Welcome to the Empire Files podcast. This is Abby Martin. The first hearing at the International

Court of Justice on the South Africa filing, accusing Israel of perpetrating genocide against the

Palestinian people, is being held on January 11th, 2024. Israel will be presenting its defense

against the charges the next day, January 12th, via the Times of Israel.

An Israeli government spokesperson announced that representatives of the country will appear before

the court to defend Israel's position, which he described as, quote, blood libel against the

Jewish state. The state of Israel emphatically condemns South Africa's decision to play devil's advocate

and makes itself criminally complicit with the perpetrators of the October 7th massacre,

said Israeli government spokesperson, Ilan Levy, during a press conference on Tuesday.

Confirming that Israel would send representatives to the hearings,

Levy said it was tragic that South Africa was, quote, fighting pro bono for anti-Jewish racists and said that history will judge South Africa for abetting the modern heirs of the Nazis.

Very wild projection here, but what else is new when it comes to the rogue genocidal apartheid

state of Israel? Joining me now to discuss this welcome move from South Africa is journalist Sam Hussein.

Welcome to the show, Sam. Good to be with you, Abby.

Sam, you're one of the only journalists on the hill that actually does their job at these

State Department briefings. It's a rare delight to see you asking critical questions to these

ghouls and goons up there denying our reality. There's this unprecedented global movement

in support of Palestine as Israel's genocidal onslaught continues. There are mobilizations of resistance on so many fronts around the world to stop this.

You have been urging for months now.

Another course of action, another front for countries that are parties to the Genocide Convention to invoke this treaty, which Israel is also a party too.

So that brings us to what just happened, which is South Africa's filing, doing just that.

I want to talk about all of this and more, you know, I know it's a very long filing here, but can you walk us through what you've read in the document?

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