(before you jump into discussion, remember that this only about these two individuals)
ICC and the prosecutor are on very solid ground here.
The prosecutor asked opinions from a impartial panel of experts in international law. The panel included people like Theodor Meron (former Legal adviser for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Helene Kennedy, Adrian Fulford.
Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant provided plenty of evidence of the intent. Did they really think that when they talk Hebrew to their audience, rest of the world does not hear them. Case like this would be harder to prosecute without evidence of intent.
> Israel’s Kan public broadcaster reported that Israeli officials supported Khan’s candidacy behind the scenes, and consider him a pragmatist who shies away from politicization.
Also note that the US imposed heavy sanctions on Ethopia and Eritrea’s entire government party, head of state, spouses and businesses under the exact same observations of provoking famine and starvation
I would like to see the same standard applied by the US, or demonstrate that the US has far more options than its tacit consent, I would like the US to be completely uninvolved, and point out how the US’ leverage in the situation doesn’t involve Congress just the stroke of a pen from any President, leading the Office of Foreign Assets Control
since it would simultaneously be “anti-Semitic” to do this or avoid doing this by assuming cutting Israelis off from the global financial system to be uniquely debilitating, we could find out which view has a kernel of truth attached, and it shouldn’t be a problem at all
If you do speak Hebrew, you would know that Netanyahu and Gallant have been heavily attacked by the extreme right specifically because they have been refusing to cut off food.
> Gallant provided plenty of evidence of the intent. Did they really think that when they talk Hebrew to their audience, rest of the world does not hear them.
Absolutely, I can not find the BBC or most other major news networks broadcasting and translating any of that.
> Did they really think that when they talk Hebrew to their audience, rest of the world does not hear them. Case like this would be harder to prosecute without evidence of intent.
Since there are not many Hebrew books written over the centuries (for obvious reasons), modern literature is heavily relying on religious texts for metaphors and analogues.
My question, though, is does pushing these kinds of toothless resolutions make any difference beyond showing that the ICC essentially has no power to enforce its warrants?
It's clear that the most powerful militaries in the world (US, Russia, essentially China too) have declared the "rules-based world order" dead. Does it do anyone any good to pretend this hasn't happened? It reminded me of the post Elizabeth Warren put out complaining that Trump was breaking the law because he didn't sign some ethics pledge: https://x.com/SenWarren/status/1856046118322188573. I couldn't help but roll my eyes. All Warren was doing was showing how pointless these laws are when there are no consequences for breaking them.
The rules-based world order was always a bit of convenient fiction, but I'm afraid it's a fiction that a large part of the world no longer believes in anymore.
> My question, though, is does pushing these kinds of toothless resolutions make any difference beyond showing that the ICC essentially has no power to enforce its warrants?
Absolutely this matters.
This effectively limits where Netanyahu and Gallant can travel to. That's a big deal for a head of state. It sends a signal to all of Europe to be wary of doing business with Israel, which is a big deal.
We also don't know if there are any hidden warrants for other Israelis, and more importantly, if this is a precedent for future warrants. If the court starts issuing warrants for other IDF military personnel, that becomes a huge negative for Israelis.
At some point Netanyahu will be out of power. He's been voted out of office before. He's in trouble politically. He promised a short, victorious war over Gaza, and got into a long major war against Iran and more countries instead. The next government might decide to turn him over to the ICC simply to get him off the political stage.
> We also don't know if there are any hidden warrants for other Israelis
Honest question, are "hidden" warrants a thing at the ICC? Seems like it would be difficult, as the ICC doesn't have an enforcement arm of its own, so I would think warrant information would need to be circulated to all the treaty signers, at which case it would be pretty impossible to keep hidden. I tried searching but couldn't find anything - all the results were just about this Netanyahu situation.
> It sends a signal to all of Europe to be wary of doing business with Israel, which is a big deal.
They can resume business once Netanyahu is gone.
In fact Viktor Orban has already invited him to Hungary to the dismay of EU officials. His plane would need permission to fly in other countries' airspace anyway so it would be qiite a risky stunt.
I'd argue that the "rules-based world order" as most people perceive it never really existed. Some will say that it existed for a brief moment in the 90s-2000s. Back then, most countries played nice with the international treaties even if there were no penalties for noncompliance, right? No - it just appeared that way. The 90s and 2000s were a unipolar world, the peak of the American Empire, and America made it eminently clear what would happen if you didn't get in line. If you're a small irrelevant country you would comply with the Treaty on Migratory Slugs or the Convention on Widgets not because of any written penalties, but because to not comply would be to reject the single world power and bear its wrath.
Now we're back to the state of the world as it has always been - multipolar - and it has once more become obvious that things only matter when backed up by force, leverage, and incentives. Look at things with teeth behind them - NATO borders, export controls and ASML, artificial islands in the South China Sea, control of Hong Kong, Russia in Syria or any of the other treaties with military bases. There are papers and laws and declarations on both sides of all of those things, but real-world control always follows force, leverage and incentives.
> I'd argue that the "rules-based world order" as most people perceive it never really existed. Some will say that it existed for a brief moment in the 90s-2000s. Back then, most countries played nice with the international treaties even if there were no penalties for noncompliance
The utter disrespect for the CFE treaty during that period is exactly what got us the Ukraine war right now.
If they just wanted to hop on a regular commercial flight to the US that might be a problem, but I'd expect they would fly on military aircraft.
Instead of taking the most direct route which would fly over Europe they could stay over the Mediterranean until they reach the Atlantic and then head straight to the US.
That adds about 500 miles or so to the trip which probably isn't a big deal on a trip that long.
Presumably if they get invited to Europe it will be with assurance from the state that nothing happens to them. And traveling uninvited is probably a bad move anyway. So not much difference.
If you mean to imply that Europe is somehow going to shoot down their planes if they fly over that’s obviously absurd.
Should Russia’s military really be included among the most powerful in the world? They haven’t been able to defeat Ukraine which is much smaller and weaker. On paper Russia is a dominant military power but in reality their equipment is poorly maintained, their training seems limited, and the leadership full of nepotism or incompetence.
China likely has a much better army, but it’s hard to say without a large scale conflict. Hopefully we won’t find out.
Lots of things that have a real effect in the world are a convenient fiction. The fact that most people on the planet believe that the small paper rectangles printed by the US government have some value, is a consensual belief simultaneously held but no less a fiction.
The rules based order of the world was once something people believed in, and therefore expected others to conform to. Until they didn’t (for lots of reasons all of which cumulatively perturbed the system such that it’s flipped from a stable state and into a meta-stable state).
There are a finite amount of the small paper rectangles available (yes the supply is increasing, but it is finite at any moment) AND these small paper rectangles are required in order for US residents/citizens that earn income in any currency in order to stay out of prison. So, in other words, not a fiction.
The rules-based order was always a fiction; international law is a tool used solely against America’s enemies.
This arrest warrant could be executed in a day if the US would stop supporting this genocide, but that won’t happen. They will sooner invite Netanyahu back to the UN to order more air strikes on refugees.
The standard isn't harm, it's war crimes. There is clear evidence that Israel deliberately withheld food and medicine from civilians in a calculated manner, which is a war crime that no one is alleging in the fight against ISIS.
There was never a 'rules-based world order'. We live purely in Pax Americana and every government exists at the pleasure of the United States. If the US wanted to, and if it did it correctly, it could easily conquer most countries. Afghanistan happened because America lost the will, not the ability. Had America gone the normal colonial route, Afghanistan would look a lot different today.
> If the US wanted to, and if it did it correctly, it could easily conquer most countries.
It could possibly conquer many countries by largely destroying them as was done to Germany and Japan, but since the US is a democracy and a sizable portion of its people have morals and aren't sociopaths, it's politically impossible to fight a war this way in the modern era without some kind of extreme provocation. Even immediately after 9/11, I think most Americans would not have signed on to a campaign of total war in Afghanistan with multiple millions dead.
And even back when America did pretty well take the gloves off, doing nearly everything it could short of nuclear weapons in Korea and Vietnam, it still couldn't win. So I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that any decent-sized country could be conquered easily even if the 'will' was there.
<< There was never a 'rules-based world order'. We live purely in Pax Americana and every government exists at the pleasure of the United States.
Yes. However, Pax Americana did, at least initially, at least give semblance of established rules working. Now even that pretense is gone.
<< Afghanistan happened because America lost the will, not the ability. Had America gone the normal colonial route, Afghanistan would look a lot different today.
Eh. No. I am not sure where the concept this weird concept of 'bombing them to nothing did not help; we probably need to bomb them some more' comes from. I accept your premise that some of it is the question of will, but you have to admit that two decades with nothing to show for it is not.. great.
I mean, nobody really knows until the trial (if one ever happens). Its easy to be convincing when you are just listening to the prosecution - it gets harder once the defense has the opportunity to poke holes.
Keep in mind the conviction rate at ICC is pretty low.
> The prosecutor asked opinions from a impartial panel of experts in international law.
The court already disagreed with said panel on one of the charges (crime of extermination) and we aren't even at the stage yet where they need proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Netanyahu and Gallant should certainly be quite worried (if they somehow find themselves in icc custody which seems unlikely) but we are still very far away from a conviction. Its not a foregone conclusion.
Your dark humor made me chuckle. Thanks for that in this dire world.
May the persecution of all innocent Jews, Palestinians, Ukrainians, and Africans (e.g. Ugandans) end and a world of peace and justice be established, for one and all.
> Keep in mind the conviction rate at ICC is pretty low.
My understanding is that's because it's usually difficult to show intent. However, in this case, not only do we have an incredible amount of video evidence of war crimes, but we also have a huge catalogue of Israeli politicians explicitly calling for the genocide of Gaza.
My biggest concern over this is what the US and/or Mossad will do...
Usually when people say that they are talking about genocide. War crimes and crimes against humanity may have some intent requirements but they don't have the double intent that genocide has, which is the part that is super difficult to prove.
To over simplify (also ianal) with genocide you basically have to prove that the only possible rationale for the action was to try and destroy the protected group and that there is no other plausible explanation. With normal war crimes its more just proving the act wasn't done accidentally. [This is a gross oversimplification]
> but we also have a huge catalogue of Israeli politicians explicitly calling for the genocide of Gaza.
I don't think that is relavent here, as genocide is not one of the charges. Additionally, that would probably be more relavent to state responsibility for genocide (what the icj decides) and not personal responsibility (what icc has juridsication over). Even for state responsibility, its a bit iffy how much those statements matter if they aren't said by people who have the power to issue orders to the military (they of course matter a lot if the charge is failing to suppress incitement of genocide). I'm not saying its totally irrelavent, it is probably a bit relavent to the prosecution charge, but largely it matters more what the individuals themselves have said as they are being charged in an individual capacity not as agents of the state.
Basically the ICC and ICJ are different and what you are saying is more applicable to the ICJ case not the ICC case.
I think they only need to show intent if they are being charged with genocide, however, I think in this case they are being charged with using starvation as a weapon, hindering aid, and targeting hospitals. I think the recommendation also included extermination, which is similar to genocide, but also does not require intent, but I think the voted against that.
I think the evidence for the charges which were actually brought forward are pretty strong. I mean we have Gallant on video stating explicitly a policy of starvation, a policy which we have been seeing in action, also on video.
> However, in this case, not only do we have an incredible amount of video evidence of war crimes, but we also have a huge catalogue of Israeli politicians explicitly calling for the genocide of Gaza.
I disagree that there is an incredible amount of video evidence of war crimes that are relevant here.
And I also disagree that there is a huge catalogue of Netanyahu and Gallant making statements that show intent. For the purposes of these warrants, it doesn't matter what other Israeli politicians have said as I understand it.
Israel was massively radicalized by October 7th. Prior to October 7th, a lot of Israelis believed that if Palestinians had a better economy and could afford a comfortable life, peace would be possible. October 7th was not just a surprise to many Israelis, but also the atrocities were so horrible that it radically changed how Israelis view the situation. This is hard to grasp, but a lot of people don't really understand what happened on October 7th, because this was stuff was obviously not shown on mainstream media.
The entire situation is very tragic. But ultimately, October 7th killed any chance for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, for a long long time. The current population in Israel will never forget October 7th, there are some seriously cannot-be-unseen NSFL atrocities.
I don't necessarily think you're wrong, but drawing any conclusions from random people on Twitter seems like a mistake. They might not be human, they might not be Israeli, and they might not be representative of Israel's 9 million people. I wouldn't want anybody to judge me based on how English-speaking Twitter accounts behave.
In fairness to Israel, they have a peace movement and human rights movement and so on. It’s just that even before October 7th, they were getting increasingly outnumbered.
> You have an opportunity to save Lebanon before it falls into the abyss of a long war that will lead to destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza.
Is what he said to Lebanon, where he threatened to do similar things to another country.
Of course it's not against the Palestinians, per se.
It's a war against their continued presence on portions of Greater Israel that his party and his people would like to further colonize.
There's also the current operation involving his former "asset" and strategic partner, Hamas. With whom it seems he's had a falling out of sorts, and as a result, his people got massacred. But that's just a sideshow against the backdrop of this far broader, deeper, decades-long conflict.
It's not serious to suggest that Israel did not supply any food or water to the Palestinians when in fact it supplied plenty. Why didn't Egypt supply food and water to the Palestinians? (Before Israel took the border corridor).
What other war can you provide me as an example where a the opposing side provided supplies to its enemy? Does Russia supply Ukraine with food and water? Does Ukraine supply Russia? Did the allies supply the citizens of the Islamic State with food and water? Yes- The Gazans depended on Israel in many ways before they started this war, most of them by their own choice. Did the Germans deliver food and water to the UK during WW-II? Do the Turkish give the Kurds food and water as they bomb them? If the government of Gaza, Hamas, has stocks of food and water, and it does not disburse those to the population, and even steals aid from the population, why is this Israel's problem?
Those organizations you're referring to are anti-Israeli and their statements are political.
The US, who has closer knowledge of what's going on on the ground, says Israel has not committed war crimes.
For context, this is only possible because the state of Palestine pushed hard and persisted for years to become an ICC member and thus give the ICC jurisdiction over crimes committed on Palestinian territory, whether by Israel or by Palestinian factions. The USA is still mad at them for doing it.
The full account is worth reading, it includes considerations by the various resistance factions that they’d also be subject to ICC jurisdiction and realized threats of punitive measures by the USA and Israel if they continued to push for ICC membership: https://palepedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Court%27s_...
And in that time, Israel spied, hacked and intimidated ICC officials. They knew recognition of Palestinian rights would open the door to criminal cases like this, so they’ve been working for almost a decade to discredit the International Criminal Court.
It's a country that was stolen, gutted and defaced when Israel was created. So yeah, i'm not surprised people like you still think Palestine is not a state...
The scale of torture and killing perpetrated by the IDF and illegal settlers inside Palestinian territory is several orders of magnitude larger, and the right of an occupied people to resist violently is protected by international law.
> For context, this is only possible because the state of Palestine pushed hard and persisted for years to become an ICC member and thus give the ICC jurisdiction over crimes committed on Palestinian territory, whether by Israel or by Palestinian factions. The USA is still mad at them for doing it.
That sounds biased.
Why -shouldn't- Palestine be able to be a member of the ICC? Your verbiage makes it sounds like they basically bullied the ICC into membership.
And frankly, so what if the US is still mad at them for it? The US won't join organizations like this because it'd rather protect people like Kissinger who openly committed war crimes (and wants the freedom to be able to do whatever it wants, wherever, without consequence).
I think the GP intended to congratulate the Palestinians for their digged resilience in pursuing this, despite the extraordinary opposition they faced. I think they were using this language specifically to suggest how hard the fight was, not to imply that it was a bad thing.
The whole "The Muslims/Muslim countries won't do X, and therefore why should we?" argument is funny and depressing to me. Why won't they do X? Because maybe in your mind you think they're savages/less civilized. Less, that is, compared to you/your community's (in whatever scale: nation, race, hemisphere). But if you're saying "If they don't do X, we can behave the same", isn't that a call for you/your community to abandon your civilization and embrace the "equal" savagery?
How is it a winning argument? "In our eyes we're civilized and they're savages, and if they don't act civilized we're also free to abandon or civilized ways and act the way we condemn...".
The New York Times and Haaretz reported in the summer and autumn of last year (just prior to the current flareup), Netanyahu had sent the Mossad head to Qatar in order to convince them to send money to prop up the Hamas government in Gaza. As Netanyahu said publicly in 2012, he wanted Hamas strong and the Palestinian Authority and Fatah weak, as the PA was pursuing measures at the United Nations.
You're pointing the finger at the State of Palestine and "any Muslim country", when the real supporters of Hamas for years has been Israel and Netanyahu.
> You're pointing the finger at the State of Palestine and "any Muslim country", when the real supporters of Hamas for years has been Israel and Netanyahu.
You said true things before about Netanyahu propping up Hamas, and he certainly has a lot to answer for.
But you then went way too far in this statement. The "real supporters" or Hamas are not the Israelis or Netanyahu. They existed before Netanyahu, and they're armed and funded to massive degrees by Iran. And while Netanyahu certainly had a certain symbiosis with Hamas, and used them to weaken the PA, Hamas is its own organization; the diversion of the funds that Netanyahu helped secure them to creating the October 7th attack was certainly not anyone's desire except Hamas's own.
"The Chamber therefore found reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant bear criminal responsibility for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare."
Whats perhaps interesting to note is that this charge was made for "just" 41 [1] confirmed starvation deaths among a population of 2,141,643 people [2].
Of course every death caused by intentional starvation is a severe crime and must be punished, but in the context of the victim numbers that most past crimes against humanity have had, it sets a relatively low new bar.
This is common and expected. Even when a serial killer suspected of 20 murder is apprehended, arrest is often made based on one or two confirmed cases, more charges are later added as investigation deepens.
Also, keep in mind foreign journalists are completely banned by Israel from entering Gaza- complicating evidence gathering.
This is not how the ICC conducts its investigations. The "41+" figure is from a Wikipedia article that is undergoing an edit war. The very source it is citing actually says 63k
As I understand it 41 is the number of starvations recorded in hospitals. 63k is a highly theoretical "estimate" based on the IPC scale and data from food insecurity in other parts of the world. It seems absurd on its face, since it would imply that an absurdly small fraction of starvations were recorded in hospitals.
Israel does take selected journalists into Gaza on trips organised by the military. The issue is that journalists cannot make themselves an independent picture of the situation in Gaza.
The Gaza ministry that would have counted the deaths was also destroyed several months ago, which is why news media have been reporting the same death total of 40,000 for several months.
This is wrong. They are still reporting daily deaths counts, that counts have been going up. The Grauniad is good about collecting the reports (but bad about other unrelated things).
How do they enter now? An American journalist was jailed in Israel as well for a video showing the Iranian missiles struck near military targets and Mossad headquarters, where the official line was they were targeting civilians.
Given that the accused is currently in control of the crime scene, it's not surprising that the prosecution chose to prioritise the crimes that are easiest to prove.
The ICC does not state only 41 deaths ocurred. GP is pulling that number from an unrelated Wikipedia article that is undergoing an edit war. It went from "63k" to "41+". None of the commentors here justifying the low number realize its completely made up and unrelated to the ICC
"confirmed" data from Gaza at the moment is unreliable. The people who were doing the counting have either been killed or cleansed from the area. The official death toll is still around 40k despite the reality being closer to 100-200k.
Regardless, total deaths don't matter, only deaths that were the result of crimes matter, in this context.
Some of those deaths are going to be legal targets killed during combat, which is not evidence of a war crime. You have to split things out for the numbers to mean anything.
But the problem is that Israel's style of warfare is (intentionally or not) blurring the distinction between those numbers, by using methods of combat that have exceptionally high rates of collateral damage.
The most extreme instances of this are the deliberate withholding of aid, both in the "total siege" in the beginning of the war, as well as operations like now in the north.
You might hit a lot of legitimate targets with this, but it's also guaranteed you will impact all the civilians in the area.
Generally, in this entire war (and also long before), Israel is far too quick with the "Human shields"/"collateral damage" argument to my liking, and using it as an excuse to basically disregard considerations for civilians at all.
(It's also instructive to see how different the hostages and palestinian civilians are treated in IDF considerations, despite both groups technically being "human shields")
The ICC doesn't claim 41 deaths were the result of war crimes. That claim is made by an irrelevant Wikipedia article that is undergoing an edit war. It was recently switched from "62,413 conservative estimate" to "41+"
ICC doesn't claim how many deaths are due to war crimes. GP is purposefully sowing misinformation
GP is not citing the ICC. The ICC never claims 41 deaths are confirmed. GP is citing a Wikipedia article which is undergoing an edit war. The Wikipedia page had cited 62,413 deaths and then was switched to a pro-Israel source that instead says "41+"
>unless something is documented in a very specific gate-keeper approved way
Using strict process and critical methodology is the only want to approximate truth.
> observable reality right before our own eyes.
We don't observe reality correctly with our eyes. We (including you and me) are naked monkeys. Petty, vindictive, and biased. Palestinians and Israeli Jews are just like us but
live in a cesspool of religion, anger and violent history.
Pretty sure even Israel has said the Gaza health ministry’s numbers are usually correct. They have also been found to be generally correct in the past.
Lastly the lower death count is the official health ministry number but the higher estimates are from others, e.g. The Lancet.
This is completely false. Gaza Health Ministry provides the most accurate data. You could also just go on X or TikTok and see dozens of Palestinians murdered by the IDF every single day.
> Whats perhaps interesting to note is that this charge was made for "just" 41 [1] confirmed starvation deaths among a population of 2,141,643 people [2].
IANAL but this is probably incorrect i think - the starvation charge is related to allegations of intentionally restricting neccesities of life. Whether anyone dies as a result is irrelavent to that charge. The murder charge is for the people who actually allegedly died as a result (of the starvation that is. To be clear, the death has to illegal for it to be the war crime of murder. Normal combat death is not murder).
“No one in the world will allow us to starve 2 million people, even though it might be justified and moral in order to free the hostages.” Bezalel Smotrich
> Researchers at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University estimated deaths from starvation to be 62,413 between October 2023 and September 2024.
> but in the context of the victim numbers that most past crimes against humanity have had, it sets a relatively low new bar.
Which context is this? If you mean the context of past ICC indictments that isn't true. There are multiple other examples of people indicted for specific acts that resulted in the deaths of a 2 digit numbers of people.
The bar for "war crimes" or "crimes against humanity" isn't the number of people you kill. Though in this case, plenty have been killed, this case is about what can be proved conclusively ebough given who it is against.
We can compare the rate to countries in more.. stable situations[0]. They'll have a very difficult time getting anywhere with that rate. But we'll see. The world would be better off with all these individuals having no power at all.
This comment is just pure misinformation. Nobody is claiming only 41 deaths.
You're citing an irrelevant Wikipedia page as a source that has a crazy edit history going back and forth between "41+" and "62,413 conservative estimated" deaths
The crimes have a definition with requisite elements in the rome statue.
While many of them do require a certain gravity, viewing international crimes like a more serious version of a normal crime is probably the wrong way of doing it. Some war crimes do not require anyone to die. In other cases thousands could die and it wouldn't be a war crime or crime against humanity because the elements aren't met.
In particular, starvation doesn't require anyone to have died, and it covers more things than just food. Keep in mind its a relatively new crime in international law, it was only made illegal in 1977 (for example during ww2, the nuremburg trials explicitly ruled that sieges were legal). As far as i know nobody has ever been persecuted for it, so the case law doesn't exist, so its a bit unknown.
2. Due to (1), and clear & consistent messaging by Israeli officials on Gaza resettlement as a goal, Egypt understands that “temporary” refugees will be unable to return - i.e., a repeat of 1948 and 1967.
If the US, or any European country, started letting Palestinian refugees in en masse, a lot of them would manage to get there. Egypt’s culpability here is the most salient because they’re physically closest; but I don’t see how that makes the country uniquely culpable for failing to prevent a preventable situation.
> The Chamber issued warrants of arrest for two individuals, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu and Mr Yoav Gallant, for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed from at least 8 October 2023 until at least 20 May 2024
And things got much worse in the latter part of 2024. Even if the court didn't take into account facts after 20 May 2024, ample evidence already existing by then was already enough to issue the warrants. When it takes more evidence into account I bet more warrants will be issued.
It is indeed ridiculous that Lebanon didn’t join the ICC, one has to imagine that Hezbollah played a role in that decision. Which is funny because all the Palestinian resistance factions actually pushed for ICC jurisdiction to the extent that they called for it to apply to them and Israel equally! The hoops the Palestinians had to jump through to join the ICC were crazy, including (reified) threats of heavy punishments from the US if they did.
Actually, most reports are that the US is the one that pressured Lebanon not to join the ICC, to prevent the ICC from having jursidiction over warcrimes the IDF comits in Lebanon/
> The Chamber also noted that decisions allowing or increasing humanitarian assistance into Gaza were often conditional. They were not made to fulfil Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law or to ensure that the civilian population in Gaza would be adequately supplied with goods in need. In fact, they were a response to the pressure of the international community or requests by the United States of America. In any event, the increases in humanitarian assistance were not sufficient to improve the population’s access to essential goods.
I don't understand why this would matter. Does it matter the rationale for increasing aid? I would think the only thing that should matter would be weather the aid was sufficient or not. (I appreciate in the end icc pretrial felt it wasn't enough , but i think that is the only thing that should matter)
Like if someone is accused of murder, but doesn't because a friend told them not to, we don't throw them in jail because they decided not to murder for the wrong reasons.
I think it does matter, because it's another indicator for intent.
If the starvation is a "simple" side-effect of the combat situation, but you're working actively to alleviate it on your own volition (by doing your best to let in aid organizations, etc) then it's obvious to see there is no intent to it.
If, on the other hand, you have to be pressured by the international community, including your closest allies for every tiny step in the direction of letting in aid, and you will immediately jump two steps back as soon as the pressure eases slightly, then it can be inferred that you really really want the starvation to happen and your only problem with the situation is getting away with it.
(Not even starting with all the government officials who spelled out the whole intent explicitly in public, documented quotes)
> Like if someone is accused of murder, but doesn't because a friend told them not to, we don't throw them in jail because they decided not to murder for the wrong reasons.
The problem is that the murder is happening here and the friend is trying - badly - to convince the person to pull out the knife.
Israel was expected, under international law, to unconditionally allow aid for the civilians. Israel used it as a bargaining chip, effectively holding civilians hostage.
>decisions allowing or increasing humanitarian assistance into Gaza were often conditional.
I may be misinterpreting legal jargon, but "conditional" implies Israel often didn't want to allow humanitarian assistance unless Israel received something. This isn't allowed under international law. Relevant excerpt from the announcement:
>This finding is based on the role of Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant in impeding humanitarian aid in violation of international humanitarian law and their failure to facilitate relief by all means at its disposal.
Parties to conflict are expected to facilitate aid, not just allow it, and definitely not set conditions.
The rationale for supplying aid might not matter when the aid is sufficient. Although, coercive aid might still be a problem; I'm unfamiliar with international law on this.
But when aid is not sufficient, I think rationale/intent makes more of a difference. If you're doing it for the right reasons and putting in a good effort, sufficiency may not be acheivable and it may not be right to charge you with not acheiving it. If you're only doing it to keep your friends happy, and it's insufficient, maybe there was more you could have done.
The word intent is oftentimes used in The judicial system to measure culpability and punishment:
whether somebody accidentally stabbed a person 90 times or intentionally stabbed the person 90 times, for instance, is captured via the concept of intent.
> Like if someone is accused of murder, but doesn't because a friend told them not to, we don't throw them in jail because they decided not to murder for the wrong reasons.
If they did not carry out any action then this holds true. But there were actions carried out that amounts to assault and attempted murder.
Even still,in this analogy, the rationale for why they chose not to murder wouldn't really speak to their intent in relation to other crimes.
Like if someone assualted someone but did not murder them because a friend asked them not to, we treat that exactly the same as if they assualted them but stopped before murdering because they thought murder was wrong.
>In his first response to the ICC issuing a warrant for his arrest on allegations of war crimes, Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has described the ruling as “absurd and false lies” and said the decision is “antisemitic.”
If Netanyahu and Gallant really think they are innocent, and the allegations are absurd and false, they should cooperate with the ICC. Have your day in court and show how absurd the accusations are. If you're not willing to do that, it seems reasonable for the public to draw a proverbial negative inference.
You are assuming the court isn't a political thing that is trying to get him regardless of evidence. The court is at least partially political, and Netanyahu will tell you this is entirely political and he wouldn't get a fair trail.
Courts are political entities but this is one that Israel chose to accept and recognize the authority of. It has a history of being very transparent in its decisions and is widely recognized as being neutral and fair in their decision making process.
Of course the person charged and found guilty of a crime will argue against the court. Disagreement, even if valid, doesn't change the recognized authority of this court even if the "teeth" are extremely limited.
> Courts are political entities but this is one that Israel chose to accept
For what it’s worth, Israel signed the Rome Statute establishing the court in 2000 but declared in 2002 it no longer intends to ratify it[1]. (Which, I guess, is marginally better than the US, which has threatened The Hague with military invasion in case any arrests are made[2]. But not by much.) TFA specifically points out that “States are not entitled to challenge the Court’s jurisdiction under article 19(2) prior to the issuance of a warrant of arrest.”
Israel don't recognize the authority of the International Criminal Court. Palestine, however, does, and therefore the ICC consider these allegations within their jurisdiction. A relevant point is that the UK (under the previous Conservative party government) requested the opportunity to dispute the allegations of war crimes based on this complication, but the new British government did not choose to continue with the objection. No other countries have made objections.
> Courts are political entities but this is one that Israel chose to accept and recognize the authority of
As far as i am aware, this is a false statement. Israel has been opposed to the ICC since its inception (originally because the first version had a judge selection mechanism they thought was biased against them, although i am sure there are other reasons they object, especially relating to their settlements).
Perhaps you are confusing the ICC with the ICJ, which are totally different things.
Neither Israel nor the de-facto government of Gaza they are fighting ever accepted the authority of the ICC; neither has signed the Rome Treaty.
The ICC authority is being derived from the Palestinian Authority applying for membership and the Court deciding earlier in a 2-1 decision that Palestine is a state, the PA is the legitimate government of Palestine, and that Gaza is territory under its jurisdiction.
political is..sorta true. the point of these international legal bodies was to maintain and enforce a world order dominated by western powers. it was not about promoting justice (albeit sometimes that happened.) the selective application of enforcement and investigation have reduced the ICC to little more than a tool of neocolonial rule.
the rome statute itself contains provisions that limit its reach. article 98 precludes extradition, which has been abused by the US to prevent US nationals from being tried.
in short the ICC is allowed to go after western geopolitical rivals, however going after an ally whos committing genocide is a bridge too far; they will be shielded. for example: the US pressured its allies to refuse to refer any activities in Afghanistan to the ICC and largely succeeded as its allies form the dominant half of the UN Security council. whats interesting here is the US seems so isolated this time as to have lost the ability to block the referral. perhaps a first in history.
I once had the honor to attend a lecture by a prosecutor of the ICC.
Out of all lawyers/attorneys/prosecutors/judges that I met in my life, that one was the one that I would judge to bet he most idealistic and justice motivated (admittedly based on my gut instinct); a very rare breed.
It's good that there are such institutions with a good purpose, staffed with good people. Bad faith actors - including war criminals - will of course claim agendas (other than bringing justice), deny jurisdiction etc. but it is a good
starting point to have them. The next step is to strive to give these organizations enough "teeth" to execute.
The "individual bully" problem needs some addressing, a solution to that remains outstanding.
There is indeed, as you state, political influence being exerted on courts. Most of that influence is in support of Israel and Netanyahu — do you really think there is significant political power and influence upon the ICC from Palestine or Hamas? Look at the amount AIPAC has contributed to pro-Israel politicians. It’s quite frankly absurd such a political organization exists under the guise of representing American Jews yet pretty much lobbies solely for Israeli geopolitical issues. Kennedy even tried to get it to register as a foreign agent. The fact that these warrants were issued despite the influence and leverage of Israel is a hint at how egregious the crimes are.
And the only counterweight for a person accused of genocide who is claiming they haven't committed war crimes or genocide, while they call this action "antisemetic" - the only way to determine if they are being genuine in claim it is antisemitism or political-manipulation (demonization) tool is to go to court and see all of the evidence presented.
Either 40,000+ people dead or seemingly nearly all Palestinian's civilian infrastructure being destroyed, both warrant being witnessed and investigated by the international community with a fine tooth comb, no?
The ICC isn't some amateur city court in some backwaters country, it is the current epitome and evolutionary state from effort and passion of humanity towards holding the line for justice.
> And the only counterweight for a person accused of genocide
The ICC has not accused anyone of genocide. It does have juridsiction over personal criminal responsibility for gdnocide, but so far, nothing on that front has been mentioned.
South africa is suing israel at the icj alleging state responsibility for genocide, however that is different from personal responsibility, and different standards of evidence and procedures apply. Its also a totally separate court system.
Can't you place that exact same argument on the side of the Palestinians, and add more weight to their claim - where the international community so far has allowed this, due to reason (whether money involved in politicians toeing a line or not), and so the courts decisions and political bias are more likely to favour Netanyahu over the Palestinians?
There never seems to be much critical thinking on the quick one-liners that on the surface appear to often be one-liner propaganda talking points used for deflection, to give an easy memorable line for an otherwise ideological mob to learn-train them with to then parrot.
You can claim anything, but i don't think it means much if you don't back it up with some arguments.
Like this is basically only the second time that a sitting head of state of a functioning country has had a warrant issued against them. Its fairly unprecedented. I don't agree with the claims the icc is biased against israel, but the fact they are acting at all certainly shows they aren't biased for them.
> If Netanyahu and Gallant really think they are innocent, and the allegations are absurd and false, they should cooperate with the ICC. Have your day in court and show how absurd the accusations are.
I don't know if I agree with this.
If the ICC is an honest organization that stands for individual rights, liberty and justice then sure.
If, on the other hand, the ICC is a corrupt organization that invites the worst of the worst in terms of rights-violating countries and dictatorial regimes to the table, then no way. In any compromise between right and wrong, good and evil, the wrong has everything to gain and the good has everything to lose.
In other words, I don't have all of the facts when it comes to the ICC and its history. I know that it is separate from the UN, but I don't know very much about it. Therefore I don't know which alternative I ultimately land on.
But in general and in principle, when it comes to those that are objectively and morally wrong, there is every reason to not grant them legitimacy through recognition or participation.
> I don't have all of the facts when it comes to the ICC and its history. I know that it is separate from the UN, but I don't know very much about it. Therefore I don't know which alternative I ultimately land on.
If you can put in the time & effort required to make an empirical assessment of the ICC, go ahead and do so; then come back here and enlighten us all. Otherwise, this is just more of the same kind of denialism & deflection we're all too familiar with post WW2 from the many (and vocal) mass crime apologists.
> what do you mean by 'invite to the table'? it's a criminal court, so it's going to deal with criminals
"Criminals" in this context is meaningless. Please hear me out.
We're dealing with the concept of "International Law", which is largely understood as agreements / treaties amongst different countries.
This means that those agreements are no more valid or better or righteous than the countries that enter into them. If the nations involved share certain basic principles and make an agreement that aligns with those principles, the enforcement of these "laws" would come from those nations that are party to the treaty.
BUT - if one nation changes its mind, or changes its internal laws or decides "nah, no thanks" then how do you enforce these so-called "laws"? Do the other nations declare war on this nation?
It gets even worse than that. Because the very concept of "International Law" contains a logical contradiction.
The idea is that we are going make war (force, violence, death, destruction, conflict) subject to some kind of rules. The problem is, you can't. You can have two parties to a conflict agree to certain things: like not to murder civilians, or prisoners etc. if it can be helped. But at the end of the day it's an agreement that doesn't have any kind of binding power or significance because the idea of war means that two groups have decided that they can't reach any kind of rational agreement and so they have resorted to violent conflict.
War, by definition, is the absence of law. The absence of reason. The breakdown of civilization. It comes about when two groups cannot reason with one another; cannot agree with one another on what the rules ought to be.
Law is not a concept that comes out of nowhere. It is the idea that in order to protect individual rights and liberty, the element of force and violence is going to be taken out of civil existence and placed into the hands of a monopoly: the government, which sets the rules and enforcement mechanisms around when force is and is not justifiable within their respective operating jurisdictions.
When you have multiple nations that operate independently, each with their own laws and rules, all you can do is get them to agree to certain things, as long as they have some basis upon which to enter into an agreement.
My thesis is that a free, rights-protecting nation has no basis for an agreement with a dictatorship that routinely violates peoples' rights. That the dictatorship has everything to gain by getting the free nation to agree to what its evil desires want, while the free nation has only things to lose (through compromise, which is part and parcel of coming to terms).
Is it any data point at all to you that ICC exists and functions in many ways because of the literal Holocaust that happened during WWII? Like the same genocide that also catalyzed Israel's existence? Or is it still important, in your mind, to do our own work investigating the ICC before we think anything?
Im just saying, its important to be skeptical I guess, but all these comments being like "well who are these ICC people anyway?" can't help but be a little (darkly) funny to me. Like is this really the point where everyone just stops pretending to be good guys about this? Its like being a teenager and being angry at your mother for birthing you because she caught you doing something bad.
Imagine the US having to face consequences for Iraq. One of the most fucked up collection of war crimes and violations of laws of war in the 21st century. The average American now thinks "we shouldn't have gone into Iraq" but has no idea the reputation the US has in the rest of the world because of this act
US citizens/nationals/residents have rights that would be violated by an international court. For example, you can't have due process (as required by US law), a speedy trial, or a jury trial at the ICC. This makes the idea of handing people over to the ICC not only forbidden but wrong for obvious reasons.
Surely you don't expect people to give up these very fundamental rights so they could be tried in an international court?
yeah, the accused has no right to a jury trial with the ICC
with the 6th amendment, signing the rome statute into law would be both unconstitutional and effectively subjecting US soldiers to a kangaroo court (in the eyes of the US)
True, and this more than highlights the great divide across the globe on the matter, it screams it out. One can only guess what the ramifications will be.
If you think it's a sham, why would you participate in the process? I don't agree that it is a sham, but it's an absurd principle to think that they'd have any interest in doing so.
Israel already participates in the process. That's why they file documents with the court. Claims from two of those the pre-trial chamber rejected today, prior to issuing the warrants.
Re response: your claim was participation not jurisdiction, shift goalposts however you like
The Israeli will not recognize the authority of this ICC bench, because it's a politically motivated prosecution. They've lost before the trial even began.
I first thought you were going to point out how the misuse of the word "antisemitic" is especially problematic here:
Do the vast majority of people not understand correlation vs. causation? Because Netanyahu is Jewish does not mean an action against him is because he's Jewish.
That they are willing to use such "cry wolf" tactics, abusing it, dilutes their credibility at minimum - and then should bring their integrity into question, just for this misrepresentation of calling this action antisemitic.
I would say it’s clear that Israel draws a lot more criticism than other countries seem to for their bad actions. Whether this is antisemitism or not is up to interpretation but I can see why they might consider it so.
Antisemitic. Every time I hear this word, I can’t help but think of its irony—a term used exclusively for describing discrimination against one community, as if prejudice against them carries more weight than against any other. Perhaps, though, it serves as the best reflection of our hypocrisy.
It's incredible that a term was coined in the 19th Century to describe demonstrable hatred toward Jews, that the term was happily adopted and popularized by people who hated Jews, and now over 150 years later the term itself is pointed to as "proof" of Jewish privilege or conspiracy, perpetuating the cycle of ignorance and hatred under a new guise.
The word has never, in its history, been used for anything other than racism against Jews. There are Semitic languages, not people.
> Due to the root word Semite, the term is prone to being invoked as a misnomer by those who incorrectly assert (in an etymological fallacy) that it refers to racist hatred directed at "Semitic people" in spite of the fact that this grouping is an obsolete historical race concept. Likewise, such usage is erroneous; the compound word antisemitismus was first used in print in Germany in 1879 as a "scientific-sounding term" for Judenhass (lit. 'Jew-hatred'), and it has since been used to refer to anti-Jewish sentiment alone
The Romani people for example (derogatorily called "gypsies". The term "gyp"—to scam—derives from stereotypes of Romani people) faced some of the most gruesome programs in history before facing the Romani Genocide in WW2. Yet we rarely talk about antiziganism the way we talk about antisemitism and people still casually throw around terms like "gyp"
Especially when you consider "semites" are a member of an ancient or modern people from southwestern Asia, such as the Akkadians, Phoenicians, Hebrews, or Arabs. It can also refer to a descendant of these peoples.
So, many Palestinians are Semites as well. And one may conclude when Ovadia Yosef, a former Chief Rabbi of Israel, says:
“It is forbidden to be merciful to them. You must send missiles to them and annihilate them. They are evil and damnable. The Lord shall return the Arab’s deeds on their own heads, waste their seed and exterminate them, devastate them and vanish them from this world.”*
That this is "Anti-Semitic" speech as well.
It's amazing how buying off 98% of US Representatives can change a cultural and media narrative.
The thing is, the term "Semite" is (except in very archaic contexts) pretty much dictionary-only.
It exists, and has semantic validity. But it does not in any way describe a group that has ever had any kind of common identity. Or as Wikipedia (itself a kind of a dictionary) puts it:
The terminology is now largely unused outside the grouping "Semitic languages" in linguistics.
Antisemitism specifically refers to hatred of Jews. It doesn't matter whether it's the most accurate term given that it's anti-semitism; that's still what the term means.
Yes, if there is any moral norm that anyone, especially any parent would accept - as closely to universal as possible, perhaps - it is that killing children is evil.
It's completely reasonable to exterminate an entire ants colony if 5 ants bite you, or at least that's their logic here, including the "ants" part. But of course we know the "self-defense" part is just a cover for the underlying desire to destroy the colony to build a nice villa.
Also it goes much deeper than that. They were many masscres in Palestine before october 7th, and in Israel as well... A solution would necessarily involves less violence, not more, and at this very instant Israel is the one doing most of it.
> then both the assilant and me are both guilty for criminal assault
War is hell. But this war could have been conducted better. Yes, aid was being diverted by Hamas. But that doesn't mean you stop providing it, it means you do what you must to take control on the ground. The deaths from bombings, et cetera have not been found to be war crimes. The starvation, which was and continues to be avoidable, is.
It's morally justified for a bullied kid to punch back (and punch hard). It's not morally justified for a bullied kid to chain the doors closed and set fire to the bully's apartment building.
No but this opinion is unjustifiably considered antisemitic and you couuld potentially have unwanted repercussions e.g. lose your job if you make it public. Such are the times we live in.
For context, I'm not American and I would have trouble understanding how this could be conceived as antisemitic??
Also mentioned in another comment I do believe Isreal has a right to defend itself but not to commit war crimes against civilians... that seems to be the issue here.
> A warrant was also issued for [Hamas military commander] Mohammed Deif, although the Israeli military has said he was killed in an air strike in Gaza in July.
Most news reports are treating this as a single story, but posting the original source seems a good idea in this case; it just happens to be split across two URLs.
I doubt there will be actual arrests, but there will be and there are already consequences. I just saw France and Netherlands announced they will obey the warrants, thus Netanyahu can no longer travel there. Presumably the whole of EU is off limits (I am unaware which countries recognize the court).
Current opposition leader Friedrich Merz, who will probably win the snap elections in February, has even before the court ordered the warrant called for Germany not to obey it. But of course, it's easier to take strong stances when you're not part of that government that has to act on them yet. We'll see.
He will never leave Israel again. He is 75 and doesn't have many years ahead of him anyway. At some point soon he will either be voted out or kicked out through regular knessent machinations and spend his remaining years writing his memoris in hebrew only.
According to Israel at least, all the ones that the warrants were requested for are now dead. Perhaps new warrants will be issued, but simply taking on the mantle of Hamas leadership will not make someone retroactively culpable for the crimes of October 7th. Culpability at this level is personal, not collective. So even though anyone who becomes the next leader of Hamas will be, by this act itself, a terrible human seeking to advance some horrible ideals, that will not make them culpable for everything Hamas has already done.
Reading the comments in this thread and reflecting on history a bit, the thought that comes to mind is that this is less a trial for the defendants and more a trial of the ICC and more broadly international institutions and their true independence, effectiveness and ultimately, relevance.
If you think that trying some head of a small thuggish state, founded by its unilateral declaration of sovereignty over someone else's land, while already cleansing it of unruly natives, and terrorizing British officials for years both in Palestine and internationally (like with assassination campaigns and embassy bombings), that dug its own hole over decades into ethno-supremacy based and messianically driven conflict with Palestinians, will in any way degrade legitimacy of a court and treaty joined by 125 sovereign states (with almost all "western" ones included), then you're deluding yourself.
Especially when he's being explicitly tried for his role in ensuring that children have to suffer amputations and women get c-sections without anesthesia (among other things), which has nothing to do with defense of Israel.
If anything ICC standing rose a bit in many people's eyes today, slightly above the "court for african warmongers only", where it was previously.
There is definitely an argument that the ICC's actions showed independence. I was trying to imply that in what I wrote. Maybe I need to be a little more clear. If nothing happens, these warrants go away, no sort of trial happens, etc etc, then it is likely that the ICC will be seen as increasingly irrelevant and ineffective. It is still likely to be viewed that way even if a trial does actually go forward but definitely if this just dies away quietly I suspect many will see the organization as nothing but a tool that some governments get to use when they want, and not an impartial check on international actions. I tried not to imply anything about the warrants, the people they are for or the events they are in response to because my discussion point was about the ICC and not the defendants.
The ICC is not under the US control and thus the US sees it as a potentially dangerous organization and the fact that it is in Europe (an influential entity) doesn't make things any better. The US turned a blind eye on the ICC because it used to prosecute its enemies. Now that it's touching its agenda, it makes sense that they do not like it.
Replying to the "dead" comment below (I wish HN killed only spam comments):
> Mainly because i feel the rest of the world lives in a Disneyland like state of fake security that is guaranteed by the United States and never has to contend with the actual reality of the world.
> The actual realities of statehood say the ICC is a joke.
> As for your contention of thuggery.. again, referencing my Disneyland allegation... Thuggery is the basis of statehood and if that makes you uncomfortable, it's because you've been raised in Pax Americana.
> It's really time most countries started paying tribute to the United States, but I do understand the strategic benefit of magnanimity.
I get this viewpoint.
Basically, the idea is that humans can only exist as a society of thugs, and everything else is just fairy tales. In that theory, the best possible outcome is achieved when one of the thugs is much more powerfull than all others, thus enforcing "some" order. Therefore, we should all pay tribute to it.
I have issues with that theory though.
Firstly, I do not believe it. Secondly, even if I did I would consider it a moral duty to still fight it for the small chance it's false. A finally, it does not say what to do in a situation like today when the former bigger thug is becoming weaker and is challenged by the competition. Are we supposed to wait patiently underground the next 20 years until the next contender takes the throne?
There is another theory, according to which human societies _evolve_ as any organism do. It can actually be shown that humans did tame themselves, and became less aggressive/more cooperative after tens of thousands of years of living cooperatively, first in small scale then in larger and larger scale. I take everyone's repulsion against the current state of affairs, or against any sociopathic bahavior for that matter, as another hint of this.
We _did_ evolve out of a primitive condition where there was no conceivable human made law or justice into a society where the rule of law was just a trick, into a condition where the rule of law was desirable, and possibly one day into a condition where the rule of law appears natural.
I believe the cynical viewpoint that you expressed, and that I share sometimes when my mood is low, is actually the fantasy.
Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic was arrested and deported by the government of Yugoslavia after him. Of course, under immense pressure from the west. My preference would be that we tried him under our courts and sent him to jail in Yugoslavia/Serbia.
Now, imposing "justice" obviously only works when you do it to small nations like Yugoslavia or Rwanda. Of course it will not apply to the Israel leader, let alone to somebody from even more powerful nation.
further gives Germany a reason to crack down on pro-Palestinian protestors. Although supporters of the Palestinians have not staged international attacks for a long time the history of this in the 1970s explains why my Uni suddenly instituted a clear bag policy at sports games a few weeks after the lid blew off in Gaza last year. (When I started doing sports photography at the beginning of the semester I could pack a big camera bag and even take extra lenses)
Also Israel has a high GDP and involvement in international trade, academia, etc. Israel has 50x the GDP per head of Rwanda so they have a large impact in terms of Intel's Haifa office, Teva Pharmaceuticals, Sodastream, etc. My thesis advisor traveled to Tel Aviv a lot to work with collaborators.
They’re a western bastion in very close proximity to the Middle East, with a cultural and religious tie to a not insignificant number of Americans. It’s also a wealthy country.
> don't understand how a tiny country like Israel has become so important in global politics
The simple reason is that global politics (at the UN) led to the partition of the Mandate, against the will of entire regions, which, right now, represent 30% of world's population. Besides, anti-Muslim racism and anti-Semitism always rears its very ugly head during this conflict, especially in the US.
Subsequently, the lack of stability in the Middle East did Israel no favours in how it is perceived, even if it may not be solely its fault (it isn't).
Plus, the silencing of voices (particularly against patently unfounded claims such as, "the most moral army", "anti-Israelism is anti-Semitism", "the only democracy in the middle east") themselves come with their own Streisand Effect.
Also, socio-culturally, after Tibet & Cuba, it is one of the last/few remaining geo-political global movements with the added disadvantage of cutting through all 3 major Abrahamic religions.
> I don't understand how a tiny country like Israel has become so important in global politics.
Here are some of my favorite sources on that! These are all leftist and pro-Palestinian sources, but they are academic and studied. These are about why Israel is important to the "interests of the USA" (ie, what those with power to decide national interests think).
* The first chapter of "Palestine: A Socialist Introduction", “How Israel Became the Watchdog State: US Imperialism and the Middle East" by Shireen Akram-Boshar. The publisher Haymarket is giving away the ebook for free. https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1558-palestine-a-social...
Think about the crusader states[!] and Taiwan. You'll see a pattern there. Israel was important for the British, now the Americans and will be important for the next hegemon. It's a very old strategy used by empires to control whole regions. Having a whole "country" beats having a military base or an air-craft carrier by orders of magnitudes.
According to Sachs, Israel has masterfully manipulated US influence to extend its global reach, primarily through AIPAC's incredibly efficient lobbying - spending just hundreds of millions to secure billions in aid and trillions in military spending. Netanyahu's strategy has been particularly clever, pushing the US to overthrow Middle Eastern governments that oppose Israeli policies, as seen with Iraq, Syria, and Libya. Through campaign financing, Israel has basically bought out Congress for surprisingly little money, ensuring the US consistently backs them internationally - like vetoing UN resolutions that favor Palestinians. This US shield is so strong that when the UN voted on Palestinian self-determination, only the US, Israel, and a couple other countries opposed it. Even when Biden sets boundaries for Israeli actions, they just ignore them without consequences. The whole system's genius lies in how Israel's managed to maintain its policies despite global opposition, though Sachs thinks this might backfire by making Israel too isolated and blocking any chance of a two-state solution.
Israel is a colony of US imperialism and functions as the US attack dog in the middle east, taking actions and expressing rhetoric in support of US hegemony that are politically infeasible.
From my weak understanding, it’s the only ally the west (USA) has in the Middle East, so they’re important strategically - for military bases and other reasons I don’t really understand, and so are propped up by financial aid and weapons and other help (intelligence etc?) beyond what would normally happen to a similar country.
Given Israel is the motherland for many Jewish people, plus almost 2.5% of the USA is Jewish, plus there are almost 16 million Jewish people globally, I would imagine that.
> When was the last time a head of state was arrested by the ICC?
It also acts as a deterrent as much of the world will now likely be out of bounds for travel for either the Israelis or Hamas leadership who were issued warrants.
Wow, this took a long time to come after the application for the warrants. 185 days compared to 23 days for Putin's arrest warrant — but then again, one was against the wishes of the USA and the west while the other was at their behest.
I wouldn't say "and the west" without more qualifications. The USA and Germany are solidly behind whatever the Israeli government does. England a bit less so and the rest of "the west" (however you want to define it) is more ambivalent. My point is that if only two countries (the USA and Germany) would make their support more conditional (conditional on the israeli government not commiting war crimes for example), then things could change a lot
You’re right, there are notable exceptions in the form of western nations that have backed the enforcement of international law to put an end to the mass killings and starvation taking place in Gaza. Ireland, Spain, Norway, France, Switzerland, Slovenia, Denmark, and Belgium come to mind, ranging from “supporting the independence of the ICC and not commenting on proceedings” to “welcoming the investigation and the end of the killings.”
But while the US (not an ICC member) simply insulted the court and the notion of holding an Israeli leader accountable, it was the UK that demanded hearings on the legality of pursuing arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant. Aside from Germany’s staunch and unconditional support for Israel, other Western countries that heavily criticized the decision included Hungary, Austria, Czechia, Canada, Australia, and Italy - important to note that some of which also mentioned that despite their long list of misgivings and outrages they nevertheless respected the independence of the court.
If you make a court under the UN and you trail US' adversaries' (Serbia) leaders (Milosovic), WHILE the US (who we know --thanks Snowden and Assange-- commits plenty of war crimes) does not recognize it: that is the definition of a kangaroo court.
Just for show. Just to provide some veil of legitimacy for the US actions to evil does without the US itself being held to the same standards.
My guess is that it's simply a matter of how difficult it is to prove the issue. The Putin case was very simply because there is an official state program to do things that are considered genocide. Israel is at least pretending they are letting aid in.
Israel is not pretending. They've let in tons of aid, that is stolen by Hamans constantly. I want to remind you that an American soldier has died during the built of a humanitarian port by the US navy.
But that's what the court itself is for! You get plausibly charged with a crime, you go to court, and the case is determined one way or the other.
What happened in this case is that Israel beseeched its allies to lobby the court not to look into what was happening [0]. And the UK demanded hearings to impede the ICC warrants from being issued (purely politically, as this was done under Sunak and then Starmer/Lammy dropped the objection, but the delays were already underway).
A whole cladde of people here who collectively decided that the politics of the outside and the ugly that came from it does not matter anymore, specialising in the interior design of society with the most horrid weapon being a social ostracizing. The idea that building could pancake under artillery fire from the vacuum just is not part of reality and now papertiger hissy fits from the windows .
There's a large attempt to pin all of this on Netanyahu and his closest cabinet but what he's saying is pretty much supported by nearly all of Israeli society down to individual citizens. I encourage everyone to find people who live in Israel on X and translate their tweets so they can see for themselves.
Liberal Zionists like to pretend Gallant was the "moderate one" but in reality there is essentially no moderate in current Israeli society, there is only the secular far right and the messianic further right. The two differ only in small derails of their preferred strategy when using the military to ethnically cleanse Gaza. There is no significant coalition that recognizes basic human rights for Palestinians.
He is a member of Netanyahu's party, which is a right-wing party (though not far-right in terms of Israeli politics).
He is certainly not a moderate, but he is far more trusted than Netanyahu and is considered a moderating and opposing influence on him by many people. Mostly representing the interested of the defence establishment, as opposed to purely political interests (or, if you ask me, as opposed to Netanyahu's only real interest, which is himself).
He's said this "many" times? Can you show some other times he's said this?
This clip is IIRC from about 3 days after Hamas invaded Israel and massacred civilians. He announced an utterly immoral siege policy, but abandoned it almost immediately.
And while you can certainly cherry-pick some awful statements from Gallant, he's also made many statements that make it clear that Israel is not targeting civilians.
Being the minister of defense gives you culpability for the military actions the ICC has decided are war crimes, I'd think? But I am not an expert in international law, just don't find it surprising.
Yep, commanders are responsible for the actions undertaken by their troops.
It's called Command responsibility or sometimes the Yamashita principle/doctrine, after a Japanese general who was executed for horrific crimes committed by troops not even under his command, but in his area of responsibility (they were naval troops in the Philippines, he was commander of the Philippines, the navy and the army hated each other; he pulled out of Manilla in order to wage war in favourable terrain, the naval infantry commander refused to follow him and fought a brutal urban battle that destroyed the city, and on purpose killed more than a hundred thousand civilians).
Some Japanese officers take responsibility very seriously.
>Hitoshi Imamura was a Japanese general who served in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II, and was subsequently convicted of war crimes. Finding his punishment to be too light, Imamura built a replica of his prison in his garden and confined himself there until his death.
He's the minister of defense (not anymore but was at the time). If the allegations are true, then as minister of defense he probably ordered the things in question (or failed to stop them)
that is a good question. we've seen folks from the Biden/Harris admin resign over military aid to Israel, and it appears the admin indeed was in violation of US law when said aid was given. could they face criminal charges for complicity? i find it hard to believe they had no idea what was going on.
another question i have regards the future: it appears the US is working on even more aid for Israel, see Bernie's latest attempt to prevent that. now that leadership in Israel has warrants out for them, will the US aid continue? certainly would be a bad look to continue aiding Israel at this point i reckon.
what an absolute tragic mess all around. i'm ashamed of our complicity, and sadly will not be surprised one bit if we continue giving them aid despite it all.
Biden/Harris, Starmer, Scholz and Macron have all been supplying Israel with arms, all whole knowing they are carrying out a genocide. The US has also had boots on the ground, and the UK has flown hundreds of spy and missions over Gaza. Meanwhile, they all give near carbon-copy press statements that read like they came straight from Israeli Hasbara.
They have knowingly supported and aided Israel, and I hope more warrants are forthcoming.
Come to think of it, plenty of journalists and media orgs are complicit too, such as the BBC.
I wish. The US government has been an absolute disgrace in how we've handled support of Israel unflinchingly. I guess we didn't write enough sternly written letters while people were being forcibly starved to death.
This leads to a bit of a conundrum for the Netherlands. It is the home of the ICC and officially a big sponsor of international justice. But also the right wing government has a hard on for Israel. I don't think that our esteemed ancestors ever envisioned white people to end up in court...
The leader of the PVV (biggest political party) is going to visit colonial settlers in Israël.
Many immigrants hate Israel.
Official state policy is a two state solution.
The relocation of the Dutch embassy to Jerusalem.
You could make a Netflix TV show about this. May we all live interesting times!
Hopefully he gets arrested that would fulfill me with joy and laughter. But realistically nobody was and probably will be able to humble Netanyahu, he is a above the ladder psychopath.
E.g. Going to 2 then down to 0, back up, back down and stabilizing again at 0; of course sophisticated coordinated activity will pace itself, even if across real users, as to not "waste their ammo" or be blatantly obvious; makes me wonder if there have been any studies analyzing this.. anywho. Back to life.
I really don't think this belongs on the front page.
It is a highly divisive political issue with strong radicalisation
at the edges of any discourse on it.
I have my own strong opinions on it, but arguing it does
not in my opinon belong on the front page here.
There are plenty of places you can go and have this discussion
in as heated of a version as you prefer.
I disagree. #1 this topic is not as divisive as it may seem. There is consensus as to what is happening and only a minority of the world thinks otherwise.
#2 Israel is a major tech partner and most large tech companies have offices in Tel Aviv. Many startups that we discuss here are headquartered in Tel Aviv. The head of state of the country having an ICC arrest warrant and the situation at large have major consequences to the tech world and thus HackerNews users have a unique lens through which to have discourse. Discourse with an angle that you won't find elsewhere this is discussed.
Huh? The vast majority of the world has repeatedly voted at the UN to accuse Israel of related war crimes, and public opinion in the vast majority of the world follows as well. There really is a consensus worldwide, with a minority disagreeing, centered around the US.
There is a strong but not unanimous consensus that Israel is committing war-crimes and enforcing an apartheid state in the territories it occupies. There is consternation over whether Israel's actions constitute genocide.
That said, I think it's fair to assume that people from the US and other Israel-allied nations are disproportionately represented on Hacker News. So, we should not expect the global consensus to be reflected here.
But I think think this topic both (1) is on topic for HackerNews given Israel's outsized prevalence in the tech industry, (2) has geopolitical implications that I think are worth discussing.
Either way, HackerNews is an outlier in terms of the quality of the discussion, among social media or forums where people will argue both for and against Israel's actions. While I am very much on the "against Israel's actions" side, I do think there is value in this discussion, and so I am happy this topic is here on HackerNews.
A quick check of your recent HN comments proves to me that you have only ever researched / trusted a single narrative and talking about this with you won't be very productive.
I think you would find it useful, even for supporting your current arguments more substantially, to read any of the following (in order of recommendation):
- The Hundred Years' War on Palestine
- The Holocaust Industry
- Except for Palestine
I also used to justify or overlook Israel's history and military actions in the same way but once you allow yourself to hear from scholars on both sides, you can't really go back to who you were before.
Not super meaningful in reality - any country looking to arrest either man should tread carefully.
The American Service-Members' Protection Act authorizes the President of the United States to use "all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any U.S. or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court".
Israel is listed in the act as covered. Any means explicitly includes lethal force, which is why the act is nicknamed the "Invade the Hague" act.
The question here is why is only Israel covered in this act?
Also anti-BDS legislation in finance, regardless of ethical etc. concerns?
The US gives $4bn/year to Israel gratis, and so far $20bn in weapons over the course of this conflict, including advanced weapons like the F35 WITH source code access (which no other F35 partner has) - why?
There have been no investigations of US deaths WRT settler violence, aid workers killed etc. Normally with any US death it's a huge issue.
What does Israel do in return to make it such a favoured country?
eg. 20bn in disaster relief aid to Florida would be probably more welcome by US citizens.
It's not only Israel. It's all of NATO plus "major non-NATO allies" specifically Australia, Egypt, Israel, Japan, Argentina, the Republic of Korea, and New Zealand
The biggest condition behind US aid to Jordan and Egypt is them continuing friendly relations with Israel. In 1970s when this aid was started- this condition was made very explicit by USA.
So in other words, these two at least are nothing but indirect aid to Israel.
You could ask the same questions about that yes, but whataboutism does not answer the questions here.
For Ethiopia it's flagged as humanitarian aid, and likely for Jordan as a result of the neighbouring Syria war.
None of that is arms though, and critically more than the aid, why the legislation?
What justifies making it illegal to stop investing in a country despite it's actions? Surely that's a commercial decision rather than a legislative one?
We gave Pakistan and Iran a few billion dollars in military aid a while back. What we got in return was a Bangladesh genocide and an Islamic revolution.
Lesson learned: arms sales can be used to ideologically justify butchering civilians if the government receiving that aid is not held accountable.
The Netherlands said that they would arrest anybody accused. That would be peculiar to see, what would actually happen if anybody of the accused were to travel there.
The Dutch have a very lackadaisical attitude to law, and at the very same time a very principled cut-off-my-nose-to-spite-my-face rule of law mentality.
If I were a senior Israeli or Hamas leader I’d avoid the place for a couple of decades in case of sealed charges.
> If I were a senior Israeli or Hamas leader I’d avoid the place for a couple of decades in case of sealed charges.
If the Netherlands granted diplomatic immunity to said leaders before their visit, and then decided to arrest them, that by itself would be an act of war.
And even worse, it would ruin basically the only treaty every country has agreed to - the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
I'm sure if they try it will go down perfectly well with the rest of the world.
It's not like the US has a monopoly on finances or force globally. China and BRICS are waiting in the wings.
Because Israel is an integral part of our industry. Most major corporations have their presence in Israel. Moreover, Israel is using AI extensively in their war on Palestinian people, which they develop in partnership with the US.
On HN, having some stories with political overlap is both inevitable and ok—the question is which particular stories those should be. We try to go for the ones that contain significant new information. See more at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42204689.
This approach has been stable for many years and there's no intention to allow HN to become a primarily-political site (quite the contrary) but it also doesn't work to try to exclude these things altogether.
This will not amount to anything, but it's nice to know we aren't all crazy or anti-semitic for thinking the Israeli state has been acting very poorly in regards to the State of Palestine. Feels a little bit like trying to get organized crime on tax evasion.
What is the point of the ICC? Russia doesn't recognize it, Israel doesn't recognize it and even the United States doesn't recognize it. I am confused at what these warrants even mean.
In this case, to make a political statement against Israel and their leadership.
Note that the only member of Hamas indicted, Mohammed Deif, will never see a day in court. As the ICC already knows, he was killed in an airstrike earlier this year.
Since there has been no proof of his death bar the announcements from Israel, it is sensible to consider him as a wanted man until there is concrete evidence he is dead.
In practice these warrants mean that they cannot travel to any country that does recognize the ICC without being arrested, which means they almost certainly won't.
Just like how Putin couldn't travel to, say, South Africa, after a warrant was issued for his arrest. Oh wait, South Africa declined to enforce the ICC arrest warrant in that case.
I don't see this meaningfully constraining Netanyahu's foreign travel options.
There have been several pundits with opinion on the matter, you’ll find quite a few in any news source (personally I recommend al-Jazeera). The gist of it is that this will have implication mostly around travels of Israeli officials to Europe. We might also see a slow and gradual policy shift in Europe as a result of this.
Rightfully so, their intentions and actions which have matched, have been clear for the last year. Hopefully the rest of the international community including governments will finally stand together and call them out for the crimes they have been committing. This is hopefully a step to removing arms sales to Israel as well from many countries.
Hacker News Guidelines: Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon... If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
Users flagged it, as is common for the most divisive topics.
I've turned the flags off now, in keeping with HN's standard practices: some (but only some) stories with political overlap are allowed, and in the case of a Major Ongoing Topic (MOT) we prefer the stories that contain Significant New Information (SNI).
> The Act gives the president power to use "all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any U.S. or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court".[2]
If you dig a little further, you'll notice that it also applies to "military personnel, elected or appointed officials, and other persons employed by or working on behalf of the government of a NATO member country, a major non-NATO ally including Australia, Egypt, Israel, Japan, Argentina, the Republic of Korea, and New Zealand."
I wanna emphasize: This pre-dates Trump, Biden and Obama. This has been a law for over two decades. It passed both the House and the Senate with very little opposition. Both parties voted in favour of it.
> Hamas is a terrorist group that was elected by Gaza’s residents.
"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gambled that a strong Hamas (but not too strong) would keep the peace and reduce pressure for a Palestinian state." - From "Buying Quiet: Inside the Israeli Plan That Propped Up Hamas", NYTimes [1]
Trump is heavily funded by Zionist extremists, but he isn't one himself. As soon as the ship really starts sinking (which could be induced by a Netanyahu arrest), he will attempt to jump ship and save himself.
It's a bit reminiscent of the Bangladesh genocide by Pakistan, to whom the United States also sold weapons and also did nothing to stop hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties.
I'm wondering what power does the ICC have to carry out its sentencing if the US chooses to disagree with it?
Same with The Hague court, where the US said its soldiers would be imune from standing trial for crimes.
So if these international courts are only allowed selective enforcement, what's the point of their existence? To only prosecute people the US doesn't choose to protect? Then what's the line between good guys and bad guys?
It’s really rather simple. Anyone on this planet only has as much authority as their guns provide them. The people who operate these courts have fewer guns than the US, so they don’t get authority over US interests.
That hardly seems objective. Every single statement I saw on the homepage was anti-Israeli. This Israeli government has done any number of horrible things, but it's a complicated situation that is not at all summed up well by "Israel bad". Acting like Hamas hasn't committed awful atrocities or that everything Israel does is bad isn't going to help innocent civilians caught up in this mess.
I am not against ICC. I am against any above nation world wide idiocies.
Hamas didn't do any crime against me on oct 7, Israel didn't do any crime against me afterwards, so the idea of some organization chasing after perpetrators in my name is absurd. Crimes against humanity is stupid concept. It has never had any kind of background grounded in anything resembling reality. ditto with UN - nations are anything but united. Now as talking heads it may have some worth, but to give this organization something like power (no matter how fake) is absurd.
Because US and European countries very directly supports Israel in this case. In the other cases you refer to they are conflicts independent of western countries or at least the western influences are more indirect.
Yeah, by comparison the total coverage of the ongoing devastating civil wars in Sudan, Yemen, Myanmar and Haiti is miniscule.
I guess to play devil's advocate, the US is much more involved in Palestine via its essentially unconditional military support for Israel, so it makes sense for the American left to make noise because in theory they could influence things.
Our tax money is funding these atrocities. I felt the same way about the genocide in Yemen.
>Around the world, countless marginalized groups face equally dire or even worse conditions and would welcome similar support from these people
I don't think this is true. The majority of people dying of or suffering from starvation on earth right now are in Gaza.
>Yet, these so-called human rights advocates remain willfully ignorant of anyone or anything happening outside of the US and the Israel/Palestine conlflict.
You have blinders on if you think this is the case.
>Given this, how can anyone take these protesters seriously when they exhibit a groupthink mentality, lacking self-awareness or critical thinking, and behaving more like zombies than independent thinkers?
I'd rather you didn't take us seriously if you're not going to fully understand our goals or reasons for our beliefs.
This is textbook whataboutism. I live in the UK. I'm outraged by how much time/money is spent on Israel and Ukraine issues than our own. Similar to yourself, I have to wonder why UK govt chose to help one side with weapons in these specific conflicts. The difference here is of course, protestors are there on their own free will (for the most part, I guess?), whilst I don't have a say in how my tax money is being used.
They are right, though, aren’t they? We came up with these regulations and international agreements for a reason.
If they ignore war crimes, their authority loses meaning, but if they pass judgment that we know is going to be completely ignored, their authority also loses meaning. Unless the powers that be decide to honor their word, it’s all pointless. What’s next?
They ignore war crimes plenty when it comes to Russia, Turkey, etc.
According to UN Israel is the worst country there is, as over half of the resolutions are against Israel.
It isn't scary at all. I for one, would much prefer to live in a world where war crimes and acts of genocide are appropriately called out. The fact this hasn't come sooner is the scary thing.
Because nobody is invading Israel. Nobody's declaring war.
The whole point of international law is to hold citizens of sovereign nations accountable, without having to go to war to achieve it.
Nobody has legal authority to go into Israel to seize Netanyahu. But now he knows that if he tries to travel to Europe, he will be seized upon entry. That's not war, that's simply apprehending someone who there is an arrest warrant out for.
War at its core is not a murder contest. You have to be strategic and you have to deal with the reality of trying to govern any conquered subjects which historically hasn't been very successful in the long term. In a globally connected world, you have to deal with the rest of the planet reacting to your actions.
That's not even touching on concepts like human rights and international law.
I generally agree with this take. The big problem with it is that the current and likely future israeli administrion(s) have as one of their largest goals the annexation of the west bank, not because of security but because they truly believe god gave them that land. IMO there is little reason to believe israelis will ever allow the palestinians full sovereignty in the west bank. So whats on the table for them in your situation? Probably giving up even more land in the west bank and the fear that israel can start a war to annex even more of it any time the israeli right wins an election. Which gets at the heart of the issue here, neither side has any reason to believe the other is negotiating in good faith, so negations can never really begin.
Ive spent a decent amount of time in Israel and my observation is that the prospect for peace is incredibly dim.
Are you asking why 5 million people don't just accept total subjugation to Israel and renounce all desire for self-determination as a nation? Let themselves be subjugated to permanent occupation and political persecution? All in all to a state that rejects Palestinian right to ever try Israelis for any and all crimes they do to them, including war crimes and crimes against humanity? (that's what even several EU states effectively argued before ICC, when challenging the jurisdiction of the court)
Israel claims there will be no Palestinian state ever, because it's a percieved threat to Israel security. Knesset resolution claiming that was passed this year. And by that, for Israelis that's poof "no self-determination for 5 mil. people". No loss for Israelis, I guess in that. They'll not even let them be citizens of Israel, because democracy doesn't mean much to Israel. Israel has to be a Jewish state, not like half Jewish half Arab and soon majority arab looking at demographic growth...
I don't know? Maybe they really don't want this, and don't know how to get out of that situation created by Jews and their European "allies" back in first half of last century in any other way.
And please don't tell me you're presuming Israel to be the innocent and honest party in all this.
Um. I would take the hand-wringing a little more seriously if it were not for the fact that Israeli army is not exactly known for being super adherent to rules of engagement you suggest[1]. Please do note that this is US media saying this, which is already doing what it can to cover for Israel with oh so familiar talking points.
<< To say that to attack them after they do that is to invite prosecution is risable.
Some of us do take issue with indiscriminately bombing a hospital to get one 'bad guy' or even ten 'bad guys'. Maybe it was more excusable when technology was less.. accurate, but it is very hard to argue that point when the country bombing said hospital is able to surgically explode pagers in Lebanon[2]. And Israel can't even take over a small enclave it almost completely cut off from the rest of the world?
That is risable. And all this after massive US support both in blood in treasury.
I’m sorry but this brazenly wrong and a form of propaganda; you need to provide evidence for your claims. Hamas-employed Gaza police shoot at gangs that rob the aid containers with the implicit protection of Israel. Many videos have been posted spuriously claiming without any evidence that the individuals highjackimg the aid “are Hamas” when all documented evidence points to the very opposite.
Just two days ago: Gangs looting Gaza aid operate in areas under Israeli control, aid groups say
“Officials said criminal looting has become the greatest impediment to distributing aid in the southern half of Gaza, home to the vast majority of displaced Palestinians. Armed bands of men have killed, beaten and kidnapped aid truck drivers in the area around Israel’s Kerem Shalom crossing, the main entry point into Gaza’s south, aid workers and transport companies said. The thieves, who have run cigarette-smuggling operations throughout this year but are now also stealing food and other supplies, are tied to local crime families, residents say. The gangs are described by observers as rivals of Hamas and, in some cases, they have been targeted by remnants of Hamas’s security forces in other parts of the enclave.”
‘An internal United Nations memo obtained by The Washington Post concluded last month that the gangs “may be benefiting from a passive if not active benevolence” or “protection” from the Israel Defense Forces. One gang leader, the memo said, established a “military like compound” in an area “restricted, controlled and patrolled by the IDF.”’
There's tons of it, plenty of mainstream media reported it while it was happening. If you choose not to believe it, that's because of your biases and no amount of hard evidence will sway you.
Also ask yourself, why has Egypt had a blockade against Gaza for longer than Israel?
> Netanyahu is viewed as the messiah of the Jewish people
I think there was a strong urge to portray him as the second coming of King David (the slayer of Goliath) after the assassinations of (other war criminals) Deif, Haniyeh, Nasrallah, Saifeddine, and Sinwar within 6 months of each other.
> something about rebuilding a temple in Jerusalem
No temple yet, but there's a valid religious claim should they choose to build one on the Rock. The main mosque is actually a few hundred meters removed from the Rock.
> until he achieves the eradication of the Palestinian people he will not rest
Think the political apparatus strives to control the demographics (for its own survival)? Eradication is one mechanism, but at 7 million Palestinians, they'd need to summon a World War esque scenario to pull it off. So, unlikely?
Numerous IDF soldiers and settlers have been photographed wearing or displaying the shape of Greater Israel - a plan to seize land and expand Israel into almost every one of its neighbors territories. Tim Walz even let slip in the debate that "expansion" was a key goal of US support.
To speak only to the factual claims and not any of your conclusions:
Biblical Israel did not include any part of Egypt, nor does it contain all of Lebanon.
It is concerning that you would claim this when the biblical map of Israel is a Google search away.
Speaking as someone within the Jewish community, absolutely no one views Netanyahu as the messiah. You will find all sorts and views that are for or against, but none that he is some messiah. (I'm sure you could find some 5 cranks who do; you could also find 5 Christian cranks who believe the earth is flat. In that case it would never even occur to you to say that Christians believe the earth is flat.)
The belief is that the temple will be rebuilt when the messiah comes. It has not, which is also something you could have googled.
There is a tiny segment who wishes to make that happen now. The overwhelming majority see this as something that will happen in messianic times, not an instruction manual for the present.
If you are this misinformed on points that are easily looked up I strongly suggest you seek information outside of whatever echo chamber you currently find yourself in.
Just to clarify - there is some technical correctness in this statement "Biblical Israel did not include any part of Egypt, nor does it contain all of Lebanon". I believe Genesis 15:18–21 says in "from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river [Euphrates]" (also see "map of Kingdom of King Solomon"). While this would suggest the "promised land" includes all the way to modern Iraq, it is true that most maps exclude the Phonecian areas around Tyre and Sidon. And the definition of "the wadi of Egypt" has been interpreted by some as the Nile, but I think this is mostly not believed. So it is most likely correct that "Biblical Israel does not contain ALL of Lebanon" and "did not include any part of Egypt", but this elides the fact that the Biblical narrative (not necessarily backed up by archeology) would extend into many neighboring countries.
[edit] To clarify - I do believe that some Israelis are motivated by a desire to occupy "Biblical Israel", but the parent comment is (a) ridiculous and (b) attributes way to many grand motivations for Netanyahu than I think are supported by evidence. (Compared to "savvy politician who says things to get votes for selfish reasons.")
So you want to say that the reason for _not_ doing this is: it will distract from the effort to stop the cleansing.
Would that be the same as saying that we shouldn't issue a warrant against a school shooter because it wouldn't stop the shooting? Would it distract from gun laws?
Maybe not the best analogy, but I know that I cannot say for certain whether it will negatively or positively affect the effort. It might positively affect if this makes (especially EU) countries put more pressure on Israel.
>It might positively affect if this makes (especially EU) countries put more pressure on Israel.
That would never happen. Israel is above any and all criticism, how do people not realize that by now?
Pressure, sanctions, whatever - nothing will actually happen. Likud can trot out the tired trope of antisemitism and any and all criticism, legitimate or not, is automatically waved away. Like it or not, that's objective reality.
Before the shills come in and accuse me of this or that, let me be clear: NO, I don't support Hamas, Likud, or any organization that supports the killing of innocent people. Israel has a right to exist and defend itself, Palestine has a right to exist and defend itself.
The guy is the Hamas leader who was killed recently? How would Israel get him? Special forces raid? He could hide anywhere in Gaza. And why would Israel want to do a decapitation instead of destroying the hostile organization? Even assuming Israel doesn't want to annex territory that seems like expecting the US to react to 9/11 by sending the Navy Seals after Bin Laden and stop it at that.
The Gaza invasion was never about the hostages. If Israel cared about the hostages they wouldn't have indiscriminately bombed the entire territory. The hostages are dead, and demanding the impossible return of people they killed is simply a pretext:
They want land expansion and the total ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Look up 'Greater Israel'. Tim Walz accidentally let it slip during a debate that this is the goal of the US empires support.
Hmm. It is a weird conversation for me. Since I am not part of the conflict, as the outsider I believe I see some of the game played. Still, I do not want to spend too much energy on this since I am not sure I understand how you perceive things.
I think you are wrong, but you are wrong by equating Netanyahu and Israel. It is useful for the former. It would be hard to convince me it is useful for the latter. And then, even assuming tada part is uncontested ( not impossible in current configuration ), how exactly do you see this play out?
How about the Hamas leaders living in Turkey? They were just kicked out of Qatar, and being in (semi-)European Turkey should be easier to arrest, no? Remember, these Hamas leaders in Turkey actually, really, call for explicit genocide - and carry out their actions.
(before you jump into discussion, remember that this only about these two individuals)
ICC and the prosecutor are on very solid ground here.
The prosecutor asked opinions from a impartial panel of experts in international law. The panel included people like Theodor Meron (former Legal adviser for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Helene Kennedy, Adrian Fulford.
Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant provided plenty of evidence of the intent. Did they really think that when they talk Hebrew to their audience, rest of the world does not hear them. Case like this would be harder to prosecute without evidence of intent.
Also important to note that Khan, who filed the warrant requests, was one of Israel’s preferred appointees to the ICC as chief prosecutor.
Why would it be preferred or not? Israel is not an ICC member.
One can express a preference without having the right to participate in the selection.
Quite a few non-US citizens express a preference on who wins the Presidency, for example.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/uks-karim-khan-elected-next-ic...
> Israel’s Kan public broadcaster reported that Israeli officials supported Khan’s candidacy behind the scenes, and consider him a pragmatist who shies away from politicization.
Also note that the US imposed heavy sanctions on Ethopia and Eritrea’s entire government party, head of state, spouses and businesses under the exact same observations of provoking famine and starvation
EO 14046
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You can literally go on social media and see first-hand videos of the things happening in real-time there for yourself.
I would like to see the same standard applied by the US, or demonstrate that the US has far more options than its tacit consent, I would like the US to be completely uninvolved, and point out how the US’ leverage in the situation doesn’t involve Congress just the stroke of a pen from any President, leading the Office of Foreign Assets Control
since it would simultaneously be “anti-Semitic” to do this or avoid doing this by assuming cutting Israelis off from the global financial system to be uniquely debilitating, we could find out which view has a kernel of truth attached, and it shouldn’t be a problem at all
If you do speak Hebrew, you would know that Netanyahu and Gallant have been heavily attacked by the extreme right specifically because they have been refusing to cut off food.
> Gallant provided plenty of evidence of the intent. Did they really think that when they talk Hebrew to their audience, rest of the world does not hear them.
Absolutely, I can not find the BBC or most other major news networks broadcasting and translating any of that.
I only see that on social media
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> Did they really think that when they talk Hebrew to their audience, rest of the world does not hear them. Case like this would be harder to prosecute without evidence of intent.
What are you talking about here? Link?
He referred to Palestinians as Amalek.
Since there are not many Hebrew books written over the centuries (for obvious reasons), modern literature is heavily relying on religious texts for metaphors and analogues.
Calling someone Amalek is a call for genocide.
Erm. No? The Amalekites are “just” the enemies of Israel.
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My question, though, is does pushing these kinds of toothless resolutions make any difference beyond showing that the ICC essentially has no power to enforce its warrants?
It's clear that the most powerful militaries in the world (US, Russia, essentially China too) have declared the "rules-based world order" dead. Does it do anyone any good to pretend this hasn't happened? It reminded me of the post Elizabeth Warren put out complaining that Trump was breaking the law because he didn't sign some ethics pledge: https://x.com/SenWarren/status/1856046118322188573. I couldn't help but roll my eyes. All Warren was doing was showing how pointless these laws are when there are no consequences for breaking them.
The rules-based world order was always a bit of convenient fiction, but I'm afraid it's a fiction that a large part of the world no longer believes in anymore.
> My question, though, is does pushing these kinds of toothless resolutions make any difference beyond showing that the ICC essentially has no power to enforce its warrants?
Absolutely this matters.
This effectively limits where Netanyahu and Gallant can travel to. That's a big deal for a head of state. It sends a signal to all of Europe to be wary of doing business with Israel, which is a big deal.
We also don't know if there are any hidden warrants for other Israelis, and more importantly, if this is a precedent for future warrants. If the court starts issuing warrants for other IDF military personnel, that becomes a huge negative for Israelis.
At some point Netanyahu will be out of power. He's been voted out of office before. He's in trouble politically. He promised a short, victorious war over Gaza, and got into a long major war against Iran and more countries instead. The next government might decide to turn him over to the ICC simply to get him off the political stage.
> We also don't know if there are any hidden warrants for other Israelis
Honest question, are "hidden" warrants a thing at the ICC? Seems like it would be difficult, as the ICC doesn't have an enforcement arm of its own, so I would think warrant information would need to be circulated to all the treaty signers, at which case it would be pretty impossible to keep hidden. I tried searching but couldn't find anything - all the results were just about this Netanyahu situation.
What this really does is remove the ICC's authority.
It's one of those things -- if you make up rules and then can't enforce them, pretty soon no one cares what you say about anything.
> It sends a signal to all of Europe to be wary of doing business with Israel, which is a big deal.
They can resume business once Netanyahu is gone.
In fact Viktor Orban has already invited him to Hungary to the dismay of EU officials. His plane would need permission to fly in other countries' airspace anyway so it would be qiite a risky stunt.
I'd argue that the "rules-based world order" as most people perceive it never really existed. Some will say that it existed for a brief moment in the 90s-2000s. Back then, most countries played nice with the international treaties even if there were no penalties for noncompliance, right? No - it just appeared that way. The 90s and 2000s were a unipolar world, the peak of the American Empire, and America made it eminently clear what would happen if you didn't get in line. If you're a small irrelevant country you would comply with the Treaty on Migratory Slugs or the Convention on Widgets not because of any written penalties, but because to not comply would be to reject the single world power and bear its wrath.
Now we're back to the state of the world as it has always been - multipolar - and it has once more become obvious that things only matter when backed up by force, leverage, and incentives. Look at things with teeth behind them - NATO borders, export controls and ASML, artificial islands in the South China Sea, control of Hong Kong, Russia in Syria or any of the other treaties with military bases. There are papers and laws and declarations on both sides of all of those things, but real-world control always follows force, leverage and incentives.
Some will say that it existed for a brief moment in the 90s-2000s.
So were the Nuremberg Trials not an instance of the RBWO?
(And all the UN mediations in e.g. Palestine, Korea, etc. from its very founding)
> I'd argue that the "rules-based world order" as most people perceive it never really existed. Some will say that it existed for a brief moment in the 90s-2000s. Back then, most countries played nice with the international treaties even if there were no penalties for noncompliance
The utter disrespect for the CFE treaty during that period is exactly what got us the Ukraine war right now.
"It's clear that the most powerful militaries in the world (US, Russia, essentially China too) have declared the "rules-based world order" dead."
Correct, and that's what happened only about a decade after WWI—the War to End All Wars and look what happened.
I'm fearful history might repeat itself. It has a bad habit of doing so and often with unexpected twists.
Justice has to be declared as an essential principle of human organisation.
If the 1984 vision of a boot stamping on a human face forever is going to work out to be true, then so be it.
The ICJ is at least holding out against that future.
What will you (as a human) choose to do?
These days and years are going to be definitional I think.
Netanyahu and Gallant will no longer be able to travel to Europe, and likely will not want to fly over Europe either (thus not to the US either).
If they just wanted to hop on a regular commercial flight to the US that might be a problem, but I'd expect they would fly on military aircraft.
Instead of taking the most direct route which would fly over Europe they could stay over the Mediterranean until they reach the Atlantic and then head straight to the US.
That adds about 500 miles or so to the trip which probably isn't a big deal on a trip that long.
Presumably if they get invited to Europe it will be with assurance from the state that nothing happens to them. And traveling uninvited is probably a bad move anyway. So not much difference.
If you mean to imply that Europe is somehow going to shoot down their planes if they fly over that’s obviously absurd.
Why not the US?
The aren't signatories to the ICC.
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Should Russia’s military really be included among the most powerful in the world? They haven’t been able to defeat Ukraine which is much smaller and weaker. On paper Russia is a dominant military power but in reality their equipment is poorly maintained, their training seems limited, and the leadership full of nepotism or incompetence.
China likely has a much better army, but it’s hard to say without a large scale conflict. Hopefully we won’t find out.
Lots of things that have a real effect in the world are a convenient fiction. The fact that most people on the planet believe that the small paper rectangles printed by the US government have some value, is a consensual belief simultaneously held but no less a fiction.
The rules based order of the world was once something people believed in, and therefore expected others to conform to. Until they didn’t (for lots of reasons all of which cumulatively perturbed the system such that it’s flipped from a stable state and into a meta-stable state).
There are a finite amount of the small paper rectangles available (yes the supply is increasing, but it is finite at any moment) AND these small paper rectangles are required in order for US residents/citizens that earn income in any currency in order to stay out of prison. So, in other words, not a fiction.
> have declared the "rules-based world order" dead
I have hunker are confusing two things here - there is international law, which the US and other delinquents break regularly.
And there is Rules based world order, which is what US talks about and attempts to impose.
For example imposing sanctions on Russia does not have basis in international law, but is part of ‘rules based order’
There is no such thing as "international law" in the way you use the term.
There are treaties that countries either sign or do not sign. The US isn't breaking treaties it has signed, at least not in the general case.
For example imposing sanctions on Russia does not have basis in international law,
Of course it does.
Every country is free to choose which countries it does business with.
The rules-based order was always a fiction; international law is a tool used solely against America’s enemies.
This arrest warrant could be executed in a day if the US would stop supporting this genocide, but that won’t happen. They will sooner invite Netanyahu back to the UN to order more air strikes on refugees.
the warrant is not for genocide, you did not even read it, did you?
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The standard isn't harm, it's war crimes. There is clear evidence that Israel deliberately withheld food and medicine from civilians in a calculated manner, which is a war crime that no one is alleging in the fight against ISIS.
There was never a 'rules-based world order'. We live purely in Pax Americana and every government exists at the pleasure of the United States. If the US wanted to, and if it did it correctly, it could easily conquer most countries. Afghanistan happened because America lost the will, not the ability. Had America gone the normal colonial route, Afghanistan would look a lot different today.
The UK at their peak and also Russia, twice, tried the "normal colonial route" in Afghanistan..
> If the US wanted to, and if it did it correctly, it could easily conquer most countries.
It could possibly conquer many countries by largely destroying them as was done to Germany and Japan, but since the US is a democracy and a sizable portion of its people have morals and aren't sociopaths, it's politically impossible to fight a war this way in the modern era without some kind of extreme provocation. Even immediately after 9/11, I think most Americans would not have signed on to a campaign of total war in Afghanistan with multiple millions dead.
And even back when America did pretty well take the gloves off, doing nearly everything it could short of nuclear weapons in Korea and Vietnam, it still couldn't win. So I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that any decent-sized country could be conquered easily even if the 'will' was there.
<< There was never a 'rules-based world order'. We live purely in Pax Americana and every government exists at the pleasure of the United States.
Yes. However, Pax Americana did, at least initially, at least give semblance of established rules working. Now even that pretense is gone.
<< Afghanistan happened because America lost the will, not the ability. Had America gone the normal colonial route, Afghanistan would look a lot different today.
Eh. No. I am not sure where the concept this weird concept of 'bombing them to nothing did not help; we probably need to bomb them some more' comes from. I accept your premise that some of it is the question of will, but you have to admit that two decades with nothing to show for it is not.. great.
I mean, nobody really knows until the trial (if one ever happens). Its easy to be convincing when you are just listening to the prosecution - it gets harder once the defense has the opportunity to poke holes.
Keep in mind the conviction rate at ICC is pretty low.
> The prosecutor asked opinions from a impartial panel of experts in international law.
The court already disagreed with said panel on one of the charges (crime of extermination) and we aren't even at the stage yet where they need proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Netanyahu and Gallant should certainly be quite worried (if they somehow find themselves in icc custody which seems unlikely) but we are still very far away from a conviction. Its not a foregone conclusion.
The outcome of this case will be hard to predict, but Netanyahu and Gallant did their best to get convicted.
Your dark humor made me chuckle. Thanks for that in this dire world.
May the persecution of all innocent Jews, Palestinians, Ukrainians, and Africans (e.g. Ugandans) end and a world of peace and justice be established, for one and all.
> Keep in mind the conviction rate at ICC is pretty low.
My understanding is that's because it's usually difficult to show intent. However, in this case, not only do we have an incredible amount of video evidence of war crimes, but we also have a huge catalogue of Israeli politicians explicitly calling for the genocide of Gaza.
My biggest concern over this is what the US and/or Mossad will do...
Usually when people say that they are talking about genocide. War crimes and crimes against humanity may have some intent requirements but they don't have the double intent that genocide has, which is the part that is super difficult to prove.
To over simplify (also ianal) with genocide you basically have to prove that the only possible rationale for the action was to try and destroy the protected group and that there is no other plausible explanation. With normal war crimes its more just proving the act wasn't done accidentally. [This is a gross oversimplification]
> but we also have a huge catalogue of Israeli politicians explicitly calling for the genocide of Gaza.
I don't think that is relavent here, as genocide is not one of the charges. Additionally, that would probably be more relavent to state responsibility for genocide (what the icj decides) and not personal responsibility (what icc has juridsication over). Even for state responsibility, its a bit iffy how much those statements matter if they aren't said by people who have the power to issue orders to the military (they of course matter a lot if the charge is failing to suppress incitement of genocide). I'm not saying its totally irrelavent, it is probably a bit relavent to the prosecution charge, but largely it matters more what the individuals themselves have said as they are being charged in an individual capacity not as agents of the state.
Basically the ICC and ICJ are different and what you are saying is more applicable to the ICJ case not the ICC case.
I think they only need to show intent if they are being charged with genocide, however, I think in this case they are being charged with using starvation as a weapon, hindering aid, and targeting hospitals. I think the recommendation also included extermination, which is similar to genocide, but also does not require intent, but I think the voted against that.
I think the evidence for the charges which were actually brought forward are pretty strong. I mean we have Gallant on video stating explicitly a policy of starvation, a policy which we have been seeing in action, also on video.
> but we also have a huge catalogue of Israeli politicians explicitly calling for the genocide of Gaza.
There was even a database set to track this large number of genocide calls. See https://law4palestine.org/law-for-palestine-releases-databas...
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> However, in this case, not only do we have an incredible amount of video evidence of war crimes, but we also have a huge catalogue of Israeli politicians explicitly calling for the genocide of Gaza.
I disagree that there is an incredible amount of video evidence of war crimes that are relevant here.
And I also disagree that there is a huge catalogue of Netanyahu and Gallant making statements that show intent. For the purposes of these warrants, it doesn't matter what other Israeli politicians have said as I understand it.
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ICC have those guns, which Netanyahu will experience if he steps foot in a country that follows ICC decisions.
> Did they really think that when they talk Hebrew to their audience, rest of the world does not hear them.
When it comes to US public opinion, that's normally the way it works.
Thanks to our media and politicians.
And in turn, thanks to orgs like AIPAC.
People without media and politicians are not that much better.
... where the combination of their and the public's willful ignorance results in much needless suffering.
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Israel was massively radicalized by October 7th. Prior to October 7th, a lot of Israelis believed that if Palestinians had a better economy and could afford a comfortable life, peace would be possible. October 7th was not just a surprise to many Israelis, but also the atrocities were so horrible that it radically changed how Israelis view the situation. This is hard to grasp, but a lot of people don't really understand what happened on October 7th, because this was stuff was obviously not shown on mainstream media.
The entire situation is very tragic. But ultimately, October 7th killed any chance for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, for a long long time. The current population in Israel will never forget October 7th, there are some seriously cannot-be-unseen NSFL atrocities.
I don't necessarily think you're wrong, but drawing any conclusions from random people on Twitter seems like a mistake. They might not be human, they might not be Israeli, and they might not be representative of Israel's 9 million people. I wouldn't want anybody to judge me based on how English-speaking Twitter accounts behave.
In fairness to Israel, they have a peace movement and human rights movement and so on. It’s just that even before October 7th, they were getting increasingly outnumbered.
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> We will target all of Hamas's positions. We will turn Gaza into a deserted island.
The fact, the Gaza part is a separate sentence is telling.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/7/world-is-watching-f...
> You have an opportunity to save Lebanon before it falls into the abyss of a long war that will lead to destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza.
Is what he said to Lebanon, where he threatened to do similar things to another country.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly3x1w0595o
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The war is against Hamas not against Palestinians
Of course it's not against the Palestinians, per se.
It's a war against their continued presence on portions of Greater Israel that his party and his people would like to further colonize.
There's also the current operation involving his former "asset" and strategic partner, Hamas. With whom it seems he's had a falling out of sorts, and as a result, his people got massacred. But that's just a sideshow against the backdrop of this far broader, deeper, decades-long conflict.
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It's not serious to dismiss the allegations by just saying
> If Israel had intended to not supply any food or water to the Palestinians [...] the bottom line is they did not do so.
because several heavyweight international humanitarian organizations say that they did.
Even the US government implies this when they tell Israel to open border crossings or get cut off from military aid.
It's not serious to suggest that Israel did not supply any food or water to the Palestinians when in fact it supplied plenty. Why didn't Egypt supply food and water to the Palestinians? (Before Israel took the border corridor).
What other war can you provide me as an example where a the opposing side provided supplies to its enemy? Does Russia supply Ukraine with food and water? Does Ukraine supply Russia? Did the allies supply the citizens of the Islamic State with food and water? Yes- The Gazans depended on Israel in many ways before they started this war, most of them by their own choice. Did the Germans deliver food and water to the UK during WW-II? Do the Turkish give the Kurds food and water as they bomb them? If the government of Gaza, Hamas, has stocks of food and water, and it does not disburse those to the population, and even steals aid from the population, why is this Israel's problem?
Those organizations you're referring to are anti-Israeli and their statements are political.
The US, who has closer knowledge of what's going on on the ground, says Israel has not committed war crimes.
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For context, this is only possible because the state of Palestine pushed hard and persisted for years to become an ICC member and thus give the ICC jurisdiction over crimes committed on Palestinian territory, whether by Israel or by Palestinian factions. The USA is still mad at them for doing it.
The full account is worth reading, it includes considerations by the various resistance factions that they’d also be subject to ICC jurisdiction and realized threats of punitive measures by the USA and Israel if they continued to push for ICC membership: https://palepedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Court%27s_...
And in that time, Israel spied, hacked and intimidated ICC officials. They knew recognition of Palestinian rights would open the door to criminal cases like this, so they’ve been working for almost a decade to discredit the International Criminal Court.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/28/spying...
> state of Palestine pushed hard and persisted for years to become an ICC member
good for them; is there some reason they shouldn't have?
Absolutely not; in fact, I was commending them for it.
Now do Tibet.
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It's a country that was stolen, gutted and defaced when Israel was created. So yeah, i'm not surprised people like you still think Palestine is not a state...
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The scale of torture and killing perpetrated by the IDF and illegal settlers inside Palestinian territory is several orders of magnitude larger, and the right of an occupied people to resist violently is protected by international law.
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And Israel has proven it doesn't either. Not sure what the point is here?
> For context, this is only possible because the state of Palestine pushed hard and persisted for years to become an ICC member and thus give the ICC jurisdiction over crimes committed on Palestinian territory, whether by Israel or by Palestinian factions. The USA is still mad at them for doing it.
That sounds biased.
Why -shouldn't- Palestine be able to be a member of the ICC? Your verbiage makes it sounds like they basically bullied the ICC into membership.
And frankly, so what if the US is still mad at them for it? The US won't join organizations like this because it'd rather protect people like Kissinger who openly committed war crimes (and wants the freedom to be able to do whatever it wants, wherever, without consequence).
I think the GP intended to congratulate the Palestinians for their digged resilience in pursuing this, despite the extraordinary opposition they faced. I think they were using this language specifically to suggest how hard the fight was, not to imply that it was a bad thing.
You are correct. But given the normal position people take when it comes to Palestine, I don’t blame GP for misinterpreting! :)
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The whole "The Muslims/Muslim countries won't do X, and therefore why should we?" argument is funny and depressing to me. Why won't they do X? Because maybe in your mind you think they're savages/less civilized. Less, that is, compared to you/your community's (in whatever scale: nation, race, hemisphere). But if you're saying "If they don't do X, we can behave the same", isn't that a call for you/your community to abandon your civilization and embrace the "equal" savagery?
How is it a winning argument? "In our eyes we're civilized and they're savages, and if they don't act civilized we're also free to abandon or civilized ways and act the way we condemn...".
>Because maybe in your mind you think they're savages/less civilized.
No, rather because they want to use the international law to their advantage, not to their detriment.
I think the whole civilized/uncivilized spectrum is just “who has bigger gun” contest.
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Yes, the PA has stated that they would comply with the ICC
The New York Times and Haaretz reported in the summer and autumn of last year (just prior to the current flareup), Netanyahu had sent the Mossad head to Qatar in order to convince them to send money to prop up the Hamas government in Gaza. As Netanyahu said publicly in 2012, he wanted Hamas strong and the Palestinian Authority and Fatah weak, as the PA was pursuing measures at the United Nations.
You're pointing the finger at the State of Palestine and "any Muslim country", when the real supporters of Hamas for years has been Israel and Netanyahu.
Those were ostensibly aid funds; it's not as if Qatar was sending rockets. Do you think Israel should block such aid?
> You're pointing the finger at the State of Palestine and "any Muslim country", when the real supporters of Hamas for years has been Israel and Netanyahu.
You said true things before about Netanyahu propping up Hamas, and he certainly has a lot to answer for.
But you then went way too far in this statement. The "real supporters" or Hamas are not the Israelis or Netanyahu. They existed before Netanyahu, and they're armed and funded to massive degrees by Iran. And while Netanyahu certainly had a certain symbiosis with Hamas, and used them to weaken the PA, Hamas is its own organization; the diversion of the funds that Netanyahu helped secure them to creating the October 7th attack was certainly not anyone's desire except Hamas's own.
Yes. The PA is controlled by a party that staged a coup when Hamas won an election in Gaza and has been able to prevent elections since 2006.
This doesn't serve as evidence that the PA would be willing to arrest Hamas members.
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> Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in the southern Levant region of West Asia recognized by 146 out of 193 UN member states.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Palestine
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"The Chamber therefore found reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant bear criminal responsibility for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare."
Whats perhaps interesting to note is that this charge was made for "just" 41 [1] confirmed starvation deaths among a population of 2,141,643 people [2].
Of course every death caused by intentional starvation is a severe crime and must be punished, but in the context of the victim numbers that most past crimes against humanity have had, it sets a relatively low new bar.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Strip_famine
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Strip
This is common and expected. Even when a serial killer suspected of 20 murder is apprehended, arrest is often made based on one or two confirmed cases, more charges are later added as investigation deepens.
Also, keep in mind foreign journalists are completely banned by Israel from entering Gaza- complicating evidence gathering.
This is not how the ICC conducts its investigations. The "41+" figure is from a Wikipedia article that is undergoing an edit war. The very source it is citing actually says 63k
As I understand it 41 is the number of starvations recorded in hospitals. 63k is a highly theoretical "estimate" based on the IPC scale and data from food insecurity in other parts of the world. It seems absurd on its face, since it would imply that an absurdly small fraction of starvations were recorded in hospitals.
Israel does take selected journalists into Gaza on trips organised by the military. The issue is that journalists cannot make themselves an independent picture of the situation in Gaza.
The Gaza ministry that would have counted the deaths was also destroyed several months ago, which is why news media have been reporting the same death total of 40,000 for several months.
This is wrong. They are still reporting daily deaths counts, that counts have been going up. The Grauniad is good about collecting the reports (but bad about other unrelated things).
I was wondering about this. Thanks for the info. Got any links where I can read more?
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How do they enter now? An American journalist was jailed in Israel as well for a video showing the Iranian missiles struck near military targets and Mossad headquarters, where the official line was they were targeting civilians.
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What is it?
Given that the accused is currently in control of the crime scene, it's not surprising that the prosecution chose to prioritise the crimes that are easiest to prove.
The ICC does not state only 41 deaths ocurred. GP is pulling that number from an unrelated Wikipedia article that is undergoing an edit war. It went from "63k" to "41+". None of the commentors here justifying the low number realize its completely made up and unrelated to the ICC
Same reason an warrant on Putin was issued over the official children "adoption" program.
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Alternate explanation: the ICC isn't making up the charges and Israel did commit war crimes and conceal them.
It's the ICC accusing Israel of war crimes.
That’s the whole point of the Geneva convention is that wars cannot be won by any means.
"confirmed" data from Gaza at the moment is unreliable. The people who were doing the counting have either been killed or cleansed from the area. The official death toll is still around 40k despite the reality being closer to 100-200k.
Regardless, total deaths don't matter, only deaths that were the result of crimes matter, in this context.
Some of those deaths are going to be legal targets killed during combat, which is not evidence of a war crime. You have to split things out for the numbers to mean anything.
But the problem is that Israel's style of warfare is (intentionally or not) blurring the distinction between those numbers, by using methods of combat that have exceptionally high rates of collateral damage.
The most extreme instances of this are the deliberate withholding of aid, both in the "total siege" in the beginning of the war, as well as operations like now in the north.
You might hit a lot of legitimate targets with this, but it's also guaranteed you will impact all the civilians in the area.
Generally, in this entire war (and also long before), Israel is far too quick with the "Human shields"/"collateral damage" argument to my liking, and using it as an excuse to basically disregard considerations for civilians at all.
(It's also instructive to see how different the hostages and palestinian civilians are treated in IDF considerations, despite both groups technically being "human shields")
The ICC doesn't claim 41 deaths were the result of war crimes. That claim is made by an irrelevant Wikipedia article that is undergoing an edit war. It was recently switched from "62,413 conservative estimate" to "41+"
ICC doesn't claim how many deaths are due to war crimes. GP is purposefully sowing misinformation
GP is not citing the ICC. The ICC never claims 41 deaths are confirmed. GP is citing a Wikipedia article which is undergoing an edit war. The Wikipedia page had cited 62,413 deaths and then was switched to a pro-Israel source that instead says "41+"
ICC never claimed only 41 deaths were confirmed
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>unless something is documented in a very specific gate-keeper approved way
Using strict process and critical methodology is the only want to approximate truth.
> observable reality right before our own eyes.
We don't observe reality correctly with our eyes. We (including you and me) are naked monkeys. Petty, vindictive, and biased. Palestinians and Israeli Jews are just like us but live in a cesspool of religion, anger and violent history.
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Pretty sure even Israel has said the Gaza health ministry’s numbers are usually correct. They have also been found to be generally correct in the past.
Lastly the lower death count is the official health ministry number but the higher estimates are from others, e.g. The Lancet.
This isn't a claim you can drop without some very convincing source.
source?
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This is completely false. Gaza Health Ministry provides the most accurate data. You could also just go on X or TikTok and see dozens of Palestinians murdered by the IDF every single day.
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> Gaza Health Ministry is an unreliable source
There is no reason to doubt their numbers other than Israel says so. All reputable sources have found their numbers to be historically accurate.
If foreign journalists could report from there we would have more reliable sources.
Why don’t we have reliable sources?
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If you think the "confirmed" data is unreliable, what makes you think you know the "real" number? How is your number any more reliable?
> Whats perhaps interesting to note is that this charge was made for "just" 41 [1] confirmed starvation deaths among a population of 2,141,643 people [2].
IANAL but this is probably incorrect i think - the starvation charge is related to allegations of intentionally restricting neccesities of life. Whether anyone dies as a result is irrelavent to that charge. The murder charge is for the people who actually allegedly died as a result (of the starvation that is. To be clear, the death has to illegal for it to be the war crime of murder. Normal combat death is not murder).
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“No one in the world will allow us to starve 2 million people, even though it might be justified and moral in order to free the hostages.” Bezalel Smotrich
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/08/israel...
> Researchers at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University estimated deaths from starvation to be 62,413 between October 2023 and September 2024.
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If you’re looking for death estimates there are other sources. The Lancet estimated 160K (at least IIRC) a month or two ago.
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> but in the context of the victim numbers that most past crimes against humanity have had, it sets a relatively low new bar.
Which context is this? If you mean the context of past ICC indictments that isn't true. There are multiple other examples of people indicted for specific acts that resulted in the deaths of a 2 digit numbers of people.
The bar for "war crimes" or "crimes against humanity" isn't the number of people you kill. Though in this case, plenty have been killed, this case is about what can be proved conclusively ebough given who it is against.
We can compare the rate to countries in more.. stable situations[0]. They'll have a very difficult time getting anywhere with that rate. But we'll see. The world would be better off with all these individuals having no power at all.
[0] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/starvatio...
Starvation vs starvation to death are different things.
War crime of starvation was directed against 2.3 million people without distinction, incl. ~1 million children. I'd say that's bad enough.
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This comment is just pure misinformation. Nobody is claiming only 41 deaths.
You're citing an irrelevant Wikipedia page as a source that has a crazy edit history going back and forth between "41+" and "62,413 conservative estimated" deaths
What’s the threshold for war crimes?
The crimes have a definition with requisite elements in the rome statue.
While many of them do require a certain gravity, viewing international crimes like a more serious version of a normal crime is probably the wrong way of doing it. Some war crimes do not require anyone to die. In other cases thousands could die and it wouldn't be a war crime or crime against humanity because the elements aren't met.
In particular, starvation doesn't require anyone to have died, and it covers more things than just food. Keep in mind its a relatively new crime in international law, it was only made illegal in 1977 (for example during ww2, the nuremburg trials explicitly ruled that sieges were legal). As far as i know nobody has ever been persecuted for it, so the case law doesn't exist, so its a bit unknown.
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1. Israel de facto controls the Rafah border.
2. Due to (1), and clear & consistent messaging by Israeli officials on Gaza resettlement as a goal, Egypt understands that “temporary” refugees will be unable to return - i.e., a repeat of 1948 and 1967.
Both sides are using the border as a bargaining chip. Both sides are complicit.
I don't think Israel controlled the Rafah border in the start of the war which is when they made their declaration of not allowing aid.
If the US, or any European country, started letting Palestinian refugees in en masse, a lot of them would manage to get there. Egypt’s culpability here is the most salient because they’re physically closest; but I don’t see how that makes the country uniquely culpable for failing to prevent a preventable situation.
Genuine question, how would they go out?
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I for one think it's good that countries don't constantly meddle in the domestic affairs of their neighbors.
Yes this is cherry-picking but consciously so, to point out the absurdity of the premise.
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> The Chamber issued warrants of arrest for two individuals, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu and Mr Yoav Gallant, for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed from at least 8 October 2023 until at least 20 May 2024
And things got much worse in the latter part of 2024. Even if the court didn't take into account facts after 20 May 2024, ample evidence already existing by then was already enough to issue the warrants. When it takes more evidence into account I bet more warrants will be issued.
It is incredibly likely another series of warrants will be issued for the next level down of both Israeli and Hamas leadership.
It is too bad Lebanon didn't ratify the ICC treaty. They really should have.
It is indeed ridiculous that Lebanon didn’t join the ICC, one has to imagine that Hezbollah played a role in that decision. Which is funny because all the Palestinian resistance factions actually pushed for ICC jurisdiction to the extent that they called for it to apply to them and Israel equally! The hoops the Palestinians had to jump through to join the ICC were crazy, including (reified) threats of heavy punishments from the US if they did.
Here’s the full story if anyone is interested: https://palepedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Court%27s_...
Actually, most reports are that the US is the one that pressured Lebanon not to join the ICC, to prevent the ICC from having jursidiction over warcrimes the IDF comits in Lebanon/
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I would totally get behind ICC charges against Hezbollah. Bad actors need consequences.
> The Chamber also noted that decisions allowing or increasing humanitarian assistance into Gaza were often conditional. They were not made to fulfil Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law or to ensure that the civilian population in Gaza would be adequately supplied with goods in need. In fact, they were a response to the pressure of the international community or requests by the United States of America. In any event, the increases in humanitarian assistance were not sufficient to improve the population’s access to essential goods.
I don't understand why this would matter. Does it matter the rationale for increasing aid? I would think the only thing that should matter would be weather the aid was sufficient or not. (I appreciate in the end icc pretrial felt it wasn't enough , but i think that is the only thing that should matter)
Like if someone is accused of murder, but doesn't because a friend told them not to, we don't throw them in jail because they decided not to murder for the wrong reasons.
I think it does matter, because it's another indicator for intent.
If the starvation is a "simple" side-effect of the combat situation, but you're working actively to alleviate it on your own volition (by doing your best to let in aid organizations, etc) then it's obvious to see there is no intent to it.
If, on the other hand, you have to be pressured by the international community, including your closest allies for every tiny step in the direction of letting in aid, and you will immediately jump two steps back as soon as the pressure eases slightly, then it can be inferred that you really really want the starvation to happen and your only problem with the situation is getting away with it.
(Not even starting with all the government officials who spelled out the whole intent explicitly in public, documented quotes)
> Like if someone is accused of murder, but doesn't because a friend told them not to, we don't throw them in jail because they decided not to murder for the wrong reasons.
The problem is that the murder is happening here and the friend is trying - badly - to convince the person to pull out the knife.
Israel was expected, under international law, to unconditionally allow aid for the civilians. Israel used it as a bargaining chip, effectively holding civilians hostage.
This doesn't seem to match what the ICC is saying. I don't see anywhere that the icc accused Israel of using aid as a bargaining chip.
From the announcement:
>decisions allowing or increasing humanitarian assistance into Gaza were often conditional.
I may be misinterpreting legal jargon, but "conditional" implies Israel often didn't want to allow humanitarian assistance unless Israel received something. This isn't allowed under international law. Relevant excerpt from the announcement:
>This finding is based on the role of Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant in impeding humanitarian aid in violation of international humanitarian law and their failure to facilitate relief by all means at its disposal.
Parties to conflict are expected to facilitate aid, not just allow it, and definitely not set conditions.
The rationale for supplying aid might not matter when the aid is sufficient. Although, coercive aid might still be a problem; I'm unfamiliar with international law on this.
But when aid is not sufficient, I think rationale/intent makes more of a difference. If you're doing it for the right reasons and putting in a good effort, sufficiency may not be acheivable and it may not be right to charge you with not acheiving it. If you're only doing it to keep your friends happy, and it's insufficient, maybe there was more you could have done.
The word intent is oftentimes used in The judicial system to measure culpability and punishment:
whether somebody accidentally stabbed a person 90 times or intentionally stabbed the person 90 times, for instance, is captured via the concept of intent.
> Like if someone is accused of murder, but doesn't because a friend told them not to, we don't throw them in jail because they decided not to murder for the wrong reasons.
If they did not carry out any action then this holds true. But there were actions carried out that amounts to assault and attempted murder.
Even still,in this analogy, the rationale for why they chose not to murder wouldn't really speak to their intent in relation to other crimes.
Like if someone assualted someone but did not murder them because a friend asked them not to, we treat that exactly the same as if they assualted them but stopped before murdering because they thought murder was wrong.
> Like if someone is accused of murder,
This analogy has issues.
Topic is war. As far as international law is concerned, it’s “ok” to shoot people, blow them up and maim them.
I would propose analogy from a contact sport like mma (or the movie “purge”).
Bad things, that usually are forbidden, are allowed and even expected to be done in the event. Rules just add some restriction on how and why.
>In his first response to the ICC issuing a warrant for his arrest on allegations of war crimes, Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has described the ruling as “absurd and false lies” and said the decision is “antisemitic.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/nov/21/internati...
If Netanyahu and Gallant really think they are innocent, and the allegations are absurd and false, they should cooperate with the ICC. Have your day in court and show how absurd the accusations are. If you're not willing to do that, it seems reasonable for the public to draw a proverbial negative inference.
You are assuming the court isn't a political thing that is trying to get him regardless of evidence. The court is at least partially political, and Netanyahu will tell you this is entirely political and he wouldn't get a fair trail.
Courts are political entities but this is one that Israel chose to accept and recognize the authority of. It has a history of being very transparent in its decisions and is widely recognized as being neutral and fair in their decision making process.
Of course the person charged and found guilty of a crime will argue against the court. Disagreement, even if valid, doesn't change the recognized authority of this court even if the "teeth" are extremely limited.
> Courts are political entities but this is one that Israel chose to accept
For what it’s worth, Israel signed the Rome Statute establishing the court in 2000 but declared in 2002 it no longer intends to ratify it[1]. (Which, I guess, is marginally better than the US, which has threatened The Hague with military invasion in case any arrests are made[2]. But not by much.) TFA specifically points out that “States are not entitled to challenge the Court’s jurisdiction under article 19(2) prior to the issuance of a warrant of arrest.”
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States_parties_to_the_Rome_Sta...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pr...
Israel don't recognize the authority of the International Criminal Court. Palestine, however, does, and therefore the ICC consider these allegations within their jurisdiction. A relevant point is that the UK (under the previous Conservative party government) requested the opportunity to dispute the allegations of war crimes based on this complication, but the new British government did not choose to continue with the objection. No other countries have made objections.
> Courts are political entities but this is one that Israel chose to accept and recognize the authority of
As far as i am aware, this is a false statement. Israel has been opposed to the ICC since its inception (originally because the first version had a judge selection mechanism they thought was biased against them, although i am sure there are other reasons they object, especially relating to their settlements).
Perhaps you are confusing the ICC with the ICJ, which are totally different things.
Neither Israel nor the de-facto government of Gaza they are fighting ever accepted the authority of the ICC; neither has signed the Rome Treaty.
The ICC authority is being derived from the Palestinian Authority applying for membership and the Court deciding earlier in a 2-1 decision that Palestine is a state, the PA is the legitimate government of Palestine, and that Gaza is territory under its jurisdiction.
> Israel chose to accept and recognize the authority of
Israel never ratified the Rome statute. The US withdrew but Israel never ratified it in the first place.
> It has a history of being very transparent in its decisions and is widely recognized as being neutral and fair in their decision making process
There is a long section on criticism against the ICC, not just from Israel, that suggests otherwise: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Court
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political is..sorta true. the point of these international legal bodies was to maintain and enforce a world order dominated by western powers. it was not about promoting justice (albeit sometimes that happened.) the selective application of enforcement and investigation have reduced the ICC to little more than a tool of neocolonial rule.
the rome statute itself contains provisions that limit its reach. article 98 precludes extradition, which has been abused by the US to prevent US nationals from being tried.
in short the ICC is allowed to go after western geopolitical rivals, however going after an ally whos committing genocide is a bridge too far; they will be shielded. for example: the US pressured its allies to refuse to refer any activities in Afghanistan to the ICC and largely succeeded as its allies form the dominant half of the UN Security council. whats interesting here is the US seems so isolated this time as to have lost the ability to block the referral. perhaps a first in history.
I once had the honor to attend a lecture by a prosecutor of the ICC.
Out of all lawyers/attorneys/prosecutors/judges that I met in my life, that one was the one that I would judge to bet he most idealistic and justice motivated (admittedly based on my gut instinct); a very rare breed.
It's good that there are such institutions with a good purpose, staffed with good people. Bad faith actors - including war criminals - will of course claim agendas (other than bringing justice), deny jurisdiction etc. but it is a good starting point to have them. The next step is to strive to give these organizations enough "teeth" to execute.
The "individual bully" problem needs some addressing, a solution to that remains outstanding.
There is indeed, as you state, political influence being exerted on courts. Most of that influence is in support of Israel and Netanyahu — do you really think there is significant political power and influence upon the ICC from Palestine or Hamas? Look at the amount AIPAC has contributed to pro-Israel politicians. It’s quite frankly absurd such a political organization exists under the guise of representing American Jews yet pretty much lobbies solely for Israeli geopolitical issues. Kennedy even tried to get it to register as a foreign agent. The fact that these warrants were issued despite the influence and leverage of Israel is a hint at how egregious the crimes are.
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Perhaps I'm cynical enough to suggest the Court had good reason to overlook the matter—fear of personal retribution.
And the only counterweight for a person accused of genocide who is claiming they haven't committed war crimes or genocide, while they call this action "antisemetic" - the only way to determine if they are being genuine in claim it is antisemitism or political-manipulation (demonization) tool is to go to court and see all of the evidence presented.
Either 40,000+ people dead or seemingly nearly all Palestinian's civilian infrastructure being destroyed, both warrant being witnessed and investigated by the international community with a fine tooth comb, no?
The ICC isn't some amateur city court in some backwaters country, it is the current epitome and evolutionary state from effort and passion of humanity towards holding the line for justice.
> And the only counterweight for a person accused of genocide
The ICC has not accused anyone of genocide. It does have juridsiction over personal criminal responsibility for gdnocide, but so far, nothing on that front has been mentioned.
South africa is suing israel at the icj alleging state responsibility for genocide, however that is different from personal responsibility, and different standards of evidence and procedures apply. Its also a totally separate court system.
Can't you place that exact same argument on the side of the Palestinians, and add more weight to their claim - where the international community so far has allowed this, due to reason (whether money involved in politicians toeing a line or not), and so the courts decisions and political bias are more likely to favour Netanyahu over the Palestinians?
There never seems to be much critical thinking on the quick one-liners that on the surface appear to often be one-liner propaganda talking points used for deflection, to give an easy memorable line for an otherwise ideological mob to learn-train them with to then parrot.
(edited tran->train)
You can claim anything, but i don't think it means much if you don't back it up with some arguments.
Like this is basically only the second time that a sitting head of state of a functioning country has had a warrant issued against them. Its fairly unprecedented. I don't agree with the claims the icc is biased against israel, but the fact they are acting at all certainly shows they aren't biased for them.
> If Netanyahu and Gallant really think they are innocent, and the allegations are absurd and false, they should cooperate with the ICC. Have your day in court and show how absurd the accusations are.
I don't know if I agree with this.
If the ICC is an honest organization that stands for individual rights, liberty and justice then sure.
If, on the other hand, the ICC is a corrupt organization that invites the worst of the worst in terms of rights-violating countries and dictatorial regimes to the table, then no way. In any compromise between right and wrong, good and evil, the wrong has everything to gain and the good has everything to lose.
In other words, I don't have all of the facts when it comes to the ICC and its history. I know that it is separate from the UN, but I don't know very much about it. Therefore I don't know which alternative I ultimately land on.
But in general and in principle, when it comes to those that are objectively and morally wrong, there is every reason to not grant them legitimacy through recognition or participation.
> I don't have all of the facts when it comes to the ICC and its history. I know that it is separate from the UN, but I don't know very much about it. Therefore I don't know which alternative I ultimately land on.
If you can put in the time & effort required to make an empirical assessment of the ICC, go ahead and do so; then come back here and enlighten us all. Otherwise, this is just more of the same kind of denialism & deflection we're all too familiar with post WW2 from the many (and vocal) mass crime apologists.
what do you mean by 'invite to the table'? it's a criminal court, so it's going to deal with criminals
you're also assuming that israel is a good faith actor in all of this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Court#I...
> what do you mean by 'invite to the table'? it's a criminal court, so it's going to deal with criminals
"Criminals" in this context is meaningless. Please hear me out.
We're dealing with the concept of "International Law", which is largely understood as agreements / treaties amongst different countries.
This means that those agreements are no more valid or better or righteous than the countries that enter into them. If the nations involved share certain basic principles and make an agreement that aligns with those principles, the enforcement of these "laws" would come from those nations that are party to the treaty.
BUT - if one nation changes its mind, or changes its internal laws or decides "nah, no thanks" then how do you enforce these so-called "laws"? Do the other nations declare war on this nation?
It gets even worse than that. Because the very concept of "International Law" contains a logical contradiction.
The idea is that we are going make war (force, violence, death, destruction, conflict) subject to some kind of rules. The problem is, you can't. You can have two parties to a conflict agree to certain things: like not to murder civilians, or prisoners etc. if it can be helped. But at the end of the day it's an agreement that doesn't have any kind of binding power or significance because the idea of war means that two groups have decided that they can't reach any kind of rational agreement and so they have resorted to violent conflict.
War, by definition, is the absence of law. The absence of reason. The breakdown of civilization. It comes about when two groups cannot reason with one another; cannot agree with one another on what the rules ought to be.
Law is not a concept that comes out of nowhere. It is the idea that in order to protect individual rights and liberty, the element of force and violence is going to be taken out of civil existence and placed into the hands of a monopoly: the government, which sets the rules and enforcement mechanisms around when force is and is not justifiable within their respective operating jurisdictions.
When you have multiple nations that operate independently, each with their own laws and rules, all you can do is get them to agree to certain things, as long as they have some basis upon which to enter into an agreement.
My thesis is that a free, rights-protecting nation has no basis for an agreement with a dictatorship that routinely violates peoples' rights. That the dictatorship has everything to gain by getting the free nation to agree to what its evil desires want, while the free nation has only things to lose (through compromise, which is part and parcel of coming to terms).
That's what I mean by "invite to the table."
Is it any data point at all to you that ICC exists and functions in many ways because of the literal Holocaust that happened during WWII? Like the same genocide that also catalyzed Israel's existence? Or is it still important, in your mind, to do our own work investigating the ICC before we think anything?
Im just saying, its important to be skeptical I guess, but all these comments being like "well who are these ICC people anyway?" can't help but be a little (darkly) funny to me. Like is this really the point where everyone just stops pretending to be good guys about this? Its like being a teenager and being angry at your mother for birthing you because she caught you doing something bad.
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> they should cooperate with the ICC. Have your day in court and show how absurd the accusations are
There's a reason why the US does not recognize the ICC.
Yes, because they want to operate outside the rule of international law.
Imagine the US having to face consequences for Iraq. One of the most fucked up collection of war crimes and violations of laws of war in the 21st century. The average American now thinks "we shouldn't have gone into Iraq" but has no idea the reputation the US has in the rest of the world because of this act
For international law to "rule" over anything, it should start by having an enforcement arm that isn't 98% the US military.
US citizens/nationals/residents have rights that would be violated by an international court. For example, you can't have due process (as required by US law), a speedy trial, or a jury trial at the ICC. This makes the idea of handing people over to the ICC not only forbidden but wrong for obvious reasons.
Surely you don't expect people to give up these very fundamental rights so they could be tried in an international court?
The only law is what you have the capability to enforce.
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It looks like ICC is not part of the fantastic rules based order.
yeah, the accused has no right to a jury trial with the ICC
with the 6th amendment, signing the rome statute into law would be both unconstitutional and effectively subjecting US soldiers to a kangaroo court (in the eyes of the US)
If that were true, the US wouldn't be able to extradite anyone to Mexico, where they do not use jury trials.
Constitutional restrictions on prosecution in the United States do not apply to foreign criminal justice systems.
True, and this more than highlights the great divide across the globe on the matter, it screams it out. One can only guess what the ramifications will be.
Yet they insist that other countries should cooperate with the court
If you think it's a sham, why would you participate in the process? I don't agree that it is a sham, but it's an absurd principle to think that they'd have any interest in doing so.
Israel already participates in the process. That's why they file documents with the court. Claims from two of those the pre-trial chamber rejected today, prior to issuing the warrants.
Re response: your claim was participation not jurisdiction, shift goalposts however you like
Sure, and in American courts you can appear just for the purposes of disputing jurisdiction without submitting oneself to it.
The Israeli will not recognize the authority of this ICC bench, because it's a politically motivated prosecution. They've lost before the trial even began.
I first thought you were going to point out how the misuse of the word "antisemitic" is especially problematic here:
Do the vast majority of people not understand correlation vs. causation? Because Netanyahu is Jewish does not mean an action against him is because he's Jewish.
That they are willing to use such "cry wolf" tactics, abusing it, dilutes their credibility at minimum - and then should bring their integrity into question, just for this misrepresentation of calling this action antisemitic.
I would say it’s clear that Israel draws a lot more criticism than other countries seem to for their bad actions. Whether this is antisemitism or not is up to interpretation but I can see why they might consider it so.
I mean, this has been standard operating procedure for the State of Israel for a long time now. Any criticism is dismissed as antisemitic.
Personally, I don't think that's fair, but it's understandable why they would use it as a defence.
Because it works. Well, it used to work- today, I think it has lost all its value. Good riddance.
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Antisemitic. Every time I hear this word, I can’t help but think of its irony—a term used exclusively for describing discrimination against one community, as if prejudice against them carries more weight than against any other. Perhaps, though, it serves as the best reflection of our hypocrisy.
It's incredible that a term was coined in the 19th Century to describe demonstrable hatred toward Jews, that the term was happily adopted and popularized by people who hated Jews, and now over 150 years later the term itself is pointed to as "proof" of Jewish privilege or conspiracy, perpetuating the cycle of ignorance and hatred under a new guise.
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Not to mention there are more semitic people than Jews. And Holocaust targeted more people, too. And there were pogroms against other poeple, too.
The word has never, in its history, been used for anything other than racism against Jews. There are Semitic languages, not people.
> Due to the root word Semite, the term is prone to being invoked as a misnomer by those who incorrectly assert (in an etymological fallacy) that it refers to racist hatred directed at "Semitic people" in spite of the fact that this grouping is an obsolete historical race concept. Likewise, such usage is erroneous; the compound word antisemitismus was first used in print in Germany in 1879 as a "scientific-sounding term" for Judenhass (lit. 'Jew-hatred'), and it has since been used to refer to anti-Jewish sentiment alone
The Romani people for example (derogatorily called "gypsies". The term "gyp"—to scam—derives from stereotypes of Romani people) faced some of the most gruesome programs in history before facing the Romani Genocide in WW2. Yet we rarely talk about antiziganism the way we talk about antisemitism and people still casually throw around terms like "gyp"
> Not to mention there are more semitic people than Jews.
Accurate, but irrelevant. The meaning of anti-semitic has always specifically been hatred of Jews.
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Does Israels actions over the years have any impact on how Jews are treated elsewhere?
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Especially when you consider "semites" are a member of an ancient or modern people from southwestern Asia, such as the Akkadians, Phoenicians, Hebrews, or Arabs. It can also refer to a descendant of these peoples.
So, many Palestinians are Semites as well. And one may conclude when Ovadia Yosef, a former Chief Rabbi of Israel, says:
“It is forbidden to be merciful to them. You must send missiles to them and annihilate them. They are evil and damnable. The Lord shall return the Arab’s deeds on their own heads, waste their seed and exterminate them, devastate them and vanish them from this world.”*
That this is "Anti-Semitic" speech as well.
It's amazing how buying off 98% of US Representatives can change a cultural and media narrative.
*https://adc.org/racist-incitement-by-israeli-leaders-must-en...
The thing is, the term "Semite" is (except in very archaic contexts) pretty much dictionary-only.
It exists, and has semantic validity. But it does not in any way describe a group that has ever had any kind of common identity. Or as Wikipedia (itself a kind of a dictionary) puts it:
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Antisemitism specifically refers to hatred of Jews. It doesn't matter whether it's the most accurate term given that it's anti-semitism; that's still what the term means.
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Yes, if there is any moral norm that anyone, especially any parent would accept - as closely to universal as possible, perhaps - it is that killing children is evil.
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Yep, it was House Resolution 1449 if anyone is curious. Really scary times to see our freedoms eroded like this:
https://x.com/RepRashida/status/1859362185178439786
Am I the only one who thinks it's completely justified for leaders of both sides to be wanted for war crimes??
If someone assaults me and I retaliate by injuring their family members then both the assilant and me are both guilty for criminal assault.
Maybe not a perfect analogy but that's what it seems has happened here...
Yup, there is a legal concept called excessive self-defense.
It's completely reasonable to exterminate an entire ants colony if 5 ants bite you, or at least that's their logic here, including the "ants" part. But of course we know the "self-defense" part is just a cover for the underlying desire to destroy the colony to build a nice villa.
Also it goes much deeper than that. They were many masscres in Palestine before october 7th, and in Israel as well... A solution would necessarily involves less violence, not more, and at this very instant Israel is the one doing most of it.
not because hezbolla and hamas are not trying.
> then both the assilant and me are both guilty for criminal assault
War is hell. But this war could have been conducted better. Yes, aid was being diverted by Hamas. But that doesn't mean you stop providing it, it means you do what you must to take control on the ground. The deaths from bombings, et cetera have not been found to be war crimes. The starvation, which was and continues to be avoidable, is.
Warrants were issued for leaders on both sides. Also, the situation has structural asymmetries that are important to navigate.
Sure, like bullied kid getting suspended because all this trouble is because of him.
It's morally justified for a bullied kid to punch back (and punch hard). It's not morally justified for a bullied kid to chain the doors closed and set fire to the bully's apartment building.
Well again in the analogy the issue seems not to be Isreal defending itself (i do believe they have the right to do so as should any country).
The issues seems to be retaliation against a civilian population.
Really attacking civilians seems to be the major war crimes on both sides of this conflict
Doesn't seem to accomplish much in the age of remote work.
Putin has had an arrest warrant for years and he just attended the BRICS summit remotely instead of in person.
Since in theory they would be obligated to arrest him in person. But seemed they had no problem letting him attend by video call.
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How does that lineup with Ukraine. Would Zelensky and Putin and everyone who played a role including Biden get an arrest warrant?
The idea of moral wars is a myth manufactured by the war propaganda machine.
I wouldn't object to all three of them being tried. I think Zelensky probably has the strongest defense, but I'm not fully informed on the conflict.
So, just to be clear, you think any country that's invaded should just immediately surrender?
So if I invade the US tomorrow with a sharpened stick, they have to hand their country over because any kind of defence is immoral?
No but this opinion is unjustifiably considered antisemitic and you couuld potentially have unwanted repercussions e.g. lose your job if you make it public. Such are the times we live in.
For context, I'm not American and I would have trouble understanding how this could be conceived as antisemitic??
Also mentioned in another comment I do believe Isreal has a right to defend itself but not to commit war crimes against civilians... that seems to be the issue here.
It’s weaponized antisemitism.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weaponization_of_antisemitis...
According to the BBC:
> A warrant was also issued for [Hamas military commander] Mohammed Deif, although the Israeli military has said he was killed in an air strike in Gaza in July.
[0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly2exvx944o
This is the link: https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/situation-state-palestine-icc-p...
Most news reports are treating this as a single story, but posting the original source seems a good idea in this case; it just happens to be split across two URLs.
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Well until they have proof of his death it stands to reason they should arrest him.
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I doubt there will be actual arrests, but there will be and there are already consequences. I just saw France and Netherlands announced they will obey the warrants, thus Netanyahu can no longer travel there. Presumably the whole of EU is off limits (I am unaware which countries recognize the court).
EU foreign policy chief said the court's decision should be implemented. Ireland also indicated they would comply with the warrant.
I expect Germany to declare the opposite. There is a small chance this incident fractures the European Union.
Current opposition leader Friedrich Merz, who will probably win the snap elections in February, has even before the court ordered the warrant called for Germany not to obey it. But of course, it's easier to take strong stances when you're not part of that government that has to act on them yet. We'll see.
I think Germany has already said it will respect the court's decision but disagrees with it.
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If Europe (ie Germany) as a whole fails to enforce the warrant, the court is pretty much dissolved.
He will never leave Israel again. He is 75 and doesn't have many years ahead of him anyway. At some point soon he will either be voted out or kicked out through regular knessent machinations and spend his remaining years writing his memoris in hebrew only.
The HN title says "and Hamas officials," but this appears nowhere in the article.
https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/situation-state-palestine-icc-p...
That isn't the linked article.
> Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize.
It was changed to this by HN mods:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42205908
Article is pretty light on the details of the Hamas officials. I wonder if they’ll show up to their day in court.
According to Israel at least, all the ones that the warrants were requested for are now dead. Perhaps new warrants will be issued, but simply taking on the mantle of Hamas leadership will not make someone retroactively culpable for the crimes of October 7th. Culpability at this level is personal, not collective. So even though anyone who becomes the next leader of Hamas will be, by this act itself, a terrible human seeking to advance some horrible ideals, that will not make them culpable for everything Hamas has already done.
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No because dead
Reading the comments in this thread and reflecting on history a bit, the thought that comes to mind is that this is less a trial for the defendants and more a trial of the ICC and more broadly international institutions and their true independence, effectiveness and ultimately, relevance.
Reflecting on the history a bit...
If you think that trying some head of a small thuggish state, founded by its unilateral declaration of sovereignty over someone else's land, while already cleansing it of unruly natives, and terrorizing British officials for years both in Palestine and internationally (like with assassination campaigns and embassy bombings), that dug its own hole over decades into ethno-supremacy based and messianically driven conflict with Palestinians, will in any way degrade legitimacy of a court and treaty joined by 125 sovereign states (with almost all "western" ones included), then you're deluding yourself.
Especially when he's being explicitly tried for his role in ensuring that children have to suffer amputations and women get c-sections without anesthesia (among other things), which has nothing to do with defense of Israel.
If anything ICC standing rose a bit in many people's eyes today, slightly above the "court for african warmongers only", where it was previously.
There is definitely an argument that the ICC's actions showed independence. I was trying to imply that in what I wrote. Maybe I need to be a little more clear. If nothing happens, these warrants go away, no sort of trial happens, etc etc, then it is likely that the ICC will be seen as increasingly irrelevant and ineffective. It is still likely to be viewed that way even if a trial does actually go forward but definitely if this just dies away quietly I suspect many will see the organization as nothing but a tool that some governments get to use when they want, and not an impartial check on international actions. I tried not to imply anything about the warrants, the people they are for or the events they are in response to because my discussion point was about the ICC and not the defendants.
As a European, I find the reactions from the US politicians as related in this Al-Jazeera article quite choking : https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/21/how-us-politicians...
But maybe biased though. Anyone would have a link to some more nuanced statements with officials who do not sounds just like thugs?
The ICC is not under the US control and thus the US sees it as a potentially dangerous organization and the fact that it is in Europe (an influential entity) doesn't make things any better. The US turned a blind eye on the ICC because it used to prosecute its enemies. Now that it's touching its agenda, it makes sense that they do not like it.
Replying to the "dead" comment below (I wish HN killed only spam comments):
> Mainly because i feel the rest of the world lives in a Disneyland like state of fake security that is guaranteed by the United States and never has to contend with the actual reality of the world.
> The actual realities of statehood say the ICC is a joke.
> As for your contention of thuggery.. again, referencing my Disneyland allegation... Thuggery is the basis of statehood and if that makes you uncomfortable, it's because you've been raised in Pax Americana.
> It's really time most countries started paying tribute to the United States, but I do understand the strategic benefit of magnanimity.
I get this viewpoint. Basically, the idea is that humans can only exist as a society of thugs, and everything else is just fairy tales. In that theory, the best possible outcome is achieved when one of the thugs is much more powerfull than all others, thus enforcing "some" order. Therefore, we should all pay tribute to it. I have issues with that theory though. Firstly, I do not believe it. Secondly, even if I did I would consider it a moral duty to still fight it for the small chance it's false. A finally, it does not say what to do in a situation like today when the former bigger thug is becoming weaker and is challenged by the competition. Are we supposed to wait patiently underground the next 20 years until the next contender takes the throne?
There is another theory, according to which human societies _evolve_ as any organism do. It can actually be shown that humans did tame themselves, and became less aggressive/more cooperative after tens of thousands of years of living cooperatively, first in small scale then in larger and larger scale. I take everyone's repulsion against the current state of affairs, or against any sociopathic bahavior for that matter, as another hint of this.
We _did_ evolve out of a primitive condition where there was no conceivable human made law or justice into a society where the rule of law was just a trick, into a condition where the rule of law was desirable, and possibly one day into a condition where the rule of law appears natural.
I believe the cynical viewpoint that you expressed, and that I share sometimes when my mood is low, is actually the fantasy.
If America doesn't do as Israel wants then Israel might side with another country.
And they know they'll be facing allegations themselves for helping to enable the situation.
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When was the last time a head of state was arrested by the ICC?
Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic was arrested and deported by the government of Yugoslavia after him. Of course, under immense pressure from the west. My preference would be that we tried him under our courts and sent him to jail in Yugoslavia/Serbia.
Now, imposing "justice" obviously only works when you do it to small nations like Yugoslavia or Rwanda. Of course it will not apply to the Israel leader, let alone to somebody from even more powerful nation.
I don't understand how a tiny country like Israel has become so important in global politics. By population Rwanda is ~30% larger than Israel.
They've worked really hard at it.
Israel for instance has a special relationship with Germany because of remorse for the 1940s. This incident in the 1970s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_massacre
further gives Germany a reason to crack down on pro-Palestinian protestors. Although supporters of the Palestinians have not staged international attacks for a long time the history of this in the 1970s explains why my Uni suddenly instituted a clear bag policy at sports games a few weeks after the lid blew off in Gaza last year. (When I started doing sports photography at the beginning of the semester I could pack a big camera bag and even take extra lenses)
Also Israel has a high GDP and involvement in international trade, academia, etc. Israel has 50x the GDP per head of Rwanda so they have a large impact in terms of Intel's Haifa office, Teva Pharmaceuticals, Sodastream, etc. My thesis advisor traveled to Tel Aviv a lot to work with collaborators.
They’re a western bastion in very close proximity to the Middle East, with a cultural and religious tie to a not insignificant number of Americans. It’s also a wealthy country.
The Scofield Bible created ardent Christian zionists in the South among evangelicals.
Israel basically uses them to manipulate DC, whilst its allies in media ensure that Christians getting spat at in Jerusalem isn't widely reported.
> don't understand how a tiny country like Israel has become so important in global politics
The simple reason is that global politics (at the UN) led to the partition of the Mandate, against the will of entire regions, which, right now, represent 30% of world's population. Besides, anti-Muslim racism and anti-Semitism always rears its very ugly head during this conflict, especially in the US.
Subsequently, the lack of stability in the Middle East did Israel no favours in how it is perceived, even if it may not be solely its fault (it isn't).
Plus, the silencing of voices (particularly against patently unfounded claims such as, "the most moral army", "anti-Israelism is anti-Semitism", "the only democracy in the middle east") themselves come with their own Streisand Effect.
Also, socio-culturally, after Tibet & Cuba, it is one of the last/few remaining geo-political global movements with the added disadvantage of cutting through all 3 major Abrahamic religions.
> I don't understand how a tiny country like Israel has become so important in global politics.
Here are some of my favorite sources on that! These are all leftist and pro-Palestinian sources, but they are academic and studied. These are about why Israel is important to the "interests of the USA" (ie, what those with power to decide national interests think).
* “Framing Palestine: Israel, the Gulf states, and American power in the Middle East" by Adam Hanieh https://www.tni.org/en/article/framing-palestine
* The first chapter of "Palestine: A Socialist Introduction", “How Israel Became the Watchdog State: US Imperialism and the Middle East" by Shireen Akram-Boshar. The publisher Haymarket is giving away the ebook for free. https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1558-palestine-a-social...
* "No, the US Doesn’t Back Israel Because of AIPAC" by Joseph Massad https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/no-the-us-doesnt-back-israe...
> I don't understand how a tiny country like Israel has become so important in global politics. By population Rwanda is ~30% larger than Israel.
Iran and basically the rest of the Middle East, US needs an ally to keep the region in check.
Think about the crusader states[!] and Taiwan. You'll see a pattern there. Israel was important for the British, now the Americans and will be important for the next hegemon. It's a very old strategy used by empires to control whole regions. Having a whole "country" beats having a military base or an air-craft carrier by orders of magnitudes.
!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaNVTvZm8JI&t
According to Sachs, Israel has masterfully manipulated US influence to extend its global reach, primarily through AIPAC's incredibly efficient lobbying - spending just hundreds of millions to secure billions in aid and trillions in military spending. Netanyahu's strategy has been particularly clever, pushing the US to overthrow Middle Eastern governments that oppose Israeli policies, as seen with Iraq, Syria, and Libya. Through campaign financing, Israel has basically bought out Congress for surprisingly little money, ensuring the US consistently backs them internationally - like vetoing UN resolutions that favor Palestinians. This US shield is so strong that when the UN voted on Palestinian self-determination, only the US, Israel, and a couple other countries opposed it. Even when Biden sets boundaries for Israeli actions, they just ignore them without consequences. The whole system's genius lies in how Israel's managed to maintain its policies despite global opposition, though Sachs thinks this might backfire by making Israel too isolated and blocking any chance of a two-state solution.
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Because members of the largest religious faith in the world identify with one party to the conflict and the global hegemon supports the other
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History.
Israel is a colony of US imperialism and functions as the US attack dog in the middle east, taking actions and expressing rhetoric in support of US hegemony that are politically infeasible.
From my weak understanding, it’s the only ally the west (USA) has in the Middle East, so they’re important strategically - for military bases and other reasons I don’t really understand, and so are propped up by financial aid and weapons and other help (intelligence etc?) beyond what would normally happen to a similar country.
Given Israel is the motherland for many Jewish people, plus almost 2.5% of the USA is Jewish, plus there are almost 16 million Jewish people globally, I would imagine that.
That was ICTY, not ICC as OP asked.
He was a former head of state by then.
Omar al-Bashir is currently jailed in Sudan, but has not been transferred to ICC custody yet.
Gaddafi was killed before he could be arrested.
> When was the last time a head of state was arrested by the ICC?
It also acts as a deterrent as much of the world will now likely be out of bounds for travel for either the Israelis or Hamas leadership who were issued warrants.
Dead men don't travel.
Wow, this took a long time to come after the application for the warrants. 185 days compared to 23 days for Putin's arrest warrant — but then again, one was against the wishes of the USA and the west while the other was at their behest.
I wouldn't say "and the west" without more qualifications. The USA and Germany are solidly behind whatever the Israeli government does. England a bit less so and the rest of "the west" (however you want to define it) is more ambivalent. My point is that if only two countries (the USA and Germany) would make their support more conditional (conditional on the israeli government not commiting war crimes for example), then things could change a lot
You’re right, there are notable exceptions in the form of western nations that have backed the enforcement of international law to put an end to the mass killings and starvation taking place in Gaza. Ireland, Spain, Norway, France, Switzerland, Slovenia, Denmark, and Belgium come to mind, ranging from “supporting the independence of the ICC and not commenting on proceedings” to “welcoming the investigation and the end of the killings.”
But while the US (not an ICC member) simply insulted the court and the notion of holding an Israeli leader accountable, it was the UK that demanded hearings on the legality of pursuing arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant. Aside from Germany’s staunch and unconditional support for Israel, other Western countries that heavily criticized the decision included Hungary, Austria, Czechia, Canada, Australia, and Italy - important to note that some of which also mentioned that despite their long list of misgivings and outrages they nevertheless respected the independence of the court.
There is no sovereign state called "England"; you mean the UK.
How often do people refer to the USA as "America." It's not quite as pedantic as "it's a republic not a democracy," but...
Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 (and was responsible for many civilian deaths, including shooting down an airliner), if we count from then, it has taken the ICC a very long time indeed. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Court...
And the US has threatened to invade NL if ICC warrants one of them.
So much for the ICC: a banana court.
It felt so real when Milosovic was trialed: now we all know the true nature of these show trials.
Milošević was not tried by the ICC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Tribuna...
Lol. Thought they were the same. Both in The Hague.
It’s a banana court because the US doesn’t recognise it?
If you make a court under the UN and you trail US' adversaries' (Serbia) leaders (Milosovic), WHILE the US (who we know --thanks Snowden and Assange-- commits plenty of war crimes) does not recognize it: that is the definition of a kangaroo court.
Just for show. Just to provide some veil of legitimacy for the US actions to evil does without the US itself being held to the same standards.
it's a ~~banana~~ kangaroo court because the US turning over soldiers to the ICC would violate their 6th amendment right to a jury trial
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My guess is that it's simply a matter of how difficult it is to prove the issue. The Putin case was very simply because there is an official state program to do things that are considered genocide. Israel is at least pretending they are letting aid in.
Israel is not pretending. They've let in tons of aid, that is stolen by Hamans constantly. I want to remind you that an American soldier has died during the built of a humanitarian port by the US navy.
But that's what the court itself is for! You get plausibly charged with a crime, you go to court, and the case is determined one way or the other.
What happened in this case is that Israel beseeched its allies to lobby the court not to look into what was happening [0]. And the UK demanded hearings to impede the ICC warrants from being issued (purely politically, as this was done under Sunak and then Starmer/Lammy dropped the objection, but the delays were already underway).
[0]: https://www.axios.com/2021/02/07/israel-icc-political-pressu...
Title doesn’t mention any hamas official
I adopted the title of one of the news articles that were also submitted about this. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42204632 for why.
A whole cladde of people here who collectively decided that the politics of the outside and the ugly that came from it does not matter anymore, specialising in the interior design of society with the most horrid weapon being a social ostracizing. The idea that building could pancake under artillery fire from the vacuum just is not part of reality and now papertiger hissy fits from the windows .
Netanyahu I'm not surprised, but Gallant?
EDIT: Asking genuinely on Gallant all I know is he was minister of defence and had a felling out with Netanyahu.
Gallant's position is that there are no innocent people in Gaza and that they should be starved to death. He's said this many times:
https://x.com/KhalilJeries/status/1853905224320372923
Just a note that the translation in that video is slightly incorrect - he mentions Gaza City, not the Gaza strip.
I didn't know about this before, thanks :|
I thought he was much more of a moderate in Netanyahu cabinet.
There's a large attempt to pin all of this on Netanyahu and his closest cabinet but what he's saying is pretty much supported by nearly all of Israeli society down to individual citizens. I encourage everyone to find people who live in Israel on X and translate their tweets so they can see for themselves.
He is a moderate; which tells you all you need to know about contemporary Israel politics and ethical standards.
Liberal Zionists like to pretend Gallant was the "moderate one" but in reality there is essentially no moderate in current Israeli society, there is only the secular far right and the messianic further right. The two differ only in small derails of their preferred strategy when using the military to ethnically cleanse Gaza. There is no significant coalition that recognizes basic human rights for Palestinians.
He is a member of Netanyahu's party, which is a right-wing party (though not far-right in terms of Israeli politics).
He is certainly not a moderate, but he is far more trusted than Netanyahu and is considered a moderating and opposing influence on him by many people. Mostly representing the interested of the defence establishment, as opposed to purely political interests (or, if you ask me, as opposed to Netanyahu's only real interest, which is himself).
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He's said this "many" times? Can you show some other times he's said this?
This clip is IIRC from about 3 days after Hamas invaded Israel and massacred civilians. He announced an utterly immoral siege policy, but abandoned it almost immediately.
And while you can certainly cherry-pick some awful statements from Gallant, he's also made many statements that make it clear that Israel is not targeting civilians.
"Defense minister [Gallant] announces ‘complete siege’ of Gaza: No power, food or fuel". [1]
[1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/defense-ministe...
Thanks for the link, I didn't know that it was he who announced that. Thank you!
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Being the minister of defense gives you culpability for the military actions the ICC has decided are war crimes, I'd think? But I am not an expert in international law, just don't find it surprising.
Yep, commanders are responsible for the actions undertaken by their troops.
It's called Command responsibility or sometimes the Yamashita principle/doctrine, after a Japanese general who was executed for horrific crimes committed by troops not even under his command, but in his area of responsibility (they were naval troops in the Philippines, he was commander of the Philippines, the navy and the army hated each other; he pulled out of Manilla in order to wage war in favourable terrain, the naval infantry commander refused to follow him and fought a brutal urban battle that destroyed the city, and on purpose killed more than a hundred thousand civilians).
Some Japanese officers take responsibility very seriously.
>Hitoshi Imamura was a Japanese general who served in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II, and was subsequently convicted of war crimes. Finding his punishment to be too light, Imamura built a replica of his prison in his garden and confined himself there until his death.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitoshi_Imamura
He's the minister of defense (not anymore but was at the time). If the allegations are true, then as minister of defense he probably ordered the things in question (or failed to stop them)
Okay, failing to stop them is a fair point I haven't considered - thanks.
That said, it seems he is mostly accused of direct criminal liability not superior liability (failing to prevent/punish)
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You're not surprised that the prime minister is accused of war crimes, but surprised the minister of defense is?
If Netanyahu and Gallant declared as war criminals, does it also mean whoever helped them during the 2024 is complicit?
Wondering what happens to so many Western leaders who supported Netanyahu unconditionally.
Technically yes, and a number of UK politicians are being mooted for investigation
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/23/criminal-complaint-...
Notably this admission by David Cameron, to knowledge of starvation is rather damning
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-67926799
that is a good question. we've seen folks from the Biden/Harris admin resign over military aid to Israel, and it appears the admin indeed was in violation of US law when said aid was given. could they face criminal charges for complicity? i find it hard to believe they had no idea what was going on.
another question i have regards the future: it appears the US is working on even more aid for Israel, see Bernie's latest attempt to prevent that. now that leadership in Israel has warrants out for them, will the US aid continue? certainly would be a bad look to continue aiding Israel at this point i reckon.
what an absolute tragic mess all around. i'm ashamed of our complicity, and sadly will not be surprised one bit if we continue giving them aid despite it all.
Biden/Harris, Starmer, Scholz and Macron have all been supplying Israel with arms, all whole knowing they are carrying out a genocide. The US has also had boots on the ground, and the UK has flown hundreds of spy and missions over Gaza. Meanwhile, they all give near carbon-copy press statements that read like they came straight from Israeli Hasbara.
They have knowingly supported and aided Israel, and I hope more warrants are forthcoming.
Come to think of it, plenty of journalists and media orgs are complicit too, such as the BBC.
Like the US congress giving an applause and a standing ovation.
I wish. The US government has been an absolute disgrace in how we've handled support of Israel unflinchingly. I guess we didn't write enough sternly written letters while people were being forcibly starved to death.
Unflinchingly? Biden did a lot to restrict military aid/sales if weapons that would likely have lots of collateral damage.
This leads to a bit of a conundrum for the Netherlands. It is the home of the ICC and officially a big sponsor of international justice. But also the right wing government has a hard on for Israel. I don't think that our esteemed ancestors ever envisioned white people to end up in court...
The leader of the PVV (biggest political party) is going to visit colonial settlers in Israël.
Many immigrants hate Israel.
Official state policy is a two state solution.
The relocation of the Dutch embassy to Jerusalem.
You could make a Netflix TV show about this. May we all live interesting times!
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Hopefully he gets arrested that would fulfill me with joy and laughter. But realistically nobody was and probably will be able to humble Netanyahu, he is a above the ladder psychopath.
dang,
Any strange upvote/downvote activity going on in this thread?
Watching my own replies votes going up and down, makes me think of the "THERE WAS A FIREFIGHT!" GIF: https://tenor.com/search/there-was-a-fire-fight-gifs
E.g. Going to 2 then down to 0, back up, back down and stabilizing again at 0; of course sophisticated coordinated activity will pace itself, even if across real users, as to not "waste their ammo" or be blatantly obvious; makes me wonder if there have been any studies analyzing this.. anywho. Back to life.
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I really don't think this belongs on the front page. It is a highly divisive political issue with strong radicalisation at the edges of any discourse on it.
I have my own strong opinions on it, but arguing it does not in my opinon belong on the front page here.
There are plenty of places you can go and have this discussion in as heated of a version as you prefer.
I disagree. #1 this topic is not as divisive as it may seem. There is consensus as to what is happening and only a minority of the world thinks otherwise.
#2 Israel is a major tech partner and most large tech companies have offices in Tel Aviv. Many startups that we discuss here are headquartered in Tel Aviv. The head of state of the country having an ICC arrest warrant and the situation at large have major consequences to the tech world and thus HackerNews users have a unique lens through which to have discourse. Discourse with an angle that you won't find elsewhere this is discussed.
> There is consensus as to what is happening and only a minority of the world thinks otherwise.
Well, that's obviously false. GP is right; this topic produces more heat than light.
Huh? The vast majority of the world has repeatedly voted at the UN to accuse Israel of related war crimes, and public opinion in the vast majority of the world follows as well. There really is a consensus worldwide, with a minority disagreeing, centered around the US.
There is a strong but not unanimous consensus that Israel is committing war-crimes and enforcing an apartheid state in the territories it occupies. There is consternation over whether Israel's actions constitute genocide.
That said, I think it's fair to assume that people from the US and other Israel-allied nations are disproportionately represented on Hacker News. So, we should not expect the global consensus to be reflected here.
But I think think this topic both (1) is on topic for HackerNews given Israel's outsized prevalence in the tech industry, (2) has geopolitical implications that I think are worth discussing.
Either way, HackerNews is an outlier in terms of the quality of the discussion, among social media or forums where people will argue both for and against Israel's actions. While I am very much on the "against Israel's actions" side, I do think there is value in this discussion, and so I am happy this topic is here on HackerNews.
What is it that you believe there is consensus about?
A quick check of your recent HN comments proves to me that you have only ever researched / trusted a single narrative and talking about this with you won't be very productive.
I think you would find it useful, even for supporting your current arguments more substantially, to read any of the following (in order of recommendation):
I also used to justify or overlook Israel's history and military actions in the same way but once you allow yourself to hear from scholars on both sides, you can't really go back to who you were before.Legal issues seem to attract plenty of attention on HN. We could see what sort of precedent has been set.
Agree completely. Let’s keep HN focused on the H please.
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Not super meaningful in reality - any country looking to arrest either man should tread carefully.
The American Service-Members' Protection Act authorizes the President of the United States to use "all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any U.S. or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court".
Israel is listed in the act as covered. Any means explicitly includes lethal force, which is why the act is nicknamed the "Invade the Hague" act.
The question here is why is only Israel covered in this act?
Also anti-BDS legislation in finance, regardless of ethical etc. concerns?
The US gives $4bn/year to Israel gratis, and so far $20bn in weapons over the course of this conflict, including advanced weapons like the F35 WITH source code access (which no other F35 partner has) - why?
There have been no investigations of US deaths WRT settler violence, aid workers killed etc. Normally with any US death it's a huge issue.
What does Israel do in return to make it such a favoured country? eg. 20bn in disaster relief aid to Florida would be probably more welcome by US citizens.
It's not only Israel. It's all of NATO plus "major non-NATO allies" specifically Australia, Egypt, Israel, Japan, Argentina, the Republic of Korea, and New Zealand
We give Jordan $1.6B/year, what does it give in return? What about Ethiopia at $2B/yr?
The biggest condition behind US aid to Jordan and Egypt is them continuing friendly relations with Israel. In 1970s when this aid was started- this condition was made very explicit by USA.
So in other words, these two at least are nothing but indirect aid to Israel.
You could ask the same questions about that yes, but whataboutism does not answer the questions here.
For Ethiopia it's flagged as humanitarian aid, and likely for Jordan as a result of the neighbouring Syria war.
None of that is arms though, and critically more than the aid, why the legislation?
What justifies making it illegal to stop investing in a country despite it's actions? Surely that's a commercial decision rather than a legislative one?
We gave Pakistan and Iran a few billion dollars in military aid a while back. What we got in return was a Bangladesh genocide and an Islamic revolution.
Lesson learned: arms sales can be used to ideologically justify butchering civilians if the government receiving that aid is not held accountable.
The Netherlands said that they would arrest anybody accused. That would be peculiar to see, what would actually happen if anybody of the accused were to travel there.
The Dutch have a very lackadaisical attitude to law, and at the very same time a very principled cut-off-my-nose-to-spite-my-face rule of law mentality.
If I were a senior Israeli or Hamas leader I’d avoid the place for a couple of decades in case of sealed charges.
> If I were a senior Israeli or Hamas leader I’d avoid the place for a couple of decades in case of sealed charges.
If the Netherlands granted diplomatic immunity to said leaders before their visit, and then decided to arrest them, that by itself would be an act of war.
And even worse, it would ruin basically the only treaty every country has agreed to - the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
> The Dutch have a very lackadaisical attitude to law
What do you mean by this specifically?
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I'm sure if they try it will go down perfectly well with the rest of the world. It's not like the US has a monopoly on finances or force globally. China and BRICS are waiting in the wings.
It would be a chance to become a hero of humanity that 99% of the world would cheer on...
Honestly, I would so like someone to test that!
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Nuclear war with whom?
> any country looking to arrest either man should tread carefully.
I'd imagine that if they were detained the IDF would put out quite a bit of effort to get them sprung from prison ... at any cost.
(Imagine if a former US leader was put in prison anywhere but the US).
So you think Israel will start attacking European countries? I don't think that would work out well for them.
This shouldn't be flagged.
Why not? How is it “hacker news” at all? It’s just news news.
Because Israel is an integral part of our industry. Most major corporations have their presence in Israel. Moreover, Israel is using AI extensively in their war on Palestinian people, which they develop in partnership with the US.
On HN, having some stories with political overlap is both inevitable and ok—the question is which particular stories those should be. We try to go for the ones that contain significant new information. See more at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42204689.
This approach has been stable for many years and there's no intention to allow HN to become a primarily-political site (quite the contrary) but it also doesn't work to try to exclude these things altogether.
This does not belong on hacker news
Some stories with political overlap have always been allowed here, just not too many of them. I posted elsewhere in this thread on this point:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42204739
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42204689
Thank you for speaking truth, unlike these alleged world "leaders."
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This will not amount to anything, but it's nice to know we aren't all crazy or anti-semitic for thinking the Israeli state has been acting very poorly in regards to the State of Palestine. Feels a little bit like trying to get organized crime on tax evasion.
What is the point of the ICC? Russia doesn't recognize it, Israel doesn't recognize it and even the United States doesn't recognize it. I am confused at what these warrants even mean.
In this case, to make a political statement against Israel and their leadership.
Note that the only member of Hamas indicted, Mohammed Deif, will never see a day in court. As the ICC already knows, he was killed in an airstrike earlier this year.
Since there has been no proof of his death bar the announcements from Israel, it is sensible to consider him as a wanted man until there is concrete evidence he is dead.
In practice these warrants mean that they cannot travel to any country that does recognize the ICC without being arrested, which means they almost certainly won't.
ICC member Mongolia didn't arrest Putin when he visited. https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/ukraine-situation-icc-pre-trial...
Just like how Putin couldn't travel to, say, South Africa, after a warrant was issued for his arrest. Oh wait, South Africa declined to enforce the ICC arrest warrant in that case.
I don't see this meaningfully constraining Netanyahu's foreign travel options.
There have been several pundits with opinion on the matter, you’ll find quite a few in any news source (personally I recommend al-Jazeera). The gist of it is that this will have implication mostly around travels of Israeli officials to Europe. We might also see a slow and gradual policy shift in Europe as a result of this.
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Ah yes three countries accused of doing really heinous shit do not recognize the legitimacy of the International Criminal Court. How convenient.
Rightfully so, their intentions and actions which have matched, have been clear for the last year. Hopefully the rest of the international community including governments will finally stand together and call them out for the crimes they have been committing. This is hopefully a step to removing arms sales to Israel as well from many countries.
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How is this 'flagged'?
Hacker News Guidelines: Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon... If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
This is a significant update on an event of historical impact.
Users flagged it, as is common for the most divisive topics.
I've turned the flags off now, in keeping with HN's standard practices: some (but only some) stories with political overlap are allowed, and in the case of a Major Ongoing Topic (MOT) we prefer the stories that contain Significant New Information (SNI).
[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
[3] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
Here are a bunch of past explanations I've posted about how we approach this topic:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41744331 (Oct 2024)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40586961 (June 2024)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40418881 (May 2024)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39920732 (April 2024)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39618973 (March 2024)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39435024 (Feb 2024)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39237176 (Feb 2024)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38947003 (Jan 2024)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38749162 (Dec 2023)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27252765 (May 2021)
Stories with flags turned off should display a banner. These moderation decisions deserve transparency.
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There are a significant number of zionist users on this site that immediately flag any comment or article they percieve as anti-israel.
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As an effect though it does isolate these people. Countries may not want to host them lest they get in the middle of something.
Keep in mind these warrants don't expire either. The world might look different 10 years from now.
So i think these types of actions do have consequences even if they are not the same as a domestic court issuing the warrant
Allow me to introduce you to the Hague Invasion Act, signed into law 22 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pr...
> The Act gives the president power to use "all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any U.S. or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court".[2]
If you dig a little further, you'll notice that it also applies to "military personnel, elected or appointed officials, and other persons employed by or working on behalf of the government of a NATO member country, a major non-NATO ally including Australia, Egypt, Israel, Japan, Argentina, the Republic of Korea, and New Zealand."
I wanna emphasize: This pre-dates Trump, Biden and Obama. This has been a law for over two decades. It passed both the House and the Senate with very little opposition. Both parties voted in favour of it.
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Must be nice to have friends in high places.
Trump is only ever loyal to himself.
He's also inconsistent and prone to change his standpoint on a whim
There's definitely a larger than 0 chance.
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> Hamas is a terrorist group that was elected by Gaza’s residents.
"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gambled that a strong Hamas (but not too strong) would keep the peace and reduce pressure for a Palestinian state." - From "Buying Quiet: Inside the Israeli Plan That Propped Up Hamas", NYTimes [1]
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/world/middleeast/israel-q...
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What consequences? Even Trump isn't going to go to war for Netanyahu.
Using it as his justification for pulling out of NATO comes to mind.
Trump is heavily funded by Zionist extremists, but he isn't one himself. As soon as the ship really starts sinking (which could be induced by a Netanyahu arrest), he will attempt to jump ship and save himself.
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Israeli propaganda is no longer working. Everyone sees what they do.
It's a bit reminiscent of the Bangladesh genocide by Pakistan, to whom the United States also sold weapons and also did nothing to stop hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties.
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The ICC doesn't mention any genocide, so what's the basis for your claim?
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I wonder who you think in the US political sphere would treat them any differently.
None actually. I just tried to illustrate the futility of this warrant.
The ICC warrant for Putin is similarly worthless. Large influential countries host Putin without impact.
There may be some European countries that Netanyahu will no longer be able to visit, but the impact will not be large.
I'm wondering what power does the ICC have to carry out its sentencing if the US chooses to disagree with it?
Same with The Hague court, where the US said its soldiers would be imune from standing trial for crimes.
So if these international courts are only allowed selective enforcement, what's the point of their existence? To only prosecute people the US doesn't choose to protect? Then what's the line between good guys and bad guys?
There are many signatories who are obliged to arrest anyone with an ICC warrant: https://asp.icc-cpi.int/states-parties
what power does the ICC have to carry out its sentencing if the US chooses to agree with it?
It is not if the US was on board it would lead an invasion of Israel.
It’s really rather simple. Anyone on this planet only has as much authority as their guns provide them. The people who operate these courts have fewer guns than the US, so they don’t get authority over US interests.
The point of these international courts is to do the US bidding. Every once and awhile they forget that and need a reminder.
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That hardly seems objective. Every single statement I saw on the homepage was anti-Israeli. This Israeli government has done any number of horrible things, but it's a complicated situation that is not at all summed up well by "Israel bad". Acting like Hamas hasn't committed awful atrocities or that everything Israel does is bad isn't going to help innocent civilians caught up in this mess.
I assumed he was referring to the rapes committed by Israel against prisoners.
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Indeed. That Israel has been allowed to operate outside the bounds of international law and human rights will be studied for generations.
They wave with the "antisemitic" flag and no-one dares to object in fear of being called antisemitic. Just see the mayor of Amsterdam.
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I’m out of the loop, why do you say this?
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Such a ridiculous claim. Anyone against ICC is not a good guy.
I am not against ICC. I am against any above nation world wide idiocies.
Hamas didn't do any crime against me on oct 7, Israel didn't do any crime against me afterwards, so the idea of some organization chasing after perpetrators in my name is absurd. Crimes against humanity is stupid concept. It has never had any kind of background grounded in anything resembling reality. ditto with UN - nations are anything but united. Now as talking heads it may have some worth, but to give this organization something like power (no matter how fake) is absurd.
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Boy it almost seems like we should look at what factors (apartheid state, oppression, etc.) led to the formation of Hamas
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Because US and European countries very directly supports Israel in this case. In the other cases you refer to they are conflicts independent of western countries or at least the western influences are more indirect.
Yeah, by comparison the total coverage of the ongoing devastating civil wars in Sudan, Yemen, Myanmar and Haiti is miniscule.
I guess to play devil's advocate, the US is much more involved in Palestine via its essentially unconditional military support for Israel, so it makes sense for the American left to make noise because in theory they could influence things.
Our tax money is funding these atrocities. I felt the same way about the genocide in Yemen.
>Around the world, countless marginalized groups face equally dire or even worse conditions and would welcome similar support from these people
I don't think this is true. The majority of people dying of or suffering from starvation on earth right now are in Gaza.
>Yet, these so-called human rights advocates remain willfully ignorant of anyone or anything happening outside of the US and the Israel/Palestine conlflict.
You have blinders on if you think this is the case.
>Given this, how can anyone take these protesters seriously when they exhibit a groupthink mentality, lacking self-awareness or critical thinking, and behaving more like zombies than independent thinkers?
I'd rather you didn't take us seriously if you're not going to fully understand our goals or reasons for our beliefs.
Might be because we're funding this genocide ourselves...
This is textbook whataboutism. I live in the UK. I'm outraged by how much time/money is spent on Israel and Ukraine issues than our own. Similar to yourself, I have to wonder why UK govt chose to help one side with weapons in these specific conflicts. The difference here is of course, protestors are there on their own free will (for the most part, I guess?), whilst I don't have a say in how my tax money is being used.
I mean if anyone is yo blame for the Israel situation it's the UK.
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They are right, though, aren’t they? We came up with these regulations and international agreements for a reason.
If they ignore war crimes, their authority loses meaning, but if they pass judgment that we know is going to be completely ignored, their authority also loses meaning. Unless the powers that be decide to honor their word, it’s all pointless. What’s next?
They ignore war crimes plenty when it comes to Russia, Turkey, etc. According to UN Israel is the worst country there is, as over half of the resolutions are against Israel.
This feels like the end of the league of nations.
Measures like this seem pretty toothless, so I'm not sure what impact you're expecting
It isn't scary at all. I for one, would much prefer to live in a world where war crimes and acts of genocide are appropriately called out. The fact this hasn't come sooner is the scary thing.
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Because nobody is invading Israel. Nobody's declaring war.
The whole point of international law is to hold citizens of sovereign nations accountable, without having to go to war to achieve it.
Nobody has legal authority to go into Israel to seize Netanyahu. But now he knows that if he tries to travel to Europe, he will be seized upon entry. That's not war, that's simply apprehending someone who there is an arrest warrant out for.
Aka civil society.
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Because a declaration of war is different to stating that a country committed war crimes.
ICC is not a UN organ: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Court
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War at its core is not a murder contest. You have to be strategic and you have to deal with the reality of trying to govern any conquered subjects which historically hasn't been very successful in the long term. In a globally connected world, you have to deal with the rest of the planet reacting to your actions.
That's not even touching on concepts like human rights and international law.
I generally agree with this take. The big problem with it is that the current and likely future israeli administrion(s) have as one of their largest goals the annexation of the west bank, not because of security but because they truly believe god gave them that land. IMO there is little reason to believe israelis will ever allow the palestinians full sovereignty in the west bank. So whats on the table for them in your situation? Probably giving up even more land in the west bank and the fear that israel can start a war to annex even more of it any time the israeli right wins an election. Which gets at the heart of the issue here, neither side has any reason to believe the other is negotiating in good faith, so negations can never really begin.
Ive spent a decent amount of time in Israel and my observation is that the prospect for peace is incredibly dim.
Helpful, thank you for sharing.
Are you asking why 5 million people don't just accept total subjugation to Israel and renounce all desire for self-determination as a nation? Let themselves be subjugated to permanent occupation and political persecution? All in all to a state that rejects Palestinian right to ever try Israelis for any and all crimes they do to them, including war crimes and crimes against humanity? (that's what even several EU states effectively argued before ICC, when challenging the jurisdiction of the court)
Israel claims there will be no Palestinian state ever, because it's a percieved threat to Israel security. Knesset resolution claiming that was passed this year. And by that, for Israelis that's poof "no self-determination for 5 mil. people". No loss for Israelis, I guess in that. They'll not even let them be citizens of Israel, because democracy doesn't mean much to Israel. Israel has to be a Jewish state, not like half Jewish half Arab and soon majority arab looking at demographic growth...
I don't know? Maybe they really don't want this, and don't know how to get out of that situation created by Jews and their European "allies" back in first half of last century in any other way.
And please don't tell me you're presuming Israel to be the innocent and honest party in all this.
I don't think Israel is innocent by any means, their hands are dirty here obviously.
I'm just trying to think out loud about a different way forward, and I tried to highlight my bias.
I haven't seen a serious plan put forward for peace, and maybe the problem is not solvable.
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Um. I would take the hand-wringing a little more seriously if it were not for the fact that Israeli army is not exactly known for being super adherent to rules of engagement you suggest[1]. Please do note that this is US media saying this, which is already doing what it can to cover for Israel with oh so familiar talking points.
<< To say that to attack them after they do that is to invite prosecution is risable.
Some of us do take issue with indiscriminately bombing a hospital to get one 'bad guy' or even ten 'bad guys'. Maybe it was more excusable when technology was less.. accurate, but it is very hard to argue that point when the country bombing said hospital is able to surgically explode pagers in Lebanon[2]. And Israel can't even take over a small enclave it almost completely cut off from the rest of the world?
That is risable. And all this after massive US support both in blood in treasury.
[1]https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/24/middleeast/palestinians-human... [2]https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz04m913m49o
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Accordingly, they issued similar warrants for (what's left of) Hamas leadership on the same day.
https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/situation-state-palestine-icc-p...
> Or that most aid is going through Israel itself because Egypt still has a blockade against Gaza.
Israel very much prefers it that way. It's a very significant piece of leverage for them.
They signed a treaty in 2007 requiring Israeli authorization of anything crossing the Egyptian crossings, in fact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafah_Border_Crossing
Israeli occupied it in May, too. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-07/israel-ra...
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Two parties can commit the same crime.
I’m sorry but this brazenly wrong and a form of propaganda; you need to provide evidence for your claims. Hamas-employed Gaza police shoot at gangs that rob the aid containers with the implicit protection of Israel. Many videos have been posted spuriously claiming without any evidence that the individuals highjackimg the aid “are Hamas” when all documented evidence points to the very opposite.
Just two days ago: Gangs looting Gaza aid operate in areas under Israeli control, aid groups say
“Officials said criminal looting has become the greatest impediment to distributing aid in the southern half of Gaza, home to the vast majority of displaced Palestinians. Armed bands of men have killed, beaten and kidnapped aid truck drivers in the area around Israel’s Kerem Shalom crossing, the main entry point into Gaza’s south, aid workers and transport companies said. The thieves, who have run cigarette-smuggling operations throughout this year but are now also stealing food and other supplies, are tied to local crime families, residents say. The gangs are described by observers as rivals of Hamas and, in some cases, they have been targeted by remnants of Hamas’s security forces in other parts of the enclave.”
‘An internal United Nations memo obtained by The Washington Post concluded last month that the gangs “may be benefiting from a passive if not active benevolence” or “protection” from the Israel Defense Forces. One gang leader, the memo said, established a “military like compound” in an area “restricted, controlled and patrolled by the IDF.”’
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/11/18/gaza-looting...
> you need to provide evidence for your claims
There's tons of it, plenty of mainstream media reported it while it was happening. If you choose not to believe it, that's because of your biases and no amount of hard evidence will sway you.
Also ask yourself, why has Egypt had a blockade against Gaza for longer than Israel?
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> Netanyahu is viewed as the messiah of the Jewish people
I think there was a strong urge to portray him as the second coming of King David (the slayer of Goliath) after the assassinations of (other war criminals) Deif, Haniyeh, Nasrallah, Saifeddine, and Sinwar within 6 months of each other.
> something about rebuilding a temple in Jerusalem
No temple yet, but there's a valid religious claim should they choose to build one on the Rock. The main mosque is actually a few hundred meters removed from the Rock.
> until he achieves the eradication of the Palestinian people he will not rest
Think the political apparatus strives to control the demographics (for its own survival)? Eradication is one mechanism, but at 7 million Palestinians, they'd need to summon a World War esque scenario to pull it off. So, unlikely?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Israel
Numerous IDF soldiers and settlers have been photographed wearing or displaying the shape of Greater Israel - a plan to seize land and expand Israel into almost every one of its neighbors territories. Tim Walz even let slip in the debate that "expansion" was a key goal of US support.
To speak only to the factual claims and not any of your conclusions: Biblical Israel did not include any part of Egypt, nor does it contain all of Lebanon. It is concerning that you would claim this when the biblical map of Israel is a Google search away.
Speaking as someone within the Jewish community, absolutely no one views Netanyahu as the messiah. You will find all sorts and views that are for or against, but none that he is some messiah. (I'm sure you could find some 5 cranks who do; you could also find 5 Christian cranks who believe the earth is flat. In that case it would never even occur to you to say that Christians believe the earth is flat.)
The belief is that the temple will be rebuilt when the messiah comes. It has not, which is also something you could have googled. There is a tiny segment who wishes to make that happen now. The overwhelming majority see this as something that will happen in messianic times, not an instruction manual for the present.
If you are this misinformed on points that are easily looked up I strongly suggest you seek information outside of whatever echo chamber you currently find yourself in.
Just to clarify - there is some technical correctness in this statement "Biblical Israel did not include any part of Egypt, nor does it contain all of Lebanon". I believe Genesis 15:18–21 says in "from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river [Euphrates]" (also see "map of Kingdom of King Solomon"). While this would suggest the "promised land" includes all the way to modern Iraq, it is true that most maps exclude the Phonecian areas around Tyre and Sidon. And the definition of "the wadi of Egypt" has been interpreted by some as the Nile, but I think this is mostly not believed. So it is most likely correct that "Biblical Israel does not contain ALL of Lebanon" and "did not include any part of Egypt", but this elides the fact that the Biblical narrative (not necessarily backed up by archeology) would extend into many neighboring countries.
[edit] To clarify - I do believe that some Israelis are motivated by a desire to occupy "Biblical Israel", but the parent comment is (a) ridiculous and (b) attributes way to many grand motivations for Netanyahu than I think are supported by evidence. (Compared to "savvy politician who says things to get votes for selfish reasons.")
I support these warrants.
I m afraid this fruitless pursuit will distract from the effort to stop the cleansing, which has to be diplomatic and international
So you want to say that the reason for _not_ doing this is: it will distract from the effort to stop the cleansing.
Would that be the same as saying that we shouldn't issue a warrant against a school shooter because it wouldn't stop the shooting? Would it distract from gun laws?
Maybe not the best analogy, but I know that I cannot say for certain whether it will negatively or positively affect the effort. It might positively affect if this makes (especially EU) countries put more pressure on Israel.
>It might positively affect if this makes (especially EU) countries put more pressure on Israel.
That would never happen. Israel is above any and all criticism, how do people not realize that by now?
Pressure, sanctions, whatever - nothing will actually happen. Likud can trot out the tired trope of antisemitism and any and all criticism, legitimate or not, is automatically waved away. Like it or not, that's objective reality.
Before the shills come in and accuse me of this or that, let me be clear: NO, I don't support Hamas, Likud, or any organization that supports the killing of innocent people. Israel has a right to exist and defend itself, Palestine has a right to exist and defend itself.
What effort?
I think gp, by "cleansing", means ethnic cleansing.
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What cleansing?
I don’t get why Israel waged war on Gaza instead of just going for the guy who ordered the attack. Any thoughts?
The guy is the Hamas leader who was killed recently? How would Israel get him? Special forces raid? He could hide anywhere in Gaza. And why would Israel want to do a decapitation instead of destroying the hostile organization? Even assuming Israel doesn't want to annex territory that seems like expecting the US to react to 9/11 by sending the Navy Seals after Bin Laden and stop it at that.
The Gaza invasion was never about the hostages. If Israel cared about the hostages they wouldn't have indiscriminately bombed the entire territory. The hostages are dead, and demanding the impossible return of people they killed is simply a pretext:
They want land expansion and the total ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Look up 'Greater Israel'. Tim Walz accidentally let it slip during a debate that this is the goal of the US empires support.
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Oct. 7 was incredibly useful for Israel give it the casus belli to destroy resistance and settle Gaza. Lebanon will be the cherry on top.
Why kill one guy when you can kill all resistance and (future possible) resistance and tada you have a bunch of land and can expand your borders.
Hmm. It is a weird conversation for me. Since I am not part of the conflict, as the outsider I believe I see some of the game played. Still, I do not want to spend too much energy on this since I am not sure I understand how you perceive things.
I think you are wrong, but you are wrong by equating Netanyahu and Israel. It is useful for the former. It would be hard to convince me it is useful for the latter. And then, even assuming tada part is uncontested ( not impossible in current configuration ), how exactly do you see this play out?
1200 dead including children and elderly. Useful. Are you serious?
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This is exciting. Is there precedence for this? What should we expect?
Have they issued any warrants for Hamas leaders for the 7 October Hamas-led attack on Israel?
they have, at the same time, issued a warrant for Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, who is (or was) the commander of the armed part of Hamas.
https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/situation-state-palestine-icc-p...
He's been declared dead by both Israel and Hamas.
How about the Hamas leaders living in Turkey? They were just kicked out of Qatar, and being in (semi-)European Turkey should be easier to arrest, no? Remember, these Hamas leaders in Turkey actually, really, call for explicit genocide - and carry out their actions.
Yes, for those that are still alive, that is indeed the case.
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Yes. Read the posts
Isolating Netanyahu like this will only lead to a hardening of the Israeli position because he now truly has nothing to lose