A US federal court has implored the President Joe Biden administration to reconsider its “unflagging support” for Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.
The court in California made the comment in a ruling in response to a lawsuit that accused Biden and his senior administration officials of complicity in Israel’s genocidal acts in Gaza.
Judge Jeffrey White of the US District Court dismissed the lawsuit on jurisdictional grounds on Thursday, saying that the matter lay outside the jurisdiction of his court.
“The court is bound by precedent and the division of our coordinate branches of government to abstain from exercising jurisdiction in this matter.”
Still, the ruling said it “implores defendants to examine the results of their unflagging support of the military siege against the Palestinians in Gaza.”
The judge explained his decision that the matter lay outside the jurisdiction of his court, because the Palestinian groups were asking it to interfere with US foreign policy.
“Because any determination to challenge the decision of the executive branch of government on support of Israel is fraught with serious political questions, the claims presented by plaintiffs here lie outside the court’s limited jurisdiction,” White said.
Israel’s war on Gaza ‘plausibly’ amounts to genocide
The court also ruled that Israel’s war on Gaza, which began in early October, “plausibly” amounts to genocide.
“Yet, as the ICJ [International Court of Justice] has found, it is plausible that Israel’s conduct amounts to genocide,” the judge said.
The case was brought by Palestinian human rights groups and individual Palestinians against the US president, his secretary of state Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs disputed the court’s jurisdictional finding, indicating an argument for a potential appeal or request for the case to be reconsidered.
Brad Parker, a senior adviser at Defense for Children International Palestine — one of the two organizational plaintiffs in the case — described the court’s decision as “disappointing.”
“We know that US weapons are integral in the genocide that we’re documenting as a Palestinian human rights organization,” The Intercept quoted him as saying.
“It’s clear what President Biden’s complicity is in the destruction of Palestinian life,” Parker said.
Ahmed Abofoul, a Palestinian attorney at Al Haq — the second organizational plaintiff — said, “The judge acknowledged that genocide is being committed,” but that “basically what he was saying is just that his hands are tied.”
Attorneys for the plaintiffs vowed to do everything “to end that complicity, and ultimately end the genocide.”
More than 27,000 Palestinians have so far been killed in the war, into which the Biden administration has poured more than 10,000 tons of military hardware.
