 In fact, at Think Tech, I'm Jay Fidel, and this is Global Connections. And we're gonna talk today about what can we expect from the ICJ, the International Court of Justice. And for this discussion, we're gonna talk to Roopmati Kandakar, Dr. Roopmati Kandakar, who's gonna help us understand what is going on in The Hague. Welcome to the show, Roopmati. Hello, Ajay, and it's so nice to be here with you, as always. So we're talking about the International Court of Justice now. Let's go, Ajay. Yeah, what is that? What is it, and how did it get in the room? What's the connection with the United Nations? What's the authority of it, the composition of it, the procedures? Can you give us some kind of structure here? Yeah. So, Jay, ICJ is the International Court of Justice located at The Hague in Netherlands. And it's one of the six principal organs of the United Nations. So it's a world court. Like, it decides between disputes between country and country, or country and international criminals. This is the kind of jurisdiction that this court holds. So it's like a court where countries go as members. And it's coming to the picture because we are seeing South Africa file a case against Israel, wrongly filing a case against Israel. So let's discuss this one day. It's going to get interesting. Now, why South Africa should file this? I mean, there are so many Arab countries that have complained in the media and voted against Israel in the General Assembly. All of a sudden, surfaces South Africa. Why South Africa? Now, as you said, Jay, in the General Assembly, the decision gets up to the Security Council, gets vetoed by allies, and then it comes down to nothing. We've always discussed that play in the United Nations. Now, South Africa started filing this case against Israel and first accusing it of apathy and genocide. So this is a new new for all of us to see because out of all the countries, South Africa taking a moral stand and talking of Israel carrying out genocide and asking the court to take cognizance of this matter. But Jay, it doesn't work that way because the basic context they fail to mention, why did Israel act in this? They forget to say that it is in response to a terrorist attack. Well, before you go there, is this really South Africa or is somebody putting South Africa up to it? We have seen, for example, Iran attacking Israel kinetically with weapons of all kinds of nature, unlimited weapons, as well as propaganda through proxies, always through proxies. So it has to be a possibility anyway that South Africa is a proxy for somebody. What are your thoughts? Absolutely right, Jay, absolutely right because South Africa having the moral standing to take such a ground against Israel needs the backup of several money-loaded Islamic countries to put there and they want to show a neutral country a non-Islamic country filing this case against Israel. So that makes it a plus point for South Africa to take the center stage. I'm wondering if there's a quid pro quo here. I'm wondering if it's more than just doing a favor for somebody like Iran or some of those Arab countries or a combination of countries that don't like Israel and don't like Jews. And I'm wondering if there's something else in the quid pro quo like money. And then I recall reading recently that Nauru backed out of his diplomatic connection with Taiwan after that election of Lai Qingtei a few days ago. And China was real ticked off about that. And Presto, what happens is Nauru backs out but then the back news is that China paid Nauru to back out. They paid him something like $100 million to back out. Nauru is a small country. That's a lot of money for Nauru. So I'm wondering if there was some kind of quid pro quo here too that there's unlimited funds out there somewhere and somebody's paying off South Africa. What do you think? That's so right Jay. And South Africa being paid the amounts that you talk about is very easy for them to take this incentive because it just portrays them onto the international stage but they're benefiting a lot from this money financially. They're in a rut a few days, a few months back we were seeing stores being looted in South Africa. There was havoc on the streets of South Africa. They did not have a good economic system recession and hit them hard. So any money which was coming from anywhere was always a welcome thought for them Jay. Yeah, so South Africa would be about the last country you select. Maybe nobody else was willing to do it. All of a sudden, South Africa. I mean, I hope the world is wondering why South Africa which has such baggage in its history about race and about the conflict. It's extraordinary that it should be South Africa. And I really wonder why after all this time there has been so little focus in the very same court the ICJ over the obvious war crimes and atrocities and genocide to use that term because it's very clear in Ukraine. Why does the court not care about Ukraine for two years but all of a sudden it cares about Israel which is something that got started only in October. I mean, that's when the massacre took place. So I'm wondering why we have such an irregular span of attention. Do you have any thoughts about that? Yeah, Jay, first when they spoke about this the country had to actually show a dispute between country to country that South Africa had gone to Israel and spoken about this dispute. They had discussed and could not reach an agreement and so they had gone to the International Court of Justice. This is a mandatory procedure that has to be followed before any issue comes up before the Court of Justice. South Africa did not do that. South Africa has gone directly to the International Court of Justice and that foundation for this case is one of the main points for Israel to say that first South Africa has to come and discuss the matters of genocide with them. Then show that they can't do anything about the 1948 genocide convention implementation or violations that are happening and then you bring the International Court of Justice to supervise in this case. South Africa has superseded that point and gone directly to the ICT. So that's where we catch them, Jay. And that is a big point because directly going to them is a problem. And Jay, I'll tell you one thing. This case is very, very crucial and you can very blatant in its approach because South Africa denies Israel the right to self-defense and that becomes a big, big, big issue, Jay. Oh, yeah. Well, let's talk about it. The charge is that Israel is engaging in genocide. I think it's simply that. Yes. And they come and they have some remarks made by some people associated with the Israeli government who do not speak for the Israeli government, who do not control or articulate policy for the Israeli government. And they're relying on comments that some officials made, maybe lower officials made with regard to how angry they were at Hamas and the Palestinians. And I think the case is based largely on that. So they spent two days, two days in a hearing. And I guess they heard both sides. They heard South Africa's position. They heard the Israeli's rebuttal of that. And I think they heard a third time from South Africa. And they closed it. That's it. That's it, no visit. Maybe they couldn't afford the airfare to Israel. Maybe they didn't wanna get involved in a conflict zone. Who knows? But that's the whole thing. That's what they got. And I find it extraordinary that after all the evidence that has been gathered in Ukraine and elsewhere, think of Ai Weiwei's movie, Human Flow. There's such unhappiness, conflict, and genocide in the world. This is where the ICJ would focus. This is where South Africa is concerned. Really strange. Anyway, okay. So what were the substantive positions taken? Yeah, CJ, they spoke about the genocide intent. They are arguing, South Africa is arguing that Israeli army intended to finish off the race. Now, the intent is a response. It is not intended to go against a race or anything. The words that Netanyahu used were not the biblical context. He said, Israel has the most moral kind of troops and they will do their best to protect the existence of their state. He did not say, go and destroy another state. He said, protect your state, do your existence. Now, existential crisis, they have swept under the floor and they're talking of the intent of Israel to wipe out the Palestine when we hear a chance of free Palestine from the river to the sea. They want to wipe out Israel in every slogan J. I mean, it can get clearer than that. And to talk about the genocidal actions, we all have discussed this, that the operations of Hamas were from hospitals, were from schools, from residential houses. Civilians were used as shields. Where is the fault of the Israel Defense Force in dealing with this? They're dealing with terrorists. They're dealing with human shields who are willing to help and protect the terrorists. And everything mounts out to an existential crisis for Israel. And apartheid genocide, I don't think it falls into the violations of the 1948 Convention of Genocide at all. And apartheid Israel has always published every sign in three languages. Israel has always accepted diversity in its professions, in its daily life. There has been no segregation of a race, or there have been no attempts in daily life to wipe out a race. Like it was the case done in Africa. I think South Africa was banned for apartheid if they don't remember it very well. They have a problem of apartheid. And to accuse another state of apartheid is a far-fetched possibility, Jay. So Israeli lawyers can turn back and talk about their own glass houses before they speak about somebody else. You know, I think that their arguments are on YouTube. You can find them in great detail. You can find them verbatim. But one thing I don't know if the Israeli side of it mentioned is that over the past decade or so, maybe two decades, the Palestinians have not been the victims of genocide. In fact, their population in both the West Bank and in Gaza has doubled. So if Israel wanted to make genocide and wipe them out as a race or a culture, they've done a really bad job because the Palestinians are twice the number they used to be. And as I think they did make the point is, hey, if Israel wanted to kill a lot of Palestinians, they could have done that on day one, but they didn't do that. And they took all these very humanitarian steps to avoid killing Palestinians. So I mean, I find it's really ironic that South Africa should do this and it should omit all these things. I mean, it's obvious that the hostages are still hostages. In fact, what happened just today, buddy, is that there are two hostages. And Hamas said that if the Israelis did not back off immediately, they would kill the hostages. I find that extraordinary. They take hostages, they upset everybody in the Jewish side of the equation, the Israeli side. Some people are not upset about that and that's regrettable. And then they threaten to kill them essentially one by one by making demands. That is so gross. The whole thing is gross. And I don't know how the United Nations and the ICJ can ignore that. They must read the paper just like us. They must read the horrible atrocities. I mean, cutting women's breasts off with box cutters. That's out there. We know that. And I hope they know that. That's war crime. There's so many war crimes. Here are these peaceful people living in peaceful communities doing agriculture and the like. And all of a sudden they're attacked in a murderous fashion in the most brutal, horrendous way. And yet it's the Israelis that get charged with war crimes. It's just hard to believe. It's in psychology, it's called projection, right? You project what the other guy's doing to you on the other guy. And all of a sudden you're at fault when he is really, or she is really at fault. Donald Trump does that. Anyway, okay, so what can happen here? You know the former chief judge of the Israeli court is on the ICJ, why? Because somebody appointed by Israel, that is the defendant in the case, has to be on that court. So they had to include him. Iraq is his name. And he's sitting on that court. I don't know how persuasive he will be with the others. There are quite a few of them. But at least we know that he's there and he can see the deliberations. But what are their options? What can they do? There was an article I sent it to you by random. Horowitz was and it was within the times of Israel, Israel times where he said, what can they do? What is a legitimate solution here for them? And his answer to that was dismiss the case, man. Dismiss the case. Is there a middle ground? How confident are you that they will dismiss the case? They should, Jay, they have to, because the very crux of the case, the very basis, the foundation of the case is the intent of Israel. And they have conveniently forgotten to mention or manipulated to mention that October 7 was a terrorist attack of which Israel responded. They have not said that. The discussion is just about, the case is just about how Israel has a genocidal intent, how they have genocidal actions of wiping out a race and how they are denying humanitarian aid. And to which all these claims, there is a rational counter offensive point that the intent was a response to the terrorist attack. The intent was never genocide because there was a warning of 20 days given to evacuate the civilians. There was the Israeli army has always acted in after Reiki, after proper manipulation, everything. Then they act, they have not done random firing or random bombing. There has been no carpet bombing of Gaza. It has been, like we said, they were going over the rubble. The tanks were going over the rubble. They also have to be careful about the minefield that is set in. So where is the genocidal intent? If they wanted, they could have done it like Putin and sent drones all over and destroyed Gaza in a matter of two days. But in these things, in these operations, even Israeli hostages were killed. The three Israeli hostages which were killed by mistake when they came waving white flags by mistake. So it's a very thought out war plan in response to a terrorist attack. But the court is arguing that Israel is going, violating the 1948 genocide agreement. So that is absolutely wrong. And it will get dismissed because I think Israel has a strong defense and even whatever happens in the court of justice, Israel's right to exist cannot be denied. Well, one of the things discussed was whether Israel should or would abide by a decision requiring it to do a ceasefire, a unilateral ceasefire. And my view and a lot of people I know their view is that Israel should not abide by that decision. It's an outrage. And as you say, it's existential for Israel. Israel knows, we all know that Hamas will do it again and again if permitted to do so. And if they do a unilateral ceasefire, Hamas will do it again right now. And it will be tragic beyond description and outrageous. So the other possibilities that he mentioned was, well, they could demand that Israel provide more humanitarian aid. Well, Israel is providing a lot of humanitarian aid already and they're permitting it to enter from Rafa and whatever else. And the only problem is that the, that there seems to be a block at the Rafa gate. And Israel is trying to expedite that, but cannot. It can only can allow so much in, I think. I'm not sure, but it has taken the position that it's not an Israeli matter because it's other people are responsible. How about the United Nations are responsible to provide that aid, make sure it gets into the right hands? I mean, we have all kinds of indications that it's not getting into the right hands. It's feeding and supplying Hamas and not the Palestinian people there. And that Hamas is raiding the storehouses. We've seen photographs of that. So, I don't know if that's a solution that this court should consider. It's meaningless. It goes nowhere. It is something up to the UN itself. Let's see, there were other possibilities too, but none of them were meaningful. So I think what this turns out to be is either you tell Israel to make a unilateral ceasefire, stop, or you don't. That's what it amounts to. And they're not satisfied just in asking Israel to stop. They want Israel to be declared a criminal. And that is where the problem is lying. And that is where the defense is getting more vocal about it. Because how can you, what is that? Designate a defending country to be a criminal. It is facing such antagonistic enemies, Yemeni, Houthi people. They felt the need to attack Israel. They start, they're too far away. They're tribals, they went and they attacked the ships and the Red Sea. So, this kind of inner, we've always talked about how they are, you know, what is that? In their minds, they have this hatred for Israel. And they don't want Israel to exist. How can Israel not defend itself? And when, if the International Court of Justice under the UN had passed this kind of a judgment that Israel is wrong, they couldn't do anything about it. So this kind of hanging situation that is going on. And Jay, we have seen how hesitant UN has been to declare Israel as a victim. They've always portrayed Israel as an aggressor and the support that it gets from its allies as being false and they boo it in the corridors of the UN. But those allies are the ones who have also faced similar terror attacks. So everybody is in the same boat because of the same casualties and calamities that they have faced due to these terrorists. It's not a coincidence that you are an ally. It's a coincidence that we have faced the same fate. So that's why they know what is coming next. Well, you're right. I mean, the context is that Israel has a number of enemies for whatever reason, proxy or otherwise. And this is a very well-organized asymmetric war against Israel. I remember reading that October 7th, they had the massacre, October 8th, the propaganda was all already in play to criticize Israel for what happened. As I find that extraordinary and people bought that. And so the ones who were setting this up, Iran and some of these Arab countries are setting up a multi-front war. Look what's happened in Lebanon. Look what's happened in the East Bank, West Bank, I'm sorry. Look what's happened in Yemen and the Red Sea. It's a forefront multi-front war. And it's of great concern. I remember, for example, and we've discussed this, that whoever knew about this shorted the market the week before the massacre and made millions upon millions of dollars because at the massacre, all the companies they shorted, which were largely Israeli companies, lost stock price. So that's another front, an economic front on this war. This war is intended to destroy Israel. This war is intended to hit Israel on every single asymmetric angle you can think of. And this in the Hague is one of them. This is another front for Israel to have to cope with. And it is an outrage that nobody sees this. But let me ask you this, there must be pressure on these judges. I mean, I do not feel, and maybe this is due to the fact that the American justice system has suffered so badly in the last couple of few years, there must be political pressure on these fellows who sit on the court. They have prestige, they have credentials, I'm sure. But query, there must be people who would like to see them rule against Israel. Do you feel that so? And who is putting that pressure on? Yes, Jay, the populist vote tries to go against Israel. And like you said, that is the added pressure on the judges to pass a judgment against Israel and in favor of South Africa. But the arguments that they have been presenting that Israel is going against the 1948 Convention is absolutely baseless. And that is why they cannot give a more, if the case, like you said, let me point out to that, that there was money given. And this case was maybe filed in a haste. And that's why there is no proper bringing about the formation structure of this case. So it fails at the basic level. They were in a hurry to put this case into the court of justice. And that's why it's not properly framed, Jay. And that is where it loses out its validity. And the judges can be caught on technical grounds now, this time, rather than going into the arguments, technical ground that South Africa did not go to Israel and discuss this before they bought it into the court of justice. That disagreement that has to be shown that you had a conflict country to country, and when you all couldn't solve it, then the International Court of Justice has come to arbitrate in your dispute. You cannot just directly go to the court of justice and say, I feel this one is doing something. You should have gone to Israel first, discussed and disagreed, and then bought it to the court of justice. So they did not do this. So technically, they are at a fault. And the judges can never go on fault for technical energy. That is a very big point for Israel. The thing that I keep coming back to in my mind that we don't know enough yet, I would like to examine a list of the judges. I would like to see where their propensities lie. I would like to examine whether they may be affected because I feel, just as I feel this in the United States Supreme Court, which used to be worthy of our admiration, but no more, I feel that this may turn out to be something which is baseless political. Political, just the way the Security Council is political, and just the way some of those votes in the General Assembly are absolutely political. The United Nations has been politicized and very likely weaponized in this multi-front war against Israel. I think the media must see that, must examine that. Every single judge, where the pressure is coming from and whether this is just another example of the politicization of the UN. What do you think? The UN infrastructure, Jay, only a sole intergovernmental organization of the world, but does nothing or null to solve the problems of the world. They don't come in where there are conflicts. They don't come to protect the civilians. They don't come to protect the countries where they don't act against the terrorists. They don't have a definition of terrorism. They don't hold individuals or countries accountable. I mean, it's a fast that they have this institution and then having an international court of justice, which is functioning as per populist, neoliberal, pseudo-liberal waves in the international world. So this kind of non-implementing authority that we have in the United Nations falls short at every stage. Whatever they say, how can they implement it? They don't have any structure for implementation. Well, I'm glad of that. I don't want to see them tell Israel to back off and Israel then has a dilemma. I think Israel could and should defy an order like that. But let me go to another thing though. Again, this is a coordinated effort. And maybe there's somebody in Iran, maybe somewhere in the other parts of the Middle East that coordinates this stuff. So we have protests already where people are out in the street supporting Hamas and supporting the Palestinians. And calling for this court to find Israel guilty. I mean, it was very quick. Just as it was quick right after the massacre, it was quick, these protests. Okay, and for its part, Israel had a protest, a different kind of protest, where they had a lot of people gather in what is now known as hostage square in Tel Aviv, calling for the release of the hostages. And of course that got nowhere, nowhere. And this court cannot resolve that problem, can it? It won't. But here's my question to you. There's a differential here. The court could rule for Israel or against Israel, okay? If it rules one way or the other, what happens? What happens in the Palestinian and Arab world? What happens in the United States and the college campuses? What do they do? Do they do protests? What happens if Israel wins? What happens if Israel loses? What are we gonna see? If Israel wins, this case, if Israel loses this case, the right for Israel to exist will be protected very far from it. Because that is, how can I tell you? It is such a human right. It's Israel's human right. It's Israel's country's right to exist. A country in the southern part of the African continent cannot dictate terms to a country which is being bombarded. And civilians are being attacked every day. So there is a lot of difference between what is written on the table and what is happening on the ground. And that will never ever affect Israel. Even when the Secretary General did not mention Hamas, Israel was unfurtered. They were very strong in their determination. And that determination comes, Jay, because of lack of fear. They have lost the fear after losing so many lives. There is a perception, like you always say, of it happening again in the future. And that cannot be compromised. So Israel will keep on getting stronger. Let another few countries join them if they want. But Israel versus South Africa and the International Court of Justice does not stand a chance, Jay. Israel will win this war. Or it will be dismissed or it will be neutralized because of technical points like we discussed. But Israel will never get, the determination will never go down because of a judgment of the International Court of Justice. It is very clear. You have to see the mindset of the average Israelis, especially those young, sweet kids who are in the service. They come from the Holocaust. Where six million Jews were concerned. And that sort of forms their moral fundamental. Anyway, let me go to one other thing. And that is, I think you've answered it in part. How does it affect the war? As a matter of fact, Israel has slowed down its bombing unilaterally. As a matter of fact, Israel is making progress in finding more tunnels. But as a matter of fact, they can't find all the hostages. And some of the hostages we know were sold. Yes. Were sold. They were sold to Hamas. They were sold by Hamas. Exchanging them with various members of the civilian community. So how does it affect the way people think about this? Do you feel that, for example, the people in Israel will change their minds about how things are going depending on the results here? Do you think that the people in the US will change their minds? Jay, we are finally fighting mindsets. Also, we have discussed this in the dimensions that the mindset of the Israeli are to come into a square and protest against the government to save the hostages. The gatherings in the squares of Gaza were to see the hostages being taken and women mistreated. That was the kind of gathering in the squares of Gaza, even when there was going to be a future bombardment. So the mindset is very important. And protests in America, when they don't know what will happen, who are they protecting? They're protecting terrorists. The rallies were in favor of the oppressed and depressed terrorists. Poor thing, poor victims that they were. But Israel was having this, they have to fight domestic pressure and they have to fight the terrorists. Now hostages, they could not bring it into a complete situation. The situation is still ongoing. And like you just mentioned, they bought about two hostages just to stop the level of the war. After Israel finished Northern Gaza tunnels, they slowed down because they know that they have done the majority of work which was there. Now they have to go, it's a long-drawn process. It cannot happen in a matter of days or months or weeks and stalling it with these judgments and they are part of that attempt to present Israel in a bad light in the media. When you have a court case against Israel. I like the point. It's a propaganda war like you've always discussed. But let me ask you my last question now. So Donald Trump won in Iowa. And I'm sad to see that because I would not have wanted that under any circumstances. When he won, he got up and said that if he's elected president, he will finish the war in Israel immediately. He didn't say how he was gonna do that. He didn't say what fantastic things he would do either to destroy the Palestinians and Hamas or to destroy Israel. It's not clear what he has in his mind. He didn't say. But he's sort of taking possession of the issue by making that statement. Now Joe Biden, he's on the other side of it and he's done a lot to try to soften this conflict somehow and he's consistently taken at least by the rhetoric, he's taken the Israeli side of it. So query, how did they come out of a decision by the ICJ? Luckily for Israel, U.S. will always remain an ally because geo-strategically Israel presents the most, it's a vantage point in the Middle East and it's a very close friend and it's got historical roots. You have ties which go beyond presidential terms of four years. And that is what helps Israel-U.S. friendship bond, okay? And Trump coming in and saying that he's going to solve the Israel and Ukraine issue is now going to be a theater to watch. You're going to have lots of shows to discuss that. And he's not going to stop and he keeps on talking as if it's just a matter of a few decisions but it's gotten complicated. And Israel has got a $15 billion allotment for war right now. So you can understand what is the extent that we are looking forward. Yeah, well, anybody's guess and certainly we can't trust anything that Trump says. He can forget his comments the day after. Okay, well, I'm very interested to see how this plays out. You and I should cover it again. In a few days time, we'll know more and we ought to examine the inner workings and hidden mechanisms of this court in retrospect. And we'll be back for more. Rupati Khandikar, Dr. Rupati Khandikar. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much, Jay. Thank you for having Aloha, Jay. Aloha.