The article that heads the interview and the interview we published deal with the ICJ ruling on war crimes of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, which both the ICJ, the interviewer and the interviewee consider as occupation only the territories occupied by Israel after the 1967 war. It does not consider as occupied those that are the product of the partition of Palestine in 1948 by mandate of the UN Security Council and the subsequent displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians through war and Zionist terror. Nor does it speak of the right of return of the millions who live outside Palestine displaced by the genocidal terror planned since the declaration of the State of Israel. Then they also deal with the criminal procedure before the International Criminal Court against Benjamin Netanyahu.
The important thing about the Deutschlandfunk publication: Human rights lawyer Kenneth Roth: “I fear that the German government is drawing wrong conclusions from the Holocaust” – on Kenneth Roth's conversation with Stephan Detjen | July 27, 2024, en:
That the article and the interview or conversation puts the Zionist State of Israel and its government, as well as Yankee and German imperialism, on the ropes for the war crimes committed against the Palestinian people, and it does so on its own ground, that is, international law and human rights, which the Zionists and imperialists use to seek to legitimize the oppression of their own peoples and against the Palestinian people and the peoples of the world. Here, it is made clear how they violate them in the most vile and shameless way. For them, these rules that they put so much emphasis on are nothing more than a dead letter.
We take the questions and statements of Stephan Detjen and Kenneth Roth as an intrinsic criticism, made by those who from within demand their compliance and rub in their faces the papers that contain these rules. They seem to be quite right in telling the Zionists and imperialists that their disregard for international law and human rights calls into question the very foundation of the international order that gave rise to the unjust partition of Palestine and the founding of the Zionist State of Israel, when they say:
Let us read what it says: “If Palestinians are exempt from human rights, then there are no human rights for anyone.”
Yes, it is the imperialists themselves who question their own international order. Everything indicates that it is in a more advanced decomposition. Let us read the article and the interview below:
Human rights lawyer
Kenneth Roth: “I fear that the German government is drawing the wrong
conclusions from the Holocaust”
Former director of Human Rights Watch Kenneth Roth accuses the federal government of being inconsistent in its Middle East policy. If Palestinians were excluded from human rights, there would be no human rights for anyone, says Roth in Deutschlandfunk.
Kenneth Roth in conversation with Stephan Detjen | July 27, 2024
"Even Jews in Israel will not be protected if human rights are dismissed as irrelevant," said Kenneth Roth, former director of Human Rights Watch. (Picture Alliance / TT News Agency / Pontus Lundahl)
Human rights lawyer and former director of Human Rights Watch Kenneth Roth welcomed the opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the Israeli occupation in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.
In its July 19 statement, the UN's highest court accused Israel of military land confiscation and gross violations of human rights guaranteed by international law. The judges in The Hague are therefore calling on Israel to withdraw from all occupied territories.
"One could also have said that these were war crimes," Roth said. "This was essentially an invitation to the International Criminal Court to charge those responsible for settlement construction with war crimes." But international political pressure on Israel is expected to increase even further.
The attack on Israel by the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas in October 2023 has reignited violence in the region. Israel wants to destroy Hamas. Like Hezbollah in Lebanon, this is supported by Iran.
The concept of
apartheid
In its report, the International Court of Justice also found a violation of the International Convention against Discrimination, which also defines apartheid. Roth, who has previously criticised Israel for this, as have several human rights organisations, sees his assessment confirmed by the UN court's legal opinion: "I think the only truly appropriate description of the court's legal and factual findings is that it is a confirmation of apartheid," said Roth.
Germany and arms
deliveries
Regarding the demands for a boycott against Israel, Roth advocates a differentiation: "Personally, I am not in favour of a boycott of Israelis or Jews," the lawyer emphasises. "But there is a significant movement in this direction and, in fact, the International Court of Justice has said that nations that respect international law have an obligation not to support military actions that result in human rights violations. And we certainly need to talk about that in connection with the war crimes in Gaza," said Roth. It is important to say “that it is wrong for Germany or other governments to supply offensive weapons that are used to enforce systematic oppression.”
You see the devastation wrought in city after city. You see the thousands of civilians killed, including many children. You see the strategy of starvation. You see the destruction of the hospital system. This is not what they expect from their Israel.
Yes, the Republicans are playing this game. But the fact that so many Democrats boycotted Netanyahu’s speech to Congress, and the fact that the majority of American Jews vote for Democrats, shows me that this may be a contentious issue; but I do not believe that there is a change of heart among the American people and American Jews who want Israel to have policies that respect the law.
The interview verbatim
Stephan Detjen: A week ago, the International Court of Justice in The Hague published an opinion on the legal and human rights situation in the Israeli-occupied areas of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. The court condemned not only the construction of settlements but also the occupation as a whole as illegal, called for a complete Israeli withdrawal and concluded that there is blatant discrimination against Palestinians, which also violates international law.
This is exactly what you and Human Rights Watch have been accusing Israel of for many years, and for which you have been harshly criticized. The court's verdict must therefore be a satisfaction for you. But at the same time one has to admit that it is only a non-binding report. What can really be achieved with such a non-binding judicial statement?
Kenneth Roth: Well, you are right, Stephan. It was in response to the request for an advisory opinion from the UN General Assembly. In this sense it is not legally binding. But at the same time it is a legal interpretation of the highest court in the world.
I learned several important lessons from this: First, the Israeli government has denied for years that there is even an occupation in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. It said that these areas are simply in dispute. We will resolve this through negotiations. And the court firmly rejected this argument.
It said that although Israel claims that there was no Palestinian state in 1967, what is Israel occupying then? The court says that Israel took control by military force. That makes it an occupation. This is important because according to the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, which Israel and all other states, including Germany, have ratified, an occupying power cannot resettle its population in occupied territory, which Israel has done time and again by building the settlements.
The court has basically said that these settlements are illegal. One could also have said that these were war crimes. This was essentially an invitation to the International Criminal Court to indict those responsible for building settlements for war crimes. So that was a very important part of this decision.
Apartheid's
controversial term
Detjen: Human Rights Watch and other human rights organizations have long accused Israel of apartheid. Now the International Court of Justice has found a violation of the International Convention against Discrimination, which also defines apartheid. But the judges in The Hague did not explicitly speak of apartheid.
Was that just clever? Because this term is very controversial and politically charged. Are critics of the term “apartheid” right when they say that such terms only favor the most radical and anti-Semitic enemies of Israel?
Roth: Well, first of all, I think it is important to speak out when Israel violates human rights, to say it and not to hide a fact just because an anti-Semite might use it. We also don’t hold back our criticism of China because anti-Asian racists might use it. We just say what it is.
In the case of the apartheid charge, the court was somewhat devious in its legal language. But if you read the decision properly, you will see that apartheid really exists.
Detjen: …But they didn’t say it. They didn’t call it apartheid.
Roth: Well, you said there was a violation of the Convention against Racial Discrimination, which prohibits apartheid. They described it legally. For example, there was a dissenting opinion by German judge Georg Nolte, who opposed the declaration of apartheid. But his justification for this was rather weak.
He said that one should only speak of apartheid if this is the only possible explanation for the systematic racial discrimination declared by the court. So he did not deny that there is racial discrimination, but he said that there could be something else behind it. And both arguments he puts forward make no sense.
One is the security argument. Israel has security problems. But if you look at what the court says, the agreements do nothing to contribute to security. They even make Israelis less safe. The destruction of Palestinian homes has nothing to do with security. The various demographic measures have nothing to do with security. The use that the Israelis make of the resources of the West Bank has nothing to do with security.
All of this has more to do with the exploitation and domination of the Palestinian population in the West Bank and East Jerusalem than with security. Nolte's other argument is that maybe Israel is only interested in taking over the land. Maybe it's not really about controlling the people. Maybe Israel really just wants the land. But does that really make sense? Because how can you take over the country without the people?
There are now some far-right ministers in the Netanyahu government, notably [Itamar] Ben-Gvir and [Bezalel] Smotrich, who are openly talking about mass expulsions. But that would be a massive war crime, a massive crime against humanity. And when Nolte says that it is not apartheid because there could be a massive war crime instead, that doesn't make any sense either.
So I think the only really appropriate description of the court's legal and factual conclusions is that this is an affirmation of apartheid. And every single serious human rights organization that has dealt with the issue has also discovered this.
Detjen: But the term apartheid is also so sensitive and controversial because it is not normally understood in the sense of a legal definition, but rather as a political and historical comparison to South Africa. And then it was used to legitimize a boycott movement against the then South African regime.
The term can now also be used today to legitimize calls to boycott Israel, which in turn stir up memories of calls to boycott Jews under the Nazi regime, especially in Germany. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said at his press conference this week that the idea of an anti-Israeli boycott was repugnant. This makes it clear how emotional this debate is, especially in Germany.
Palestinians with flags and banners on Nelson Mandela Square with a statue of Mandela with his fist raised in Ramallah, West Bank. The reason was the lawsuit filed by the Republic of South Africa at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for alleged genocide against Israel.
Apartheid: South Africa's
history, Israel's present?
Roth: Well, first of all, I think it's important that if we look at the Human Rights Watch report "Finding Apartheid," for example, we make it very clear that we are not making a historical analogy with South Africa.
Rather, we applied and conducted a legal analysis of two international treaties: the Convention against Apartheid and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Both of these define the term apartheid. We applied that legal standard to the facts and it was actually quite simple.
When we submitted our 200+ page report, the Israeli government had nothing to say. They could find nothing wrong with it, either legally or factually. So they resorted to name calling, but tacitly admitted that it was a fair analysis.
Against the boycott
of Israel
Now to your point about the boycott: I think it's important to differentiate this term a bit, because I'm not personally in favor of a boycott by Israelis or Jews. But there is a significant movement in this direction, and in fact the International Court of Justice has said that law-abiding nations of the world have an obligation not to support military actions that result in human rights violations.
And we certainly need to talk about that in relation to war crimes in Gaza, but also in relation to apartheid. And I think it's important to say that it's wrong for Germany or other governments to supply offensive weapons that are used to enforce systematic oppression. The International Court of Justice also said the same thing.
So let's put aside the Nazi analogy of boycott and see whether Germany or other nations support war crimes or other serious human rights violations by providing the means, the weapons, used in those violations.
Germany and arms
deliveries
Detjen: As far as we know, Germany has not delivered weapons to Israel since November of last year. This week I had the opportunity to ask the Chancellor at his press conference whether the ICJ report sheds a new light on the decision on arms supplies. And he said, well, we did not decide on arms supplies. And then he added: We have complied and we will comply. How do you understand this in light of the Hague report?
Roth: Nobody can accuse Germany of acting like the United States, where the American government has supplied billions and billions of dollars worth of arms to Israel, which is committing war crimes in Gaza. The only exception is that Joe Biden has stopped the launching of those huge 2,000-pound bombs that Israel has used more than 200 times to destroy neighborhoods in Gaza. Apart from that, the US government has continued to supply arms.
And Germany did not do that. There was a massive decline in arms sales to Israel after the war in Gaza began. And the German government has not said clearly that they can resume.
What is interesting is that the British government, which also supplied arms, is also reconsidering this now that the new Labour government has taken power. I had hoped that Germany could make it clear that it does not support or encourage any war crimes in Gaza.
An interesting analogy is the case of Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia, who is currently serving a 50-year sentence in a British prison for supporting war crimes by supplying arms to a rebel group in neighbouring Sierra Leone that committed atrocities.
There is therefore a historical precedent that allows those who supply arms to aid and abet war crimes to be prosecuted. I don't expect that to happen any time soon for the US government or the German government, but it is theoretically possible and that is something to keep in mind as the German government explains its policy.
Arrest warrant
against Benjamin Netanyahu
Detjen: So far we have mainly talked about the report of the International Court of Justice, but if we now talk about criminal proceedings, there is also the other case before the International Criminal Court against Benjamin Netanyahu. The court is currently deliberating on the request of the international chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, to issue an arrest warrant against Benjamin Netanyahu.
And Germany is also playing an active role in this case: the German government sent a statement to the court this week arguing that now is not the right time to pursue this criminal case. What do you think of this argument?
Roth: I must say that I understand that the German government wants to be very respectful of the Israeli government. But the fact that it went so far as to try to delay the issuance of arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Joaw Galant surprised me. Because the arguments put forward by the German government are so weak that one might believe that no serious debate is at stake. It is rather a political gesture towards Israel.
As far as I understand, Germany argues that the International Criminal Court is guided by the so-called principle of complementarity. This means that it should give priority to national law enforcement authorities. The International Criminal Court should only have jurisdiction if there is no effective national prosecution.
And Germany says that it is unfair that these arrest warrants are being issued now because there is a war going on. And how can Israel investigate itself in the course of a war? Well, Germany did not raise this argument when the arrest warrants against Vladimir Putin were issued, even though the war in Ukraine is still ongoing. No one would say that in this case.
Governments have an obligation to open investigations even while a war is underway, especially a protracted war like the one in Gaza. To make matters worse, the Israeli government has never allowed senior officials to be prosecuted for war crimes. Germany should know that. They never did that.
And in fact, we recently learned, through an exposé by The Guardian in London and the Israeli magazine Online, that the Israeli secret service Mossad actually tried to assassinate the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensouda, Karim Khan's predecessor, by intimidating her through threats, conducting a raid against her husband and intercepting her communications. These were incredibly dirty tricks.
This shows that the Israeli government is not willing to allow an independent investigation. Instead, it tries to hinder law enforcement with dirty tricks. And to make matters worse, Karim Khan traveled twice to the region and announced twice that his top priority is to stop Israel's starvation strategy against Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
And even though it said so clearly, Israel continued with the starvation strategy and never opened an investigation into it. This is why the International Criminal Court has now requested arrest warrants. So there is nothing to justify the German government's claim that Israel is acting diligently in any way. It is all a delaying tactic to prevent the clearly justified arrest warrants from being issued.
The German Raison
d'Etat
Detjen: To what extent can you understand that Germany is on Israel's side? You are of Jewish descent. Your father was a German Jew from Frankfurt who fled to the United States in the late 1930s. So you have German citizenship.
Can you understand that the German government and much of German society feel that there are special historical reasons to be more cautious than others when it comes to criticizing Israel, even when it comes to possible war crimes?
Roth: I mean, I understand very well the so-called reason of state of the German government, how important it is to recognize the horrors of the Holocaust and try to make reparations. However, my fear is that the German government is drawing the wrong conclusions from the Holocaust.
Broadly speaking, two different conclusions are drawn from the Holocaust. One is Benjamin Netanyahu's conclusion. He says that the Jews were persecuted in the Holocaust because they were weak. That's why Netanyahu is determined to build a strong Israel. And that's true to a certain extent. I mean, you need a strong Israel to protect it.
But he goes one step further. He's basically decided that he will strike down anyone who attacks Israel in one blow, and with ten times the severity. He will make the lives of his enemies hell. He will break the Geneva Conventions and just attack them. But that's the wrong lesson, because the other lesson that I think most Jews have learned is that being strong is not enough. You also need strong human rights standards.
If Palestinians are exempt from human rights, then there are no human rights for anyone. So my conclusion is: I wish the German government, when supporting Israel, would also recognize the importance of supporting human rights standards, even if Israel is the actor.
In fact, Germany does the same in most other parts of the world, but it acts very inconsistently when it comes to Israel. And that does not do the Jews any favors, because, first of all, half of the world's Jews live outside Israel. They depend on human rights standards to protect them. And even Jews in Israel will not be protected if human rights are dismissed as irrelevant.
Detjen: When Angela Merkel coined the concept of the existence and security of the State of Israel as part of the German raison d'état, she spoke explicitly of a part of the German raison d'état, unlike the current federal government, which says in its coalition agreement that Israel's security “are German reasons of state.”
Do you think it would be possible, and how could it be possible, in recognition of Germany's history and its special responsibility towards Israel, to include the fate of the Palestinian people as a further part of this German raison d'état?
Roth: Well, I would say that the raison d'état should be to try to protect Israel, of course, but also to respect the human rights norms that protect Jews. In other words, the real raison d'état should be to protect Jews. It would be a sad understanding of the raison d'état if Netanyahu were allowed to deny human rights to Palestinians, meaning that there are no human rights for anyone. It would be a misunderstanding of what reasons of state should be.
And, you know, you don't have to look very far, even within Israel, to see a broad desire for a broader understanding of what it means to support Israel. I think it would be the duty of the German government to look beyond Netanyahu and engage with broader sections of the Jewish public, whether it's other parts of official Israel or Jews around the world.
And I can speak very well for Jews in America that there is a conservative part that has a similar attitude, no matter what it is: always for Israel. But the vast majority of American Jews are appalled by what Netanyahu is doing and are desperate to rally support to put him in his place.
Detjen: And yet, we see how the relationship with Israel, the case of Israel, is polarizing American politics like few other things these days. We saw this when Benjamin Netanyahu spoke before the US Congress. And we have the devastation wrought in city after city. You see the thousands of civilians killed, including many children. You see the strategy of starvation. They see the destruction of the hospital system. This is not what they expect from their Israel.
Yes, the Republicans are playing this game. But the fact that so many Democrats boycotted Netanyahu's speech to Congress, and the fact that the majority of American Jews vote for Democrats, shows me that this may be a controversial issue; but I do not believe that there is a change of heart among the American people and American Jews who want Israel to have policies that respect the law.
The underlining is ours.
AND