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

  • ExotiqueMatter@lemmygrad.ml
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    1 year ago

    I see your point.

    This is correct, these mesures would indeed be tremendously effectives, the problem is that it’s easyer said than done, and it’s already happening even without ICJ rulling anyway.

    The BRICS block is working to move away from using US dollar as we speak, they have started to progressively replace the US dollar by local currencies in trades between themselves and are trying to create an international currency for international trade.

    But compleating those projects will take a few years at least, you don’t move half the world’s economy in one day.

    Until then, a lot of countries will have no choice but to continue using the dollar for international trade, at least partially, not to mention Europe, Japan, South Korea and the others former British colonies who will undoubtedly continue to use US dollar to support the US.

    But even once the dollar stop being the international unit of acount, I doubt the US will stop supporting Israel (if Israel is still there by then, let’s hope it’s not), as I said Israel perfoms the US’s budding in the Middle East, this is why they support Israel so much, the US has demonstrated during it’s recent history that its typical reaction to a competitor appearing was to push it lower than they have sunk rather than pull themself higher and Israel is a tool to do this to Arab countries, ensuring that the huge oil reserves of the region keep flowing to US company and don’t feed potential Arab competitors, among other things.

    In fact, I wonder if that wouldn’t make their support of Israel more direct and agressive, it would be very US-like to, as the empire start unraveling, keep clawing on every bit of international influence and every way they extract wealth from the 3rd world to slow down ever so slightly they collapse.

    My point is, wait for the US egemony to unravel some more and trust Hammas, Hesbolla and Ansar Allah to deal with Israel, the end of the genocide will come from that, not from the ICJ rulling.