‘ICJ has no moral authority,’ says South Africa chief rabbi

In the wake of today’s hearings at the UN International Court of Justice in The Hague, in which South Africa has accused Israel of charges of genocide against Palestinians during the war in Gaza, Rabbi Warren Goldstein, Chief Rabbi of South Africa, said that “Israel must stand firm against the intimidation of the UN and its so-called International Court of Justice.” Goldstein argued that the United Nations has become a threat to freedom and democracy in the world and that Israel should use its appearance before the UN’s International Court of Justice to expose this fact.

>> Watch additional episodes by Rabbi Warren Goldstein, Chief Rabbi of South Africa: https://www.youtube.com/@chiefrabbigoldstein

Goldstein pointed out that only 84 of the 193 members of the UN General Assembly are ranked as free societies, and of the 47 members of the UN Human Rights Council, just 13 are economically and politically free. “What does it say about the UN as a protector of human rights and international justice,” he stated, “if the majority of its members have no regard for the values or democracy or freedom, or indeed human rights?”

The appointment of judges, explained Goldstein, is at the very heart of justice, who noted that the Talmudic interpretation of the Biblical verse, “Justice, justice you shall pursue,” refers to the moral duty to submit one’s case only before a worthy and upstanding bench of judges. 

“Justice is only as good as the judges who dispense it. Therefore, who appoints the judges is absolutely critical,” said Goldstein. “And the UN, dominated by dictatorships, riddled with antisemitism, appoints ICJ judges, who therefore, by definition, lack the moral authority to stand in judgment over any democracy, especially Israel.”

He charged that the hearings are “a theater of the absurd, where a democracy such as Israel can be brought before the ICJ to face charges related to its national security imperative to fight off Jihadist terror - terror that is financed and supported by countries such as Iran with the declared intent of waging war against the West and destroying the values that free democracies are built upon.”

Goldstein added that at the General Assembly, each year, there are more condemnations of Israel than the rest of the world combined, and that over the past seventeen years, the UN Human Rights Council has adopted 103 resolutions condemning Israel, compared to zero for countries guilty of real human rights violations such as China, Venezuela, and Saudi Arabia.

Given the above, he said, Israel has no chance of a fair trial and should take no part in the UN’s ICJ hearings, other than to cite the above statistics that illustrate that the ICJL holds no moral jurisdiction over it. 

“The fate of the world is at stake,” said Goldstein. “As the great ethical work of the Talmud, Pirkei Avot, states: ‘the world stands on three things - justice, truth and peace.’  God has created the world such that without these pillars human civilization crumbles. But note their order. First justice and truth - and then peace.” Without justice and truth, he explained, there can be no peace.

>> Watch additional episodes by Rabbi Warren Goldstein, Chief Rabbi of South Africa: https://www.youtube.com/@chiefrabbigoldstein