By now most of us have been apprised of the decision of the ICC Chief Prosecutor to obtain the imprimatur of the Court for arrest warrants against the Hamas leadership, PM Netanyahu and Defense Minister Gallant. The warrant application is available for all to read and it lays out in fine detail which crimes have been committed by whom and the relevant violations of the Rome Statute.
The application is balanced and is premised upon the Rule of Law principle that governs our own court system: “All persons are accountable to laws that are publicly promulgated, equally enforced, independently adjudicated and consistent with international human rights principles.”www.uscourts.gov/....As the Chief Prosecutor wrote, “Today we once again underline that international law and the laws of armed conflict apply to all. No foot soldier, no commander, no civilian leader – no one – can act with impunity. Nothing can justify willfully depriving human beings, including so many women and children, the basic necessities required for life. Nothing can justify the taking of hostages or the targeting of civilians.”www.icc-cpi.int/...
The ICC exercises its jurisdiction over the crimes of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and aggression committed by individuals. For an excellent review of how the ICC defines these classes of crime see: www.icc-cpi.int/…It should be noted that these crimes do not cease being crimes if they are committed by individuals operating within a democracy or autocracy. Regime type is thus irrelevant.
In addition, individuals belonging to different entities and institutional structures may commit various crimes and each perpetrator is subject to the laws governing the corresponding crime. This does not mean there is a “false equivalence” between the criminals. A terrorist engages in mass murder, while the leader of a nation gives the order to impose a complete siege on a civilian population depriving it of life sustaining provisions and both individuals are guilty of violating corresponding laws. This logic is lost however, upon our Secretary of State who decried, “ the ICC’s shameful equivalence of Israel with Hamas.” To wit, www.state.gov/... Simply because one has affection for the leader who imposes an illegal siege, one cannot sweep the criminal nature of his act under the rug. This type of thinking and action does a grave injustice to the Rule of Law itself. Moreover, the individuals who are charged with the crime, Netanyahu and Gallant, are not synonymous with the entire nation of Israel or the religion of Judaism. Holding these men to account for their crimes therefore, is not an indictment of all Israelis or all Jewish people. Similarly, holding the three Hamas leaders, Haniyeh, Deif, and Sinwar to account for their crimes is not an indictment of all Palestinians or all Muslims.
Politicians and the parties accused of the crimes themselves have been quick to attack the warrant application by employing spurious arguments that serve only to reveal the ignoble motives of the speaker. In our country, this tendency has reached the level of hysteria and this hysteria has infected every echelon of government from Congress to the Executive branch. It is necessary to deconstruct these weak arguments, so that we can expose the real reasons such statements are made in the first place. Politicians make excuses for their allies who commit atrocities and condemn their enemies for committing the same atrocities. This double standard undermines the law and serves to perpetuate the suffering of the Israeli and Palestinian victims of crimes committed by our friends and enemies. The double standard provides a “convenient” rationale for pursuing failed policies such as arming men who perpetuate crimes against humanity.
How does one look in the mirror after uttering such falsehood? What kind of mindset predisposes a politician to deny the atrocities committed on some people, yet empathize with only other victims? When the testimony of one’s “friends” is privileged over that of the strange “other”, a politician is able to subvert objective reality and cast doubt on data such as death and morbidity rates and impugn entire institutions for the malfeasance of a few. Facile conclusions are made premised upon faulty assumptions such as our allies always tell the truth while our “enemies” always lie. Netanyahu can make absurd claims that he only engages in self-defense despite mountains of verifiable evidence to the contrary and our government regurgitates the nonsense verbatim. Moreover, the deliberate withholding and obstruction of humanitarian aid can then be parsed as a “contested event.”
The illogical response of the political class to the warrant application reveals its desire to shield its allies from justice by offering ironclad support. Consequently, justice delayed is justice denied.
