{"id":579101,"date":"2026-08-09T02:16:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T02:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/579101\/"},"modified":"2026-08-09T02:16:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T02:16:11","slug":"israel-on-trial-us-judge-takes-on-six-accusations-against-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/579101\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Israel on Trial’: US judge takes on six accusations against Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Roy K. Altman, a graduate of Columbia University<\/a>, served as a federal prosecutor for the US Court of Appeals before being appointed a US District Judge for the Southern District of Florida \u2013 at the time, the youngest district judge ever so appointed.<\/p>\n

In his new book, Israel on Trial: Examining the History, the Evidence, and the Law, he takes the six accusations most widely levied against Israel and subjects them to what he calls \u201cthe legal methodology judges, juries and lawyers have used for centuries.\u201d<\/p>\n

He sets out the evidence for and against each of the crimes Israel is charged with and scrutinizes them forensically, using the time-honored rules of evidence that he applies consistently in his own courtroom<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The six allegations that he subjected to this scrupulous analysis are first that Jews are colonists in the Land of Israel; that the founding of the State of Israel was illegitimate; that Israel has prevented the establishment of a Palestinian state; that Israel was occupying Gaza<\/a> on October 7, 2023, and had turned it into an \u201copen-air prison;\u201d that Israel is an apartheid state; that Israel committed genocide in Gaza.<\/p>\n

Using factual, historical, archeological, and even the latest genealogical evidence, he demonstrates the shaky, unreliable, often illogical nature of the charges that have become routine among those who reject Israel\u2019s right to exist.<\/p>\n

\"IsraelIsrael on Trial: Examining the History, the Evidence, and the Law, by Roy. K. Altman. (credit: Advantage Books)The ordinary Jew is faced daily with irrational antisemitic hatred<\/p>\n

Why is Altman\u2019s book so important, indeed vital? After all, his conclusions, solidly based though they are, will certainly not convince committed anti-Zionists, while pro-Israel advocates will already be familiar with them.<\/p>\n

The ordinary Jew faced daily with irrational antisemitic hatred \u2013 the person in the workplace, shopping center or social setting, the young person in the classroom or campus will surely welcome Israel on Trial.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In these pages, Altman provides a convincing fact-based rebuttal to the anti-Israel tropes that are so casually tossed around these days.<\/p>\n

There are also vast numbers of largely uncommitted people across the globe who are subject to a constant flood of false narratives about Israel, Zionism, and the Jewish people. If only some could be enticed to open the pages of Israel on Trial, they would discover that there is an antidote for the poison they are perpetually fed.<\/p>\n

To the charge that Jews are colonists, he began with the accepted definition of \u201ccolonist\u201d \u2013 \u201can outsider with no historical, linguistic, cultural, or religious connection to the land he is conquering.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then he demonstrated that \u201cthe Jews were living in (and often governing) the Land of Israel thousands of years before Islam existed, hundreds of years before the Roman emperor Hadrian invented the word Palaestina\u2026 and long before Arab Muslims first invaded the land in AD 636.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for Israel\u2019s legitimacy, Altman rebutted the assertion that the \u201cbiblical promise is Israel\u2019s only claim to legitimacy.\u201d He asserted that the criteria set out in the 1933 Montevideo treaty are universally accepted as international law on the subject of legitimate statehood.<\/p>\n

A nascent state has to fulfill four requirements: have a permanent population, have a defined territory, be governed by a single effective government, and have the capacity to conduct foreign relations.<\/p>\n

Altman pointed out that when Israel declared independence in May 1948, it met all four criteria.<\/p>\n

As to the claim that Israel has prevented the establishment of a Palestinian state, Altman cited the six occasions that Israel (or the international community with Israeli acquiescence) \u201chas offered the Arabs a Palestinian state \u2013 and, each time, the Arabs have rejected that offer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Each of those attempts, said Altman, was thwarted \u201cby the Palestinians\u2019 own demand for an Arab state that stretches \u2018from the river to the sea.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

To the charge that Israel was occupying Gaza on October 7, 2023, and had turned it into an \u201copen-air prison\u201d or a concentration camp, Altman set out the irrefutable historic facts, linked to the commonly understood meaning of both \u201cprison\u201d and \u201cconcentration camp,\u201d which prove the reverse.<\/p>\n

Chapter five is concerned with the widely voiced charge that Israel is an apartheid state. In addition to setting out the irrefutable facts concerning the equal status and rights of the 20% of Israel\u2019s Arab citizens, Altman laid bare an inherent illogicality in the extreme anti-Israel position.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrue,\u201d he wrote, \u201cthe Palestinians who live in Gaza and in parts of Judea and Samaria enjoy none of these rights in Israel. But that\u2019s because they don\u2019t live in Israel, don\u2019t want to live in Israel, and thus aren\u2019t Israeli citizens at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over 140 countries around the world, he noted, as well as many of the organizations and individuals asserting the apartheid claim, recognize the state of Palestine.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsrael cannot be practicing apartheid by refusing to afford citizenship rights to the citizens of another country,\u201d Altman wrote, \u201cbut that\u2019s exactly what Amnesty International, for instance, is suggesting when, on the one hand, it recognizes the existence of a \u2018state of Palestine,\u2019 while on the other, it claims that Israel is an apartheid state for refusing to afford full citizenship rights to the citizens of that Palestinian state.\u201d<\/p>\n

And so Altman reached the assertion repeated ad nauseam \u2013 that Israel committed, and continues to commit, genocide against the Palestinian inhabitants of Gaza.<\/p>\n

It is an accusation, as Altman demonstrated, that relies on re-interpreting the meaning of the word \u201cgenocide.\u201d It is used by many as a measure of their antipathy to the loss of civilian life during Israel\u2019s fight against Hamas<\/a>. But the term genocide has a very specific meaning.<\/p>\n

Altman made it abundantly clear that he regarded the loss of a single civilian life in war as a tragedy. However, \u201cthe question in a genocide case isn\u2019t whether innocent civilians have died in Gaza. They unquestionably have \u2013 just as they have in every war that\u2019s ever been fought.\u201d<\/p>\n

The essence of the crime of genocide is the specific \u201cintent to destroy\u201d the victim group\u2019s existence. To be guilty of genocide, the State of Israel must have intended to wipe out the population of Gaza. Altman demonstrated, with irrefutable facts and figures, that Israel did not have, and never has had, any such intention.<\/p>\n

In Israel on Trial, Altman provides all who love Israel with sound, evidence-based arguments to counter the disinformation that clogs the social media platforms and so often the official news media as well. It is a book entirely in tune with the times and is highly recommended.<\/p>\n

ISRAEL ON TRIAL: EXAMINING THE HISTORY, THE EVIDENCE, AND THE LAW
By Roy K. Altman
304 pages; $32
Advantage Books<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Roy K. Altman, a graduate of Columbia University, served as a federal prosecutor for the US Court of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":579102,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[11012,111,2056,412,85,46,26167,43],"class_list":["post-579101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-anti-zionism","tag-antisemitism","tag-book-review","tag-books","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-jewish","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/579102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}