AMMAN, Jordan, Might 22 (IPS) – The ICC Prosecutor’s purposes for arrest warrants concerning the State of affairs in Palestine symbolize a milestone. However they’re of little credit score to Prosecutor Karim Khan.
It’s abundantly clear that Khan has been sitting on this file for years, hoping it might merely disappear. Two issues compelled his hand.
First, his 2023 indictments of senior Russian officers regardless of a earlier pledge that he would solely pursue instances referred to his workplace by the United Nations Safety Council and ignore the remainder – notably the investigations regarding Afghanistan and Palestine that had been opposed by the US and UK.
Having gone again on his dedication, the hypocrisy related to persevering with to disregard the Palestine investigation initiated in 2021 grew to become just too overwhelming, specific as Israel’s genocidal onslaught in opposition to the Palestinians within the Gaza Strip intensified in 2024.
Second, the worldwide outcry in opposition to his inertia grew to become too loud to disregard. A lot as Khan would have most well-liked to pursue the coverage preferences of the US, UK, and Israel, the primary sponsors of his marketing campaign for ICC prosecutor, his inaction grew to become untenable.
Based on Khan. his workplace been investigating the State of affairs in Palestine since early 2021, and is analyzing all violations of the Rome Statute as since 2014. But in his case too, historical past seems to have commenced on 7 October 2023.
His purposes wholly ignore, any and all, points unconnected with the present scenario within the Gaza Strip. Nothing concerning the crime in opposition to humanity that’s apartheid, nothing concerning the battle crime of unlawful settlement, nothing about Israel’s earlier onslaughts in opposition to the Gaza Strip, or its systematic sniper assaults in opposition to demonstrators through the 2018 Nice March of Return.
Ever the cautious politician attentive to those that acquired him elected, he pointedly indicted three Hamas leaders however solely two Israeli officers. This raises quite a few questions: why did he search an arrest warrant for the top of Hamas, who based on out there stories was not concerned within the planning or execution of the 7 October 2023 assaults, however not Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who has explicitly recognized Palestinian civilians as legit army targets?
Why did Khan decline to use for arrest warrants for the Israeli army’s chief of the final employees, or any of the senior Israeli army commanders instantly chargeable for perpetrating the crimes he has enumerated, or different members of Israel’s battle cupboard who share full duty for its choices?
Why did he pointedly ignore the crime of genocide, which is explicitly recognized within the Rome Statute? It might be the case that the Worldwide Court docket of Justice (ICJ) can also be contemplating Israel’s duty for genocide, however in contrast to the ICJ the ICC doesn’t take care of particular person prison duty.
It appears indeniable that Khan is as soon as once more enjoying politics. His downside is that his efforts to curry favour in Washington will acquire him nothing, and he’s already being attacked from throughout the US political spectrum for violating the sacrosanct precept Israeli impunity. Washington will now cease at nothing to make sure that solely Khan and Hamas are held to account.
US makes an attempt to intervene with ICC procedures themselves represent crimes beneath the Rome Statute. Will Khan search to carry the raving lunatics who’ve taken over the Washington asylum to account, or look the opposite approach within the hope of reaching absolution?
The issues of Khan’s conduct however this stays an enormously vital improvement. Along with the ICJ genocide case, it has now turn out to be unimaginable for Israel to take care of its state of exceptionalism.
It’s more and more being judged each legally and politically on the idea of its precise conduct relatively than by way of the sordid prism of twentieth-century European historical past. For Israel this represents a defeat of strategic proportions.
Mouin Rabbani is Co-Editor of Jadaliyya, Non-Resident Fellow with the Middle for Battle and Humanitarian Research (CHS), and Non-Resident Fellow at Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN).
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