October 5, 2024, New York – On the International Day of Action and as we approach one year since the beginning of Israel’s genocidal assault on the Palestinian people in Gaza, the Center for Constitutional Rights released the following statement:

As we mourn the tens of thousands killed in Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people, we remain committed to fighting alongside Palestinians for accountability for this crime of crimes. While U.S. courts have so far failed in their constitutional responsibility to serve as a check on abusive executive power, we remind all who have chosen to fund and fuel Israel’s relentless, escalating violence, that there is no statute of limitations for genocide, and we will pursue you until justice comes.

In the last year, with full U.S. support, Israel has manufactured a famine, blocked lifesaving humanitarian aid, turned most of Gaza into rubble, bombed countless civilian targets including schools, hospitals, and places of worship, killed at least 41,000 Palestinians—nearly half of whom are children—and injured more than 96,000. Entire family lines have been wiped out, to say nothing of the immeasurable trauma and ecological disaster that the world will reckon with for generations to come.

As a legal organization in the United States, we are laser focused on the U.S.’s own complicity: the Biden administration has provided unconditional and indispensable support – including thousands upon thousands of bombs and billions of dollars – for Israel’s genocide, in defiance of the law, universally-recognized international norms, some of its own officials’ recommendations, and the outcry of the vast majority of people in the world, including most Americans. 

As the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) seeks arrest warrants for Netanyahu and other officials, the U.S. has increased its attacks and pressure on the court, including by making its first-ever filing in the 25-year history of the ICC in an effort to shield Netayahu from justice. Israel has ignored the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which found the claim of genocide “plausible” and mandated actions to protect civilians. Shortly after – in a case we brought on behalf of Palestinians – a U.S. federal judge said Israel’s actions “plausibly” constitute genocide, but dismissed the case against Biden, Blinken, and Austin, saying it is a “political question” beyond the court’s jurisdiction. Even if Biden is enabling genocide, the court can do nothing, according to the court. When Palestinians gave U.S. courts the opportunity to enforce domestic and international law, which prohibit complicity in genocide, the judiciary failed to uphold its constitutional mandate, abdicating its responsibility and itself becoming complicit. 

Emboldened by U.S. government support and the lack of accountability for even the gravest of crimes, Israel is escalating its violence, bombing communities and seizing Palestinian land in the West Bank, and again invoking a “terrorism” frame to evade law and limits while waging wars of aggression on the people of Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran. 

The Biden administration is forever complicit in this genocide and aggression across the region. Nothing – not even genocide – can quash the struggle for Palestinian liberation, and let us repeat: there is no statute of limitations for genocide, and we will pursue you until justice comes.