The plaintiffs want the Federal Court to urge the United States to use its influence to get Israel to end its hostilities in Gaza.
A civil case accusing US President Joe Biden and other senior US officials of being complicit in Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza has begun in a California federal court.
Lawyers representing Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, attended Friday’s proceedings with the plaintiffs who accuse them of “failure to prevent and complicity in the Israeli government’s genocide.” “.
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a US civil liberties group, filed the lawsuit on behalf of the human rights organization Defense for Children – Palestine; Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights group based in the occupied West Bank; and eight Palestinians and American citizens with relatives in Gaza.
At Friday’s hearing, the court heard from lawyers, activists and organizers, including Gaza doctors, about the situation Palestinians have faced for nearly four months.
I’m inside the US federal court where Palestinian plaintiffs are suing Biden, Blinken and Austin for failing to prevent – and complicity in – the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza.
It is unprecedented that the case has reached this point. Palestinian relatives in Gaza will soon testify @ajplus pic.twitter.com/F5CUNAKGUD
– Dena Takruri (@Dena) January 26, 2024
Since the war began on October 7, more than 26,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli bombardment of Gaza following a Hamas attack on Israel that killed around 1,100 people.
The CCR complaint was first filed in November last year and claims that Biden, Blinken and Austin “not only failed in the country’s obligation to prevent genocide, but also allowed the conditions to be created of its development by providing unconditional military and diplomatic support (to Israel). )”.
The CCR asks the court to “declare that the defendants violated their duty under customary international law, under federal common law, to take all measures in their power to prevent Israel from committing genocide against the people Palestinian from Gaza.
The group also calls on the United States to use its influence over Israel to end hostilities against Palestinians in Gaza.
“Political doctrine”
Tel Aviv Tribune’s Rob Reynolds, in a report Friday in court in Oakland, said the CCR contends that by providing weapons to Israel, U.S. support violates the 1948 Genocide Convention.
In response, Biden administration lawyers are “focusing on a very narrow legal argument,” he said.
“They say the court does not have the power to rule on this issue. They cite something called political doctrine, and it has to do with the separation of powers in the United States,” Reynolds said.
He explained that lawyers argue that the conduct of foreign policy, diplomacy, military activities and relations between allies are “within the political purview of the executive branch, in other words, the president and the cabinet” and, therefore, cannot be examined. the legal action of the other branches of power that make up the American government.
The judge also appeared to question his authority in the case, Reynolds said.
“That’s really the fundamental question, whether he has the authority to rule on this issue, but the judge opened the proceedings with a litany of simple descriptions of the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza,” our correspondent said.
Earlier on Friday, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to take all possible measures to prevent acts of genocide against Gaza and to do more to help civilians.
Yet he failed to call for a ceasefire, which South Africa, which presented the case to the ICJ, had called for.