IF there ever was an international tribunal that is not on the side of justice, then the International Criminal Court (ICC) must surely be it.
With the exception of a brief period of Fatou Bensouda's prosecutorial leadership, the ICC has been the servile servant of the West and its allies. The ICC burst into the world on July 1, 2002, promising to put an end to "unimaginable atrocities that deeply shock the conscience of humanity". What language, what promise.
Fast-forward to 21 years thereafter, the unimaginable and deeply shocking atrocities are allowed to happen. Yes, allowed. Saturday was the latest, when the Israelis bombarded 80 Palestinians taking shelter in a refugee camp and schools to death.
No threat of prosecution, let alone issuance of arrest warrants against Israeli leaders, by the ICC. ICC be nimble, ICC be quick, remains a Palestinian wish. Interestingly, chief prosecutor Karim Khan, plonked there by the notoriously pro-Israel Britain, argues in his op-ed on Nov 10 in The Guardian that the only way to halt the spread of the pandemic of inhumanity is to cling to the law.
Bravo, we say to him. But is the ICC clinging to the law? Selectively, it must be said.
Bensouda left behind a pile of evidence. By now, Khan should have enough to issue arrest warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu and his clique of war criminals. Instead, his op-ed seems to make much about Israel being not a party to the Rome Statute, suggesting an inevitable reading that the Tel Aviv regime can't be prosecuted.
If for some reason this reading is wrong, the following quote of his makes it abundantly clear: "My office has jurisdiction over crimes committed by the nationals of all state parties."
This "state parties" stuff is contrary to ICC's earlier decision, which says the court has jurisdiction over Israel for crimes committed on Palestinian territory, a state party. Recent statements from the office of the prosecutor seem to suggest that only Palestinians are in its crosshairs.
How about the Israelis? More than 12,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been massacred in Gaza in the last 46 days? How about similar ethnic cleansing going on in the West Bank? Why no mention of investigations of Israel, which has taken thousands of Palestinians hostage, let alone the hundreds of thousands it has killed, in the last 21 years that the ICC has been around?
Hamas was set up in 1987, but occupied Palestinian territories, excluding the illegally created Israel, have been scenes of ethnic cleansing since 1967. Atrocities didn't begin on Oct 7, but way before in 1947 when the Zionists unleashed the first Nakba catastrophe, killing tens of thousands and driving out about 700,000 Palestinians. Granted, the ICC could not prosecute these genocidal crimes as it wasn't around then.
That the ICC is there to only prosecute the weak is a very wrong message to send. If that be the case, here is a motto for the ICC: Might is right. If this message comes from the United Nations Security Council, there is a chance it may be tolerated, but from a court of law? How low can the ICC go?
The ICC is not dispensing justice, but making sure might is right. The world doesn't need such a court. Charade is for the stage, not for the courtroom.
