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A federal judge has implored President Joe Biden to reflect on his “unflagging” support for what international authorities have warned amounts to Palestinian genocide.
But the judge overseeing an unprecedented lawsuit from a group of Palestinian families and aid groups who accused the Biden administration of complicity in genocide has dismissed the case, finding that he is restricted by precedent and separation of powers from ordering the president to stop.
“It is every individual’s obligation to confront the current siege in Gaza,” US District Judge Jeffrey S White wrote in an order on Wednesday, “but it also this Court’s obligation to remain within the metes and bounds of its jurisdictional scope.”
His decision follows last week’s historic courtroom hearing in California, where lawyers from the US Department of Justice urged the judge to dismiss the case, while several plaintiffs – including a doctor who spoke by video from a hospital in Rafah – provided gripping testimony alleging Mr Biden’s failure to prevent genocide in Gaza under obligations to international and federal law.
“There are rare cases in which the preferred outcome is inaccessible to the Court,” Judge White wrote. “This is one of those cases.”
He determined he is “bound by precedent and the division of our coordinate branches of government to abstain from exercising jurisdiction in this matter.”
Protesters demonstrate outside a federal court in Oakland, California, during a hearing in a lawsuit alleging President Joe Biden’s complicity in Palestinian genocide.
(REUTERS)
But following a preliminary ruling from the International Court of Justice, “it is plausible that Israel’s conduct amounts to genocide,” the judge wrote.
“This Court implores Defendants to examine the results of their unflagging support of the military siege against the Palestinians in Gaza,” he said.
This is a developing story