The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) stunning issuance of arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity is a major game changer. After years of impunity, the chickens unleashed by Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza have finally come home to roost.
These charges against Netanyahu and Gallant are momentous. This is the first time the ICC has issued arrest warrants against an Israeli official for crimes against the Palestinian people. It is only the second time in its 22 years of existence that the ICC has issued an arrest warrant for someone who is not from the African continent.
Palestinian human rights organizations Al-Haq, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights called the ICC’s decision “a historic and pivotal moment in the battle against Israel’s impunity, in which the Palestinian people have been denied justice, and subjugated for decades under a genocidal, settler-colonial apartheid regime.”
[On Monday the ICC president blasted both the U.S. and Russia for interfering with the court in “appalling” attacks.
“The court is being threatened with draconian economic sanctions by another permanent member of the Security Council [the U.S.] as if it was a terrorist organization,” Judge Tomoko Akane said.]
US History of Undermining the ICC
The United States had a fraught relationship with the ICC even before it opened for business in 2002. As President Bill Clinton was leaving office, he signed the court’s Rome Statute, stating,
“I believe that a properly constituted and structured International Criminal Court would make a profound contribution in deterring egregious human rights abuses worldwide, and that signature increases the chances for productive discussions with other governments to advance these goals in the months and years ahead.”
But Clinton urged incoming President George W. Bush to refrain from sending it to the Senate for advice and consent to ratification. Bush went even further and, in an unprecedented move, unsigned the treaty on behalf of the United States. Since then, the U.S. has consistently tried to undermine the ICC.
Hellbound and Down 