The ICC Deals a Blow to Israel and the West
This is how I started a post a year ago, two months after the Hamas onslaught of October 7:
“Jews are a gifted people. They have made great contributions to science, culture, and the arts. Israel is among the top twenty countries winning the most Nobel prizes. However, the first Nobel prizes were awarded in 1901. Israel was founded in 1948. Had Israel existed in 1901, surely it would have been among the top ten if not the top five today. Unfortunately, Jewish people have experienced endless tragedies, persecution, pogroms, displacements, and annihilation attempts prompted by racism, antisemitism, and jealousy of their achievements.
“The October 7 Hamas attack was a shock to Israel. But now, the Israeli response to the attack is turning into a shock to the world. Around 1200 Israelis were killed in the Hamas attack. The number of Gazans killed in IDF operations since then has reached more than 15,000. How many of those could possibly be Hamas terrorists? 2000? 3000? 4000? What about the others? This is not to belittle the lethal designs and capabilities of Hamas. However, Israel has already killed ten times more Gazans than the İsraelis killed on October 7. Among the dead are thousands of children, with hundreds wounded and amputated. Some reports say that Gaza civilians, under Israeli barrage, are being killed at a historic pace.”[i]
Today the Gaza and Lebanon death tolls are above 44,000 and 3,500, respectively. In early November, the UN’s Human Rights Office condemned the high number of civilians killed in the war in Gaza, saying its analysis shows close to 70% of verified victims over six months were women and children.
Thus, the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) issuing of arrest warrants for Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Gallant came as no surprise and the most severe warning to Mr. Netanyahu’s far-right government that its conduct of the war amounts to a “war crime of starvation as a method of warfare, crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts”. They could not bring themselves to say more because they too are aware of the accomplishments and the past suffering of the people of Israel and appalled by the current picture.
Mr. Netanyahu reacting to the ICC decision has said, “It’s an antisemitic step that has one goal – to deter me, to deter us from having our natural right to defend ourselves against enemies who try to destroy us.” Unfortunately for Israel, he is wrong. Moreover, the constant labeling of even the mildest, most constructive criticism of Israel, even by Israel’s friends, as “antisemitic” has rendered the adjective almost insignificant.
During the past fifteen months, the Biden administration has only expressed “concern”, “grave concern”, and “deep concern” over the plight of Gazans and ironclad support for Israel. Secretary Blinken has constantly said that Israel had accepted the cease-fire proposals and it was up to Hamas to take it. However, it finally became clear that both sides kept adding new conditions to whatever was agreed upon. In a nutshell, Mr. Netanyahu successfully downgraded Washington’s Gaza policy to one of observation and restricted it to the “ceasefire talks” which have only proved a playact.
Yet, President Biden has called the decision of the ICC “outrageous”. He is upset because the Court’s arrest warrants are also a sharp blow to the US, particularly to him.
This is what “The Elders”, a group of distinguished statesmen among them Mr. Ban Ki-moon, former UN Secretary-General, said after the ICC issued the arrest warrants:
“President Biden’s attempts to restrain Israel have not worked. He has chosen not to deploy all the leverage at his disposal. His administration has continued supplying offensive weapons when there is overwhelming evidence that Israel is persistently violating international humanitarian law, in contravention of US law and policy.
“It is for an international court to decide whether Israel’s acts constitute genocide. States must not wait for a final determination. Acting now to prevent genocide is their legal obligation.”[ii]
In contravention of US law? Yes. Policy? Not really.
And this is what Mr. Gérard Araud, a former Ambassador of France to the US said on Twitter:
“The collapse of all western pretensions…. Please don’t anymore say a word about human rights, humanitarian law, international justice.”
Indeed, the West’s and particularly Washington’s “ironclad” support for Israel in Gaza, and their questionable favoring of the “two-state solution” has once again upended the West’s unconvincing attempts to remain on international moral high ground because their much-touted “rules-based international order”, and their public discourse on the war in Ukraine contradict with their support for the Netanyahu government’s war in Gaza.
The ICC’s arrest warrants have divided the members of the EU, anxiously waiting for President-elect Trump to assume office with some expressing respect for the Court’s decision while others appear determined to ignore it.[iii]
Challenging times for transatlantic relations…
[i] https://diplomaticopinion.com/2023/12/11/the-humanitarian-catastrophe-in-gaza/
[ii] https://theelders.org/news/gaza-stain-world-s-conscience-president-biden-can-still-change-course
[iii] https://www.justsecurity.org/105064/mapping-state-reactions-icc/