and give rise to the breaches of the convention is adila has seem to address the court, you have the floor, madam. south africa contends, that israel has transgressed article 2 of the convention by committing actions that fall within the definition of genocide. the actions show a systematic pattern of conduct from which genocide can be inferred.

of of south africa has brought a genocide case against israel to the icj. in the first day of deliberations, lawmakers made a compelling case against israel, which included war crimes, but how will this court, which can issue an interm verdict hold israel to accounts when it has no authority to enforce them. in this edition of the spotlight, we will look at the substance of the deliberations, but in the context of whether it will prevent his role from continuing with this genocide. this is what iran has urged

the international court of justice to treat the charges brought against the israeli regime by south africa impartially and not to given to us pressures. our guests for this edition of the spotlight include: richard medhurs, a journalist and commentator who joins us from vienna. also joining us is elijah magnier, journalist and political analyst who joins us from brussels. gentlemen, welcome to you both. richard meer, i'll first start with you. i mean, it was incredible to hear hour after hour after hour of these deliberations, which uh, each one of them had so many things to say, even though some of them may have overlapped, but we're looking a decision that is expected in weeks and uh, the the way that it works is that the of decisions are binding, but that the icj has no way of enforcing them. um, is that what should be the focus here or the focus of what uh these deliber? and the news that it has

made and the coverage from this perhaps is more effective than anything else, maybe hi, thanks for having me on, there's no doubt whatsoever that the fact that israel's crimes are on display in a in a court room, and this is the the highest judicial body and one of of the six organs of the united nations is is without a doubt a step in the right direction, we have to also acknowledge that this is a highly politicized court. the united states and israel um have made sure that the entire legal framework uh post world war ii um with all its nice institutions uh and and organizations uh is gained and rigged and we know for fact that the united states and israel have uh you lobbied the international atomic energy agency in vienna uh against iran uh we know that they have lobbied and uh infiltrated the organization for the prohibition of chemical weapons against syria and so we shouldn't be surprised uh if this court uh does end up uh

not ruling in favor of south africa, nevertheless we have to commend and applaud uh south africa for what they've done because they are really standing up um for international law, they they have lived through apartide, they have lived through the racism, the violence that comes with settler colonialism, and they relate to the palestinian cause, and you know, the the uh, i i believe elijah, correctly pointed out that, this is not an arab or a muslim country, and uh, no one can accuse them of having some sort of bias in favor of the palestinians, uh, even though the arguments would be just as solid and legitimate, and hearing the the evidence in this courtroom uh for for once for the first time uh is is, i mean it's really having palestinians voices heard across the world, and it's no wonder that mainstream media, not one channel, the bbc, uh sky or cnn bothered to live stream uh

the the you know the world's highest court uh talking about the world's most important political event and war, and so just the fact that these crimes are brought to light is already victory for the palestinians. israel is losing on the battlefield, they have failed to achieve a single objective, uh, its economy is intatters, they are under embargo by yemen, and their image is now also ruined internationally. well, many of the things that were um referred to in the deliberations, which included war crimes, elijah, we're pointed uh at the fact that israel is the one that's committing these uh genocidal crimes, but uh, one of the questions that comes about is why is it that the us is not uh mentioned or is not does not have case against it brought to the icj when it is the one that is not only giving the military assistance, but by some accounts is involved in the planning and the execution when it comes to intel and even having operatives on the ground. so what do you think that there is a possibility of case

being presented against the us also which in some respects maybe even having a higher responsibility in terms of the genocide that's being committed in the gaza strap? well that will be indirect. really, because the court of justice is presenting the case, south africa has presented the case with more than 200 testimony based upon the israeli officials who are decision makers like the heritage minister or the defense minister or the finance or the security minister or the vice speaker and mainly the testimony of united nation personnel. and officials, including the secretary general antonio guteres, who said gaza is becoming the word grav, therefore it is not to judge who is supporting israel at this particular moment,

it may not be able to decide if there are genocide committed legally in israel, but it's more than enough to demonstrate that there is intent in the first place, and secondly to have a preliminary decision that can come out in only few weeks because the final decision needs a few years and to say that israel needs to stop the bombardment and hal all the military operation, that will be victory to gaza in the first place, because this happened in the past in with ukraine for example versus russia where the international court to... decision within only few weeks, therefore this is what the south african are aiming, and why south africa in is such a splendid position, because the 350 years of upper tide regime was the best supportive of israel, and they were good friends who helped

the israelis to make nuclear bombs and they were telling each other that were they were uppertide regime, and there was a case in 2004 because of the uppertide war. that the international tribunal dealt with and pronounced its opinion, so for now it will be victory for gaza, but it will be defeat for the us and all the allies who supported the crime in gaza, who are supplying weapons to to israel, particularly the us and germany, who are the main two suppliers and will embarrass all the european and other countries who did not come from forward to accuse israel of at least crime against humanity and war crime, the genocide needs to be proved for particular action, not only words, and that can wait. now what is important is to stop the war, but under

strict accusation to israel that it is far from being democratic, it is committing crimes and against humanity and war crimes. all right, to amplify more um and put on the microscope the role of the us here richard matters uh there is misunderstanding or maybe uh there is an understanding what is not covered as much when it comes to the us role in this war we know that is providing uh israel with military equipment, unfederate access, that's pretty much a given and it's out there, but uh, the active participation when it comes to the execution of the war, the intel that it provides the us, uh, the way it has operatives on the ground, these types of things are not covered, kind of the way that it did with the yemen war throughout the nine years, which led to 400 or 500 thousand yemenes to uh, actually be slaughtered there, um, what do you think about that, that this us roll maybe is even a step of... above what israel is doing in terms of the overall genocide in the gaza strip? yeah, without question, i mean, you,

secretary of state blincan goes around and he speaks in very soft and and soothing voice, but he has just as much blood on his hands as any israeli cabinet minister or netanyahu. you now, we should not forget that zinanism comes from the west, it's a western creation, um, and it is to this day upheld by the british and american political and media establishment, and "you know when we talk about western support, you mentioned intelligence and logistical support, but there's media coverage, i mean the way that uh palestinians are dehumanized, the new york times ran headline saying that uh, nine israeli soldiers killed was underscoring the cost of the war, how about 23,00 palestinians killed, what about their fighters killed, the the resistance fighters who who have legal and moral right uh to to fight for national liberation, why are they never mourned uh, so there's an entire media apparatus that..." into gear every time there's a war uh whether it's in syria or in yemen or in palestine to

defend and justify what our acts of genocide if we look at the entire war on war of terror i should i should probably call it uh millions of people uh were killed and displaced in muslim countries and arab countries and you should effectively we should all effectively call this also a genocide what south africa did today is they started by uh referring to this as the ongoing nakba uh which is which started. in 1948 and uh even before that uh and this was very good move on their part because this is the correct language, this is the correct framing, um, it is not what israel says about october 7th, this has been going on for lot longer, and if we look at the united states role uh, we have six different fronts in this region, we have the west bank uh, which is another front in the gaza war, we have iraq, syria, uh, lebanon, yemen, the united states is active in every single one of these places, uh, the reason the resistance are attacking the... bases the us bases in arbil asad and komar inside of iraq and syria is to

punish the americans for their complicity and and and their involvement in this genocide. when yemen fired at the american ship uh yesterday uh you this is not just to get back at them for the saudi war uh this is also to punish them for killing 10 marines the other day and coming all the way to the the uh the arabian sea and the babel mendip straight from. the sake of defending israel, so it's high time that people in the west woke up and realized that uh all this money that should be spent on infrastructure on them is being thrown towards israel. britain, america have no business being in this region, they have no business going there and and and spending money and and uh bending over backwards just to support israel. zionism does not benefit anyone uh except the arms industry and a bunch of indoctrinated christian zionists, this is a... terrorist uh, it's a movement rooted in terrorism, people do not know that the hagana uh, which is you know a terrorist

organization is now the israeli defense forces, and uh, even though these used to be despised in britain, now britain supports them. uh, there's something deeply, deeply wrong with the way that west supports israel, and public opinion needs to be woken up, and south africa are achieving that through their case at the icj. well, they need to be working up to the way that the us is going about making sure that this uh genocidal war continues. elijah, here we can take a look at the way that the us uses and this has been said so many times, but it needs to be said again, i think the way the us uses this veto uh at the un uh which prevents for example from seisfire um to happen or the way that the u.s. uh goes around and makes uh statements, i mean um the statement that the us secretary of the national security advisor spokesperson actually made is quite telling in terms of the way that uh um it it shows um i'm not too sure how to explain it the way that uh the us uh posturing is, these are the words, meritless, counterproductive, and

completely without any basis in facts whatsoever, the submission of south africa israel's case to the icj, why would the us use these words, this with the us national security council spokesman, use these words to describe the way that south africa, south africa has uh submitted the case of israel to uh the icj. it is absolutely not surprising because if we start uh putting behind bars or at least in the court of justice all those committing crimes in against humanity. and war crimes, we should start with the us, we the word haven't still remember in a vivid memory what the us has done in afghanistan, in iraq, in syria, in libya, etc. all these are crimes against humanity and war crimes that have been committed by the americans, so exactly like the definition of terrorism and

state terrorism, why people in why country don't want to define that, because they will be the first to be accused and here the americans are in solidarity with the israelis for numerous reasons: first of all, they are the one supporting israel from day one. secondly, they said we ship 230 aircraft and 30 ship to israel full of ammunition in the middle of the war, when israel was committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, when the united nation was saying that this crisis is started more than 50 years ago and there are killing of civilians and the united nation personnel, 133 were killed, so all these uh are killed with the clear intention that the americans have supported by accusing the closest ally of america in the middle east, that is israel, by accusing the

israelis for their action, it means directly accusing the americans in the public word, opinion because the americans were not asking for a cease fire, were vating the seasfire, were still coming out on television, saying no seat fire, the word should, the war should continue, encouraging israel to change its phases, but not to stop the war, and asking the americans not to target civilians, as if the american bombs can see only hamas and cannot see the children and women when the... nation is saying 70% of those killed are children and women, so all this hypocrisy is exposed in the world arena today where the world is really hungry to see for once the international law is respected and is going to be ask for every single country to respect the international law and to stand in front

the court for all the war crime and crime against humanity, this is what the americans are afraid of dragging israel to the international court and then presenting the case to the international criminal court, that it means you can replace israel with america or any other nato country that participated to all these crimes, it will be exactly the same, then the world will judge these countries, and that is terrifying for the americans, the us secretary of defense, i understand is in the hospital, the us national security um advisor. along with um, i'm not too sure if lincan said this or not, uh, richard methers, but uh, it really stands out the statement that they made, we are making sure that israel goes from high intensity to low intensity, high intensity to low intensity means in part that uh, this was to save civilian lives, that they're going to

go from uh few hundred uh killed or murdered uh under 24 hour basis to maybe 150. isn't this uh what where the problem is that we're looking at uh the lack of uh value for a palestinin life to be put uh into this type of uh terminology and viewpoint in this case coming from the us? absolutely and the they're essentially admitting that israel is uh able to you know do things differently but chooses not to because of america uh elijah put this very eloquently that if you try the israelis you have to put everybody else. 'who who helped them on uh and and assisted them uh on trial as well and uh you know the first article of the genocide convention is that you you prevent and punish uh people who carry out genocide which is what yemen are doing uh by by blockading the israelis uh you know just today we heard in in the international court of justice that uh average the israelis are killing uh two

palestinian mothers every hour uh they're killing hundreds of children every single day you ' uh, what does that mean to go from high intensity to low intensity? they will kill one mother an hour, they will kill 50 children a day. uh, it's the whole point of what everyone is trying to argue is that before october 7th, this was, this was the norm, you know, every two years go and destroy gaza, uh, bomb lebanon, kill journalists and and elijah also talked about the un workers, uh, this is not the first time that israel attacks un positions, they've also bombed unifill before and killed uh, un stuff uh, this is matter of policy for the israeli, so um, the the i'm glad that today the lawyers in of south africa brought up the uh self-incriminating tiktok videos that israeli soldiers... film of themselves laughing as they blow up people's houses uh, you can't, i don't understand how you would go from that to low intensity, there's a a cultural political problem here is that that

is that is rooted in zionism where you know um israelis are the so-called chosen people and everybody else is a subhuman in their view uh this is deeply racist, it's it's genocidal by nature and this is why they they opened their argument with the term nekba because since the very second that uh you know israel was was uh created, it was top of palestinians land, it was at the expense of palestinians and it's also worth pointing out that israel is illegally occupying three countries, it's occupying shab farms and lebanon and the syrian goland heights and bombing these countries whenever it pleases uh, we really have issue here with western imperialism and zionism at the core and i'm really glad that today more awareness is being raised through social media through this icj case and... people cannot control populations anymore as they used to through the education system and mainstream media, they are they are really failing at their jobs and the the zionist project is experiencing a crisis like never before, i

listed before the military and economic dimensions of that, but also from an image point of view and their identity, they are experiencing a crisis and we have half million israeli settlers that have left, this shows you that its days are numbered and that call themselves champions of human rights and free speech should have nothing to do with israel, we cannot have international law and legal framework that that upholds these values and support israel and behave like this at the same time, it's just it doesn't work, at the same time you have what appears to be a difference of opinion for like for better way to describe this elijah magnier and that is about the future of palestinians as if the us has a right to decide that nonetheless the us secretary of state blincon was on this region. has talked to number of the um countries and has uh uh said that there is an interest uh in the future governance uh that he's laid out a plan that these countries might entertain. at the same

time you have netanyahu the pm who is said uh there's voluntary migration, i'm not too sure how voluntary migration takes place under bombs and uh bulldozers and starvation and disease. nevertheless, what what is the story there? i mean these two are clashing in terms the future of palestinians. well, there is a wishful thinking and there is a reality on the ground. so far the israelis have failed to achieve any of their declared objective to defeat hamas and to free all the prisoners. therefore they can speculate and they can plan and they can express their wishful thinking about the third phase. when the first phase hasn't been completed, still hamas is capable of bombing tel aviv, still hamas is capable of attack. the israeli occupation forces every single day, mainly in the north, on the border with gaza, on areas crushing, in the south, in kanyunis, everywhere, every single day the israelis are

announcing we have between 10 to 20 israeli officers and soldiers killed and wondered if these figures are right, therefore it is really waste of time to talk about the second and the third phase, moreover, it is no longer in the hand of the americans to talk about, peace process because they have failed and i don't think the situation before the 7th of october uh is going to be the same after the 7 of october, there is a clear defeat of israel today, there is a clear defeat of the israeli army, there is victory the resistance that managed to stand against what used to be called invincible army, there is insecurity in all the settlements in israel in the north on the borders with leban and gaza, therefore it is not going to be the role of the us for the future of palestine. thank you very much uh, we're fresh out of time. all magne, journalist and political

analyst, richard meters, thank you so much, journalist and commentator uh from vienna, with that we come to an end for this edition the spotlight. thanks for being with us from the team, it's goodbye. and give rise to the breaches of the convention. is adilah has seem to address the court? you have the foror madam. south africa contends that israel has transgressed article two of the con prevention by committing actions that fall within the definition of genocide. the actions show a systematic

pattern of conduct from which genocide can be inferred occurre occupation will be free palestine will be free palestine will be free.

this to be headline: south africa urges the international court of justice to immediately stop the israeli genocide against gaza. the 97 of the. israely genocidal war in gaza, the death b nears 23,500, mostly women and children, and yemen leader warns the us of tough response against any act of aggression its country.