ICC Investigation of Biden Administration Officials for Aiding Israeli War Crimes with Sarah Leah Whitson (Episode 33)

In January of 2025, the human rights organization, Democracy in the Arab World Now (DAWN), made a formal request with the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate former U.S. officials President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin for their accessorial roles in aiding and abetting, as well as intentionally contributing to, Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

With the support of ICC-registered lawyers and other war crimes experts, the submission details a pattern of deliberate and purposeful decisions by these officials to provide military, political, and public support to facilitate Israeli crimes in Gaza; this support included at least $17.9 billion of weapons transfers, intelligence sharing, targeting assistance, diplomatic protection, and official endorsement of Israeli crimes, despite knowledge of how such support had and would substantially enable grave abuses.

Join host Sahar Aziz in conversation with Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of DAWN, about the key facts and law supporting the request for the International Criminal Court to investigate Biden officials for aiding and abetting Israeli War Crimes in Gaza.

#Israel #Palestine #Gaza #Genocide #ICC #HumanRights

Transcript

UNKNOWN: 0:00

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00: 0:06

Hello and welcome to the Race and Rights Podcast. This is Sahar Aziz, Distinguished Professor at Rutgers University Law School and author of the book, The Racial Muslim, When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom. I also serve as the Executive Director of the Rutgers Law School Center for Security, Race and Rights. You can follow me on social media at saharazizlaw and learn more about my work at saharazizlaw.com. The Center for Security, Race and Rights, also known as CSRR, engages in research, education Thank you. to the csrr.rutgers.edu website and press the donate button. And please give generously. In today's episode, I speak with Sarah Lee Whitson, the executive director of Democracy in the Arab World Now, also known as DAWN, about the human rights organization's formal request with the International Criminal Court to investigate former U.S. officials President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. The request alleges that these high-level U.S. officials aided and abetted, as well as intentionally contributed to, Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. With the support of ICC-registered lawyers and other war crimes experts, the submission details a pattern of deliberate and purposeful decisions by these officials to provide military, political, and public support to facilitate Israeli crimes in Gaza. This support included at least$18 billion of weapons transfers, intelligence sharing, targeting assistance, diplomatic protection, and official endorsement of Israeli crimes. Despite knowledge of how such support had and would substantially enable grave abuses. Let's hear what our guest has to say about the role of international law in holding U.S. government officials accountable in what many international lawyers describe as a genocide in Gaza. Welcome, Sarah Lee Whitson, to the Race and Rights podcast. Thank you for having me. So on January 24th, 2025, your organization, Democracy in the Arab World Now, also known as DAWN, submitted its communication in response to the International Criminal Court Prosecutors' November 17th, 2023 call for parties to present to his office information relevant to his office's ongoing probe into violations of the Rome Statute in Palestine, including the current war in Gaza. Now, because some of our listeners are not lawyers, Can you summarize the role of the International Criminal Court in holding states accountable for international law and specifically as it applies to Israel and Hamas since October 2023?

SPEAKER_01: 3:25

The International Criminal Court is a new court and it is the only international criminal court in the world. In contrast with the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court is not a court for states or governments. It only prosecutes individuals. These individuals may be government officials. There's, in fact, no immunity for hitting sitting heads of state, but it may also include ordinary civilians, nongovernmental people. So it is a court that specifically hears cases of violations of the Rome Statute, which include a host of crimes, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, apartheid, various other crimes against nationals, individuals who've committed crimes. crimes in a jurisdiction where the court has jurisdiction. I don't know if we should call it a complaint or a communication. Or a communication. It's not a complaint.

SPEAKER_00: 4:25

In the communication, your ICC registered lawyers and other war crime experts detail a pattern of deliberate and purposeful decisions by U.S. officials, specifically former President Joe Biden, former Secretary of State Blinken, and former Secretary of Defense Austin, Lloyd Austin, that they engage in a pattern of deliberate and purposeful decisions to provide military, political, and public support to facilitate Israeli crimes in Gaza, and that this support included at least$17.9 billion of weapons transfers, intelligence sharing, targeting assistance, diplomatic protection, and official endorsement of Israeli crimes, despite knowledge about how such support had and would substantially enable grave abuses. So in this 172-page communication to the ICC prosecutor, Karim Khan, Can you provide the facts on the ground in Gaza that support Don's communication or his position that Israel is committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza?

SPEAKER_01: 5:35

So the submission is a submission against these three U.S. officials. for violating Article 25 of the Rome Statute. Now, Article 25 has two components, alternative components. One is aiding and abetting war crimes or other violations of the Rome Statute, and another is facilitating the commission of crimes. In order to find a violation of either of these provisions, you need to have the actual act, the act of supporting, aiding, abetting, facilitating crimes, and you have to have an intent to facilitate the crimes. What our submission documents includes the ways in which these officials aided and abetted and facilitated particular Israeli crimes that the prosecutor has already charged Israeli officials with. And the court has already indicted and issued arrest warrants against these Israeli officials for, which include the crimes of murder, killing, starvation, deprivation of humanitarian aid. And in addition to those crimes, we also include evidence of how these U.S. officials have facilitated genocide, which is a charge that the prosecutor has brought, but not a charge for which these two officials have yet been indicted. The arrest warrant can be expanded at any time. Additional people can be added to the case. So we focus on the particular crimes of genocide, murder and killing through indiscriminate and deliberate bombardment of civilians, the crime of starvation in the deliberate withholding of humanitarian aid, electricity, food, water, items essential to the survival of the population. And we document the specific elements of assistance that these officials provided, knowing that they would facilitate these Israeli crimes.

SPEAKER_00: 7:29

Now, just to clarify for some of our listeners who aren't lawyers or aren't international lawyers, there's the International Criminal Court and there's the International Court of Justice. It's been in the media quite a bit over the past at least year that South Africa has filed a complaint with the International Court of Justice alleging that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. So can you explain for our non-lawyer audiences the difference between the ICC's role vis-a-vis what's happening in Gaza and the ICJ's role and that relationship between the two, if any?

SPEAKER_01: 8:06

There's no relationship between the two courts. The International Court of Justice is a court for state litigation when a government sues another government. And it hears a range of disputes, some of which have nothing to do with human rights or war crimes. You know, they could be maritime disputes. They could be territorial boundary disputes. They can even be commercial disputes. But they are also used to bring claims for certain violations of crimes where there's universal jurisdiction. And the Convention Against Genocide is one of those crimes where one state can sue, another state can file a complaint against another state for committing genocide. So the case in South Africa, I'm sorry, the case in the International Court of Justice was initially brought by South Africa against Israel, but many other states have now joined the South African complaint. And a number of states have also added additional submissions and amicus briefs in support. And some states have filed opposition to the ICJ complaint against Israel. So in that case, which is still pending, about a year ago, actually over a year ago, the ICJ did issue some provisional orders against Israel, finding that there was a plausible fact presented that showed the crime of genocide taking place, and accordingly ordered Israel to stop blocking humanitarian aid, to stop starving the people of Gaza. In a second provisional order, it specifically ordered them not to carry out military actions in Rafah. Now, Israel has ignored all of the orders of the International Court of Justice. The case is still pending. Yesterday, South Africa provided a detailed annex. I believe it's over 100 pages long, expanding on the evidence of Israeli intent to commit genocide, which is a requirement of the Genocide Convention. That was actually filed a while ago, but it was only made public yesterday. Now, that's completely separate from the International Criminal Courts case. hearing about war crimes and violations of the Rome Statute in Palestine since 2014. So when Palestine acceded to the Rome Statute after it was recognized as a state, it then referred the matter of crimes of violations of the Rome Statute in Palestine to the International Criminal Court following the Israeli war in Gaza in 2014. under the former prosecutor spent several years examining whether or not this was a case that the court would take on, examining the merits of the case, examining the jurisdictional requirements of the case, confirming that there was no alternative venue in which to hear these cases because the ICC is a court of last resort. And then after completing that examination, decided to, in fact, open an investigation into crimes that have been committed in Palo Palestine since 2014. So this has been an ongoing investigation. Karim Khan had jurisdiction and responsibility for this case well over the beginning of the Gaza war, but in fact, did not issue his indictments against Israeli officials and Hamas officials until this latest Gaza war. And it is for the conduct of the crimes during this Gaza war that the arrest warrants were issued. There may be, and in fact, I'm sure there will be additional arrest warrants to come because, for example, settlements are a war crime under the Rome Statute. And we are still waiting for the prosecutor to issue arrest warrants for the ongoing crime of settlements in the West Bank, for example. So it is an open and ongoing investigation.

SPEAKER_00: 11:54

Yeah, I think a lot of our listeners may not realize how long this has been going on. Of course, anyone who studies The experiences of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza will appreciate the long record of human rights violations that they have suffered by the hands of the Israeli government, Israeli military, or Israeli citizens and settlers. Now, one more kind of follow-up question again for the non-lawyers, which is, in your communication, there is discussion about war crimes and there's discussions about crimes against humanity. What's the difference between the two and why does it matter for an ICC prosecution?

SPEAKER_01: 12:38

So war crimes typically include crimes that are committed during an armed conflict, whether it's an international armed conflict or non-international armed conflict. These war crimes are extensively defined in the Geneva Conventions and other bodies of law, but they all fundamentally boil down to the principle of proportionality and the principle of distinction, which require a party to a conflict to target only military objects, to never target civilian objects, and to, in all case, distinguish between military and civilian objects in targeting and its attacks. Another war crime, for example, is a deprivation of items essential to the survival of the civilian population. So, for example, the blockade on Gaza that has been in place since 2004, since, is it 2014? Longer, I think, 2007, has been dramatically expanded in this latest war to deprive Palestinians of food, water, electricity. medicine, all items that are essential to their survival. Crimes against humanity are widespread and systematic crimes by a person or state. that deprive them arbitrarily of life. It includes murder. It includes a host of other crimes. They are not contingent on an armed conflict taking place. So, for example, Human Rights Watch has concluded that Egypt is committing crimes against humanity in its widespread and systematic use of torture throughout Egyptian prisons. Another crime against humanity, for example, can include gender apartheid or gender discrimination, which doesn't need a war to take place, but is widespread and systematic when it singles out for harm and discrimination, women, for example. So those are the real distinctions between them. A war crime can happen once, can kill just one person and still be a war crime. For example, a deliberate targeting and murder of a journalist is a war crime. But crimes against humanity must be found to be systematic and widespread.

SPEAKER_00: 14:50

In the Communication that you sent, again, 172 pages, which I would highly recommend that listeners read on Dawn's website. Can you give us some of the most egregious facts that support war crimes, especially since October 2023 in Gaza as committed by Israel?

SPEAKER_01: 15:14

Well, the war crimes include, number one, the deliberate targeting of civilians. There's extensive evidence that shows that Israel has deliberately targeted civilians. This includes over 100 journalists, medical aid workers, doctors who have been intentionally and deliberately targeted civilians. There's also extensive evidence that Israel has deliberately targeted children, including infants, with very close range bullet attacks, bullet wounds to their skulls. And in fact, there's a new documentary out just this week that details many, many cases of deliberate targeting of children, including infants. The second war crime that I think is the most prevalent is indiscriminate attacks on civilians. So, for example, when you bombard an entire neighborhood, there can be no argument that this was a narrowly tailored military attack designed only to strike at military targets. So deliberate attacks on civilians and discriminatory attacks on civilians are two of the main categories of war crimes. The deprival of items essential to the survival of the population is another widespread war crime. There has been also wastage and wanton and reckless destruction of civilian property, wanton and widespread destruction of hospitals, of educational facilities, universities, deliberate attacks on places of worship, desecration of graves, mutilation of corpses. There's a long, long category of war crimes that Israel has been responsible for since October 9. To

SPEAKER_00: 16:58

ensure that we don't hear the frequent criticisms that simply by citing the Israeli war crimes that we don't care about Hamas's war crimes, Could you tell our listeners what were Hamas's war crimes? Well,

SPEAKER_01: 17:16

the principal war crime for which the prosecutor issued arrest warrants against three Hamas officials, all of whom are now dead because they've been killed by Israel, was the deliberate attack on civilians on October 7. Hamas not only struck at military facilities, but also carried out a murderous raid in civilian areas in kibbutzes, where civilians were residing and known to be residing. There's still incomplete information about the attack on the music festival that was underway. Hamas has denied carrying out an incursion at that music festival, but certainly other armed group representatives or some people did in fact carry out deliberate attacks on civilians at this music festival. I think October 7 stands out as the most prominent example of deliberate attacks on civilians carried out by Hamas. But over the years, of course, we've seen numerous indiscriminate attacks with Hamas launching rockets that are not capable of being targeted, hitting effectively random areas in Israel, and in fact, killing civilians on a number of occasions.

SPEAKER_00: 18:29

So again, let's play the devil's advocate for a minute. Isn't what Israel has done since October 7th self-defense? We hear that frequently from the Israeli government and military and their supporters in the U.S. Well, does that claim withstand scrutiny? Why or why not?

SPEAKER_01: 18:48

So as a technical legal matter, I think it's not clear that a state has a right to so-called self-defense for territory it occupies or controls, right? If there is a riot, let's say, going on in Los Angeles, the federal government can't start dropping bombs on Los Angeles and claim it's self-defense. This is a policing operation and has to be handled as a policing matter under the authority of the state. So self-defense is typically, in fact, exclusively a notion that is used between states or between states and armed groups outside of the territory that they control. So when Hezbollah fires a Israel can indeed counterattack claiming self-defense. With occupied territory, many legal commentators have noted that there is no valid, technically valid, legitimate claim to self-defense. But I think much more significantly and substantively, self-defense is completely irrelevant to the conduct of war. So whether or not a party decides to go to war, whether or not the decision to launch a war is legal, depends on basically two things under international law, whether it's done in self-defense or whether it has the authorization of the UN Security Council. If a state comes under attack, it has a right recognized in the UN Charter to carry out a counterattack in self-defense. However, that has zero bearing on the manner in which these strikes are carried out. War crimes, crimes against humanity, these almost exclusively pertain to the conduct of war. So regardless of whether or not a strike is carried out in self-defense, those strikes must abide by the laws of war, which, as I mentioned earlier, fundamentally rely on the principles of distinction and proportionality. You cannot deliberately target civilians, whether or not it's in self-defense. You cannot indiscriminately attack civilians, whether or not it's in self-defense. You cannot starve a civilian population, deprive it of food, water and electricity and medicine, whether or not in self-defense. So the self-defense is completely irrelevant to a finding of war crimes or crimes against humanity.

SPEAKER_00: 21:08

Let's move to the role of the Biden administration, because your communication to the ICC prosecutor is really focused on the Biden administration and specific officials, former President Biden, former Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, and former Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, aiding and abetting these war crimes that you've just described and others in your 172-page communication. and you are effectively seeking some accountability. So what are the facts that show that they've aided and abetted these war crimes. And you may also want to explain what aiding and abetting means under international law for our purposes here.

SPEAKER_01: 21:56

Yeah, so as I mentioned, there are two provisions that pertain to the notion of aiding and abetting as popularly understood. Article 25A defines as a crime aiding and abetting the commission of war crimes, which basically includes providing material support, providing support that makes a significant contribution to the crimes, knowing that that support will facilitate aid and abet the crimes, and then facilitating the commission of crimes. A small distinction, probably too much in the weeds for your audience, but it means helping a party commit crimes, paving the way for them to commit crimes, knowing that the assistance you're providing will facilitate the commission of crimes. What this requires, as I mentioned, is both the actual provision of substantial material support that in fact does contribute to the crime. So, for example, if I provide 1,000 boxes of Bic pens to the Israeli Defense Forces, there's really a difficult argument to make that that contribution substantially contributes to the crimes. But when I provide bombs, 2,000-pound bombs that have a wide area radius effect that are incapable of being limited in their harm ratio to a military object by virtue of their size and capacity, then that would be plausibly providing substantial assistance that contributes, that enables the commission of the crimes. With respect to these U.S. officials, what we document is three sort of categories of support that they've provided. The most significant, of course, is the military support, the$17.9 billion in weapons. which we know from Israeli statements, from American statements, Israel depended on, Israel needs in order to carry out its crimes and continue its unlawful war in Gaza. Without this weaponry, Israel would be significantly hampered in its ability to commit the crimes that it's been carrying out for the past year and a half in Gaza. But in addition to the hardware, there is the intelligence support and assistance. The US military has assisted Israel with intelligence gathering and targeting support, which has also been used to facilitate the commission of crimes. One example, of course, that jumps out is American intelligence sharing that provided Israel with the intelligence used to try to free some hostages. And in the course of that effort, basically set fire to refugee camps and burned hundreds of civilians. Without that intelligence, Israel would not have launched this incursion, catastrophic incursion. They have also actually provided active combat operations and support. So the United States has carried out numerous military attacks on armed groups in Yemen, in Syria, in Iraq, who were deemed to be threats to Israel, who were in fact attempting to launch missiles and strikes at Israel. By helping Israel defend against these other parties to the conflict, they also bolstered Israel's ability to expand and continue its commission of crimes in Gaza. So that's the bucket of military support. The other most significant contribution was the political support, in particular by ordering the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations at the time, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, to veto the five Security Council resolutions, they effectively prevented the UN Security Council from stopping Israel's crimes. They intervened directly to provide Israel with the diplomatic protection it needed, the diplomatic cover it needed to prevent a Security Council resolution, which of course could have included and could still include the use of military force to stop Israel's crimes. For example, the UN Security Council authorized a military incursion into Libya for the ostensible purpose of stopping Israeli crimes. The UN Security Council could not do that here because of this US veto. And finally, the United States These officials facilitated Israeli crimes by teeing up public support for Israeli crimes, justifying Israeli crimes, making false claims about Hamas abuses, for example, to justify Israeli crimes, resorting to arguments of self-defense to justify Israeli crimes. And as I explained, these are not defenses to crime. Self-defense is not a defense to the commission of these crimes. But in doing so, they ensured continued popular support, public support for continued U.S. military assistance and diplomatic protection for Israel. So these are the components of the actions that these U.S. officials took that have aided and abetted Israeli crimes.

SPEAKER_00: 27:15

Again, I highly recommend that listeners read that communication you sent because the facts are quite extensive and those who have been paying attention to the coverage of what's happening in Gaza, the facts are clear that there is mass suffering, death, starvation, ethnic cleansing, and forced displacement, among other human rights violations. Now, the International Criminal Court has jurisdiction over states who are signatories to the Rome Statute, and the United States is not a signatory. And I remember right after 9-11 and during the so-called war on terror, there had been some attempts to hold the U.S. accountable through the ICC and former President Bush was adamant in declaring of his intransigence and rejection of their jurisdiction. So knowing that, how can this process work? hold the U.S. accountable. And critics may argue this is futile. So what ultimately prompted Don to file this, knowing these legal realities? And what does Don hope to accomplish in the long run by filing this communication?

SPEAKER_01: 28:32

Sure. Well, let me just handle the jurisdiction question first. So, yes, it's clear that the International Criminal Court has jurisdiction over crimes committed in the territory of member states when it accepts jurisdiction over territory committed in the crime of a member state. It doesn't always do so. It has a variety of reasons for which it may refuse to exercise jurisdiction, including, for example, when there are alternative venues to prosecute crimes. Because Palestine is a member state to the Rome Statute and because the Rome Statute accepted jurisdiction when the Palestine referred the case to the International Criminal Court. Therefore, the ICC has jurisdiction over any crimes committed there by anyone in the world, regardless of their nationality and regardless of whether or not they're nationals of a state that is a member of the International Criminal Court. So, for example, in Ukraine, because the ICC accepted Ukraine's referral of the matter. Because they have chosen to exercise jurisdiction over crimes committed in Ukraine, they issued an arrest warrant against President Putin, even though Russia is not a member state to the Rome Statute. Israel has attempted to challenge the court's jurisdiction by claiming Palestine is not really a state with the capacity to refer a case to the court. The court heard this. The court ruled on this, rejecting Israel's argument. Israel's argument was supported by the United States and the United Kingdom. So the court has rejected complaints against the exercise of jurisdiction by the court in Palestine, including over humans who are not citizens of member states of the court. In terms of our goals Well, this is a live and ongoing case, and we very much hope that the prosecutor will issue arrest warrants against these U.S. officials for their crimes, for the crimes that we've detailed in our submission. And when that happens, we very much hope that member states of the ICC will exercise their obligation to arrest these officials should they ever show up in their countries. So we expect that the ICC will issue more arrest warrants, particularly against Israelis, but they may well include arrest warrants against others, such as the American officials whom we've nominated for arrest. This can take a long time. And as we know, politics and political realities can change in a snap. if anything should be clear in the last few months, is that alliances, favors, political ups and downs, they can change very, very, very dramatically. We already know that Israeli officials who've been indicted, namely Netanyahu and Gallant, cannot travel to numerous member states in the world because those member states would arrest them should they show up. So this is not a hypothetical threat. It's a real threat. This is something that member states of the ICC are legally obligated to do. This is why we're seeing America's attack on the International Criminal Court, legal attack on the court. This is why we're seeing Israeli attacks on the court, and not just on the court, but on the civil society groups, on the lawyers, on the plaintiffs, on those gathering evidence like Dawn. There are legal attacks against those who are collaborating with the court, submitting information to the court, because it is such a threat. And in fact, the reason why the threats against the court have included direct threats to the life of the prosecutor and other threats against the court, they themselves are crimes. They're obstruction of justice. And in fact, Convictions for obstruction of justice have been more common, I believe, at the International Criminal Court than the underlying war crimes themselves. So these are very serious and real facts and evidence that could in fact lead to arrest warrants against these U.S. officials. It's not just sort of a distant ideal or hope, but something that could very well happen imminently. I think the real question is, will the court survive? Because what we're facing now is a court under threat, a court under threat by the United States, a court under threat by Israel, a court under threat by Russia. And they have made clear that they would rather destroy the court than see it prosecute anyone. Because if this court is going to go after Israelis, some U.S. officials think the court should be destroyed. On the other hand, the court's credibility and legitimacy at this point depends on prosecuting these Israelis or other perceived allies of the United States. Because if the court backs down, then it will lose all credibility. Even before these arrest warrants against Israelis were issued, The ICC was skating on thin ice. A number of African states withdrew from the court. A number of other African states have threatened to withdraw from the court if it only continues to prosecute Africans, Black Africans, for crimes. And I believe the only successful prosecutions the court has had has in fact been against Black Africans. So if this court is really going to be an international criminal court, it cannot back down for political pressure. It cannot back down just because the world's superpower is breathing down its neck. It's in a very tough situation. And so I don't know if the court will survive. But if the court survives, the threat against these U.S. officials is real.

SPEAKER_00: 34:09

So currently in the United States, and today is March 28, 2025, we're living in a country that isn't just attacking the International Criminal Court, but is also attacking its own U.S. citizens. who are engaging in political protests, op-ed writing, dissent, all sorts of nonviolent activities protected by the First Amendment in connection with defending the humanity of Palestinians or criticizing the numerous war crimes that you've described today with us. And as a result, they're being fired from their jobs. Universities are being bullied into disciplining, expelling their own students, firing their faculty. And of course, the international students are being literally abducted by masked ICE agents after their international student visa is arbitrarily revoked by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. And he just bragged that he had revoked over 300 international student visas in the past few days without even notifying those students in advance. And so we now have been put on notice that ICE is literally hunting down at least 300 international students. And thus far, the vast majority that have been, again, abducted in plain sight have been from Muslim-majority countries, Iran, Turkey, Palestinian. And so the... Mood in the U.S. right now by those who seek to hold Israel accountable, the U.S. accountable, is quite dark. It's pervasively anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim official government policies. It's causing a lot of fear, which is exactly, I think, what the Trump administration wants. And so you've committed decades of your legal career to human rights. And during that time, I'm sure that you have worked on and witnessed numerous human rights legal and advocacy campaigns. And so during these difficult times when the U.S. government is assaulting its own citizens for defending human rights, especially the human rights of Palestinians, what advice do you have for Americans and especially our college students who are on the front lines of the historic global human rights movement? What can they do? learned from your experience, including in filing this communication, but just over the long run so that we can remain optimistic?

SPEAKER_01: 36:49

You know, this is a test. This is a test that our country is facing and our citizens are facing. I think the reality that we're seeing is that our civil society, our private institutions, universities, law firms, media, have sadly grown complacent. They have become cowardly and they have been corrupted by the financial influence of their donors and their funders. And this is a time when our duty as citizens is being tested. We cannot take our democratic freedoms for granted. We cannot take the safety and our security of our citizens and our constitutional protections for granted. We have a responsibility and a duty if we are patriots, if we love our country, if we believe in the freedoms enshrined in the Constitution. to stand up and fight for them. Because if we don't, they will be taken for us. I think the worst thing we can do is to make it easy for them, for the history books to show that these terrible forces came in to steal our freedom of speech, primarily but not exclusively, to silence criticism of a state thousands of miles away, and we let them do it. We let them burn down our constitution. We let them burn down our universities and academic freedom. We let them infringe on the independence of law firms and their vital role in providing aggressive legal representation to all sides of legal dispute. And so I think that it is our duty as citizens to stand up and be counted, to stand up and be actively engaged, to stop taking it for granted that our courts are going to protect our freedoms. There are so many ways to get involved. Just being aware is a good part of it. And you can sign up for the Rutgers center, which provides vital information to the community, to the student community, to the global community who can now listen in to these podcasts. So many great organizations fighting against this incursion on our rights and our freedoms. So many speaking out against the most heinous of crimes, which is genocide underway in Gaza. So I would say stand up and be counted. Don't embarrass yourself for future generations that it was under our watch It was under our watch that we became an authoritarian regime that can kidnap people off the streets because it doesn't like things they've said. I am so impressed by the student campus movement. I am very confident that students will continue to demand their independence and freedom. will continue to protest against injustices because this is the long history of student protest movements that go back hundreds of years. And we are seeing that no matter how much you repress people, it's going to be short-lived because that human instinct, wanting freedom, wanting justice, is always going to come roaring back. So I hope everyone goes and sees a fantastic new film, which everyone should find inspiring, called The Encampments, about the student protest movement, particularly at Columbia University and UCLA, that really inspired university students, students around the world to start protesting. Because ultimately, these people can only get away with trampling on our freedoms. They can only get away with committing a genocide in Gaza if we let them. This is on us. You know, for me personally, I've always said I will always be in for the fight. I will always resist for our freedom, for our rights, for a sane U.S. foreign policy. And I'm not doing it Because, you know, I love the fight. I'm doing it because I feel like it's my duty and my responsibility.

SPEAKER_00: 40:49

Well, thank you so much, Sarah Lee Woodson, for sharing your expertise. We could have a much longer conversation to tap all of your knowledge and experience and wisdom. But we appreciate you speaking with us today. And I do hope that readers or listeners will read that communication and also visit the website of Democracy for the Arab World now and learn about the many human rights campaigns that it is leading. So thank you again for joining us.

SPEAKER_01: 41:25

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00: 41:33

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