Inside Israel Today: Fighting Israel's Legal Battle

you're listening to inside Israel today with Gil Hoffman on the land of Israel Network hello and welcome to inside Israel today here on the land of Israel Network on the land of israel comm where i am excited to have on my show a very special guest who is one of the most impressive fellow graduates of the IDA crown Jewish Academy in Chicago and has risen to be the director of the general international law department of the foreign ministry of Israel which makes her one of the top experts on international law in Israel working for the State of Israel and helping Israel with all the complex issues it's working through right now her name is Sarah Weiss moody and she has degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and from Harvard and she has taught international law at the Ohno academic College in Israel and she worked at the Israeli Ministry of Justices international treaties and litigation department and right now she works for the foreign ministry here in Jerusalem but she's about to become the head of everything legal for Israel at the United Nations one of the most difficult places for Israel around the world and she will be the one doing the fighting for us so a real soldier for Israel Sarah Weissman II thank you for coming here on inside Israel today on the Land of Israel thank you deal for that warm introduction a little bit embarrassing I want to say for the listeners out there if you enjoy listening to Gil I want to take a little bit of credit for him because I was actually his newspaper editor in high school and so it's really a pleasure ideal for you to reach out to me and thank you for for asking me to be interviewed I owe it all to you Sarah what does it mean to be the director of the general International Department what do you do on a daily base okay well we do quite a lot and we're kind of under staffed basically the the office of the legal advisor at the foreign is divided into three different departments one Department handles all of our treaties our treaty negotiations from start to finish so the negotiation phase assimilation in Israeli law ratification etc the other department deals with both very complex diplomatic and consular issues so immunity's issues and they're also our in-house counsel and it's very complicated in the foreign ministry because you've employees that are inside the country outside the country properties or throughout the world and then there's my department which is what usually people think about when they think about a lawyer working for the foreign ministry and we basically handle the legal analysis of all political issues that have an international bent so just to give you sort of the throw out and at least in headlines what we do we cover everything from human rights that means we're both involved in the day in day to day answering questions about different incidents and also reporting Israel belongs to all the major human rights treaties and needs to report on a periodic basis we just did this year every four years I'm really proud of it Israel reports on its overall human rights record and and my department was the lead in preparing that report and going and presenting it in Geneva we handle all issues related to international humanitarian law the laws of armed conflict we handle issues relating to illegal immigration issues all that goes on in the headlines with that subject counterterrorism is another issue we handle the Iran agreement is another issue we handle shared natural resources with our neighbors so water energy are issues that we handle border issues land and sea border issues European Union law and our relations with the Europeans environmental law so I have a lawyer who goes to Paris and Saban to negotiate the Paris agreement and other internet environmental agreements all the fun stuff and of course everything related to our both our two peace treaties with Jordan in Egypt that means the implementation and interpretation of those two treaties and of course the peace process or the political process with our Palestinian neighbors including the interpretation and implementation of the interim agreement that we signed with them in 1995 so I hope you guys didn't get tired from all that I'll let you guess how many staffers yeah we're very understaffed but it keeps us on our toes it keeps us busy and it certainly every day is different and every day is a challenge and if the perk of the job is the down side of the job as well it's certainly a lot on your plate and I hope you have an easier time well I mean I we're actually the headquarters of the legal adviser you know we we provide the perfect legal adviser who sits at the U and we are the legal department before in ministry we have three legal advisors abroad one that sits in the hague when that sits in Geneva and then one of its UN headquarters in New York and that person in New York covers both sort of the day-to-day legal issues that come up there's the UN is divided into different committees the six committee is the legal committee and they handle sort of more dry academic issues that deal with the development of international law and and certainly Israel every year we contribute to that there are different studies that come out and we try to weigh in and how we view international law and sort of cutting-edge issues and then there's obviously as Israel it becomes the most exciting job because as Israel again never a dull moment and all issues that come up in the Israeli context be it visa see Lebanon these visas V Iran issues that come up Middle East different decisions that that are adopted against Israel and obviously again like I do here at headquarters the legal adviser there weighs in on legal aspects of all these different political decisions got it okay so let's get into the nitty-gritty Gaza rockets are falling on Gaza right now as we speak and we had to endure challenges when you had the fence rushing organized by Hamas during the American embassy ceremony what were our legal arguments at the time and what could we do legally to make sure that the world realizes that everything Israel does there in responding is legally well I mean I think first and foremost I think as a lawyer it's important to get the facts right I think this is sometimes often missed in terms of you know we start talking about legal concepts but actually without talking about what's actually going on so I think our starting point is really what we're going on with those protests and certainly you know Hamas another terrorist group try to paint the protest as peaceful protest is nonviolent protests against is in Israel against the United States move but this is nothing of that sort here we're talking about highly violent protests that include many even by Hamas his own admission many of the participants are Hamas terrorists themselves many armed with lethal weaponry or you know crude but lethal weaponry grenades hand grenades Molotov cocktails rocks burning kites and then thrown into the mix obviously you have and this is sort of a the mo of a lot of terrorist groups they would use civilians women children the elderly and really put them inside the the violent you know inside the violence areas as a sort of human shields which is actually a major crime under international law and you know very irresponsibly put them in areas that where you're having these violent uprisings so in terms of what's going on that's what's going on now again all these people as you as you noted we're trying to rush the fence and enter into Israel and attack Israel as you know for over a decade we've faced violent attacks by Hamas and other terrorist or this morning we continue to be faced with those kind of attacks from I think at least on the radio what I heard just now was it's assessed with the Islamic Jihad any Iranian backed group but we're facing really you know imminent threats of attack tunnels that feed right into Israeli kibbutz seem adjacent to the Gaza Strip but it's certainly in Israel of proper rocket attacks on our cities I heard one of the rocket attacks this morning fell into the courtyard of a of a nursery school and and of course any country is going to take steps to defend itself now always when we operate be it in a military operation or in this in this context and this kinda is an interesting legal construct it's actually we're talking about law enforcement but in the context of an ongoing armed conflict with Hamas again over a decade of dealing with daily rocket mortar or fire and there are clear standard operating procedures SOPs that are given to the IDF troops about how to react and prevent the threats of this of these these riotous violent rioters against Israel among this I think one of the things the way that things are looked at it is looking at threat and then this was actually a subject of a Supreme Court case that upheld the legality of the IDF actions looking at the threat posed by the masked by the throngs of people and really you know oftentimes looking at who are the main instigators within that group and then there would be also standing operating procedures of how to deal with those people trying to use minimum force but also to just again defend Israel's borders and defend Israel's citizens so each soldier each sniper before they decided to fire knew what they could and could not do legal I I think you have to look at the various phases I mean first of all in the IDF all officers go through training in terms of rules of international law and receive full training we actually published a report after the 2014 Gaza that goes into in great detail what kind of training they receive and then that's before you even get there because we don't want people making decisions you know in real time and you have to know that always we're dealing with the laws of armed conflict we're not dealing with the the you know in the shoes of the reasonable legal adviser the reasonable judge where it's always the test of the shoes of the reasonable commander what he or she given the information you know yeah they have in their hands did they understand it undertake something that we're legal in the view of a reasonable military commander so that's that's how the IDF troops prepare but then you also have the aftermath and the flipside of you know what happens afterwards yeah we're we're we going to be put on trial around the world because we're as well I mean that's the thing eight even around the world even countries that have laws that you can bring lawsuits against Israel first and foremost the country that's the natural forum State which would be Israel is supposed to when there are serious allegations of wrongdoing investigate and Israel is fully committed to investigating allegations serious allegations of wrongdoing now Israel has actually gone through in recent years a great deal of reform both internal and sort of with also within international aspects Azhar even we had a public committee that reviewed all of israel's investigation mechanisms and this included actually a number of foreign experts who are world renowned experts in international humanitarian law and really looking to see if israel's investigation mechanisms in these contexts do they meet the test of international law and actually the report was produced by this committee is very comprehensive hundreds of pages but I think for the international listener if you want to take a look I think the most interesting chapters the chapter of comparative law looking at other country systems and seeing how Israel stands up and I'll be a little bit of the Chris notes for that and then sort of by day basically the conclusion was that Israel's investigatory mechanisms do meet international standards and there were a number of recommendations that were made in this context that were actually adopted by the government I have already been implemented or in the process of being implemented and one of these that was actually implemented even before the recommendations were adopted was that Israel actually introduced already in the 2014 operation I'm an extra layer of review and established a fact-finding committee of senior officers who are not involved in the chain of command that means they're not both combatants they're not giving advice on any attack and actually when there is an allegation of wrongdoing they will actually go in in real time in in the midst of an operation or hostilities and this is very unique most countries wait until after hostilities have ended and they'll already start fact-finding and making recommendations and the recommendations are used for two purposes one is to make sure that if something was done improperly or could be done better that they'll be lessons learned right away by the military and on the operational point of view but then on my side on the legal point of view they already start making recommendations for the military advocate general whether he should open up a criminal investigation and their initial findings is called the SFM eken ISM or their initial findings are actually forwarded to the military Advocate General's amad who then decides whether or not to open up a criminal investigation if they're not if there's enough evidence very much like a prosecutor or Attorney General or you can you can also send it back to them and ask them for more information now that's all on the military side and then sometimes people ask well in a military investigate itself but actually israel's investigations don't and there and there are multi layers of review the military Advocate General's decision let's say not to open up a criminal investigation can be further reviewed and challenged by the Attorney General who sits on the civilian side our civilian attorney general and then attends decisions can also be reviewed by our Supreme Court so you have really a multi-faceted multi-layered investigation mechanism that starts in the military with with fact-finding a youth unique fact-finding mechanism but goes all the way can go all the way to the civilian side to the Attorney General in the Supreme Court countries and international bodies are supposed to give Israel the opportunity to do the right thing that is to say to investigate and and obviously serious lawyers serious jurists know that a proper investigation of proper criminal investigation be it on the domestic side or on the military side doesn't happen overnight you know I mean you're a reporter if you hear allegations of a murder or of abuse or rape you would have no expectation that a court would find the person accused guilty the next day and and and I will say and and although this is unfortunate you know even in military operations even in certain situations where civilians lose their lives it doesn't necessarily mean there was any criminal wrongdoing internationally man I'm carrying laws the laws of armed conflict have very clear rules about how we would look at a given incident and it's also not a scorecard approach it's not you killed seven people we you know we can kill ten you have to look incident by incident to see if each and every incident if the acts undertaken meet the test of law and this includes looking at test if the military first of all was acting out of military necessity you can't just act out of revenge you have to tie your actions into and military necessity I mean an easy example is if you see a rocket launcher and you want to take it out you can obviously draw a military necessity towards you know knocking out a launcher that's attacking your civilians another test would be a test called distinction you you need to distinguish between civilians and combatants or civilian infrastructure such as a school a mosque or a hospital that said the minute someone or something is being used for military purposes it loses its protections under the laws of our conflict another test you would look at this proportionality and here again you could have a situation where the military threat is so great but unfortunately you know civilians lose their lives in the crossfire if you know you can take out let's say a major you know advanced weapons stockpile that's in the basement of a hospital it's a big dilemma you know that certainly you can point to military necessity certainly you can point to the hospital you being used for military purposes and losing its safeguards but what if you have real patients upstairs you know the test the proportion and and and what if you have a situation where if they do break the border fence and it could lead to mass killings inside Israel and so Israel targeting the people who are a touch the terrorists are touching the fence perhaps it's actually saving lives even if the numbers end up that no Israelis were killed and 60 depends you don't have to wait until you know you have mass you know you know mass casualties on your side a country acting properly obviously takes measures and when you have a mass a terrorist sponsored mass many of which are known terrorists themselves and admitted terrorists themselves and they're at armed and dangerous you know you don't wait until you know you you might win the you know the the PR test on CNN with mass casualty that he no no country can wait for that point and should nor should any country should wait for that point of course you know you do have to ask you do have to subdue the lead the protesters within the confines of law of course no country gets it right all the time and and if there is a wrong doing a you know Israel is fully committing to investigating Israel fully committing trying anyone and we've seen incidents like this although they're very controversial Sarah based on your initial findings and the initial findings of everyone involved what we did on that day that the embassy opened was leading again I can't speak in blanket terms and I I don't want to say that each and everything there are certain things that are being investigated so and I'm certainly I'm not a legal adviser for the military so I don't have inside information about each and every incident and I don't think also its proper to speak if there are certain incidents that are being investigated I will say as a rule always Israel is committed to and abides by international law as well as troops abide by international law and again when Israel you know when when a certain individual soldier does not get it right which is the exception not the rule Israel's also committed to taking care of that and that's also our obligation under international law is there going to be some kind of probe with an initial results already released soon when they did that three weeks after the operation in 2014 there was more I mean again I can't speak to you know when when the results are going to be and I don't know how again I'm not involved personally on any sort of the investigation it would be improper for me to intervene at this point certainly when we have findings you know those are usually published although you know sometimes certain information certainly is classified and you can't share all the information all the details with the public but I can't really speak or you know again I think it's it's it's answer think I mean a lot of times there's this expectation of sort of instant gratification of you know did they get it right do they get it wrong and criminal law you know criminal law doesn't work that way it's frustrating because I think as a journalist in the world of instant media you know we're very used to sort of having an instant opinion on what's happening this was illegal and this was you know this was legal and this was not legal and the world of law is is more boring it's slower slower paced and and so you know I always when I when I talk to groups I oftentimes use an example of real examples of me sitting in the Situation Room and getting calls from a porter like you from from CNN from New York Times you know asking me about a certain incident they show me pictures and they want to put me you know on a screen a split screen with with those pictures and I get the legal answer to what happened and was it legal or illegal my not be known for several months and they might not be known for several months actually because we were doing it right as lawyers but obviously I lost the interview when there's a picture of a school that was attacked that you know but I don't have the information with the real time that that school was being used for combat purposes or that school was being used to stockpile weapons and so that makes it fit I was in that split screen during a ceremony in in Jerusalem and it was complicated and I had to think on my feet and certainly not have the legal background and the in the information that could have been helpful to me I wish that's true I mean I also think but I think that it's not always a satisfying answer did you say we're committed to investigating if any wrongdoing Katherine people want to know about a particularly incident people look at imagery I mean it look at that case there was a one case of an infant that lost their lives and the protest that turns out after the fact you know after the the imagery that went through the media and really you know as a mother you see something like that and you know I mean of course you have questions why would people bring their infant to the front and violent protests but we'll put that aside for a second and then it comes out that that you know that engine had congenital heart disease to begin with well you know you have that information I mean that information came out relatively quickly and even then Israel and the headline for New York Times lost the PR battle with that one think about even more so when you're talking about you know legal proceedings that might have been months afterwards so if you don't mind I want to change the subject of settlements in general we're not immediately having to deal with it you have more time to prepare I guess you know there was a conference this week in Jerusalem calling for applying Israeli sovereignty to the Jewish communities that are in Area C of the areas that Israel maintains full control of according to the Oslo process in the West Bank in Judea and Samaria can we do that legally in under international law are we fine with settling these places and the later on applying is really long yeah yeah yeah you know I I want to be careful I'm just to be clear I'm a legal adviser I'm not a politician I'm not a policy maker as well you know we deal with LowE we hear lots of different rumors and different proposals that are sort of float in the air I really wouldn't want to speak towards this that or the other proposal my job is I mean am I doing this politically I know what they should do or not do but we are we I mean we get away with as I as a lawyer I work a little bit more on these issues behind the scenes and I would have to I really wouldn't want to speak in blanket terms I would have to look at a specific proposal and sort of comment on the legality of that and clearly I mean international lawyers who are in the system their job is to to flag issues that could be raised under international law and we've even had statements by our most senior legal advisors and certain you know initiatives of you know whether or not willing to defend something are not in the Supreme Court and this is very much based on you know whether or not something complies with international law but I will say I have to say for this issue I say that I don't really want to speak sort of in the air about initiative if something concrete came up and and when thing is to come in up that our concrete we work primarily behind the scenes to give legal advice and then I don't want to put you on the spot but if we have to be specific let's say the Netanyahu decides that he wants to apply Israeli law to my land a moment as a start I don't feel so comfortable speaking in terms of speculation about certain proposals and we have to see how these things play out and certainly I'm ready willing and able in my capacity and it's usually not you know public capacity but in in in my professional capacity at the foreign ministry when we need to provide legal guidance and legal advice that's that's what we're we're paid to do so I think I think maybe we'll leave that aside for a man and we'll see how things play out in reality because I've heard many different proposals and different ideas and you know proposals five sometimes what happens in real time after receiving legal advice is sometimes different than what's floated initially got it you mentioned that you were involved in issues related to the Iran deal I mean I'm not Bob was not negotiated for the Iran deal like we work on just you know we look at and now as a lawyers analyzing it and and analyzing I mean I think many a lot of people talk about the Iran deal not so many people actually have read the the jcpoa the the joint action plan or the UN resolution that anchors it in we you know part of my departments job is to sort of review and analyze again we don't we don't create Israel's policies according that although Israel's policies are quite clear and I can speak as a lawyer that the the deal certainly you know had many flaws and I think our Prime Minister has been very clear on what those flaws are and I think the US has been clear on what this its position since it's made this decision to withdraw not it's anything else you that you feel comfortable with talking about that you can tell the listeners around the world about regarding Israel and its legal battle well I think you know I think sort of finish off a lot of times people think about Israel I think about like the incidents we talked about in depth in Gaza they think about you know incidents related it's a settlement see issue related to and I just wanted to flag that a little bit about other things that we do on sort of in the international stage as a positive agenda I mentioned all the topics of my a Department handles but I didn't mention actually the thing that we do that I'm most proud of and Israel I were actually involved like I think many people know Israel's involves let's say in in water agriculture in in helping developing countries develop their technologies and their capabilities but few people know that we're actually also involved these kind of initiatives on the legal front and I think I've want to share with the the audience a little bit about projects that we've been involved as I think they're very much core values cores I inist values and sort of being a light unto the nations and a couple projects we've been involved in for example we're and this is actually under a UN umbrella so you started off on how difficult it is for Israel at the UN but I want to also mention sometimes we do have positive collaboration so the UN a couple years ago was looking for a country to help develop or strengthen public defenders offices in developing countries and not too many countries signed up for the challenge I mean in Israel actually we have a very young public defender's office it's about 20 years old people who work in it are mostly my age or a bit younger and we actually sent our our Israeli public defenders to Liberia for a number of weeks to Vietnam for a number of weeks and Liberia was actually really building the Liberian after a gruesome Civil War of actually helping build their public defender's office and this is a place when you think about the core building blocks of democracy of a legal system of really you know the right of a defendant to receive proper defense public defender's office and you know I mean obviously I mean prosecutions the state shows up against our public defenders but they're very much part and parcel of our legal system were very proud of them went down there actually rolled up their sleeves and trained numerous Liberian public defenders we did the same in Vietnam they have a public defender's office but it's obviously less developed than ours and sort of giving tips about how to strengthen that institution and we do lots of projects like that all the time and I think that's sometimes the story that isn't told we did a project I I'm a feminist so I have evident about the influence of women in international law we did a project couple years back in the hague with 16 other countries I mean I think about when Israel sponsors with 16 other countries project and we actually brought we did sort of a panel from different continents different women key figures developing international law and it was very proud that very Danish our first is chief Jefferson female chief justice our first female and state prosecutor she represented us and she's got actually Amla on the stage next to the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court who's from Africa from the Gambia and and you know really a moment of pride to be Israeli and sort of to give people a different perspective for anyone who knows our Ministry of Justice certainly you know more than 50 percent women there in our arch are just the system to a lot of times I bring foreign dignitaries even from developed countries who are quite surprised that it's how many women we have we have women chief justices and I think that that sometimes it's certainly a big part of what I see is my job of sort of changing views changing stereotypes about Israel you know we're not just all war and terrorism and it's important to me when I'm abroad to make sure that we're clear on just how committed we are to it to law so that the international law and how much we have to contribute and how active we are in those fields beautiful beautiful I'm glad that you're given this opportunity to help the country and make people around the world realize what I thank so much and it's always good to chat with you and to talk with you and then I'm very proud of you too and it's amazing to see how much you've accomplished and that's it's and and wishing the viewers a good rest of the day the saris I'm used to cooking television my first radio interview ever actually I'm used to doing television interviews more but wishing the listeners a good rest of the day and thank you for a year for your attention pleasure having you Sarah radio interviews okay I was thinking today what am I gonna wear and I was like oh wait thank you for being here on inside Israel today on the Land of Israel Network and listeners thank you for being with thank you in an unprecedented revelation that shocked the world Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu exposed Iran's diabolical plan to build nuclear weapons and ultimately thrust the world into nuclear war how did Israel successfully penetrate the most protective and secretive bunker into Iran and extract thousands of files from under the Iranian regime and the one question nobody seems to be asking is why does Iran want to 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