hello and welcome to press tv spotlight. i'm marzazia hashmir. thanks so much for being with us. well, on monday the international court of justice started public hearings about the israeli regime, which had been requested by the united nations general assembly and december 2022. now the court was

asked to look into the legal consequences related to the regime's policies and practices in the occupied palestinian territories of the west bank gaza and east jerusalem. the question of the day is, will this hearing make a difference for palestinians in the occupied territories, or is it just more hupla from the international community? i like to welcome my guests to the program. alfred zaias, former secretary of the un human rights council out of geneva and kim sharif activist and lawyer out of london. well, thank you both for being with me. i'd like to start this off in geneva with alfred. your perspective, how significant is this hearing on the israeli occupation?

personally, i believe that every hearing before the international court of justice creates precedence, and it is important to show that there is opposition, worldwide opposition to the war that israel is waiting all the palestinians and in the manner in which this war is being. waged, which is certainly genocidal. now for your listeners and viewers, you should understand that there of are several proceedings in progress. the hearings of today that will go on all week and next week monday our hearings on the request of the general assembly for an advisory. opinion on the question, legal

consequences arising from the policies and practices of israel in the occupied palestinian territory, including east of jerusalem. now this is an advisory opinion, not to be confused with the pending contentious case under the genocide convention of 1948, which was submitted by south africa and has garnered the support of countless countries and not only in the global south. now what to expect? certainly the policies are apartite policies. there is uh long president of the international court of justice in the cases concerning namibia and south africa etc. and the um states that

are participating in these hearings this week, total of 53 states, stay with me, stay with me, i just wanted because we will get into some of this later on in the program, but overall if i had to ask you in your perspective, do you feel that this hearing is significant, very significant or not? i do think it is very... significant because of the attention that it has uh garnered thus far and because of the considerable number of states that are participating in the hearings. of course it is moral uh, it will be moral advisory opinion without the possibility of enforcement, so if you're looking for enforcement, look to the

contentious cases which are legally binding. okay, stay with me, stay with me, let me get kim in on this conversation. kim, this hearing comes a month after the one initiated. by south africa regarding the zionist regimes committing genocide in gaza, is this a sign that there is a change on the horizon and that the zionist regime is losing its impunity, or how do you assess it? well, it's good, greetings to you, miss hashimi, and thank you for inviting me on the program, it's absolutely harrowing events, unfolding before our own eyes, it's like watching a nasty horror movie a daily basis and the whole world is tr being traumatized by this event by these events and of course the the the actions of the state of south africa which is admirable has brought uh the core issues of what's really going on into the attention of the world and it actually

exposing the hypocrisy of the the countries that were previously claiming to be upholding the rule of law under the international fora which they went and on the contrary the... actually aiding and abeting genocide, there is no issue no, no, no doubt that this is genocidal campaign, this is a systematic extermination of a specific group of people, which is horrific type of crimes against humanity, and uh, whilst there may be issues and debates and considerations about how do we enforce the ultimate ruling of the court and how we go about doing that, that's another day's discussion, but the fact that the case was brought so... hastily and with ample evidence and brought it to the court with the most formidable team of legal experts who have done an excellent job, i've watched the whole in the entire proceedings and i was very pleased to see such top level uh advocates were dealing with matter and

since the court has accepted accepted that there is a primaphacy case to answer for the charge of genocide, i think we can sit back and say yes there is hope that uh there is going to be a change in the internet. national platform in terms of upholding the rule of law equally to all peoples of the world, not to some people and and like others, and mean i can go to to comment on the matter of the current hearing brought by the general assembly, that itself is very important because in this debate we are, even though it's not legally binding etc etc. we are debating now and considering what has been going on for over the for the past 70 years and more in terms of the... behavior of the occupier, i mean and we we then go to discuss the position of the people of of of the occupied, are they resistance fighters or are they terrorists? that's very important issue that needs to be uh debated and discussed rather than allowing uh the

countries that have been bullying the world for decades now and and issuing sanctions and uh labeling everybody and anybody who disagreed with them a very important issue like crimes against humanity and genocide and war crimes, this is what have been what we have been discussing also in relation to yemen, as you will recall, miss hashimi, lot the wrong doings were going on in in yemen as well, yemen has had the misfortune of having medium range nuclear weapon used it in an naqam, and it is alleged that it was done by israeli jets and that itself was never investigated and debated on the f world platform. so it is a great opportunity for the international community to have these cases debated now and and the determine once and for all what is really going on here okay stay with me kim stay with me kim so sorry but but but alfred so you were not in your head with that when kim was explaining um

various parts of her answer um because my next question is saying that basically this hearing as you had already alluded to is basically non-binding so what is this? i think that can open up and part of that. i'd like to hear your explanation and and expand on that. back in 2004, the international court of justice adopted earlier advisory opinion on israel, a school book example of a perfect advisory opinion listing all of the treaties that ' israel had broken, the covenant on civil and political rights, the covenant on economic, social and cultural rights, the convention on the elimination of racial discrimination, etc. the court also formulated very concrete, pragmatic recommendations, all of them ignored by

israel with the support of the united states, which has again and again abused the right of veto in the security council to shield is... trial from any sanctions or any legal consequences. matters are changing though, it's a question of perception. i see that the united states and israel are more and more isolated in the world, there is a global majority that supports the right of the palestinian people to self-determination, this is a right that has been affirmed countless, countless times by the general assembly, by the economic and social council, by unesco, by even by the security council, but of course in the case of the security council when it comes to action, to enforcement, then you are certain to have

veto on the part of the united states. this brings me in with the momentum that i see, this is the moment for a group of states, we already say that there is consensus among countries like algeria and jibooti and south africa etc., indonesia by the way, it should be possible to submit a new application to the international court of justice against those countries that are complicit in the genocide. obviously, if you deliver to israel, the weapons that are being used to perpetrate the genocide, you are complicit, you are doing it deliberately, you are making money on it, you know what you're doing.

article three, little e of the genocide convention makes the united states, the united kingdom, france, germany, complicit in the genocide. can i just jump in here, alfred, sorry to interrupt, can i just jump in here with what you're saying, that that they would be complicit because they're... going against uh actually something that the un has already stated, the security council has already stated, especially today was brought up about um helping in the occupied territories and that is against the law. at the end of the day, i i want to know, does it make a difference? will they have to pay? can they stop these states from doing what they're doing? well uh, the united nations does not have an army uh... "the blue helmets are provided for by states when there is

decision of the security council and you're not going to have decision of the security council on this particular issue, but states can take individual action against the united states and against israel. i think the time has come for 50 countries, 100 countries, 150 countries to break the..." dip diplomatic relations with israel because of the genocide to indicate that they are not going to play the game, they are not going to tolerate that genocide be occurring before our eyes. all right, are we there though? let me let me switch over back to london. kim, do you think that we're there? do you think that as alfred had said, that 50 states should should uh cut ties with the regime and basically denounce it for? genocide is committing, are we there yet because we know um the price that they

would have to pay via from the united states and the hegemonic block? i mean, your thoughts on that, kim? well, yes, unfortunately, that i mean, i totally agree with the idea of not only 150 countries, more than those, there's 193 member states in the un, and so more than that need to get together and say, well, we are, we don't want this to happen to us, therefore we will not... it to happen to others like the the palestinian people and there but but but the issue here is regime changes uh sanctions, the usual bullying tactics that will be used by the uh regular bully boys at the un security security council and lot of countries will be frightened of that and there's of course the issue of debts and debt relieves and aid and all of that um but there is one brave country that has taken uh the stand and and sought to enforce the un uh opinion uh in terms of needing to prevent the

genocide and that's the yemen, the yemen's actions in terms of preventing ships going to uh israel is partly uh this enforcement mechanism that the yemenis who have experienced the worst part of the failure to to to uphold the rule of law under the international system have now learned the lessons from their own bad experience. and now they feel for the people of gaza and that is why they are acting the way they're acting, even though we will be told here and elsewhere that they are a militia, terrorists, whatever, but we know that that is not... true that that what they are preventing is ships going to israel and coming from israel and they are upholding the rule of law pursuent to the ruling of the uh icj a couple of weeks ago when they said that there is primer phasia case to answer for genocide and it is well and proper for any country to step in and enforce that because that is the rule of law and uh of course

morally is just repugnant for countries to just sit back and do nothing, it is even more repugnant for us countries to uh create a land passage for food for for israel via saudi arabia and jordan from the emiratis and while the palestinians are dying, i mean they haven't they can see what's going on, they know what's going on, these people have been uh uh starved, butchered, people are being killed inside hospitals, they are sick lying in bed, they're being killed and the gross misrepresentation about the nature of the people coming into the hospitals, children, a child hint, age six, all her family, everyone who was with her in the car was was already dead, the soldiers came and shot her as well, how can you supply food to that system and deprive the palestinians from receiving any

food? that is actually just repugnant, that's the only word i can find to describe the behavior of some of these countries, and "now as matter of fact uh world opinion, world population is totally against them and people think that they they have now been exposed fully as as as ruthless um psychotic psychopathic regimes that don't have uh empathy for any other human beings, they only are interested in their business deals and weapons deals and power and that kind of thing. right, let me let me just stop you there, kim, you talked about upholding the rule of law and talking about the yeminies, alfred. "i want to look at this, because as uh kim just alluded to, there seems to be a transition between the world, the people, the population of the world and and and world opinion, because if we look at um, for example, as she said, the yemenis who would be labeled by some as terrorists, but in reality they are upholding the law, or we see hazbullah, who's another, it's another

organization, it's called a terrorist organization, but they are also trying to stop this genocide, and we see..." um, it seems to be uh going more towards a sharper vision of the reality that those who have used beautiful words in talking about human rights and women's rights and children's rights and but are actually being shown as she said to be the psychopaths that obviously when we're looking at this genocide today is taking place and the opposite though is also true how do you see that alfred? well obviously there's a lot of hypocritical rhetoric. uh coming from washington and london and paris and berlin etc. i have my focus on latin america, africa, asia, indonesia, india, people have woken up, there is actually a change in progress and same as

yemen has taken action. "every other country in africa, latin america, asia can also take action, for instance, there is a principle of international law called universal jurisdiction, and that means that when an israeli official military, someone who can be linked to the genocide, travel." outside of israel, then that person can be arrested, can be tried and can be sent to jail, i mean that is happening more and more, germany for instance, has tried number of syrians who entered german territory, has convicted them

of war crimes, etc., so here you have ' the exercise of universal criminal uh jurisdiction, obviously there is the international criminal court, and there is case spending submitted at the time by algeria, jibudi and others against netanyahu, but don't hold your breath because the current prosecutor at the international court of justice, karin khan, a brit and as far as i have seen, he advances the interests of the hedgemon, and one of the first things he did is to stop the... the investigation of the international criminal course into the crimes of nato armies in afghanistan, whereas he continues the investigation of crimes

committed by the taliban, so you don't have, shall we say an independent and a shall we say unbiased prosecutor in the international criminal court, but the respect that the international court of... justice uh still enjoys, it's something uh that will not be wasted. i mean, right now, this is the moment to cumulate all of these uh statements uh by south africa, by algeria, by indonesia in the international court of justice, and give it visibility. unfortunately, as you know, i live in switzerland in, geneva, i a us and a swiss citizen, i read the new york times, the washington post, cnn, etc. unfortunately, the

kind of press coverage that the icj has been getting has been very slanted, very biased and almost upset that something like this could be happening, that israel would be... before the international criminal court or before the international uh court of justice, right? why, why aren't we surprised? why aren't we surprise alfred with that? let me, let me cross back over to london and and kim. kim, the reality is that there's a lot more conversation uh happening talking about israeli accountability, but at the end of the day, as we talk, as we sit here right now, on this program, palestinians are still being killed and... genocide in gaza four and a half months later, it still has not stopped. your thoughts, kim, the end of the day, what

is it going to take to stop it? well, it is unfortunate, it is very unfortunate, perhaps it's the will of god that that it goes on like this, so that the uh masks can be exposed of a whole load of hypocrites on the world international fora and... expose them for what they really are, just hypocrites, and what we need to do also is have a network of lawyers, international lawyers who will uh vigorously uh uphold the rule of law in the best way they can in all their jurisdictions worldwide as backup system in addition to other countries taking measures as the yemen did, and uh of course that may uh send message that not only the the the uh criminal... uh regime is at at risk here in terms of prosecution and being brought to trial, um there's also those who are aiding and betting it, because there is a duty to

prevent genocide, not to sit back, and you can see also the inconsistency in how the rules were applied by the said bully boys of the security council, you've seen what happened in rwanda, we've seen what happened in bosnia, 30 seconds, sorry, go ahead, 30 seconds, go ahead, sorry, "we've seen what happens in ukraine, so the international community, the people of the world, africa and asia and elsewhere have now walken up to the reality that they don't matter, do you see where i'm going, and therefore they need to now step forward and do something about this, because they do matter, everybody marters, every human being's life is precious and may god be with the people of gaza and uh end this suffering as soon as possible, and a perfect note to in this program with thank you both for being with me on the spotlight, fred dezeas, former secretary of human rights council out of geneva, kim sheriff, activist and lawyer out of london. thank you viewers for being with us on another spotl, i'm

hashimi, hope to see you right here next time, goodbye.

this is the story of nation that lived here for centuries until an obscure foreign regime emerged and began farming on their lands and brought in new people to replace the old nation. they picked the focal point. of attention of different religions in the region, a highly regarded place at the heart of this arabic, islamic setting. what would have happened if hizbullah had been vanquished? that's perhaps the most significant and upsetting question about the 2006 war. much has been said about the 2006 war, about its motives, the behind the scenes and the circumstances around it.

st. louis ferguson, assassinations, they don't have nothing, they can't lose nothing, and i think the most dangerous person in the world, the person don't have nothing to lose. "black americans looking for justice, if this is a war then we're going to have to deal with it with the strategies that people in war use. i saw his, i saw um, the never

ending story." headlines at press tv: more than 100 more palestinians are killed on the 136 day of the israeli genocide of war. on gaza, the international court of justice at the hegg holds the first day of hearing zan israel's occupation of palestinian land, and the general sido warn, gaza is taking its told on the israeli economy, regime's gdp has contracted by almost a fifth in the last quarter of 2023.