S. Africa demands end to Gaza offensive: 'Highest UN court is going to inject law into this dispute'
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00:00 From Geneva is Reid Brody, who has prosecuted war crimes in the past, member of the International
00:06 Commission of Jurists.
00:08 Thank you for speaking with us here on France 24.
00:12 You're welcome.
00:14 It's not unfamiliar since the beginning of this, of October the 7th.
00:21 It depends what perspective you're coming from.
00:24 In the last minutes, we've had the Israeli prime minister saying Israel is, quote, fighting
00:30 Hamas's genocide.
00:34 There's the rhetoric and there are the facts.
00:36 Your thoughts on this case?
00:38 Well, you know, for three months we've been watching this going on.
00:44 We've been watching the carnage, the destruction, the death.
00:47 And I think many people have been asking, where is the law?
00:51 And today the law took center stage, you know, in our in our brutish and lawless world.
00:59 I think South Africa deserves a lot of credit for putting, for focusing on the law.
01:08 I think Israel also deserves credit for engaging with the court.
01:13 But you know, my as an international lawyer, my first reaction is, my God, this is amazing.
01:20 The highest court of the United Nations is going to inject law into this dispute.
01:32 And obviously, I mean, the presentations by South Africa were very powerful.
01:38 I mean, the facts that we have all seen, 23,000 dead, humanitarian aid limited, hospitals
01:50 all that.
01:51 I mean, the facts are very clear.
01:53 The question now is whether or not there is a plausible case for genocide.
02:00 And particularly the question today and tomorrow is what provisional measures the court can
02:07 and will adopt.
02:08 So let me read one of the statements that was made by the prosecution.
02:14 We'll be hearing the defense on Friday.
02:17 Prosecution saying this court has the benefit of the past 13 weeks of evidence that shows
02:21 uncontrovertibly a pattern of conduct and related intention that justifies a plausible
02:27 claim of genocidal acts.
02:29 Related intention.
02:31 Does that stand up in a court of law?
02:33 Well, obviously, in order to show that something is genocide, that it's more than just mass
02:39 killings, that it's more than war crimes, that it's more than crimes against humanity,
02:44 you have to show that there has been an intention to destroy an ethnic, racial, national, religious
02:51 group in whole or in part as such.
02:55 And South Africa says that Israel is seeking to destroy the Palestinians of Gaza.
03:03 And they presented in court today all the statements by Prime Minister Netanyahu and
03:12 others that appear to call for the destruction not of Hamas, not of the armed wing of Hamas,
03:19 but of the Palestinian people.
03:21 Now, Israel, I assume tomorrow, will say and in addition, they showed how those statements
03:29 were translated into they showed videos of soldiers repeating the statements made by
03:36 Israeli politicians, repeating genocidal statements.
03:41 Now, presumably tomorrow, Israel is going to say, well, this is hot air by certain politicians.
03:49 That's not the intention of the state.
03:51 We are fighting against Hamas.
03:54 If we had a genocidal intention, we wouldn't be giving warnings.
03:58 We wouldn't be telling people to move from one area to another.
04:03 But you know, the the the plausible the court has to decide in this in this instance, whether
04:09 genocide is a plausible explanation for this.
04:13 And I think the the the you know, Israel is going to have a very tough time showing in
04:21 particular.
04:22 Another aspect is that is intent is incitement to genocide.
04:29 As many Israelis themselves have said, Israel has tolerated its politicians using genocidal
04:38 statements.
04:39 So I think, you know, Israel is going to have a very tough time tomorrow defending on the
04:45 law.
04:46 One quick question for you, Reid Brody, is the is justice blind in this case or is this
04:54 political?
04:55 Are these judges like, I don't know, the judges at a figure skating competition where the
04:59 Russian will give more points to the to to their favorite athlete?
05:05 You know, obviously, I mean, we've seen in the past that Russian judges, Chinese judges,
05:09 American judges often come up with different results.
05:12 But this is the highest court, unlike the International Criminal Court.
05:17 Israel is a party to the ICC, to the International Court of Justice.
05:23 These are the top judges in the world.
05:25 It's a very conservative, typically a conservative court.
05:30 And I would expect that they will order preliminary measures.
05:35 I don't I think the bar is very high to to to order, for instance, an entire ceasefire.
05:41 But they certainly could order Israel to refrain from certain activities, to to allow humanitarian
05:48 assistance, to allow fact finding missions in, to allow the International Criminal Court
05:53 to investigate.
05:56 So I would expect a very legitimate, reasoned decision that is going to put a lot of pressure,
06:05 not just on Israel, but also on states that are supplying Israel with arms and the ability
06:13 to carry out these military operations and these war crimes.
06:18 First and foremost being, I guess in this instance, the United States.
06:22 Reid Brody, many thanks for joining us from Geneva.