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.”

read more: https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7b48q/israel-defends-itself-against-hague-genocide-allegations-with-google-ads

  • hottari
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    1 year ago
    1. The US cannot purport to defy an ICJ ruling meant for Israel.
    2. The US cannot stop the other ratified nations from carrying out their sworn obligation to stop genocide under the international genocide convention.
    • nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago
      1. The US cannot stop the other ratified nations from carrying out their sworn obligation to stop genocide under the international genocide convention.

      What you want here is a normative statement , not a descriptive one. In other words, yes the US can definitely prevent others from intervening against Israel. Whether they should is another matter.

    • ExotiqueMatter@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 year ago

      How do they keep not respecting ICJ rullings against them and their allies then? Like, bruh. This shit is not magic. Without a structure that would be able to physicaly force the US if and all of it’s intricate global military alliance to respect the rulling if nessessary, which there are none of currently, the rullings are just empty words which they can and will ignore. It’s like expecting that convicted criminals will walk from the courtroom to the prison on their own without any escort being needed to make sure they respect their sentence.

      • hottari
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        1 year ago

        Unless Israel forces itself to become a recognized colony of the US, you don’t have a case here. IDK why you guys insist on arguing with me about some of the most basic shit. It’s almost like you support genocide but are too afraid to come out and say it.

        • ExotiqueMatter@lemmygrad.ml
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          Unless Israel forces itself to become a recognized colony of the US, you don’t have a case here.

          How so? Israel doesn’t have to be a “recognized colony” or whatever for this to be about US interest in the region. There is a reason why the US is Israel’s largest foreign arms supplier and Israel is one of the coutries who buy the most american weapons in the world.

          Israel is the only coutry in the middle east who is willing to do the US’s bidding there without questions, if it disapear, all the US will have left will be a shaky alliance with Saudi Arabia and a fragile ocupation in Iraq, and with Iran just next door, without Israel those too will be gone sooner rather than later as the middle eastern country realize that now that the US can’t do shit to them anymore they can freely make an allience that makes much more sense for their geopolitical interests with Iran.

          And without any influance there the US has no way of stealing middle eastern oil or to at least presure middle eastern countries to sell their oil in dollar and severe concurence to american oil company will soon apear which the US doesn’t want.

          IDK why you guys insist on arguing with me about some of the most basic shit. It’s almost like you support genocide but are too afraid to come out and say it.

          Saying that an ICJ rulling wont stop the US from doing whatever they want isn’t supporting genocide, it’s being realistic and realizing that the US wont stop pursuing their interests just because an organization with “international” in it’s name scolded them.

          OF COURSE it would be good if that made the US stop, but we are analysing a real life geopolitical situation, not power-of-friendship shonen where the good guy convince the bad guy that it’s not very nice to not be nice with a speach.

          How would the ICJ rulling stop the US?

          The ICJ DO NOT have the power to enforce it’s rullings, especialy not on the US.

          Not to mention, like everyone here keep showing you, all of the instences where did not respect an ICJ rulling in the past.

          They already did it and nothing happened, there is no reasons to think it would be any different this time.

          • hottari
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            1 year ago

            CONSIDER THIS MY LAST COMMENT ON THE MATTER.

            AN ICJ RULING FAVOURABLE TO PALESTINE WILL BRING A SWIFT END TO THE GENOCIDE HAPPENING IN GAZA. WHETHER THE US LIKES THE OUTCOME OR NOT.

            END OF STORY.

            • ExotiqueMatter@lemmygrad.ml
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              1 year ago

              I mean, it’s good to have hope. It would be awsome if the ICJ will stopped the genocide.

              But I’m telling you, you’ll be disapointed in the end.

              Either way, well see what happen when it does.

            • Krause [he/him]@lemmygrad.ml
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              1 year ago

              AN ICJ RULING FAVOURABLE TO PALESTINE WILL BRING A SWIFT END TO THE GENOCIDE HAPPENING IN GAZA

              no, but bombing israel to dust would

              one can dream