Florida Southern District Court Judge Roy K. Altman recently returned from a week-long Judicial Education Mission to Israel. He was one of 14 US federal judges who participated in the trip that was led and facilitated by the World Jewish Congress.
During our interview, Judge Altman shared highlights from the mission:
“We studied comparative constitutional law problems, learned how to understand the legal processes the Israeli Government has put in place to comply with international law, learned more about the legal case between Israel and South Africa that’s pending before the International Court of Justice, gained insight on how the Israeli legal system has been shaped by the events of October 7th while getting a sense of the facts as they are happening on the ground in Israel today. We learned so much about the many steps Israel takes to ensure that its military operations comply with international law. We met, for instance, with the MAG — the Military Advocate General, Israel’s version of our Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps (JAG). The meeting was remarkable in several respects. The first is that, unlike in America, where military commanders get advice from JAG officers and are then free to disregard that advice, in Israel, a MAG lawyer is deployed with every commander—and the MAG lawyer’s advice is not aspirational. It’s an order that must be followed. What that means in practice is that almost every strike in Gaza has been approved by a lawyer (and often several lawyers) in advance —something no other army in the world does (or has ever done before). The second revelation was a series of videos of canceled strikes. Over and over again, the MAG showed us drone or bomber videos in which the drone operator or pilot would be over the Hamas target — and you’d see the target right there on the screen. The pilot would say he was ready to strike, but then the lawyer (or the commander with the lawyer’s guidance) would come over the airway and say: ‘There’s a kid playing soccer 20 meters away’, or ‘there are civilians nearby’. The ‘strike is canceled’ and the pilot would respond: ‘Kibalti’ (received) and the strike is canceled. We learned that this kind of extreme caution happens every day in Gaza. Lawful strikes on unambiguous military targets are canceled because of a concern for civilian life.”
Judge Altman shared what the judges learned about Israel’s legal system.
“The Supreme Court of Israel operates in three different ways: As a supreme court for cases that begin in the trial courts and are appealed to the mid level appellate courts, as an appellate court of first review for cases that are directly filed in the mid level courts and as the high court for cases that are filed in its original jurisdiction. The most commonly sued defendant last year in cases filed directly before the high court was General Yehuda Fuchs, the general in charge of the Central Command which includes the area of Judea and Samaria. Why does he get sued so often? Because Israel has relaxed its standing rules to allow international non-profit organizations to sue General Fuchs directly in the high court on behalf of Palestinian civilians who claim to have been injured by one of the general’s decisions. This is a remarkable fact that’s little known here in America. In our system, a plaintiff can only sue a defendant if he has standing, which means that he was injured by the defendant’s conduct. Israel, by contrast, has relaxed the standing obligation to make it easier, not harder, for non-profit groups (who may not have been injured by General Fuchs’s decisions but who may have the means to bring the lawsuit) to represent the interests of unaffiliated, but allegedly aggrieved, Palestinians.”
Judge Altman expressed how the mission fostered a deeper understanding and cooperation between Israel and the US.
“Israel is the only vibrant, western, liberal democracy in the region. It traces its common-law system to the English system that, in many ways, governs us in America today. We therefore have much to learn from each other, not just about constitutional first principles, but also about the various ways in which a justice system predicated on individual rights, can address and dismantle the terror networks bent on destroying it.”
Judge Altman shared revelations he learned about October 7th.
“I didn’t realize the extent of the horrors. We watched the 47-minute video the Israeli government has compiled of the massacre. Most of it comes from Hamas’s own cell phone and GoPro footage. I was astounded by the degree of the savagery— the beheadings, the rapes, the torture of women and children—all performed with a kind of boyish jubilation that’s almost hard to fathom. I was also struck by the fact that, when the Jewish victims’ bodies were dragged back to Gaza, thousands of Palestinian ‘civilians’ lined the streets and began jumping over each other—sometimes fighting and pushing each other—just to get the chance to attack, spit on, and desecrate the bodies of the victims. Finally, I didn’t realize before our trip that there were three waves of attacks on October 7th. The first two involved about 3,000 Hamas and Palestinian Jihad terrorists who murdered, raped and burned almost everyone (and everything) they found. But the third wave was made up of about 1,000 civilians who came in after the terrorists and, in the presence of desecrated bodies and burned-out houses, looted the personal belongings of the victims: cars, radios, televisions, even women’s underwear. This wasn’t about Palestinian liberation. This was a pogrom—just like the ones we Jews have been facing for generations. If we’re going to understand what happened and if we’re going to talk about it publicly, then we need to understand the basic facts. There’s no better way to understand the facts than to go and see it for yourself.”
Judge Altman expressed his thoughts on visiting the Nova Music Festival grounds.
“The first thing we saw when we walked up was a mother lying over the spot where her son had been murdered, wailing at the top of her lungs—a loud, piercing wail that sent shockwaves through all of us. As I was watching this mother grieve for her dead son, I suddenly thought I heard music. So, I started walking towards the sound of the music which grew louder and louder. Suddenly, I was in an area with about 100 women, standing in a giant circle, holding each other arm in arm and singing Hatikvah (the Israeli national anthem). The word Hatikvah means ‘The Hope’. One of the women asked me to join them and I did. Soon, all the other judges joined. Can there be a more powerful example of the resilience and strength of the Jewish soul that, in this place where 239 young and innocent Jews were brutally murdered, hundreds of Jews would come and sing the song of hope? It was the most moving, transformational trip I’ve ever been on and I think the other judges all felt the same. The strength and resiliency of the Jewish people, their love for one another and their country, were inspiring to all of us.”
Judge Altman explained how he has been proactive since October 7th.
“I’ve traveled around the country giving speeches, laying out the historical and legal justification for the Jewish State of Israel. I’ve written several opinion pieces responding to claims that Israel is illegitimate or that its response to the horrific attacks of October 7th have been anything but proportional under the laws of war.”
Judge Altman shared his takeaway from the mission.
“Israel, like America, is a shining beacon of what the world should hope to be: a vibrant, free and democratic country whose citizens love one another and hope to live in peace with their neighbors, even as those neighbors strive constantly to wipe the one Jewish State off the map.”
