Biden makes history: 1st sitting US president sued for complicity in genocide

Joe Biden sears his name in history by becoming the first sitting American president to be sued for complicity in genocide over the United States' abetment in the Israeli regime's ongoing genocidal war against the Gaza Strip.

The first hearing in the case was being held at the federal courthouse in Oakland, California on Friday.

Human rights bodies and Palestinian US citizens are plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which was lodged by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a New York-based legal advocacy organization, in mid-November.

The CCR filed the lawsuit on behalf of Dr. Omar Al-Najjar, a physician at Nasser Medical Complex in the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, as well as Palestinian human rights groups Defense for Children International – Palestine and al-Haq.

The lawsuit also names US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

The Israeli regime has been waging war against Gaza since October 7, 2023, following an operation carried out by the Palestinian territory's resistance groups.

More than 26,000 Palestinians, some 70 percent of whom are women, children, and adolescents, have been killed in the brutal onslaught so far, while upwards of 64,100 others have been injured.

The United States has been providing the war with all-out military and political support. It has armed the regime with more than 10,000 tons of military hardware, and blocked ratification of all United Nations Security Council resolutions that have called for cessation of the Israeli aggression.

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"If the legal responsibility to prevent an unfolding genocide is to mean anything – indeed, if the rule of law is to signify anything – courts must have a role and responsibility to enforce these foundational international law principles," the lawsuit states, adding, "The lives of so many more people are at stake."

"I am certainly not aware of another sitting US president who has had charges of complicity in genocide brought against him in federal court, or against his senior cabinet members – a testament in and of itself to the gravity of the US’s significant role in this genocide, the crime of crimes," Sadaf Doost, a Berth Justice fellow with the CCR, told The Independent.

A court hearing in the case would force the Biden administration "to confront what it has gone to great lengths to deny or even recognize – and through a public, permanent record," she noted.

Also on Friday, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which is the UN's top court, ordered the Israeli regime to take all measures within its power to prevent genocide in Gaza.

ICJ orders Israel to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza

The United Nations

It ordered the regime to report back in one month on the measures it has been asked to carry out.

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