The decision by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to seek arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant marks a day of infamy for the court itself.
It throws into question once more the whole toxic, obsessive anti-Israel culture of the UN and many of its related institutions.
The ICC is not formally an organ of the UN but is linked to it by agreements and swims in the same fetid political culture.
The decision to simultaneously seek warrants for three leaders of Hamas, the most bloodthirsty, sadistic and depraved terrorist organisation on the planet, is a kind of grotesque political symbolism of the absurd.
It is also a day of shame for Australia, as Anthony Albanese refused to take any position on the issue at all.
US President Joe Biden condemned the court’s preposterous move out of hand, and in uncharacteristically strong language, calling it an “outrage”.
The British government condemned it, saying the ICC did not have relevant jurisdiction and its actions would injure peace.
The German, Italian, Austrian, and Czech governments all criticised the decision.
Effectively equating Israel, the Middle East’s only democracy, with Hamas, proscribed under US, British and Australian law as a terrorist organisation, seems both a studied insult and an act of propaganda warfare.
As Biden said: “There is no moral equivalence – none – between Israel and Hamas.”
He further said: “It’s clear Israel wants to do all it can to ensure civilian protection.”
Of the moves against Netanyahu and Gallant, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared: “It’s shameful. The ICC has no jurisdiction over this matter.”
Peter Dutton gave much clearer moral leadership than Albanese did, lining up with Biden, Britain and other Australian allies.
The Opposition Leader called the ICC action “an abomination” and further said: “This action is anti-Semitic, and it is against the interests of peace in the Middle East”.
At least Dutton has the courage to take a position. Albanese just takes a dive.
The latter claimed he couldn’t comment on a matter before the courts, then in the next breath showed what a hollow justification that was by commenting on Julian Assange’s British court cases.
Australian governments have commented on ICC cases numerous times in the past. The ICC is not a real court, but a highly politicised international bureaucracy.
The Albanese government itself previously distanced itself from consideration by the International Court of Justice of claims of genocide against Israel brought by South Africa.
Albanese should have the courage of his convictions here. Either, outrageously, he thinks a fellow democracy and ally of Australia should be prosecuted for defending itself, in which case he should say so and Australian politics can digest this bitter new ingredient.
Or he thinks, like Biden and Britain, that the ICC at the very least has grossly overstepped the mark, in which case he should say that and brave the outrage of the left and those who hate Israel.
The coward’s castle he has constructed for himself on this issue is simply shameful.
Paradoxically a bland unsigned bureaucratic statement from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade was in its puny way a model of Churchillian courage compared with Albanese’s comments. DFAT at least had the wit to point out that there was no moral equivalence between Hamas and Israel.
That is far as its courage went, which is not very far at all.
DFAT is just wrong to say that it would be improper for Australia to comment on a matter under way, even at this very preliminary stage, at the ICC.
To take that ridiculous view is to rob Australia of agency and independence on an intensely contested political issue involving our interests, our allies, our values and to say we must be the slaves of the judgments and prejudices of UN-related international bodies.
That’s no more than a cover for political cowardice. The ICC action is wrong on the facts, on the jurisdiction and on the politics.
Israel has facilitated the entry into Gaza of tens of thousands of tonnes of aid. Egypt has a border with Gaza that is closed. The ICC could as easily prosecute Egypt.
Similarly, no Palestinian has been allowed by the Egyptian government to flee there for temporary safety.
Hamas itself has stolen aid, kept what it wants and sold the rest at inflated prices.
Blinken and UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron said weeks ago that Israel had offered an extremely generous ceasefire in exchange for Hamas releasing as few as 33 living Israeli hostages.
In refusing this ceasefire, it is Hamas which bears the continuing blame for continued suffering in Gaza. Similarly, the whole conflict would come to an end if Hamas released all the hostages and committed itself to ending terror attacks on Israel.
The UN recently cut in half its estimates of the number of civilians, specifically women and children, it believes has died in Gaza.
The commonly quoted estimates come from Hamas. Any loss of civilian life is a terrible tragedy and one that civilised human beings work to avoid but this revision of figures suggests Israel has in fact achieved an unusually low civilian casualty rate in such intense urban warfare. Never forget that a ceasefire was in place when Hamas launched its terror attacks.
It is irrational now to argue that if Hamas hides behind civilians, Israel loses the right to attack Hamas, or to defend itself at all.
Then there is the question of jurisdiction. The ICC is meant to work only in situations where no credible national legal process will take place. Israel has the strongest and most independent legal system of any nation in the Middle East. Indeed, its judiciary is one of the most boisterously independent in the world. Prime ministers and presidents have gone to jail in recent times in Israel.
Nothing is surer than that there will be a plenitude of Israeli inquiries once the operation in Gaza is finished.
It’s completely unreasonable to demand that Israel should be holding such inquiries now, in the midst of the conflict. Therefore there is absolutely no reason to think national processes have been exhausted.
Similarly, the ICC’s jurisdiction covers only those nations that are signatories of the Rome Statute. Many nations, among them the US, India and Israel, are not signatories. Palestine is not legally a state. Therefore, as Blinken forcefully argues, the ICC simply has no relevant jurisdiction.
These moves in the ICC are not about justice, and they’re not about law. They are a further effort to delegitimise Israel as a nation.
Australia should oppose them unambiguously.
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