[News] ICC warrants both historic and cynical

[Anti-Imperialist News]

electronicintifada.net
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/icc-warrants-both-historic-and-cynical>
ICC warrants both historic and cynical

Ali Abunimah <https://electronicintifada.net/people/ali-abunimah> Rights
and Accountability
<https://electronicintifada.net/blog/rights-and-accountability> 20 May 2024
------------------------------
[image: Portrait of Karim Khan in judicial robes next ICC flag]

Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Karim Khan (ICC
<https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/statement-icc-prosecutor-karim-aa-khan-kc-applications-arrest-warrants-situation-state>
)

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court announced on
Monday that he is seeking arrest warrants against two top Israeli leaders
for crimes in the Gaza Strip.

Karim Khan said
<https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/statement-icc-prosecutor-karim-aa-khan-kc-applications-arrest-warrants-situation-state>
that he had “reasonable grounds to believe” that Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu and defense minister Yoav Gallant “bear criminal
responsibility” for a number of international crimes committed since 8
October, including starvation as a weapon of war, murder, intentionally
attacking civilians, extermination, persecution and other crimes against
humanity.

The decision which has been too long in coming is as vexing as it is
momentous.
While there will be relief that finally Israel’s shield of immunity and
impunity is being punctured, Khan also charged several leaders of the
Palestinian resistance movement Hamas with various crimes.

Khan claims that Hamas politburo leader Ismail Haniyeh, its Gaza leader
Yahya Sinwar and the chief of its military wing Muhammad Deif are
responsible for crimes including extermination, murder, hostage-taking,
torture and rape.

The political nature of the charges against the Hamas leaders is clear from
the fact that Khan has charged more Palestinians with crimes than Israelis.

A cynical view might be that Khan only charged the two Israeli leaders that
Washington wants to see gone, while letting countless other Israeli
political and military officials off the hook – at least for now.

Moreover, Khan included the charges of rape and sexual violence, giving
credence to Israeli atrocity propaganda that has been thoroughly debunked
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/mass-rape-accusation>, and for which
Israel has presented no credible evidence
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israeli-rights-group-admits-it-helped-spread-false-claims-about-7-oct-rapes>
.

It is notable that while Khan explicitly charged the Palestinian leaders
with “torture,” that word does not appear in the charges against Netanyahu
and Gallant, even though there are many credible reports of systematic
torture against Palestinians on a horrifying scale, including in closed
detention camps
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/inside-one-israeli-death-and-torture-camp>
.

Most glaringly, Khan failed to lay any charges against Netanyahu and
Gallant under Article 6 of the ICC’s founding Rome Statute
<https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/Publications/Rome-Statute.pdf>
– the section that deals with genocide.

He only charged them under chapters 7 and 8, which address crimes against
humanity and war crimes – the same articles he used against the Hamas
leaders.

Khan could also have filed charges related to Israeli crimes elsewhere in
Palestine, for example Israel’s construction of illegal colonies all over
the occupied West Bank – a crime that has been ongoing for decades.

By failing to do so, he is feeding the false impression that history began
on 7 October 2023.
Resistance is always criminalized

While Khan can attempt to market all this as demonstrating equal justice,
it is no such thing: It is an outrageous and false equivalence. He could
not maintain a shred of credibility if he did nothing against Israeli
leaders, so he did the minimum he thought he could get away with.

But this will also be of no surprise to anyone, least of all Hamas leaders,
who would have expected to be charged as the price of obtaining some
measure of international justice for their people.

In January, for instance, Mousa Abu Marzouk, a senior leader of Hamas, wrote
<https://mediareviewnet.com/2024/01/hamas-throws-down-the-gauntlet/>,
“Since 2015 Hamas has repeatedly expressed its interest in appearing before
and being judged by the ICC not on the basis of unsubstantiated allegations
and screams but evidence and facts. Israel has not.”

Abu Marzouk added: “Hamas stands ready to appear before the ICC with
witnesses and live testimony and bear the burden of any judicial finding
against it or its members after a full and fair trial with rules of
evidence; with examination and cross examination into what we have done or
not over the many years of our leadership as a national liberation
movement. Is Israel?”

And as Columbia University Professor Joseph Massad points out
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/west-israel-never-initiates-violence-it-only-retaliates>,
the West has always considered anti-colonial struggles to be criminal,
while its own colonial barbarity is always described as “defensive.”

In this context, Khan’s blatantly political effort to downplay Israel’s
crimes is par for the course.
Pariah

The arrest warrants – which have still to be formally issued by the court’s
judges – will have no immediate impact on Sinwar or Deif, whose whereabouts
as underground resistance leaders is unknown. Arrest by the ICC is the
least of their concerns.

As for Hamas politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh, he lives in Qatar, which is
one of only a handful of countries that is not a member of the ICC
<https://asp.icc-cpi.int/states-parties> and is therefore not legally
obligated to arrest him and hand him over.

Hamas is already outlawed and subject to sanctions by the United States and
across Europe so it is not as if the movement’s leaders would have been
moving freely anyway.

Nonetheless, if Khan’s soft-pedaling of Israel’s atrocities is aimed at
placating Tel Aviv or its sponsors, it will definitely fail.

There is certain to be rage, uproar and more threats from Washington and
Tel Aviv of the kind Khan recently pushed back on
<https://www.reuters.com/world/icc-prosecutor-calls-end-intimidation-staff-statement-says-2024-05-03/>.

And although Khan has pulled his punches, the arrest warrants will have an
enormous impact on Israel and its leaders, who now find themselves
ostracized and constrained in unprecedented ways.

Netanyahu and Gallant will be unable to travel to dozens of countries,
including most of Europe, without fear of arrest. European countries, in
particular, which purport to uphold international law, will either have to
detain them and hand them over to the court, or openly defy their legal
obligations.

This includes Germany, which provides arms for Israel’s genocide while
purporting to be a champion of international law.

The damage to Israel’s reputation and its descent into even greater pariah
status is assured, despite Khan’s every effort to soften the blow.

The United States, Israel’s chief arms supplier and accomplice in the
genocide, is also not a member of the ICC, and it will not cooperate with
the arrest warrants.

But even for a government as heedless of international law as Washington,
the leaders of its closest ally being charged by the ICC increases both the
domestic and international political cost of supporting Israel
unconditionally.

Recall that President Joe Biden welcomed
<https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64998165> it when Khan applied for
an ICC arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin last year
over Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine.

The process of going from today’s announcement by Khan to the judges
actually issuing the arrest warrants could take
<https://apnews.com/article/icc-khan-netanyahu-070941d21ccd1f2b9611032b88527575>
as much as two months.

Perhaps the only important question is whether Monday’s announcement will
deter Israel from continuing its extermination campaign in Gaza in the
meantime.
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