Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel from 29 December 2022
The justification of the Americans and the Israelis is self-defense. An excuse that got tired. Comment
The announcement was made on Monday 20 May the Attorney General asked the International Criminal Court (ICC), based in The Hague, arrest warrants for three leaders of Hamas and two of Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Gallant. This announcement sparked a variety of statements, many strongly negative. For example, Biden would have declared: “We reject the decision. What is happening in Gaza is not genocide. We want the Hamas butchers defeated,” which is a small masterpiece of confusions and errors. First, the ICC (International Criminal Court) is not the ICJ (International Court of Justice). The USA belongs to the second but not to the first. Secondly, even if the US were part of the ICC he could not “reject” anything.
He can disapprove, condemn, curse, be seen in the White House trampling on his copy of the Prosecutor’s document. Not more. Third, it is the ICJ not the ICC that is investigating the genocide allegation. The ICC Prosecutor accuses the two individuals, Netanyahu and Gallant (not their state) of other crimes: both war crimes and crimes against humanity. These can contribute to a genocide, but they do not exhaust it. Fourth, Biden claims that Israel is only defending itself. It does not say that the only way Israel conceived and practiced to “defeat” Hamas is to kill ALL its members, and to incidentally kill all Palestinians who serve the purpose. Israeli Minister Gallant also responded that “the attempt to deny Israel’s right to self-defense must be rejected.” The justification of the Americans and the Israelis is, therefore, self-defense. But the indictment is clear in this regard: Israel has the right to defend its citizens, but “the means chosen – that is, intentionally causing death, starvation, great suffering and serious injury to the body or health of the civilian population – are criminals.” Of course this statement will have to be proven.
Another argument was used to dissociate or disapprove of the prosecution and arrest request. For example, our Foreign Minister Tajani (in an interview given to journalists in Piazza Colonna in Rome on 22 May) claimed that they cannot be “put on the same level” a terrorist organization like Hamas and a democratic state like Israel. Will the Palestinians also notice the gap? Will it be sweeter to die under the bombs produced by a democratic state and if that wasn’t enough, dropped by another democratic state?
Others spoke of “unacceptable comparison” instead of “placed on the same level”. I believe the two expressions are used in the same meaning. But this is vague. It can mean being able to compare, or that the result of the comparison is equal. Let’s see Netanyauhu: “With what audacity do you compare Hamas who murdered, burned, massacred, raped and kidnapped our brothers and sisters, and the IDF soldiers who are fighting a just war that has no equal in morality?”. So for Netanyahu, which begins by denying it, the comparison can be made, and it is all in favor of the “clean”, aseptic, even “moral” extermination of Israel. But the atrocities committed, for example the bodies shoveled away with bulldozers alive or dead, the bombs supplied by the USA which wipe out a hundred people at a time, the almost scientific planning of the total and extreme deprivation of the population sent day after day to desperation mentioned in the indictment of the ICC Prosecutor would really suggest that the cruelty of some and the wickedness of others are incomparable evils.
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