By Cliff Montgomery – Dec. 11th, 2024
About two weeks ago, the world’s leading court for the investigation and punishment of war crimes took the large step of issuing arrest warrants for current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, as well as a warrant for Hamas’ top military chief, Mohammed Deif. The warrants state that the three men are guilty of committing crimes against humanity as they have waged a savage 13-month war in the Gaza Strip.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) is a Hague, Netherlands-based organization. It currently resides as one of the world’s leading judicial groups, and is empowered to investigate and punish the world-wide crimes of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression.
Among the charges, the warrants state the Court has evidence that Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant have worked to employ “starvation as a method of warfare.” Court officials find reason to believe that the Israeli men have often stopped humanitarian aid to the region, ??and have gone out of their way to focus on civilians during Israel’s war against Hamas.
This is not too surprising a move. Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor for the ICC, has been seeking these warrants since May – although then he was also seeking warrants against two other Hamas leaders, Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar, who apparently have been killed in the fighting.
Israeli officials have denied the charges.
This legal move by the International Criminal Court perhaps was put into motion as Israel’s war in Gaza has killed 44,000 people, say health authorities in the region. They add that over half of those murdered were women and children. The casualty count does not recognize a difference between combatants and the general population.
The panelists added that the two men may also have committed murder, persecution and other crimes against humanity.
The panelists also said that the lack of basic means of living, such as water, electricity, food, fuel and various medical supplies created conditions “calculated to bring about the destruction of part of the civilian population in Gaza,” including the deaths of children due to malnutrition and dehydration.
The arrest warrants issued for Netanyahu and Gallant were decided upon by a panel of three judges. Their decision was unanimous. The judges stated their belief that both men may be guilty of committing a deliberate starvation of the Gaza people.
They further added that the two worked to keep hospital supplies and medicines from reaching Gaza. This move ensured that operations – including amputations – were performed without anesthesia and only with a poor means of sedation that led to “great suffering.”
U.S. politicians on both sides of the aisle of course slammed the ICC’s decision to do the right thing.
The United States had signed the Rome Statute creating the International Criminal Court, but later withdrew its signature when it became clear that various countries expected the Court to prosecute Americans who may have committed atrocities.
The Biden Administration immediately voiced its anger over the ruling
“We fundamentally reject the court’s decision to issue arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials,” Karine Jean-Pierre, White House spokeswoman,declared to reporters.
“We remain deeply concerned by the prosecutor’s rush to seek arrest warrants and the troubling process errors that led to this decision,” Jean-Pierre added, though she perhaps tellingly failed to point out what alleged “errors” had been committed.
Some Republicans were even deeper in denial.
Congressman Mike Waltz, picked by Trump to serve as his national security adviser, railed against the ICC for trying to hold Israeli officials accountable for apparent war crimes, often against women and children rather than terrorists.
“The ICC has no credibility and these allegations have been refuted by the US government,” Waltz railed in a social media post, forgetting for a moment his own conservative rhetoric which usually declares that government officials cannot be trusted.
“Israel has lawfully defended its people [and] borders from genocidal terrorists. You can expect a strong response to the antisemitic bias of the ICC [and] UN come January.”
Israel does have a right to defend itself from terrorists – but if the ICC allegations are correct, we must also admit that it does not have the right to take out its murderous frustrations on non-combatants like women and children. And it appears Mr. Waltz doesn’t seem to mind anti-Muslim prejudice, in apparently presuming that every Muslim is a natural terrorist.
Declaring that a group of obvious professionals are out of their minds for telling you something you don’t want to hear is a dangerous delusion… Anyone remember when Republicans like Congressman Waltz said the same thing about those trying to warn us on the dangers of COVID-19 a few years ago, and how conservatives ignored those professionals? How did that work?
A more balanced assessment came from human right groups.
The warrants targeting both groups in the Gaza showdown “break through the perception that certain individuals are beyond the reach of the law,” declared Balkees Jarrah, the associate international justice director at Human Rights Watch, in a statement.
