22
NOV
2024
The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague has issued arrest warrants against Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and against the recently dismissed former Defense Minister Joaw Gallant, as it announced yesterday, Thursday. As justification, the IStGH explains that both have "criminal responsibility" for so-called crimes against humanity. 1] On the one hand, it is about the crime of using "starvation as a method of warfare". There is sufficient evidence that Netanyahu and Gallant "intentionally and deliberately" robbed the population of the Gaza Strip of various things that were indispensable for their survival, including food, water, medicine and other medical materials, and fuel and electricity. In addition, the ICC has acre reason to believe that Israel's Prime Minister and his former Minister of Defense have been guilty of the crimes of murder, other atrocities and persecution of the civilian population on the basis of purely national criteria. The ICC refers to this, for example, to the fact that Palestinian children die of malnutrition, as well as to the fact that operations and amputations must be carried out without anesthesia: Israel also prevents the supply of anesthetics.
The arrest warrants against Gallant and especially against Netanyahu put the federal government in a delicate position. Germany usually boasts, like hardly any other state, that it is committed to international law and international jurisdiction. After the chief prosecutor at the ICC, Karim Khan, on 20. May had requested arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant, a government spokesman in Berlin said: "Basically, we are supporters of the International Criminal Court, and that's the way it is." 2] Asked whether the federal government would comply with future decisions of the court, the spokesman confirmed: "Of course. Yes, we abide by law and law.” Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock emphasized that the independence of the judiciary is "valued [...]; this also applies "to all international courts". "We can't choose," Baerbock said: "Today we like a dish and tomorrow we don't". 3] At the same time, it is hard to imagine that the federal government would be ready to execute the arrest warrants now issued against Netanyahu and Gallant, should one of the two travel to Germany in the future - especially since Berlin is now in the unpleasant position of cooperating closely with a prime minister who is wanted by the judiciary worldwide. 4]
If the federal government - always ready to condemn hostile states in the strongest possible way in no time - has so far with reactions, the first statements of the conservative opposition have long been available. In May, CDU chairman Friedrich Merz had already expressed that "even the application" for the arrest warrants, because they were directed against both Israeli government politicians and leading Hamas functionaries, was "an absurd perpetrator-victim reversal". 5] The accusation is now going nowhere, because Israel has now killed all three Hamas representatives, whom the ICC also wanted to imprison, according to its own statements. Yesterday, Thursday, the deputy chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group responsible for foreign policy, Johann Wadephul, declared that it was completely "unimaginable" for him that Netanyahu, for example, was "arrested on German soil". The arrest warrants testified to a "complete lack of tact of the top" of the ICC.[ 6] Wadephul criticized the fact that Baerbock had nominated an ultimately unsuccessful candidate for a judge at the ICC and that the Federal Republic of Germany has not appointed an ICC judge since March; therefore, Germany could not be "an advocate for the right to self-defense of Israel" in the proceedings. How Wadephul wants to reconcile this statement with the independence of the judiciary, which has always been praised by Berlin, is unclear.
The ICC has issued the arrest warrants, although it has been at the center of a massive Israeli campaign for years. This is evidenced by extensive research jointly presented in May by the British Guardian and two Israeli media outlets – the +972 Magazine and Local Call. They are based on interviews with a large number of active and former Israeli intelligence and government officials, with diplomats, lawyers and ICC personnel. 7] According to this, Israel's campaign began after Palestine joined the ICC in 2015 and it now dealt with Israel's crimes on Palestinian territory. One of the first steps of the campaign was that two men anonymously rang the doorbell of the then chief ICJ prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and handed her an envelope with cash and an Israeli telephone number - probably an Israeli hint, the Guardian notes, "you know where she lives". In the following years, Israeli services intercepted telephone conversations, text messages and emails from Bensouda and her successor Karim Khan, launched dirty campaigns, exerted pressure and allegedly also issued threats. Especially towards the Gambian Bensouda, there were no inhibitions: "She is black and African," a source told the Guardian, "who is interested in her?"[ 8]
According to the research of the Guardian, the +972 Magazine and Local Call, Israel's intelligence campaign against Bensouda intensified when it emerged that the ICC could open proceedings against Israel - long before the 7th. October 2023. According to this, the then Mossad leader (2016 to 2021) Yossi Cohen, a close ally of Netanyahu, began to visit and call Bensouda without being asked to take her for Israeli causes. When this failed, he made "comments about Bensouda's safety" and her career prospects; Bensouda had informed some colleagues at the ICC, according to insiders. 9] The attempt by Israeli services to get rid of Bensouda through a smear campaign has failed. When her successor Karim Khan, a Briton, began to deal with alleged Israeli war crimes after the start of the Gaza War, he was also attacked in the strongest possible terms, writes the Guardian. In a letter intercepted by the secret service, Khan reported that he was under "huge pressure from the United States". The Guardian quotes from a letter from a group of influential US Republicans: "Take Israel on the grain, and we take you on the grain."[ 10]
The fact that neither the Israeli intelligence operations nor immense pressure from the USA could prevent the arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant has consequences that go far beyond the current case. For years, the IStGH, which took on the 1st July 2002, served exclusively as an instrument of the West against unpopular politicians from the Global South. Since initially only African politicians were accused, he was ridiculed on the continent as the "African Court of Justice". Even when the ICC expanded its field of activity to non-African countries, it only targeted representatives of states that had come into conflict with the West, most recently in particular Russian President Vladimir Putin.[ 11] Washington ended an attempt by Bensouda to punish US crimes in Afghanistan with sanctions against the chief prosecutor.[ 12] Karim Khan has reported that a leading Western politician had told him that the ICC had been explicitly built "for Africa and thugs like Putin". 13] With Netanyahu and Gallant, the ICC has now for the first time targeted leading representatives of a close ally of the transatlantic powers. If it is possible to bring the proceedings against them to an end and possibly even a conviction, then allies of the West and, in the future, possibly also Western states themselves, could no longer reliably expect to remain unpunished before the international justice system.
More on the topic: German dilemmas.
[1] Situation in the State of Palestine: ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I rejects the State of Israel's challenges to jurisdiction and issues warrants of arrest for Benjamin Netanyahu and Joav Gallant. icc-cpi.int 21.11.2024.
[2], [3] According to the arrest warrant: Federal government commits to IStGH. rsw.beck.de 23.05.2024.
[4] S. on this "In the national interest of Germany", "In the national interest of Germany" (II) and "In the national interest of Germany" (III).
[5] According to arrest warrant application: Federal Government commits to IStGH. rsw.beck.de 23.05.2024.
[6] Alexander Haneke: This is what the arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant mean. faz.net 21.11.2024.
[7], [8], [9], [10] Harry Davies, Bethan McKernan, Yuval Abraham, Meron Rapoport: Spying, hacking and intimidation: Israel's nine-year 'war' on the ICC exposed. theguardian.com 28.05.2024.
[11] S. The West, the South and the Law (III).
[12] S. about the West, the South and the Law.
[13] Harry Davies, Bethan McKernan, Yuval Abraham, Meron Rapoport: Spying, hacking and intimidation: Israel's nine-year 'war' on the ICC exposed. theguardian.com 28.05.2024.