[News] Israel Rejects ICC Investigation: What Are the Possible Future Scenarios?

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.palestinechronicle.com/israel-rejects-icc-investigation-what-are-the-possible-future-scenarios/
Israel
Rejects ICC Investigation: What Are the Possible Future Scenarios?
April 13, 2021
------------------------------
Palestinian organizations hold a press conference in Gaza. (Photo: Fawzi
Mahmoud, The Palestine Chornicle)

*By Ramzy Baroud <https://www.palestinechronicle.com/writers/ramzy-baroud>*

The Israeli government’s position regarding an impending investigation by
the International Criminal Court of alleged war crimes committed in
occupied Palestine has been finally declared by Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu.

“It will be made clear that Israel is a country with rule of law that knows
how to investigate itself,” Netanyahu said
<https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinians-icct-idUSKBN2BV1YY>
in a statement on April 8. Subsequently, Israel “completely rejects” any
accusations that it has committed war crimes.

But it won’t be so easy for Tel Aviv this time around. True, Israel is not
a party to the Rome Statute, according to which the ICC was established,
but it can still be held accountable because the State of Palestine is a
member of the ICC.

Palestine joined <https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-32144186> the
ICC in 2015, and the alleged war crimes, which are under investigation,
have taken place on Palestinian soil. This grants the ICC direct
jurisdiction, even if war crimes were committed by a non-ICC party. Still,
accountability for these war crimes is not guaranteed. So, what are the
possible future scenarios?

But first, some context …

*‘Blatant Impunity’*

On March 22, the Palestinian Ambassador to the United Nations, Riyad
Mansour, declared that “the time has come to stop Israel’s blatant
impunity”. His remarks were included in a letter sent
<https://www.reuters.com/article/israel-palestinians-warcrimes-icc-int-idUSKBN2BB2A9>
to the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, and other top officials at
the international body.

There is modest – albeit cautious – optimism among Palestinians that
Israeli officials could potentially be held accountable for war crimes and
other human rights violations in Palestine. The reason behind this optimism
is a recent decision by ICC to pursue its investigation of alleged war
crimes committed in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Mansour’s letter was written with this context in mind. Other Palestinian
officials, such as Foreign Minister, Riyad al-Maliki, are also pushing in
this direction. He, too, wants to see an end to Israel’s lack of
accountability.

Till Netanyahu’s official position, the Israeli response has been most
predictable. On March 20, Israeli authorities decided
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-cancels-pa-foreign-ministers-travel-documents-after-visit-to-icc/>
to revoke Al-Maliki’s special travel permit in order to prevent him from
pursuing Palestinian diplomacy that aims at ensuring the continuation of
the ICC investigation. Al-Maliki had, in fact, just returned from a trip to
The Hague, where the ICC is headquartered.

Furthermore, Israel is openly attempting to intimidate the Palestinian
Authority in Ramallah to discontinue its cooperation with the ICC, as can
be easily gleaned from the official Israeli discourse. “The Palestinian
leadership has to understand there are consequences for their actions,” an
Israeli official told
<https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/israel-warns-there-will-be-consequences-for-palestinian-actions-at-icc-662804>
The Jerusalem Post on March 21.

Despite years of legal haggling and intense pressure on the ICC’s outgoing
Chief Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, to scrap the investigation altogether,
the legal proceedings have carried on, unhindered. The pressure was
displayed in various forms: direct defamation
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-livid-over-scandalous-icc-war-crimes-probe-pa-and-hamas-cheer/>
by Israel, as in accusing the ICC of anti-Semitism; unprecedented American
sanctions
<https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/12/14/us-sanctions-international-criminal-court>
on ICC officials and constant meddling
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/germany-hungary-back-israel-in-opposing-icc-ruling-on-war-crimes-probe/>
and intervention, on Israel’s behalf, by member states that are part of the
ICC, and who are described as amici curiae.

They did not succeed. On April 30, 2020, Bensouda consulted
<https://www.icc-cpi.int/CourtRecords/CR2020_01746.PDF> with the Court’s
Pre-trial Chamber regarding whether the ICC had jurisdiction over the
matter. Ten months later, the Chamber answered
<https://www.icc-cpi.int/Pages/item.aspx?name=pr1566> in the affirmative.
Subsequently, the Prosecutor decided to formally open the investigation.

On March 9, a spokesman for the Court revealed that, in accordance with
Article 18 in the Rome Statute, notification letters were sent
<https://www.reuters.com/article/israel-palestinians-warcrimes-icc-int-idUSKBN2BB2A9>
by the Prosecutor’s office to ‘all parties concerned’, including the
Israeli Government and the Palestinian leadership, notifying them of the
war crimes probe and allowing them only one month to seek deferral of the
investigation.

Expectedly, Israel remains defiant. However, unlike its obstinacy in
response to previous international attempts at investigating war crimes
allegations in Palestine, the Israeli response, this time, appears confused
and uncertain. On the one hand, Israeli media revealed last July that
Netanyahu’s government has prepared
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-said-to-compile-roster-of-officials-who-could-face-arrest-over-icc-probe/>
a long list of likely Israeli suspects, whose conduct can potentially be
investigated by the ICC. Still, the official Israeli response can only be
described as dismissive of the matter as being superfluous, insisting that
Israel will not, in any way, cooperate with ICC investigators.

Though the Israeli government continues to maintain its official position
that the ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel and occupied Palestine, top
Israeli officials and diplomats are moving quickly to block what now seems
to be an imminent probe. For example, Israeli President, Reuven Rivlin, was
on an official visit to Germany where he, on March 18, met
<https://www.eureporter.co/world/israel/2021/03/19/at-start-of-his-european-visit-israeli-president-rivlin-talks-with-his-german-counterpart-on-iran-icc-and-the-palestinian-issue/>
with his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier, thanking him on behalf
of Israel for opposing the ICC’s investigation of Israeli officials.

After lashing out at the Palestinian leadership for attempting to
“legalize” the conflict, through an international investigation, Rivlin
renewed Israel’s “trust that our European friends will stand by us in the
important fight on the misuse of the International Criminal Court against
our soldiers and civilians.”

Unlike previous attempts at investigating Israeli war crimes, for example,
the Jenin massacre in the West Bank in 2002, and the various investigations
of several Israeli wars on Gaza starting in 2008-09, the forthcoming ICC
investigation is different. For one, the ICC investigation targets
individuals, not states, and can issue arrest warrants, making it legally
incumbent on all other ICC members to enforce the Court’s decisions.

Now that all attempts at dissuading the Court from pursuing the matter have
failed, the question must be asked: What are the possible future scenarios?

*The Next Step*

In the case that the investigation carries on as planned, the Prosecutor’s
next step would be to identify suspects and alleged perpetrators of war
crimes. Dr. Triestino Mariniello, member of the legal team that represents
the Gaza victims, told me that once these suspects have been determined,
“the Prosecutor will ask the Pre-trial chamber to issue either arrest
warrants or subpoena, at least in relation to the crimes already included
in the investigation so far.”

These alleged war crimes already include Israel’s illegal Jewish
settlements, the Israeli war on Gaza in 2014 and Israel’s targeting of
unarmed civilian protesters during Gaza’s Great March of Return, starting
in 2018.

Even more ideally, the Court could potentially widen the scope of the
investigation, which is a major demand for the representatives of the
Palestinian victims.

“We expect more crimes to be included: especially, apartheid as a crime
against humanity and crimes against Palestinian prisoners by Israeli
authorities, especially torture,” according to Dr. Mariniello.

In essence, this means that, even after the investigation is officially
underway, the Palestine legal team can continue its advocacy to expand the
scope of the investigation and to cover as much legal ground as possible.

*‘Narrow Scope’ *

However, judging from previous historic experiences, ideal scenarios in
cases where Israel was investigated for war crimes rarely transpired. A
less than ideal scenario would be for the scope of the investigation to
remain narrow.

In a recent interview with former UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of
human rights in Occupied Palestinian Territories, Professor Richard Falk,
he told me that even if the narrow scope remains in effect – thus reducing
the chances of all victims seeing justice – the investigation is still a
“breakthrough”.

The reason why the investigation may not be broadened has less to do with
justice and much to do with politics. “The scope of the investigation is
something that is ill-defined, so it is a matter of political discretion,”
Professor Falk said.

In other words, “the Court takes a position that needs to be cautious about
delimiting its jurisdiction and, therefore, it tries to narrow the scope of
what it is prepared to investigate.”

Professor Falk does not agree with that view but, according to the seasoned
international law expert, “it does represent the fact that the ICC, like
the UN itself, is subject to immense geopolitical pressure.”

Still, “it’s a breakthrough even to consider the investigation, let alone
the indictment and the prosecution of either Israelis or Americans that was
put on the agenda of the ICC, which led to a pushback by these governments.”

*Israel’s Missed Opportunity*

While the two above scenarios are suitable for Palestinians, they are a
non-starter as far as the Israeli government is concerned, as indicated in
Netanyahu’s recent statement in which he rejected the investigation
altogether. According to some pro-Israeli international law experts,
Netanyahu’s decision would represent a missed opportunity.

Writing in the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, international law expert Nick
Kaufman had advises
<https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-the-icc-prosecutor-was-my-superior-netanyahu-shouldn-t-speak-of-antisemitism-1.9605292>
Israel to cooperate, only for the sake of obtaining a “deferral” from the
Court and to use the ensuing delay for political maneuvering.

“It would be unfortunate for Israel to miss the opportunity of deferral
which could provide the ideal excuse for reinitiating peace talks with the
Palestinians,” he wrote, warning that “if Israel squanders such an
opportunity it should come as no surprise if, at a later date, the Court
will hint that the government has no one but itself to blame for the export
of the judicial process to The Hague.”

There are other scenarios, such as even more intense pressures on the Court
as a result of ongoing discussions between Israel and its benefactors,
whether in Washington or among the amici curiae at the Court itself.

At the same time, while Palestinians remain cautious about the future of
the investigation, hope is slowly rising that, this time around, things may
be different and that Israeli war criminals will eventually be held
accountable for their crimes. Time will tell.

*(Romana Rubeo contributed to this article)*

*– Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle.
He is the author of five books. His latest is “**These Chains Will Be
Broken*
<https://www.amazon.com/These-Chains-Will-Broken-Palestinian/dp/1949762092>*:
Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons” (Clarity
Press). Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center
for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) and also at the Afro-Middle East Center
(AMEC). His website is** www.ramzybaroud.net* <http://www.ramzybaroud.net/>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20210413/3cab9ed3/attachment.htm>