RSS
Israel faces charges of genocide at the International Court of Justice. Here’s why, and how Israel will respond.
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Perhaps the most famous court case in Israel history was the trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the architects of the Holocaust. Next week, more than 60 years later, lawyers for the Israeli government will again grapple with an allegation of genocide — but this time as defendants and not as prosecutors.
That grim history helps explain why Israel has chosen to engage with the International Court of Justice, which will weigh a claim by South Africa that Israel is committing genocide in its war against Hamas in Gaza. Israel is furious at the accusation, which it called a perversion of the genocide charge.
The ICJ will base its judgment on the 1948 U.N. Genocide Convention, which Israel joined almost as soon as the state was established because the convention was written in the wake of the Holocaust, in hopes of preventing another genocide.
“Israel decided to send a legal team because this is an outrageous application by South Africa and we will defend ourselves against those lies,” Lior Hayat, the spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry, said in an interview.
Here’s what’s behind the accusation, how Israel is defending it and what to anticipate.
Who is adjudicating the accusation, and when?
The International Court of Justice, based in The Hague in the Netherlands, adjudicates claims against states. In the past it has considered disputes on everything from maritime border disputes to the United States’ funding of the Contras rebel groups in Nicaragua in the 1980s. The court, first convened in 1946, is the culmination of a series of international conferences that aimed to adjudicate disputes between nations as a means of preventing war.
The court has previously considered cases involving Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, the moving of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and an incident in 1955 in which an El Al flight was shot down over Bulgarian airspace.
The International Criminal Court in the same city adjudicates criminal allegations against individuals, such as generals or notorious despots including Libya’s Muammar Ghaddafi and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The case was initiated late last month by South Africa, and the first hearings are next week, Jan. 11 and 12.
Why is Israel participating?
Israel has a tradition of not engaging with war crimes accusations against its officials, in part because it is not party to the 2002 compact that created the International Criminal Court. In light of the United Nations’ repeated votes and other measures placing blame on Israel, Israel sees the U.N. system as irredeemably biased, and feels that the charges are likely to be loaded.
But Israeli officials say the charge of genocide is too much for a state born in the ashes of the Holocaust to ignore.
“The State of Israel will appear before the International Court of Justice at The Hague to dispel South Africa’s absurd blood libel,” Eylon Levy, a government spokesman, said on Jan. 2.
Rumors have circulated that Alan Dershowitz, the emeritus Harvard Law professor and Israel advocate, will be part of Israel’s legal team, though he has not confirmed his participation. Dershowitz has been on the legal teams of other famous defendants, including O.J. Simpson and, more recently, President Donald Trump during his first impeachment trial. He did not reply to a request for comment.
Beyond seeking to stake a moral defense against a crime it has prosecuted against Nazi war criminals, there are practical reasons for Israel to participate. The ICJ’s process may take years, but if after next week’s hearing it finds enough evidence to go forward, it may call on the parties in the Gaza war to cease hostilities.
Such a court order would establish a legal basis for countries to boycott and isolate Israel and to restrict the movement of its officials if Israel does not comply.
Two years ago, Ukraine sought and received a similar order from the court in its efforts to repel Russia’s invasion. But while both cases involve genocide, the Russia and Israel trials differ: Ukraine is not accusing Russia of genocide. Rather, it went to the ICJ to contest Russia’s accusation that Ukraine is committing genocide — which Putin has cited as a pretext for the war.
Russia, which is massive and has built an insular economy, ignored the order. But Israel, a small country allied with the West, can’t afford to make the same choice, said Orde Kittrie, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, an influential Washington think tank with close ties to Israel’s government.
“If Israel is ordered to do what Russia [was] ordered to do, which would be to immediately suspend its military operations, it would certainly be bad for Israel from a PR perspective,” said Kittrie, who is a law professor at Arizona State University. “You don’t want to be violating international law. You don’t want to be fighting when you’ve been told to stop.”
The Biden administration has indicated that it will not honor any injunctions targeting Israel as a result of the genocide charges. “We find this submission meritless, counterproductive, and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Wednesday.
Pro-Palestinian protestors supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel in Cape Town, South Africa, Sept. 21, 2015. Michelly Rall/Getty Images)
Why is South Africa making the charge?
South Africa’s government sees itself as a bulwark against what it casts as western imperialism. It also wants to push back against perceptions in the West that, since the end of apartheid in the early 1990s, it has devolved into corruption, authoritarianism and alliances with repressive regimes.
In 2017, it ignored an ICC warrant for the arrest of then-Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir on genocide charges, allowing him to enter the country.
In addition to the genocide accusation, it has embraced charges that Israel is guilty of apartheid, the crime of institutionalized racial discrimination that was South Africa’s hallmark under white minority rule for decades. Its leaders have never forgiven Israel for cozying up to the apartheid regime. Its parliament in November, in a non-binding vote, said the government should expel Israeli diplomats.
“South Africa has been engaged on the Palestinian issue since really the end of apartheid and the founding of the state,” Michael Walsh, a visiting scholar at the University of California Berkeley, told Vox. “It’s been a prominent issue in South African politics and among South African leaders.”
What is the basis for the genocide accusation?
Pro-Palestinian activists and anti-Zionist figures have been accusing Israel of genocide since the earliest days of the war — an allegation Israeli and other scholars across the political spectrum have strenuously denied both in this conflict and previous rounds of fighting. (A recent letter by a group of Israeli public figures — unconnected with the ICJ case — did accuse some Israeli officials of incitement to genocide, though not of the crime of genocide itself.)
South Africa’s charging document in the ICJ case, which outlines what it calls acts of genocide and also intent, relies on many of the same arguments pro-Palestinian activists have made in recent months.
The acts are drawn from news accounts of the carnage, which according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry has topped 22,000 Palestinian casualties, including thousands of children. That number doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants.
Also included are warnings by international bodies that the population of the enclave is on the verge of mass starvation and disease. “The acts in which Israel has engaged … are genocidal in character, having regard to their nature, scope and context,” the charging document says.
In seeking to establish intent, South Africa quotes statements by Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that South Africa claims are genocidal in scope.
That is an “extraordinarily challenging” standard to meet, according to an analysis by Alaa Hachem and Oona Hathaway at Just Security, an online security think tank run out of the New York University School of Law. “It requires proof of a specific intent to destroy a group in whole or in part.”
The South African charging document quotes a speech Netanyahu delivered to the Knesset, describing the war as “a struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle,” which South Africa called a “a dehumanizing theme to which he returned on various occasions.”
That quote and some of the others in the document, the FDD’s Kittrie noted, refer not to the Palestinians as a whole but to Hamas. Kittrie said that Israeli leaders on other occasions have made clear that their war is with the terrorist group that launched the conflict with massacres that took the lives of some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, on Oct. 7.
“Our war against Hamas, the Hamas terrorist organization, is a war — it’s not a war against the people of Gaza,” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said last month at a press conference with Lloyd Austin, the U.S. defense secretary.
Smoke is seen over Beit Hanoun in the Gaza Strip from the Israeli side of the border, Oct. 27, 2023. (Amir Levy/Getty Images)
Other more damning quotes cited in the document come from figures on the far right. It quotes for instance Amichai Eliahu, the minister of heritage who is a member of the Otzma Yehudit, or Jewish Power, party, who has said, “There is no such thing as uninvolved civilians in Gaza” and has called to nuke the territory.
Those figures are not making decisions in the war, Kittrie said. “The South Africans point to a few statements by members of the Knesset,” he said. “They take some statements out of context.”
That may be the case, said Yaniv Roznai, a law professor at Reichman University in Israel, but it is incumbent on Netanyahu and others to get their allies to avoid indulging fantasies of ethnic cleansing at an extraordinarily risky time.
“Instead of understanding that words have meanings, and that we are in wartime and to watch their mouths and not say really stupid things,” Netanyahu and others are “trying to explain them,” Roznai said in a podcast for UnXeptable, a group that opposes the massive judicial reforms Netanyahu sought before the war.
What will Israel’s case be?
Kittrie said Israel will be able to show it has instituted mitigation measures in its military campaign.
“Israel’s extensive advance warning and other measures to mitigate harm to Gaza civilians make clear that Israel’s goal is not to commit genocide but, far from it, to instead minimize Palestinian civilian casualties while lawfully exercising Israel’s rights to rescue its hostages, apprehend the Oct. 7 perpetrators, and ensure that Israel’s population is secure from further attacks,” he said.
Israeli spokespeople have also suggested that Israel will seek to turn the tables, and level charges of genocide against Hamas.
“The Hamas terrorist organization — which is committing war crimes, crimes against humanity and sought to commit genocide on 7 October — is responsible for the suffering of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by using them as human shields and stealing humanitarian aid from them,” the Foreign Ministry’s Hayat said in a statement.
—
The post Israel faces charges of genocide at the International Court of Justice. Here’s why, and how Israel will respond. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
Iranian National Charged in Plot to Subvert US Sanctions Against Islamic Republic
Iranians participating in a memorial ceremony for IRGC commanders and nuclear scientists in downtown Tehran, Iran, on July 2, 2025. Photo: Morteza Nikoubazl via Reuters Connect.
Federal law enforcement officials have arrested an Iranian national after uncovering his alleged conspiracy to export US technology to Tehran in violation of a slew of economic sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic, the US Department of Justice announced on Friday.
For May 2018 to July 2025, Bahram Mohammad Ostovari, 66, allegedly amassed “railway signaling and telecommunications systems” for transport to the Iranian government by using “two front companies” located in the United Arab Emirates. After filing fake orders for them with US vendors at Ostovari’s direction, the companies shipped the materials — which included “sophisticated computer processors” — to Tehran, having duped the US businesses into believing that they “were the end users.”
The Justice Department continued, “After he became a lawful permanent resident of the United States in May 2020, Ostovari continued to export, sell, and supply electronics and electrical components to [his company] in Iran,” noting that the technology became components of infrastructure projects commissioned by the Islamic Republic.
Ostovari has been charged with four criminal counts for allegedly violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations (ITSR), under which conducting business with Iran is proscribed due to the country’s human rights abuses, material support for terrorism, and efforts to build a larger-scale nuclear program in violation of international non-proliferation obligations. Each count carries a 20-year maximum sentence in federal prison.
Ostovari is one of several Iranian nationals to become the subject of criminal proceedings involving crimes against the US this year.
In April, a resident of Great Falls, Virginia — Abouzar Rahmati, 42 — pleaded guilty to collecting intelligence on US infrastructure and providing it to the Islamic Republic of Iran.
“From at least December 2017 through June 2024, Rahmati worked with Iranian government officials and intelligence operatives to act on their behalf in the United States, including by meeting with Iranian intelligence officers and government officials using a cover story to hide his conduct,” the Justice Department said at the time, noting that Rahmati even infiltrated a contractor for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that possesses “sensitive non-public information about the US aviation sector.”
Throughout the duration of his cover, Rahmati amassed “open-source and non-public materials about the US solar energy industry,” which he delivered to “Iranian intelligence officers.”
The government found that the operation began in August 2017, after Rahmati “offered his services” to a high-ranking Iranian government official who had once been employed by the country’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security, according to the Justice Department. Months later, he traveled to Iran, where Iranian agents assigned to him the espionage activity to which he pleaded guilty to perpetrating.
“Rahmati sent additional material relating to solar energy, solar panels, the FAA, US airports, and US air traffic control towers to his brother, who lived in Iran, so that he would provide those files to Iranian intelligence on Rahmati’s behalf,” the Justice Department continued. Rahmati also, it said, delivered 172 gigabytes worth of information related to the National Aerospace System (NAS) — which monitors US airspace, ensuring its safety for aircraft — and NAS Airport Surveillance to Iran during a trip he took there.
Rahmati faces up to 10 years in prison. He will be sentenced in August.
In November, three Iranian intelligence assets were charged with contriving a conspiracy to assassinate critics of the Islamic Republic of Iran, as well as then US President-elect Donald Trump.
According to the Justice Department, Farhad Shakeri, 51; Carlisle Rivera, 49; and Jonathan Loadholt, 36, acted at the direction of and with help from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), an internationally designated terrorist organization, to plot to murder a US citizen of Iranian origin in New York. Shakeri, who remains at large and is believed to reside in Iran, was allegedly the principal agent who managed the two other men, both residents of New York City who appeared in court.
Their broader purpose, prosecutors said, was to target nationals of the United States and its allies for attacks, including “assaults, kidnapping, and murder, both to repress and silence critical dissidents” and to exact revenge for the 2020 killing of then-IRGC Quds Force chief Qasem Soleimani in a US drone strike in Iraq. Trump was president of the US at the time of the operation.
All three men are now charged with murder-for-hire, conspiracy, and money laundering. Shakeri faces additional charges, including violating sanctions against Iran, providing support to a terrorist organization, and conspiring to violate the International Emergency Powers Act, offenses for which he could serve up to six decades in federal prison.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Iranian National Charged in Plot to Subvert US Sanctions Against Islamic Republic first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Kosher Israeli Restaurant Vandalized in Athens Amid Surge in Antisemitic Attacks Across Europe
A man waves a Palestinian flag as pro-Hamas demonstrators protest next to the Greek parliament, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Athens, Greece, May 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis
An Israeli restaurant in Athens, Greece, was vandalized on Saturday night in one of the latest incidents amid a surge of antisemitic attacks across Europe, prompting a police investigation into the suspected hate crime.
In a video shared on social media, a group of six individuals can be seen entering King David Burger — a local kosher restaurant that opened just a month ago — scattering pamphlets and spraying black paint across walls, tables, and other surfaces throughout the establishment.
Restaurante israelí en Atenas atacado po pro-palestinos
Otro caso de acoso a una empresa israelí, esta vez en Atenas. El restaurante King David Burger de la capital griega, propiedad de un israelí, fue atacado anoche.
Un grupo de activistas propalestinos llegó al restaurante y,… pic.twitter.com/YGiqLBRNAF
— ITON GADOL es Israel y las comunidades judias (@Itongadol) July 13, 2025
The group of pro-Palestinian activists shouted antisemitic slurs and vandalized the establishment with graffiti, including slogans such as “No Zionist is safe here.”
The attackers also posted a sign on one of the restaurant’s windows that read, “All IDF soldiers are war criminals — we don’t want you here,” referring to the Israel Defense Forces.
According to local reports, many Israelis in Athens gathered outside the restaurant after the attack, with some singing “Am Israel Chai” (“The People of Israel Live”) as a show of solidarity.
The restaurant owner urged local authorities in Athens to take swift action and hold the perpetrators accountable.
“It would be a shame for the Israelis to leave Athens,” Zvika Levinson, the restaurant’s owner, told Israel Hayom. “But if authorities don’t act, the situation will not be good.”
Police reportedly told the owner that without clear identification of the individuals in the video, they are unable to make any arrests.
Since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, antisemitic incidents have surged to alarming levels across Europe. This recent attack is just one of the latest in a wave of anti-Jewish hate crimes that Greece and other countries have witnessed in recent months.
Last month, an Israeli tourist was attacked by a group of pro-Palestinian activists after they overheard him using Google Maps in Hebrew while navigating through Athens.
When the attackers realized the victim was speaking Hebrew, they began physically assaulting him while shouting antisemitic slurs.
Although local police arrived promptly, a large crowd had already gathered outside the restaurant where the victim had sought shelter.
At first, authorities mistakenly arrested the victim, accusing him of the attack. However, after video footage clarified the situation, they apologized and took him to the nearest hospital.
The post Kosher Israeli Restaurant Vandalized in Athens Amid Surge in Antisemitic Attacks Across Europe first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
NYC Mayor’s Office Accuses Comptroller of Aiding BDS With ‘Withdrawal’ of Millions From Israel Bonds
New York City Mayor Eric Adams attends an “October 7: One Year Later” commemoration to mark the anniversary of the Hamas-led attack in Israel at the Summer Stage in Central Park on October 7, 2024, in New York City. Photo: Ron Adar/ SOPA Images via Reuters Connect
The office of New York City Mayor Eric Adams has accused Comptroller Brad Lander of pushing a political agenda and advancing the anti-Israel boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement by withdrawing tens of millions of dollars in city pension funds from bonds issued by the Jewish state.
In a letter to Lander dated July 10 and first shared with the media on Sunday, First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro demanded a full accounting of the comptroller’s decision-making regarding the investments in Israel Bonds.
New York City’s holdings in Israel-issued bonds have plunged from “tens of millions of dollars” to just $1.2 million in the Police Pension Fund during Lander’s tenure, reversing a longstanding pattern of reinvestment stretching back to 1974, according to the letter.
Lander subsequently confirmed to The Forward that city pension funds currently hold no investments in Israel Bonds, noting the purchase by the Police Pension Fund was made by a fund manager but has since been sold.
Mastro wrote that Lander’s decisions “appears to be in furtherance of [the] BDS campaign, regardless of the adverse financial consequences for city pensioner.”
The BDS movement seeks to isolate Israel on the international stage as the first step toward its elimination. Leaders of the movement have repeatedly stated their goal is to destroy the world’s only Jewish state.
City records show that Israel Bonds, historically yielding approximately 5 percent annually, outperformed many alternatives, and critics such as Mastro have argued the abrupt exit is financially irresponsible.
Meanwhile, Adams has promoted his own pro-Israel push, noting last month’s formation of the inaugural New York City–Israel Economic Council aimed at boosting trade and innovation with the Jewish state. In a press event, Adams repudiated Lander, saying that the comptroller “was elected to safeguard New York City’s financial future, yet he continues to pander to the antisemitic BDS movement at the expense of taxpayer dollars and our city’s best interests. New Yorkers deserve to know why.”
Lander’s office swiftly defended the move, describing it as consistent with a longstanding policy to avoid foreign sovereign debt, rather than a targeted divestment linked to Israel.
“Lander has never divested,” a spokesperson for Lander said in March, noting at the time that the city continued to hold over $400 million in investments in Israeli companies.
As of May, Lander said city pension funds still held more than $315 million in Israel-based assets, mostly in common stock and some in Israeli real estate investment trusts.
Lander, who is Jewish, claimed that his predecessors made “politically motivated choices” to treat Israel in a more “favorable way” than other countries.
“As a Jew, I am proud that we have these investments in Israel,” Lander told The Forward. “But I’m not allowed to make investments for that reason. They have to make financial sense to be consistent with our policies and my fiduciary duty.”
A representative for the comptroller told the New York Post that Mastro’s accusations are a “cynical effort by the Adams administration to weaponize antisemitism against the highest ranking Jewish elected official in New York City government.”
The battle has reverberated across New York City’s political landscape, tapping into deep divisions over foreign policy, fiscal stewardship, and community allegiance. Adams, running as an independent for reelection this fall, is courting Jewish constituents and warning Lander’s withdrawal of bonds signals “pandering” to anti-Israel sentiment.
Lander stoked outrage among the Big Apple’s Jewish community when he recently aligned with Zohran Mamdani, a progressive firebrand who backs the BDS movement and is running for mayor. Lander’s support for the anti-Israel politician has raised scrutiny regarding his motives in ending investments into Israeli bonds. Zionist advocacy groups and pension experts are demanding transparency, questioning whether the city actually missed out on returns typically delivered by Israel Bonds.
Although Lander has repeatedly affirmed his belief in Israel’s “right to exist,” he has suggested that controversial slogans such as “globalize the intifada” might not be inherently supportive of violence. He has also refused to defend Israel from accusations of committing “genocide” in Gaza, saying that he believes the word is offensive to the Jewish community because it evokes memories of the Holocaust.
Mastro’s letter sets a July 17 deadline for full documentation of Lander’s policy concerning Israel Bonds.
The post NYC Mayor’s Office Accuses Comptroller of Aiding BDS With ‘Withdrawal’ of Millions From Israel Bonds first appeared on Algemeiner.com.