[News] Palestinians Sue Biden for Failure to Prevent Genocide, Seek Emergency Order to Stop Military and Diplomatic Support for Israeli Government’s Assault on Gaza

[Anti-Imperialist News]

ccrjustice.org
<https://ccrjustice.org/home/press-center/press-releases/palestinians-sue-biden-failure-prevent-genocide-seek-emergency>
Palestinians Sue Biden for Failure to Prevent Genocide, Seek Emergency
Order to Stop Military and Diplomatic Support for Israeli Government’s
Assault on Gaza
November 13, 2023
------------------------------
Leading Genocide and Holocaust Experts Submit Declarations in Support of
Federal Case


November 13, 2023, San Francisco – Today, Palestinians asked a federal
court to enjoin President Biden, Secretary of State Blinken, and Secretary
of Defense Austin from providing further arms, money, and diplomatic
support to Israel on grounds that there is an unfolding genocide by the
State of Israel against the civilian population of Gaza and the U.S.
officials have a legal duty to prevent, and not further, this most serious
of crimes.

Biden, Blinken, and Austin, as outlined in the complaint, are sued in their
official capacity for failing to prevent an unfolding genocide where they
have influence over the State of Israel to do so, and directly abetting its
development with weapons, funds, and diplomatic cover, in breach of duties
enshrined in the Genocide Convention and customary international law. The
filing is accompanied by a declaration from the leading legal expert on
genocide, William Schabas, who identifies features of the Israeli
government’s statements, deadly military assault, and total siege as signs
of genocide and affirms the United States’ breach of its legal duty to
prevent genocide. A separate expert declaration by the genocide and
Holocaust scholars Drs. John Cox, Victoria Sanford, and Barry Trachtenberg,
explains how the genocidal intentions and actions of Israeli leadership
resemble other genocides in recent history.

The complaint, which seeks declaratory and injunctive relief, cites the
U.S. government’s unconditional support for Israel as it bombs the people
of Gaza and deprives them of food, water, and other necessities. The
complaint states that even the crimes committed by the military wing of
Hamas on October 7th that killed an estimated 1,200 Israeli people,
including many civilians, and kidnapped 240, cannot legally justify the
forms of targeting an entire population and collective punishment meted out
by the Israeli government, let alone genocide. Since October 8th, Israel
has killed over 11,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip – mostly civilians,
including more than 4,600 children – and displaced 1.5 million. Thousands
of Palestinians remain missing, and Israel’s destruction of hospitals,
schools, and most infrastructure in Gaza – as well as intentional
deprivation of access to food, water, electricity, and medicine – has
rendered life in Gaza impossible.

“To be honest, it’s difficult to revisit all the scenes of the past weeks.
They open a door to hell when I recall them,” said *Dr. Omar Al-Najjar, a
24-year-old intern physician at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis and a
plaintiff in the case.* “I’ve lost five relatives, treated too many
children who are the sole survivors of their families, received the bodies
of my fellow medical students and their families, and seen the hospital
turn into a shelter for tens of thousands of people as we all run out of
fuel, electricity, food, and water. The U.S. has to stop this genocide.
Everyone in the world has to stop this.”

In addition to Dr. Al-Najjar, the other plaintiffs in the case are the
Palestinian human rights organizations Defense for Children
International–Palestine and Al-Haq; the individuals Ahmed Abu Artema, and
Mohammed Ahmed Abu Rokbeh, who are in Gaza; and Mohammad Monadel Herzallah,
Laila Elhaddad, Waeil Elbhassi, Basim Elkarra, and “A.N.”, who are U.S.
citizens with family in Gaza. All have had multiple family members killed,
subjected to the closure of Gaza, and displaced.

Filed on the plaintiffs’ behalf by the Center for Constitutional Rights
with the law firm of Van Der Hout, LLP, the complaint provides extensive
evidence that the acts of the Israeli government represent an unfolding
genocide, which the Genocide Convention defines as acts committed “with
intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or
religious group,” and which can be accomplished through killing, inflicting
serious bodily or mental harm upon a targeted group, or by “inflicting upon
the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical
destruction in whole or in part.” The Israeli military has targeted
civilian areas and infrastructure, including using chemical weapons, and
deprived Palestinians of basic necessities for life, the complaint says,
while dehumanizing Palestinians as “human animals” that are undeserving of
human rights protections and vowing to “eliminate everything,” making clear
the “emphasis is on damage and not accuracy.” Gaza had already been subject
to five prior bombing campaigns and a nearly 17-year military closure and
ongoing occupation that had made Gaza an open air prison.

“For the last five weeks, President Biden and Secretaries Blinken and
Austin have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with an Israeli government that has
made clear its intention to destroy the Palestinian population in Gaza. As
neighborhood after neighborhood, hospital after hospital, and sheltering
displaced Palestinians were bombed, while subject to a total siege and
closure that denies 2.2 million people basic necessities for life, they
have continued to provide both military and political support for Israel’s
unfolding genocidal campaign while imposing no red lines,”  said *Katherine
Gallagher*
<https://ccrjustice.org/home/who-we-are/staff/gallagher-katherine>*, a
senior attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights and one of the
lawyers who brought the case*. “The United States has a clear and binding
obligation to prevent, not further, genocide. They have failed in meeting
their legal and moral duty to use their considerable power to end this
horror. They must do so.”

The United States has a duty under Article 1 of the Genocide Convention to
prevent and punish acts of genocide, an obligation the U.S. Congress made
law in 1988 when it ratified the Convention and passed the Genocide
Convention Implementation Act (18 U.S.C. § 1091). The duty to prevent is
heightened given the United States’ considerable influence on Israel. The
Biden administration, plaintiffs say, is not merely failing to prevent
Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, it is actively abetting it. From the
start of the bombing, Biden has repeatedly reaffirmed, through word and
deed, “unwavering”
<https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4243691-biden-vows-us-support-for-israel-hamas-attacks/>
U.S. support.

Courts have identified the providing of weapons and other materials to the
perpetrators of genocide as a form of complicity. To be culpable, the
provider need not share the recipients’ genocidal intent.

*William Schabas, the world’s leading legal expert on genocide*, wrote in
his declaration in the case, “I conclude that there is a serious risk of
genocide committed against the Palestinian population of Gaza and that the
United States of America is in breach of its obligation, under both the
1948 Genocide Convention to which it is a party as well as customary
international law, to use its position of influence with the Government of
Israel and to take the best measures within its power to prevent the crime
taking place.”

“Palestinian children in Gaza are undoubtedly targets as repeated Israeli
military offensives destroy their homes, schools, and neighborhoods, as
Israeli forces use U.S.-made and funded weapons to kill them and their
families with impunity,” said *Khaled Quzmar, general director at Defense
for Children International – Palestine*. “While people protest in the
streets, world leaders show, day after day, that they lack the temerity to
end the catastrophic and unprecedented destruction of Palestinian life in
Gaza. We need the American people to join us to force an end to this
genocide.”

Local counsel *Marc Van Der Hout* *of the law firm of Van Der Hout, LLP*,
said, “The United States must fulfill its obligations under the Genocide
Convention and international law to prevent escalating atrocities in Gaza.
The killings and kidnappings perpetrated by Hamas on Oct 7th, horrendous as
they were, in no conceivable way justify the massacres now being
perpetrated by the State of Israel with the unconditional support and
acquiescence of the United States. The courts must now force the U.S. to
comply with its obligations under the law.”

“We have lost so many people, but there are still many more who are living,
and we owe it to them to do everything possible to stop this genocide,”
said *Mohammad Herzallah, one of the plaintiffs in the case who has family
in Gaza.* “I have done everything in my power: I have participated in
protests, sit-ins, wrote letters to my representatives, civil disobedience.
Now I am asking the courts to end this ongoing genocide.”

For more information and to read the complaint, visit the Center for
Constitutional Rights case page here
<https://ccrjustice.org/home/what-we-do/our-cases/defense-children-international-palestine-v-biden>
.

_______________________________

ccrjustice.org <https://ccrjustice.org/stop-the-genocide>
Stop the Genocide
November 13, 2023
------------------------------
*The Israeli government is committing genocide against the Palestinian
people in Gaza with unconditional U.S. support.*

Genocide is the gravest of crimes under international law. As defined by
the international Genocide Convention (1948), genocide refers to specific
actions – such as killing or deliberately inflicting conditions of life
calculated to bring about the destruction of a group in whole or in part –
taken with the intention of destroying, in whole or in part, the group
targeted, including on ethnic or national grounds.

Numerous Israeli government leaders have expressed clear genocidal
intentions and deployed dehumanizing characterizations of Palestinians,
including “human animals.” At the same time, the Israeli military has
bombed civilian areas and infrastructure, including by using chemical
weapons, and deprived Palestinians of everything necessary for human life,
including water, food, electricity, fuel, and medicine. Those statements of
intent – when combined with mass killing, causing serious bodily and mental
harm, and the total siege and closure creating conditions of life to bring
about the physical destruction of the group – reveal evidence of an
unfolding crime of genocide.

Since October 7, the Israeli government has killed at least 11,100
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, including over 4,600 children, and injured
more than 28,000. There is documented use of white phosphorus, and the
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reported that by early November, “Israel
[had] dropped more than 25,000 tons of explosives on the Gaza Strip,” the
“equivalent to two nuclear bombs.” Israel’s constant bombardments and total
closure of Gaza has resulted in the collapse of Gaza’s entire healthcare
capacity. The World Health Organization has verified 250 attacks on
hospitals, ambulances, healthcare workers and patients in Gaza and the West
Bank. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in
the Near East (UNRWA) estimates that 1.65 million people have been
internally displaced across Gaza (*statistics in this paragraph are current
as of November 13*).

The Israeli government's argument of self-defense in response to the
unlawful attacks by Hamas on October 7 that killed 1,200, including
civilians, does not absolve it from committing crimes of its own: *under
international law, there is no justification for genocide*. As as a matter
of law or morality, there can be no justification for the lethal collective
punishment and commision of the gravest of crimes – genocide – against an
entire Palestinian population. The October 7 attacks do not obviate the US’
corresponding duty to prevent the continuation of the unfolding genocide.

Leading genocide legal scholars and historians of genocide and the
Holocaust, including *William Schabas*, have identified features of the
Israeli government’s rhetoric and military response as signs of genocide:

“In the present case, there is much direct evidence in the form of
statements by senior officials and politicians in Israel indicating an
intent to destroy the people of Palestine. Furthermore, the conduct of the
State of Israel provides evidence from which genocidal intent may be
inferred. The avowed policy of depriving Gaza of water, food, medicine and
electricity, bearing in mind the rather desperate economic situation in the
territory prior to the conflict and the fact that the borders are sealed,
leaving the people of Gaza with nowhere to go, will inexorably lead to
their physical destruction. If the siege and blockade continue, there can
be no other outcome.”

Immediately after the launch of the Israeli military campaign targeting
Gaza, President Biden offered “unwavering” support for the Israeli
governement, which he and administration officials have consistently
repeated and backed up with military, financial, and political support even
as mass civilian casualties escalated alongside the Israeli government's
genocidal rhetoric.
*The United States is failing to uphold its legal obligation to prevent
genocide, and President Biden and other high-level officials are actively
aiding and abetting the Israeli government’s genocide of the Palestinian
people.*

The U.S. is a signatory to the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Congress passed the Genocide
Convention Implementation Act (18 U.S.C. § 1091) in 1988, making it federal
law. International law imposes on Biden and other high-level officials a
legal duty to prevent genocide. The United States has significant capacity
to influence Israel's actions as its primary provider of military and
political support. Therefore, the U.S. has been obligated, since learning
of the serious risk of genocide in Gaza, to exercise its considerable
influence on the Israeli government to prevent the crime.

Not only have high-level officials, President Biden, Secretary of State
Blinken, and Secretary of Defense Austin, failed to exercise their
influence to prevent genocide, but they have publicly and repeatedly
offered statements of unconditional support of the Israeli government’s
actions while pledging and providing additional military financial
assistance and equipment to Israel. They have repeatedly said Israel has
“no red lines”, continued their unconditional support, while undermining
global calls for a ceasefire. In 2023, like every year, the U.S. government
provided Israel $3.8 billion USD in unrestricted military financing. Since
the Israeli government’s indiscriminate bombardment of Palestinians in Gaza
began on October 7th, the defendants have sought approval from Congress to
provide Israel with an additional $14.1 billion USD in military hardware,
deployed aircraft carrier battle groups, and increased U.S. forces in the
region to “assist in the defense of Israel.”
*Center for Constitutional Rights Interventions*

The Center for Constitutional Rights has long challenged
<https://ccrjustice.org/node/4530> impunity for the Israeli government’s
violations of international law related to its illegal occupation of
Palestine and the U.S. support that enables Israel's violations. In
response to the Israeli govenrment's actions after October 7, we joined
other experts and legal organizations in issuing urgent warnings to the
U.S. of the unfolding genocide, yet the U.S. has stated that it is not
actively evaluating whether or not a genocide is occuring. Consequently, we
have provided legal and factual documentation to highlight the United
States’ failure to uphold its legal obligation to prevent Israeli
government's genocide, and its role in advancing the genocide.

*Lawsuit, Emergency Legal Briefing and Advocacy*

The Center for Constitutional Rights issued an Emergency Legal Briefing
Paper
<https://ccrjustice.org/israel-s-unfolding-crime-genocide-palestinian-people-us-failure-prevent-and-complicity-genocide>
in the first weeks after the attacks began. We shared this analysis with
national and international stakeholders to provide evidence of the genocide
against the Palestinian population in Gaza and U.S. complicity in it and to
urge them to take all measures to stop the crimes, to call for an immediate
ceasefire, and to end U.S. military, economic, and diplomatic support of
the Israeli government's violations.

On November 13, the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a federal
lawsuit, *Defense for Children International—Palestine, et al. v. . Joseph
Biden, et al.*
<https://ccrjustice.org/home/what-we-do/our-cases/defense-children-international-palestine-v-biden>,
on behalf of Palestinian human rights organizations and Palestinians in
Gaza and the U.S. Plaintiffs are suing President Biden, Secretary of State
Blinken, and Defense Secretary Austin for their failure to prevent and
complicity in the  Israeli government’s unfolding genocide against them,
their families, and the 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza. The case against
the three high-level U.S. officials argues that they are violating
international law, including those codified in the 1948 Genocide Convention
and the corresponding Genocide Convention Implementation Act (18 U.S.C. §
1091) passed by the U.S. Congress in 1988.

The lawsuit situates the unfolding genocide within a history of Israeli
actions against the Palestinian people - starting with the Nakba in 1948.
It sets out how Defendants Biden, Blinken, and Austin have not only failed
to prevent the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza but have helped
advance the gravest of crimes by continuing to provide the Israeli
government with unconditional military and diplomatic support, coordinating
closely on military strategy, and undermining efforts by the international
community to stop Israel’s unrelenting and unprecedented bombing campaign
and total siege of Gaza.

Plaintiffs are filing this federal complaint for declaratory and injunctive
relief asking the court to declare that these U.S. officials have failed to
prevent genocide and are aiding and abetting genocide, and to order an end
to U.S. military and diplomatic support to Israel. The lawsuit is
accompanied by a preliminary injunction (PI) motion, which seeks an
emergency order to prohibit any further U.S. military and diplomatic
support to the Israeli government while the case is being considered.
------------------------------

*Lawsuit*

   - Case page: *Defense for Children—Palestine v. Joseph Biden, et al*.
   <https://ccrjustice.org/home/what-we-do/our-cases/defense-children-international-palestine-v-biden>
   - November 13 Press Release <https://ccrjustice.org/node/10103>
   - One-pager
   <https://ccrjustice.org/sites/default/files/attach/2023/11/One-pager_DCIP-v-Biden_Genocide_Complaint_2023-11-13.pdf>
   about the lawsuit

*Media*

   - Jason Stanley, *My life has been defined by genocide of Jewish people.
   I look on Gaza with concern
   <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/11/my-life-has-been-defined-by-genocide-of-jewish-people-i-look-on-gaza-with-concern>*,
   Guardian (Nov. 11)
   - *Israel’s unfolding crime of genocide of the Palestinian people & U.S.
   failure to prevent and complicity in genocide*
   <https://lawanddisorder.org/2023/11/law-and-disorder-november-6-2023/>,
   Law and Disorder Radio (Nov. 6)
   - *Attorneys warn Biden's support for Israeli assault on Gaza could make
   him complicit in genocide*
   <https://www.commondreams.org/news/biden-complicit-genocide>, Common
   Dreams (Oct. 20)
   - *Going all-in for Israel may make Biden complicit in genocide,*
   <https://theintercept.com/2023/10/19/israel-gaza-biden-genocide-war-crimes/>
   The Intercept (Oct. 19)
   - *UN experts sound genocide alarm over Gaza*
   <https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/un-experts-sound-genocide-alarm-over-gaza>,
   Electronic Intifada (Oct. 19)


*Additional Center for Constitutional Rights Resources*

   - Resource page: Israel’s Unfolding Crime of Genocide of the Palestinian
   People & U.S. Failure to Prevent and Complicity in Genocide
   <https://ccrjustice.org/israel-s-unfolding-crime-genocide-palestinian-people-us-failure-prevent-and-complicity-genocide>
   - Emergency Legal Briefing Paper (PDF): Israel’s Unfolding Crime of
   Genocide of the Palestinian People & U.S. Failure to Prevent and Complicity
   in Genocide
   <https://ccrjustice.org/sites/default/files/attach/2023/10/Israels-Unfolding-Crime_ww.pdf>
   (October 2023)
   - FAQ: Israel's Unfolding Crime of Genocide in Gaza
   <https://ccrjustice.org/sites/default/files/attach/2023/11/FAQ%20-%20Israeli%20Genocide%20in%20Palestine%20%282%29.pdf>
   - Case page: Accountability for International Crimes in Palestine
   <https://ccrjustice.org/node/8604>
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