Episode 562: Torture State

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
Well, can I say this? Why is it okay for America to not to drop two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end their existential threat war? Why was it okay for us to do that? I thought it was okay to Israel do whatever you have to do to survive as a Jewish state.

**Brace Belden** (0:40)
You know what, ladies and gentlemen, let's just start it here. My name is Brace Belden. I'm producer Yung Chomsky.

**Jake Romm** (0:47)
And we are joined by Jake Romm.

**Brace Belden** (0:50)
Let me say your name. You pointed at me. That is true. I did point at you. But I'm not coming into court being like, sit down, I'll do a little...
What is it when you represent yourself?

**Jake Romm** (1:02)
Pro se. Yeah, pro se.

**Brace Belden** (1:04)
Pro se.

**Jake Romm** (1:04)
You think I knew that?

**Brace Belden** (1:05)
Jake, get in front of the mic.
Pro se. And this is a serious episode, so I don't want to goof around too much. But I have a really great idea for a pro se TV show that if you have $5 billion, I need it immediately to make. Uh, Jake is a writer and a lawyer with the, and a US representative of the Hind Rajab Foundation. You are here today in basically all three capacities.

**Jake Romm** (1:39)
Yes.

**Brace Belden** (1:40)
We are talking up top about a certain event that was supposed to happen or that did happen last week here in New York City at the UN. It was the Investing in Peace Conference that the UN was putting on with police chiefs nationwide. I myself was out of town at the amazing Seaport Museum in Mystic, which was, I cannot recommend enough. And I was disappointed because Ben Gavir was coming to town. I was, I was obviously, you know, everybody looks forward to that every year. But no, I thought there might be some big protests. You know, people, people know who Ben Gavir is. They don't like Ben Gavir.
And it turns out he canceled his trip last minute. So Ben Gavir is the Minister of National Security, has been for four years in Israel since 2022 And why, let's start at the beginning. Why would he cancel his trip?

**Jake Romm** (2:35)
Well, if the reporting is accurate, which I think it is, I have no reason to think it's not. And I do have reason to think it is.
He canceled his visit because of our legal filings alongside, well, one that we did individually, one we did with the Center for Constitutional Rights, great organization here in New York. And then at the same time, there was like a lot of grassroots mobilization from the Palestinian Youth Movement and other orgs to do a big protest.

**Brace Belden** (3:02)
So wait, you know what? We didn't even actually start at the beginning. What is, we've done an episode with you on this before, but people might not listen, they might tune in later. What is the Hind Rajab Foundation?

**Jake Romm** (3:11)
So, the Hind Rajab Foundation started in 2024, very shortly after the present stage of the genocide began. And we are a legal organization based in Brussels, Belgium.
And what we do is we try to get Israeli soldiers arrested around the world. And very crucially, our work focuses on national jurisdictions, national courts and not international courts. People always think or always say like, oh, send this guy to the Hague, right? And yeah, that's where the ICC is, the International Criminal Court.
That's a great court, but it's very limited in its scope and resources, right? So, they've issued warrants against Yoav Galan and Benjamin Netanyahu and possibly are going to be issuing them against Motrich and Ben-Gavir, though they haven't come down yet. But they really only have the capacity and the mandate to go after those quote unquote most responsible. But, you know, even if one of those guys authors a policy of genocide or torture, or both, in the case of Ben-Gavir, right? Soldiers and cops and prison guards are the ones carrying it out. And all these people are committing international crimes as well. And so every state, by virtue of being a member of, or a state party to the Geneva Convention, the Genocide Convention, Convention Against Torture, what have you, has an international legal obligation to exercise jurisdiction over war criminals in their midst. And they also have the legal tools to do so. Almost every one of these states has written into their criminal code something that incorporates the Geneva Convention, Convention Against Torture, Rome Statute, which is the statute for the International Criminal Court, and the Genocide Convention. So what we do is we figure out who these soldiers are, figure out where they served, when they served, what they did, and on that basis, draw up a big file of evidence and legal arguments explaining the crimes and the jurisdiction and work with lawyers in the relevant jurisdictions to pass those off to prosecutors and say, you need to prosecute these people because they're coming to your state, or they're a dual national, they're a citizen of your state. So jurisdiction never expires, you always have it, and you have to go after them.