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    <p><font size="1"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/12/31/the-legal-fight-to-end-genocide-in-gaza/">https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/12/31/the-legal-fight-to-end-genocide-in-gaza/</a></font><br>
    </p>
    <div class="moz-forward-container">December 31, 2023 - <span
        class="post_author_intro">by</span> <span class="post_author"><a
          href="https://www.counterpunch.org/author/bra3hevuna/"
          rel="nofollow">Susie Day</a></span>
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                        <hr>
                        <div style="text-align: center;"><br>
                          <strong>“SOLIDARITY WILL SAVE US – ALL OF US”:
                            NADIA BEN-YOUSSEF ON THE LEGAL FIGHT TO END
                            GENOCIDE IN GAZA <br>
                          </strong></div>
                        <div style="text-align: center;"><strong></strong><img
                            aria-describedby="caption-attachment-309170"
                            class="wp-image-309170 size-medium"
src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Screenshot-2023-12-28-at-9.44.15 AM-680x441.png"
                            alt="" width="494" height="320"><br>
                          <font size="1">Source: ISM.</font></div>
                        <br>
                        Long before October 7 — from at least the 1948
                        Nakba to this past September, when Benjamin
                        Netanyahu showed the UN General Assembly a map
                        of “The New Middle East” cleansed of Palestine –
                        it’s been clear to large swaths of the world
                        that the state of Israel has explicitly targeted
                        Palestinians for genocide. Now, virtually <em>all
                        </em>of the world is convinced, seeing Israel’s
                        relentless massacre of growing thousands of
                        Gazan “human animals,” that genocide is indeed
                        happening. Preventing genocide – a covenant that
                        it should “never happen again” – is a
                        fundamental concept of international law. The
                        question is, <em>In the case of Palestine, does
                          genocide matter?</em><br>
                        <br>
                        At the Center for Constitutional Rights in New
                        York City, Advocacy Director Nadia Ben-Youssef,
                        with the rest of CCR’s staff, has been giving
                        her all to stopping the lethal flow of Israeli
                        power. Nadia fights, not just with a militant
                        determination, but also in a kind of quest for
                        humanitarian wisdom. <span dir="RTL">“</span>What’s
                        the best work we can do; our highest
                        contribution to this moment?” she asks. <span
                          dir="RTL">“</span>It feels clear that naming
                        the unfolding genocide matters. And, because
                        we’re in the United States, the key is focusing
                        on the U.S. role."<br>
                        <br type="_moz">
                        The result is <a
href="http://mail01.tinyletterapp.com/Snidelines/the-legal-fight-to-end-genocide-in-gaza-nadia-ben-youssef-on-why-solidarity-will-save-us-all-of-us/22992217-ccrjustice.org/sites/default/files/attach/2023/11/complaint_dci-pal-v-biden_w.pdf?c=8620623b-65a0-7fdd-c7da-e0a5d6d3d088"
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                          moz-do-not-send="true"><em>Defense for
                            Children International-Palestine v. Biden</em></a>,
                        a lawsuit filed in U.S. federal court on
                        November 13, charging President Biden, Secretary
                        of State Anthony Blinken, and Defense Secretary
                        Lloyd Austin with failure to prevent and
                        complicity in the genocide of Palestinians in
                        Gaza. Plaintiffs named are two Palestinian human
                        rights organizations, <a
href="http://mail01.tinyletterapp.com/Snidelines/the-legal-fight-to-end-genocide-in-gaza-nadia-ben-youssef-on-why-solidarity-will-save-us-all-of-us/22992221-www.alhaq.org/?c=8620623b-65a0-7fdd-c7da-e0a5d6d3d088"
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                          moz-do-not-send="true">Al-Haq</a> and <a
href="http://mail01.tinyletterapp.com/Snidelines/the-legal-fight-to-end-genocide-in-gaza-nadia-ben-youssef-on-why-solidarity-will-save-us-all-of-us/22992225-www.dci-palestine.org/?c=8620623b-65a0-7fdd-c7da-e0a5d6d3d088"
style="mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;text-decoration: none;color: #3466CC !important;"
                          moz-do-not-send="true">Defense of Children
                          International-Palestine</a>; three individual
                        Palestinians in Gaza; and five Palestinians in
                        the U.S. with family in Gaza. Three days after
                        filing this suit, CCR followed up with a
                        preliminary <a
href="http://mail01.tinyletterapp.com/Snidelines/the-legal-fight-to-end-genocide-in-gaza-nadia-ben-youssef-on-why-solidarity-will-save-us-all-of-us/22992229-ccrjustice.org/sites/default/files/attach/2023/11/pi-20motion_w.pdf?c=8620623b-65a0-7fdd-c7da-e0a5d6d3d088"
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                          moz-do-not-send="true">injunction</a>,
                        demanding a ceasefire and an end to military and
                        financial aid to Israel. I talked with Nadia
                        about her work in all this.<br>
                        <br>
                        <strong>Nadia Ben-Youssef: </strong>I come from
                        a legacy of refugees and revolutionaries. My <a
href="http://mail01.tinyletterapp.com/Snidelines/the-legal-fight-to-end-genocide-in-gaza-nadia-ben-youssef-on-why-solidarity-will-save-us-all-of-us/22992233-thefunambulist.net/magazine/forest-struggles/listening-to-our-revolutionary-ghosts-resisting-anti-black-racism-and-comprador-colonialism-in-tunisia?c=8620623b-65a0-7fdd-c7da-e0a5d6d3d088"
style="mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;text-decoration: none;color: #3466CC !important;"
                          moz-do-not-send="true">grandfather</a> was a
                        freedom fighter in Tunisia in the anticolonial
                        struggle against France, and part of a global
                        movement against colonialism. In 1961, he was
                        assassinated by order of Habib Bourguiba,
                        Tunisia’s first president, and my family became
                        political refugees in Egypt. We remained there
                        until 1987, when Bourguiba was deposed by Ben
                        Ali.<br>
                        So my worldview has been defined by struggles
                        for justice and liberation from fascism, from
                        colonialism. This has been both a deep knowing
                        and a profound question of my life. I went to
                        law school, looking for a powerful tool to
                        confront injustice – and recognized early on
                        that the law is not a powerful tool; it’s a tool
                        of the powerful, used to preserve the status quo
                        of colonialism, capitalism, white supremacy, of
                        hetero-patriarchy. During law school I became
                        interested in the issue of Palestinian refugees,
                        seeing there was the Palestine exception – that
                        there’s a whole world of refugee law, nothing of
                        which applies to Palestine. I went to Palestine
                        in 2010, seeing it as a battleground for human
                        rights, and worked with Adalah - The Legal
                        Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel.<br>
                        <br>
                        I returned to the U.S. in the summer of 2014.
                        That summer – with the murder of Mike Brown in
                        Ferguson, the uprisings, and another military
                        assault on Gaza, “Operation Protective Edge” –
                        was a crucial shift of advocacy on Palestine. I
                        knew we needed to integrate Palestine into the
                        vibrant social movements that were emerging and
                        reinventing. In the United States, there were
                        cross-movement connections between marginalized
                        communities and Palestinians, the resurgence of
                        the Black and Palestinian solidarity struggle. I
                        got a kind of clarity at that point that
                        solidarity is what would save us, all of us.<br>
                        <br>
                        I started work at the Center for Constitutional
                        Rights in January 2019. Soon after, I was in DC,
                        with members of Palestinian civil society,
                        meeting the Squad, who’d just been elected,
                        making these connections, and thinking how very
                        few organizations – very zero, except for CCR –
                        were taking a principled stand on Palestinian
                        liberation.<br>
                        <br>
                        <strong>sd:</strong> <em>So, in international
                          law, Palestinians don’t have a right of
                          return, but other groups do? </em><br>
                        <br>
                        <strong>Nadia Ben-Youssef:</strong> Yes.
                        Generally, there’s many international human
                        rights protections for refugees. Refugee law is
                        a powerfully established body of international
                        law that protects people who flee their
                        countries to escape war, persecution, natural
                        disaster, etc. You don’t lose your right to your
                        homeland if you leave those borders. And, while
                        there’s an important UN Resolution (194) aiming
                        to protect Palestinian refugees, there’s also a
                        disconnect between the world of refugee law and
                        how the law is applied to Palestinians. The
                        right of return, of a guaranteed freedom of
                        movement, to leave, to return, to stay — all
                        that is denied to Palestinians.<br>
                        <br>
                        After the Nakba, the international community
                        established a new, special agency, the UN
                        Refugee and Works Agency [UNRWA], specifically
                        for Palestinian refugees in a particular
                        geographic area. This was separate from the UN
                        High Commissioner for Refugees [UNHCR], which
                        handles all other cases of forced migration or
                        displacement. But what may have been intended as
                        an additional level of protection for
                        Palestinian refugees has actually set the
                        Palestinian refugee question apart from
                        established law that guarantees a right of
                        return. It says, in effect, <em>You’re not like
                          other refugees</em>. Part of our job is to
                        insist on universal applicability of
                        international human rights standards and norms.
                        But of course the U.S. and Israel are
                        professionals at suspending international law
                        and taking themselves outside their scope.<br>
                        <br>
                        <strong>sd:</strong> <em>Why has CCR decided to
                          use international law, and not U.S. domestic
                          law, to stop genocide in Palestine?</em><br>
                        <br>
                        <strong>Nadia Ben-Youssef:</strong> CCR is a
                        political organization that uses the law –
                        whether domestic law, international human rights
                        law [IHRL], or international humanitarian law
                        [IHL] – to stand with communities under threat.
                        In this case, the obligation to prevent and not
                        be complicit in genocide – even though it’s also
                        codified in the Genocide Convention – is known
                        as customary international law, which is law
                        that is so well-established that obligations
                        exist, even if a state hasn’t signed onto a
                        particular human rights treaty.<br>
                        <br>
                        December 9 of this year marked the 75th
                        anniversary of the <a
href="http://mail01.tinyletterapp.com/Snidelines/the-legal-fight-to-end-genocide-in-gaza-nadia-ben-youssef-on-why-solidarity-will-save-us-all-of-us/22992237-www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/doc.1_convention-20on-20the-20prevention-20and-20punishment-20of-20the-20crime-20of-20genocide.pdf?c=8620623b-65a0-7fdd-c7da-e0a5d6d3d088"
style="mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;text-decoration: none;color: #3466CC !important;"
                          moz-do-not-send="true">Genocide Convention</a>
                        – the first international human rights treaty
                        ever established, followed the next day by the
                        Universal Declaration of Human Rights. What’s
                        significant is that the U.S. has not only signed
                        the Genocide Convention; it’s also taken steps
                        to ratify it by implementing the Convention into
                        international law.<br>
                        <br>
                        Generally, the United States doesn’t like to do
                        that. Domestic implementation of human rights
                        mechanisms is not something it usually does
                        because, of course, U.S. exceptionalism is key
                        to U.S. foreign policy. However, in 1988, the
                        U.S. passed the <a
href="http://mail01.tinyletterapp.com/Snidelines/the-legal-fight-to-end-genocide-in-gaza-nadia-ben-youssef-on-why-solidarity-will-save-us-all-of-us/22992241-www.govinfo.gov/app/details/uscode-2011-title18/uscode-2011-title18-parti-chap50a-sec1091?c=8620623b-65a0-7fdd-c7da-e0a5d6d3d088"
style="mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;text-decoration: none;color: #3466CC !important;"
                          moz-do-not-send="true">Genocide Convention
                          Implementation Act</a> that enabled the U.S.
                        to become a full signatory of the Genocide
                        Convention. Biden, at the time a senator, was a
                        cosponsor. So the case relies on both customary
                        international law and U.S. federal law.<br>
                        <br>
                        <strong>sd:</strong> <em>The U.S. and Israel
                          have both signed and ratified the Genocide
                          Convention?</em><br>
                        <br>
                        <strong>Nadia Ben-</strong><strong>Youssef</strong>:
                        Yes.<br>
                        <br>
                        <strong>sd:</strong> <em>You’re using
                          international law, but you’ve chosen to file
                          your Complaint in a domestic court. Why?</em><br>
                        <br>
                        <strong>Nadia Ben-Youssef:</strong> There’s many
                        reasons for that. It’s not to say we won’t
                        pursue international tribunals – CCR has a long
                        history of doing work before the International
                        Criminal Court and the International Court of
                        Justice. But such work is often
                        backward-looking, at crimes already committed.
                        Our obligation is do everything we can now to
                        pressure the Biden administration to stop its
                        support of Israel’s ongoing genocide. And there
                        are plaintiffs here – Palestinians in the United
                        States with families in Gaza – who, together
                        with Palestinians in Gaza and Palestinian human
                        rights organizations, are being harmed by U.S.
                        actions. The law and the facts give us an
                        opening in U.S. federal court.<br>
                        <br>
                        <strong>sd:</strong> <em>How did you choose
                          Biden, Blinken, and Austin as your defendants?</em><br>
                        <br>
                        <strong>Nadia Ben-Youssef:</strong> That’s the
                        question: Who has the ultimate authority; who
                        creates the conditions and gives the green light
                        to Israel to go ahead with its genocide?
                        Obviously, President Biden. But similarly,
                        Secretary of State Blinken, who’s advancing the
                        administration’s interests along with those of
                        Netanyahu’s Israeli war cabinet; and Secretary
                        of Defense Lloyd Austin. There was definitely
                        debate around naming individuals like Kamala
                        Harris, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Linda
                        Thomas-Greenfield, National Security Council
                        Coordinator John Kirby – all of whom are
                        mentioned in the <a
href="http://mail01.tinyletterapp.com/Snidelines/the-legal-fight-to-end-genocide-in-gaza-nadia-ben-youssef-on-why-solidarity-will-save-us-all-of-us/22992217-ccrjustice.org/sites/default/files/attach/2023/11/complaint_dci-pal-v-biden_w.pdf?c=8620623b-65a0-7fdd-c7da-e0a5d6d3d088"
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                          moz-do-not-send="true">Complaint</a>. We
                        wanted them for the historical record. But
                        you'll see, throughout the Complaint, the level
                        of complicity is so strong – it felt compelling
                        to narrow in on these three defendants.<br>
                        <br>
                        <strong>sd:</strong> <em>You end your Complaint
                          with a “Prayer for Relief,” asking these
                          defendants to stop what they’re doing. Isn’t
                          there some way you could also demand
                          accountability, reparation?</em><br>
                        <br>
                        <strong>Nadia Ben-Youssef:</strong> This is the
                        difference between a civil and a criminal
                        complaint. CCR’s is a civil complaint, asking
                        the court to intervene to stop what’s happening.
                        In the future, definitely – there<span dir="RTL">’</span>s
                        no statute of limitations for the crime of
                        genocide. That opens the door for endless work
                        with regard to accountability and repair, to
                        efforts against these and other defendants. But
                        the urgency now is about stopping the harm.
                        Meanwhile, <a
href="http://mail01.tinyletterapp.com/Snidelines/the-legal-fight-to-end-genocide-in-gaza-nadia-ben-youssef-on-why-solidarity-will-save-us-all-of-us/22992245-www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/9/three-rights-groups-file-icc-lawsuit-against-israel-over-gaza-genocide?c=8620623b-65a0-7fdd-c7da-e0a5d6d3d088"
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                          moz-do-not-send="true">partners in Palestine</a>
                        have continued years of work before the
                        International Criminal Court, asking the
                        Prosecutor to arrest Israeli officials
                        responsible for the genocide, as another means
                        to stop this crime of crimes.<br>
                        <br>
                        <strong>sd: </strong><em>How much of your case
                          rests on the court’s accepting your definition
                          of genocide?</em><br>
                        <br>
                        <strong>Nadia Ben-Youssef:</strong> In fact, the
                        case doesn’t at all rest on proving genocide.
                        Whether genocide – which is a very
                        fact-intensive endeavor to prove – has been
                        committed or not, is not something for the
                        moment to consider. What’s important is whether
                        the U.S. has a duty and an obligation, under
                        both U.S. law and customary international law,
                        to <em>prevent</em> genocide and to not be
                        complicit. We received powerful declarations
                        from leading genocide experts like <a
href="http://mail01.tinyletterapp.com/Snidelines/the-legal-fight-to-end-genocide-in-gaza-nadia-ben-youssef-on-why-solidarity-will-save-us-all-of-us/22992249-ccrjustice.org/sites/default/files/attach/2023/11/declaration-20expert-20william-20schabas_w.pdf?c=8620623b-65a0-7fdd-c7da-e0a5d6d3d088"
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                          moz-do-not-send="true">William Schabas</a>.
                        While Schabas is typically conservative in his
                        analysis, he nonetheless felt compelled to speak
                        about this as an unfolding genocide, noting the
                        U.S.’s obligation to prevent it.<br>
                        <br>
                        <strong>sd:</strong> <em>Schabas cites </em>Ukraine
                        v. Russian Federation<em>, </em><em>now before
                          the ICC, in which the United States appears to
                        </em><a
href="http://mail01.tinyletterapp.com/Snidelines/the-legal-fight-to-end-genocide-in-gaza-nadia-ben-youssef-on-why-solidarity-will-save-us-all-of-us/22992253-www.loc.gov/item/global-legal-monitor/2022-09-15/united-states-department-of-state-files-declaration-of-intervention-to-international-court-of-justice-in-ukraine-v-russian-federation-genocide-matter/?c=8620623b-65a0-7fdd-c7da-e0a5d6d3d088"
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                          moz-do-not-send="true"><em>accuse Russia of
                            genocide</em></a><em> in Ukraine.</em><br>
                        <br>
                        <strong>Nadia Ben-Youssef</strong>: Back to the
                        early part of this conversation: the U.S. does
                        not apply human rights obligations and
                        international law obligations universally. It’s
                        a reflection of a terribly unjust world order
                        that’s created categories of human beings who
                        are and are not valued. It’s really an
                        indictment of whether the U.S. respects
                        international law and human rights at all.<br>
                        <br>
                         <strong>sd: </strong><em>About “international
                          law”: we assume that it’s democratic and
                          universal, and can somehow correct whatever
                          atrocity is occurring: </em>“You can’t do
                        that; it<span dir="RTL">’</span>s against
                        international law!”<em> But in fact,
                          international law is a system outside the
                          legal order of any country. The UN has no
                          power to create binding laws. The U.S. still
                          holds people in Guantanamo, despite the Geneva
                          Conventions. Basically, there’s no executive
                          international authority to enforce
                          humanitarian law. </em><br>
                        <br>
                        <strong>Nadia Ben-Youssef:</strong> You<span
                          dir="RTL">’</span>re right; it’s an
                        aspirational vision of a global community that
                        has never existed, certainly since the inception
                        of international law. The Genocide Convention,
                        the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, were
                        adopted in 1948. What else happened in 1948? The
                        establishment of the state of Israel and the
                        Nakba, right? So how, from this beginning, could
                        international law accommodate ongoing
                        colonization — which requires human subjugation,
                        a hierarchy of life? That’s the antithesis of a
                        declaration that says everyone has inalienable
                        rights. Even the best laws are not applied
                        equally. The greatest violators of international
                        law, including the United States, are never held
                        accountable. They wrote the laws, so it makes
                        sense that they’ve created this system.<br>
                        <br>
                        I don’t think human rights or international law
                        will lead us toward liberation – they’re tools
                        for human beings to make sense of their material
                        circumstances, then to build toward something
                        else. The reason I find human rights so
                        compelling, is that it validates our collective
                        knowing that human dignity is the core of our
                        experience. Protecting human dignity is sacred
                        work. I think people know that if you violate
                        someone’s dignity, that’s the core of their
                        humanity. We can judge whether something is
                        legitimate or not – we know that racism,
                        xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, ableism
                        strike at the core of our dignity – and so are
                        not legitimate, and neither is any law or
                        institution upholding them. So we don’t fight
                        for human rights for it for its own sake, but
                        for its power to inspire us toward a different
                        society. That’s why I’ve always been compelled
                        by human rights, despite a deep, deep critique
                        about how the human rights framework emerged and
                        how human rights are applied.<br>
                        <br>
                        What if we start our inquiry about policies and
                        laws with whether or not they preserve and
                        protect human dignity? Suddenly, we’re in a very
                        different world. Our opportunity is to imagine a
                        nonwestern, nonwhite, nonimperialist human
                        rights. And many people are doing that. I think
                        the language of human rights on the street <em>is</em>
                        that.<br>
                        <br>
                        <strong>sd:</strong> <em>How is the government
                          responding to your lawsuit?</em><br>
                        <br>
                        <strong>Nadia Ben-Youssef:</strong> The
                        government responded on December 8 with a <a
href="http://mail01.tinyletterapp.com/Snidelines/the-legal-fight-to-end-genocide-in-gaza-nadia-ben-youssef-on-why-solidarity-will-save-us-all-of-us/22992257-ccrjustice.org/sites/default/files/attach/2023/12/38_12-8-23_mtd_w.pdf?c=8620623b-65a0-7fdd-c7da-e0a5d6d3d088"
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                          moz-do-not-send="true">motion to dismiss</a>
                        and a response to the Complaint: <em>Who are
                          these plaintiffs? How have we really harmed
                          them? This is all Israel; why are you coming
                          to us?</em> So full steam ahead with the
                        status quo. On December 22 we filed a <a
href="http://mail01.tinyletterapp.com/Snidelines/the-legal-fight-to-end-genocide-in-gaza-nadia-ben-youssef-on-why-solidarity-will-save-us-all-of-us/22992261-ccrjustice.org/sites/default/files/attach/2023/12/44_12-22-23_pi-reply-mtd-oppn_w.pdf?c=8620623b-65a0-7fdd-c7da-e0a5d6d3d088"
style="mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;text-decoration: none;color: #3466CC !important;"
                          moz-do-not-send="true">Reply</a>, refuting
                        those arguments and others. We have a hearing
                        scheduled for January 26, in Oakland. It feels
                        painful that it’s so far off. But it gives us a
                        chance to continue building pressure.<br>
                        <br>
                        <strong>sd:</strong> <em>What if your case is
                          dismissed and you lose this legal platform, do
                          you have other plans? </em><br>
                        <br>
                        <strong>Nadia Ben-Youssef: </strong>This is
                        just one thread of a huge ecosystem that’s
                        turning up for Palestine. We’re in conversation
                        with partners around the world. Partly, our work
                        is to ensure that this case creates an
                        opportunity for the movement, for people to feel
                        strong and validated in calling out what’s
                        happening to Palestinians and their families.
                        And you can leverage this complaint; it’ll be a
                        tool for activists – even for artists.<br>
                        <br>
                        Until Palestine is free, we’re using all the
                        available mechanisms. This is one. And there
                        will be more.<br>
                         
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