Bolstered by a momentous ICJ ruling, Palestinians, including Americans, gave three hours of testimony against the Biden administration.
Lawyers involved with the lawsuit playing out in federal court said that the ICJ ruling bolsters their case. Their lawsuit argues that Biden, Blinken, and Austin are liable under U.S. law for failing to uphold their obligation to prevent genocide in Gaza.
Barry Trachtenberg, a professor of Jewish history and author of two books about the Holocaust, testified as an expert witness in the case – over repeated objections from Justice Department attorneys. When he filed his declaration in the case in November, he said, some 11,000 Palestinians had been killed. Today, that number is far greater.
“Everything that we feared and more is unfolding,” he said, noting that often, legal actions about genocide happen long after the fact. “What makes this situation so unique is that we’re watching the genocide unfold as we speak. And we’re in this incredibly unique position where we can actually intervene to stop it using the mechanisms of international law that are available to us.”
It’s weird to me that it’s so unclear what the president actually can and can’t do. Before Trump took his presidential powers for a test drive everyone said it was impossible for a president to do those things. It seems like Biden has found out how to bypass Congress too, but not for the noble purposes we were hoping for.
If Trump’s presidency was good for anything, it was good for giving us innumerable examples of why it’s so dumb to pretend that Democrats were powerless when they had Congress and the presidency for two years.
Well there was lots of times Trump was stopped, too. His Muslim ban was struck down by courts, his wall or trying tk destroy health care would sometimes be slowed in Congress, or his administration would try to slow down his insane impulses. That’s a large part of why they have that new plan to basically replace a ton of the bureaucrats with us men instead of law abiding citizens.
