Law and Disorder February 12, 2024

Unflagging Support For The Military Siege Against Palestinians In Gaza

Several months ago, various Palestinian human rights groups and individuals in Gaza and in the U.S., filed a lawsuit in a U.S. federal court, against President Biden, Secretary of State Blinken, and Secretary of Defense Austin, for their failure to prevent, and their complicity in, the Israeli government’s unfolding genocide against them, their families, and the 2.2 million Palestinians living in Gaza. They were represented by the attorneys at the famed Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City.

After a hearing that included testimony from seven Palestinian plaintiffs and witnesses as to the scale of destruction in Gaza and its impact on them and their families, the court found that Israel’s assault and siege on the Palestinian people in Gaza did, “plausibly” constitute genocide, and the court “implored” the Biden Administration to examine its “unflagging support” for Israel. This constituted a profoundly important finding. But the court nevertheless dismissed the case on the grounds that it lacked jurisdiction over the administration’s conduct of foreign affairs.

What was the testimony of the plaintiffs in this case? What were the legal arguments put forth by their attorneys? Why did the court rule as it did? And what is the significance of the judge’s finding that it was “plausible” that genocide was, indeed, taking place in Gaza and its urging of the Biden Administration to examine what the judge termed, its “unflagging support” for Israel in its war on the Palestinian people? CCR Case

Guest – Attorney Katherine Gallagher is a Senior Staff Attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights . Her areas of legal expertise include matters of torture, war crimes and militarism. Among her many major cases is the case titled, Situation of Afghanistan at the International Criminal Court; and the case titled, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests-v-Vatican. Prior to her work at the CCR, she worked at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. She is a visiting professor of law at the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law.

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2024 Could Be The Year America Fends Off Dictatorship Or Invites It In

Some years ago, Michael Ratner, the president of the Center For Constitutional Rights and a co-founder of Law And Disorder interviewed our returning guest attorney Benjamin Carter Hett. Hett is a historian, a professor at Hunter College and a lawyer. He wrote a stellar biography of the great German leftist attorney Hans Litten, who cross-examined Hitler, almost stopping him from coming to power by exposing Hitler’s hypocrisy on using violence.

As Michael wrote about professor Hett’s book “it brings to life the period preceding the takeover of Germany by the Nazis. Litten’s cross examination of Hitler went to the heart of the Nazis attempt to achieve power through violence.” Trump has promised to do the same should he get elected. Professor Hett recently wrote about this in an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times. In an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity Trump said he wanted to be a dictator “on the first day” of his new administration.

It has been reported that Trump would invoke the Insurrection Act which would allow him to deploy troops to crush protests, arrest dissidents, and shut down oppositional media. Trump is a fascist. He’s not an advocate of the rule of law or of democracy. He boasts about using violence. In the divorce papers his first wife Ivana Trump filed against him she alleged that he kept a book of Hitler’s speeches at his bed table.

Like Hitler, Trump appeals to his base and their desire for “retribution.” Trump said “we pledge to you that we will root out the Communist and radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.” Hitler’s racism was shown by his antisemitism, Trump’s by his hatred of immigrants who he says, echoing Hitler, “will poison” American blood.

Guest – Benjamin Carter Hett is a former trial lawyer. He is now a professor of history at Hunter College and the author of several books, including Crossing Hitler: The Man Who Put The Nazis On The Witness Stand. Most recently he has written an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times titled 2024 Could Be The Year America Fends Off Dictatorship Or Invites It In.

Hosted by Attorneys Michael Smith and Jim Lafferty

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Law and Disorder February 5, 2024

World Court: South Africa Presents Plausible Case That Israel Committed Genocide

On January 26, the International Court of Justice (ICJ, or World Court) handed down a historic, near unanimous ruling in South Africa’s case against Israel for its genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza. At least 26,422 Palestinians have been killed and 65,087 injured by the Israeli Occupying Forces since Hamas’ October 7 attacks. More than 85% of the Palestinians in Gaza have been displaced.

The World Court concluded that South Africa presented a “plausible” case that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The court held that the right of the Palestinians to be free from genocidal acts, and South Africa’s right (as a party to the Genocide Convention) to ensure Israel’s compliance with the convention, could be protected by six provisional measures (an injunction), which the court ordered Israel to take.

South Africa’s ministry of foreign affairs described the court’s decision as “a decisive victory for the international rule of law and a significant milestone in the search for justice for the Palestinian people.” The Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights called the ICJ’s decision “a much-needed light in the darkness,” adding, “It is a historic day for clearly recognizing the fundamental human rights of Palestinians, including their fundamental right to life, and an important vindication of the vital resort to law to uphold fundamental rights.”

Richard Falk, former UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, said the ICJ’s ruling “marks the greatest moment in the history of the [court]” because “it strengthens the claims of international law to be respected by all sovereign states?—?not just some.” This is particularly significant in light of the recent ruling here in the United States in which the federal district court on January 31 dismissed a lawsuit against Joe Biden, Antony Blinken and Lloyd Austin for their failure to prevent genocide and complicity in genocide by Israel.

Guest – Marjorie Cohn is Dean of the People’s Academy of International Law and a member of the Bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. Marjorie is also professor of law emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and former president of the National Lawyers Guild. She has written several articles about Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza for Truthout.

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Judge Dismisses Genocide Case On Behalf Of Palestinian Human Rights Groups

On January 26, just hours after the International Court of Justice found a plausible case that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, a historic 4-1/2 hour hearing took place in a federal courtroom in Oakland, California. Palestinians who are suing President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin for failure to prevent genocide and complicity in genocide testified before district court Judge Jeffrey White in a live-streamed session. 1,000 people watched the hearing via Zoom. There were also hundreds of people outside the courthouse during the hearing, standing in solidarity with the Palestinian plaintiffs.

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed the lawsuit on behalf of Palestinian human rights organizations Defense for Children International – Palestine and Al-Haq, three Palestinian individuals who live in Gaza, and five Palestinian Americans who have family in Gaza.

The plaintiffs petitioned U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey White to declare that the United States has violated international law and to issue a preliminary injunction to immediately force Biden, Blinken and Austin to stop providing additional money, weapons, and military and diplomatic support to Israel for its genocide in Gaza.

The defendants have asked Congress to appropriate $14.1 billion in military assistance to Israel — in addition to the $3.8 billion the U.S. already provides to Israel each year. Blinken authorized a $320 million transfer of military equipment to an Israeli manufacturer of precision bomb kits.

On January 31, Judge White dismissed the case because it involved a “political question” which is reserved to the executive and legislative branches. He wrote that “the ongoing military siege in Gaza is intended to eradicate a whole people and therefore plausibly falls within the international prohibition against genocide.” But he concluded this case was a “rare” instance where “the preferred outcome is inaccessible to the court.” He also wrote that the “Court implores Defendants to examine the results of their unflagging support of the military siege against the Palestinians in Gaza.”

Guest – Maria LaHood, one of the attorneys who presented the case for the Palestinian plaintiffs, Maria is Deputy Legal Director at CCR, with expertise in constitutional rights and international human rights. Maria works closely with Palestine Legal to support students and others whose speech is being suppressed for their Palestine advocacy around the country. She graduated from the University of Michigan Law School and was named a 2010 Public Justice Trial Lawyer of the Year Finalist.

Hosted by attorneys Heidi Boghosian, Marjorie Cohn and Julie Hurwitz

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Law and Disorder January 15, 2024

Human Rights Lawyer Says UN Failed To Protect Palestinians

The Israeli air and ground war against 2.3 million Palestinians imprisoned in the Gaza Strip is in its is 98th day. Ralph Nader stated on Democracy Now that the reported 23,000 deaths of Palestinians is vastly understated. He estimated a true count to be around 100,000. Moreover, he projected, that because of disease and starvation 500,000 people in Gaza will likely die this year.
International human rights lawyer Craig Mokhiber resigned from the United Nations on October 28, 2023.

He had worked for the UN for more than three decades, and was the director of its human rights agency in New York. In his resignation letter he wrote that the UN had failed in its duty to protect Palestinians. Mokhiber accused the US, the UK, and much of Europe, of being “wholly complicit in the horrific assault” in Gaza.

Last week South Africa filed a lawsuit against the government of Israel in the International Court of Justice for the crime of genocide. The ICJ is the court of the United Nations. John Kirby, a spokesperson for the United States, called the lawsuit “counterproductive, without any basis in fact, whatsoever“.

Guest – Attorney Craig Mokhiber, graduated from the University of Buffalo Law School and has lived in the Gaza Strip. Mr. Craig Mokhiber is a Director in the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). A lawyer and specialist in international human rights law, policy and methodology, he has served the UN since 1992. As chief of the Human Rights and Development Team in the 1990s, he led the development of OHCHR’s original work on human rights-based approaches to development and human rights-sensitive definitions of poverty.

CIA Operations Subject To Discovery In Assange Attorneys’ Spying Case

On December 19th, a federal court in New York rendered a decision of profound importance, having to do with claims of illegal actions by the CIA, and others, brought by attorneys representing the world-renowned journalist and founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange. Assange is currently imprisoned in London awaiting a final ruling in the U.S. government’s efforts to extradite him back to the United States and stand trial for violations of the Espionage Act of 1917, for having published documents exposing U.S. war crimes in connection with America’s wars in the Middle East. In their lawsuit against the CIA, former CIA head Mike Pompeo, and others, Assange’s attorneys alleged that the CIA violated the attorneys’ constitutional rights by subjecting them to illegal surveillance during their visits with Assange while he was staying in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he had been granted asylum.

While the other claims of the attorneys were dismissed by the court, the CIA was not dismissed from the lawsuit. And so, the plaintiffs have won a rare opportunity for the clandestine operations of the CIA, which prides itself on secrecy, to now be subjected to public scrutiny and accountability through discovery actions in connection with the plaintiff’s claims.

The importance, the significance of this victory against the CIA cannot be overstated. And to help us understand how this victory came to pass, what the alleged abuses of the CIA were that led the judge to deny the attempt of the CIA to be dismissed from the lawsuit.

Guest – Vincent de Stefano, the chief organizer for the National Defense Committee for Julian Assange. Mr. De Stefano is a life-long social justice activist and a founding member of the Southern California Assange Defense Committee, as well as an Executive Board member of the national Assange defense committee. He is the former President of the Pasadena/Foothills Chapter of the ACLU and a board member of the Southern California ACLU Affiliate. Vince De Stefano has worked with Amnesty International for over 4 decades, and in 2019 was recognized by Amnesty as their Urgent Letter Writer of the Year.

Hosted by Attorneys Michael Smith, Maria Hall and Jim Lafferty

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Law and Disorder January 8, 2024

Israel Is Terrified The World Court Will Decide Its Committing Genocide

Since Hamas killed 1,200 Israelis on October 7, Israel has launched a full-scale genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza. As of this broadcast, Israeli forces have killed at least 22,100 Gazans, about 9,100 of whom are children. At least 57,000 persons have been wounded and at least 7,000 are reported missing. Untold numbers of people are trapped beneath the rubble. Israel has expelled and forcibly displaced more than 85% of Gaza’s population from their homes, and has cut off their access to food, water, fuel and electricity.

Although the International Criminal Court (ICC) has been investigating what it refers to as the “Situation in the State of Palestine” for nearly three years, calls for prosecution of Israeli officials have been ignored. This blind eye comes as the chief prosecutor of the ICC demonstrates blatant bias in favor of Israel.

The ICC’s Rome Statute provides for the prosecution of individuals who commit, or aid and abet the commission of genocide. By contrast, the International Court of Justice (ICJ or “World Court”) — the judicial arm of the UN system — resolves disputes between countries.All the 153 countries that have ratified the 1948 Genocide Convention have a duty to prevent and punish genocide and they can submit the issue of Israel’s genocide to the ICJ.

On December 29, South Africa launched a well-documented case at the ICJ, alleging that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza amounts to genocide. South Africa is asking the court to order provisional measures to “protect against further, severe and irreparable harm to the rights of the Palestinian people under the Genocide Convention.” It also asks the court “to ensure Israel’s compliance with its obligations under the Genocide Convention not to engage in genocide, and to prevent and to punish genocide.”

A hearing in the ICJ on South Africa’s application is scheduled for January 11 and 12. Other parties to the Genocide Convention are being approached to join South Africa’s petition.

Marjorie’s recent article : Israel Is Terrified The World Court Will Decide Its Committing Genocide

Guest – Marjorie Cohn – Law and Disorder co-host Marjorie Cohn, who is Dean of the People’s Academy of International Law and a member of the Bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. She is Professor of Law Emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and former president of the National Lawyers Guild and she has written extensively about the Israeli genocide in Gaza for Truthout.

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Remembering Australian Journalist John Pilger

Today we re-broadcast a recent interview we did with the great Australian journalist John Pilger about his film titled The Coming War On China. With the exception of a short break at the conclusion in 1975 of the Vietnamese war, the United States has been at war continually. The momentum of what President Eisenhower warned us against and described as being led by, “the military industrial complex” has been going on with successive wars against Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and now the American proxy war in Ukraine. The military industrial complex has been augmented by support from the CIA, Congress, and the corporate media.

As Pilger demonstrates, the United States, is building up for a war against China. This build up is both military and ideological and shaped by hostile propaganda. In this respect, an alarming full page New York Times article, 11 weeks in the making, and written by seven reporters, appeared on August 5, 2023. The article targeted the American peace organization CODEPINK as well as one of its financial backers. It is a hit piece that has alarmed many of us in the movement. John Pilger gives us the background to it.

Guest – John Pilger covered that war as a young reporter and understood that it was based on the lie that Lyndon Johnson told falsely stating that the North Vietnamese had attacked an American ship in the Gulf of Tonkin. Another 1 million people died in the Iraq war That war was based on the now well known lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that he was going to use against us and that he was responsible for 911. A similar campaign of fear mongering is going on now about China. The major news media parrot the government’s fact free line that China is our enemy. In his article “The Coming War With China” John Pilger wrote “a US war against China beckons and we have a responsibility to speak out. We know what is coming. Silence must be broken.”

Hosted by attorneys Michael Smith, Maria Hall, Heidi Boghosian and Marjorie Cohn

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Law and Disorder January 1, 2024

What Kind Of Nation?

What kind of nation cuts off of food, water, medicine, electricity, and fuel to 2 1/3 million Palestinians and then bombs them as they sit trapped in the open air prison which is the Gaza Strip? What kind of national leader in his capacity as Israeli Minister of Defense, says “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.“ Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu promised that “We will turn Gaza into a deserted island.”

What kind of a nation vetoes a cease-fire as the US did in a 13 to 1 vote when it was proposed at the United Nations Security Council? The Israeli and American nations finds themselves morally isolated on the world stage.

The American government supplies the weapons of war to a nation that has so far annihilated at least 20,000 people, including 8000 children. The Israelis use weapons made in the US and paid for by our tax dollars.

American foreign policy is driven by the military industrial complex. It’s a country whose weapons industry is closely allied with the weapons industry of Israel and a country whose government is heavily influenced by the Israeli lobby, a lobby that should be forced to register as an agent of a foreign country.

Guest – Aaron Maté about the continuing genocide in Gaza, which is now approaching 100 days. He is a journalist with The Gray Zone where he hosts “Pushback“. He is the co-host of Useful Idiots. In 2019 Aaron Maté won the Izzy award for outstanding achievement in independent media for his Russiagate coverage in The Nation.

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Unilateral Sanity Could Save The World: Nothing Can Be Changed Until Its Faced

As we begin 2024, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists just reset its nuclear doomsday clock for the 24th time in its 76-year history. They created the doomsday clock just after WW2 to visually represent the threat of global nuclear annihilation. Although the precise time won’t be announced until later this month, the most recent change was just one year ago: in January 2023, when the clock was moved forward to 90 seconds til midnight – the closest to midnight ever.

What will 2024 bring? Will we get swept up in momentum and fervor toward global catastrophe? Or can we muster the will and courage to act … and try to save one another – other animals, the earth, and ourselves?

In his article, Unilateral Sanity Could Save the World, our guest: author and political analyst Norman Solomon, invokes Antonio Gramsci’s philosophy of keeping a “pessimism of the intellect,” but “an optimism of the will.”

Guest – Norman Solomon is a long-time associate of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, the national director of RootsAction.org, and the Executive Director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His books include War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death; and his latest book, War Made Invisible: How American Hides the Human Toll of its Military Machine which was published by the New Press in June 2023.

Hosted by attorneys Michael Smith and Maria Hall

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Law and Disorder December 25, 2023

  

Enforcing Insurrection Clause Against Former President Donald Trump

On December 19, Colorado’s top court became the first in the nation to rule that Donald Trump is disqualified from holding office because he engaged in insurrection against the Constitution on January 6, 2021. With this ruling, the Colorado secretary of state will exclude Trump’s name from the state’s Republican primary ballot.

Voters in three other states are also challenging Trump’s eligibility to appear on primary ballots based on the 14th Amendment’s Disqualification clause. It disqualifies from office any individual who has taken an oath to support the Constitution and then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same.”

In last week’s Colorado decision, a four-justice majority wrote that they were “mindful of our solemn duty to apply the law, without fear or favor, and without being swayed by public reaction to the decisions that the law mandates we reach.” As the other three cases are being decide, some are concerned that enforcing the constitutional accountability clause could escalate political violence.

In a recent Newsweek editorial, Praveen Fernandes emphasized the importance of judges heeding the warning of legal scholar Sherrilyn Ifill. She notes that when judges have hesitated in the past to apply the provisions of the 14th Amendment, it has had the effect of undermining our democracy’s promise.

Guest – Praveen Fernandes serves as the vice president at the Constitutional Accountability Center in Washington, DC. The center is a public interest law firm and think tank committed to realizing the progressive ideals embedded in the Constitution’s text and history. Praveen brings to the table nearly two decades of experience working on issues related to law, democracy, and civil rights, both within and outside the government.

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Legacy of Peace and the Treaty of Ghent

On February 17, 1815, the United States and Great Britain both ratified the Ghent Treaty in Washington, officially ending the War of 1812. That year, David Low Dodge founded New York Peace Society, the nation’s first formal peace movement. It was followed by the Massachusetts Peace Society. England founded a peace movement around the same time, with Switzerland and France following suit in 1821 and 1830, respectively. Most other European countries established peace movements after 1850.

Successful nonviolent protest strategies in the U.S. are most often associated with the Civil Rights Movement in the South during the 1950s and ‘60s. Leaders such as Ella Baker, Martin Luther King, Jr., A.J. Muste, Bayard Rustin and John Lewis dedicated their lives to th philosophy of non-violence and studied its successful use by Mohandas Gandhi to free India from Britain’s colonial grip.
But as war and carnage wages in the Middle East and in Ukraine, and as political violence is on the uptick in the U.S., peaceful protests don’t seem to be as impactful as in earlier decades. Law & Disorder takes a look at the state of peace studies and peace actions in the United States and abroad.

Guest – Matt Meyer, historian and organizer, serves as Secretary-General of the International Peace Research Association. It is the world’s leading consortium of university-based professors, scholars, students and community leaders. Matt is also the Senior Research Scholar of the University of Massachusetts/Amherst’s Resistance Studies Initiative and has been active with the War Resisters’ International and the International Fellowship of Reconciliation, and he serves on the A.J. Muste Institute board. The author/editor of more than a dozen books, Matt’s work focuses on 21st Century Decolonization, African Peace Studies, the Strategies and Tactics of Movement-building, the significance of support for political prisoners, and the Abolition of White Supremacy. SpiritofMandela

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