At the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, the Center for Constitutional Rights on Monday pushed ahead with its case against the U.S. president and the secretaries of state and defense.
U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit building in San Francisco. (Sanfranman59, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)
By Brett Wilkins
Common Dreams
Following the dismissal earlier this year of a federal lawsuit accusing senior Biden administration officials of failing to prevent Israel’s U.S.-backed genocide in Gaza, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Monday began hearing an expedited appeal by Palestinian plaintiffs in the case.
Arguing that U.S. leaders “have a legal duty to prevent, and not further,” genocide, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) first filed a lawsuit last November in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in Oakland on behalf of the rights groups Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCI-P) and al-Haq, as well as a group of individual Palestinians in Gaza and the United States.
“Genocide can never be a legitimate foreign policy choice,” CCR senior staff attorney Katie Gallagher argued during Monday’s proceedings.
STARTING 9AM PT TODAY
Tune in as Palestinians present their powerful case @theCCR to the Ninth Circuit Court for the Biden Admin's complicity w/ Israel's genocide in Gaza #CeasefireNow #StopTheGenocide
??Livestreaming: https://t.co/Ueqn96UO9e pic.twitter.com/UvXf6qR1vW
— AROC #FreePalestine (@AROCBayArea) June 10, 2024
The suit — which names U.S. President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin as defendants — seeks to force the U.S. administration to stop “providing further arms, money, and diplomatic support to Israel” as it wages a war of annihilation in which more than 132,000 Palestinians have been killed, maimed, or left missing; nearly 90 percent of Gaza’s population has been forcibly displaced; and at least hundreds of thousands of people are starving.
Palestinian American writer Laila al-Haddad, a plaintiff in the case, lost her aunt and three of her cousins to a November Israeli airstrike on a United Nations school in the Jabalia refugee camp that killed more than 30 people.
“I promised my surviving family members in Gaza that I would do everything in my power to advocate on their behalf,” al-Haddad wrote in an article published Monday by The Nation.
“Although I knew the case would be an uphill battle, I testified to make a record of Israel’s horrific slaughter of my family, the displacement and dispossession and starvation of the surviving members, the deliberate destruction of my hometown and everything that sustains life there, and ethnic cleansing of my people,” she continued.
“As a Palestinian, I struggle to balance the disgust and impotence I feel knowing that my tax dollars are being used to kill my family members in Gaza with an urgency to do everything in my power to demand an end to this administration’s complicity in genocide,” al-Haddad added.
"I promised my surviving family members in Gaza that I would do everything in my power to advocate on their behalf." — @gazamom, plaintiff in our case DCIP v. Biden, being heard in Ninth District Court of Appeals TODAY 9am PT in San Francisco. https://t.co/5z2i16Djsn
— The CCR (@theCCR) June 10, 2024
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White ruled on Jan. 31 that the case fell “outside the court’s limited jurisdiction” and rejected the suit on technical grounds — even as he wrote that “the current treatment of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by the Israeli military may plausibly constitute a genocide in violation of international law.”
On Feb. 27, the 9th Circuit Court granted a motion by CCR and co-counsel at Van Der Hout LLP to expedite plaintiffs’ appeal amid soaring Palestinian civilian casualties and destruction wrought by Israel’s assault on Gaza.
Last week, 9th Circuit Judge Ryan Nelson recused himself from the new case following pressure from plaintiffs who questioned his impartiality after he visited Israel in March with 13 other federal judges on a trip sponsored by the World Jewish Congress, meant to convince U.S. jurists of the legality of Israel’s Gaza onslaught.
Genocide is defined under the 1948 Genocide Convention as killing or causing serious physical or psychological harm to members of a group, “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group,” or “forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
At least hundreds of jurists and genocide experts around the world concur that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
The International Court of Justice is currently weighing a genocide case against Israel brought by South Africa and backed by more than 30 nations and regional blocs.
Last month, International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan said he is seeking to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders for alleged crimes including extermination.
As CCR noted:
“Numerous Israeli government leaders have expressed clear genocidal intentions and deployed dehumanizing characterizations of Palestinians, including ‘human animals.’ At the same time, the Israeli military has bombed civilian areas and infrastructure, including by using chemical weapons, and deprived Palestinians of everything necessary for human life, including water, food, electricity, fuel, and medicine.
Those statements of intent — when combined with mass killing, causing serious bodily and mental harm, and the total siege and closure creating conditions of life to bring about the physical destruction of the group — reveal evidence of an unfolding crime of genocide.”
The Biden administration has provided Israel with billions of dollars in military aid and arms and ammunition sales, as well as diplomatic cover in the form of United Nations Security Council vetoes and genocide denial, as its forces continue to obliterate Gaza 248 days after the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7 that left more than 1,100 Israelis and foreign nationals dead — at least some of whom were killed by so-called friendly fire — and over 240 others taken hostage.
"We at @theCCR understand something deeply. The law can be used as a tool of oppression — or, as a tool of liberation. We are demanding that @JoeBiden stop sending arms to aid this genocide" pic.twitter.com/qpX1io3kid
— AROC #FreePalestine (@AROCBayArea) June 10, 2024
“The U.S. 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,” DCI-P advocacy officer Miranda Cleland wrote in an opinion piece published Friday by Middle East Eye. “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 October 7,” she continued. “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 U.S. courts continue to green-light Biden’s impunity, more Palestinian children and their families will pay the price,” Cleland added. “It is a price that I, alongside many other voters in the U.S., are not willing to accept.”
Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams.
This article is from Common Dreams.
Views expressed in this article and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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Stinken, Blinken, and Lloyd one night
Sailed off with a motley crew,—
Sailed on an ideal of crystal light
Into a swamp of goo.
“Where are you going, and what do you wish?”
The IMF asked the three.
“We have come to pirate the last few fish
That live in this beautiful sea;
Nets of credit and gold have we,”
Said Stinken,
Blinken,
And Lloyd.
The IMF laughed and sang a song,
Admiring the motley crew;
And the wind that sped them all night long
Ruffled the waves of dew;
The little stars were called herring-fish,
Said to live in the beautiful sea.
“Now cast your nets wherever you wish,—
Never afraid are we!”
—So cried the stars to the fishermen three,
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.
All night long their nets they threw
To the stars in the twinkling foam,—
Then down from the skies came the ship and crew,
Bringing the fishermen home:
‘Twas all so pretty a sail, it seemed
As if it could not be;
And some folk thought ’twas a dream they’d dreamed
Of sailing that beautiful sea;
But I shall name you the fishermen three:
Stinken,
Blinken,
And Lloyd.
Blinken and Lloyd have tightly closed eyes,
And Stinken a loosely screwed head,
And it’s said that they sailed their favorite skies
In a wee one’s trundle-bed;
So all watch your tails while Mother sings
Of marvelous sights that be,
Or you shall see less merciful things
Than the rocks in a misty sea
Where the crystal rocked the fishermen three:—
Stinken,
Blinken,
And Lloyd.
(Cheers to Eugene Field
Resemblance to characters living or dead s probably questionable judgment).
By the way, I am still waiting for the day when CN provides print-friendly articles. I have to copy and paste articles into Word and clean them up if I want to keep them for reference. Come on, guys.
Hit Control + P to make a pdf of every article, or to print them on paper.
It was shocking, outrageous and disgusting that an American judge was ever sponsored for a free propaganda trip to Israel, and that he took it. I seriously doubt he ever got to see anything Israel wrought in Gaza or the West Bank. That said, this article doesn’t much cover the points of appeal. I would think that 1) there’s no declaration of war by the United States, 2) there’s no treaty between Israel and the United States for the provision of weapons, and 3) the United States is at least a partial signatory to the Genocide Convention would be sufficient.
AND, “May the Force” be with the Defense for the Children International-Palestine, et al VERSUS Joseph R. Biden, Antony Blinken, Lloyd Austin aka USG Officials. IMO, the killers in high places. I digress,
…… “Genocide can never be a legitimate foreign policy choice,” CCR senior staff attorney Katie Gallagher argued during Monday’s proceedings.
IMO, “from sea to shing sea,” it’s semantics!!!
… Once, again, the USG’s POTUS, Secretary of Defense & Secretary of State, (Biden, Austin, Blinken), executing a colossal failure to prevent the Occupier from killing the Occupied, on the west bank of the Jordan river to the Gaza Strip, a massacre!!! The USG’s POTUS, Secretary of Defense & Secretary of State wholeheartedly support Israel monetarily, morally, masterful supplying the oxygen in Israel’s IDF’s foreign policy, *”Kill, first. Think, later.”
…….. Israel’s & the USG’s defense, “Repeating the line,” ad nauseum, “Israel has a right to defend itself.” Israel & the U.S.Government have zero intention of ever calling the deception, destruction and death what it is, genocide. A massacre. Murder. Regardless, * “Joe Biden [OWNS] this!!!”
“Everybody, knows” Palestine has a right to defend itself from Israel’s & the U.S.Govt.’s, foreign policy, *Kill, first. Think, later.” ….
“GIVE IT UP!” for Laila al-Haddad!!!” Palestinian-American, Writer, Plaintiff, Survivor, Activist, Imo, Laila al-Haddad IS *“Living & Loving, OUT LOUD,” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s, message/take-away , per his UGUST 31, 1967, Speech, “The Three Evils of Society“ namely, the “giant triplets of racism, economic exploitation and militarism.”
…… “I promised my surviving family members in Gaza that I would do everything in my power to advocate on their behalf.”
“Although I knew the case would be an uphill battle, I testified to make a record of Israel’s horrific slaughter of my family, the displacement and dispossession and starvation of the surviving members, the deliberate destruction of my hometown and everything that sustains life there, and ethnic cleansing of my people.”
“As a Palestinian, I struggle to balance the disgust and impotence I feel knowing that my tax dollars are being used to kill my family members in Gaza with an urgency to do everything in my power to demand an end to this administration’s complicity in genocide.”
“Ring the bell that still can ring!!!” Martin Luther King, Jr., “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice, everywhere.”
………”Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? BUT, Conscience asks the question, is it right? AND, on some positions, it is necessary for the moral individual to take a stand that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; BUT, he/she must do it because it is right!!!”
……… “We say, to our Nation, tonight, to our government, even to our F.B.I.:”
“We will NOT be harassed. We will NOT make a butchery off our conscience. WE will NOT be intimated; AND, WE will Be Heard!!!”Martin Luther King, Jr., August 31, 1967
TY, Brett Wilkins, Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), CN! “Keep It Lit!”
Onward & Upwards, “Children International-Palestine, et al V. Joseph R. Biden, Antony Blinken, Lloyd Austin”
……… p.s., “IT IS NECESSARY for the moral individual to take a stand that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; BUT, he/she must do it BECAUSE IT IS RIGHT!!!”
Sources:
* “Joe Biden owns this.” Andrew Mitrovica @ Al Jazeera dot com, 10.19.23
* “Living and Loving, Out Loud.” Dr. Cornel west
* “The Three Evils of Society. Martin Luther King, Jr. 1967.” BlackAgendaReport dot com, 1.17.24
I am positive they’ll find a way to whitewash this one.
BTW, another slam-dunk point for the USA being directly involved in genocide, should this case ever be heard before an honest court. Genocide Joe’s military pier, and apparently US special forces were used, in an operation planned with US “intelligence” in the massacre at the Nuseirat refugee camp that left nearly 300 dead. Once again, US military forces are directly engaged in combat alongside the genocidal forces.
The US military has been openly engaging in combat to protect and defend the genocide from those who wish to stop it. This is true in the Red Sea, and it was true when Iran responded to the illegal attack on their embassy in Damascus. Combined with joining Israel in cutting off UNRWA aid, there is no doubt, not in any honest court, that the USA is directly involved in genocide.
Should I hold my breath waiting for this to change the world?
C’mon … anyone knows the US courts are highly political, with political judges, mostly all former prosecutors, approved by politicians and all angling for the next big promotion to a higher court. Justice is not on the agenda. And even if this packed Democrat court were to surprise, the partisan hacks at the higher court in DC are of course strongly pro-genocide.
How many Democrat judges will permanently sacrifice their ambitions to someday be on the Supreme Court by ruling against the bi-partisan consensus in favor of genocide? No future conceivable (D) President or Senator would ever support a judge who ruled against them on this.
Honorable Judges would not wish to be on the Supreme Court, knowing how corrupt it is.
Very well put, no doubt from one with experience.
And very true that the US is directly involved in genocide for bribes to political parties.
Hurrah for CCR and its moral struggle against our completely corrupted Judicial, Executive, and Legislative Branches. We have left what may strictly be termed a Corruptocracy, a government of bribery and bullying, poorly designed and never improved, the worst enemies of our rights and interests.
But I too gambled on the 9th Circuit in a recent political racketeering case, and they were fine with crime by political parties, which both share an amusement with genocide, and a desire for AIPAC bribes.