> 01:05:36,800
Speaker 7: represented here today, he was Jewish and he was a

1060
01:05:36,920 --> 01:05:42,000
Speaker 7: self identify I'm not using the term in term to disparagure.

1061
01:05:42,360 --> 01:05:46,960
Speaker 7: He was a self identified Zionist and he was appointed

1062
01:05:47,000 --> 01:05:51,439
Speaker 7: by the Human Rights Council to investigate crimes committed during

1063
01:05:51,520 --> 01:05:57,600
Speaker 7: Operation cast Led. Well, he composed this four hundred page report,

1064
01:05:58,560 --> 01:06:01,960
Speaker 7: and it was full of those statements made by the

1065
01:06:02,040 --> 01:06:09,480
Speaker 7: Israeli government. After that, Israel learned a lesson, don't make

1066
01:06:09,960 --> 01:06:12,760
Speaker 7: those statements because it might.

1067
01:06:12,680 --> 01:06:16,320
Speaker 3: Come back to you to haunt you in a legal proceeding.

1068
01:06:17,320 --> 01:06:22,240
Speaker 7: So in their next mowings of the Lawn Operation till

1069
01:06:22,320 --> 01:06:28,080
Speaker 7: of the Defense Operation Protected Edge, they didn't make those statements,

1070
01:06:28,760 --> 01:06:32,560
Speaker 7: at least they didn't make it in the numerical quantity

1071
01:06:32,840 --> 01:06:38,200
Speaker 7: as this time. So what happened October seventh that allowed

1072
01:06:38,240 --> 01:06:41,240
Speaker 7: for this explosion of statements.

1073
01:06:40,800 --> 01:06:43,120
Speaker 3: I mean, now no exaggeration.

1074
01:06:43,760 --> 01:06:47,280
Speaker 7: There are about a half dozen people who have composed

1075
01:06:47,320 --> 01:06:52,320
Speaker 7: these huge compendiums of just the statements made. One I

1076
01:06:52,320 --> 01:06:55,680
Speaker 7: think the most exhaustive is two by two young colleagues,

1077
01:06:57,320 --> 01:07:02,800
Speaker 7: Jamie stern Weiner and janniv Kogan. Jamie Sternwiner is half

1078
01:07:03,160 --> 01:07:06,800
Speaker 7: He's Jewish and half Israeli. Janif Coggin is Israeli and

1079
01:07:06,840 --> 01:07:11,960
Speaker 7: they produce it's called Fighting Amelek and Gaza, this huge compendium.

1080
01:07:12,600 --> 01:07:13,800
Speaker 3: But there are several others.

1081
01:07:13,960 --> 01:07:16,080
Speaker 7: You know, people send me and send me and sendy

1082
01:07:16,120 --> 01:07:17,480
Speaker 7: can you post my compendium?

1083
01:07:17,520 --> 01:07:19,000
Speaker 3: And can you post my compendium?

1084
01:07:19,120 --> 01:07:23,600
Speaker 7: And they're all very excellent so the question is what happened.

1085
01:07:24,480 --> 01:07:28,640
Speaker 7: They had that warning already and they had stopped, and

1086
01:07:28,720 --> 01:07:32,240
Speaker 7: now it just went berserved. I think it was basically

1087
01:07:32,280 --> 01:07:33,479
Speaker 7: because they had gone mad.

1088
01:07:34,240 --> 01:07:35,360
Speaker 3: They had gone you know.

1089
01:07:35,280 --> 01:07:39,000
Speaker 7: It was like the id coming out of them. There

1090
01:07:39,080 --> 01:07:40,600
Speaker 7: was no longer any.

1091
01:07:41,840 --> 01:07:49,800
Speaker 3: Control over that suppressed id. The hatred, the loathing.

1092
01:07:50,080 --> 01:07:54,360
Speaker 7: Of the people of Gaza, and that loathing and hatred

1093
01:07:55,240 --> 01:08:02,800
Speaker 7: was escalated by two factors in October seventh. No Number one,

1094
01:08:02,880 --> 01:08:06,480
Speaker 7: no question the magnitude of the crime. Don't find me

1095
01:08:06,840 --> 01:08:11,480
Speaker 7: diminishing it, no question, the magnitude of the crime. But

1096
01:08:11,600 --> 01:08:18,000
Speaker 7: the other thing was this vermin in Gaza, this human

1097
01:08:18,400 --> 01:08:26,519
Speaker 7: refuse in Gaza. They had outwitted the Israeli uber mentioned

1098
01:08:27,080 --> 01:08:32,840
Speaker 7: the superman. They had out smarted them Israel with it's

1099
01:08:32,880 --> 01:08:36,840
Speaker 7: a wanted intelligence capacities.

1100
01:08:37,640 --> 01:08:40,280
Speaker 3: It was a kind of what you might call a

1101
01:08:40,520 --> 01:08:41,080
Speaker 3: ject or.

1102
01:08:41,320 --> 01:08:47,719
Speaker 7: The image it projected was a James Bond writ large,

1103
01:08:48,439 --> 01:08:49,120
Speaker 7: that was the.

1104
01:08:49,000 --> 01:08:50,880
Speaker 3: Image you projected, projected.

1105
01:08:51,720 --> 01:08:58,719
Speaker 7: And then a long comes this vermin in Gaza, these

1106
01:08:59,120 --> 01:09:07,920
Speaker 7: umter mentions, these subhumans, and they had outsmarted them, out

1107
01:09:08,640 --> 01:09:14,880
Speaker 7: witted them, and reduced them to a state of humiliation.

1108
01:09:16,320 --> 01:09:19,880
Speaker 7: And what's even worse from the Israeli point of view

1109
01:09:20,800 --> 01:09:27,679
Speaker 7: had significantly contracted the image it projected to the world

1110
01:09:28,640 --> 01:09:37,439
Speaker 7: because everyone thought believed Israel is invincible. You don't have

1111
01:09:37,840 --> 01:09:43,600
Speaker 7: a military option against Israel. The only ones who disagreed

1112
01:09:44,160 --> 01:09:49,080
Speaker 7: were the Hesbela, in particular, the head of Hesbela, Sayah Israla.

1113
01:09:49,160 --> 01:09:52,960
Speaker 7: He kept saying, no, they're not so strong, don't fool yourself.

1114
01:09:53,000 --> 01:09:55,800
Speaker 7: And then he began to ridicule them, and he said,

1115
01:09:55,920 --> 01:10:00,160
Speaker 7: Israel's like a spider's web. You just blow on it

1116
01:10:00,200 --> 01:10:04,680
Speaker 7: and it disyntegrates. And nobody knew whether to take that

1117
01:10:04,920 --> 01:10:09,479
Speaker 7: literally or not. But suddenly, on October seventh, because I've

1118
01:10:09,479 --> 01:10:13,000
Speaker 7: talked and many obviously, I've talked many Arabs, many Palestinians,

1119
01:10:13,040 --> 01:10:17,200
Speaker 7: many Muslims, and the thought has suddenly sunk in.

1120
01:10:18,400 --> 01:10:22,479
Speaker 3: Maybe it's not as strong as it is made out

1121
01:10:22,560 --> 01:10:22,800
Speaker 3: to be.

1122
01:10:26,640 --> 01:10:29,200
Speaker 9: All Right, we are joined now again by my colleague

1123
01:10:29,200 --> 01:10:31,920
Speaker 9: over at the Intercept, Ken Clepenstein. Ken, thanks for being

1124
01:10:31,960 --> 01:10:32,400
Speaker 9: here today.

1125
01:10:32,600 --> 01:10:33,679
Speaker 3: It's good to be with you, guys.

1126
01:10:33,840 --> 01:10:37,120
Speaker 9: You've got a big story today, and we can put

1127
01:10:37,120 --> 01:10:41,000
Speaker 9: this element up. This is his scoop over at the Intercept.

1128
01:10:41,120 --> 01:10:43,320
Speaker 9: Walk us through what you found.

1129
01:10:43,560 --> 01:10:47,160
Speaker 10: So in November there was a document produced by the

1130
01:10:47,280 --> 01:10:52,960
Speaker 10: US Air Forces Middle East Combatant Command, and what it

1131
01:10:53,000 --> 01:10:56,800
Speaker 10: was essentially was a deployment order for intelligence officers to

1132
01:10:56,880 --> 01:11:00,839
Speaker 10: be sent to Israel and to help with the provision

1133
01:11:00,840 --> 01:11:04,160
Speaker 10: of intelligence to the Israelis. Now, I interviewed someone who

1134
01:11:04,720 --> 01:11:07,240
Speaker 10: was the exact same type of intelligence officer that they

1135
01:11:07,280 --> 01:11:09,320
Speaker 10: are signing Israel, and he said, this has to be

1136
01:11:09,320 --> 01:11:13,840
Speaker 10: about targeting, providing satellite intelligence to the Israelis, who have

1137
01:11:14,000 --> 01:11:18,200
Speaker 10: very good granular satellite information. But no one can hold

1138
01:11:18,200 --> 01:11:20,519
Speaker 10: a candle to the kind of satellite intelligence that the

1139
01:11:20,600 --> 01:11:24,240
Speaker 10: US government has for kind of being picture stuff that

1140
01:11:24,240 --> 01:11:28,599
Speaker 10: can help inform their picture of the battlefield in Gaza. Now,

1141
01:11:29,560 --> 01:11:31,360
Speaker 10: you know what's the What's why?

1142
01:11:31,400 --> 01:11:32,120
Speaker 3: Is this the problem?

1143
01:11:32,600 --> 01:11:34,880
Speaker 10: The Biden administration never disclosed this, And if you look

1144
01:11:34,880 --> 01:11:38,599
Speaker 10: at what the Biden administration has said publicly about support

1145
01:11:38,640 --> 01:11:40,880
Speaker 10: for Israel, they're in a very awkward position where they

1146
01:11:40,920 --> 01:11:42,960
Speaker 10: have to signal, you know, we love the Israelis, where

1147
01:11:43,080 --> 01:11:45,479
Speaker 10: you know, we support them entirely in this conflict, but

1148
01:11:45,520 --> 01:11:48,320
Speaker 10: they don't want to say how. And experts that we

1149
01:11:48,360 --> 01:11:50,360
Speaker 10: interviewed said that the reason for that is because it

1150
01:11:50,400 --> 01:11:53,599
Speaker 10: opens up the US government to not just political ability,

1151
01:11:53,760 --> 01:11:57,120
Speaker 10: but legal exposure as well. So you know, I've reported

1152
01:11:57,120 --> 01:12:01,000
Speaker 10: on this with the intercept in the past. The specific

1153
01:12:01,040 --> 01:12:04,400
Speaker 10: weapons systems we provided are not publicly disclosed. Unlike the

1154
01:12:04,439 --> 01:12:08,320
Speaker 10: war in Ukraine and the administration bullets what we're selling literally, yeah,

1155
01:12:08,360 --> 01:12:10,400
Speaker 10: you can go online and find it right now. They

1156
01:12:10,400 --> 01:12:11,880
Speaker 10: don't do that for these relies. They don't talk about

1157
01:12:11,880 --> 01:12:16,720
Speaker 10: the quantities of weapons. White House spokesperson John Kirby said

1158
01:12:16,760 --> 01:12:18,320
Speaker 10: in the past the reason for all of this is

1159
01:12:18,360 --> 01:12:21,960
Speaker 10: operational security. But again, compare this to the Ukrainians. Where's

1160
01:12:21,960 --> 01:12:24,479
Speaker 10: the operational security with that? Nobody cared, everyone disclosed it,

1161
01:12:24,560 --> 01:12:26,880
Speaker 10: they were fine, it didn't hurt the Ukrainians to do so.

1162
01:12:26,880 --> 01:12:30,320
Speaker 10: So there's really this double standard between those two client conflicts,

1163
01:12:29,800 --> 01:12:33,560
Speaker 10: and it's quite telling when you look at the Administration's

1164
01:12:33,640 --> 01:12:35,080
Speaker 10: posture between the two.

1165
01:12:35,200 --> 01:12:36,519
Speaker 11: Can you tell us a little bit more about the

1166
01:12:36,520 --> 01:12:38,800
Speaker 11: scale of this operation as you've reported it, you know what,

1167
01:12:39,280 --> 01:12:40,559
Speaker 11: exactly how big is this?

1168
01:12:40,600 --> 01:12:42,760
Speaker 10: The specific intelligence team that they sent is known for

1169
01:12:42,800 --> 01:12:45,479
Speaker 10: having a light footprint, the idea being that it's not

1170
01:12:45,520 --> 01:12:47,920
Speaker 10: going to create bureaucratic waves, not.

1171
01:12:47,880 --> 01:12:48,439
Speaker 3: Going to leak.

1172
01:12:48,760 --> 01:12:51,280
Speaker 10: When I spoke i interview on the record. In the story,

1173
01:12:51,360 --> 01:12:53,040
Speaker 10: someone who served in one of these units, and he

1174
01:12:53,080 --> 01:12:56,800
Speaker 10: described having provided intelligence to the Iraqis. I think it

1175
01:12:56,840 --> 01:12:59,719
Speaker 10: was as the war became quite unpopular in two thousand

1176
01:12:59,720 --> 01:13:02,040
Speaker 10: and seven, in two thousand and eight around that time.

1177
01:13:02,160 --> 01:13:04,200
Speaker 10: And the idea is that these teams are so small

1178
01:13:04,240 --> 01:13:06,720
Speaker 10: and can and are so agile that it's not going

1179
01:13:06,800 --> 01:13:11,639
Speaker 10: to create the kinds of uh, you know, discord within

1180
01:13:11,680 --> 01:13:14,760
Speaker 10: the agencies that that's sending a larger team might. But

1181
01:13:14,760 --> 01:13:16,360
Speaker 10: what's what's critical about all this is that when you

1182
01:13:16,360 --> 01:13:18,479
Speaker 10: look at the war in Gaza, it's an unusual war.

1183
01:13:18,760 --> 01:13:23,200
Speaker 10: The vast majority of it is being fought long distance

1184
01:13:23,560 --> 01:13:26,400
Speaker 10: with artillery air power, and that's exactly the kind of

1185
01:13:26,439 --> 01:13:29,439
Speaker 10: things that satellite intelligence of the sort that these Air

1186
01:13:29,439 --> 01:13:34,280
Speaker 10: Force intelligence officers would would would uh specialize in providing

1187
01:13:34,320 --> 01:13:36,160
Speaker 10: the Israelis are gonna are going to be able to

1188
01:13:36,200 --> 01:13:36,559
Speaker 10: give them.

1189
01:13:37,000 --> 01:13:38,760
Speaker 9: Now, it certainly doesn't look like there's been a whole

1190
01:13:38,760 --> 01:13:41,759
Speaker 9: lot of precision targeting, and we keep seeing stories about

1191
01:13:41,760 --> 01:13:44,920
Speaker 9: two thousand pound dumb bombs and and other dumb bombs

1192
01:13:44,920 --> 01:13:49,160
Speaker 9: getting getting dropped on on Gaza. Is it possible that

1193
01:13:49,240 --> 01:13:54,120
Speaker 9: the US sent these units over there and the IDF

1194
01:13:54,120 --> 01:13:56,040
Speaker 9: told them pound sand we're good.

1195
01:13:56,320 --> 01:13:56,800
Speaker 3: We don't.

1196
01:13:56,840 --> 01:14:00,000
Speaker 9: We don't actually need your help, Like, can we definitively

1197
01:14:00,160 --> 01:14:02,920
Speaker 9: link them here or do we have circumstantial evidence that

1198
01:14:03,080 --> 01:14:05,639
Speaker 9: they were ordered to head over there? And you would

1199
01:14:05,680 --> 01:14:08,240
Speaker 9: just assume that, you know, if you have this capacity

1200
01:14:08,280 --> 01:14:10,360
Speaker 9: at your disposal as the idea that you would take

1201
01:14:10,360 --> 01:14:11,000
Speaker 9: advantage of it.

1202
01:14:11,000 --> 01:14:13,479
Speaker 10: Well, these intelligence teams are kind of bilateral in nature,

1203
01:14:13,520 --> 01:14:16,280
Speaker 10: so they provide intelligence, but they're also getting intelligence too,

1204
01:14:16,360 --> 01:14:21,720
Speaker 10: and that's how they worked with regards to Iraq. How

1205
01:14:21,800 --> 01:14:23,920
Speaker 10: much we know about what the Israelis accepted, I mean,

1206
01:14:24,240 --> 01:14:27,439
Speaker 10: the edmind has been very open about that. Yes, we

1207
01:14:27,600 --> 01:14:31,240
Speaker 10: are providing intelligence, but they've been very careful to say

1208
01:14:31,240 --> 01:14:34,960
Speaker 10: but it's only about hostage rescue. And so that's where

1209
01:14:35,000 --> 01:14:37,679
Speaker 10: this story moves the needle away from hostage rescue toward

1210
01:14:37,720 --> 01:14:39,639
Speaker 10: I mean, when you're talking targeting, that's a very different

1211
01:14:40,200 --> 01:14:43,200
Speaker 10: kind of operation. That's something the administration is never acknowledged.

1212
01:14:43,200 --> 01:14:45,679
Speaker 10: So certainly the Israelis are accepting some form of help

1213
01:14:45,920 --> 01:14:49,880
Speaker 10: in terms of the hostage response. There was a crash

1214
01:14:49,920 --> 01:14:51,280
Speaker 10: I think of an ospray and.

1215
01:14:53,000 --> 01:14:54,240
Speaker 3: Off the coast a Turkey or something.

1216
01:14:54,360 --> 01:14:57,240
Speaker 10: Yeah, that's right, and that revealed that we had a

1217
01:14:57,280 --> 01:15:00,920
Speaker 10: Seal team in country working on the hostage rescue response.

1218
01:15:00,960 --> 01:15:03,639
Speaker 10: So there's a big kind of secret squirrel presence within

1219
01:15:03,760 --> 01:15:06,200
Speaker 10: country that we only have some hints of it. In

1220
01:15:06,240 --> 01:15:08,479
Speaker 10: another case, the White House posted a picture they forgot

1221
01:15:08,520 --> 01:15:12,760
Speaker 10: to redact the bass of the Jaysok operators, so now

1222
01:15:12,800 --> 01:15:15,479
Speaker 10: we know Jaysak is there too. So certainly there's a

1223
01:15:15,479 --> 01:15:19,759
Speaker 10: footprint and document. The story is based on a Foyd document.

1224
01:15:20,040 --> 01:15:23,679
Speaker 10: These kind of provide us some glimpse into what exactly

1225
01:15:23,840 --> 01:15:25,479
Speaker 10: is going on, because again the administration is not being

1226
01:15:25,479 --> 01:15:26,400
Speaker 10: forthcoming about it.

1227
01:15:26,920 --> 01:15:28,800
Speaker 11: And the other question I have is if you could

1228
01:15:28,800 --> 01:15:30,920
Speaker 11: talk a little bit more about the legal liabilities we

1229
01:15:30,960 --> 01:15:34,240
Speaker 11: did learn, I mean, unsurprisingly something about this in Ukraine

1230
01:15:34,280 --> 01:15:36,040
Speaker 11: as well, you know, like six months unto the wars,

1231
01:15:36,080 --> 01:15:38,200
Speaker 11: and we wed a similar kind of footprint of people,

1232
01:15:38,680 --> 01:15:42,759
Speaker 11: light footprint of people in Kiev. So the legal liability

1233
01:15:42,800 --> 01:15:44,479
Speaker 11: is there. But then there's also the idea of the

1234
01:15:44,479 --> 01:15:48,799
Speaker 11: political liability if somebody is killed in action that creates

1235
01:15:49,600 --> 01:15:52,559
Speaker 11: if an American and a member of the American military

1236
01:15:52,600 --> 01:15:58,080
Speaker 11: American intelligence community is harmed, that can also completely change

1237
01:15:58,120 --> 01:15:59,640
Speaker 11: the dynamic of a hot conflict like this.

1238
01:15:59,760 --> 01:16:01,960
Speaker 10: Yeah, the administrations kind of boxed itself box itself in

1239
01:16:02,000 --> 01:16:04,720
Speaker 10: because from the beginning Biden has said we do not

1240
01:16:04,800 --> 01:16:06,600
Speaker 10: have boots on the ground. He's tried to adhere to that.

1241
01:16:06,640 --> 01:16:09,679
Speaker 10: But the problem is intelligence. Since it doesn't operate under

1242
01:16:09,680 --> 01:16:15,519
Speaker 10: the same legal classification as does traditional boots on the ground,

1243
01:16:15,520 --> 01:16:19,640
Speaker 10: you can you can technically accurately say that intelligence is

1244
01:16:19,680 --> 01:16:22,800
Speaker 10: not it operates under a different title authority.

1245
01:16:22,640 --> 01:16:27,400
Speaker 9: Because they're not operating in Gaza like this, could this

1246
01:16:27,439 --> 01:16:28,960
Speaker 9: even be happening in the United States?

1247
01:16:29,000 --> 01:16:31,080
Speaker 10: We know that they are, the Air Force is conducting

1248
01:16:31,520 --> 01:16:34,360
Speaker 10: drones in Gaza. You're right that they're not or as

1249
01:16:34,360 --> 01:16:35,880
Speaker 10: far as we know, they're not on the ground, I

1250
01:16:35,880 --> 01:16:38,479
Speaker 10: mean JAYSOK and some of these special operations units, all right,

1251
01:16:40,520 --> 01:16:42,760
Speaker 10: oh right, No, definitely we have a footprint in Gaza.

1252
01:16:42,800 --> 01:16:45,160
Speaker 10: And what's interesting with that that drone presence that probably

1253
01:16:45,200 --> 01:16:47,639
Speaker 10: also is working with the Air Force. That is the

1254
01:16:47,680 --> 01:16:49,960
Speaker 10: first time the US military has ever operated in Gaza.

1255
01:16:50,000 --> 01:16:53,040
Speaker 10: So this is a huge sea change from past conduct.

1256
01:16:53,680 --> 01:16:56,400
Speaker 9: And the units themselves are they working both in the

1257
01:16:56,479 --> 01:16:58,960
Speaker 9: United States and over in Do they have to travel

1258
01:16:59,000 --> 01:16:59,479
Speaker 9: to Israel?

1259
01:16:59,560 --> 01:17:00,800
Speaker 3: You have to do this court It.

1260
01:17:00,760 --> 01:17:03,920
Speaker 10: Was literally a travel order describing where the lodgings are

1261
01:17:03,920 --> 01:17:05,360
Speaker 10: going to be I think it was in Tel Aviv,

1262
01:17:05,840 --> 01:17:08,120
Speaker 10: so they're physically in Israel. In addition to that, one

1263
01:17:08,200 --> 01:17:11,040
Speaker 10: very telling uh part of the FOID document was do

1264
01:17:11,160 --> 01:17:14,920
Speaker 10: not wear your uniform on the plane. We're in a

1265
01:17:14,960 --> 01:17:16,320
Speaker 10: civilian like what.

1266
01:17:16,280 --> 01:17:20,519
Speaker 9: If you want to board first though, I mean, come on,

1267
01:17:21,560 --> 01:17:24,920
Speaker 9: kind of gives. So they said don't don't wear your

1268
01:17:25,280 --> 01:17:27,240
Speaker 9: uniform on your way over to Tel Aviv. Yeah, because

1269
01:17:27,280 --> 01:17:29,720
Speaker 9: that you're you're you're sitting in the airport and your

1270
01:17:29,800 --> 01:17:31,760
Speaker 9: your flight is bound for Tel Aviv and you look

1271
01:17:31,800 --> 01:17:34,920
Speaker 9: over and you see a bunch of active duty uh,

1272
01:17:35,000 --> 01:17:38,160
Speaker 9: you know, military person us military personality be like, oh.

1273
01:17:38,280 --> 01:17:41,479
Speaker 10: It's reflective of how it's a very subtle operation. It's

1274
01:17:41,520 --> 01:17:43,280
Speaker 10: so ironic because they have to go out and say

1275
01:17:43,360 --> 01:17:45,439
Speaker 10: I'm overflowing with love for the Israel and we support

1276
01:17:45,479 --> 01:17:47,719
Speaker 10: them in everything, and it's like, but we can't say

1277
01:17:47,840 --> 01:17:49,600
Speaker 10: anything about how, you know.

1278
01:17:50,400 --> 01:17:54,160
Speaker 9: Yeah, fascinating stuff. Thank you, good reporting, Thanks.

1279
01:17:54,040 --> 01:17:54,519
Speaker 3: For joining us.

1280
01:17:54,640 --> 01:17:55,400
Speaker 11: Yeah, thank you Ken.

1281
01:17:55,400 --> 01:17:55,920
Speaker 3: Thanks guys,