[News] “I Have Lost Everything”: In Federal Court, Palestinians Accuse Biden of Complicity in Genocide

[Anti-Imperialist News]

theintercept.com
<https://theintercept.com/2024/01/26/palestinians-biden-genocide-lawsuit-ccr/>
“I"I Have Lost Everything”: In Federal Court, Palestinians Accuse Biden of
Complicity in Genocide
Alice Speri
January 26, 2024
------------------------------

In a momentous day for the quest to keep Israel and its allies accountable
for its brutal war on Gaza, members of leading Palestinian human rights
groups, residents of Gaza, and Palestinian Americans argued in a U.S.
District Court on Friday that the Biden administration should halt its
financial and military support for Israel and uphold its obligations to
prevent genocide.

The arguments came in a lawsuitOpens in a new tab
<https://ccrjustice.org/sites/default/files/attach/2023/11/Complaint_DCI-Pal-v-Biden_w.pdf>
that the Center for Constitutional Rights, or CCR, filed in November
against President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Defense
Secretary Lloyd Austin, charging them with complicity and failure to
prevent the “unfolding genocide” in the occupied strip. Testifying either
in person at the Oakland, California, courthouse or remotely from
Palestine, the plaintiffs spoke for nearly three hours about the deliberate
devastation wrought by Israel in the aftermath of the October 7 Hamas
attacks.

The hearing commenced hours after the International Court of Justice in The
Hague found that it’s plausible that Israel has committed acts of genocide
in Gaza, in a case brought by South Africa. While the United Nations court
fell short of ordering an immediate ceasefire, a panel of judges delivered
a historic set of rulings
<https://theintercept.com/2024/01/26/icj-ruling-gaza-genocide/> and denied
Israel’s request to dismiss the case. A final resolution in that case is
expected to take years.

Lawyers involved with the lawsuit playing out in federal court said that
the ICJ ruling bolsters their case. Their lawsuit argues that Biden,
Blinken, and Austin are liable under U.S. lawOpens in a new tab
<https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual-19-genocide-18-usc-1091#:~:text=Section%201091%20of%20Title%2018,%2C%20racial%2C%20or%20religious%20group.>
for failing to uphold their obligation to prevent genocide in Gaza. In
Oakland, dozens of people lined up outside the courthouse hours before the
hearing on Friday, according to organizers on the ground, while the Zoom
stream reached its capacity of 1,000 people tuning in.

The Biden administration has maintained that genocide allegations against
Israel are “meritless” and “unhelpful” while on Friday, U.S. government
attorneys argued the court has no standing to decide on what they say is a
matter of foreign policy. Plaintiffs meanwhile, including several
Palestinian Americans, spoke powerfully about the need for the U.S.
government to take immediate action to save lives.

In the last three months, Israel’s has killed at least 25,000 Palestinians
— one in every 100 residentsOpens in a new tab
<https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/08/middleeast/gaza-death-toll-population-intl/index.html>
of Gaza.

Laila el-Haddad, a Palestinian American writer and one of the plaintiffs in
the case, described her neighborhood being reduced to “a large pile of
sand” and the killing of dozens of her relatives, including some who were
buried in mass graves.

“My family is being killed on my dime,” she told the court. “President
Biden could, with one phone call, put an end to this.”
[image: ZAWAIDA, DEIR AL-BALAH, GAZA - JANUARY 20: A view of devastation
due to Israeli attacks as Palestinians, who had returned to the area, try
to gather salvageable belongings from the debris of their destroyed homes
in Zawaida region of Deir Al-Balah, Gaza on January 20, 2024. Israeli air
attacks inflicted significant devastation on the infrastructure and
residential structures in the targeted area, exacerbating the challenges
faced by the residents of Deir Al-Balah city in the Gaza Strip. (Photo by
Ashraf Amra/Anadolu via Getty Images)]

A view of devastation due to Israeli attacks as Palestinians, who had
returned to the area, try to gather salvageable belongings from the debris
of their destroyed homes in the Al-Zawaida region of Deir Al-Balah, Gaza,
on Jan. 20, 2024.
Photo: Ashraf Amra/Anadolu via Getty Images Questions of Law

At the hearing, U.S. Judge Jeffrey S. White went to some length to state
the impact of Israel’s war on Palestinian civilians and the U.S.
government’s support for it but indicated the case might ultimately hinge
on questions of jurisdiction.

“The Palestinian people are living in fear and without food, medical care,
clean water, or sufficient humanitarian aid. Defendants — the president of
the United States and his secretaries of state and defense — have provided
substantial military, financial, and diplomatic support to Israel,” he
said.

“However, the primary concern for this court is the limitation of its own
jurisdictional reach.”

He later described the case as one of the “the most difficult” of his
career. “You have been seen, you have been heard by this court,” he told
the plaintiffs. “I’m going to take it extremely seriously.”

CCR and Justice Department attorneys deliberated for more than an hour
about the court’s standing to hear the case. Attorneys for the plaintiffs
referenced a different legal case accusing Russia of genocide in Ukraine,
which the U.S. government has supported, to point to the Biden
administration’s awareness of its responsibility to take steps to prevent
genocide.

Katherine Gallagher, a senior attorney at CCR, stressed that the case is
not a “wholesale challenge to U.S. military support to Israel.”

“This case does not present the court with a political question,” she
added. “These are not questions of policy. These are questions of law.”

Justice Department attorney Jean Lin, for her part, referenced a legal
concept known as the “political question doctrine” to argue the court has
no authority over foreign policy matters. “It’s a long-standing doctrine
that the court has no jurisdiction to enjoin the president in his exercise
of official duties,” she said.

“This court is not the proper forum,” she said in her closing remarks.

“Judges and courts have roles to play in enforcing and making real this
duty that all of us in this world have to prevent a genocide,” CCR senior
attorney Pamela Spees said in her closing remarks. “And the government’s
only response is to say to this court that it can’t even engage with the
question.”
“Everything Has Been Destroyed”

The legal argument was followed by nearly three hours of testimony by the
plaintiffs, which include the human rights groups Defense for Children
International – Palestine and Al-Haq, as well as Gaza residents Ahmed Abu
Artema, the founder of the 2018 Great March of Return; Omar Al-Najjar, a
24-year-old doctor; and Mohammed Ahmed Abu Rokbeh, all of whom have lost
many relatives since the war started. The plaintiffs also include
Palestinian Americans whose families in Gaza have been subjected to a
relentless bombing campaign by Israel.

Al-Najjar called into the hearing from a hospital hallway in Rafah, on the
border with Egypt. Wearing scrubs, he described a medical infrastructure
that is overwhelmed and on the brink of collapse, heavy shelling and gun
fighting near medical facilities, and medical workers coming under attack
in areas the Israeli military had declared safe.

“I have lost everything in this war … I have nothing but my grief,” he told
the court. “This is what Israel and its supporters have done to us.”

Ahmed Abofoul, a Palestinian lawyer and legal researcher at Al-Haq,
testified from the courthouse that he lost 60 relatives on his father’s
side of the family alone, 15 in a single airstrike, and that many of their
bodies remain under the rubble. His cousin, he said, has been unable to
retrieve the bodies of his five children, as the Israeli military fires at
him whenever he tries to approach his destroyed home. Abofoul described not
being able to get in touch with some family members after the war started
and other relatives, including children, with no access to food and water.

“People are struggling to have anything to survive on,” he said. “Those who
survive the bombing most likely will not survive staying in this
condition.”

Abofoul also put the current onslaught in the context of the forced
displacement of Palestinians since the 1948 establishment of the state of
Israel. Pleading with his grandfather to evacuate to a different part of
the territory after the war started, Abofoul’s relatives reassured the
grandfather he would eventually return home. “That is exactly what they
told me in 1948,” he responded, echoing fears by tens of thousands of
displaced Palestinians that Israel is seeking to drive them out for good.

Schools, universities, churches, and even Gaza’s archives were destroyed in
the ongoing war, Abofoul added. “Everything has been destroyed,” he said,
“The Gaza that we know no longer exists.”

El-Haddad, the writer, told the court that she felt an obligation as an
American to bring the lawsuit against the Biden administration and that
hearing “our president not only actively support this, but cast doubt on
the deaths of my family members and other college students in Gaza” had
made her feel “dehumanized” and “completely invisible.”

“I felt it was my duty as an American whose taxes and government have been
directly responsible for the deaths of my family,” she added. “My
government is complicit in this ongoing genocide against my family and the
destruction of everything that I knew and I loved.”

Barry Trachtenberg, a professor of Jewish history and author of two books
about the Holocaust, testified as an expert witness in the case – over
repeated objections from Justice Department attorneys. When he filed his
declaration in the case in November, he said, some 11,000 Palestinians had
been killed. Today, that number is far greater.

“Everything that we feared and more is unfolding,” he said, noting that
often, legal actions about genocide happen long after the fact. “What makes
this situation so unique is that we’re watching the genocide unfold as we
speak. And we’re in this incredibly unique position where we can actually
intervene to stop it using the mechanisms of international law that are
available to us.”
[image: NAIROBI, KENYA - 2023/10/10: A screenshot of United States
President Joe Biden delivering a live televised address on the Gaza-Israel
conflict - a split screen showing victims of Israeli retaliation from
Hama's surprise attack on October 7, being rushed to hospital in Gaza.
President Biden reaffirmed United States unwavering support for Israel,
emphasizing that his government will ensure Israel will not run out of
military assets to defend itself. (Photo by James Wakibia/SOPA
Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)]

A screenshot of U.S. President Joe Biden delivering a live televised
address on Israel’s war on Gaza on Oct. 10, 2023.
Photo: James Wakibia/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images A Historic
Case

CCR’s 89-page complaintOpens in a new tab
<https://ccrjustice.org/sites/default/files/attach/2023/11/Complaint_DCI-Pal-v-Biden_w.pdf>
lays out, in painstaking detail, statements of genocidal intent by Israeli
officials, paired with affirmations by U.S. officials that they would back
Israel’s war effort with every tool at their disposal.

“The highest level of Israel’s senior political and military leadership
made statements on October 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, laying out that they
intended, in effect, to destroy Gaza,” Gallagher, a senior staff attorney
at CCR and one of the lead attorneys on the case, said on Intercepted
<https://theintercept.com/2024/01/17/intercepted-gaza-israel-genocide-icj/>
last week. “And as the statements of intent were being made, senior levels
of the United States government — including President Biden, Secretary of
State Blinken, and Secretary of Defense Austin — were likewise making
declarations about their intentions in the coming days, weeks, months … And
that was to give unconditional and complete support to Israel.”

Under international law, the crime of genocide is defined as the intention
to destroy or partially destroy a group of people based on their ethnic,
religious, racial, or national identity, either by direct killing or by the
creation of conditions making life impossible. While Israel has for decades
flaunted international law standards and ignored rebukes, including by the
ICJ, the Israeli government’s actions in the aftermath of the Hamas attacks
were “qualitatively different,” Gallagher said.

Two days after the attacks, Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant ordered
mass war crimes
<https://theintercept.com/2023/10/09/israel-hamas-war-crimes-palestinians/>
when he announced “a complete siege of the Gaza Strip,” which is home to
2.2 million Palestinians, nearly half of them children. “There will be no
electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed,” he said then, a
threat that Israel has since largely delivered on. “We are fighting human
animals, and we act accordingly.”

As Israel unleashed an onslaught that quickly outpaced any recent
conflictsOpens
in a new tab
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2023/israel-war-destruction-gaza-record-pace/>
for the number and pace of deaths, human rights groups warned the Biden
administration
<https://theintercept.com/2023/10/19/israel-gaza-biden-genocide-war-crimes/>
that its unconditional support for Israel risked making it complicit in the
crime of genocide.

Josh Paul, a former senior State Department official who resigned over the
Biden administration’s support for the war on Gaza and filed a declaration
in support of the CCR case, said on Friday morning, “Since October 7th,
we’ve seen a sharp increase in the transfer of arms to Israel both through
the speeding up of previously authorized transfers and through the ramming
through Congress of so-called emergency sales of thousands of rounds of
tanks, ammunition, and alternative shells.”

“The U.S. has likely transferred munitions totaling in the tens of
thousands since October 7 to Israel,” he added, speaking at a briefing CCR
hosted on Friday morning. “This also demonstrates, I think, the significant
amount of leverage that we have if we wanted to push Israel to end or
curtail its operations in Gaza.”

“None of this could be done without the U.S. government,” echoed Ata Hindi,
a lawyer who helped draft an amicus brief in support of the lawsuit on
behalf of the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee, at the event
preceding the hearing. “It’s for the United States to say whether or not,
through its weapons in particular, whether or not this genocide continues.”

The Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee, he noted, was “drowned” in
complaints by Palestinian Americans who accused the U.S. government of
discriminating against them. “It’s unfortunate to see how little the U.S.
government in particular has paid attention to these American citizens and
their families,” said Hindi. “And we hope that the court will do something
to change that.”

The lawsuit has garnered significant international attention, with 77 legal
and civil society groups from around the world backing
<https://theintercept.com/2024/01/10/biden-israel-genocide-lawsuit/> it in
a late December briefing to the court. They argued that the U.S. is
violating its duties under international law to prevent and not be
complicit in genocide, contributing to the erosion of “long and widely-held
norms of international law,” like the Genocide Convention and Universal
Declaration of Human Rights.

The U.S. federal case is one of a number of legal efforts stemming from
Israel’s war on Gaza. In another U.S. lawsuit, Palestinian Americans have
accused the administrationOpens in a new tab
<https://www.reuters.com/world/palestinian-americans-sue-biden-administration-over-relatives-stuck-gaza-2023-12-15/>
of failing to protect U.S. citizens in Gaza and denying them equal
protection, a constitutional right. That lawsuit argues that U.S. officials
have not done as much to evacuate U.S. citizens trapped in Gaza as they did
for Israeli Americans.

One-third of Americans — and nearly half of the country’s Democrats —
believe Israel is committing genocide in Palestine.

In addition to South Africa’s genocide case against Israel before the ICJ,
a group of South African lawyers have also indicated their intentOpens in a
new tab <https://twitter.com/IsmailAbramjee/status/1744748556907405758>,
pending the court’s early rulings, to bring civil action against the U.S.
and British governments over their support for Israel’s actions. Other
countries have also filed separate complaintsOpens in a new tab
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/slovenia-joins-icj-motion-against-israeli-practices-in-west-bank-gaza-e-jerusalem/>
against Israel before the ICJ.

The cascading cases against Israel are a remarkable development for a
country that has for decades acted with impunity, largely thanks to
unwavering U.S. support. In a further sign of waning support, a poll Opens
in a new tab
<https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/24/americans-believe-israel-committing-genocide-poll>released
this week issued its own verdict: One-third of Americans — and nearly half
of the country’s Democrats — believe Israel is committing genocide in
Palestine.
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