The Pathetic Hypocricy of Israel and USA on Palestinian ICC Plans to Probe War Crimes in Gaza

I've touched before on the hypocritical attitude of the USA regarding the activities – or lack of activities – of the International Criminal Court, ICC with regard to international conflicts: here and here. In that case, the conflict in question pertained to Syria. Now, a few days ago, there were news of an official visit of the foreign minister of the Palestinian Authority, Riad al-Malki, to the ICC prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, where the former urged the ICC to probe alleged war crimes of Israeli soldiers, IDF high officers, state officials and politicians during the recent and ongoing attacks in Gaza, to date resulting in around 2 000 dead, among which are many civilians and children, many more injured and material destruction of vast proportions (here, here, here). 

Related to past Israeli attacks on Gaza, such petitions have ended in nothing, as the ICC have found the legal status of the Palestinian Authority to be uncertain. It has been commented that, in order for the ICC to move on this issue, the PA needs become a member of the ICC, and only states can be such members (here). However, in 2012, the UN general assembly voted with a large majority to recognise the PA as a de facto state, albeit not a UN member (here, here, here). This is now used as a stepping stone by the PA to move for membership of the ICC (see also here) – to sign the Rome statute – thus recognising the court's authority, becoming party to its actions and be bounded by its decisions. To quote a report from Reuters (linked to above): 

If the Palestinians were to sign the ICC's founding treaty, the Rome Statute, the court would have jurisdiction over crimes committed in the Palestinian territories.
With Palestinian authorization, an ICC investigation could then examine events as far back as July 1, 2002, when the court opened with a mandate to try individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

Of course, what such probes and possible prosecutions against Israelis would lead to is entirely up to the prosecutors and judges of the court. For a number of reasons, one of which is about evidence, it may end up in nothing. However, it must be observed that any such probe might also uncover war crimes committed by the PA or the Hamas-controlled Gaza leadership, their officers, officials, politicians and soldiers. For instance, the rocket-fire of the Hamas military contingent, The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, towards Israeli civilian areas may very well constitute such crimes. Crimes such as genocide are namely not defined by the sheer number of victims, but by the intent behind prosecuted actions (here). In other words, by joining the ICC, the PA opens itself up to allegations and convictions and has bounded itself to comply, including the handing over of any Palestinian wanted for questioning or arrest.

Now, this is certainly not the case regarding Israel or its politicians or personnel and neither is it true of the USA. Both these states stand in the proud company of China, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Qatar not to recognise the ICC and to have refused signing the Rome statute – in fact, USA has even (under G.W Bush) actively withdrawn a previous signature of then US president Bill Clinton (for sources see my former post). Nevertheless, responding to the move of the PA towards ICC, Israeli PM, Benjamin Netanyahu, has officially asked the US to help Israel to avoid ICC actions (see also here and here) and a White House representative has responded that the US will support the Israeli case in this respect. These attitudes of both Israel and the USA are not only hypocritical – if they want to have a say over the ICC, they should join it and recognise it – it is pathetically so. Both of them wants to eat the cake and have it, to get the goods without paying the price.

Exactly how pathetic these moves by the Israels state and the US are is revealed by Netanyahu's stated concern of Israel being held to a "double standard" visavis Hamas. As just described, it is in fact Israel's persistent refusal to join and recognise the ICC which creates a double standard – in Israel's favour. For while the PA moves to join, thus empowering ICC to probe and prosecute actions on its territories and charge and arrest its citizens, Israel is not (and neither is the USA). As long as Israel reserves this (doubtful) legal privilege, it is Netanyahu and the state that he is currently running that actively upholds a double standard towards all those states realising the value and import of solid international law instruments pertaining to war crimes and crimes against humanity and recognising the ICC – among them, should they join, the state of Palestine, represented by the PA.

In conclusion, if Israel and the USA really wants to work for an adequately functioning ICC and secure lack of double standard in its actions, they should both immediately sign the Rome statute and recognise the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. Then, there would be some clout behind their present claims.

Further Complications with the US Argument for 'Punishing' Syria for Chemical Attacks: Hypocricy and Lack of Foundation

So, yesterday I had a post pointing to a piece by Udo Schuklenk, rather convincingly picking apart the US case for military attacking Syria as a 'punishment' for the current regime's alleged chemical warfare attacks against civilians. Today, I found two further reasons against any such idea, besides the numerous ones presented by Udo:

1. Articles in The Daily Mail, making public solid evidence to the effect that the UK, whose prime minister David Cameron has apparently swallowed president Obama's argument for an attack whole and unchewed and made motions in parliament to gain support for this line (to no effect, so far), has for many years when Syria was suspected of stockpiling chemical weapons agents, like sarin, exported ingredients for manufacturing exactly such agents to Syria with the government's and relevant agencies' open approval and license. The ingredient in question is one that in other contexts is perfectly innocent or benign, namely sodium fluoride (an ingredient in almost all tooth paste and sometimes added to drinking water to boost population dental health), but as here described, also a necessary bit in the manufacturing of sarin, which is exactly the gas claimed by the US to have been used by the Assad regime (and famous since the terrorist attacks in the Tokyo underground in 1995). It wouldn't surprise me one bit if also other of those countries now contemplating jumping onto the US attack wagon, at least if UN support can be produced, similarly have exported this or some other part of the alleged Syrian chemical weapons arsenal – in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if also the US government can be found to have done the same.

The relevance of this for Obama's argument is the following: If the Syrian regime is to be punished by a military attack (that will most certainly kill lots of people having nothing to do with the matter, besides being unlucky enough to reside inside Syrian territory – nobody believes in the fairy tales about precision warfare anymore), then surely a proportional punishment has to be directed at those that have aided and abetted such a serious act. That is, if the alleged action of the Assad regime is to be seen as a crime worthy of such a degree of punishment (including foreseeable collateral damages of substantial proportion), surely aiding and abetting such a crime must be viewed as deserving a punishment in the same ballpark, although at a more moderate proportion in the same way that assisting a murder deserves less punishment than the murder itself. Note that the argument that the aiding was unwitting does not hold up to scrutiny, since the UK and the rest of the countries here viewed Syria as a danger from the chemical weapons perspective already in those times and were fully well informed about the military application of sodium fluoride.

So, it would seem, that the same legal logic invoked by president Obama to motivate attacking Syria would force him to the conclusion that if, say, Damascus is to be bombed in punishment for the alleged attack, then some more minor part of the UK – say Middlesbrough or Bristol – should be in for a similar treatment.And it doesn't end there, for it would also seem that David Cameron himself, as a matter of legal logic, would have to accept and support such a conclusion. Lovely, isn't it?

2. Now, and this is something that dawned on my today, there's a basic fault of the whole attempt to try to make a legal argument in support of a military attack aimed at punishing a country's leaders or its officer's at lower levels for an alleged crime. This argument requires that due process is applied, and what Obama has suggested is far from that. Due process would seem to require that those that are suspects in the crime are apprehended for subsequent inquiry and investigation by the International Criminal Court – not that Damascus or whatever other place is contemplated by the Washington hawks as a fitting target is reduced to a pile of rubble, possibly killing the Syrian leadership possibly responsible for chemical attacks together with a huge bunch of other people, without anything even resembling trial. There is only one problem: the USA, for entirely selfish reasons, is on record as actively working against the ICC and its underlying idea of installing a legally secure institution for punishing war crimes and crimes against humanity. In conclusion: Obama's argument relies on the idea of applying due legal process and rule of law, while what he suggests is the opposite. Not only that, he represents a country that is an active enemy of the very notion of such rule of law.

So, in the end, it would seem that, even discounting for the blind eye towards those who have made the alleged chemical attack possible and the hypocricy implied by that – the entire attempt of the US regime and president Obama to dress up in legal garment what is, I suppose, in the end the same old 'preventive self-defense' rubbish as usual, fails even more splendidly than argued by Udo yesterday.

Now, should Obama change his mind and accept, as EU leaders now seem keen on, that an ICC-based due process handling of the alleged chemical attack of the Syrian regime is applied, as would seem logical in view of the legal argument made, such a due process would also have to include, of course, the crime of aiding and abetting such alleged criminal behaviour, which in turn would seem to imply that David Cameron and relevant ministers (of security, defense and foreign trade) should, at the very least, be held for questioning and possible a number of other governments should be in for the same treatment. A little something for the EU council of ministers to contemplate in their further musings on this matter.