ICJ Judge Sebutinde voted against all emergency measures issued as a result of South Africa’s case of genocide against Israel.
By Zachary FosterJanuary 31, 2025Z ArticleNo Comments 8 Mins Read
The acting president of the International Court of Justice, Julia Sebutinde, plagiarized large parts of her dissenting opinion on the “Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.”
Recall that, in January 2024, Judge Sebutinde was the only judge of the 17 judges on the panel to vote against all six provisional measures in the genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel, including the order that Israel needed “to take all measures within its power” to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza.
It was in her 36-page opinion on the legal status of Israel’s occupation, however, published in July 2024, where she plagiarized many sentences, including whole paragraphs. The legal opinion also includes lengthy historical discussions, in which she got basic facts wrong and painted a distorted picture of the past. In fact, rather than citing historians, and giving those historians credit for their work in her footnotes, Sebutinde plagiarized propagandists, themselves partisans, interested not in getting history right but in defending the Zionist cause.
In short, Judge Sebutinde has no shame in presenting other people’s work as her own. This makes her a dishonest person, someone who should not be trusted to adjudicate anything at all, let alone international law for the world’s highest court. Here are 9 of the most egregious instances of her plagiarism:
The Jewish Virtual Library
Sebutinde plagiarized many sentences from the “The Jewish Virtual Library” website, run by Mitchell G. Bard and Or Shaked, two individuals who have decades of expertise distorting history to present Israel in a positive light.
1. Sebutinde: “Prior to the establishment of “British Mandatory Palestine”, Palestinian Arabs viewed themselves as having a unified identity with the Arabs in the subregion until the twentieth century.”
1. Jewish Virtual Library: “Prior to partition, Palestinian Arabs did not view themselves as having a separate identity.”
2. Sebutinde: “When the distinguished Arab American historian, Professor Philip Hitti, testified against the Partition of Mandatory Palestine before the Anglo-American Committee in 1946, he remarked: “There is no such thing as ‘Palestine’ in history; absolutely not.””
2. Jewish Virtual Library: “When the distinguished Arab-American historian, Princeton University Prof. Philip Hitti, testified against partition before the Anglo-American Committee in 1946, he said: “There is no such thing as ‘Palestine’ in history, absolutely not.”
3. Sebutinde: “In 1937, a local Arab leader, Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, told the Peel Commission, which ultimately suggested the partition of Palestine: “There is no such country [as Palestine]! ‘Palestine’ is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria.”
3. Jewish Virtual Library: “In 1937, a local Arab leader, Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, told the Peel Commission, which ultimately suggested the partition of Palestine: “There is no such country [as Palestine]! ‘Palestine’ is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria.””
4. Sebutinde: “The first Palestine-Arab Congress which convened in Jerusalem from 27 January to 10 February 1919 to choose Palestinian representatives for the Paris Peace Conference, adopted a resolution in which it, inter alia, considered Palestine as an integral part of Arab Syria.”
4. Jewish Virtual Library: “When the First Congress of Muslim-Christian Associations met in Jerusalem in February 1919 to choose Palestinian representatives for the Paris Peace Conference, the following resolution was adopted: We consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria, as it has never been separated from it at any time.”
Prager U
She also plagiarized from Prager U, another organization with decades of expertise not in history, but in distorting history to present Israel in a positive light.
5. Sebutinde: “the British Government offered the Palestinian Arabs 80 per cent of Mandatory Palestine (Transjordan), and the Jews the remaining 20 per cent (Palestine) in a suggested split that was heavily in favour of the former. Despite the tiny size of their proposed State, the Jews voted to accept this offer, but the Arabs rejected it and resumed their violent rebellion against the British mandate.”
5. Prager U: “The British offered them 80 percent of the disputed territory; the Jews, the remaining 20 percent. Yet, despite the tiny size of their proposed state, the Jews voted to accept this offer. But the Arabs rejected it and resumed their violent rebellion.”
6. Sebutinde: “Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak met at Camp David, with Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman Yasser Arafat in 2000, to conclude a new two-State plan. Barak offered Arafat a Palestinian State in all of Gaza, and 94 per cent of the West Bank, with East Jerusalem as its capital. The Palestinian leader flatly rejected the offer. In the words of President Bill Clinton of the United States, “Arafat was here 14 days and said no to everything.” Instead, the Palestinians launched a bloody wave of suicide bombings that killed over 1,000 Israelis and maimed thousands more, on buses, in wedding halls, and in pizza parlours.”
6. Prager U: “In 2000, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak met at Camp David with Palestinian Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat to conclude a new two-state plan. Barak offered Arafat a Palestinian state in all of Gaza and 94% of the West Bank with East Jerusalem as its capital. But the Palestinian leader rejected the offer. In the words of US President Bill Clinton, Arafat was “Here 14 days and said ‘no’ to everything.” Instead, the Palestinians launched a bloody wave of suicide bombings that killed over 1,000 Israelis and maimed thousands more – on buses, in wedding halls, and in pizza parlours.”
Douglas J. Feith
Sebutinde also plagiarized from a 2021 blog post by Douglas J. Feith published by the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank. Feith is not a historian, but a war monger, serving as the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy under President George W. Bush administration from 2001-2005 where he helped guide strategy on two of the most disastrous wars in US history, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
7. Sebutinde: ““Palestine” applied vaguely to a region that for the 400 years before World War I was part of the Ottoman empire.”
7. Douglas J. Feith: ““Palestine” applied vaguely to a region that for the 400 years before World War I was part of the Ottoman empire.”
8. Sebutinde: “In 135 CE, after stamping out the second Jewish insurrection of the province of Judea or Judah, the Romans renamed that province “Syria Palaestina” (or “Palestinian Syria”). The Romans did this as a punishment, to spite the “Y’hudim” (Jewish population) and to obliterate the link between them and their province (known in Hebrew as Y’hudah). The name “Palaestina” was used in relation to the people known as the Philistines and found along the Mediterranean coast.”
8. Douglas J. Feith “In 135 CE, after stamping out the province of Judea’s second insurrection, the Romans renamed the province Syria Palaestina—that is, “Palestinian Syria.” They did so resentfully, as a punishment, to obliterate the link between the Jews (in Hebrew, Y’hudim and in Latin Judaei) and the province (the Hebrew name of which was Y’hudah). “Palaestina” referred to the Philistines, whose home base had been on the Mediterranean coast.”
9. Sebutinde: “The line in the north emerged from Anglo-French negotiations in 1923. The one in the south was fixed by treaties in the mid-1920s between Britain and the new nation of Saudi Arabia. The border between the Mandate of Palestine and the Mandate of Mesopotamia (Iraq) was of little immediate importance, given that the line was in the middle of an uninhabited desert and Britain controlled both sides. That line was finally fixed through an exchange of letters in 1932.”
9. Douglas J. Feith: “The line in the north emerged from Anglo-French negotiations in 1923. The one in the south was fixed by treaties in the mid-1920s between Britain and the new nation of Saudi Arabia. The border between Mandate Palestine and Mandate Mesopotamia was of little immediate importance, given that it was in the middle of an uninhabited desert and Britain controlled both sides. That line was finally fixed through an exchange of letters in 1932.”
The plagiarism outlined above represents a clear breach of public trust. The ICJ needs honest judges, not judges who lie and present other people’s work as their own, not to mention work that is itself grounded not in historical research but in Zionist mythology and propaganda. Sebutinde is a disgrace to the court and its reputation, and every judge, lawyer and legal expert in the world should call for her immediate resignation.
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Zachary J. Foster is a historian of Palestine who received his Ph.D in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University in 2017. (Newsletter, Academia, Google Scholar)
