Israel taps top legal minds, including a Holocaust survivor, to battle genocide claim at world court
Tel Aviv (AP): Israel is sending top legal minds, including a Holocaust survivor, to The Hague this week to counter allegations that it is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
The robust engagement with the International Court of Justice is unusual for Israel, which normally considers the United Nations and international tribunals as unfair and biased. The decision to participate rather than boycott reflects Israeli concerns that the judges could order Israel to halt its war against Hamas and tarnish its image internationally.
"Israel cannot run away from an accusation that is so serious," said Alon Liel, a former director general of Israel's Foreign Ministry and a former Israeli ambassador to South Africa.
Israel, which as one of the parties in the case is entitled to send a judge, has tapped a former Israeli Supreme Court chief justice to join the court's 15 regular members who will rule on the accusation. It has also enlisted a British barrister and lauded international law expert as part of its defense team.
Israel hopes their expertise will trounce the South African claim that Israel's military campaign in Gaza amounts to genocide and prevent an interim court order to force Israel to stop the fighting. Israel says halting the war when Hamas' capabilities are intact in many places and with hostages still in its captivity would amount to a Hamas victory.
The genocide charge strikes at the heart of Israel's national identity. The country sees itself as a bulwark of security for Jews after 6 million were killed in the Holocaust. International support for Israel's creation in 1948 was deeply rooted in outrage over Nazi atrocities.
The same year, with Israel's involvement, world powers drew up the convention against genocide in hopes of preventing similar atrocities.
Israel's unprecedented air, ground and sea offensive has killed more than 23,200 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and children, according to health officials in Hamas-run Gaza. Israel's military campaign has displaced roughly 85 per cent of Gaza's 2.3 million population, many with no homes to return to. More than a quarter of the population is starving.
South Africa, which has long been a critic of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, launched the case at the United Nations' top court in The Netherlands. Many South Africans compare Israel's policies toward Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank with their own country's former apartheid regime of racial segregation.
Israel vehemently disputes the genocide claims, saying it is fighting a war of self-defense after Hamas launched its October 7 attack on southern Israel. Israel says its actions comply with international law and that it does its best to prevent harm to civilians, blaming Hamas for embedding in residential areas.
South Africa's 84-page filing says Israel's actions, including killing Palestinians and causing serious mental and bodily harm, "are genocidal in character." It says Israeli officials have expressed genocidal intent.
The case will likely drag on for years. But South Africa's filing includes a request for the court to urgently issue legally binding interim orders for Israel to "immediately suspend its military operations in and against Gaza."
Abiding by such a ruling would be politically costly for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with Israelis still largely supportive of the war. Israel would also fall short of its declared goal of crushing the enemies.
If it doesn't abide, Israel could face UN sanctions. Although the US, Israel's closest ally, could veto such a move, doing so would anger many Democrats who have already soured on President Joe Biden over his strong support for Israel in the war. That could be damaging for Biden as he seeks reelection. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said Tuesday that the case is "meritless."
Eylon Levy, an Israeli government spokesman, criticised South Africa, saying it was giving Hamas political and legal cover.
"We are appalled that South Africa has chosen to play advocate for the devil," he said.
An Israeli official said Israel agreed to cooperate with the court because it is confident it will prevail. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to discuss the matter with the media. Israel boycotted a prominent case at the court in 2004 about its West Bank separation barrier, which the court ruled was "contrary to international law," saying the proceedings were politically motivated.
Israel chose Aharon Barak a mainstay of the country's legal world for decades to join the panel of international judges. A former attorney general and peace negotiator who served as chief justice of Israel's highest court from 1995-2006, Barak has ruled in cases related to Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.
The internationally renowned 87-year-old has received honorary degrees from multiple universities, including Yale and Oxford.
British lawyer Malcolm Shaw, who will defend Israel, is the author of what's seen as the definitive textbook on international law. He has represented numerous states, including Ukraine and the United Arab Emirates, in international litigation, including at the International Court of Justice, according to a biography posted online by Essex Court Chambers, where Shaw is a barrister.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Single higher education regulator bill tabled in LS; Oppn flags ‘centralisation,' JPC likely
New Delhi: A bill to set up a 13-member body to regulate institutions of higher education was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan introduced the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, which seeks to establish an overarching higher education commission along with three councils for regulation, accreditation, and ensuring academic standards for universities and higher education institutions in India.
Meanwhile, the move drew strong opposition, with members warning that it could weaken institutional autonomy and result in excessive centralisation of higher education in India.
The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, earlier known as the Higher Education Council of India (HECI) Bill, has been introduced in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
The proposed legislation seeks to merge three existing regulatory bodies, the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), into a single unified body called the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan.
At present, the UGC regulates non-technical higher education institutions, the AICTE oversees technical education, and the NCTE governs teacher education in India.
Under the proposed framework, the new commission will function through three separate councils responsible for regulation, accreditation, and the maintenance of academic standards across universities and higher education institutions in the country.
According to the Bill, the present challenges faced by higher educational institutions due to the multiplicity of regulators having non-harmonised regulatory approval protocols will be done away with.
The higher education commission, which will be headed by a chairperson appointed by the President of India, will cover all central universities and colleges under it, institutes of national importance functioning under the administrative purview of the Ministry of Education, including IITs, NITs, IISc, IISERs, IIMs, and IIITs.
At present, IITs and IIMs are not regulated by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
Government to refer bill to JPC; Oppn slams it
The government has expressed its willingness to refer it to a joint committee after several members of the Lok Sabha expressed strong opposition to the Bill, stating that they were not given time to study its provisions.
Responding to the opposition, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said the government intends to refer the Bill to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for detailed examination.
Congress Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari warned that the Bill could result in “excessive centralisation” of higher education. He argued that the proposed law violates the constitutional division of legislative powers between the Union and the states.
According to him, the Bill goes beyond setting academic standards and intrudes into areas such as administration, affiliation, and the establishment and closure of university campuses. These matters, he said, fall under Entry 25 of the Concurrent List and Entry 32 of the State List, which cover the incorporation and regulation of state universities.
Tewari further stated that the Bill suffers from “excessive delegation of legislative power” to the proposed commission. He pointed out that crucial aspects such as accreditation frameworks, degree-granting powers, penalties, institutional autonomy, and even the supersession of institutions are left to be decided through rules, regulations, and executive directions. He argued that this amounts to a violation of established constitutional principles governing delegated legislation.
Under the Bill, the regulatory council will have the power to impose heavy penalties on higher education institutions for violating provisions of the Act or related rules. Penalties range from ₹10 lakh to ₹75 lakh for repeated violations, while establishing an institution without approval from the commission or the state government could attract a fine of up to ₹2 crore.
Concerns were also raised by members from southern states over the Hindi nomenclature of the Bill. N.K. Premachandran, an MP from the Revolutionary Socialist Party representing Kollam in Kerala, said even the name of the Bill was difficult to pronounce.
He pointed out that under Article 348 of the Constitution, the text of any Bill introduced in Parliament must be in English unless Parliament decides otherwise.
DMK MP T.M. Selvaganapathy also criticised the government for naming laws and schemes only in Hindi. He said the Constitution clearly mandates that the nomenclature of a Bill should be in English so that citizens across the country can understand its intent.
Congress MP S. Jothimani from Tamil Nadu’s Karur constituency described the Bill as another attempt to impose Hindi and termed it “an attack on federalism.”
_vb_22.jpeg)
