Rejecting the Israeli challenge against the lack of jurisdiction, the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his former Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, over allegations of “crimes against humanity and war crimes”.
This measure means that 124 states, which are members of the ICC, including European, Latin- American countries and others around the globe would be entitled to arrest Netanyahu and Gallant if they landed on their soil.
Legal experts, who stressed on the importance of this warrant, say that the Court has no means of enforcing the warrants, so that its members might not respect them without facing any consequences. A number of members states have already rejected the warrants and reiterated they would invite the Israeli leaders to visit their capitals.
Whether Netanyahu and Gallant are arrested or not, does it benefit the Palestinian people who have been murdered and ethnically cleansed by the Israeli Occupation for the past 14 months in a row, and there is no potential end for these crimes on the horizon?
Those, who believe the ICC’s measure is a victory for the Palestinians, still believe that it would not end the ongoing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, but they argue that “this precedent” would reinforce the international isolation.
As the Court is a highly respected international means of justice, people around the world who believe that the Israeli Occupiers are oppressing the Palestinians, would gain more credibility and strength for their arguments. The Court said there were “reasonable grounds” to believe Netanyahu and Gallant bear criminal responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity being committed in Gaza.
However, beside it being too late, the Palestinians themselves do not believe that the rulings against Netanyahu and Gallant are beneficial to them because they will not even help to end their suffering and daily losses, even if the two Israeli leaders were actually arrested.
In addition, the effective ICC member states, which said they would respect this decision or issued a vague response to it, their stance is still disappointing as they continue flooding arms to the Israeli Occupation to carry out more and more war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Let us imagine that they arrested Netanyahu, what does it means if we, the Palestinians, continue being killed and exterminated by the weapons manufactured by their countries and sent to Israel by their governments? Or their armies are taking part in the war crimes, such as what the British army is doing? It has recently been revealed that the UK has carried out more than half of the spying missions of reconnaissance crafts over the skies of Gaza.
Regarding the great powers which are not involved in the arms supplies for the Israeli Occupation army or diplomatic support for the Israeli Occupation through the international bodies, what will they do? We do not expect more than strong statements or celebration of the “victory” of justice.
Meanwhile, they will continue, as they have been during the past 14 months, their passive rejection of the Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity being carried out day and night against us. If they wanted to do more, they would have done so before the ICC’s ruling.
All great powers, including the US, Russia, the EU, China and even India, which have or have not denounced, or those which backed the Israeli crimes, have their own interests that they would not see jeopardized by taking real and actual measures pushing Israel to end its “livestream genocide” in Gaza.
Each one of these countries has its own issues related to oppression and occupation of other nations – many of them with Muslim nations. So these powers do not get involved in real measures because they would be faced with real and actual measure by their counterparts in relation to their issues with their rivals.
For example, the US keeps a close eye towards Chinese oppression of the Uyghurs, in return for toning down Chinese support for Russia regarding the war in Ukraine and not taking real measures against Israeli war crimes against the Palestinians. It is a very complicated issue that needs thousands of words to explain.
Regarding the EU, its top leaders have been adopting a vocal critical language against the Israeli crimes, but this is not more than a cover for their real support for the Israeli aggression against the Palestinians and their willingness for Israel to be the strongest state in the region.
Israeli crimes against the Palestinians did not start 14 months ago, but more than 8 decades ago, with the support of money, arms and human resources from the European countries, the US and Russia. They are the countries which planted Israel in the middle of the Arab and Muslim region in order to continue having a hand there.
To create Israel, they themselves carried out war crimes and crimes against humanity in the whole region. They continue committing crimes directly, through their military occupation and, indirectly, through their proxy state leaders in the region.
In order to keep Israel strong, they give it all licenses, greenlights and impunity to carry out war crimes and crimes against humanity with full premeditation because they know very well that no Occupation can continue with this. If they really did not want this, they might have stopped their support for Israel so that it would not stay in Palestine for one day.
In light of such contradictions and clash of interests, the Palestinians recognize that the ICC’s arrest warrants for Israeli leaders is not a victory at all and that justice will never be truly served unless the world order is changed. We see this is happening very soon.
-Motasem A Dalloul is MEMO’s correspondent in the Gaza Strip.
