Travesty of Justice Against Netanyahu

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Israel has suffered substantial recriminations by many institutions and organizations with the onset of the Gaza War, and now the anti-Semitic International Criminal Court (ICC) has piled on with arrest warrants they’ve issued against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Yoav Gallant, former Defense Minister. Israel is not even a member of the ICC. These incriminations have been accruing:

As of this summer, more than 20 universities in Europe and Canada had cut ties with Israel institutions. Israeli companies have been shunned at trade fairs. Recently, former Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked was denied a visa to enter Australia and participate in a conference organized by Jewish organizations on the grounds that she might incite discord.

The ICC insisted that the details of the warrants be kept secret, but they did release the following information summarized below; a counterargument follows each one.

Charge: The Chamber found that the alleged crimes against humanity were part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Gaza.

Response: The attacks were not against the civilian population, but against Hamas. Thousands of leaflets were dropped to warn Gazans to evacuate to the southern Gaza strip.

When residents were asked to evacuate parts of Rafah in the south, text messages, voice mails and social media with maps were provided with directions and instructions for the evacuations.

Charge: The Chamber considered that there are reasonable grounds to believe that both individuals intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, and medicine and medical supplies, as well as fuel and electricity, from at least October 8, 2023 to May 20, 2024….

Furthermore, the Chamber found reasonable grounds to believe that no clear military need or other justification under international humanitarian law could be identified for the restrictions placed on access for humanitarian relief operations. 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.

Response: Providing food and supplies is extremely difficult in the Gaza War environment. Sending trucks into areas where fighting was occurring was dangerous; many suppliers were unwilling to risk their lives to make deliveries. Thus, deliveries were delayed or cancelled. The Arab Palestinians knew that Hamas was hijacking the shipments to supply their own forces, with no interest in providing for the Arab Palestinian people. In fact, they used civilians as shields.

Charge: The Chamber also found reasonable grounds to believe that the abovementioned conduct deprived a significant portion of the civilian population in Gaza of their fundamental rights, including the rights to life and health, and that the population was targeted based on political and/or national grounds. It therefore found that the crime against humanity of persecution was committed.

Response: Israel did not start this war; Hamas did. Israel was compelled to respond. If anything, Israel was the victim of war crimes that were intentionally committed by Hamas on October 7. It’s important to remember that Israel has not occupied Gaza since 2005; and the people of Gaza had chosen Hamas, which was known as a terrorist organization, to govern them. The civilians were not being targeted by the Israel Defense Forces; in fact, Hamas was using them as shields.

Charge: Finally, the Chamber assessed that there are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant bear criminal responsibility as civilian superiors for the war crime of intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population of Gaza.

Response: Given the responses listed above, that Israel did not target the civilian population; that Israel reacted to the October 7 attack realizing that it was an existential threat second only to the Holocaust; that Israel did not halt humanitarian aid, unless there was military action occurring; that Gaza was not occupied by Israel; that Hamas used civilians as body shields; that the Arab Palestinians voted in Hamas to govern them—the listing of crimes is a great lie.

In this context, defining the meaning of “genocide” is also important. Although the UN has shown itself to be deficient in so many ways, their definition of genocide will suffice:

A mental element: the ‘intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such’; and

A physical element, which includes the following five acts, enumerated exhaustively:

Killing members of the group

Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group

Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part

Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group

Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

To clarify the definition of genocide for this piece, Arab Palestinians were not directly killed unless they were members of Hamas. Although the Arab Palestinians were wounded and mentally harmed, it’s inappropriate to blame Israel; this is war. Hamas began this war: at any time, they could lay down their weapons and end the devastation. Israel is not deliberately trying to destroy the civilians, although it is trying to destroy Hamas. The last two items under “physical element” do not apply to this war.

In other words, Netanyahu and Gallant have been unjustly charged with these crimes.

You might wonder how the ICC might be so seriously mistaken. For one, their qualifications and competencies can be called into question:

However, as fifteen years of operations at the Court have also shown, possessing such competences may not be sufficient. A judge with extensive national criminal experience but little or no international exposure may not be able to adapt to an international context and to deal effectively with a complex hybrid procedural system that hardly resembles his or her own. In addition, it must be noted that the “List A”[competence in criminal law and procedure] category includes not only individuals with experience as judges but also any ‘practitioner,’ such as a prosecutor or defense counsel. Again, the practice of the Court demonstrates that experience in those capacities does not necessarily ensure the skills and temperament required to manage the overall case, conduct the proceedings, or, most importantly, arbitrate between the conflicting views and interests of all parties and participants.

In light of the above, it is of paramount importance that states nominate and select individuals possessing an appropriate combination of relevant criminal and international experiences, as well as the appropriate personal skills. Unfortunately, neither the nomination nor the election process guarantees such an outcome.

Have member states actually sent qualified people? How would we know?

The other possibility is that the Court is anti-Semitic.

Or both reasons could be possible.

Whatever you believe, the arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant are a sham.