HAPPENING NOW: Israel Accused of Genocide by South Africa at International Court

Today on Sekulow, it's happening now as Israel is accused of genocide by South Africa at the International Court of Justice as the trial begins. The trial has begun in the International Court of Justice. This is the ICJ. This is country versus country. South Africa bringing charges against Israel for the crime of genocide. And they've also laid out what they believe should happen if they are to win the case. What they are asking the 17 judges from the International Court of Justice.

15 are permanent. Two come from the countries that are in conflict. So one from Israel, one from South Africa. But already today, some very hostile anti-Israel language used right away in the court case.

Do we have that bite right away? I want to play it for people because when you start the court case that way, you know exactly where South Africa is going. In our application, South Africa has recognized the ongoing Nakba of the Palestinian people through Israel's colonization since 1948. Which has systematically and forcibly dispossessed, displaced and fragmented the Palestinian people, deliberately denying them the internationally recognized inalienable right to self-determination.

And their internationally recognized right of return as refugees to their towns and villages in what is now the state of Israel. You know, Dad, the Nakba Day, you'll see it around, we've been in those territories, it's what they refer to as the same day as the day Israel declared independence in 1948, May 15th. So it's a very different kind of… Well, the Nakba means the great catastrophe. So when South Africa gets up in court and says, we understand the Palestinians living under the Nakba, the great catastrophe, which is the independence of Israel as a Jewish state. Understand that South Africa is not much different than Hamas and Hezbollah in what their aim is, which is the non-existence of the Jewish state. Yeah, saying Nakba Day is equivalent to saying from the river to the sea. Yeah, exactly, there's no difference.

Israel should not exist. Yeah, exactly. And what's interesting here is that the way this proceeding, it's an interesting proceeding because it's a full trial, but at the end of the day, even though they make a decision, there's no enforcement mechanism.

Right. So South Africa has asked for a provisional order and that is what the oral argument is addressing today from South Africa and tomorrow from Israel. So South Africa has asked for this provisional order and basically asking for Israel to immediately halt their military operation, which would be devastating. But again, this is a provisional order they've asked for, so we should have a decision.

Now, think about that for a moment. So when we come back from the break, you can imagine that our European Center for Law and Justice, our ACLJ in Jerusalem did not take this lying down. And we have filed or actually submitted to various countries.

I'm going to go through the whole list when we come back, folks. We did a major effort and got a brief out on this legal issue to dozens of countries and world leaders. It's that serious and we're taking serious action there.

You're not allowed to file directly in the court because it's state to state, but we have filed to the countries and to the relevant people involved. We are also going to ask you, as part of our work here at the ACLJ, to support our ongoing work with our ACLJ champions. Israel is in the crosshairs once again. Now it's in the International Court of Justice and we are fighting back on this hard. This is the kind of multi-front battle we're engaged in to defend Israel, including the lawfare aspects of this. And whether it's defending Israel on the international stage or your right to vote at the Supreme Court, the ACLJ is front and center in every critical legal battle impacting you.

Here's what we need you to do, folks. If you can support the work of the ACLJ on a monthly basis, that makes a huge difference. You become an ACLJ champion. You give us the cushion we need to handle these cases when they come up, which came up without notice. This was filed two weeks ago and it's in court now. ACLJ.org forward slash champions. That's ACLJ.org forward slash champions.

Back with more in a moment. Welcome back to Sekulow. So just to kind of underscore what is happening internationally, and I think it's a court system you need to be up to speed on. This is different than the International Criminal Court, but we'll also talk about how that interplay could ultimately work here.

There are, again, 17 judges on this court, the International Court of Justice. That was set up by the UN to handle state versus state. So when countries decide they've got issues with another country, they can bring actions to the ICJ. The actions, whatever decision the ICJ makes is an actual binding decision, but it does not have an enforcement. It's similar to other courts around the world, including the United States. You'd have to have this buy-in from another body to actually enforce their judgments.

And for the most part, you have not seen a lot of enforcement yet. These international courts have not gotten done what they thought they could get done. But this action from South Africa against Israel, we played for you how they opened up with Nakba Day, which means if you believe that, you believe Israel and the Jewish people should be wiped off the face of what we now know as the Jewish state of Israel, at least moved out of Israel. That would be the best case scenario, so you don't kill all the Jews. Because Nakba means the great catastrophe, and the great catastrophe is the establishment of the Jewish state. They want the Jews sent back. They say, you know, go back to wherever your families came from.

Of course, some were already there. Others had to leave Israel during different periods of time because of who occupied it. So go back to Europe, go back to South America, go back to other countries, because this is the Palestinian land going back 75 years of genocide is what they're accusing Israel of.

And you think about the fact that Israel, since its Independence Day has been attacked, as it was on October 7th, so many times, by a much more powerful Arab world countries, and by the grace of God and an excellent military and good allies, has been able to survive those attacks. But what's important here, Dad, is what the ACLJ is doing, because you've been at the ICC. The ICJ is, again, it's limited to state parties, but we still come up with creative ways to get our analysis out. So we have filed a 13-page single-spaced legal document, and it has gone far and wide. We've sent it to the Minister of Diaspora Affairs in Israel, the Speaker of the Knesset, the Chair of the Knesset's Constitution and Justice Committee, the International Legal Forum. All these are in Israel. The EU Ambassador to the United States, UK Lawyers for Israel, Minister of Strategic Affairs, Foreign Policy Advisor for the Israeli Prime Minister, the Minister of Justice and Deputy Attorney General, Minister of Foreign Affairs.

And then we've sent it to countries, or we are in the process of, to Ministers of Foreign Affairs for countries that have judges sitting on this panel. Cece, in this brief that we filed, what have we alleged? Well, we point out right off the bat that the accusation of genocide is legally erroneous, factually untrue, and morally reprehensible, and blatantly anti-Semitic. Absolutely, there is, they totally ignore, South Africa's claiming that Israel has committed genocide, they totally ignore that Israel was attacked by Hamas, and that this is, they are in a military action, and that the international humanitarian law, or law of armed conflict controls, they totally ignore that. Israel is simply defending themselves.

They put in two paragraphs in their, like... 84 pages, I believe. Yeah, 84 pages of documents, two paragraphs about the attack on Israel by Hamas, and they never call that genocide. They call that an attack.

Right. And they say it was illegal. Specifically because that was genocide, because we know Hamas targets... Civilians. ...Israeli civilians because they are Jewish-Israeli civilians, and they want to exterminate them, they want to wipe them off.

That is genocide, but that is never addressed. I want to play again, this is the second part, as this continues on, the second bite from the attorney representing South Africa here, Madonsela, because he goes from Nakba, and then again, again, kind of lay out why this has actually been an issue since 1948, that Israel is guilty, not of just, not the current conflict, but since its founding as the Jewish state. And again, ignoring the fact that since its founding, including that in 1948, it was immediately attacked in 1948. Then again in 67, again in 73, I had a good friend of mine, close friend of mine, serving the IDF when Hezbollah attacked, and again, that operation, we saw Operation Cast Lead.

It goes on. They ignore that, of course, and they act as if Israel has been the aggressor. Listen to Bite 15 from South Africa at the ICJ. At the outset, South Africa acknowledges that the genocidal acts and omissions by the State of Israel inevitably form part of a continuum of illegal acts perpetrated against the Palestinian people since 1948. The application places Israel's genocidal acts and omissions within the broader context of Israel's 75-year apartheid, 56-year occupation, and 16-year siege imposed on the Gaza Strip, a siege which itself has been described by the director of UNRWA affairs in Gaza as a silent killer of people. Let me read from our brief because this is how outrageous this is. This is on page 2 of 13 single space that we've filed. We'll put a copy of it.

There it is up on the screen. Just a few observations we say, the application dedicates a total of approximately two paragraphs out of 84 pages to Hamas' actions, yet even when mentioned in the two paragraphs, the reference is simply in passing without calling Hamas' heinous acts of genocide as war crimes necessitating Israel's legitimate response. Instead of itself calling Hamas' actions war crimes, South Africa states that the ICC prosecutor has warned that hostage taking, quote, represents a gray breach to the Geneva Conventions while it accuses Israel of committing genocide.

South Africa only, quote, condemns Hamas for its attacks on Israel's civilians in one sentence without even calling Hamas' actions war crimes, let alone genocide, says that South Africa's choice of words and tone while mentioning Hamas' actions are also noteworthy. That's the message we're sending out in our brief. Absolutely. They point out how ridiculous this application by South Africa to the ICJ claiming that Israel has committed genocide, it's ridiculous. But we've got to give them this. They're in court in a week and a half, two weeks.

Absolutely. They've used the International Tribunal, absolutely, and they've asked for this provisional order. It's lawfare, once again, that they're using the legal system to try and get to Israel in an erroneous way, and Israel is simply defending themselves, and they are targeting Hamas. They are not targeting Palestinians, and there is no state of Palestine, but they are not targeting Palestinians. They are going after the, you know, terrorists that came after them and attacked them, which they have every right to do under international law. You know, what's interesting, I want to take a call in a second, too, as well as what we're seeing in these cases is that this is taking Israel to court while Israel is still having to fight off Hamas rockets and Hamas attacks and rocket attacks from the north from heaven.

And while they still have 132 civilians. Yes, hostages, and we know the one reason this conflict is ongoing still is because it's been reported that the lead Hamas military organizer, Sinwar, has surrounded himself with those remaining hostages to try and protect himself by using those human shields, which is, by the way, a violation of – is a war crime in itself. You need to let people know that in addition to your law degree, you have a degree in this. So I went to a post-law degree.

I did an LLM in international law, and most of it focused on the law of armed conflict and, you know, just when it is just to go to war and how to respond and what does complementary really mean. Does it mean if someone throws a rock at you, you can only use rocks back? No. That's what the – a lot of times, though, that's what these people are arguing in court, is that, well, the Palestinians had knives. Well, if they had – if they went in with knives and butchered 1,000 people, does that mean the IDF can only use knives, that they can't use more sophisticated weaponry?

No. And so when a top – the top leader is surrounded himself with human shields, so he's committing a daily minute-by-minute war crime by using hostages as human shields, he is prolonging by that war crime the conflict that is, again, being targeted at – it is, of course, happening in Gaza. So for those who are living in Gaza, it is because Sinwar – this continues because top Hamas leaders are using Israeli hostages as human shields, and so Israel must continue to fight.

And I believe if that was not the case and people like Sinwar were able to be taken out, you would not have to see, you know, a war that could go on for another year or more. There are few organizations in the country and in the world that can respond like the ACLJ can through our ECLJ, which is an NGO with the UN, our previous ability of appearing before the International Criminal Court and the Hague on multiple occasions now, one on behalf of Israel, one on behalf of the United States. And whether it's defending Israel on the international stage, which we're doing today, or your right to vote at the U.S. Supreme Court, which briefs we're working on right now, the ACLJ is front and center in every critical legal battle impacting you and your family. And we're going to encourage you to become an ACLJ champion.

Become a champion for life, for liberty, and for freedom. You do that by giving monthly. But to have the resources that we need really to meet these challenges, we need the support of our ACLJ champions. You give us a solid base that we can rely on each and every month. So whatever the amount you can afford to give on a monthly basis, we encourage you to do it at ACLJ.org forward slash champions. You become one of our ACLJ champions standing with us each and every month.

You know the cases. We encourage you to do it at ACLJ.org. We're also, when we come back from the break, we're taking your calls and comments also. 1-800-684-3110 if you want to talk to us on air.

You can also get your comments in on Rumble Facebook. And we've got a lot of calls too. I want to take some of those calls.

1-800-684-3110. As the trial at the ICJ has begun, the ACLJ explained through how we are involved. Of course we utilize our international offices as well. And our expertise, having an office in Israel, in Europe, and of course dealing with these international tribunals.

And also the difference, just to walk through you some differences. There's multiple presenters from each of these countries. For instance, we played one of the South African presenters today.

There's a second we're going to play. You can have five, six, seven people present. They don't have to be attorneys. That's the same at the International Criminal Court, the same at the Court of Human Rights. Now the judges or the justices who are then chosen to sit for these trials, some are permanent, some are not, they have legal backgrounds. But the presenters don't. And so it's very different than what we think of as a trial in the American system.

It's even different than like a military trial or tribunal. But I do want to go to the phones. Michael in Indiana on Line 1, listening on radio. Hey Michael. Hey Jordan. I just want to say I'm part of the Holocaust Research Institute.

I'm an assistant coordinator. And we have official Holocaust commemorations in New York City annually. And we work with Yad Vashem in Israel. And we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jewish people are victims of the Holocaust. And we have about 100, 150 monuments there in Sheetshead Bay. Holocaust Memorial Park, my colleague is the co-President. And we work with Yad Vashem, like I said, through Dr. Gideon Grace. And we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jews are victims of the Holocaust.

And less than 1% of the Jews survived in Poland, as a matter of fact. And it's just atrocious. We can't stand for this. And I contributed to ACLJ. We had to triple match. And I contributed. I want to admonish everybody to contribute to ACLJ and help out. We really appreciate that. And we have responded here, Cece again, in a pretty broad way.

Yes, we did. There's not an opportunity before the ICJ because it is directly between the two states, South Africa and Israel. But we submitted a legal brief explaining how this application for genocide is ridiculous.

And the court can't hear it. And we've sent it to member states of the UN, key member states of the UN. We sent it to the UN Secretary General. We sent it to the Commission of Inquiry that looks into this, investigates the Israel-Palestinian conflict. And we sent it to key leaders in Israel and around the world. And it's going to foreign affairs or members of the foreign ministries of the various countries that are sitting on this. Andy, you look at the situation. And the easy thing to do would be say nothing. But you can't say nothing in this because it is stacked against Israel from the start.

It is. This is Israel being victimized by South Africa for reasons that I don't know what they are, what ties that the South Africans have with the Middle Easterners and so forth. But clearly this is not an act of genocide by the Israelis. It's an act of self-defense against a horrific and terrible assault that was perpetrated by Hamas on Israel at a time when the Israelis had no provocation against them. And the Israelis are simply defending themselves. And to turn this into an allegation of genocide with the vigor that the South Africans have pursued it is absolutely ridiculous. But the connection is South Africa has been cozy with the Palestinian Liberation Organization back in the 50s and 60s. They have been, especially more recently in their political culture after apartheid, they have labeled Israel an apartheid state. That's part of their, the way they try to demonize Israel.

So all of that's part and parcel of what's going on. Let's try to get another call. Yeah, I wanted to take this call on Amazon. I was looking for, again, some information because there's a caller just dropped about your book on Jerusalem walking through all this. And the caller dropped there, watched it on Rumble. So if they're listening, what they told people is that it walks people through all of this and kind of responds to all of these arguments that are being made by South Africa.

I couldn't find it behind me here. But let's go to Charles in Colorado on Line 2. Hey, Charles. Yes, I just wanted to mention a story that I read this morning that Hamas is saying now that if Israel attacks Gaza, that they're going to start publicly beheading captives on live TV. Well, we heard that early on. Remember that was a threat Hamas made before the war even began. And then there was kind of a pullback on that because remember you had other countries start intervening into the hostage situation like Qatar and of course the United States and putting pressure.

And so that had not yet begun. Now, again, we know that hostages have died in captivity. We don't yet know the reasons why. We don't know if it's because, again, they were so injured and mistreated.

We don't know if it's from torture. We don't know if it was from even these more radical acts like you talked about. Certainly Hamas used that as a threat after October 7th. They said if you go in here, Israel, we will start beheading all these hostages. And of course Israel went to war. I've not seen evidence of that yet. No. We certainly saw that happening when they attacked October 7th.

But they were doing that to people October 7th. And many of them came into Gaza with serious injuries because they were shot, multiple gun wounds, and if they weren't immediately taken to even if they were taken, we had a client who they were trying to actually save because they thought it was a high level person to negotiate with and the hospital was not able to because of the blood loss. Yeah. The hostage situation remains just terrible.

Yes. And one that is just hard to figure out even how to address it. And you're exactly right. We don't know how many are alive. We don't know how many are dead. We don't even know how many of the hostages that were taken were alive when they were taken.

So that is still an unknown. What we do know is that the leader of Hamas has surrounded himself with whatever hostages are still alive to protect himself because that's what Hamas does. They not only use Israelis as human shields, they use the Arabs in Gaza as human shields. And of course, in this lawsuit brought by South Africa, Andy, they don't point out, of course, that Hamas is violating international law of armed conflict, international law by having shields as either the hostages or civilians.

No, that is conveniently ignored by the South Africans. They simply push that aside and don't mention that what Hamas does is take innocent civilians, children, women and so forth and use places of refuge as shields to protect them. For instance, there's a church in Gaza, St. Porphyrias, which is a Greek Orthodox church, happens to be what my faith is, and this church was partially destroyed by Israelis, and then the Hamas said, well, look, they're attacking the third oldest church in the world. Well, the fact of the matter is that Hamas was using that church as a shield and was conducting operations inside the St. Porphyrias church as a military center. So they were using an Orthodox church for that purpose.

And they turned it in for a military target. Right. So that's the way it goes. Folks, we're going to be taking a break.

We've got a half hour of the broadcast left. Jordan's going to let you know how you can support the work of the ACLJ on an ongoing basis. Yeah, folks, again, we need you as ACLJ champions. While Israel's in the crosshairs and we're fighting back at the ICJ, again, you look at the issues that are happening with illegal immigration, the issues surrounding the 14th Amendment at the Supreme Court. I mean, whether it's foreign, domestic, we are fighting for you.

We are the tip of the spear, the FOIA work that we are doing in Congress to hold this government accountable for its wrongdoing and, of course, to protect and defend our allies like Israel. We need those ACLJ champions. Here's why.

You can't predict when an October 7th is going to happen. But what you want to do is have an organization that's ready to go with resources that doesn't have to worry about how much it costs. Because of ACLJ champions, we are that organization and we want to always be prepared. ACLJ.org slash champions.

Sign up today. Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow.

Welcome back to Sekulow. We've got a lot more show coming up. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will be joining us.

Jeff Balaban from our director ACLJ Jerusalem will be joining us live from Jerusalem as well. But we also, of course, have got the Iowa caucuses on on Monday for Republicans. It's changed for Democrats. Democrats kind of gave Iowa, you know, the kind of pushover and it's a mail-in caucus system now that will take weeks to determine. And for this this election doesn't really matter for Democrats. But the big news here was that Chris Christie moments before the debate last night drops out of the 2024 race. The thought is, and I get your opinion on this, that that vote, at least a significant portion of it, goes to Nikki Haley, which could make New Hampshire a very close race. So the latest poll of Christie voters before he dropped out, their second choice was Nikki Haley by 65 percent. And then it got kind of then it gets very different numbers from there. It wasn't like that their third person was got a significant more. It wasn't.

They're all pretty much small. The question is, 65 percent of the 10 percent or so that he was getting is not going to beat Donald Trump. In New Hampshire? No. But if you could turn that 65 percent now into 100 percent plus, try and encourage Democrats. It's an open primary. There is no Democrat, real Democrat Presidential primary ongoing.

Right. So you could, can you encourage Democrats to decide and vote in the Republican primary for Nikki Haley to beat Donald Trump? But this again goes to the fact that, who does the Democrats actually want to run against? Do they want to run against Nikki Haley, who could appeal to a very different base than Donald Trump? Or do they want a rematch with someone that they believe? And again, don't attack me on on Rumble for this, because they do believe this, folks, that they clearly won.

And it was an easy win that Joe Biden was able to campaign from his basement and beat Donald Trump. And again, we know about all the issues. We know a lot of you have concerns about that.

But if you've done that, you'd certainly say, OK, we know our strategy, but what we did against him. We can do that right away again. Nikki Haley presents different options. So will Democrats do that? That's a big question.

Yeah, because they may not want to do it because helping Nikki Haley may not help them long term. Right. So again, the big issue is, does Donald Trump clearly win Iowa on Monday night? What does clearly win mean to you? He's a winner Monday night and he's it's it's above it's in the has to be the double digits and closer to the 20 plus than like a 10 plus.

OK, if she's a close second and I'd say that's 10 or less, then it's kind of like, OK, you're moving on. Then you're going to get a bump into New Hampshire that Donald Trump is just not as popular there as some of these. He's pretty popular there.

Yeah. But these other kind of more moderate, if you want to call him that, it's kind of a stretch word. But candidates to use, they've carved away like Nikki Haley. Nikki Haley were to let's say Trump wins New Hampshire, but by single digits or 10 percent like New Hampshire by single digit Iowa. There was closer in Iowa than they think, let's say. Yeah, it's going to be zero degrees. And who knows who's going to show up? Trump supporters.

OK, they do show up anyway. OK, then it goes to New Hampshire. If she were to win in New Hampshire, what does that do to it? Well, I think again, you'd have to then look at the margins. Did she win at a time when everybody in America was still awake?

Like, like did you wake or even when you woke back up or were they still was it so close that it was. Yeah, it was an improvement. But now we go to South Carolina. And this is what makes it tough for Nikki Haley.

Her home state, where she was governor, is the third state. If if she's got momentum coming out of New Hampshire, somehow pulled off a bigger victory there, money could flood in. You know, in that week, week and a half time, I think you get about is about week and a half time will and money could flow in and you can get a much tighter race. But I have also worked for candidates who let's say Trump wins Iowa by 20 points and wins New Hampshire by 10 or 11 points. Do you want to go into your home state and make that your last stand or do it? Bush didn't pull out and say, you know what? I don't want to lose South Carolina when clearly I don't have the momentum.

The money's not going to come my way. People think this is over. So that's what you have.

Those are the scenarios you watch. And we're going to know very soon if this is going to be a short primary battle or an extended one that could actually go past Super Tuesday. Yeah, because I mean, if for Trump were to win New Hampshire, Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, it's over. Okay. So it really is going to take an upset in New Hampshire to even give it a contest. Yes.

Plus maybe something bizarre in Iowa that's a little closer. All right. Back to more in a moment. Welcome back to Secular. We've also got calls incoming about the situation in Israel.

If you have more of those political calls too, you can get them at 1-800-684-3110. Of course, there's going to be a lot of coverage of that even more tomorrow and then, of course, Monday and Tuesday analyzing what happened in Iowa with those zero degrees. Who turns out?

How long did it take? How close are the margins? And then we move on to New Hampshire. We kind of see how that moves. But Neil is calling in from Florida on Line 1 with a question about the ICJ.

And I think it's important for us to answer, you know, a lot of people because it's rarely used when it comes to the United States. Right. So, Neil, welcome to the show. You're on the air. Hey, how's it going, buddy? Great.

Excellent. Well, you know, they're a national criminal court. I mean, the International Law Justice Court, basically, it's a UN charter and, you know, Israel is a signer to this charter. So I was wondering if they really did find Israel guilty, what would be the legal aspect of that? How would Israel should respond or how would they should respond? The enemies of Israel will use it as propaganda of Israel engaged in illegal activities.

But I'll go to Andy first and then to Ceci. But from a legal enforcement perspective, it has zero enforcement. No enforcement capability whatsoever.

It's not an enforceable judgment. So they can't stop Israel from engaging in war. No, they cannot engage, stop Israel from defending itself and engaging in anything that Israel deems necessary to protect itself.

That's right. And if they did make that kind of opinion, not only it's supposedly binding but not enforceable, not only, though, is it not enforceable, they don't even have jurisdiction over this because this case is a case of Israel defending themselves. And that is under the international humanitarian law and the law of armed conflict, not of genocide.

So that is not before this court. And Malcolm Shaw is a very well respected British barrister who is representing Israel in this. Let's go to our offices in Jerusalem and speak with Jeff Balaban and get, Jeff, your sense of this, get a lot of news coverage on it in the United States today.

I'm sure Israeli television's had it and news is headed to. What's the sense over there? Well, the sense over here is that obviously it's not going to be a fair fight. I mean, I'd like to put this in a little bit of real historical context. You know, the notion of using the law against the Jewish people literally starts in the Bible, starts with Pharaoh, goes through Haman, goes through, you know, century after century, famously Nuremberg Laws. And so people use the law as though the law is somehow moral or decent.

But when the law applies to the Jewish people, it's used in the most pernicious ways. And people are sensitive. They know our history.

They know Jewish history. And so they understand that this is happening yet again. Yet they're trying. I'm not sure why they think it's going to be successful. And a lot of people are skeptical, but they feel like the case is so obvious. This is a genocide against the Jewish people.

It's so obvious that maybe some people will listen. Well, I think, Jeff, they did it. And you and I talked about this. I questioned whether they should have even responded. But I think the reason they did it was the nature of the atrocities were so gross that never again happened again.

And they had to respond. And what's so interesting about this is when you look at what South Africa, and we pointed this out in our brief, they only spent two paragraphs out of 844 pages, two paragraphs on Hamas's action. And even then, the reference simply is passing, it's a reference in passing, calling Hamas's acts being investigated by the ICC. They don't call them war crimes. They don't call it genocide.

So the bias is obvious. But I think what we have to focus on here is the nature of what's taken place. This is, after all, an international tribunal. And even though it's uncomfortable, and it's uncomfortable to write these briefs, you got to write these briefs. You're working in Israel getting this to government leaders there.

We're sending this literally around the world, Jeff. Well, they're very appreciative of that, meaning even though, as you pointed out, technically, we are not state actors, so we can't do it. The fact that we made the effort to articulate these arguments, which are important arguments, the fact that they know that we at ACLJ represent a large constituency of Americans who care about this profoundly, it gives them both moral support. It gives them substantive arguments to make.

And yes, to the degree that they decided to engage in this and make themselves subject to this in order to get public support, in order to show their case and take their case. The fact that we have joined in to show what the case is to the public is very important because, again, this is not a serious tribunal that's looking for justice. This is a show trial. It's just a show trial.

And so getting the substantive arguments out there for the truth becomes even more important. Do we have a bite we could play? Well, is that the one you want us to play?

Play number 20. Israel's response to the 7th of October, 2023, attack has crossed this line and give rise to the breaches of the convention. Faced with such evidence and our duty to do what we can do to prevent genocide, as contained in Article 1 of the convention, the South African government initiated this case.

Your reaction to that? Well, of course, there is not a crossing of a line, and there is no evidence to support a claim of genocide. We use the word frivolous in our brief, and that's exactly what it is. It's frivolous.

It's baseless. There's no basis whatsoever to say this, and Israel has not crossed the – we crossed the line – excuse me – Israel crossed the line into Gaza, but it did so in defense of its nation. Yeah, crossed the line being the border, not the legal line there. Right. And, Cece, we've also distributed this so widely, so hopefully the countries that are – the foreign embassies, Jeff, this is what we're trying to do, are now getting our materials so they know that before their judges rule what the real law is here, because no one else is pointing that out.

That's right. We've sent it to the foreign ministers of very key and crucial countries, and we've sent it to the UN secretary-general. We've sent it to the commission of inquiry. Anybody who is going to make comments and have any kind of input into this, we want to make sure that they have the correct factual and legal information before them, and so we have sent it, like you said, literally around the world. And, Jeff, I think what's going to be important is tomorrow when Israel is able to present its case uninterrupted to this court, that the government in Israel, the media in Israel, supporters of Israel, organizations like ours are able to take that and really distribute it to the world. So the people see and hear the facts about what Israel has faced. If you want to go back, as South Africans have, to 1948, I'm sure those attorneys can do that as well and talk about all the wars Israel has had to face, wars trying to destroy the Jewish state of Israel, and also, of course, then focusing on what happened on October 7th. So tomorrow, also a very important moment for the world and for Israel to get its message out.

That's right, and Jordan, it's an important moment for the world in another way. In truth, this is not a trial of the state of Israel. This is not a trial of the Jewish people. This is a trial of the world. In terms of morality, decency, the notion that the rule of law is supposed to protect people and humanity as opposed to attack people and humanity, that's really what's happening. This is a trial of the world. And so, yes, we are on the right side.

I'm glad that we took the effort to make the clearest possible case and distribute it around the world so that they understand that millions and millions of people are watching them and judging them for their behavior now towards the Jewish people in the state of Israel. I'm looking at our website. Do we have this posted? Do we have the brief posted?

Not yet? Okay, we're getting it posted. Let's make sure we get that up.

That's very important. Let's go ahead and take the phone call, Jordan. Is Harry ready in West Virginia?

Yes. Yeah, hey, Harry. Yep, we'll go to Harry in West Virginia, online one.

Hey, Harry. Okay, I was thinking that what needs to be done is to explain how Israel developed and that they're not occupiers. That seems to be what South Africa is trying to say and what the Palestinians often say, that they're being occupied or controlled, you know, colonized. And we need to let people know how the state began.

Exactly. So I wrote a book, actually, Harry, called Jerusalem, and it tracks us in great detail, and it's available on Amazon or wherever you get your books. And it talks about Jewish presence in Israel since the founding of Israel.

Not the current founding, I'm talking about during biblical times, that there's always been a Jewish presence in Jerusalem. But the truth of the matter is that what we're facing, Jeff, what's being faced down right now is a call for annihilation. When he started the argument by saying the Nakba, which is the great catastrophe, that tells you where they're going.

Absolutely. He's saying 75 years. That is another way of saying from the river to the sea. It's another way of saying that Israel has no right to exist, that the Jewish people have no right to exist at all in their sovereign homeland, in their indigenous homeland, as you point out in your book.

We've been here forever. And, you know, it is an entire structural narrative that's geared towards one thing. Promote the propaganda that Jews are interlopers in Judea, that Jews don't belong in the land of Israel, and that others who actually are not from here, I mean, Arabs are from Arabia, Jews are from Judea. It's pretty simple that those who are not from here, who have come here in violence and to colonize and take our land, and Israel nonetheless was willing to share the land with for the purposes of peace, that no, we cannot tolerate the existence of Jews. And it was spoken about earlier on the program, Jews having been hounded out of other places in the world where they were forced into exile, finally, finally miraculously are gathering back in this land.

And of course, the world cannot stand it. And so they're fighting against it. Folks, we want you to stand with us as ACLJ champions. I mean, when we talk about all these situations, some short term, some where you've got to get things out in two days, some where you've got, again, months long conflicts. We want to be ready to go with the ACLJ at every moment. And whether we can plan for it, for the biggest cases and issues, usually you can't plan for it at all.

But to be ready to go, you have to have the resources to be ready to go. And that's what ACLJ champions are so good at providing. They're the tip of the spear because you're making that recurring donation so we know we can do what we need to do and what we think is best in each situation without having to worry about do we have the resources. Those ACLJ champions make it possible.

Become one today at ACLJ.org slash champions. Welcome back to Secular. We are joined by our Senior Counsel for Global Affairs, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. There's a lot to talk about going on in the world consistently, of course, with issues involving Israel, issues involving, of course, the United States, terror attacks on the shipping. And today, Secretary Pompeo at the ICJ, it was South Africa's day to put Israel on trial for genocide. Israel will have their day to respond at the ICJ tomorrow. Important to point out that unlike other international courts, this is one that all member states, the U.N. are members of, so the United States does have a permanent justice on this court. Israel gets one for this case.

South Africa gets one for this case. But they have, again, said that Israel has been committing genocide since its founding. They used terms like Nakba so that it was a great catastrophe that Israel was even founded. It's probably going to not be a very positive ruling from this court, but what impact do you think this actually has on Israel's mission to eliminate Hamas? Well, Jordan, two thoughts.

First, this is silly. The legal arguments that are being presented at the ICJ don't withstand scrutiny. Israel is not committing genocide.

I know deeply the definition of that term in the international law. What they have done is try to right the ship and protect themselves after one of the most barbaric incidents in the last 50 years. As for how it impact Israel, I hope the answer is not at all. It will certainly if the decision comes out and it is a decision that castigates Israel as one might expect.

It makes it harder politically for Israel friends and allies of Israel to stand by them. That makes it all more important for the United States, for organizations like the ACLJ, and for people who understand the importance of Israel and its place in the world to ensure that they have the capacity, the bullets, the munitions, and the political support that they need to continue to eliminate this terror threat, Hamas. Mike, we filed with – you can't file directly with the International Court of Justice. It's only state to state, but we filed with all of the governments that have judges on the panel, so there's 17 of those.

We also filed with a number of other governments, including Ministries of Foreign Affairs, letting out the legal arguments. One of the things I pointed out in the broadcast earlier, in the 84 pages that have been submitted by South Africa against Israel, the application dedicates a total of approximately two paragraphs out of 84 pages to Hamas actions. And even then, mentioned in the two paragraphs, it simply says, in passing, without calling Hamas heinous acts of genocide as war crimes, they don't use any of that language, they just say South Africa states that the ICC prosecutor has warned Hamas about taking hostages could constitute a breach of the Geneva Convention. That's all they were willing to say in South Africa's brief. This is morally bankrupt. Jay, you've been around these courts for a while. You know that this is frankly not that new.

Nope. The United Nations does the same thing, right? Hundreds of resolutions against Israel, two resolutions against folks like Chairman Kim and North Korea, right?

They're deeply imbalanced. They are often anti-Semitic, and what you're seeing here play out is more of this history. It is absolutely, this is one of the reasons it is so imperative that the United States gets this right to watch Secretary Blinken travel around the country and be on the same side as this argument, essentially constraining Israel's capacity to defend itself is so troubling, so deeply difficult. I think for America, America says that why the United States would be in that place, supporting sort of the same set of arguments about Israel as the problem, instead of as someone just simply defending its own homeland, is something that is just so inconsistent with the American tradition. You know, we saw Congressman woman Rashida Tlaib, she said this on X, the United States, UK and Israel were among the last countries to end their support for the apartheid regime in South Africa. The legacy of a liberated South Africa lives on as a country that defeated apartheid, takes the Israeli apartheid regime to the Hague for genocide. So she uses an opportunity to slam both her country that she represents in Congress, the United States, the UK, and of course, tie Israel to that as well. And as you look through a lot of the argument that started today, I mean, they're going back to the beginning of Israel, 1948, from that moment forward, the Israelis have been responsible for the genocide of Palestinians. It's not just, it didn't start with October 7th, it didn't start with a war two years ago, it started with the founding of Israel and using the word Nakba, which is the same Secretary Pompeo is saying from the river to the sea. They don't believe in South Africa's case, those presenting this argument, that a Jewish state of Israel should exist in the world. That's right. This is an argument in support of the elimination of the Jewish homeland, the rightful Jewish homeland, the state of Israel.

We should call it no less than that. That's the serious allegations they're making. You know, I remember at the UN hearing these arguments about apartheid in Israel and any of us who lived through and watched apartheid in South Africa, the country that's pressing this claim, know that these two could not stand in the former opposition.

Right. There's no there's no parallel. Indeed, the exact opposite. If you were the minority party in Israel, you have all kinds of rights and freedoms. The very people that they claim are there's a genocidal acts against since 1948 are people who hold seats in the legislature, the Knesset inside of Israel, in South Africa. For those who are young and listening and don't remember the history that was that was an apartheid imposed by a white minority against blacks.

They denied those blacks all of their freedoms. Israel is precisely the opposite of that and the way that they treat the citizens of their country. And indeed, those who live in Gaza or those who live in the West Bank actually know that the freedoms that they would like to have for themselves and their families could only be found in Israel, not in the country that they are not in the place that they live. I want to turn our attention to another in the Middle East, and that is Iran has seized an oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman. What do you think this means for the already fragile tensions within the region?

I've seen that reporting. This is another in a series of actions taken by Iran or by their proxies, the Houthis or Hezbollah, to continue to make life difficult for the people of Israel and make the political situation even more complicated. This will have an impact on America, right? If you start causing ships to have to go around the Red Sea, not be able to travel through, you'll see slower products in the supply chain, you'll see higher costs. But importantly, until the United States takes seriously the threat from Iran, until we impose costs on the Iranian regime itself, you're going to see not only ships, commercial vessels in this case, but what is it now? A hundred plus attacks on American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines in the region?

We're going to get folks killed for goodness sake. And to placate the Iranians and just simply put out a statement saying, now you all better stop this, is not going to have any effect on deterring what Iran is up to. Is there going to need to be at some point direct action with Iran, do you believe?

A hundred percent. You should know, Iran is already taking direct action, right? To say that this isn't direct action against the United States when a Houthi warrior in Yemen fires a high-end technical piece of artillery at an American naval vessel, that's an Iranian act on America. We ought to make sure we're defending it.

If I had a son or daughter or brother or sister who was serving in the Persian Gulf or in the Middle East, I would want the United States to take the response which is going to deter the Iranians and keep my family member alive and safe and capable of doing the things that they signed up to do. Mike, we appreciate it. Thanks for being with us. Mike Pompeo, of course, Senior Counsel for Global Affairs of the ACLJ, former Secretary of State. Thanks for being with us.

Appreciate your comments. Folks, we have people on our team like Mike Pompeo because of your support of the ACLJ. So when you become an ACLJ champion, you're helping us handle all these cases, bring on the kind of experts we have. I mean, think about who's part of the ACLJ team now. In addition to the ones you see every day, you've got Mike Pompeo, Rick Grenell, Tulsi Gabbard. These are serious thinkers, people with tremendous experience. Become a champion of life, liberty and freedom. Give monthly to the ACLJ at ACLJ.org forward slash champions. When you give monthly, you become part of that team that really enables us to do all of this and handle these unusual matters that come up. ACLJ.org forward slash champions.