Why ICC bid for arrest warrants is a bold and historic move
Richard Falk, former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the OPT
Richard Falk writes in Middle East Eye on 22 May 2024:
The International Criminal Court (ICC) this week made the first truly historic move since its establishment in 2002, with its chief prosecutor recommending arrest warrants against two top Israeli officials, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, and three prominent Hamas leaders.
As expected, both sides have denounced this ICC action in the strongest possible language. Because of western media bias, the angry reactions from Israel and its allies have dominated the news cycle, while the official statement from Hamas has been largely ignored.
While each side chose a similar line of argument, there is a 180-degree difference in their substantive outlooks.
Israel’s most fundamental objection to the prosecutor’s action is the supposed equivalence drawn between Hamas, which perpetrated the barbarous attack of 7 October, and the democratically elected government of Israel, which says it acted to defend itself and restore the security of its population.
Hamas and its supporters are also appalled at the equivalence implied by the call for arrest warrants, which “equate[s] the victim with the executioner” in the context of an oppressive Israeli occupation that affirms Palestinian legal rights of resistance, including recourse to armed struggle.
In my judgment, the Israeli response is rhetorical and polemical, to the effect that Israel and its leaders can never be accused of criminality in a context shaped by what happened on 7 October, identified as the worst attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust.
Netanyahu called the recommendation for arrest warrants “a moral outrage of historic proportions” – a “travesty of justice” that sets “a dangerous precedent”, interfering with the right of democratic states to defend themselves.
Defence lacking
What is missing from the Israeli response has been any defence against the specificities of Israeli behaviour, viewed around the globe as amounting to genocide, as evidenced by growing protests even in the US, Israel’s most unwavering supporter.