Rights and Accountability 19 March 2021
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron in Paris on 18 March.
SIPAA lack of moral authority has never stopped Israeli leaders from accusing others of the same.
And so Israel’s president, Reuven Rivlin, has been deployed to Europe, where he is attempting to make the case that the International Criminal Court’s investigation of suspected war crimes in the West Bank and Gaza “is morally and legally bankrupt.”
Similarly, moral and logical inconsistency didn’t stop Michal Cotler-Wunsh, an Israeli lawmaker who sought to condition the transfer of COVID-19 vaccine doses to Gaza on Hamas concessions, from accusing the ICC of “politicization.”Cotler-Wunsh invoked a discredited definition of anti-Semitism pushed by lobby groups seeking to muffle criticism of Israel, saying the court is singling out and applying double standards “against the Jewish state.”
Never mind that the ICC will examine alleged war crimes perpetrated by Palestinian armed groups, as the court’s chief prosecutor made clear upon the conclusion of her five-year preliminary probe in late 2019.
An entirely possible outcome of an ICC investigation is that the court only indicts individuals in Palestinian armed groups.
The ICC defers to a country’s internal investigations, where they exist, under the principle of complementarity which holds that “states have the first responsibility and right to prosecute international crimes.”
Israel has a self-investigation system – albeit one described by B’Tselem, a leading human rights group in the country, as a whitewashing mechanism that insulates the military and political leadership from accountability.
The ICC chief prosecutor stated in late 2019 that her office’s assessment “of the scope and genuineness” of Israel’s domestic proceedings “remains ongoing at this stage.”
She had, however, “concluded that the potential cases concerning crimes allegedly committed by members of Hamas and PAGs [Palestinian armed groups] would currently be admissible.”
But Israeli officials haven’t let facts or sober analysis get in the way of their knee-jerk reaction against the court.
And speaking of inconvenient facts, Cotler-Wunsh’s father is Irwin Cotler, the Israel lobbyist tapped by Justin Trudeau to suppress the Palestine solidarity movement in Canada.
“Double standards”
Related to the “double standards” argument against the court’s credibility put forth by Cotler-Wunsh and others is that it hasn’t probed alleged war crimes in Syria.
That argument, too, is dependent on ignoring the facts.
While Syria is a signatory to the Rome Statute that founded the court, it has not ratified the statute or acceded to the court and thus the international justice tribunal cannot exercise territorial jurisdiction in the country.
Israel is not an ICC member state either, but Palestine is, and the court launched its probe upon the latter’s request.
Last year, a panel of judges affirmed that the court has territorial jurisdiction in the West Bank and Gaza.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, immediately condemned that decision as “pure anti-Semitism.”
The ICC may also exercise personal jurisdiction in cases when a national of an ICC member state engages in war crimes in the territory of a non-state party.
The UN Security Council may also potentially override personal and territorial jurisdiction by referring cases to the ICC.
Security Council member states have tried to do that with Syria but were vetoed by Russia and China.
On Wednesday, Russia’s foreign minister assured his Israeli counterpart that Moscow, like Tel Aviv, is “rather negative” about the ICC.
Another argument made by Israeli officials, as well as the state’s apologists, is that an ICC investigation would hurt the peace process, long declared dead by everybody except those whose salaries depend on maintaining the charade.
Despite this supposed concern for negotiations with the Palestinians, a new multilateral initiative to revive the peace process was immediately shot down by Israel, Axios reported last month.
Diplomatic offensive
Israel is focusing its diplomatic efforts instead on the perceived threats of Hizballah, Iran and the ICC as its president, foreign minister and military chief tour Europe.
Whether Israel will cooperate with the court is being debated by its government following formal notification of an investigation by the ICC earlier this month.
The letter from the ICC identified the three main issues the court intends to investigate: Israel’s 2014 attack on Gaza; its settlement enterprise in the West Bank; and the use of lethal force against Great March of Return protesters.
Israeli media have reported that officials are “concerned the ICC may already start issuing arrest warrants” against former military officers in the coming months.
Israeli officials claim that some ICC member states “have agreed to give advance warning to Israel of any intent to arrest” its citizens upon arrival to their countries.
Providing tip-offs that could allow suspects to escape investigation or arrest would likely violate the obligations that member states have under the Rome Statute to cooperate with the court’s work.
This week, hundreds of human rights groups urged ICC member states “to publicly support and fully cooperate” with the investigation.
The groups urged states “to ensure the arrest and transfer to The Hague of persons investigated and accused of international crimes.”
Comments
The Occupation of The Palestinians
Permalink Carol Rae Bradford, M.Ed. replied on
I can see no rational reason that the US/Israel doesn't accept the ICC., nor the Palestinian people's need for a normal life. I have lived many decades seeing the horrors experienced by these people. The illegal actions of their "Occupier," are given with no compunction. Killing children, jailing little girls of 12 years of age, burning, destroying homes many times over, such extreme cruelty. Murdering fishermen and more. The American people bear guilt for carying the same ignorance of the truth, just as Hitler's people did. May this racist, apartheid state be changed, and now! Our press is biased and no wonder people are so easily fooled.
Law
Permalink Frank Dallas replied on
The ICC is underfunded, understaffed and over-stretched. It is a shadow of what a true international court should be. Agreement should be reached, through the UN, that membership of the court is the default position of every State. Any State which wishes to be exempt should have to formally withdraw; but that should entail penalties. Why not exclude countries which withdraw from the UN? Justice is indivisible. Until it is universal it will not exist. That Israel raises the pathetic cry of anti-Semitism only betrays its threadbare morality and intellectual nullity. As ever we have the rank dishonesty of this logic: we are victims of the Nazi genocide; we are therefore innocent; nothing we can do is wrong; Palestine belongs to us because god (who may not exist) gave it Abraham (who didn't); when we arrived there was no one there; the people who weren't there waged war against us; the people who weren't there fled of their own accord; then they came back when we'd tarted the place up; then they attacked us; we defeated them and took their land, which was our land because god gave it Abraham; the people who weren't there are all terrorists so we have to imprison them; we are peace-loving people which is why we developed nuclear weapons and imprisoned Mordechai Vanunu; we want a two-states solution, except there can't be a Palestinian State because they're all terrorists; we will build more settlements and bulldoze more Palestinian homes to show just how serious we are about two states, so long as they are both Jewish; once Greater Israel is a reality and the Palestinians (who don't exist) are confined to Bantustans, there will be peace because if the non-existent Palestinians so much as put their tongues out at our brave IDF we will slaughter the lot of them. See how reasonable and democratic we are? Israel is founded on delusion. It fears the law which will look at the evidence. What evidence is there that Palestine belongs to the Jews? Zero. On we go...
Re Frank Dallas
Permalink Kit Bonde replied on
I love your comment!
Can I copy it and post it?
Kit Bonde