press tv's news and brief: 17 palestinians have been killed in the latest israeli air strikes on gaza. five lost their lives in a strike on a resident. building in hannunes, the other 12 were killed in an air raid near el shifa hospital in gaza city. the overall death tool in gaza, tops 24, 760. israel confirms new military losses and clashes with palestinian resistance fighters in the gaza strip. the military says a trooper died of wounds he sustained in battle in southern gaza on wednesday, it say 691 soldiers have so far been killed in the ground invasion of gaza. mexico and chile have referred israel's

war on gaza to the international criminal court, they've expressed concern over escalating violence against palestinian civilians, especially children. that comes a week after south africa also presented a case to the international court of justice over israel's genocide in gaza. the emmy army says it is targeted an american ship in the gulf of aiden warning against any new aggression on the arab country. over the past week there has been a series of usa. strikes on yemen over what washington described as threats against shipping in the red sea. people have rallied in yemen's northern city of sauda to voice support for palestinians in the wake of israel's genocidal war. on gaza, the demonstrators chanted slogans against the us for supporting israel and launching strikes on yemen. they also slammed washington's redesignation of ansarla movement as a terrorist group.

hi everyone, judge andrew napolitano here for judging freedom. today is thursday, january 11th, 2024, professor john mirscheimer join. again, professor, always a pleasure, my dear friend, thank you for uh your time and your expertise. i want to talk to you um, about the case in the hague of south africa's application against the government of israel alleing alleging genocide, but before we do, just a little pick your brain a time on background, is prime minister netanyahu in control of his own government or is he a tool or puppet of the extremist members of his

coalition who, if they left would deprive him of majority in the connesset? well, i don't think it would be fair to call him a puppet of anyone, he he's a very powerful individual, he's formed an alliance of of convenience or marriage of convenience, with a handful of extremely right-wing individuals who are now... ministers, as you say, in his government, and i think that he basically agrees with what they want. i think that they're all interested in ethnically cleansing gaza, and eventually ethnically cleansing the west bank. uh, but tremendous pressure appears to be being brought to bear on netanyahu by the biden administration, and i think this court case is adding to that pressure, so he is now saying, netanyahu is, that there'll be no ethnic. cleansing and

there'll be no permanent israeli settlements uh or permanent israeli troops in gaza that we are in effect going to get out. of course as he is saying that, the far right ministers are in effect saying the opposite, which makes him look weak, but he has no choice at this point. politico reports that he's been saying to secretary blincon, i don't how they know this unless somebody overheard it, um, i have this coalition, my hands are tied, it's not me, it's the coalition, tony, there's not much i can do about it. does that make sense to you? well, again, i think that his hands are tied in that he can't shut the coalition, the far right members of the coalition up, like he probably would like to do at this point in time, just for tactical reasons, but as i said, i think that you know he there's very little. is beginning to lean on him

and he can resist up to a certain point, but then he's got to make some concessions, and further more, this whole business of the international court of justice is a real problem for israel, this is very visible case, all sorts of people are watching it, and israel is getting hammered, so he has to think all the time about how he can protect israel's reputation, and that means he has to change his rhetoric. somewhat, but he may change his rhetoric, but those four right ministers, they're, i mean, i think they're constitutionally incapable of changing their rhetoric. correct me if i'm wrong, i'm, i'm, i'm reading what you have written and what you have said here uh, and elsewhere, for the

first two months of this war, you were of the view that what was going on in gaza was a war crime, you're now of the view that it is genocide, am i right? yes, yes, and what, what caused you to come to that dreadful, awful, but in my view, accurate and truthful conclusion. well, i thought that there was genocidal intent from the beginning uh, and in fact if you watch the court proceedings today, the evidence of genocidal intent intent, as one of the justices said, is chilling, incontrovertible, and overwhelming, so i think there's no question that from the beginning there has been genocidal intent. "but if you look at what the israelis were doing, i think up until the first truth, or the only truth, which i believe was from november 24th to november 30th, i thought their actual conduct conduct in the war fell short of genocide, but then when the truth

ended on november 30th and they went back on the offensive uh on december 1st, it became clear to me very quickly uh that they they were now" focusing on the south and when you look at what they were doing in the south, it was clear that the actions i thought were genocidal nature, and i would point out to you that up until the truth they were focusing mainly on the north, and you remember they were pushing many many palestinians from the north, from gaza city into the south, so a large number of palestinians who would have been killed had they stayed in the north went south, but then after december. for first they turned on the south and they went on rampage and there were huge numbers of people from the north as well as all those people who lived in the south in that area and the israelis were hitting with 2ous pound bombs and it was a relentless bombing campaign and at that point i said the action that the israelis were taken uh were

taking against the palestinians squared with the genocidal intent and i thought you could make uh a clear argument that they were uh waging. genocidal campaign against the palestinians. i know you watched the proceedings in the hague today because you told us that you did, but before we run few clips and i ask you to tell me what you saw, is there a legal definition of genocide that the court will employ and that the public can understand? well, the uh, the south africans say that there is evidence, of substantial... killing of the palestinian population, they're not killing the whole population, they're killing a substantial part of the population, and the actual law, i mean, if you go back to the genocide convention, doesn't have the word substantial in front of

it, it says that if you set out to destroy part or the whole of a particular population that is genocide, but the word part by itself, is not a very satisfactory word, because part could even include a small part, so what the south africans have done is added the word substantial, a substantial part, they're not accusing the israelis of killing all palestinians in gaza, just a substantial part. now, how the court actually interprets that, i don't know, maybe we'll find out at some point, but i would guess everybody on that court, this is my guess, would go along, with the south african use of the term substantial part of the palestinian population and doesn't the same convention, a treaty, it's called a convention, doesn't the same convention prohibit aiding and abeding, supplying an actively supporting genocide?

oh, absolutely, the issue of complicity, would that arguably inculpate joe biden and the american administration? yes, but i didn't... see any evidence, and you want to understand, i'm not a lawyer and i wasn't looking for this, but i didn't see any evidence that the south africans were going after the united states for complicity, but i think there's no question that we're complicit is. uh in this crime, they can't deny the events that occurred in gaza, up to 24 or 26,00 deaths, only 3,0 of which appear to have been hamas fighters, and they can't deny the words that came out of the mouths of the senior government leaders, all of which are quoted at length of verbadam as far as i can tell accurately in that 84th page document that we read, absolutely, i mean the evidence here is overwhelming, certainly in terms of genocidal intent, let me just say another word about that, this is not an

actual court case to determine whether israel is guilty of genocide. it's very important to understand that, and i think the bar for genocide is very high, and one could argue that even with all this evidence, it won't be enough to cross that. bar, but again, this is not a trial where we're trying to determine, or the court is trying to determine whether israel is guilty of genocide. what what are they there for? they're there to get an order from the court to tell israel to cease and desist from its offensive operations in gaza, and the argument they have to make is that there is sufficient evidence that... "this is a potential genocide, to force the israelis to in a sense stop their military operations

in gaza, that's all they're asking for, they they're not saying israel is guilty of genocide period, and the court should determine whether that's true or not, that will come later in all likelihood, and that will take years to resolve, almost everybody agrees on that." right, right, this is case where south africa is just trying to get an order from the court to put an end to this offensive uh, before more people are killed, and and the israelis wouldn't comply with such an order, would they, unless there's some sort of severe economic sanction, the court doesn't have an army, well that's right, and what the court can do is go to the security council and asked the security council to pass a resolution which would have real teeth, but we all know who's in the security council that resolution, correct, correct, sam, and so i i think that's true,

here is here is a clip from one of our regular guests who was a big fan of yours and very intelligent young man, max blumethol has press credentials and was at the state department today, i'm sure this poor guy whose name is vedant petel at the state department was not happy to see max in the audience, it's a little bit of a long clip, but the question is typical blumantholian, and i want you to hear it, listen to the response and reply to it, so this is cut 19, accused china of genocide for its treatment the weigers, but blincan didn't point to any mass killing there, according to euromed monitor, 4% of the entire population of the gaza strip is now dead or... injured in just 90 days, 65,00 tons of munitions have been dropped on the gaza strip, three times what

was dropped on hiroshima, you have evidence of industrial style killing, the south african legal team presented 20 minutes straight of statements on the record by israeli leadership expressing the intent to commit genocide, for example, referring to the palestinian population as amalec, so how can you explain this discrepancy between secretary blincan accusing china explicitly? of genocide with no mass killing, presenting no evidence of the mass killing of weigers and then dismissing out of hand the potential that israel could be committing genocide in the gaza strip, calling it unfounded. how do you explain this discrepancy? uh, the same way that i just explained it to your colleague who asked essentially the same version of your question, which is that each conflict is different, and any kind of determination like this uh needs to be based on specific facts and law, and when it comes to the points that are made being made in today's hearing, uh again, i'm not going to uh speak to those specifically, israel will have an opportunity to address uh some of

those tomorrow uh, but we again feel that these allegations that israel is committing genocide are unfounded, that being said uh, we do not disagree that additional steps must and need to be taken to minimize the impact on civilians and we'll continue to raise that directly uh with relevant partners and given that you fast tracked 14 sale of 14,000 uh tank shells to israel bypassing come uh as as as part of that, there is appropriate congressional notification that happens and we complied with those appropriately, more and more members of congress are demanding oversight because they're not getting adequate oversight, but no one disputes that the us is isolated in protecting israel as it conducts this operation, as it calls it in gaza. no one disputes the direct us role, so the question is the secretary blincan who went to israel

first, declaring at he was there as a jew, identifying with the ethno-religious character. of this state, which is now standing accused of the potential to commit genocide, is secretary blincon concerned that ruling in favor of south africa in this case, could set the stage for his own prosecution or that of your colleagues? i'm just not going to get ahead of hypotheticals and um you probably shouldn't either. jackson, go ahead. all right, so he referred to the genocide allegations as unfounded, admiral kirby, you and i've seen this tape referred to them as meritless. these two references are hogwash. yeah, i think that that's true. i mean, max blumentall is putting them on the spot, and they have stock answers, and i think that most people are going to think those, stock answers or foolish answers and don't really address the issue that max is raising. i mean, what else can you say? if the international court of justice rules that

there is genocide and takes us to the security council. even if the us vetos it and britain abstains, which is what usually happens there when the security council is arguably being critical of israel, will this not put nail in the coffen of the israeli pr war internationally? just to be clear, they're not going to rule that this is or is not genocide, they're going to rule that there is or is not sufficient evidence to think that the... is possible genocide, you seeflected in max blument those comments and then tell the israelis to cease and desist, but it is very important to understand that this is not a trial dealing with, i wish it were a trial, and i wish the south african lawyers could call professor john mirscheimer from the university of chicago as an expert witness, the problem is if it was a trial, it

would take a couple years to resolve, meantime, many palestin, many more... would die right, so the the reason that you have this expedited format is to stop the killing as quickly as possible. all right, the court is not going to stop the killing and the the security council is not going to stop the killing. however, if the court favors south africa and says it's a credible charge and goes to the security council and the security council sustains the american, the likely american veto. "i'm modifying my question in light of your correction of my misunderstanding of what the court would do, will this not be nail in the coffin to the israeli pr war? yes, it will be, no matter what happens in terms of the ruling or the decision of the court, this is a disaster for israel, because the evidence was presented

today uh, all in one place in a very clear. and compelling manner, and it is disastrous for israel, there's just no question about it, anybody who sits down and watches uh the hours and 16 minutes of testimony, can't help but think that there's something fundamentally wrong in israel, just listening to what israeli leaders are saying about the palestinians, just looking at what they're doing to the population, the civilian population in gaza. it's horrible, so this is huge problem, but the more important point is it's not going away, it's not like this is going to be resolved in the international court of justice, and then that's the end of it, this is going to go on and on and on, because will will an adverse a decision or ruling or an opinion adverse to israel in the hague affect israeli public opinion of what

their government is doing, very hard to say uh up to this. this point uh it hasn't had much effect at all, the israelis have really circled the wagons and uh they just don't want to hear this uh and they have all sorts of counters to the charges, most of them don't make much sense, but uh what happens over time is is another matter, this one's going to play out over the next couple years and uh israel is not in a good position to deal with these charges. over time. enduring and surviving the genocide of the century happening in the largest open air

concentration camp on earth in gaza does not stop the afflicted people of palestine from remembering past massacers committed by the genocidal zinist regime. day of gaza, which was named by the islamic republic of iran on january 19, 2009, right after a 22 day of aggression against the gaza strip where 1500 people rose marters as a direct result of zionist belligerance. today we commemorate day of gaza as 70% of the strip is carpet bombed with us-made top notch laser guided death projectiles that has taken the lives of more than 23,00 civilians in less than 100 days of genocide. day of gaza this week on the middstream. if you take israel for what it is, an outgrowth of the

united states in west asia, then the wars that the israeli military is fighting, or america's by extension, and it is not just figurative thing to say, israel would not have survived in the past seven decades without american support, the united states has showered israel with billions in financial. military aid and other forms of support throughout its years of existence, israel would have been unable to survive without the us support throughout its short existence. in order to build the so-called iron dome weapon system alone, america offered a whopping $1.6 billion dollars from 2011 to 2021. last year, the united states congress passed another $1 billion dollars in funding for the apparently israeli system.

in the ongoing war on gaza, the israeli regime has been gobbling up american money and weapons. since the start of the war, the pentagon has quietly ramped up military aid to israel. from more missiles for iron dome to laser guided missiles for apache helicopters (also us made) to bunkerbuster munitions to military vehicles, according to

an internal defense department list. let's take a look at how america has been fueling the war on gaza an action. the latest war on gaza started on october the 7th after a multi-proged attack by hamas, the gaza-based palestinian group. the scope of which caught the israeli regime by surprise. the israeli military then started the current bloody war primarily with aerial attacks on the besieged gaza and then sent soldiers into the enclave. hours after the hamas raid on october the 7th, washington started sending warships and war planes into the region and prepared to give israel whatever it needed. israel also asked the us for' for iron dome interceptors, while president joe biden said washington would quickly provide additional equipment and resources, including ammunition which would reach israel within days. a wall street

journal report says that the united states has given israel range of munitions, including so-called bunkerbuster bombs for its war in gaza. it said us arms shipments to israel since the start of the war included 15,000 bombs and 57. 155 mm artillery shells, mostly carried on c-17 military cargo planes. wall street journal says that some of the bloodiest israeli attacks on the gaza strip have involved the use of big us-made bombs. another form of us assistance for israel of course comes in the form of diplomatic cover. the us has blocked several resolutions at the un security council that would have necessitated se fire to have urgent humanitarian aid reach the hundreds of thousands of palestinians who have been displaced by the israeli war. when a severely weakened version of that resolution passed

recently, it passed with a us abstention. it is easy to imagine the israeli arsenal drying up in the ongoing all-out war on gaza. previous wars have lasted for several days or weeks only, and america isn't hiding its near constant, near total replenishing of the israeli regime either. but if it is true that israel is fighting what is practically an american war, with the american missiles and vehicles, guns and munition. diplomatic cover and stone walling, what are the actual implications of the war with the united states? as the suffering in palestine continues to grow, america as well as israel must be held accountable, every palestinian death caused by the israeli war on gaza is casualty of the united states war on the palestinian enclave too, and any tragedy yet

to come, is one of america's making as well, the united states lubricates the war machine, the israeli military fights, palestinians are killed, and america accumulates shame.

the headlines palestinian officials say the death tool from relentless israeli bombings in the gaza strip is nearing 24,800. mexico and chile refer israel's war on gaza to the icc over escalating violence against palestinian civilians and also in our headlines, the emmy army says it is targeted an american ship in the gulf ofvadin with appropriate naval missiles in response to us set air strikes on the country.