As the war in Gaza approaches eight months and Israel prepares to storm the last Palestinian civilian center in Rafah, the International Criminal Court on Monday said: Palestine announced arrest warrants against its leaders. “But while the charges are notable, they are unlikely to change either side or U.S. policy.
The ICC issued warrants to five officials. Hamas leader Yahya Sinawar has been accused of “war crimes and crimes against humanity” starting with the October 7 attack, including murder, hostage-taking and torture. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was directly charged with “using civilian starvation as a means of war” and “deliberately directing attacks against civilians,” leading to a war similar to Russian President Vladimir Putin. He joins a rare group of world leaders who have been charged with a crime. to lead the country.
Both sides quickly criticized the warrant. Hamas said in a statement that it “strongly condemns” the accusations, calling them “without legal basis.” Israeli War Cabinet Secretary Benny Gantz said in X: “It is morally blind to equate the leaders of a country who go into battle to protect their people with bloodthirsty terrorists, and their duty to protect their people.” “It’s a violation of their abilities,” he said. ”
As these denials suggest, we should not wait with bated breath for accusations that change Hamas or Israel’s approach to the conflict, or for that matter America’s approach. These concerns concern the court of public opinion, not the international court of law. Because the ICC has no formal authority over Israel or the United States, its actions serve more to organize the international community and draw rhetorical lines in the sand than to achieve justice.
The United States created the ICC in 2002 and helped write the Rome Statute, a legal code to create an international body to try the world’s worst criminals. But when it came to formally submitting to the ICC’s jurisdiction over war crimes and genocide, the United States was one of dozens of countries that refused to sign on, along with China, Russia, and Israel.
The U.S. refusal came as the U.S. led its NATO allies to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan. Months after the establishment of the ICC, the United States and its “coalition of the willing” declared the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, prompting an invasion that would overthrow Saddam Hussein.
Over the course of two decades of war in both countries, the United States faced multiple accusations of war crimes by its military. In 2004, while Saddam Hussein was awaiting trial for crimes against humanity, the world became aware of the humiliation and torture of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison. He was eventually indicted, but his trial was held in a U.S. military court. As recently as 2020, the ICC began investigating crimes against humanity committed in Afghanistan, with particular emphasis on CIA-led nighttime attacks on civilians and the extradition of suspects to other countries by the US military. In each case, the United States rejects the ICC’s authority to hold American citizens accountable for any criminal acts.
On the one hand, resistance to the ICC’s authority helps countries like the United States and Israel maintain protection for their own citizens and conduct unilateral military actions that go against global consensus. States, not the United Nations, decide what military action is justified and achieves national goals. This decades-long dance is also how the United States has maintained its “liberal world order” and developed the rules of the road while protecting its own power and freedom of choice.
But the challenge arises as the United States uses the language of the need to prioritize human rights, leading the way globally to return to allies and rally democracy against the growing threat of fascism. “Standing up for democracy and human rights everywhere is not inconsistent with our national interests or national security,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a cable to diplomats early in his tenure. said. Refreshingly, Blinken also said, “We must acknowledge our imperfections. We confront them openly and transparently.” It is these values that Mr. Blinken said earlier this week: This was the reason why five Israeli military units were declared to have committed human rights violations in the Gaza conflict.
As the United States resists ICC oversight of its actions and those of the Israeli military, it maintains its own interests and its power to decide when to protect universal human rights and when to defend itself. . However, doing so risks further isolating both countries from the international community.
This article originally appeared on MSNBC.com
