[News] Challenging Western Hypocrisy: ICC Targets Israeli Leaders for War Crimes

[Anti-Imperialist News]

mintpressnews.com
<https://www.mintpressnews.com/challenging-western-hypocrisy-icc-targets-israel-leaders-war-crimes/287464/>
Challenging Western Hypocrisy: ICC Targets Israeli Leaders for War Crimes
May 30, 2024
------------------------------

Even the most optimistic of political analysts did not expect that the
International Criminal Court’s Chief Prosecutor would be uttering
<https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/statement-icc-prosecutor-karim-aa-khan-kc-applications-arrest-warrants-situation-state>
these words: I have reasonable grounds to believe that Benjamin Netanyahu
(…) and Yoav Gallant (…) bear criminal responsibility for (…) war crimes
and crimes against humanity …”

Aside from the two Israelis, Karim Khan has included
<https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/statement-icc-prosecutor-karim-aa-khan-kc-applications-arrest-warrants-situation-state>
three Palestinians in his application requesting arrest warrants from the
ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber. That is important, but we must remember that, per
Western thinking, Palestinians have always been the guilty party.

Evidence of the above claim is that the West has long portrayed Israel as a
country at war in self-defense. Consequently, Palestinians – though
occupied, dispossessed and disinherited – are the aggressors.

This bizarre logic is not strange if seen within the larger power paradigm
that has defined the West’s relationship with Palestine and, by extension,
the Global South.

For example, out of 54 individuals indicted
<https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/04/a-chance-for-africa-to-counter-the-pitfalls-of-international-criminal-justice/#:~:text=Out%20of%20the%2054%20individuals,preoccupied%20with%20%E2%80%9Chunting%20Africans%E2%80%9D.>
by the ICC since its inception in 2002, 47 are Africans. This fact has
rightly agitated governments, civil societies and intellectuals throughout
the Global South for many years.

On Western duplicity, Aimé Césaire, a Martinican intellectual and
politician, wrote, “They tolerated (..) Nazism before it was inflicted on
them, they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because,
until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples”.

WWII inspired new thinking in the West. The International Court of Justice
(ICJ) and the ICC, among others, were direct outcomes of that terrible
Western war. They were the West’s way of trying to protect the new status
quo established by the victors.

The Global South joined in anyway. “Africa had a particular interest in the
establishment of the court since its peoples had been the victims of
large-scale violations of human rights over the centuries,” a
representative of the Organization of African Unity said
<https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/04/a-chance-for-africa-to-counter-the-pitfalls-of-international-criminal-justice/>
in 1998 in Rome, the birthplace of the Rome Statute.

Predictably, however, the ICC turned into a platform where former colonial
masters cast judgment on the non-European world. In that sense, justice was
hardly served.

As always, Palestine has and continues to serve as the litmus test of the
international order. For over 15 years, Palestinians have been seeking to
enlist the ICC’s help to hold Israel accountable for its military
occupation and various crimes in Palestine.

The Palestinians have done so simply because any attempt at establishing a
practical mechanism to end the Israeli occupation through the United Nations
has been met
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/26/how-the-us-has-used-its-veto-power-at-the-un-in-support-of-israel>
with a cruel American veto.

As the Israeli occupation turned into a permanent one and racial apartheid
spread its tentacles to cover every inch of Palestine, US support of Israel
has become a first line of defense against any international criticism, let
alone action, aimed at reining in Israel.

Even though the US has refused to join the ICC, it still has significant
influence over the organization, either through sanctions
<https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/12/14/us-sanctions-international-criminal-court>
or pressure imposed by its allies
<https://gpil.jura.uni-bonn.de/2021/02/germany-publicly-objects-to-the-international-criminal-courts-ruling-on-jurisdiction-in-palestine/>,
who are members of the Court.

Thus, the ICC procrastinated. Decisions that should have taken only months
took years to be made. The institution, which was created to deliver swift
justice, became a bureaucratic legal apparatus that did everything in its
power to escape its responsibilities towards the Palestinians.

The persistence of Palestinians and the massive solidarity they have
obtained from countries throughout the Global South eventually paid off.

In 2009, Palestinians filed their first application to join the ICC. Yet,
it took over three years for then-Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo to reach
<https://www.justsecurity.org/95865/international-criminal-court-arrest-warrants-gaza/>
his decision in 2012, denying Palestinians such urgent membership on
account of their legal status as mere observers at the UN.

The rest of the world rallied behind Palestine again, and later that year,
the UN General Assembly granted Palestine its ‘non-member observer state’
status.

It took another three years for Palestine to officially join the ICC. Four
years later, in 2019, then-Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda stated
<https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/statement-icc-prosecutor-fatou-bensouda-conclusion-preliminary-examination-situation-palestine>
that the so-called statutory criteria needed to begin an investigation in
Palestine were satisfied. But, instead of opening an investigation,
Bensouda sent the matter back to the Pre-Trial Chamber for further
confirmation.

An official investigation was not opened
<https://www.alhaq.org/cached_uploads/download/2021/03/13/qa-after-the-pre-trial-chamber-decision-interactive-1-page-view-1615653094.pdf>
until March 2021, but it was halted when Karim Khan replaced Bensouda as
the chief prosecutor later that year.

So what happened between March 2021 and May 20, 2024, that allowed the
ever-reluctant Khan to go as far as requesting arrest warrants?

First, the Israeli genocide in Gaza, where victims are measured in the tens
of thousands.

Second, the credibility of the West’s enshrined legal system, which has
governed the world since WWII, was at stake. This explains the emphasis
made by Khan in his May 20 statement:

If we do not demonstrate our willingness to apply the law equally (…), we
will be creating the conditions for its collapse.”

Third is the Global South’s solidarity, which has served as the backbone of
all Palestinian efforts at international legal institutions.

The pendulum is finally shifting after decades of a one-sided approach to
global conflicts. Indeed, when we say that Gaza is changing the world, we
mean it.

Feature photo | Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant | Illustration by
MintPress News

*Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the Editor of The Palestine
Chronicle. He is the author of six books. His latest book, co-edited with
Ilan Pappé, is ‘Our Vision for Liberation
<https://www.amazon.com/Our-Vision-Liberation-Palestinian-Intellectuals/dp/1949762440>:
Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Speak Out.’ His other books
include ‘My Father Was a Freedom Fighter’ and ‘The Last Earth.’ Baroud is a
Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global
Affairs (CIGA). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net
<http://www.ramzybaroud.net/>*
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