 analyze the ICDA decision on Israel and Hamas a few days ago. We're going to ask, what does it say, and what are its implications. We're going to discuss this with our co-host, Tim Apatela, and our special esteemed geopolitical analyst, Rupamati Kandekar. Welcome to the show, you guys. Hello, Ajahn. Tim, a pleasure to be here with you guys. So, there's so many issues here. I don't know if we can really touch all of them, but let's begin to question what is the ICJ, the International Court of Justice, as a compare with the ICC. We're going to talk about how this case got in front of them, what they did with it, what the procedure was, what their provisional decision has been, and where it goes from here. And we'll talk about what they want to call it, the political factors and influences that affected the court. Exciting. Let's see. Rupamati, could you start? Could you just give us a praisey about what happened here? Hold it down to two hours, will you? Now we're talking of the International Court of Justice, which is being called on by South Africa to declare Israel, creating, what is that? It's like the destroyer of human rights. So that's what, so this ICJ ruling that we have got, it's a 16 to 1 ruling J. And it was actually a 15 to 2 ruling against Israel, but it changed to 16 to 1 when one of the Israeli lawyers himself went towards the, that Israel should be declared as indulging in genocide and not allowing humanitarian aid and ignoring all Israeli defense that this is a case in which Israel was not the oppressor. In fact, it was the victim and that has been brushed to a side. And we have this ruling which says that Israel has to be, it's a two-week proceeding which took place and this came up to the point that Israel has to stop annihilating the population and hurting the Palestine people. I mean, it's a totally against Israel ruling J, in simple layman terms, if we talk about it. So they said that genocide was plausible here and they were going to have further proceedings and they wanted to give Israel a month to come back and prove up on its position that there was no intent to have genocide. And they ordered Israel, to the extent they have any authority, they ordered Israel to preserve all the evidence of genocide. And they really didn't say much of anything about the hostages or about the atrocities on our 7th, which I thought was interesting because they could have, but all they said is they thought the hostages could be released. But Hamas was not a party to this, is not a party to the genocide convention. So the whole thing is skewed and it raises the question, does it not, about the real authority of this court, the real authority of the United Nations and the real existence of international law that will govern the international community. Let's go to you, Tim. What's your primary reaction here? Well, primary reaction is, why don't we just outlaw all war? And I say that because I was looking at, if you want to call it in the indictment here, the report they put out, they said, quote, they should stop or cease, continue to kill Palestinians, bodily or mentally harm or deliberately inflicting on their group. Isn't this the definition of war? I'm sorry, but in World War II, you had the bombing of Dresden. In one night, 25,000 people died from suffocation. When you had the Tokyo bombings between March 9th and March 10th of 1945, you had about 70 to 100,000 individuals die, civilians die. This was called warfare. And I hate warfare. I really do. And so rather than trying to parcel out a piece of what warfare is, let's condemn warfare as itself in its entirety. Stop war because as a definition of war, you have collateral damage and that collateral damage ultimately falls to civilians that are non-military. But there you have it. Israel has declared war on Hamas by the fact that Hamas hides shoulder to shoulder with civilians in the tunnels, under the hospitals, in the hospitals. How do you conduct war when you have that kind of proximity to a civilian population? So I react strongly to this report and these allegations because it really is a combination on war itself. I keep on wondering what exactly is the ICJ. There are 153 members of the Genocide Convention, which was established actually at the request of the Jewish people after the genocide in the Holocaust. And I find it interesting that the ICJ has not found what Putin is doing as genocide. It hasn't even opened a docket on that. The ICC, which is the criminal court, has issued a warrant for his arrest. But that's all you can do because Russia is not a party to any of this. So it's a court without really any leverage. If the ICC, I think that the ICJ has 153 members, that's a substantial part of the 192 members of the United Nations who refused to condemn what happened on October 7th. So you already know that this is part of what people complain about the UN. That the UN is on a decline. That the UN doesn't recognize the morality of these global events. And for the UN to say, oh, okay, well, the Israelis are plausibly genocidal here is so cynical. And Netanyahu has said as much. I would say as much. IDF has said as much. Remember that apartheid was born and raised in South Africa. Remember also that BDS, which is an anti-Semitic organization, was created by Arab groups in South Africa. So South Africa is carrying a torch on this. Why South Africa of all the countries in the world? Why not any of the Arab countries and PS? Why don't they take the Palestinians? They don't do that. None of them do that. Not a single one. So you wonder if this this business in front of the ICJ is no more nor less than an attempt to legitimize a court, which is not really recognized as legitimate. But what's fancy? They have black robes and white and white ties and all that. But query, are they the right people to do this? Now, of course, Hamas likes the result because the court said that there was plausible genocide, whatever that means. And a lot of what it would call progressive liberal organizations in and around the Middle East and in this country and said, oh, good, we finally are bringing Israel to accountability over what it has done in Gaza. Mind you, the court did not stop the war. The court did not order or suggest that there be a ceasefire in Gaza. It only said that Israel should take all steps appropriate to reduce the number of casualties there. And some commentators have raised a question on whether that really requires Israel to do anything, because it is already trying really hard to avoid civilian casualties. And it's probable that its conduct in the battlefield is going to be unchanged. So what about your thoughts, Roopmati? Hamas is the elephant in the room, but Hamas is not a party. Hamas is genocidal by way of their charter and their statements of their leadership, who say they want to kill all the Jews, destroy the state of Israel, destroy Jews, and it's in their charter. And they say it all the time. They say they will repeat the attack of October 7th over and over and over again. Isn't there some logical problem, some cynical logical problem with prosecuting, accepting these claims against the Jewish people who were victims of the Holocaust, which is the one fantastic genocide that we know about in the 20th century, when Hamas can make these statements and do all things possible to execute a genocide against the Jews. But now we have this cynical twist where the Jews are charged with genocide. Yesterday it is highly, highly regrettable that this decision was passed, but we have seen that there was a documented terror attack by the Hamas that has been ignored. And when we discussed in our last program, Jay, that South Africa had to take this issue up with Israel, they had to dispute, argue and disagree. And after that, the case had to go to the ICJ. But they overlapped it and took the case directly to the ICJ, which is actually not in the way the ICJ has to process. And the ICJ accepted it and transcending Israeli and South African statements. The ICJ ruling has mainly relied on the reports of the UN officials who have talked about deprivation, starvation, lack of healthcare, harming the civilian population, their account of what Israel is doing to Gaza, not what Israel is doing to Hamas. So it's one sided, it's not a very balanced understanding of the case that the ICJ has taken. And we have seen that the Secretary General himself refused to put Hamas into the documents that were coming out, in the resolutions that were coming out. And he was talking in the way that Israel is often the oppressor, and ICJ is an organ of the UN. And it will support what its leader says, isn't it? It's not going to go against what the Secretary General says. So everything has to be in a sequence. Everything has to have an implication that it's a full-throated, comprehensive decision. So that's why this ICJ decision is not right. Wait a minute. These guys are supposed to be independent, these judges. Are you saying that there's a real possibility they're not independent at the wrong end of the influence of the General Assembly? Undoubtedly. Because see, if they had ruled that Hamas is a terror organization who attacked Israel, the Secretary General would have looked like a liar, isn't it? He has openly not agreed to put Hamas, the word Hamas. It is very important to put Hamas, because Israel is fighting a terror attack retaliation. It is not going against, you know, it's not going against the state of Palestine. And ICJ is a court which has to rule and jurisdiction between two states, or a criminal and a state, but not between a state which has been under terror attack. They conveniently have overlapped it and overlooked it. And that is, you know, a point that is highly lacking in this case state. So the judgment is absolutely, absolutely derogatory, I can say, because the Holocaust is forgotten. They say, keep your memories aside. And, you know, facing a new challenge, and instead of giving a balanced ceasefire, they have gone towards condemning Israel. And unofficial reports right now say that there's a ceasefire brokered between with the help of Qatar. So civilians in Gaza are celebrating. Now, where does it make the ICJ stand? So, you know, it's a issue which gets solved between two states or two terror, you know, at the base level. So the ICJ ruling falls apart, completely falls apart. They have not mentioned how the UN aid was mismanaged. They have not mentioned how the warehouses were looted. They have not mentioned how the civilians were standing as human shields. They have not mentioned Israel gave 20 days for the civilians to vacate. Which country would have done this? Now, they haven't mentioned that at least a dozen employees, employees within UNRWA were, in fact, involved in the atrocities. That's extraordinary. I didn't say a word about that. It's like, you know, somebody is missing. The elephant in the room here is Hamas and it is not really being held accountable or even discussed. Do you mind, Tim, I want to read something from Nathan Sales. He's a non-resident senior fellow with the Scowcraft Middle East Security Institute and initiative, rather. And I think it helps to foment our discussion. The ICJ's ruling is more noteworthy for what it did not say than for what it did. The court did not hold that Israel is violating international law, nor did it order Israel to end the war against Hamas, which is what South Africa sought and which the court previously ordered with respect to Russia's war of aggression on Ukraine. Instead, the ICJ simply instructed Israel to comply with the Genocide Convention, which as a signatory to that convention, since it was established in 1950, Israel is already obliged to do. While Pretorius' allegations against Israel may have been, as the Biden administration put it, meritless, counterproductive, and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever, the ICJ's split-the-baby approach was perhaps the best outcome Jerusalem reasonably could have expected. Indeed, the ICJ's criticism of Israel must be understood against the backdrop, ready for this, of the chronic hostility shown by other organs of the United Nations to the Jewish state. On the very day the court's ruling was released, came the stunning news that the UN's organization for Palestinian refugees, that is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, fired 12 employees because of their possible involvement in Hamas's barbaric October 7 terrorist attack. UN Women took weeks, UN Women is an organization, took weeks to condemn Hamas's widespread use of rape and sexual violence against Israeli women and girls on October 7, only to delete its statement when parties hostile to Israel objected. Friends, the organization did eventually issue a statement that was not retracted. And of course, the UN Human Rights Council for years has singled out Israel for disproportionate criticism. Since its creation in 2006, that Human Rights Council has adopted more than 100 resolutions about Israel. Notorious human rights abusers such as China, Cuba, and Zimbabwe have been the subject of zero resolution by nation states. So Tim, your thoughts? Well, there should be an additional paragraph that the question should be raised and maybe I'm getting cynical in my old age, but you look at organizations like the ICJ or any organization and the question has to come up, how are they funded? Because the hand that feeds the organization has the influence of the organization. So my question is, how is ICJ funded? Who is that hand that feeds them? Because there's influence most likely, they're not independent, unless they have independent sources of funding. So that's something I would always look at in the background. As far as the points raised in this, what you just read, they're spot on. You know, one thing I want to go a step further on this, is that the court was trying to kind of hoist its own jurisdiction, because it knows that the UN is on a decline, and it knows that the court really doesn't have all that much independent authority. So, you know, this is a way to legitimize the court, perhaps, just as the ICC needs to be legitimized, perhaps, as an independent criminal court. And in a perfect world, the United Nations would be at a higher level. It would not be declining. It would not have 100 resolutions against the one democracy in the Middle East. And it would stand against Russia and take active steps against Russia. And some say that this decision, although it's imperfect and the court is imperfect, actually raises an interesting possibility. That in the future, if the UN plays it right, and I am not saying the UN has played it right, but if the UN plays it right, these two courts can actually have a positive effect of achieving accountability, especially from countries that are engaged in genocide, such as China with the Uyghurs, such as Russia with the Ukrainians, and as Nathan Sayles mentioned, Cuba and Zimbabwe. So, query, in a perfect world, what could, should the United Nations and these courts do to regain their legitimacy, their credibility? Right, Che, in an ideal world, a perfect world, UN stands as the sole intergovernmental organization that the world, the Earth has today. So, kind of, it is the only place where all the nations can come and discuss. But it doesn't happen because we have the veto power, we have the veto problem, we have the reform problem. These problems of the UN infrastructure still exist even after decades of its existence. And, Jay, this decision, like we have seen, and we want it to be a utopian place where the decisions are not binding. And the UN does not have a force to have it binding on the decisions cannot be implemented. It will be like a guideline. And you know, Jay, states will always have self-interest in hand more than, you know, these, these, these points will be taken as guidelines or, you know, chiding remarks, but they will not be taken as something binding because there's no enforcement. And thank God there's no enforcement because when the UN used responsibility to protect and had a collective action of many nations to get into Libya with force, we saw what happened. There was a regime change, Gaddafi out, oil prices increased. There was a different kind of an issue. And now they're reluctant to get into Russia and Ukraine because NATO is over there. So the kind of UN, the, the non-accepting adjustability that it shows in geopolitics is not right. It has to take a uniform stand. Like Tim said, it has to be uniform. It doesn't have to be case by case. You know, if you have a set of rules and they imply to all, people will know what to do about it. But if you have something which will go as per the flow and change and basically be non-binding, it will have no relevance in today's world because we are dealing with nuclear bombs. So let me just review who is a member of what. Israel is a member of the genocide convention, I believe. The U.S. waited until 1988, almost 40 years before it joined. I find that interesting. Israel is not a member of the ICC, the criminal court. But I think it has agreed to cooperate with both of these courts. And it is cooperating in this proceeding now in the Hague with the ICJ. The U.S. is not a member of the Treaty of Rome, which created the ICC. So what you get is, regrettably, some countries, including the U.S., a little spotty on whether they go along with these conventions and the jurisdiction of these courts. And let me add another critical problem that I'm reading from another commentator. The ICJ only has jurisdiction over states, they say, not over acts committed by Hamas, which is not a state, and other Palestinian groups which are not states. It thus could not have the ICJ, thus could not have issued orders to preserve evidence related to crimes that may have been committed by these groups in this case, nor does the ICJ have the power to issue an order relating to evidence of war crimes or crimes against humanity. To ensure future accountability, Israel should seek to preserve evidence relating to all atrocity crimes in the conflict. So what I get out of that particular commentator is there's something wrong here with the jurisdiction. Why is it only states when we live in a world of terrorism, right? These terror organizations are powerful, they're funded by states, is what it is. And if this court is going to have any meaning in the context of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, atrocities, which we see happening here, then it must have a jurisdiction beyond just states. It must have jurisdiction on individuals and groups. And so I think it's harboured and it needs to be fixed. Your thoughts? Jay, they don't have a definition of terrorism. Absolutely no definition of terrorism yet after so many terror attacks all over the world. So I don't think Tim can elaborate on this. As an organization, you can legitimize yourself by ignoring the obvious. And you just pointed that out. The obvious is there's atrocities committed by non-states. So how legitimate of an organization are you when you ignore the obvious? Or how legitimate are you when you charge things over and over again and to no resolve, to no solution or resolution? Your credibility as an organization starts to dwindle. And I'm not sure that's the best path for them to take. No, if you're looking for accountability in order to diminish the phenomenon of war crimes and genocidal crimes, you've really got to do better. So here we are. We've had this, what do you want to call it, preliminary order such as it is. Israel said, well, we succeeded because they didn't order us to stop ceasefire. And the South Africa said, oh no, we won because we have them say that there was the plausibility of genocidal intent. And so what we're doing now is we're on a one-month hiatus. It doesn't appear that Israel is going to change its conduct on the battlefield. And I agree it should not because the hostages are still there because the hostages are still firing rockets into Israel because they're fighting and killing Israeli soldiers. So exactly why should they stop? Anyway, aside from the possibility of another ceasefire agreement, there's some serious talk about that, it appears. The fact is that the war is going to go on in that month, probably. And in that month, Israel will have to preserve evidence, which I think it would do anyway. And at the end of that time, the court is going to come back and sit again. This was only provisional. This is only preliminary. So when it sits again, what's going to happen? Group body? It's still going to rely on the documents of the U.N. official state because it's not going to waiver and prove its first provisional decision as wrong. And J, Israel and U.S., the allies which are fighting this terrorism war are one of the biggest contributors of the U.N., which funds this I.C.J. And when you have this kind of a decision, you have celebratory voices coming out that they have tamed the bullies. So that is kind of, you know, inclination of the court's justice that we see already, that it is inclining towards the other side, other side of the bullies. So that is kind of wrong. They forget that the bullies were under a terror attack. And I.C.J., when it sits back again, J, believe me, they will not deliberate on what the evidence of Israelis, they will rather say 26,000 people killed over how many days, but they will not mention 7,000 people killed in one day or 3,000 terrorists entered on one day. They're not going to mention that. They're not going to take the evidence, like you said, of illegitimate sources. So that's a big thing. There's a flaw in the proceedings itself. You know, I don't know exactly what the procedure is in the court as to third parties, but you know, you have Yemen going on at the same time, and the Houthis, which is the arguably an organization. You have Hezbollah coming out of Lebanon. You know, you have the PLO creating unrest in the West Bank. And of course, you have Iran, which is the great puppet master for all of us. Those parties are not parties to this case. You know, if there was a real court here or a real investigation going on by an impartial, you know, international body, wouldn't it include reference to an investigation of all those parties? Tim? Absolutely. And again, if you want to consider yourself a legitimate organization, you would actually spend the time and money to investigate exactly that, what you've just mentioned. I go to, you know, again, funding to follow the money trail. And if you have the ICJ come up with a one sided preliminary report, I agree with Rumadi is that organizations rarely admit they've made a mistake or they weren't thorough in their investigation. So there's a loss of faith face that they're now, you know, looking at. So what do you do? You dig in harder. You dig deeper and you say, we didn't make a mistake and you commit to it. The old saying is stop digging when you're in a hole. And I think the ICJ probably is in that hole, but they won't admit it. So what you do is you give the future of despots of the world, I'm thinking of Donald Trump, an excuse to get out of the United Nations. You could use examples like this as a rationale to say, we shouldn't be funding United Nations and we ought to pull out because they are one sided, they're not objective, and they did a lousy job in any kind of investigation. And you give the ammunition to people like Donald Trump, if should he ever become president again, God help us. But you give that individual ammunition on this. You know, Rumadi, I want to explore one other thing. You know, in the period between October 7th and now, there have been remarks made into proof given in the press about A, how the hostages have been treated. You know that from some of the hostages, the ones we got back. And B, the human shield phenomenon, where it's not just today, it's been using all of Gaza and all of the Palestinians as part of its military operation as a human shield. And of course, taking millions and millions of dollars of world money, of international money, and misapplying that through the creation of military terror tunnels. And so, this has not been covered. People have said, many people have said that it's a war crime to put tunnels under children's beds. It's a war crime to put weapons in children's schools, preschools, if you will, and to mislead people by putting them in mosques, and so forth, and hospitals. And these are, by definition, war crimes. How come this is not being discussed? The war crimes started on October 7th. The genocidal statements have been going on since the Arab community first attacked Israel at the time of the Israeli independence, saying they wanted to kill every Jew. That's genocide. How come none of those things are before this austere court? Jay, the most genocidal statement I can tell you is from the river to the sea. That one is the most genocidal statement. That is ignored. And you had a population which was willing to shield these Hamas leaders when they had made a Reiki, that this is the area that they want to close in, and they request the civilians to move out through a route. The civilians refused. Israel was enraged because of the terror attack right into their homes. And Jay, this retaliation of the terror attack was because of the possibility of it happening again. We have discussed it time and again that this was an opportunity for them to come back if they had been left. So now calling it as genocidal statements, and the army, the heads of state are going to say that we are going to protect our people. We are going to get, do away with the terrorists. We are going to eliminate the terrorists. They will not say that we will care for the terrorists. You know, we saw the indoctrination and the social media cloak that the Hamas used of waving to the hostages and, you know, high-fiving the hostages. Israel did not indulge in that. Israel was straight talker because Israel was the victim. And Israel did not have the time or patience to do this. Hamas had to save face. Hamas had to delay tactics. So they were doing all these things. Israel spoke straight, but they gave a chance to all the civilians to go out. There was enough of humanitarian aid happening in a place which was out of Gaza. You cannot keep on supplying into Gaza. And these things have to be taken into account, Jay, that Israel has given every call, every note. They were dropping pamphlets. We remember we discussed that. They were dropping pamphlets, vacate the place. The civilians were not vacating. The children, I'm sorry to say that they were used as human shields. There was zero tolerance for the Israeli hostages. So where does that go, Jay? Nothing is discussed about this. No, it's interesting. How can you, if you're in a court like this, which is an open-ended mission, it's not like they're limited to dealing with what South Africa would like them to consider. They can open it up wide. They can examine all the facts and all the circumstances and decide exactly where the Israelis fit here. It's clear that they do not wish genocide on anybody except Hamas. And anyway, it's just really interesting that you get this kind of skew. But passing on that, going further than that, Tim, Joe Biden has supported in different degrees at different times the Israeli position. And I read you a quote of what he said to the ICJ. He supports Israel in the ICJ. Is that right? Is that what he should be doing? Is it right in terms of the morality, in terms of the proceedings, and in terms of his political troubles at home? Well, Joe Biden took it on the chin on Afghanistan. And this discussion comes up often about our support for Ukraine. And that is, if you're an ally to be counted on, you better be an ally to be counted on. And is he correct to support Israel? Yes. Particularly when there's two sides of looking of what's happened. And secondly, it's a war. And there's a lot of horrible things that go on in war. And so Joe Biden took the right position. He's an ally. We're an ally of Israel. And you and I have talked about this before, is that whoever gets the first step or the first leap on the public relations, the media relations, that message sticks to the minds of the populations of the world. It sticks, whether it's true or not, is irrelevant. It sticks. And believe me, Hamas got out there very early prepared for this. They owed saying that a lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can put on its shoes is absolutely accurate, in this case, with Hamas attack on Israel and Israel's response. All right. Let's go to final statements here, if you don't mind. Rubamata, you're first. What message would you like to leave without viewers on this subject? That the UN is still not as relevant and not as honest as it seems to be. It is absolutely one-sided judgments which are convenient to the UN is what is degrading the relevance of the UNJ. And this is once again proved in the ICJ judgment on Israel. And we see that United Nations is the only infrastructure available to humankind to negotiate on a table. So I think it should be valued and not kept on such a superficial level. I can call it superficial. Okay. And Tim, your final thoughts about where this is going. ICJ got way out above the edge, over the edge of the cliff. They need to retract, look at their preliminary report, redraft it, consider a balanced set of evidence, and report on that in their next report. If they fail to do so, then they damaged their credibility as an organization that the world really would like to see as a valid organization. That's my final thought. And one thought I have is that in this next session, if you will, of the ICJ after one month goes by, with all the evidence that the parties, especially Israel, is supposed to produce, they could, Israel could put into issue all of those other things, like what happened on October 7th? What happened with the human shields? What happened on the tunnels? What happened with the hostages? I could go on. And Israel does have the possibility, and hopefully the court will listen and expand the inquiry to cover the circumstances that surrounded this whole affair. And that would be productive. Well, thank you very much. Arrubmani Kandekar, thanks for joining us. We really appreciate it. And Tim, our co-host, thank you very much for this discussion. Very valuable. Thank you. Aloha. Aloha.