Lebanese Prime Minister-designate Nawaf Salam speaks at the presidential palace on the day he meets with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, in Baabda, Lebanon, Jan. 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir

The United Nations General Assembly and Security Council are political institutions that countries use to pursue their foreign policy interests.

For that reason, the UN Charter also established the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to offer opinions based solely on international law rather than politics. This is what the ICJ was charged to do in evaluating charges against Israel last July.

In order for the ICJ to remain nonpolitical, it is composed of a panel of 15 judges, each a citizen of a different nation. These judges are sworn not to represent their home country’s government, or even to be influenced by it. Instead, they are to be guided solely by their conscience and their understanding of the law.

During the period in which hearings about the legal status of Israel’s alleged occupation were held and the advisory opinion was written, Judge Nawaf Salam of Lebanon served as president of the ICJ. In addition to having served as Lebanon’s representative to the UN, he also has an impeccable legal resume.

The ICJ opinion was harshly critical of Israel. It declared that Israel must withdraw from all its “occupied” territories, including eastern Jerusalem, as rapidly as possible without regard for Israel’s historical ties to those places and regardless of the extent to which such a withdrawal endangers Israel’s security. Court President Salam added his own separate declaration, in which he expressed anti-Israel views even stronger than the court’s majority, and found Israel guilty of apartheid.

While it’s tempting to accuse the court of antisemitism and anti-Israel bias, we must think long and hard before questioning the motives of those with whom we disagree. The opinion weighs difficult legal issues that people may see differently. The fact that the court’s president was from Lebanon, a known enemy of Israel, is also not an indication that the ICJ is biased as an institution. The 15 judges come from all around the world and there wouldn’t seem to be anything untoward about the Lebanese judge being chosen as chief.

But on January 13,2025,  ICJ President Salam abruptly resigned his position to become Lebanon’s new Prime Minister.

One day, he was an international judge sworn not to be influenced whatsoever by the political positions of his home country, then the next day, he was in charge of formulating and advancing the same political positions he had been sworn to ignore.

At this point, one has to wonder to what extent the court’s opinion, and certainly Salam’s personal declaration, were not unbiased legal interpretations — but rather were written with an eye towards currying favor in Lebanon.

It would be best for the ICJ to have a code of ethics mandating a “cooling off period” of at least a year or two during which a former judge cannot be appointed to or campaign for a political office. That way there would be less incentive for judges to use their ICJ opinion writing to audition for jobs back in their home countries, and less reason for those reading court decisions to suspect that is going on. But the ICJ doesn’t currently have such a rule, and so Salam was able to make this overnight transition. That’s a shame, because for an international court to have any standing to deliver a legal opinion on a political controversy, it needs to be seen as completely impartial and above politics.

Salam concluded his separate declaration by stating that he has participated in the proceedings with the deep conviction that he is using law and justice to lay “the foundations for a just and enduring solution to a conflict that has lasted far too long.” But is the ICJ opinion truly a solution based on law and justice, or is it a list of politically-motivated demands designed primarily to resonate with the Lebanese public that he phrased in the language of law?

Salam’s abrupt transition gives us every reason to wonder. Israel and its supporters have yet another valid reason to believe that the international legal system has been rigged against it by politics. On top of that, the job of anyone who wants to promote reliance on impartial international justice is now even harder.

Shlomo Levin is the author of the Human Rights Haggadah, and he writes about legal developments related to human rights issues of interest to the Jewish community. You can find him at https://hrhaggadah.com/.

The post The International Court of Justice Ruled Against Israel; Then Its President Became PM of Lebanon first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Asaf Elia-Shalev reports for JTA.

One of the most reviled adversaries of the pro-Israel community was just dealt a major blow in a fraud complaint brought by an activist attorney. 

The anti-Zionist advocacy group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), which accuses Israel of genocide in Gaza and wants the U.S. to end military aid to the country, agreed to pay a penalty of nearly $700,000 (U.S.) to settle an allegation of financial fraud, according to a Wednesday announcement from the U.S. Justice Department.

The resolution of the case, which centres on JVP’s application for COVID-19 relief funds in 2020, puts a significant strain on the group’s financial health—the group’s annual budget has hovered a little below $3 million for the past several years—and gives the group’s many critics a potent new weapon against it. 

Awesome. And yeah, who would have imagined that an antisemitic group would also engage in fraud…

US anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace to pay $600,000-plus penalty after fraud allegations | The Times of Israel https://t.co/m11SH0Hgi8

— Andrés Spokoiny 🌟🌟🌟 (@Spokoiny) January 15, 2025

But JVP’s legal trouble was not just a lucky gift for its detractors—it was the direct result of one enterprising attorney’s strategy of weaponizing the law against critics of Israel. JVP is the latest in a string of left-wing and pro-Palestinian groups he has succeeded in damaging. 

Daniel Abrams sics prosecutors on his targets using a law that allows private citizens to become whistleblowers when they discover alleged government fraud. The law also lets him collect a portion of the penalty paid to the government. He’s built a one-man business around the enterprise, called the Zionist Advocacy Center or TZAC.

“I’m a passionate Zionist and I’m also an attorney,” Abrams told Politico in an article published last year. “And so it’s natural to say, ‘Well, how can I combine those two things?’ And that’s what I started doing about 10 years ago.”

Meet the activist waging a legal war against Israel’s critics — and pocketing a lot of money https://t.co/mUplXBKYWn

— POLITICO (@politico) July 10, 2024

His earnings in this work as of last year are at least  $1.7 million, according to a tally based on court records by the New York Times. Abrams is one of several attorneys making money by hunting for pandemic fraud, but Abrams is in it for more than just the earnings.

“We’re in America,” Abrams told Politico. “People have an absolute right to attack Israel unfairly, to slander Israel and so on. However, from my perspective, they don’t have the right to take government money to support their work that they’re not entitled to.”

He refers to his solo act as “lawfare” on behalf of Israel. 

Now, a major voice on the right is calling on the incoming Trump administration to make lawfare the central tactic of a national crackdown on antisemitism. The idea appears in Project Esther, a proposal from the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank, which urges the federal government to target groups it deems supportive of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, including Jewish Voice for Peace.

In this case, Abrams found that JVP had received $340,000 through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act. He believed the group should have been ineligible for funding—money that millions of American companies and nonprofits had also received during the pandemic—due to rules excluding entities “primarily engaged in political or lobbying activities.”

He filed a lawsuit in late 2021 accusing JVP of lying on its application form, citing the group’s stated mission of campaigning to change U.S. policy on Israel. The federal prosecutors who looked at the case agreed with Abrams’ assessment and decided to move forward with it. If the matter had gone to trial and prosecutors had prevailed, JVP would have had to pay back in damages triple the amount it received. 

Instead, a settlement limits the penalty to only double the amount, with no admission of liability by JVP. The group maintains that “any misstatements in this application were inadvertent,” according to the Justice Department. JVP’s leadership did not respond to a request for comment. 

Abrams, who also did not respond to a request for comment, is owed about $68,000, or 10 percent of the penalty, according to a copy of the settlement agreement from the Justice Department. He will also collect about $1,800 from JVP, an amount representing his fees and expenses in filing the initial whistleblower lawsuit. 

The JVP settlement comes several months after the resolution of another Abrams-instigated case against a Jewish group that is critical of Israel. In September, Americans For Peace Now, the U.S. fundraising arm of a progressive Israeli group that advocates for the two-state solution, reached a deal with federal prosecutors to pay $262,000 over an identical allegation. 

The group’s president and CEO, Hadar Susskind, told the New York Times it settled to avoid the cost of litigation but that the group genuinely didn’t consider itself a political organization when it applied for the pandemic relief money.   

Abrams is also behind two earlier pandemic fraud settlements signed by left-leaning Washington think tanks: the Middle East Institute and the Institute for Policy Studies.

Before the pandemic, when Abrams had just started his Zionist Advocacy Center work, he waged lawfare with a focus on humanitarian groups working in Gaza, such as Norwegian People’s Aid, that had received contracts from the American government through USAID. He alleged that his targets had lied when certifying to USAID they had no links to terrorists. Norwegian People’s Aid paid a penalty of $2 million to settle the matter. 

Not all of the cases Abrams brings are successful. In 2020, a judge threw out a case he brought against the New Israel Fund, a group supporting left-wing causes in Israel, in which he alleged the group had abused its tax-exempt status.

And, in 2015 he sued the humanitarian group founded by the late President Jimmy Carter, accusing the Carter Center of support for terrorists over a gathering for Palestinian politicians in which it served them “physical assets of fruits, cookies, bottled water, and presumably other foods and drinks.” Government prosecutors dropped the case.

The post A fraud complaint regarding COVID-19 relief funds cost an anti-Zionist advocacy group a million bucks appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at a memorial ceremony for those murdered by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, and those who fell in the “Iron Sword” war, at the Knesset, the Parliament, in Jerusalem, Oct. 28, 2024. Photo: DEBBIE HILL/Pool via REUTERS

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas has reneged on parts of the ceasefire agreement to halt fighting in Gaza that was announced the prior day in an effort to extort last-minute concessions.

“The Israeli cabinet will not convene until the mediators notify Israel that Hamas has accepted all elements of the agreement,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.

Israel’s acceptance of the deal will not be official until it is approved by the country’s security cabinet and government, and a vote had been slated for Thursday.

Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer told reporters that Israeli negotiators were in Doha to reach a solution.

“As of this time, the details of the agreement have not yet been finalized, and the negotiation team is continuing its efforts to reach a solution,” Mencer told reporters. “The Israeli negotiating team is still in Doha as befits Israel’s willingness to finalize the hostage release agreement.”

Mencer noted that hostage families were informed that Hamas “added further demands that contradict the agreement with the mediators” and that the Israeli government “wants to finalize an agreement.”

Hamas senior official Izzat el-Reshiq said the terrorist group remained committed to the ceasefire deal, agreed a day earlier, that was scheduled to take effect from Sunday to bring an end to 15-months of conflict.

US President Joe Biden’s envoy Brett McGurk and President-elect Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff were in Doha with Egyptian and Qatari mediators working to resolve the last remaining dispute, a US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.

The dispute involves the identities of several prisoners Hamas is demanding be released and it is expected to be resolved soon, the US official said.

The complex ceasefire accord emerged on Wednesday after mediation by Qatar, Egypt, and the U.S. to stop the war, which Hamas started with its invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages to Gaza during the onslaught.

Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.

There are currently 98 hostages remaining in Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead.

The ceasefire deal outlines a six-week initial ceasefire with the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip. Hostages taken by Hamas, which controls the enclave, would be freed in exchange for Palestinian prisoners who have been detained in Israel largely for involvement terrorist activities.

Phase one of the deal entails the release of 33 of the hostages in Gaza, including all women, children, and men over 50.

The deal also paves the way for a surge in humanitarian aid for Gaza. Rows of aid trucks were lined up in the Egyptian border town of El-Arish waiting to cross into Gaza, once the border is reopened.

Hardliners in Netanyahu’s government were still hoping to stop the deal, though a majority of ministers were expected to back it.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism Party said in a statement that its condition for remaining in the government would be a return to fighting at the end of the first phase of the deal, in order to destroy Hamas and bring all the hostages back. Far-right police minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has also threatened to quit the government if the ceasefire is approved.

In Jerusalem, some Israelis marched through the streets carrying mock coffins in protest at the ceasefire, blocking roads and scuffling with police.

Despite the hold-up to the cabinet meeting, political commentators on Israel’s public broadcaster Kan said the latest delay would likely be resolved and that the ceasefire was a done deal.

The accord requires 600 truckloads of humanitarian aid to be allowed into Gaza every day of the ceasefire, with 50 carrying fuel. The first phase of the agreement will also see Israel releasing more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.

Israel secured major gains over Iran and its proxies, mainly Hezbollah, as the Gaza conflict spread. In Gaza, however, Hamas has been decimated, but without an alternative administration in place, it has been left standing.

The post Netanyahu Says Hamas Has Reneged on Parts of Gaza Ceasefire Deal first appeared on Algemeiner.com.