hello and welcome to press tv spotlight and marice hashimi, thanks so much for being with us. scenes like those from apocalyptic films are taking place in real-time in gaza every day, except that these scenes are not from a movie, but living nightmare. this as the israeli regime continues its genocide against the native palestinian population, killing tens of thousands of people. many in the

world have had enough and now south africa has filed an application with the international court of justice to charge israels with genocide. we're going to take a look at this on the spotlight. i'd like to welcome my guests to the program. fighted isac, scholar, writer, and board member africa for palestine, johannesburg, and daniel. shaw academic and commentator out of new york. thank you both for being with me. well, let's start it off in johannesburg, and farid. well, farid, why do you think your country has been the first one to take such a step against israel? well, um, south africa is a country that has a significant reputation for having. lived under um and

died under a regime of the brutalization of people and the separation of people from other people on the basis of their racial and ethnic identity, but not only that, south africa has to whatever limited and extent we have... successfully fought the scurge of state racism, state apartted in south africa, and we have been able to forge democratic country. the fact that we have arrived a democratic country, however, does not make us oblivious to firstly those who were in the trenches with us in the struggle against apart, but more significantly those who are undergoing life and death. under a regime far

worse than what we in south africa had experienced, and so in some ways it is only natural that south africa should have taken the leadership in this role. um, it is, it remains are remarkable in a world where countries un interested really in the struggles of other peoples. um, countries generally privilege their own national or... urity interest entirely over that of any other issue, and so i think it is commendable that south africa, the government of south africa, the vast majority of the electorate and political parties in south africa that they have taken this decision that doesn't benefit our country in any way, but continues to entrench our legitimacy as people that recognizes deplores. an act against racism

and in this case genocide indeed, well danny, the icj is overseen by the united nations, and both israel and south africa are part of the un, do you think that the icj will really initiate a case against the israelis? the icj, unfortunately in this case is really paper law with no teeth in order to... force this, i think it's clear to the world, that what israel with full us and western backing has been carrying out since 1948, does amount to a genocidal campaign of displacement, humiliation and ethnic cleansing against the native palestinian people, i don't think that's much of debate, now culminating in this 85 days, 86 days of horrific violence against 2.3 million overinflated

the capacity of hamas to inflict damage on the occupying israeli power, wherever we go in the united states now, there's bill board saying that hamas is our problem too, so this is an informational war, and because of the censorship and the outright fascism that exists here, the us public has bought into this genocidal campaign of violence against the native palestinian people. but more and more people are pushing back, particularly youth. uh, there's more and more studies and polls coming out from the new york times and from different universities showing that uh biden's popularity is decreasing by the day. most polls now have donald trump as the uh

leader in for president next year, so uh things are definitely in flux here and across the world. yeah, indeed. well f ... "your perspective, you heard what our guess in new york said, what about you, how binding do you think a decision would be for the israel regime, and could the united states be also charged as accomplice? what would it take to to get things to that level? uh, well, firstly, uh, the international uh court of justice or the world court in the hag, um, as danny points out, their jurisdiction is limited, so..." is it is one of the institutions of the un itself and it gives advisory opinions, but in this case the south african government has asked for a more intermediate intervention given the fact that the genocide is ongoing. the problem is that

the world court of justice doesn't have any um, doesn't have any executionary powers, it doesn't have a police force, doesn't have any prosecutorial authority and its only consequences is the quote unquote moral sanction, but if any other steps are taken by them, even if they find against israel, as one would hope that they do, it would be up to the security council to to give effect to that judgement, and the security council, as we know, is bounded by this uh sanctions power of some of the what they would like to imagine some of the great powers in the world, and the united states, as always, will find itself on the other side of history and votes against any actions against israel.

however, i don't think that one should underestimate the symbolic value of a sanction coming from the world court of justice if it were to come uh and... of course nothing that comes can ever come soon enough for the palestinian people. right, well and in one hand it seems like we're back at square one, danny, because daniel, it all goes back to the un, and we know with the veto power, but uh, as fadi has said, um, he feels that it could be effective, at least some type of sensuring in general, but but your perspective, south african president, uh, mr. ramafose compared israel's policy. in gaza and the west bank to the apartite regime of south africa, your thoughts, z, i mean, are there similarities are, is it just so much worse than what we ever saw in south africa? how do you see it? my professor edward said in 1996 actually made point that

stayed with me, he was doing a comparison of apartide in palestine, south africa and in other countries, and uh, the... south african apartide regime always needed uh native labor to work the mines and the incredible riches from the subsoil of south africa, whereas uh the israelis used to allow um gazans and palestinians in the west bank and the occupied territories to cross into 48 or quote unquote israel uh to work for them uh but nowadays it seems like less and less they're offering those uh permits really permits of humiliation. to work for your occupier, for your colonizer rum, even within israeli society as uh closed in fascistic as it is against the palestinians. there was a headline today in harit's newspaper, the liberal newspaper out of tel aviv, where they themselves were questioning um israel's

measuring of the coloric intake needed within gaza to keep people at least barely alive from completely starving, these are all war crimes, these are all crimes of... side, just because israel is backed by the big bad colonial bully, the united states and the collective west, all of them have uh gone to tel aviv to completely rubber stamp. uh netanyahu's uh horrific genocidal violence, but more and more people across the world are questioning, so as worthless as the united nations is in in terms of actual concrete actions, it does begin to summarize uh world opinion, world opinion, that is the people of the world are squarely on the side of the colonized of the occupied of the palestinians, but again it is the quote unquote collective west, the imperialist power. uh they need israel, israel functions is their battle ram since 1948 to strike out

against syrian sovereignty, iranian sovereignty, the sovereignty of the middle east and west asia, and that's what they're searching for, they want a massive war, they're looking for a massive war against iran, and that's really what's behind this uh suffocation, starvation, dehydration and genocidal campaign against the palestinians, interesting point, so you think that the the goal is actually to pull iran into it all, that's certainly a big piece of it, and every day, every day the israelis brag about striking aleppo and bombing damascus, i mean, is it 1492, is it 1620 with these uh european descendant colonial powers can just uh do whatever they want, well it sure seems like it, it doesn't seem like we've come very far, even though we're at the end of 2023, we're almost watching the months of genocide in real time take place, so it is very sad state of affairs indeed for the world. uh, now

freddy, um, as the regime continues to inflect inflict pain on the palestinians, we have more accusations now about that the bodies of palestinians are actually being returned with organs missing at the israeli regim that they're actually taking the organs of palestinians or perhaps mutilating and violating the bodies, your thoughts on this in general? well, mean it's not something that one can have a thought on, mean and i have no, i have no evidentiary that i have looked at to actually verify this, although quite frankly, i wouldn't put it past them to descend to this level of barbarity. but it's important to say that i have nothing in front of me to to indicate any kind of evidentiary

this things of this, but if i may quickly this things into early question about the apartate analogy, you know the embarrassing thing for south africans is that for more than 30 years we have been saying, any of us who have been to that part of the world, we've been saying that palestinian existence. or death in the shadow of zionism is far worse than what we have ever experience under a party. now we've said this for the last 30 years already. i'm a veteran of the south african liberation struggle. i've been to that part of the world nearly 10 times and i've said this consistently. and the embarrassing part is that what we said in the last 30 years. palestinians and those in solidarity with them still feel the need to

refer to apart it as what they experiencing. now if for 30 years we've said that it's much worse, you can well imagine the apart regime never engage in the kind of barbarism, the deep descent into inhumanity that the that the zianist regime. has been capable of uh, as my fellow panelist says, south africa had never wished for the death of all black people in south africa. south africa sort ways of controlling them and of reducing them to kind of subhuman beings, but they never imagined a country without blacks. the other major problem with zioninism, which makes it nearly... intractable and a force that can never be at peace with other people, isionism

regards itself as a home for all the jews all the time in the world, white south africa never imagined itself a magnet point for all other white races to come into south into south africa, and if they did, what where would black people have been able to go? and so zionism presents a far more intractable problem for any person that seeks a lasting solution to the occupation um and the disposition of the palestinian people. okay, well daniel, back to the uh, the part that i was mentioning to our guests about the um oregon theft, because this is not something new, this is actually these accusations have been made in the past by palestinians and of course they have become uh increasingly more

uh during this genocide when the israelis have taken bodies, sometimes returning them. times not, but um, witnesses now are saying that organs are missing. is organ theft considered a crime you think that the icj could also follow up on? yeah, for a us audience to hear this jarring headline, they would potentially try to dismiss it as a conspiracy theory. i have seen these articles, um, colonialism in white supremacy of a history. of medical experimentations on black bodies, on guatamalan bodies, um, certainly the tuskaji prison experiment is among the most infamous in in in nefarius. i don't think we can discount anything that the zionis would do to the palestinians, because the zionists have never recognized palestinian humanity, and of course their

rebuttle is then, well the palestinians don't see us as human, well, how are the colonis supposed to see you as human if all? you've ever done is shown them disdain and genocidal disdain, so i think this uh question of organ theft, we have to continue to expose the true sociology of zionist society, what percentage of israelis actually see the native palestinians as human beings, how come so many israelis never have had any actual human interactions with palestinians and act like the palestinians don't exist, that they can be swept under the proverbial colonial rug so i think this is story, i've i've received calls from uh cairo and beyond to investigate this further, and this is um deeply distressing, but if they're willing to starve, dehydrate and carpet bomb 2.3 million civilians, dismissing every last child, 1.1 million children as uh hamas terrorists, why

would it, why they they don't respect the palestinian body politic and much much... less palestinian mental health and the palestinian physical body. i mean, what palestinian is not deeply traumatized, and i'm not just talking within the largest ghetto in the world, gaza, i'm talking about the 15.3 million palestinians across the world who have to watch this on instagram or wherever we're not censored, how can they sleep at night? so in the spirit of what farid is saying, i think it's fair to say the palestinians are the most traumatized nation on earth. well, fid, uh, looking at at israeli regime leaders now, besides actual genocide taking place, um, we see the various statements that have been made, outright genocidal statements that they're not even trying to um hide their intentions, they're saying it needs to be flattened, um, it needs to be wiped out, mean all of these of course

are also proof of the intention behind what is going on, do you think at the end of the? day, whether we're talking about the icj or elsewhere, that the israeli regime is going to be held responsible for these crimes in a court of law, and the the the emphasis in defining genocide is on the question of intent, and to the extent that people from the... prime minister down to members of his cabinet have expressed the intention to destroy the palestinian people, and of course sometimes they make a distinction between hamas, they making between islamic jihad and hizbullah and so on, but just beneath the beneath the camel flaging and explicitly, i

mean when nethanyahu refers to the palestinians as amalik, you know, the biblical enemies of the jewish people that have to be destroyed completely, so there has been sufficient declarations of intent from enough ministers and and public figures and the prime minister in israel to indicate this intent to eliminate the palestinian people, and of course the palestinian people in the in the, they really non people for these. dinus, it's part of this all colonial narrative, where we enter a place and we discover a place as if there weren't human beings living there before, so in the in the... kind of quote unquote subtle languages of colonialism, this is common, however, nobody in the recent history have been so

explicit in the intention to commit genocide, and more horrific, nobody in the recent history of human kind have done so with the support and the explicit support support, not just verbal, but actual military support um to complete this project of genocide of theirs, as the israelis have been getting away from largely from the united states of america, but not just from the united states of america, many other countries in the global north, so yes, they will ultimately be found guilty in the court of history, well that... be some consolation for the palestinians, no, we need the perpetrators of those crimes to be stopped now, because they

still busy doing it, and then after stopping them, then bringing them to justice, indeed, dan, you only have 30 seconds, when we look at this whole situation, and we started off with the icj, and basically it's part of the un, and at the end of the day the us can't to it, does it just point to a situation that we really need a whole new world order in order to stop this madness? that is correct, it's only the rise of multipolarity, it's only the rise of global south unity led by china in the bolevarian camp, venezuela, cuba, the russians, the iranians, the arab unity, it's only new world order, it's only a world. with this truly is some sense of justice and equality that can begin to push back on us imperial designs, it's the us that is weaponized uh israel to do all of its dirty

work since 1948, this is nothing to do with judaism or islam and everything to do with white supremacy and colonialism. and on that note, i think both of you for being with me, faddy, skala writer and board member africa for palestine out of johannesburg, daniel shaw academic and commentator out of new york, and thank you. for being with us on another spotlight, i'm marza hashimi, hope to see you right here next time, goodbye. هذه الامانه وقال هذه امانه.

your headlines on press tv, nearly three months of israeli onslaught has killed tens of thousands in gaza and left the displaced survivors at imminent risk of famin and starvation. resistance groups in the region have launched more attacks on american and israeli targets in support of the palestinian people. and yemes foreign ministry says his country will keep supporting palestinians calling on other arab countries to follow the suit and end in action.