June 7, 2024
It is no secret that the Israeli military is
carrying out genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza.
At the human rights organisation where I work,
Defense for Children International – Palestine, I’ve analysed and reported on
more first-hand accounts of Palestinian child killings, injuries, arrests and
torture than I can count.
People around the world have seen for themselves the
gut-wrenching images of charred Palestinian children’s bodies on social media;
heard Israeli leaders spell out their intentions to ethnically cleanse
Palestinians from Gaza; and from where I live in Washington, DC, witnessed the
Biden administration continue to diplomatically support and send weapons to
Israel with abandon.
While President Joe Biden recently said that “no one
is above the law”, in response to guilty verdicts in former President Donald
Trump’s hush-money trial, his administration is seemingly committed to
shielding Israel from accountability at any cost – even if that means tearing
apart the rules-based international order.
Biden has so far not only refused to support the
ongoing case brought by South Africa at the International Court of Justice
(ICJ), but he has actively rejected the preliminary findings of the World Court
determining that Israel is “plausibly” committing genocide.
Even more, Biden continues to undermine the
prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, after news emerged that he was
pursuing arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and
Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for perpetrating war crimes and crimes against
humanity in Gaza.
While the US court system seems to finally be
holding Trump accountable for some of his litany of crimes, the courts have
failed to stop Biden from furthering US complicity in the Israeli genocide of
Palestinians.
‘Unflagging’ support
On 10 June, an appellate court in San Francisco will
have the opportunity to demonstrate that indeed no one, including the president
of the United States, is above the law.
The Center for Constitutional Rights, representing
plaintiffs Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCI-P), Al-Haq,
Palestinians in Gaza and Palestinian Americans, will ask a panel of judges to
reconsider the district court’s decision to dismiss a lawsuit seeking to stop
the US government from transferring more weapons to Israel during an ongoing
genocide.
The Center for Constitutional Rights brought the
lawsuit against Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defence Secretary
Lloyd Austin in November, arguing that the Biden administration is complicit in
Israel’s genocide of Palestinians by continuing to provide financial and
diplomatic support, as well as weapons.
In its response to the lawsuit, the Biden
administration has maintained that the courts do not have purview over foreign
policy, a legal concept known as the political question doctrine.
In January, Palestinians and Palestinian Americans
testified in a federal court in Oakland, California, about the impacts of US
weapons and support to Israel on their families and loved ones in Gaza, and
asked the judge to issue an emergency order to prevent the US from sending more
weapons to Israel.
Just days after the ICJ issued its first provisional
measures in South Africa’s case against Israel, indicating that Israel is
“plausibly” committing genocide in Gaza, the US federal judge dismissed the
lawsuit against the Biden administration on jurisdictional grounds, but
“implored” Biden to reconsider his “unflagging” support for Israel.
Since then, Israeli forces have killed thousands
more Palestinians in Gaza; repeatedly targeted journalists, doctors and
humanitarian aid workers; besieged hospitals; bombed displacement camps;
starved disabled Palestinian children and newborn babies to death; blocked
humanitarian aid and basic necessities from reaching people in need; and more.
Yet still, Biden has continued expediting the
transfer of US funding and weapons to Israel. Not only have US weapons,
warplanes and technology been used to directly carry out much of the Israeli
military’s campaign of genocide, but American taxpayers have paid for it.
Choice between life and death
The Israeli military dropped American bombs – GBU-39
small diameter bombs, manufactured by Boeing – on a displacement camp in Rafah
at the end of May, igniting the tents sheltering thousands of Palestinians. At
least 45 Palestinians were killed in the attack, including women and children.
These families were sheltering in a “safe area”
after fleeing their homes elsewhere in Gaza, following evacuation orders from
the Israeli military. Israeli planes bombed them anyway.
While Biden has acknowledged that Israeli forces
have used US weapons to kill civilians, and a report by the State Department
last month said “it is reasonable to assess that [US] defense articles … have
been used by Israeli security forces since October 7 in instances inconsistent
with its [international humanitarian law] obligations”, they have done
everything possible to keep the stream of US weapons flowing to Israel.
The US courts have an opportunity in front of them:
judges can choose to take a minimal step towards allowing DCI-P and the other
plaintiffs to have a chance at holding the Biden administration accountable for
its role in the genocide of Palestinians, or they can sit back and refuse to
carry out checks on the executive branch.
It is a choice, quite literally, between life and
death.
Israeli forces, emboldened by the so-called ironclad
support of the Biden administration, have killed on average more than 60
Palestinian children every day since 7 October. That’s more than 15,000
children who won’t go back to school, or play with their friends, or hug their
parents ever again. Those 15,000 children will not grow up and live in a free
Palestine.
If the US courts continue to green-light Biden’s
impunity, more Palestinian children and their families will pay the price. It
is a price that I, alongside many other voters in the US, are not willing to
accept.
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