Unpacking the Courts: Democracy, Law, and the Jewish State
For two straight years, the headlines out of Israel have been filled with law talk: First, the government’s proposed judicial reforms nearly tore the country in half, and then since 10/7, lawsuits and investigations have been launched against Israel at the two most significant courts of international law (ICJ and ICC). What does it all mean? Watch now as panelists take a deep dive into the fundamentals of democratic rule, the international order, human rights, and how it all relates to the Zionist dream “to be a free people in our Land.”
About Our Moderator & Panelists
Ayelet Shaked is an Israeli politician, activist, and software engineer, who most recently served as Minister of Interior until December 2022. She also previously served as Minister of Justice and as a member of the Security Cabinet. Shaked began her career in Tel Aviv's high-tech industry, working as an engineer at Texas Instruments for over a decade. In 2013, Shaked formally entered Israeli politics and won election to the Knesset with The Jewish Home party. Within only two years, she rose to become Israel’s Minister of Justice, where she spearheaded unprecedented reforms of the legal system, and worked to counter the international legal and economic campaigns against Israel. Following the formation of the Israeli government in 2021 – which was the most diverse in its history – Shaked was appointed as Minister of Interior, where she worked on urban development and immigration.
Dr. David Hazony is an award-winning editor, translator, and author. He is the editor of "Jewish Priorities" (Wicked Son, 2023), the former editor-in-chief of the journal Azure and was the founding editor of TheTower.org. His book "The Ten Commandments" (Scribner, 2010) was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. His translation of Uri Bar-Joseph’s "The Angel" (HarperCollins, 2016) was a winner of the National Jewish Book Award. He has edited two previous anthologies: "Essential Essays on Judaism by Eliezer Berkovits" (Shalem, 2002), and, with Yoram Hazony and Michael B. Oren, "New Essays on Zionism" (Shalem, 2007). He has a Ph.D. in Jewish Philosophy from the Hebrew University and lives in Jerusalem.
Dr. Masua Sagiv is a Senior Faculty member of the Shalom Hartman Institute based in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Koret Visiting Assistant Professor of Jewish and Israel Studies at the Helen Diller Institute, U.C. Berkeley. Masua’s scholarly work focuses on the development of contemporary Judaism in Israel, as a culture, religion, nationality, and as part of Israel’s identity as a Jewish and democratic state. Her research explores the role of law, state actors and civil society organizations in promoting social change across diverse issues: shared society, religion and gender, religion and state, and Jewish peoplehood.
Yael Vias Gvirsman is a leading expert in international criminal law and humanitarian law with over 20 years of experience. She worked as a humanitarian, researcher, Prosecutor at the State Attorney’s Office, defense attorney at International Criminal Courts and Tribunals, and in representing victims of international crimes before international and domestic courts. Her experience spans atrocities committed in Darfur-Sudan, Ivory Coast, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, former Yugoslavia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ukraine and more. Since October 7, Yael has been at the forefront of October 7 Justice Without Borders, an NGO she founded, dedicated to securing justice for victims of the October 7 massacre. The organization focuses on documenting atrocities, preserving evidence, and advocating for accountability across borders. Yael’s leadership is instrumental in ensuring that victims voices are heard and justice is pursued globally. She continues to advise on critical cases of war crimes and human rights violations, leveraging her extensive expertise and dedication to international justice.
Video Transcipt
Dr. David Hazony: [00:00:00] Every day, if we're following the news and reading closely we hear first of all about various rockets or drones or all sorts of things that are attacking Israel. If you dig into the internet to other news sites, you can also learn a lot about what the IDF is doing in Lebanon and in other, areas where there are terrorists and enemies and underneath it all, there's this drumbeat that constantly keeps coming up and it's not just for the last year, it's for the last two or three years that has to do with law.
Okay, for a whole year before 10/7, we heard about the judicial reform the very controversial judicial reform efforts that were taking place in Israel, massive protests against, and then counter protests, which are a little hard to distinguish because they were both using the Israeli flag.
and then the war happened, and that sort of got [00:01:00] quiet, but now it's, you're starting to hear rumblings about it again, and at the same time, you're hearing about international law issues that have to do with the conduct of the war, whether it's telling the difference between ICC and the ICJ is something that we leave to, to diviners and and the elite.
But like, you know, international law, international humanitarian law, South Africa is suing us. There's a prosecutor in the International Criminal Court, but then he's accused of sexual misconduct. And just like all this crazy stuff, it's all around the law. and the question that we're going to try to address here partly is why, but much more importantly is just to try to sort it out in a way that makes sense.
The one thing I would like to ask of our panelists, and this is a little hard, but the easiest thing in the world in all of these stories is to say, there are bad guys, there are good guys. Don't worry about principles, because it's just politicization [00:02:00] and attack, or we're just defending ourselves against an attack.
I want to allow for the possibility that all of these controversies have actual substantive issues underneath them. That there are different sides making actual fundamental claims about the nature of law, about the nature of Israeli democracy, about our future, the role of the judiciary in the case of international law, what does it mean for a democracy in general, and Israel in particular, to what degree do we feel a need to see international legal norms as binding law?
These are real serious questions. And we miss something very important, we miss a real opportunity when we just sort of, dismiss it all as various political campaigns in order to try to convince you of something. Cause I've been actually looking at these issues for 30 years. I'm not a lawyer.
I'm not a legal scholar, but I was an editor of a long form journal, which basically allows me to pretend I know something about everything. [00:03:00] And I happened to write a few pieces on both the international and the domestic issues at the time as well. So I've been following it closely, and I'm telling you, These are not just pieces of political warfare.
There's actually some serious substance underneath. So I'm so thrilled to be able to introduce, we have, I'm sorry that I haven't memorized their bios We have Dr. Matzah Sagiv, senior fellow, senior faculty at the Sholem Hartman Institute and a co ed visiting assistant professor of Jewish and Israel studies at the Helen Diller Institute at UC Berkeley.
Applause. Okay, we have Yael Reyes Griezmann, who is the founder of the October 7th Justice Without Borders, founding director of the International Criminal and Humanitarian Law Clinic at the Harry Radsner Law School Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, also known as Reichman University, right? That's the new name.
Okay. And of course we have Ayelet Shaked, former Israeli Minister of Justice and member of Knesset, of course. [00:04:00] And really, it is just an amazing honor. To be sitting with the three of you. I am gonna open with a simple yet controversial question. I guess. let's try to go back. Before October 7th, we spent a year watching Israel kind of implode over what appeared to be a technical thing, which had to do with what they called judicial reforms, or the people on the other side called it judicial revolution, or whatever, all these names of it.
But what was really going on? On the one hand, you had people saying, this is just a power grab. This is just a far right government trying to just end Israeli democracy completely by by using its tools to really ensure that they stay in power forever. And on the other side, you had people saying, [00:05:00] no, look, this is, this is a 25 year story.
The judicial establishment went too far, and this is just a corrective in order to rebalance Israeli democracy in a way That the will of the people actually gets to be reflected in the way the country is run. So, I would love to hear from each of you. First of all, just a quick take on what was really at stake,
Every day now, I think today we heard Levine, you keep hearing rumblings from the government that, you know, maybe now is the time we should try again. And what is really the issue with SIG? Maybe start with Yael.
Yael Vias Gvirsman: Sure. Thank you, everyone. And thank you, David, for the introduction.
I'm very humbled to be here and honored and I'm very happy to be sharing this panel today. for me, as long as we have pluralism, I feel very at ease, very comfortable. And if everyone is thinking the same, I think I'm at the wrong place. So I welcome the discussion.
For me I am [00:06:00] convinced that what is at stake here is really the existence of the state of Israel as a democracy and we all know, this is something we're so proud of throughout the challenges that israel has faced since its existence How do we challenge? How do we stand forth to all these challenges that we're facing and still keep with our values?
So for me, what is at stake are values. However, even though I am in the, on the judiciary reform or crushing of democracy stage, I am definitely on the, this is a crushing of democracy. And I say this painfully. I wish it was correcting I don't know, an over activist judiciary, a lack of democratic involvement or transparency in the democratic, in the judicial activism, let's say.
I wish this was what it's all about. However, I do believe it was a wake up call to Israeli society to understand voices that were not in the mainstream, that did not receive a place in the mainstream, not receive a place enough. And that it was a bit of the vengeance [00:07:00] of these voices to now sort of, okay, now we can do what we weren't allowed to do or weren't.
You know, we weren't allowed a space if we talk about the disengagement and people who, whose personal lives changed in that disengagement. It's something that society has to heal and has to deal with. We can't just say, well, this happened, let's wipe it. No, it happened in 2005 and it's still burning and living in people's hearts today.
I personally think the disengagement was a very important, difficult, political disengagement from Gaza. Political decision to make that leaders have to make. They're not pop stars. However, there is a price to it that Israel society wasn't, didn't know how to deal with at the time. I do hope that Israel society will know how to deal with our differences today, which are much even you know, stronger after seven October.
Dr. David Hazony: Can you say very specifically, what is it about the reforms that you feel destroy Israeli democracy? I mean, [00:08:00] what was in it that makes it so toxic?
Yael Vias Gvirsman: The basic thing is that every democracy, no matter what form or model of democracy you have, whether it's U. S., British, French, you can be a democracy in so many different ways, but the basic understanding is that every power has a counter power.
So, this philosophical understanding that no man or woman are moral enough. If I have a bit of power in life, I need this counterpower, I need this review. And it's the basic principle of the division of power between three independent branches of power. No one is above the law. The law at its center, rule of law has human rights.
Otherwise, it's other kinds of laws that we don't want to think of. The executive, the legislative and the judiciary, and in Israel, because it's a parliamentarian form of governance, meaning that the government stems from the majority in [00:09:00] parliament and also because there's a lot of discipline, let's say political, partisan discipline, people you know, how do you say That actually means that these two forms of branches are more or less together. And the judiciary was this third one is this third one that is the only actual independent.
Dr. David Hazony: Okay, so, I'll turn to you, Masua, but I want to take what Yael said and then throw it into a question to you.
I remember, 25 years ago, two things that struck me about the Israeli Supreme Court that made me question whether they believed no one was above the law. Right, one was that there was a judicial selection process in which basically, the people who are sitting on the Supreme Court got to more or less pick who else would get to be on the Supreme Court, generation after generation.
And the other was that you had the president of the Supreme Court sort of coming up with these categories like, you know, [00:10:00] the enlightened community of Israel. Like, like, what's, what's reasonable? It's whatever the enlightened community thinks is reasonable. Which, you know, is a little offensive if you suspect you might not be included in that community.
do you feel like this, this judicial reform that we're seeing is a corrective or the, the end of Israeli democracy?
Dr. Masua Sagiv: Yeah, so first of all you're absolutely right about that. Ever since, 2008 there wasn't the, the member bringing a member in the Supreme Court is no longer the case.
But, you know, I'm gonna say a bunch of statements, which I think they're they are correct and I can explain them and then I want to say why I don't think it's the story. So I do think the government that have put forward the judicial legislation package is a far right government that is aiming at grabbing power more than it, more than aiming to try to correct things, meaning it is abusing some [00:11:00] of the things that Yael is talking aboutthe social rifts in order to try to get more power and it has its own reasons for the Haredi's, it is because they need to solve the situation of enlisting to the army for some other members of the government, it might be in order to be more forceful if they are or to have more power if they are if, if, if, or it's easier to be corrupt if you control the courts, all of these things.
I think are true, but I actually think that the real story here is a story about trust. Or lack of it. Because law, and, I'm speaking as someone who's dealing with law all the time. When law works as it should be, it reflects the values that society is holding. And law, should organize the way that we as a community or as a society or as a state decided we want to be together and we need some form to organize ourselves.
But the most basic, [00:12:00] basic thing is we decided we want to spend time together in the country. We said that we want to be a society together and what we're seeing in the way that each side. Is using the law because yes, I think it is a far right government. I think there is a risk for Israeli democracy.
By the way, I don't think it's going to collapse. I think it is going to become more flawed that it is today. At the same time, it is not a coincidence that the Supreme Court is seen as if it is taking a side because it has for decades took the side, it took the sides of Israeli liberals, more left wing.
It took the side. I don't think there should be sides between democracy and Judaism or a Jewish state, but it is perceived as taking the side of the mo democracy over the Jewish values of the state. So if that's the case, what. So what we're really asking ourselves is do we still want to be together in a state and each [00:13:00] side with all of these questions is trying to manipulate law in order to harness law to be on their side and to try to win over the other side in society in questions over who gets to determine what gets priority in our values? Is it my version of a Jewish state? Or is it your version of a Jewish state? Is it my version of democracy or your version of democracy? So all of these things what we don't have when we don't have a constitution, what we don't have is a way to decide how we're gonna, how we're going to argue.
And what was striking to me, I was involved in one of the initiatives of compromise before October 7th and we were so close to agree on, on everything that the, the disagreements were very, very small, but the issue was trust. the, the, the government represents doesn't trust.
Israeli liberals and [00:14:00] Israeli liberals don't trust when the government, when Yair Levin says, I only want, they don't trust a single word that he says. So the real question for me is, are we able to live together and actually trust the other? That it, that, that they're not using law in order to manipulate each side.
Dr. David Hazony: so I remember hearing Gideon Saar, I don't know, maybe it was like 25 years ago, he came to where I was, and he spoke, and we were all kind of like these, English speaking, kind of aware, kind of we imported our concepts of law and constitution from battles taking place then in the U. S. And I just remembered, somebody asked him, how can you justify This kind of a structure in which the judges are so powerful and still call it a democracy.
Don't the people get to choose? And he said something I'll never forget. He said, listen, if you knew these judges, you'd know they're okay. [00:15:00] And I thought, that's not how you build a constitutional structure. So I'm gonna ask, I yell ahead.
One of the things that we are hearing a lot, which is kind of surprising, is people who oppose the judicial reform many of them say, of course reform is needed, just not that one. Which suggests that there is an awareness of some kind of a profound problem. What do you think about what is needed, whether it's that reform and also please feel free to respond to what you've heard.
Ayelet Shaked: So when I entered the office as a Minister of Justice there were in the Supreme Court 15 judges, 14 liberals and one conservative. And the debate in Israel between the two camps is more or less like the debate here in the U. S. between the Democrats and the Republican, whether they want liberal and progressive judges or conservative judges.
And you know, in Israel, we have [00:16:00] a committee of nine members that select the judges. And in reality the minister of justice needs to get to an agreement with the judges.
And I did some political steps and like got myself a majority in the committee. And I knew how to do negotiation with the president of the Supreme Court, and I nominated in my cadention six judges. Out of those six, more or less four conservatives. And today in the Supreme Court, it's More or less like 50%, something like that, like 50 percent liberal and 50 percent conservative.
And I think that I showed that you can change the Supreme Court according to the, to the current rules. You don't need necessarily to change them, but I do think that It's it doesn't make sense that all the Supreme Court judges think the same. We need diversity. We need different opinions [00:17:00] and by the way, Yariv Levine And most of the ministers from the current coalition.
They were my colleague when I was Minister of Justice. But there is something that they don't understand. And actually, when they start to talk about the judicial reform, I went to the ultra Orthodox Knesset member and I explained them. They didn't understand why the country is so, like there is demonstrations and everyone is so upset and frightened.
And I explained the ultra orthodox, I'm like, I think that I'm, it's pretty rare because I live in both, in both worlds. I'm a secular from North Tel Aviv, but in my political views and my political partners are in the right wing so I feel both worlds and I told them to the ultra orthodox Knesset member.
Listen for the secular camp Bagatz is like Shabbat for you. You don't want that the government will [00:18:00] touch the Shabbat and they don't want that the government will touch Bagatz You need to understand the feeling. And when I told it when I told them they they start to realize what i'm talking about so in my opinion, it's You Okay, to do reforms.
It's not the end of the Israel as a democratic state, but you need to know how to do it and try to do it with a wide agreement. But for you, if you're living in the U. S. You need to understand, the system in Israel and in the U. S. is very different. In the U. S. you have constitution, the judges are being selected by the president, with the approval of the senate by the president.
In Israel, it's a totally different system. different checks and balances. We don't have constitution. We don't have contention. The judges are being selected by a committee. It's totally different system. But the heart of the debate is the same between liberal and progressive.
[00:19:00] and between conservative. So, you know, I think that the Minister of Justice currently is doing a mistake. You need to nominate now three judges. You can do negotiation with the president of the Supreme Court and just get majority of conservative judges in the Supreme Court. If you knew how to negotiate, I don't think that there is need to do all this, all this mess.
But I truly believe in Israel. I believe in the Israeli democracy. I think that 90 percent of the citizens in Israel believe that Israel should stay a Jewish and democratic state and that those values should be parallel, no one values above the other. And I think that yes, we can do reforms, but not to do everything together and to try to understand also that the other camp, not to look just on your political base and to ignore the rest of the country, but to try to understand the other camp as well.
Yael Vias Gvirsman: I'd like to briefly jump on this if I can shortly. And I [00:20:00] think I've told you this on our prep talk. It's true. there is no society that is just. being diverse is either liberal or conservative. And in Israel, it's even more so. when you were in power, when you were minister of justice, you brought in diversity, not only conservative and liberal.
you brought more women, you brought more traditionally Mizrahi views and we need this diversity. This is Israel. So of course we need this reflected in the Supreme Court and it would be just reductionist to split it into conservative and liberal.
And what we do have in a, we do have disproportionate it Lee is for example, the number of judges living in the settlements. Compared with the broader population. So there could be reforms. We're all for reforms. I agree that it's how and it doesn't go by crushing or by the vengeance of those who were crushed until then.
That doesn't, you can't replace one wrong by another wrong.
Dr. David Hazony: So if we take a little, [00:21:00] spiritual deep dive for one second. I couldn't help but notice, and I live in Jerusalem, just in case it's not clear. I live there. I experienced October 7th there. I lived through the whole controversy of the Jewish reforms as an Israeli.
national internal protest movements anywhere where both sides claimed the national flag as their own. There was, even at the time, and I wrote about this, and this is before October 7th came and the country came together, I said there's something different about this movement. Yes, everyone says each side wants to say the country's about to be torn apart, but the very fact of the flag And the fact that both sides seemed very, very powerfully committed to a vision of the Jewish state and of Zionism, even if it's not the same vision, to me said, let's take a step back and think a little bit more deeply.
[00:22:00] Zionism itself, is the liberation movement of the Jewish people. the line in our national anthem is liyot am chovshi b'artzenu, right? To be a free people in our land. And people who are at all familiar with Constitutional, legal, philosophical disputes understand that when you use that phrase, you're actually saying something that expresses itself in law as well.
Democracy is about how do we allow our people to rule ourselves and yet still protect fundamental rights at the same time. That's sort of the whole democratic experiment. then October 7th comes along. Okay, suddenly we're a nation at war.
Suddenly, the country puts all that to the side, and everyone comes together, and goes to war, and comes together to, in civil society, And a protest movement emerges that's not even, it's not about judicial reform, it's not even anti war, it's focused on the [00:23:00] hostages and opposition to the current government and whatever, however those two connect.
And then we start to hear about international law. That's when international law Starts to penetrate the conversation, okay? Maybe it's because we're perceived as being legally, internally divided in the legal side that other legal bodies or, or, or quasi legal bodies. I, I don't even fully, like I, I read a few books about international law because I didn't know what it was.
And what I found was, well, it's when countries sign treaties, they have to keep them. And then it turned out, there was some other stuff that got added on. and then we get to this place where a court in Spain declares something called universal jurisdiction, where they can, like, extradite the Pinochet from.
And just, like, all of this stuff that It seems to contradict the core spirit of what democratic self rule is supposed to be. Like who are these other [00:24:00] bodies? I'm naturally suspicious of just international bodies Are we, is there something wrong with Israel's ability to tell whether or not it's committed genocide, that we need somebody from the outside? Like, do we not know, are we not aware that How much we're targeted. what is going on?
What is international law? What does it have to do with us? why does it keep coming up in the news? Masoua, you start.
Dr. Masua Sagiv: I'm actually not going to talk about what international law is. Because international law, you know, you have a bunch of sovereign states that are living together in the world. And they say, okay, but we do have relationship with each other. Maybe we need to try. to organize these relationships.
That's number one. And number two when the world experiences horrible things like World War II and the Holocaust the states or individual activists are saying we have to make sure that if a state actually commits a genocide, then it would not just [00:25:00] say, okay. will stop now on its own, but we have to have some kind of mechanism that will make sure that they are accountable and it can be stopped because if someone would have stopped Hitler, then the world would have looked, and definitely our people
Dr. David Hazony: and this happened in, Rwanda, and the Balkan wars, where they set up these international criminal tribunals just for those horrible things.
Dr. Masua Sagiv: Yes, for the professional different tribunals, I'm going to leave Yael that is much more professional in this. But what I do want to say about this is again, and maybe I'm, I'm, I'm sorry to repeat myself. But lies is actually not the center again. Law is a tool, even in international law, the same way as it is with the state law is a tool to try to make sure something.
So in the case of genocide or what we've been, Because Israel is a settler colonialist, [00:26:00] genocidal, ethnic cleansing. I can give you a list of the things that I believe that Israel is not, but Israel is in fact accused of, and all of those have legal definitions, meaning law is used if it's functioning well, then it is used in order to make to make countries and leaders and people accountable to their actions.
That's why, for example, when we act in order to bring recognition and justice to the sexual gender based crimes on October 7th, then we go to those tribunals and we try to get recognition and justice and accountability because it is important both to stopping international law isn't really good at actually stopping, but it is good with other sanctions around and with recognition that we also know is important and acknowledgement.
But when law is being manipulated and really abused in the way that we are seeing today, I've [00:27:00] listened to a podcast by a law professor from the opposition in South Africa. And he says something very, very interesting. He says this lawsuit in the Hague against Israel and the charge of genocide, they don't care about the law.
They don't care about The actual charge of genocide, what they care about and the use of all of these legal definitions that we're seeing without any one actually looking into those legal definitions. The goal is to make Israel a pariah state. The goal is not to win this specific war, but to influence the people who are among else sitting in this hall in order for them to influence the next war.
Specifically actually young American Jews who will hold a lot of power to influence or to stop influencing their government as we're seeing now. So, so this law, I mean, it's great and I can, I can discuss why we're not committing genocide. But I think the question that we need to ask [00:28:00] ourselves is if, if indeed my way of thinking of this is, is right, do we cooperate with this? If our allies, if it's important for them that we speak in these legal terms, do we do it or not? So I think it's a strategic way of trying to think. If we see law as being manipulated by the international community, even though I would love for law to be used correctly.
I have my, one of my colleagues Professor Ruth Halperin Kadari in Israel. was sitting in the CEDAW in the, I don't know, the working -
Yael Vias Gvirsman: group for the convention for the elimination of discrimination against women.
Dr. Masua Sagiv: CEDAW. For years she sat there. Right after October 7th when she knew That all of the, all of what was happening, she didn't know exactly what, what happened, but she knew what's going on with the gender based war crimes.
She's been trying to, she's trying to get to them and to say, you need to give a very strong statement and, and she gets nothing. So there's [00:29:00] obviously a huge disappointment by the way that international, that the international community is applying the law. But I think that the question that is more interesting for us to ask since You know, we're this is our world already, right?
This is the system. What do we do if this is the system? Do we collaborate? Do we not collaborate? How do we move? Within the system when we understand that.
Dr. David Hazony: Ayelet the, do we need to subordinate ourself to these bodies of international law?
Ayelet Shaked: So, you know the international law was born from good reasons, like after the holocaust and, you know.
The crimes against humanity and the international community and the United Nations, you know, they thought, okay, let's legislate international law. And maybe you're not able to prevent those atrocities. But after that, we will be able to put people on trial and to [00:30:00] try to make like the wars organized. But in reality, as your.
Next president will say I think the international law is bad. Why? Because in reality, democracies like Israel and the U. S. and the U. K. in, in this century and in the previous century, in the last In the last decade of the previous century, we, a democratic state, we have wars against terror organization, against ISIS, against Al Qaeda, against Hamas, against Hezbollah.
Now we are acting according to the international law, But they don't. So in reality, the international law just put constraints only on us in a symmetric wars. So we risk our soldiers in order to follow the international law, while the other side is like [00:31:00] raping, murdering, slaughtered, decapitate soldiers.
They are doing atrocities. They use their own population as human shield. They're just, you know, they don't have laws at all. Neither, neither, no international and neither international law, no, they own. So you need to understand that maybe the cause and the reasons were good but it just make the democratic state more vulnerable.
And I can tell you when I was Minister of Justice, I sat with the attorney general of Russia to a meeting and there was a issue that both countries have problem with. And I asked him, Do you follow the international law on this specific case? And he told me In Russia, the interest of Russia is above the international law.
So this is, you know, it's fine for Russia. It is not fine for Israel because we are follow the international [00:32:00] law, but we need to understand that also all those, you know, the ICC, the ICJ, we don't really need them. We have our own legal system. We have a independent legal system and very strong Prosecution so we don't need them.
It's just a tool for our enemies to hurt Israel. They are using this tool in order to hurt is Israel in a day diplomatic actions, we call it a diplomatic war that the Palestinian Authority sometimes and the Hamas they are trying to manipulate those bodies in order to hurt Israel. And I can tell you in general, those international bodies, it's, it's the United Nation.
It's the ICJ is the ICC. They are all political and biased organization organizations. You know, in 2015, when I was minister of justice, there was a civil war [00:33:00] in Syria. You remember asad? He was like slaughtered his own people and human rights committee of the united nation in geneva on this specific year Gave like I don't remember like 30 40 decisions against israel and one against Syria.
This is how the international bodies look like. they are giving a 10, 20, 30 decision against Israel and maybe one against Iran. So I think we should cooperate with those institutions. We should give them and tell them our case, but not really take them into consideration.
Dr. David Hazony: I want to turn to Yael and then I want to open it up to questions. You think about the word law. what's a law? A law is a rule that everybody agrees to that is applied equally regardless of whether or not you have power or don't have power. it's enforced.
[00:34:00] Equality before the law is what makes it law. Otherwise, it's just like power using technical terms. based on everything we're hearing and everything we're seeing, maybe the phrase international law is, not really, right. if Russia puts its interests above international law, and Russia has a veto in the UN Security Council, and Russia flouts the law, like playing the flute, right? And then there is no equality before the law in the international world Is it really law at all? how did we get here
Yael Vias Gvirsman: Oh, i'll definitely respond. I mean International Law my baby i've been working on it for i'm in the field of international law for the past 20 years. This is my professional devotion. I believe in universal values and i'm sure everyone in this room actually believes in it. I understand and share the need to be very pragmatic and open eyed you know, look at the reality today with open eyes.
However, I reach diagonally opposed [00:35:00] conclusions for me, international law is an opportunity. For me, it's a place. It is a set of values that was a true, a tool translated into language. We created it. We wrote it. I don't know who he is. Is it Israel? Is it Jewish places individuals, prominent individuals in the European Union that are, you know, Robert Schuman or I mean, I can name endless individuals who were either in democracies who led this video Amazing human venture of international law.
So, you know, I'll say what the representative of the state of Israel at the moment of the Rome statute, Rome statute is the statute of the international criminal court. So at the moment of the signature of in 1998 he said, That, you know, the story is there [00:36:00] have been initiatives to create a permanent international criminal court for the past 200 years.
From those early days, there was an idea that, hey, maybe states aren't moral enough or self restricting enough for there not to be an independent, doesn't represent one state, but sort of the multilateral agreement of what is shared by all of us.
Maybe that's a good idea. And it was very difficult to actually create such a court. So for me, the creation of the international criminal court in 1998 is a miracle. That is why I am the first one who wrote an amicus. An amicus to the court is something that a stakeholder or someone in the field can write to the court to say there is no jurisdiction in the Palestine situation or the state of Palestine situation, not because, of a political reason, but because of the court and what it stands for and legal principles
That's the mandate. So what I call for, and this is what I do when I represent pro bono, [00:37:00] I'm representing victims, survivors of the Hamas attacks. I see international law as an opportunity. I want the voice of the story told not just by Twitter. You know, I want the Nuremberg trials for October. And that I can do with international law, not alone.
And that's a space that for me, we cannot afford to leave empty. I won't leave it empty. So I'm going directly to the International Criminal Court. I'm going to Germany under the basis of what you call universal jurisdiction. You know that yes, it can be turned against Israelis, but it's also a tool.
Let's not, yes, it's been being used as an attack, but instead of for us being defensible all the time on the defense, I really believe we need to take back our natural place in being proactive in writing this law, So for me, law is values and it's the internet. International is two main things. The institutions.
You know, the [00:38:00] way we wrote down these values, we translated them and the people. So we need to work on both. We need to work on people. We need people in high places to understand Israel, to be Israeli and not shy away from it. We need judges to have hands on experience in combat, to understand what it is and not.
only come from the world, of human rights law, but also of humanitarian law, the laws of armed conflict, because it's a different law, it's a different reality. So for me, it's the opposite. We need to, you know, yeah, someone said it this morning, lean in. and I'm not going to leave this space empty, so I hope everyone will join me on that.
Can I just, can I say something about this? Just
Dr. Masua Sagiv: I just want to say that even though I totally get it, I think there is at least an opinion that is worth speaking. That once we engage with the genocide and colonialism conversation, it's almost as if we immediately lost.
Yael Vias Gvirsman: I agree. I agree. And it's about framing. And when someone in the panel tells me, well, [00:39:00] if this happened to me in Colombia, just the other week, I was in zoom, not I would didn't go to Colombia. That's too much for me now. And also, it's not apparently not a friendly place for Israel. I don't know, even though I don't shy away from that either.
Someone on the panel journalist said to the crowd that people honest people who really want to make sense of what they're seeing on Twitter. Okay, people dying and human suffering. And he said, we need to frame this like a colonialist you know, struggle and all this. And I said, was even a panel afterwards.
And I said, look, I have to come back to what the journalist said. This is not a colonialist struggle. Framing is so important. And this is a struggle between two national narratives. They are legitimate. You know, we're here to stay. So what do we do about it? And if the external world wants to do something, you know, don't over polarize us.
Don't be pro one of the sides. Be, you know, there's a vast majority, I believe. In both places. And then there's the extremes and the spoils. But I'll stop [00:40:00] here because I think it's so much more interesting to
Thank you, first of all, so much to the three The question to Yael is, is what she's doing to represent victims of October 7th in the international courts? On October 7, I woke up as an Israeli citizen, like any Israeli citizen, 6. 30, Tel Aviv, morning, missiles, and pretty quickly understanding that this was not a usual missile attack.
As the reality unraveled, I think 48, during 48 hours to come, my sister lives in the south. You know, that was like the personal first shock. The next day, individuals, civilians, And we were talking about who do we believe in, what do we believe in, so I definitely believe in the civilians of, the citizens of Israel.
They reached out to me because I had through a human rights lawyer they knew I had contact, or worked through my law clinic with the ICRC. By the 10th of October new civilian citizens volunteers reached out and said, Nobody's talking to the victims or the survivors, nobody's talking to the families, not the government, not the army, [00:41:00] not the police, not the, any authorities.
They just want someone to talk with them. And somehow that translated to me and the action that I've been leading since then. I brought experience that I had before in other cases, representing Kurdish victims of Saddam Hussein chemical weapons against French and German companies, or working on sexual and gender based violence in different situations, or genocide in Darfur.
Just 20 years of different casualties or collecting and preserving evidence in Ukraine. And I took all of that somehow, not really. Now I can talk about it as if I thought about it, but it was just action. And I understood it later. I built a strategic litigation for the victims, for the survivors. These are survivors from the kibbutzes.
These are murdered individuals and their families. These are hostages and their families. And sometimes that. That's the same person. So what we do is three focuses very [00:42:00] quickly. Sorry, it's against Hamas and, and accomplices complicits of Hamas. So we have three focuses, one are victims rights, what do they need, and you know, victims need a lot, so victims rights to truth, justice, reparations, non repetition, how, how is that translated into action, that's our first focus.
The second focus is the unique legal action that we lead in criminal procedures, in civil procedures. Internationally at the International Criminal Court in domestic settings. And the third one is collecting and preserving evidence, because you need to know how to do it for that to be admissible in courts.
And in atrocity situations everywhere in the world, we didn't invent the wheel, including for sexual and gender based violence. We are, of course, representing either survivors or let's say individuals who were murdered and their families in this other struggle, you know, of proving this truth, proving it in court, not on Twitter.
Then it's collecting and preserving evidence and to do that and we build strategic partnerships. What you can do, you can [00:43:00] learn more, october7justice.org/EN and you can get involved, of course. Thank you.
Dr. David Hazony: We just wait for the microphone and just say your name, please.
Audience Member 1: Hi, my name is Ricky Alon. When you're talking about international law, the idea is, a beautiful, and just idea. But the reality is not so. It does not work. It is very political. And no matter what comes to the United Nations or international court, you have so many representations from so many Muslim countries, so many anti, anti, it's all politically motivated.
So, we have no respect for it. Unless it will have a reform where there will be an international system that it is based on some kind of values other than the political interests of the countries. And the South African just so publicized and proven that they were actually paid by Iran to take the case against Israel.
How can you respect something that is a [00:44:00] losing proposition to begin with?
Yael Vias Gvirsman: Thank you for the question. I partly agree it's not working, but for me it's not, that's not a reason to give up. I mean there's criminal law in every state and there are still murders being committed.
is that a reason to say, well, no, let's just, there's, you know, let's erase all the laws or something like that. We need to make it better. We need to understand what's not working and we need to fix that. And I think we can only do that if we engage because what's happening and I've. I really have tested it so many times, this question of should we take our space or should we leave it?
if we're part of it, then we make it legitimate. And it's not only because if we're part of it, it's legitimate. We have to open our eyes. I mean, this is the common language for everyone. Again, we wrote this language. If we look into our Jewish roots, then we'll find these universal values, a sanctity of life, human dignity.
That's what it's all about. Now, The people who sit in these spaces of power, it should be people who are here. It should be people who are [00:45:00] engaging. It's just like in the forum before of the young Zionist. I think it was Avi who said, yes, let's engage in politics in Israel. Yes. Let's engage in international law in the mechanisms.
Let's learn it. Let's master the language and let's take our place among nations. we're a state among nations.
Ayelet Shaked: One sentence. It's not, it won't work. You said you said two things, you know, those organizations are biased, political, corrupted, and that's anti Semitic, and it will stay like that.
I'm not saying that we should not be involved, we do, and it's good that we are giving Our speeches and that we claim that we fight, but the real fight is not there. The real fight is in Israel on the ground. You know, those Nazis, terrorists will, they need to put in trial on Israel and we will do it.
And we need to know that, okay, those organizations are exist. We can't ignore them. But they will not change because [00:46:00] they are huge interest and all the antisemitism today is just, you know, the new form of all the antisemitism is to be against Israel is just the same and we just need to know that.
Dr. Masua Sagiv: in North Berkeley, all of the stop signs has, there's the stop and then there's a sticker genocide. So everywhere, or, or, or when I'm taking my son from, from camp and he's almost 10 and he says, Oh, Israel. Oh, nevermind. It's genocide. He knows, he knows the language already.
So I think we should also consider if we engage in these, in these places, even though we know everything that you've said, who is our audience? It's not necessarily only the international organizations and the fight is definitely in Israel on the ground, but not only in Israel on the ground. So if our audience, for example, is our kids.
And if the audience is, when we engage in these conversations, we need to be very conscientious that the people that we speak with when we go to these [00:47:00] courts for example Tal Becker the former former advisory for the ministry of foreign affairs, His opening speech at the ICJ is something that I think everyone should learn.
And he wasn't speaking only to the ICJ. He was speaking to the Jewish community and he was speaking to the world. So when we engage in these things, we are also speaking to the people that we want to educate because they're walking around in Berkeley. Well, not only in Berkeley, but in other places, and they're seeing stop genocide and Israel and genocide.
So we need to speak to a diverse audience.
Dr. David Hazony: I always feel like people in the back are discriminated against. So I want to give you a chance.
Audience Member 2: Hi. my name is Sadie and I'm currently a graduate student at Johns Hopkins SAIS.
Dr. David Hazony: Sadie is also a contributor to the Young Zionist Voices volume. Let's give her a round of applause.
Audience Member 1: One of my professors he's a former international law practitioner. He noted that one of the biggest issues that Israel faced when they were [00:48:00] in the ICJ was statements from its own politicians being used against them. And he noted that that sort of compounded with former critiques on the judicial legislation packages and its application to how do you adhere to international law without a constitution.
So like moving forward, what do you guys think are steps that the Israeli government can take to ensure that these types of things don't happen again, or they are perceived at least in a better way?
Ayelet Shaked: You know, there's freedom of speech to politicians, so they can say whatever they want. And there is also freedom of speech here in the U. S. So sometimes politicians, they don't have enough brain or that they are just thinking about their base. They talking to their base and they don't think about the I. C. J. When they talk. Personally, since I know those guys and I know politicians, I don't think it will change. And sometimes in war, [00:49:00] you know, after October 7, we were all so angry. So, you know, politicians said few, few thing that maybe the ICJ can say it's not moral or something like that, but they will continue and say it because they have freedom of speech and they talk to their base.
Dr. Masua Sagiv: said though, that the ICJ uses it in order. to formulate intent because in order to the crime of genocide, you need to have an intent to do the things, the list of things that is part of the genocide crime. But of course it, it's also, you have to have a connection between the statement and the actual deeds on the ground, which is why, I mean, even though I think it's.
It's extremely unwise to do so. It shouldn't be a part of the case against Israel.
Yael Vias Gvirsman: You know, you have to know also that genocide is the only international crime, that incitement to it is an [00:50:00] actual crime. So incitement to genocide, yes, Iran does it, yes, Hamas does it, yes, Hezbollah has it.
Unfortunately, individuals who are our leaders have said it. Now, not the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister of Israel never called for genocide. He always stated the enemy is Hamas, not the Palestinians and so forth, not the civilians. A lot of individuals who spoke aren't in government anymore. They're formers.
And they were cited at the ICJ. A lot of others don't sit in the cabinets of war. However, this is no less grave, and I don't think, you know, as citizens of any country, we should expect from our leaders less than we expect from ourselves.
Dr. David Hazony: Literally, time for one last question, and therefore, it's going to come from you.
Audience Member 3: Hi, I'm Jonah. I'm a senior at Kehillah Jewish High School, and I'm taking a class on Israeli constitutional law. And we just learned, I wrote a paper about Yair Levin's refusal to call the Judicial Selection Committee and how Bagatz ruled that he had to.[00:51:00]
And this raises the question the constitutional question of, is the Minister of Justice required to call the committee, or can he or she use to their own discretion when or when not to call the committee to a meeting to appoint the president and other justices. And, so, we were talking with my teacher, who is a lawyer from Israel, and she was telling us, imagine if we had a constitution with rules.
It would all be so much clearer. Do you think that writing a constitution will solve the problems of judicial reform and of the selection committee? And how do we write a constitution 76 years after our country was founded?
Ayelet Shaked: So, unfortunately, I'm not very optimistic today, but I don't think We will find a way to write constitution in our decade.
You know that Ben Gurion in the fifties so he tries in and the politician back there, they tried to write a constitution and they couldn't agree back then And then Ben Gurion said, okay, I have other stuff, military issues. I don't have time to deal with this constitution things. And today, [00:52:00] you know, we didn't succeed to do it in the 50s. I don't think we will be able to do it right now because the society is very polarized and as you said there is not enough trust between the two camps So, you know, sometimes I envy in the u. s. That you have a constitution But only in that so Unfortunately, it won't gonna happen and nevertheless, you know, there is rules, there is basic laws and the Minister of Justice is responsible on the committee that select judges and he can set when he wants the meeting, the committee to meet and when he doesn't and I assume that after this crisis, everything will get back to normal procedures.
Dr. David Hazony: Okay, listen I really appreciate, and I'm sorry we don't have time for more questions. This is an amazing audience, amazing set of hot topics, and all [00:53:00] the coming together. Huge round of applause for our panelists. Thank you so much. Yael, Masua and Ayelet Shaked. Thank you, Shai. your next breakouts begin at 2:30.
