[News] The Gaza Genocide: The fall of Israel’s immunity

[Anti-Imperialist News]

 The Gaza Genocide: The fall of Israel’s immunity
By Ramzy Baroud <https://english.palinfo.com/?p=250012>

Tuesday 14-January-2025 -
https://english.palinfo.com/opinion_articles/the-gaza-genocide-the-fall-of-israels-immunity/
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A dramatic escape was cited by Israeli media as the reason that Yuval
Vagdani, a soldier in the Israeli army, managed to escape justice in Brazil.

Vagdani was accused by a Palestinian advocacy legal group, the Hind Rajab
Foundation, of carrying out well-documented crimes in Gaza. He is not the
only Israeli soldier being pursued for similar crimes.

According to the Israeli Broadcasting Corporation (KAN), more than 50
Israeli soldiers are being pursued in countries ranging from South Africa
to Sri Lanka to Sweden.

In one case, the Hind Rajab Foundation filed a complaint in a Swedish court
against Boaz Ben David, an Israeli sniper from the 932 Battalion of the
Israeli Nahal Brigade. He is also accused of committing war crimes in Gaza.

The Nahal Brigade has been at the heart of numerous war crimes in Gaza.
Established in 1982, the brigade is notorious for its unhinged violence
against Occupied Palestinians. Their role in the latest genocidal
atrocities in the Strip has far exceeded their own dark legacy.

Even if these 50 individuals are apprehended and sentenced, the price
exacted from the Israeli army pales in comparison to the crimes carried out.

Numbers, though helpful, are rarely enough to convey collective pain. The
medical journal Lancet’s latest report is still worthy of reflection. Using
a new data-collecting method called ‘capture–recapture analysis’, the
report indicates that, by the first nine months of the war, between October
2023 and June 2024, 64,260 Palestinians have been killed.

Still, capturing and trying Israeli war criminals is not just about the
fate of these individuals. It is about accountability—an absent term in the
history of Israeli human rights violations, war crimes and recurring
genocides against Palestinians.

The Israeli government understands that the issue now goes beyond
individuals. It is about the loss of Israel’s historic status as a country
that stands above the law.

As a result, the Israeli army announced that it decided not to publicly
reveal the names of soldiers involved in the Gaza war and genocide, fearing
prosecution in international courts.

However, this step is unlikely to make much difference for two reasons.
First, numerous pieces of evidence against individual soldiers, whose
identities are publicly known, have already been gathered or are available
for future investigation. Second, much of the documentation of war crimes
has been unwittingly produced by Israeli soldiers themselves.

Reassured about the lack of accountability, Israeli soldiers have taken
countless pieces of footage showing the abuse and torture of Palestinians
in Gaza. This self-indictment will likely serve as a major body of evidence
in future trials.

All of this cannot be viewed separately from the ongoing investigation into
the Israeli genocide in Gaza by the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
Additionally, arrest warrants have been issued by the International
Criminal Court (ICC) against top Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu.

Though these cases have moved slowly, they have set a precedent that even
Israel is not immune to some measure of international accountability and
justice.

Moreover, these cases have granted countries that are signatories to the
ICC and ICJ the authority to investigate individual war crimes cases filed
by human rights and legal advocacy groups.

Though the Hind Rajab Foundation is not the only group pursuing Israeli war
criminals globally, the group’s name derives from a five-year-old
Palestinian girl from Gaza who was murdered by the Israeli army in January
2024, along with her family. This tragedy and that particular name are a
reminder that the innocent blood of Palestinians will not go in vain.

Though justice may be delayed, as long as there are pursuers, it will
someday be attained.

Pursuing alleged Israeli war criminals in international and national courts
is just the start of a process of accountability that will last many years.
With every case, Israel will learn that the decades-long US vetoes and
blind Western protection and support will no longer suffice.

It was the West’s shameless shielding of Israel throughout the years that
allowed Israeli leaders to behave as they saw fit for Israel’s so-called
national security—even if it meant the very extermination of the
Palestinian people, as is the case today in Gaza.

Still, Western governments, including the US and Britain, continue to treat
wanted Israelis as sanctified heroes—not war criminals. This goes beyond
accusations of double standards. It is the highest immorality and disregard
for international law.

Things need to change; in fact, they are already changing.

Since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza, Tel Aviv has already learned
many difficult lessons. For example, its army is no longer “invincible”,
its economy is relatively small and highly dependent, and its political
system is fragile. In times of crisis, it is barely operable.

It is time for Israel to learn yet another lesson: that the age of
accountability has begun. Dancing around the corpses of dead Palestinians
in Gaza is no longer an amusing social media post, as Israeli soldiers once
thought.

*-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:
Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons’. 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).*
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