RSS
How Misinterpretations of International Law Fuel False Political Narratives — A Response to King’s College London
A February 2024 article in the King’s College London student newspaper attempted to utilize South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (IJC) as a basis for criticism against Israel. However, in doing so, the article consistently misrepresents the character and meaning of international law to further political narratives. Of particular concern was the portrayal of “plausibility” — to which the author claimed the “charge of genocide has been considered ‘plausible’ by the court.”
Although the article’s mistake is understandable, given that reputable sources were similarly confused, it is essential to clarify that the plausibility test in the ICJ is not meant to determine whether the claims asserted by South Africa were plausible.
Instead, the test was designed to assess whether the rights claimed by the applicant were plausible. This distinction was clearly articulated during an April 2024 interview on BBC Hardtalk, in which Joan Donoghue, the former head of the ICJ at the time the provisional measures were issued, made the following statement:
The court’s test for deciding whether to impose measures uses the idea of plausibility, but the test is the plausibility of the rights that are asserted by the applicant in this case, South Africa.
The court decided that the Palestinians had a plausible right to be protected from genocide and that South Africa had the right to present that claim in the court.
It then looked at the facts as well, but it did not decide, and this is something where I’m correcting what is often said in the media: it did not decide that the claim of genocide was plausible. It did emphasise in the order that there was a risk of irreparable harm to the Palestinian right to be protected from genocide, but the shorthand that often appears, that there is a plausible case of genocide, isn’t what the court decided.
The Genocide Convention was established in 1948, following Raphael Lemkin’s 1944 coining of the term to describe Nazi policies during the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide. The crime of genocide was unique, differing from other crimes against humanity due to two crucial prerequisites outlined in Article II of the Convention.
Article II: “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.”
Firstly, to warrant the charge of genocide, the claimant has to prove intent, referred to as dolus specialis.
This highly specific intent differs from the standard mens rea form of intent, and is the most challenging factor to determine in a genocide case. The second prerequisite needed for a group to be protected under the Genocide Convention is their classification as one of four groups: National, Ethnic, Racial, or Religious.
Here, we begin to understand the meaning behind Donoghue’s statement. That being, the Palestinians fell into one of the four protected groups and, therefore, “had a plausible right to be protected from genocide.” This interpretation of plausibility significantly contrasts with the one in the article, thereby altering the narrative regarding the outcomes of provisional measures.
The article then inverts international law for a second time by misleadingly stating that the use of white phosphorus is deemed “illegal by numerous legal scholars.”
This statement implies that the use of the substance is entirely unlawful. However, it fails to provide meaningful context surrounding this assertion.
The international law surrounding incendiary weapons is unambiguous. According to Protocol III, Article 1(b) of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), weapons which have “incidental incendiary effects, such as illuminants, tracers, smoke or signalling systems” do not qualify as incendiary weapons.
Military manuals, including those of the United States, consider white phosphorous munitions to be primarily intended for (6.14.1.3) “marking or illuminating a target or masking friendly force movement by creating smoke.” Therefore, such restrictions outlined by the CCW do not apply to the use of white phosphorous.
Similar to its application in Gaza and Southern Lebanon, the munition has been used in Syria by US-led forces, who employed it for “screening, obscuring and marking” while engaging ISIS militants. British troops in Afghanistan and Iraq have also used it as “an obscurant and not as an anti-personnel weapon.”
While modern militaries commonly use this type of weapon, the article characterizes Israel’s use of the substance as unique.
In addition to misrepresenting legal arguments, the article makes multiple factual errors, the most egregious being the mischaracterization of Yoav Gallant’s words immediately following the events on October 7th. The article asserted that “Israel’s Defense Minister should be expected to consider his words more carefully” on account of his use of “human animals” referring to the perpetrators of the largest attack on Jewish life since the Holocaust. The author insinuates that Gallant was referring to all Palestinians when he made the comment.
In reality, when looking at the full quote in context, it becomes clear that Gallant was solely referring to the terrorists who undertook the brutal attack:
You fought courageously, and you acted in the spirit of the IDF exactly as it should. You resisted valiantly on the front lines; you hit many terrorists and saved lives. You saw with your own eyes against what we are fighting – against human animals – the Islamic State of Gaza.
The King’s College article illustrates how misrepresentation and selective framing of international law can distort political narratives.
In clarifying the ICJ’s use of “plausibility,” the legal status of white phosphorus, and the context of Yoav Gallant’s remarks, it instantly becomes clear how easily misrepresentation can not only skew public perception, but also detract from meaningful engagement with the underlying legal and humanitarian challenges in the Middle East.
Guy Barget is a distinguished politics graduate from King’s College London, and a CAMERA writing fellow. Throughout his academic career, he has cultivated expertise in international relations, global institutions, and international law, with a commitment to examining complex geopolitical issues through a nuanced lens.
The post How Misinterpretations of International Law Fuel False Political Narratives — A Response to King’s College London first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Keith Siegel, Yarden Bibas, Ofer Kalderon set to be released Saturday from Gaza
Philissa Cramer reports for JTA. Look for more updates from The CJN after Shabbat.
An American Israeli and a high-profile young father are among the latest hostages set to be freed from Gaza, in what will be the fourth release during the current Israel-Hamas ceasefire.
Keith Siegel, Yarden Bibas and Ofer Kalderon will be released on Saturday, Hamas told Israel on Friday. The three men are among 33 hostages whose release was required under the current deal, out of 98 held before the deal’s start earlier this month.
Siegel, 65, is the oldest American-Israeli hostage. A North Carolina native who moved to Israel as a young adult, he was abducted in his own car from Kibbutz Kfar Aza with his wife Aviva during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Aviva was released after 51 days in a temporary ceasefire in November 2023 and has advocated for him since, wearing a T-shirt daily with a photo of him on it.
“Dad is coming!” Aviva Siegel shouts in a video the family posted on Friday after hearing the news that her husband was on the list for release. Siegel’s mother died during his captivity.
Bibas, 38, is the father of the only children who remain in Gaza and appeared in a hostage video in November 2023 that showed him responding to being told that his wife, Shiri, and sons Ariel and Kfir had been killed. Israel has never confirmed Hamas’ allegation that the mother and young children were dead, but has said there are “grave concerns” about them and did not insist on their release prior to that of living men.
This week, Israel demanded that Hamas “clarify” the status of Shiri, Ariel and Kfir, who were abducted separately from Yarden and have become global symbols of the crisis; it is not clear whether that has happened or will before his release.
Kalderon, 51, was abducted with his two children from Kibbutz Nir Oz. Sahar, 17, and Erez, 12, were released during the November 2023 ceasefire after 52 days in captivity. Their mother, Hadas, was a prominent voice for mothers of the children abducted on Oct. 7 and has continued to advocate for her ex-husband, a dual French-Israeli citizen.
After the three men are released, there will be 79 hostages remaining in Gaza, of whom at least 44 are confirmed to be dead—36 whose deaths were announced before the current ceasefire, and eight who are among the 33 whose release was negotiated as part of the current deal.
The post Keith Siegel, Yarden Bibas, Ofer Kalderon set to be released Saturday from Gaza appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
RSS
Hamas Confirms Death of Terror Chief Mohammed Deif Months After Israeli Strike
The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas officially confirmed on Thursday that its military chief, Mohammed Deif, was killed during the Gaza war, almost six months after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reported his death.
Deif, the architect of Hamas’s military capabilities, is believed to have been one of the masterminds behind the terrorist group’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 — which sparked the Gaza war.
Abu Ubaida, a Hamas spokesperson, also reported the deaths of Deif’s deputy, Khan Younis Brigade commander Rafa Salama, as well as senior operatives Marwan Issa, Ghazi Abu Tama’a, Raad Thabet, Ahmed Ghandour, and Ayman Nofal.
According to the IDF, Deif was killed in an airstrike in Khan Younis in southern Gaza on July 13 of last year.
Following weeks of intelligence assessments, Israeli authorities gathered evidence to confirm Deif’s death before publicly announcing it in early August.
“IDF fighter jets struck in the area of Khan Yunis, and … it can be confirmed that Mohammed Deif was eliminated in the strike,” the military said. “His elimination serves the objectives of the war and demonstrates Israel’s ability to carry out targeted strikes with precision.”
At the time, Hamas neither confirmed nor denied Deif’s death, but one official, Ezzat Rashaq, stated that any announcements regarding the deaths of its leaders would be made solely by the organization.
“Unless either of them [the Hamas political and military leadership] announces it, no news published in the media or by any other parties can be confirmed,” Rashaq said.
In November, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Deif, as well as for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity related to the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza.
Deif is believed to have collaborated closely with the late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, managing military operations and coordinating with the group’s top commanders throughout the conflict.
After Deif’s assassination, then-defense minister Gallant posted an image on social media praising the Israeli military’s accomplishment.
“The assassination of mass murderer Mohammed Deif — ‘Gaza’s Bin Laden’ — is a major step toward dismantling Hamas as a military and governing entity, and achieving the war’s objectives,” he said.
The post Hamas Confirms Death of Terror Chief Mohammed Deif Months After Israeli Strike first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
‘A Bad but Necessary Deal’: Five Members of His Family Were Murdered — Today, Their Killer Walks Free
While the release of three Israeli hostages on Thursday brought relief and elation across Israel, it also triggered a wave of mixed emotions, especially among victims who saw the terrorists responsible for their suffering set free. One of them is Oran Almog, who was just ten years old when a Palestinian terrorist disguised as a pregnant woman blew up the restaurant he was in, killing five members of his family and leaving him blind.
Yet, while Thursday’s release of Sami Jaradat — the mastermind behind the October 2003 massacre of Almog’s family — was a deeply personal blow, the return of hostages remained a necessary step, he said.
“That the terrorist who killed my family will find himself free is deeply painful, heartbreaking even,” he told The Algemeiner. “But at the same time, I know that even today — especially today — I must set aside my personal pain and focus on the significance of this deal. And the significance is clear. We are getting our hostages home, and that is the only thing that matters.”
Almog’s father, Moshe Almog, his younger brother, Tomer, his grandparents Admiral (res.) Ze’ev and Ruth Almog, and his cousin, Asaf, were murdered when the suicide bomber, Hanadi Jaradat, a 29-year-old lawyer from Jenin, managed to get past the security guard of the Maxim restaurant — jointly owned by a Jewish Israeli and an Arab Israeli — and blow herself up. Sixteen other people were also murdered in the attack, among them four children. Almog lost his eyesight, and his mother, sister, and aunt were among the 60 injured Israelis.
“Sami Jaradat’s continued imprisonment will never bring my family back, but his release can bring the hostages back home alive,” Almog explained.
Almog knows firsthand what it means to be on the receiving end of a hostage-prisoner exchange.
Just two weeks after marking the 20th anniversary of the Maxim restaurant attack, another tragedy struck his family. On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists brutally murdered Nadav and Yam and abducted Chen, Agam, Gal, and Tal from the Almog-Goldstein family in Kfar Azza.
Fifty-one days later, in November 2023, they were released from Hamas captivity in a temporary ceasefire deal.
Under the current ceasefire agreement reached earlier this month, Hamas will release a total 33 Israeli hostages, eight of whom are deceased, according to the terrorist group. In exchange, Israel will free over 1,900 Palestinian prisoners, many of whom were serving multiple life sentences on terrorism offenses. Thursday saw the release of three Israelis — including IDF surveillance soldier Agam Berger, 20, and civilians Arbel Yehoud, 29, and Gadi Mozes, 80 — and five Thai nationals, who were working in Israeli kibbutzim when they were abducted.
“This is a bad deal, very bad, but the alternative is that much worse,” Almog said. “We must look ahead, put today aside, and recognize that releasing prisoners serves a greater purpose.”
However, Almog expressed hope that Israel would move toward a more decisive and uncompromising approach in its fight against terrorism.
“I sincerely hope that as a country, we will have the wisdom to decisively thwart terrorism,” he said, emphasizing the need to break free from the ongoing cycle of prisoner exchanges.
“I don’t want us to find ourselves trapped in a cycle of releasing terrorists, only for them to return to terror, and then repeat the process again and again,” he added.
Almog has previously addressed the UN Security Council, urging action against the so-called “pay-for-slay” scheme, in which terrorists and their families receive monthly stipends from the Palestinian Authority. The terrorist behind the murder of Almog’s family received $3,000 a month while behind bars, making him almost a millionaire by the time of his release.
Still, Almog concluded with a deeply uplifting message for the returning hostages, confident that they would have a chance at a good life, drawing from his own experiences since the terror attack.
After his release from the hospital, he began a long rehabilitation process, culminating in third place at the World Blind Sailing Championship with Etgarim, a nonprofit founded by disabled veterans and rehabilitation experts, and supported by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ). He was chosen to light a torch at Israel’s Independence Day ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of the state and, despite his disability, insisted on enlisting in the IDF, serving in an elite unit. Today, he is a managing partner at a financial technology fund, works with Etgarim, and shares his story globally through lectures.
“I know the hostages will be able to return, to live, and to live well. With enough support — and a great deal of willpower — it is truly possible to rebuild life, even after the deepest catastrophes,” he said.
The post ‘A Bad but Necessary Deal’: Five Members of His Family Were Murdered — Today, Their Killer Walks Free first appeared on Algemeiner.com.