Israel has every intention of continuing the slaughter after the “pause”

Marjorie Cohn, professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, in an interview with MUSLIMPRESS pointed out that “The Biden administration was oppossed a lasting ceasefire, parroting Israel’s claim that it would only benefit Hamas and would allow more journalists to document the devastation and turn public opinion against Israel,” she said.
The following is the full transcript of the interview:
What is your assessment of the humanitarian pause between Hamas and Israel? Is the pause in the fighting likely to change the course of the war?
Israel has felt international pressure to stop the genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza and pressure within Israel to get the hostages released. The “pause” is meant to allow Israel to appear responsive to humanitarian pressure but without any responsiveness to calls to halt the genocide. Israel has every intention of continuing the slaughter after the “pause,” which has already killed more women and children in less than two months than have been killed in a year and a half in Ukraine. The Biden administration opposes a lasting ceasefire, parroting Israel’s claim that it would only benefit Hamas and would allow more journalists to document the devastation and turn public opinion against Israel. When this “pause” ends, Israel has stated its intention to continue killing Gazans. Hamas will continue to resist Israel’s punishing occupation of Gaza.
What’s your take on US support for Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip?
The US has violated its duty under the Genocide Convention and customary international law to prevent genocide. The US is providing Israel with unconditional military support in the form of money and heavy weaponry and has given Israel political and diplomatic cover to continue its genocide by vetoing Security Council resolutions calling for a ceasefire and the reversal of Israel’s order to more than half the population of Gaza to flee while keeping the borders closed. That amounts to complicity in genocide by Joe Biden, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

What can be done through international legal channels to hold Israel and the US accountable?
There are calls to hold Biden and other US leaders accountable for genocide in the International Criminal Court. The Center for Constitutional Rights in New York has filed a lawsuit against Biden, Blinken, and Austin in US federal court for failure to prevent genocide and complicity in genocide. And any country could ask the International Court of Justice to declare that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and order it to stop.
How could movements such as the BDS play a role with regard to exposing Israeli crimes and raising awareness with regard to the issue of Palestine?
The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement is a non-violent initiative by Palestinian civil society to pressure Israel to end its occupation, provide equal rights for Palestinians, and allow their right to return to their lands in accordance with international law. The BDS movement has achieved considerable success, so much so that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared BDS to be an “existential threat” to Israel. The BDS has also served a major educational function globally about Israel’s violations of international law.
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