Searching for information on the International Court of Justice hearings yielded an Israel-sponsored ad calling the ongoing genocide hearing against it “meaningless.”
Israel is defending itself against allegations that its siege of Gaza is a genocide with Google search ads, in what appears to be a world first.
A Google search for the ongoing hearing against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) yielded an ad calling South Africa’s genocide case against it “meaningless” and linking to an Israeli government website for some users on Thursday. Motherboard viewed the ad, which appears above news coverage of the hearing being held in the Hague in the Netherlands. Google told Motherboard it reviewed the ad against its policies and did not take any action.
The ad was first noted on X when a user posted a screenshot of their Google search for “icj” which yielded a sponsored ad titled “Israel response to Hague ICJ” above the Google information panel for the ICJ. The ad includes subheadings of “October 7th: The Invasion” and “The North Border,” as well as survivor testimonies and resources.
Motherboard was not able to replicate the search using only the term “ICJ,” but was able to find the ad when searching “ICJ Israel.” The ad’s descriptive text reads in full, “SA’s claim is meaningless—the malicious blood libel advanced by South Africa seeks to slander the State of israel. South Africa’s claim lacks any factual or legal basis and renders meaningless.”
The ad links to the Israeli government website govextra.gov.il. The page lists information about Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack which killed 1,200 Israelis, and a video claims that “Israel is doing everything in its power to prevent harm to innocent civilians in Gaza and is acting according to international humanitarian law.”
Don’t flutter yourself too much.
If today the ICJ rules that Palestinians have been victims of genocide, that war is ending in the next few days/weeks.
You can take that to the bank.
This is naive. Like we keep teling you, the US has made it a habit to go against decisions from intrenational institutions like the UN, the ICJ etc. Nothing has ever happened to them as a consequance of that behavior. If they decide to keep backing Israel’s genicide anyway, which they without a doubt will, there will be very little consequances for them at best.
And I will keep reminding you that Israel is not the US in this context.
But the US can fully back and support a genocidal “war” that came to an end all they want after Israel is expunged from Palestine.