Turning the Victim into the Perpetrator: South Africa’s Case Against Israel Transcript

Sarah: Good afternoon. On January 11th, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at the Hague, the UN’s highest judicial body, heard arguments in the case brought by South Africa against the State of Israel. South Africa accuses the Jewish State of “acts and omissions, genocidal in character against Palestinians in Gaza.” Israel, as most of us know, is a signatory to the convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide. Hamas as a terrorist organization and not a state, could not be accused of genocide. This whole proceeding is laced with profound irony. It is well known Israel was attacked by Hamas on October 7th, not the other way around and that Israel is fighting an existential war.

The term genocide was first coined by a Polish Jewish lawyer, Raphael Lemkin. Lemkin fled the Nazis during World War II and received asylum in the United States. At the time of the Nuremberg trials, the horrors of the Nazi atrocities were too vast to be able to be encapsulated in any of the then-existent international jurisprudence. This was a point of considerable frustration for Lemkin and so he came up with the term genos, meaning race or tribe, and cide meaning killing. He then campaigned vociferously for an international convention against genocide. From his perspective, this international convention would be used to “prevent future Hitlers”.

In Lemkin’s 1944 book, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, he defined the term as intended “to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of existential foundations of the life of national groups with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.” The irony is that the plan to annihilate the Jewish state is a coordinated plan coming from all the proxies of the Islamic Republic of Iran, including Hamas, the Houthis, and Hezbollah. The deeply irony is that the modern State of Israel was established after the horrors of the genocide of the Holocaust.

We are very honored to have with us here today, perhaps one of the world’s greatest scholars on international law, Professor Amichai Cohen. Professor Cohen is a member of the Faculty of Law at Ono Academic College. He earned his LLB from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and his LLM and LLD from Yale Law School. He is an expert on international law of armed conflict and human rights law. Amichai Cohen has served as the Dean of the Faculty of Law at the Ono Academic College. He has been a visiting professor of law at American University and at Columbia Law School. He is also a visiting scholar at Cambridge University and at the Swiss Institute of Comparative Law. He has written many books and scores of scholarly articles.

Amichai, can you give us an overview of the crime of genocide in general and the specific claims of South Africa against Israel?

Professor Cohen: First of all, thank you very much for having me. Good afternoon. Good evening from me in Israel. Let me start by saying upfront that I think that the South African case is more political than legal. We will accord it more respect than it deserves by analyzing the legal foundations of genocide and trying to assess their legal claim. I think we are being a little more favorable to them than what is merited because, as I said, their objective is more political than legal. However, I will engage in this legal analysis.

The crime of genocide, as you said, is defined by Lemkin and it is the crime of crimes under international law. It is the crime of crimes because it consists of two pillars. The first pillar is the action. There has to be some illegal action on a large scale. During the Holocaust, the killing of Jews was the action but there does not have to be a killing. There can also be physical or mental harm. The illegal action can also be causing conditions of life that are very hard on a group. The most important pillar of the crime of genocide, however, is the special intent. This is what turns it into the crime of crimes. The special intent has to be to destroy, to exterminate a group, an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group. There has to be a plan and usually, but not exclusively, there is a state which intends to execute this plan.

The South African claim tries to show the two conditions exist. Regarding the killing, there is an extensive description of the suffering in the Gaza Strip. Now, I want to be very clear, there is immense suffering in the Gaza Strip. War is terrible. Many people have been killed, much property has been destroyed and up to a million and a half people have had to leave their homes. This is terrible. This is not the question. The question is not whether it is terrible. The question is whether it was illegal and perhaps, we will deal with that later. I am not saying that there were no violations of international law. In the history of the human race, there has never been an armed conflict in which there were no violations of the laws of armed conflict. The war itself is not an illegal activity even though the South Africans framed it as such. This is not sufficient. The ICJ has no jurisdiction regarding Israel as concerns any violations of the laws of armed conflict. The ICJ has jurisdiction regarding genocide only. Israel agreed in advance to the jurisdiction of the court only as regards genocide covered in the convention you mentioned. The South Africans have to prove intent. They have to prove that Israel has a plan to exterminate the Palestinian people living in Gaza.

Now, this is what turns the discussion into something that is very far from a legal one. To prove a suggestion as preposterous as that Israel has a plan to destroy the Palestinians, not Hamas, the entire Palestinian people, one has to completely ignore the fact that Israel is providing humanitarian assistance to the Gazans. One has to dismiss the fact that, as the first move of the war, Israel tried to evacuate Gaza City and to warn Palestinians. These actions would make no sense if there was any intention to destroy the Palestinians.

Anyway, the South Africans ignored all that and built their case on a number of declarations, utterances or comments made by fringe, or a little less fringe, politicians. Perhaps we will discuss these comments a little later but these were misplaced comments. I have nothing to say about those comments. They should be condemned but they in no way prove any plan by Israel to exterminate the Palestinian people. As I said, the way this case was framed is very far from a legal claim. That is the South African case in a nutshell.

Sarah: All right. So, it seems that the notion of intentionality is inherent in the definition of genocide. Just last week, IDF spokesperson, Daniel Hagari, said, “Hamas sees civilian deaths as a strategy. We see them as a tragedy.” When we discuss the operation in Gaza, it seems clear to me the government of Israel has been doing everything possible to try to mitigate the suffering of the average Palestinian. Israel is not targeting Palestinians, rather, it is targeting the leaders of Hamas. What would South Africa have to gain by making these claims? Is this simply a politicization of the term?

Professor Cohen: Let’s talk a little about strategy here, because I think understanding the strategy is important. The South African strategy here at the ICJ could be one of three. The first is to win the case on the merits. I actually believe that the South Africans do not care so much about winning the case on the merits. It is very difficult to prove genocide in the ICJ. The ICJ has set a very high threshold for proving genocide in several past cases. I will give just a very short example. In the Croatia versus Serbia case, the court declared that ethnic cleansing is not genocide. Even though the Serbians wanted to ethnically cleanse the Croatians, this was not deemed sufficient to qualify for the intention of genocide. This is because, for genocide, one must have the intention to destroy and not merely the intention to perform ethnic cleansing. So, it is a very high threshold, and I do not think the South Africans have the intention of winning the case on the merits.

However, there could be a second strategy. The second strategy is to win the provisional measures stage. In several past cases, the court has said that the threshold for ordering provisional measures is much lower than the threshold for genocide. The party requesting the provisional measures only has to show that they have a plausible claim. Proving they have a plausible claim, of course, is a much lower threshold than proving genocide. In the past, the court has given several provisional orders. We will perhaps speak about the orders later, but this is a second strategy. This second strategy is to create pressure on Israel by asking the court to order an immediate ceasefire.

The third strategy has nothing to do with the court. The court is being used as the platform for creating political pressure on Israel. We observe this when we consider the parties joining the case. At this stage, there is no practical impact for parties joining the case and they are just hopping on the bandwagon. The South Africans, and the Palestinians I think, hope this case will pressure Israel and Israel’s allies in the West. I think they realize the US is firm in its support of Israel as of now. However, they are hoping to have an effect on other countries which are weaker in their support and which have internal divisions as regards this support. As an example, the latest polls indicate there is now a small majority of Germans opposing German support of Israel. Although German politicians are behind Israel, public support is more complex. This third strategy uses the court as a platform to create political pressure. Perhaps this is the real strategy of the South Africans, not to prove intention or commission of genocide, but to pressure Israel.

Sarah: Amichai, can you explain the difference between the justification of Israel’s persecution of the war on legal and versus moral and ethical grounds?

Professor Cohen: There has been a great deal of discussion in the media and in legal blogs about the cumulative civilian harm, meaning the total number of Palestinian civilians killed in Gaza. No one knows exactly what the numbers are. First of all, we cannot trust, or have confidence in, the numbers published by the Palestinians. Even if we believe the numbers, reportedly between 23,000 and 25,000, we do not know how many are Hamas terrorists versus real civilians. The number of children is not proof of anything because it depends on who you count as a child.

Let us assume for a second that there are many civilian deaths. This is something I am not disputing. As I said, war is terrible, and many Palestinian civilians have died. From a legal perspective, this actually does not prove anything. The way international law views the conflict is to ask first whether the use of force is justified. It is clear to me and, I think, to most legal scholars, that Israel was justified in commencing the war. After the terrible events of October 7^th, it was clearly self-defense.

Once the war started, the laws of armed conflict applied. The laws of armed conflict consider the harm to civilians, on an operation-by operation basis. The question is how many civilians were killed in a specific bombing? There is a rule of proportionality, which says that the collateral damage or harm to civilians cannot be excessive compared to the military advantage gained by the attack. But this is on an operation-by-operation basis, not the entire war.

The claim made in the newspapers and by scholars and some politicians, is that the number of civilians killed in total, not on specific operations, is too much. Too many Palestinian civilians were killed. That is not a legal claim. That is more of a moral claim. If we consider a moral claim, we need to consider the question of responsibility and who is actually responsible for the number of civilian deaths. As I said, I am not disputing the fact that many, many Palestinian civilians have been killed. The question is, who is responsible for these deaths? As a moral claim, and not even as a legal claim, I think the main culprit here is Hamas.

The entire strategy of Hamas is to act from within a civilian population. They turned Gaza into an enormous human shield. Two million civilians serve as human shields for Hamas which operates from tunnels under Gaza. We now know they dug hundreds of miles of tunnels under the Gaza Strip. The question is one of responsibility, and it is clear Hamas is responsible. There is something else not spoken about and it is ludicrous that it is not discussed. If Hamas stops fighting now and surrenders, the fighting will stop immediately. There will be no more civilian suffering. No one even suggests this. No one even thinks of it as a possibility.

In 1982, Arafat surrendered and said that he was leaving Lebanon because too much damage was done. I am no supporter of Arafat but I have to give him credit in this case. Arafat left Lebanon for Tunis with hundreds of his supporters. This illustrates that surrender is a possibility. No one even suggests it as a plausible solution in the current war. I have not even addressed the kidnapped people still held by Hamas. This is an ongoing crime against humanity. It is not as if the actions of Hamas are defensible.

Once again, I want to stress I am not saying Israel has made no mistakes or committed no violations during the war. There were probably things that did not work exactly as they should have. It happens in every war. This is not the question of whether there were violations. In this regard, I think the real question is whether Israel has the proper institutions to investigate violations, to correct them and to blame the people who have done something wrong. I think Israel has these institutions and we can discuss them later.

Sarah: Right. I would love for you to discuss that and also to discuss the inherent asymmetry between a state and a terrorist organization in a war. Is a terrorist organization subject to the laws of armed conflict? What sorts of enforcement do we have against a terrorist organization?

Professor Cohen: There is no question that an organization like Hamas is subject to the laws of armed conflict although that might have been in question many years ago. What do I mean when I say they are subject to the laws of armed conflict? I mean that any violation of the laws of armed conflict by Hamas is a criminal violation of international law. There is individual responsibility as well. In most cases, this does not add a lot to the criminal status that Hamas terrorists already have under Israeli law. I heard Israel is holding between 2,500 and 3,000 members of Hamas. The prisoners include hundreds of people caught on October 7th, and many more caught during the operation following. They are being held by Israel and will be put on trial. There is a very interesting discussion in Israel now, about how the trials will work. As an example, there is an interesting question about who will defend them and act as their attorneys.

In answer to your question, we have to consider whether international law can add anything to Israeli domestic law. These people are criminals according to Israeli domestic law. Does international law add anything here? I think it does. Israel is used to being criticized based on international law. Prior to October 7^th, when people spoke about international law with respect to Israel, they usually spoke about what Israel did wrong. However, an interesting phenomenon developed on October 7^th. It was such a terrible occurrence that people around the world had a hard time understanding what happened. In this case, international law helped in framing the events of October 7^th as crimes against humanity and war crimes. Given these legal classifications, people could compare October 7^th to other similarly classified events such as those that occurred in Rwanda and Bosnia. This helped them to better understand the gravity of what occurred on October 7^th.  Of course, as time progressed, more and more people returned to criticizing Israel using international law until they reached a peak and accused Israel of committing genocide. However, I am referring to the days following October 7^th.

It is important to think about Hamas as not only as committing crimes against Israelis under Israeli domestic law, but as violators of international criminal law. Under international criminal law, there are crimes of which the entire world is a victim. In these cases, the victim is not only a specific person or even a state. These are international crimes because they impact the world order and they require a response from the entire world. I think this is the correct framework within which to view the crimes of Hamas. Hamas is not just committing crimes against Israelis; Hamas is undermining the entire world order. In addition to 240 kidnapped Israelis, Hamas has taken two and a half million Palestinian people hostage. This is a crime against humanity. The world cannot operate when such organizations are operating and with complete disregard of, not just international law, but humanity itself. This is why thinking about Hamas atrocities in international law terms is important and adds value.

Sarah: Yeah, that is why I think it is incredibly important that Israel has responded to this case.  We see images of killed and harmed Palestinian civilians on our televisions nightly. How do we preserve the international support of the community of nations when so many people are seeing these horrific images?

Professor Cohen: We have to think about it in two ways. First of all, whose opinions do we care about? I have been in this business for quite some time and I know many countries use international law for political gain while caring nothing about the law itself. Therefore, the opinion of Russia, or certain countries in Africa, regarding whether Israel violates international law, is not so important. It is politically problematic but it is not a legal question. Although it is a political question, it should not be ignored. Public support is a real issue within Western democracies. The images shown on television depict actual suffering and there is enormous suffering in the Gaza Strip. It is terrible what is happening there. War is terrible.

Can Israel operate better? The answer is clearly yes. I have never been employed by the State of Israel and I am critical of it sometimes. I believe Israel is justified in conducting the operation but it could have done better. I will provide an example. I think Israel should have provided humanitarian assistance more readily at the initial stages of the war. There should not have been pressure needed from President Biden before the Israelis provided humanitarian assistance. At the end of the day, everybody knew humanitarian assistance would ultimately be provided and I do not think Israel should have waited for American pressure on this issue. This is just one example, there are probably others of this order.

The images you referred to cannot be contradicted on some levels. There is no nice or convenient way to show the scenes of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians evacuating Gaza City. However, let us consider the alternative. What would have happened if Israel had not warned the Palestinians and they had not evacuated Gaza City? The consequences would have been much more terrible than they actually were. The consequences as they were, were terrible. However, the scale of the disaster would have been of a different magnitude without a successful evacuation.

There are claims Israel is bombing the areas to which the Palestinians were evacuated. I am not speaking about the area of active fighting around Khan Yunis but rather the areas to which more than a million Palestinians were evacuated. There are Hamas operations from within these areas and so there are Israeli responses. However, had Israel not evacuated civilians to these areas, the human disaster would have been much worse. Although there are some operations in those areas, the situation is far better than what it would have been if those civilians had remained within the cities.

There is no good way to paint a war. A war is terrible. However, there is no alternative to what Israel has done. I think the presentation of the Israeli case at the ICJ represented the Israeli government quite well. I am not referring to the genocide case but more to the presentation of the terrible things that are happening to Israel and the Israelis. Israel is doing a lot in terms of assistance. It is difficult to compare past events. Every war is different. As a general comparison, what Israel does compares favorably to anything that has been done in recent decades in similar conflicts.

Sarah: Right. So, you have actually covered the pillars of international law and warfare including proportionality, the use of force as a means of self-defense, distinguishing between civilians and legitimate military targets, and taking precautions such as using pamphlets to warn people before bombing.

What are the consequences if the IJC was to rule against Israel? Can they impose a ceasefire on Israel while some 200,000 Israelis from the north and the south have fled their homes and Israelis are vulnerable to attack on a daily basis.?

Professor Cohen: Let’s try to break down the possibilities. The worst-case scenario, which I do not think will actually happen, is that the court will order an immediate ceasefire. It did so in the Ukraine versus Russia case a little more than a year ago. Although the court ordered a ceasefire. Russia ignored it completely. However, I think the ICJ’s decision was essential to facilitate building an international coalition to impose sanctions on Russia. As you know, there are many sanctions on Russia. To be clear, Israel would not be able to withstand even a small fraction of the sanctions that were imposed on Russia.

Assuming the court was to order an immediate ceasefire, Israel could say, “This is a political court and we are not respecting their decision.” Assume then that an Israeli delegation was to approach the government of Germany and ask to buy armaments. Given German domestic law, it would be very difficult for the Germans to sell armaments to Israel for a war which the ICJ just ordered be stopped. It would not even reach the level of a political decision; it would be halted at the bureaucratic level. The bureaucracy would never proceed with the sale. These are real problems Israel would face if it ignored an ICJ judgment.

However, I do not think the court will order an immediate ceasefire. Hamas is not a party to the case and will not stop what they are doing based on any decision from the ICJ. They will not release the people they kidnapped and will continue fighting. It does not make sense for the court to order an immediate ceasefire. If the court orders anything, it is likely to be more in the realm of Israel having to provide more assistance in the interim.

Keep in mind, it would only be an interim measure and not the final ruling of the court. The final decision will come years in the future. As of now, perhaps they may require Israel to allow more in terms of safe zones, as an example, which is less problematic to Israel. Perhaps they may require Israel to stop incitement to genocide. I think such an order may actually be beneficial for Israel because, as I mentioned, some Israeli politicians are unable to keep their mouths shut. Personally, I would welcome such an order. There is a Myanmar case regarding the Rohingya genocide. In this case the court has simply ordered Myanmar not to commit genocide. This means nothing because Myanmar does not think it is committing genocide. Similarly, Israel does not think it is committing genocide either.

These are the impacts of potential decisions on a practical level. However, if the ICJ says that Israel committing genocide is a plausible claim, this will have an impact. It may not be a direct impact and it is not as if something immediate will happen. However, it will fuel criticism in the western democracies Israel relies on for support.

Is the ICJ a real court or are its decisions only political. I read that Alan Dershowitz was interviewed today and said, “It is all politics, do not pay any attention.” Some justices on the ICJ are from China, Russia, Lebanon, Morocco, and countries like that. We do not think the judicial decisions of those judges are independent. However, the ICJ has justices from the United States and from France, Germany, Japan, and Australia. These are countries built upon the foundations of judicial independence. As such, it is also important to look at the division of opinion between the justices. If the only justices supporting orders against Israel are from Somalia and from Morocco, the impact of the judgements overall may not be very severe. However, if the court’s decisions are unanimous, or almost unanimous, this might create more problems for Israel.

One thing to note: It is clear that the Chinese and Russian justices are not independent. However, this does not mean we know how they will rule. Although China and Russia are not pro-Israel in the current conflict, they do not want to encourage cases claiming genocide. This is because China is next in line and Russia is already there. China may be subject to genocide claims because of their treatment of the Uyghurs in West China.

Sarah: If there is a ruling that the claim of genocide is plausible, how will that affect Israel’s ability to fight future conflicts? This includes the ability to confront Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Professor Cohen: From the beginning of the conflict, the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs said Italy would not be selling arms to Israel. Israel does not buy a lot of arms from Italy but, as I said, Israel relies on international support to exist. International support does not mean Israel has to follow the most extreme view of international law. However, it does have to preserve the support of countries like the US. I think lawyers in the US Armed Forces and Pentagon officials are doing a lot to assist in this regard. Delegations of Israeli officers have come to the US, UK and France during the war to explain the situation and they are continuing to communicate.

I will turn the question of whether Israel will be able to preserve international support in these countries. Please tell us what Israel has to do more of in terms of public relations on the ground?

Sarah: One of the things incumbent upon us, is to keep the images of October 7th alive. There would be absolutely no war if October 7th had not occurred. What is the consensus about the moral legitimacy of the war and the actions of the IDF in Israel today?

Professor Cohen: Justification for the war is not the major area of internal disagreement in Israel right now. The focus is on the status of the people kidnapped. Internal disagreements in this area are not affecting operations yet but the level of disagreement in Israel is growing. Some segments of Israeli society believe there is a contradiction between saving the kidnapped and dismantling Hamas. The main criticism is that the kidnapped people have been in captivity for 109 days and the state is not doing enough to save them.

I do not support this view but one has to realize it is growing in the Israeli public. Yesterday, the families of the kidnapped entered the Knesset and disrupted proceedings. Today, they blocked the Kerem Shalom crossing and prevented humanitarian assistance from entering Gaza. This dissatisfaction is growing in Israel. I think this is the main source of disagreement in Israeli society now.

Sarah: Right. Do you believe that Israel and the IDF are under more international scrutiny than the rest of the world?

Professor Cohen: I think it is uncontested that Israel is under more scrutiny. One has to realize this is a war in which social media was involved from the first second. Hamas’s strategy was to internationalize the conflict using social media. They filmed everything and everything was available on social media from the first second of the conflict. The war is being conducted by a democratic country with a free press, and no restrictions on the publishing of any images. The war is also being fought with a background of antisemitism or anti-Israeli feeling. I think it is clear that the IDF is operating under extraordinary scrutiny. This does not mean Israel does not have to follow international law, nor is it justification for any violation. It is just clear that there is more criticism.

Sarah: Right. We have many questions that have come in from our audience. I am wondering if you could explain Israel’s apparatus for dealing with those who violate the laws of armed conflict. What mechanisms does Israel have in place in this regard?

Professor Cohen: This is something I was involved in almost 15 years ago. In 2010, there was a commission formed after the Flotilla incident. The objective of the commission was to review the way Israel investigates suspicions or allegations of violations by the IDF. They created an independent system. It is a military investigative body which is completely outside the chain of command. It includes reservists and others not in the current military chain of command. Once a military operation begins, this institution is formed immediately. This system is currently operational and it was operational during previous maneuvers.

This institution conducts factual investigations to determine if there is a need to open a criminal investigation. It is not a criminal investigation. There is no need for claims to be submitted to this body. It reviews what is going on. It then identifies cases which appear suspicious and examines them. This is actually a system that has operated quite well. I think it creates a good balance between the need to investigate allegations and the fear that too many criminal investigations are harmful to troop morale. One cannot open a criminal investigation with every allegation. Not every allegation is credible. I think this system provides the appropriate balance and amount of independence for investigations. We will be able to review the details of actual cases after the war. I already know, however, of certain operational decisions made because of this system. As I said, it is not a criminal system. It is a system that reviews what happened. If there are mistakes, it looks at correcting these mistakes. Some corrections have already been made during this current war.

Sarah: I am going to have my colleague, Joseph Epstein, read some of the questions. The esteemed Nicholas Rusto has written a question that I think is very interesting. Joseph?

Joseph Epstein: Thank you, Sarah. Many ICJ judges take instruction from their governments. Judges are also subject to pressure from the UN General Assembly (UNGA), which elects judges with the security council. In this case, people know Hamas is a terrorist organization and is not above killing judges. Do you think ICJ judges can be intimidated?

Professor Cohen: Perhaps, but I want to divide this into two different questions. First is the question of intimidation. The same ICJ judges have ruled against Russia. I am not an ICJ judge but if I was, I would be more frightened of Vladimir Putin than of Yahya Sinwar. This is my response to the intimidation part of the question. In response to the political part of the question, it is clear many of the justices take orders from their governments. As I said however, there are justices from countries in which judicial independence is important.

I want to add something to what I said previously. This relates to the appointment of Justice Barak as the ad hoc Israeli judge. Of course, Israel had the right to appoint ad hoc justice. What is the implication of putting Barak on the stand? Is there a symbolic value here, over and above his contribution to, and knowledge of, international law? Barak was demonized last year by the Israeli government as the architect of the constitutional revolution which began in the 1990s. He symbolizes an independent judge who speaks truth to power and is not afraid of the political government. I do not know if it was intentional, but I think sending him to the court sent a strong signal to the justices from countries in which judicial independence is important. The clear message is that Israel sent a justice who has previously withstood political pressure. What Israel is signaling is that it does not want the justices to decide on a pro-Israeli basis, rather they want them to decide on a legal and objective legal basis.

This is the way I think about it. To reiterate, it is not only the decision itself that is important. What is also important is which justices will be for the decision versus those that will be against it. The origins of the justices must be taken into account when we consider the soft impact of the court. It is clear unanimous, or almost unanimous, decisions will be interpreted much differently than decisions from a divided court. This is especially true if it is clear those who are against Israel are those who stand to benefit politically from their decision.

Joseph: There are quite a few more questions but it seems also that we’ve reached the end of our allotted time.

Professor Cohen: Sarah, you can share my email with the participants and if there are additional questions, they can send me an email. Please do. I do not promise to answer them tonight, but I will make every effort to respond as soon as possible.

Sarah: Thank you so much, Amichai. It is really a privilege and an honor to have you with us. You have a tremendous wealth of knowledge on this very pressing topic. Those of you who want to see these webinars continue, please go to https://emetonline.org/ to support us. As you know, we are on Capitol Hill meeting with staffers, or members of Congress. We also write and publish at least one article a week. We are trying very hard to keep on top of the precarious situation Israel has found itself in and the rapidly changing dynamics with respect to the war. Please be sure to tune in next week. We are going to host Dr. Gerald Steinberg from NGO Monitor, who will discuss third-party payments to some of the humanitarian organizations which have been vociferous in their attacks against the Jewish state. Thank you so much, Amichai. It’s really a pleasure.

Professor Cohen: Thanks for having me and have a good afternoon.

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