[HN Gopher] ICC prosecutor seeks arrest warrants against Sinwar ...
___________________________________________________________________
ICC prosecutor seeks arrest warrants against Sinwar and Netanyahu
for war crimes
Author : spzx
Score : 584 points
Date : 2024-05-20 11:27 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnn.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnn.com)
| bhaney wrote:
| The ICC is seeking arrest warrants from the ICC for people who
| don't care what the ICC says, and one of them isn't even in a
| country that's a member of the ICC?
|
| What exactly are they going to be able to do once they manage to
| grant themselves these warrants?
| loceng wrote:
| Any countries part of the ICC then have the ability to arrest
| anyone with warrants.
|
| Whether those countries will do the arrests or not will be up
| to whomever is in political power and if they are toeing the
| same line or not. Those with arrest warrants then would have to
| risk traveling.
| throwup238 wrote:
| Not anyone. As long as he's in power he's protected by
| diplomatic protocol. No one is going to break international
| law and risk their reputation and ability to host diplomats
| for an ICC warrant. Just makes his predicament more desperate
| long term though.
| jeltz wrote:
| But what will happen is that many countries would say no to
| official visits.
| somenameforme wrote:
| This is also what I thought when they issued the warrant
| against Putin, but it does not seem to be the case. There's
| a _lot_ of inscrutable legal precedent regarding diplomatic
| immunity and high crimes, of which there is none higher
| than genocide. This is exactly why Putin did not make a
| personal appearance in South Africa for the BRICS summit.
| South Africa felt that they would be legally obligated to
| arrest him due to the ICC warrant, and that was all over a
| far lesser charge of unlawfully deporting children.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _As long as he's in power he's protected by diplomatic
| protocol_
|
| Not true. That's why Putin shied from visiting South Africa
| [1].
|
| [1] https://apnews.com/article/putin-brics-summit-south-
| africa-i...
| richrichie wrote:
| Mere existence of arrest warrants for war crimes against a
| serving Israeli prime minister has great symbolic value. This
| will have big impact on media discourse not controlled by the
| Israeli lobby.
|
| Also, one does not have to choose sides. We can condemn both
| sides as barbaric.
| bhaney wrote:
| > We can condemn both sides as barbaric
|
| I agree entirely but I'm not really trying to make any
| political statement here. I'm purely interested in the
| mechanical aspect of how this court works and how it can
| manage to accomplish anything in this situation. It seems to
| me that this story isn't much worth following, because
| nothing of consequence will happen if these warrants end up
| being served.
| jeltz wrote:
| It makes the people with arrest warrants much less welcome
| to visit other countries. While they still may not actually
| arrest a leader of state many countries would say no to a
| visit to not risk a media scandal by having an accused war
| criminal visit.
| bhaney wrote:
| > It makes the people with arrest warrants much less
| welcome to visit other countries
|
| Yeah, that's fair. I guess I'm just kind of unimpressed
| that that's the worst punishment something called the
| "International Criminal Court" can inflict on leaders
| that they've judged to be _war criminals_.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| Since this is an actual court, I'd say it's important to
| differentiate between "has judged as being war criminals"
| and "has _charged_ with being war criminals". There are
| hopefully more penalties for someone who has been tried
| and found guilty.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| I don't understand what you are looking for. There is no
| unified world government. There is no sovereign entity
| that controls all nations. That means any and all
| international interaction is roughly consensual.
|
| If the US genocides a significant portion of their own
| populace, and nobody could muster up an army large enough
| to physically stop them, and nobody could blockade their
| trade enough to hurt them, then why would the US stop?
|
| Accountability requires someone to execute the
| "punishment" or whatever. If you want international
| accountability, you REQUIRE an independent entity which
| all nations treat as a global government, one which as
| the ability to militarily slap anyone who doesn't fall in
| line. The UN isn't that, on purpose.
|
| First problem: Where is the office for that world
| government? There is largely no land that is "outside"
| other countries.
|
| The US literally experienced this "How do you get
| fiefdoms to cede their power to a common government"
| problem in 1787, and overcoming it took promising slave
| owners that they wouldn't outlaw slavery for at least 20
| years, and hand out a massive power structure benefit to
| the states that had significant slavery. Of course the
| invention of the cotton gin just a few years later would
| destroy that possible outcome and set us on the path for
| the civil war.
|
| If you invent a world government that could punish a
| country that was unruly, how do you convince the US or
| China to submit to it ENTIRELY? How do yo prevent this
| world government from simply being a tool of the US or
| China?
| ysofunny wrote:
| you're trying to use mechanical thinking on a level where
| symbols are often more powerful than mechanisms
| scarby2 wrote:
| This is a hot take these days. The world seems to need to
| take a side on everything and most of the Palestine
| supporters fail to condemn Hamas and the Israel supporters
| don't tend to criticize Israel.
|
| Broadly I think Israel has the right ambition (the
| destruction of Hamas) but are going about it in a terrible
| manner and it will now backfire on them spectacularly.
| jeltz wrote:
| I agree that Israel is going about it in a terrible manner
| but I also do not think that the destruction of Hamas is a
| reasonable goal. How can you do that without genocide?
| exe34 wrote:
| you shoot anyone holding a gun that doesn't wear your
| uniform?
| rusk wrote:
| Doctors and Nurses don't carry guns?
| exe34 wrote:
| is this a question? I'm not sure what you're trying to
| ask.
| rusk wrote:
| Well presumably they don't wear your uniform
| exe34 wrote:
| my uniform?
| rusk wrote:
| No. Or a gun.
| exe34 wrote:
| that's very enlightening, thank you for your
| contribution. it has changed how I see things.
| worik wrote:
| > you shoot anyone holding a gun that doesn't wear your
| uniform?
|
| Most casualties have been civilians.
| octopoc wrote:
| Most of them haven't been armed either, so presumably
| shooting everyone holding a gun not wearing your uniform
| is still a viable option.
| exe34 wrote:
| do you know of any protracted war where this hasn't been
| the case? or even any urban war where the ratio of
| civilian casualties to combatants is as low as this
| current war?
| worik wrote:
| It is still very wrong to kill people
| exe34 wrote:
| yes, and hamas will do it over and over again until there
| is no Israel left if they are allowed to exist and Israel
| isn't allowed to shoot back.
| Slyfox33 wrote:
| Israel has killed 30 times more people than they've lost
| in the last few months. Can we stop pretending they are
| in some grave danger?
| jeltz wrote:
| Hamas can just drop their guns and get new ones later.
| exe34 wrote:
| they will be under a brutal military occupation for the
| next few decades after this war. Israel will control
| everything going in and out of gaza.
| pdonis wrote:
| Hamas is not a population, it's a terrorist organization.
| There is no need to kill every Palestinian in order to
| destroy Hamas.
| jeltz wrote:
| Ok, then tell me how you do it. Or how well it worked for
| the us to destroy the Taliban.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> then tell me how you do it_
|
| The way Israel is doing it. There is no pretty, hygienic
| way to fight an existential conflict, which is what this
| is.
| Levitz wrote:
| Okay, say Israel enters Rafah, do whatever they want in
| there. Say they do a whole another pass over Gaza.
|
| Do you think the rest of the population just stands by?
| You can't treat people like Israel treats Palestinians
| and not have terrorism. It's really that simple. Any
| serious plan by Israel to achieve peace of any sort with
| Palestinians involves massive concessions compared to the
| actual state of things and I can't imagine for a second
| anything like that would happen.
| its_ethan wrote:
| It's almost like we're stumbling into how this is one of
| the trickiest geopolitical issues in the last hundred
| years...
|
| There's an inverse to what you're saying (which I don't
| disagree with) which is that if Israel does nothing in
| response to Hamas aggression, and just lets Hamas + it's
| allies keep bulling, Israeli's will die and their
| citizenry will be radicalized to do something in
| response.
|
| This has been the pattern in this region since literally
| day 1 of Israel being acknowledged as a country. It's two
| irreconcilable groups locked into a situation where
| neither can meaningfully (or "safely") de-escalate; a
| clean solution is really unlikely to emerge.
| golergka wrote:
| Is it? The vast majority of Palestinians wish all the
| Israelis dead, and are happy to kill random Israeli
| civilians when they take the wrong road and accidentally
| end up in the Palestinian town. That's not some fringe
| lunatics, that's common people on the street.
| dang wrote:
| > _The vast majority of Palestinians wish all the
| Israelis dead, and are happy to kill_
|
| That crosses into the sort of slur we don't allow here,
| regardless of which group is being spoken of. Please
| don't post like this to HN.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| golergka wrote:
| That's a fact that's backed up by multiple polls and
| occurrences of what I describe. I didn't use any slurs.
| Can you please explain what is wrong with this so I can
| follow the rules better in the future? Thanks.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Many governments have been defeated in war without
| genocides.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Refusing to take a side is not a position of moral strength
| or authority. You _should_ be a partisan against genocide.
| exe34 wrote:
| that's right! Hamas broke the ceasefire on October 7th,
| and if the Israelis laid down their weapons, they would
| be slaughtered. they can't afford to leave Hamas in
| charge. they don't want control of gaza, but it doesn't
| seem like there's any alternative to military occupation
| if they want to stop the incursions for good.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Supporters of Hamas are calling for a genocide and doing
| everything they can to get one. But then they say the
| other side is doing that.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Which genocide? The one that _parts_ of Israel, mostly
| Likud, wants and isn 't doing a very good job of (I was
| told millions would have starved by now), or the one that
| Hamas emphatically wants, and is supported by the vast
| majority of Palestinians, but they are technologically
| incapable of performing?
|
| Plenty Israelis want a two state solution where
| Palestinians are not harmed. How many Palestinians want a
| two state solution where Jews live free? Why don't
| Palestinians get visibly upset when a Hamas rocket meant
| for Israel blows up Palestinians?
|
| Bibi should rot in prison. So should the leader of Hamas.
| But who is willing to run Palestine without shooting
| rockets at Israel, and how long will they stay in power
| before they are overthrown by people who want to go back
| to shooting rockets at Israel?
|
| There can't be a peace as long as Palestinians want the
| eradication of Israel, much as there can't be peace as
| long as Likud wants to eradicate Palestine. But if we
| tell Israel it can't do anything, but do not limit Hamas
| in the same way, all you are doing is allowing Israelis
| to die for the convenience of ignoring an actually
| difficult geopolitical problem.
|
| "Just stop shooting at Palestinians" will certainly end
| the suffering of Palestinians, but is objectively trading
| 30k Palestinians dead now with a few Israelis dead every
| year.
|
| And this isn't even getting to the insane levels of Anti-
| semitism that hide themselves under a cloak of "just
| supporting Palestinians". If you know any jewish people
| who aren't evenly Israeli, ask them how safe they feel
| nowadays.
| throw_a_grenade wrote:
| > "Just stop shooting at Palestinians" will certainly end
| the suffering of Palestinians, but is objectively trading
| 30k Palestinians dead now with a few Israelis dead every
| year.
|
| There's shooting and there's shooting. 30k Palestinians
| in Gaza Strip are in the war zone so in a way it's not a
| much surprise they're dying, but there are Palestiniani
| on the West Bank, who are being murdered by Israeli
| (settlers backed by IDF). Last I checked the death toll
| is around 500 (https://apnews.com/article/settler-attack-
| palestinians-west-...), which puts it within the ballpark
| of 7 October Hamas' strike.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_tag_attack_policy
|
| This is absolutely "Just stop shooting at Palestinians",
| and I think they have every right to resist such
| occupation.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> are going about it in a terrible manner_
|
| How could Israel defend itself against Hamas in a manner
| that wasn't "terrible"? What non-terrible options do they
| have?
| octopoc wrote:
| I mean they're all terrible at this point, but Israel has
| been digging this hole for a while, it's not going to be
| easy to get out. Doesn't mean it's not worth trying to
| stop digging.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> Israel has been digging this hole for a while_
|
| No, Israel has been trying to defend itself against
| Hamas, a terrorist organization which has explicitly
| declared that its objective is to destroy Israel. What
| options does it have to do that that would meet with your
| approval, or even grudging acquiescence?
|
| There is no stable middle ground here. That's what much
| of the commentary on this situation seems to be missing.
| This is an existential conflict between Israel and Hamas
| (note that I said "Hamas", not "the Palestinians"--
| they're not the same): the only stable endpoint is that
| one or the other ceases to exist. And Hamas is the side
| that chose to make it that way. So I'm really struggling
| to see what possible options Israel has other than what
| they are doing.
| harimau777 wrote:
| > What options does it have to do that that would meet
| with your approval, or even grudging acquiescence?
|
| They could form a state with equal rights, including
| right of return, for Jews and Palestinians.
| mupuff1234 wrote:
| That would be the end of Israel as a functioning state
| (Jewish or not)
|
| You really think a country can double it's population
| overnight bringing even more division without it
| crumbling? You'll just end up with another Lebanon.
|
| A two state solution is the only thing that can make
| sense short/medium term. Longer term after decades of
| peace you can open the borders and create perhaps a union
| of sort.
|
| A one state solution is detached - it's just not a viable
| option, and even if you believe it's the right thing to
| do it just doesn't seem wise.
| octopoc wrote:
| A single state solution is the only long term solution.
| Unless we accept that ethnostates are good for everyone.
| Israel will have a hard time bringing in the
| Palestinians, but the US created reservations and the
| native American population isn't trying to kill everyone
| else. Israel needs to learn by doing it that diversity is
| their strength.
|
| Prosperity can do a lot towards killing the shared
| stories that cause people to want to go kill the people
| in the neighboring country. Grandpa's story about losing
| his home won't be as stirring when you're not being
| bombed and starved by the same group of people who stole
| Grandpa's home. Especially when they give back Grandpa's
| home.
| mupuff1234 wrote:
| I'm all for prosperity, which is why I think trying to
| merge two cultures over overnight will just result in
| chaos and violence. Especially since the groups are
| around the same size and the territory is tiny - if you
| actually think about the practically of such a solution
| you'll realize it's not viable.
|
| Do you really think the new nation wouldn't just delve
| into chaos Lebanon style? Might as well just sentence
| everyone to eternal conflict.
|
| How is starting with two states and later on creating a
| union type entity not better for everyone?
|
| Let's say you had to approach this as an engineering
| problem of merging two very different
| branches/companies/etc, how would you approach it?
|
| And re US, they basically committed genocide and ended up
| absorbing a minority, the situation in Israel is
| different as it's similar sized populations on a fraction
| of the land.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> the US created reservations and the native American
| population isn 't trying to kill everyone else._
|
| Not now, but there was a long period during which native
| Americans were seriously pushing back and a lot of people
| on both sides were killed.
| richrichie wrote:
| > which has explicitly declared that its objective is to
| destroy Israel
|
| This is not a serious argument. Israel has arguably the
| strongest military in ME. Forget the ragtag Hamas, no
| country in ME - including Turkey - can destroy Israel.
| Israel has nukes and Hamas has hand gliders for airforce.
| Hamas rockets are like glorified firecrackers.
|
| There are crazies all over the world with all kinds of
| crazy manifestos. That is not a license to kill and
| starve civilians en masse.
|
| Oct 7 was a serious security lapse on the part of Israel.
| It is clear that the guilty are busy distracting the
| population from an objective investigation and trials to
| punish people who are responsible for the lapses, just
| like what happened after 9-11. Doing that improves
| Israel's long term security. But it is unlikely to
| happen.
| harimau777 wrote:
| They could have not supported Hamas as a strategy for
| dividing Palestinians.
|
| They could make meaningful steps towards a one or two
| state solution in order to undercut Hamas' power.
| pdonis wrote:
| These same proposals were given decades ago when it was
| the PLO Israel was having to deal with. Israel followed
| them, at the behest of the international community. They
| didn't work--we know this because it's now decades later
| and the same problems still exist. Isn't the classic
| definition of insanity trying the same thing over and
| over again but expecting different results?
| jeltz wrote:
| So the better thing to do was to strengthen Hamas? Hamas
| is an enemy Israel helped create.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> Hamas is an enemy Israel helped create._
|
| In the sense that Israel failed to reach a stable
| endpoint to this conflict once before, in 2009, yes, I
| suppose this is true. They should have destroyed Hamas
| then, and they didn't. Which would suggest that Israel
| should finish the job this time.
| harimau777 wrote:
| It's pretty well established that tactics that produce
| widespread civilian casualties just create the next
| generation of insurgents. In that respect, Israel's
| current actions seem to match the definition of insanity.
| somenameforme wrote:
| Like you would any other crime. Investigate, insert
| moles, offer "extremely large" bounties + protection for
| arrests leading to conviction, and so on. The current
| situation is not only an ineffective means of combating
| Hamas, but is likely growing their numbers. The reason
| these sort of conflicts never end is because each time
| you bomb an area with innocents, you may or may not kill
| your target, but you definitely just turned all the
| friends, family, and so on of the innocents killed into
| new "real" enemies.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> Like you would any other crime._
|
| The criminal model does not work for war. This is a war.
|
| _> each time you bomb an area with innocents, you may or
| may not kill your target, but you definitely just turned
| all the friends, family, and so on of the innocents
| killed into new "real" enemies._
|
| So when Hamas fires rockets into Israel, killing
| innocents, or sends a terror squad into Israel, killing
| innocents (and kidnapping others), it makes more Hamas
| enemies. Yes, indeed.
| jcranmer wrote:
| Counterterrorism is necessarily a difficult and fraught
| process. Ultimately, it's political; military force is
| useful only so far as it can convince people there is no
| better way than your political aims.
|
| Looking at the example of successful counterterrorism
| conclusions, such as The Troubles in Northern Ireland or
| Colombia's efforts against FARC, the general pathway to
| success is to build up successful alternative political
| institutions that have the legitimacy to disarm the
| terrorist groups, which also means to a degree making
| some concessions towards the political aims of
| terrorists, and perhaps also requires co-opting the more
| moderate terrorists into legitimate political parties.
|
| Notably not on that list is such things as targeting
| enemy leaders with artillery rounds. Indiscriminate
| damage is one of the best ways to fuel an upsurge in
| terrorist violence; what Israel is doing now looks in
| many ways like what the British did in Northern Ireland
| to _start_ The Troubles rather than what it did to end
| them.
| pdonis wrote:
| I agree that Northern Ireland and Colombia v. FARC are
| useful examples. However, they both share one key
| property that the Israel-Hamas conflict does _not_ have:
| the international community fully supports the existence
| of both the UK and Colombia as legitimate nation-states.
| That is not true for Israel; there is a large and vocal
| segment of the international community that does not want
| Israel to exist, and that segment has enough political
| clout that it cannot be ignored.
| jcranmer wrote:
| The segment of the international community that matters
| is fully on board with Israel's existence. The largest
| country to not formally recognize Israel is Indonesia.
| Largely only Iran is intransigent about Israel's
| nonexistence; the Arab countries have in the recent past
| explicitly endorsed proposals to recognize Israel in
| exchange for durable progress on Palestinian statehood.
|
| (Which, really, is one of the principal causes of the
| current situation: Netanyahu has in the past sought to
| undermine the ability of the Palestinian Authority to
| effectively govern Palestine--including covert support
| for Hamas--so as to be able to claim that there's no
| partner for peace to avoid having to make any progress on
| the statehood issue.)
| pdonis wrote:
| _> The segment of the international community that
| matters is fully on board with Israel 's existence._
|
| I disagree. US policy in this area, for instance, is
| being significantly influenced by the fact that there are
| protests at major universities in support of Hamas, and
| elected politicians who are advocating the same thing.
| (And by that I mean explicitly supporting the Hamas
| objective of destroying Israel.)
|
| _> the Arab countries have in the recent past explicitly
| endorsed proposals to recognize Israel_
|
| In other words, they don't _currently_ support Israel 's
| existence, but they might decide to if enough of their
| demands are met. Which concedes my point.
|
| The reason this matters is that the UK and Colombia were
| only able to even _consider_ the options they ended up
| taking to resolve their conflicts because they knew that
| no matter what, their existence as nation states was not
| in question. Israel does not have that assurance, and
| that means they do not feel able to consider those kinds
| of options.
|
| Or, to put it another way, as I have said in several
| other posts elsewhere in this discussion, this conflict
| is an existential conflict for Israel. Northern Ireland
| was not an existential conflict for the UK, and FARC was
| not an existential conflict for Colombia. That makes a
| huge difference.
| jcranmer wrote:
| > US policy in this area, for instance, is being
| significantly influenced by the fact that there are
| protests at major universities
|
| I'm sorry, but no. These protests have only reached
| salience in the news because of overreaction from a few
| university presidents who sent in the police to (in the
| event) violently break up the protest. I assert there is
| _no_ influence on the policy being done by these
| protests. The general stance by the administration has
| remained the same--the Biden administration remains
| firmly pro-Israel--and to the extent that it 's changed,
| it's been prompted by frustration with the continued
| inability of the current Israeli government to actually
| listen to the administration's points about "what the
| hell is your day-after plan?"
|
| > in support of Hamas, and elected politicians who are
| advocating the same thing. (And by that I mean explicitly
| supporting the Hamas objective of destroying Israel.)
|
| I'm not going to deny that there are people among the
| protestors who support Hamas and maybe even want to see
| Israel cease to exist. But it's definitely far from the
| majority of the protestors, and I've never actually seen
| any statement by anybody involved that would place them
| in that category.
|
| The thing is, there's this persistent tendency I've seen
| where people try to twist any criticism of Israel or its
| government into support for Israel's nonexistence. No
| major world power today has disestablishment of Israel a
| policy goal, nor is any of them close to having that
| policy. But I do worry that if Israel continues on this
| path, then it may in a few decades' time become a
| murderous genocidal state... and that very well could
| have the superpowers pushing for Israel's destruction.
|
| Even though Israel is unarguably the state that faces the
| greatest existential threat, it's policies can still be
| (and indeed probably are) counterproductive to combating
| that.
| mordae wrote:
| The trouble is that Israel government does not really have
| the ambition to destroy Hamas. Their ambition under ultra
| conservative lobby is to grab more Palestinian land, using
| inevitable backlash as an excuse to dismiss any complaints.
|
| If the whole world stepped in, captured every Hamas
| militant and left, it wouldn't take more than a couple of
| years and somebody else would take up the arms against the
| Israeli occupants.
|
| We'd have to do that AND then protect the Palestinians from
| militant Zionists for half a century at least to actually
| have any chance to solve the situation.
|
| And since EU doesn't give a shit, US is unable to stand up
| to antidefamation league, rest of the Islamic countries
| enjoys blaming Israel but don't actually do anything,
| Palestinians are good as dead.
| feedforward wrote:
| > Broadly I think Israel has the right ambition (the
| destruction of Hamas)
|
| Well a few months ago Netanyahu sent the head of the Mossad
| to Qatar asking them to fund Hamas ( https://www.nytimes.co
| m/2023/12/10/world/middleeast/israel-q... ). So these
| endless massacres of Palestinian civilians by Israel (and
| effectively by the USA too) are happening for a pretty
| capricious reason, if that even is the reason, and I think
| it isn't.
| excalibur wrote:
| > This will have big impact on media discourse not controlled
| by the Israeli lobby.
|
| It already has. Biden was quick to condemn it and further
| alienate his base: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-
| news/2024/05/20/internatio...
| belter wrote:
| The ICC is not doing that. A prosecutor is requesting the court
| to approve them.
|
| Now, why is the court accepting legal challenges on legal
| issues, and independently of the merits of those issues, from
| countries like South Africa, who publicly said they would not
| arrest Putin, who actually DOES have an ICC arrest mandate
| against him?
| ben_w wrote:
| > from countries like South Africa, who publicly said they
| would not arrest Putin,
|
| I thought they either outright said they would arrest Putin,
| or at least equivocated just enough to convince Putin to not
| want to find out if they would or not?
|
| Did they later clarify "no we won't"?
| belter wrote:
| "South Africa grants Putin and Brics leaders diplomatic
| immunity for summit" -
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/30/south-
| africa-g...
|
| "...South Africa has issued blanket diplomatic immunity to
| all leaders attending an August summit, meaning Vladimir
| Putin might be able to travel to Johannesburg and not fear
| the country acting on an international criminal court
| warrant for his arrest..."
|
| It's the ultimate hypocrisy on South Africa to undermine
| the same court where is currently arguing, and a major
| legal failure on the court to accept South Africa claims.
| mannyv wrote:
| My understanding is that the ICC is only supposed to do this
| for countries/areas without a functioning and functionally
| independent judicial system.
|
| I expect the request for the Israelis will not be approved.
|
| Hamas will be interesting. Hamas' territory has no functioning
| judicial system, but does the ICC have jurisdiction?
|
| In any case the "warrants" if issued would only apply to
| countries who signed the ICC treaty.
| toast0 wrote:
| The ICC claims jurisdiction [1], which is enough for it to
| issue warrants and hold trials and issue judgements. The
| question is always if the warrants will be executed and the
| judgements enforced, as the ICC cannot enforce its rulings
| itself.
|
| At the time of the declaration accepting jursdiction of the
| ICC by the State of Palestine[2], there was a unity
| government of Palestine, so it feels like maybe.
|
| In April 2012, the ICC declined to assert jurisdiction over
| Palestine, as it was not recognized as a State by the UN [3],
| but in November 2012, Palestine was granted the status of a
| non-member observer State, which seems to satisfy the ICC.
|
| [1] https://www.icc-cpi.int/palestine [2] https://www.icc-
| cpi.int/sites/default/files/iccdocs/PIDS/pre... [3]
| https://www.icc-
| cpi.int/sites/default/files/NR/rdonlyres/9B6...
| mannyv wrote:
| At some point the claim of jurisdiction has to be
| adjudicated, as it states here:
|
| "The Chamber provided a legal answer based on the strict
| interpretation of the Rome Statute. It emphasised that the
| issue of the territorial jurisdiction of the Court would
| have to be further examined when the Prosecutor submits an
| application for the issuance of a warrant of arrest or
| summons to appear. The Chamber declined to address the
| arguments regarding the Oslo Accords in the context of the
| present proceedings and indicated that these issues may be
| raised at a later stage of the proceedings."
|
| https://www.icc-
| cpi.int/sites/default/files/itemsDocuments/p...
|
| Did the legal government of Palestine do the initial
| request in 2015? That would have been Hamas, since Hamas
| was the last elected government of Palestine. I would be
| surprised if Hamas acceded to the ICC's jurisdiction.
|
| Can a non-state actor be accorded the same rights as a
| state under the Rome accords? Is the "government of
| Palestine" an actual entity?
|
| If an entity other than the authorized government accepts
| jurisdiction of the ICC, does that count?
|
| I mean, this isn't even getting the actual meat of the case
| and it's already a mess.
| toast0 wrote:
| At the time of the letter, Hamas and Fatah were in a
| unity government [1], although that's maybe disputable
| too. If Wikipedia is accurate and complete, Hamas claimed
| at the end of November 2014, that the unity government
| had expired; but then in June 2015, Hamas rejected the
| dissolution of the unity government.
|
| But yeah, you're right, my summary was overly brief ---
| the earlier ruling was more that there's a reasonable
| question of if they have jurisdiction, so investigations
| can proceed. As opposed to before where the court ruled
| that it didn't have jurisdiction, and couldn't proceed.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Hamdallah_Government
| mannyv wrote:
| From the same article:
|
| "Like the former emergency governments after June 2007,
| which were installed by presidential decree, this unity
| government was in fact illegal, as it was not approved by
| the Legislative Council.[2][3] Without the cooperation of
| all parties, however, it was not possible to get the
| necessary quorum to put a vote.[20]"
| toast0 wrote:
| IMHO, it's pretty hard to tell what's legal and not, when
| all of the elected officials are way past their elected
| terms, and the bodies are not in session.
|
| Article 43 seems to give pretty wide berth for the
| President to operate when the Legislative Council is not
| in session, and if the Legislative Council is never
| expected to be in session, there's no mechanism to reign
| that in.
|
| > Article (43) The President of the National Authority
| shall have the right in exceptional cases, which can not
| be delayed, and while the Legislative Council is not in
| session, to issue decisions and decrees that have the
| power of law. However, the decisions issued shall be
| presented to the Legislative Council in the first session
| convened after their issuance, otherwise they will cease
| to have the power of law. If these decisions were
| presented as mentioned above, but were not approved, then
| they shall cease to have the power of law.
|
| To be honest, not a lot of countries have laws that
| contemplate continuance of government in case elections
| are not held.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > My understanding is that the ICC is only supposed to do
| this for countries/areas without a functioning and
| functionally independent judicial system.
|
| That seems to be a misunderstanding based on an improper
| generalization of Article 17 of the Rome Statute: the kind of
| inadmissibility you refer to applies not based on general
| capacity of the state but of action in the specific case:
|
| ---[Art 17]
|
| 1. Having regard to paragraph 10 of the Preamble and article
| 1, the Court shall determine that a case is inadmissible
| where:
|
| (a) The case is being investigated or prosecuted by a State
| which has jurisdiction over it, unless the State is unwilling
| or unable genuinely to carry out the investigation or
| prosecution;
|
| (b) The case has been investigated by a State which has
| jurisdiction over it and the State has decided not to
| prosecute the person concerned, unless the decision resulted
| from the unwillingness or inability of the State genuinely to
| prosecute;
|
| (c) The person concerned has already been tried for conduct
| which is the subject of the complaint, and a trial by the
| Court is not permitted under article 20, paragraph 3;
|
| (d) The case is not of sufficient gravity to justify further
| action by the Court.
|
| 2. In order to determine unwillingness in a particular case,
| the Court shall consider, having regard to the principles of
| due process recognized by international law, whether one or
| more of the following exist, as applicable:
|
| (a) The proceedings were or are being undertaken or the
| national decision was made for the purpose of shielding the
| person concerned from criminal responsibility for crimes
| within the jurisdiction of the Court referred to in article
| 5;
|
| (b) There has been an unjustified delay in the proceedings
| which in the circumstances is inconsistent with an intent to
| bring the person concerned to justice;
|
| (c) The proceedings were not or are not being conducted
| independently or impartially, and they were or are being
| conducted in a manner which, in the circumstances, is
| inconsistent with an intent to bring the person concerned to
| justice.
|
| 3. In order to determine inability in a particular case, the
| Court shall consider whether, due to a total or substantial
| collapse or unavailability of its national judicial system,
| the State is unable to obtain the accused or the necessary
| evidence and testimony or otherwise unable to carry out its
| proceedings.
|
| ---[end]
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The ICC is seeking arrest warrants from the ICC for people
| who don't care what the ICC says, and one of them isn't even in
| a country that's a member of the ICC?
|
| Neither Galant nor Netanyahu is currently in an ICC state, but
| that's not entirely novel territory for international criminal
| tribunals.
|
| > What exactly are they going to be able to do once they manage
| to grant themselves these warrants?
|
| If the judges of the court grant the prosecutor's application,
| the court will issue warrants and seek cooperation of its 124
| member states and any willing cooperating states in enforcing
| them.
| loceng wrote:
| dang, perhaps updating link to the official ICC statement would
| be ideal: https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/statement-icc-prosecutor-
| karim-... ?
|
| Edit to add: I tried submitting that link to submit it myself,
| and can't?
| loceng wrote:
| "More than four months ago, the prosecutor of the International
| Criminal Court asked me to assist him with evaluating evidence of
| suspected war crimes and crimes against humanity in Israel and
| Gaza. I agreed and joined a panel of international legal experts
| to undertake this task. Together we have engaged in an extensive
| process of evidence review and legal analysis including at the
| International Criminal Court in The Hague.
|
| The Panel and its academic advisers are experts in international
| law, including international humanitarian law and international
| criminal law. Two Panel members are appointed as expert 'Special
| Advisers' by the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.
| Two Panel members are former judges at criminal tribunals in The
| Hague.
|
| Despite our diverse personal backgrounds, our legal findings are
| unanimous. We have unanimously determined that the Court has
| jurisdiction over crimes committed in Palestine and by
| Palestinian nationals. We unanimously conclude that there are
| reasonable grounds to believe that Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar,
| Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh have committed war crimes and
| crimes against humanity, including hostage-taking, murder and
| crimes of sexual violence. We unanimously conclude that there are
| raasonable grounds to believe that Israeli Prime Minister
| Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant have
| commited war crimes and crimes against humanity including
| starvation as a method of warfare, murder, persecution and
| extermination.
|
| I served on this Panel because I believe in the rule of law and
| the need to protect civilian lives. The law that protects
| civilians in war was developed more than 100 years ago and it
| applies in every country in the world regardless of the reasons
| for a conflict. As a human rights laywer, I will never accept
| that one child's life has less value than another's. I do not
| accept that any conflict should be beyond the reach of the law,
| nor that any perpetrator should be above the law. So I support
| the historic step that the Prosecutor of the International
| Criminal Court has taken to bring justice to victims of
| atrocities in Israel and Palestine.
|
| Today, my colleagues and I have published an oped and a detailed
| legal report of the Panel's findings. My approach is not to
| provide a running commentary of my work but to let the work speak
| for itself. I hope that witnesses will cooperate with the ongoing
| investigation. And I hope that justice will prevail in a region
| that has already suffered too much."
|
| - Amal Clooney
| dang wrote:
| All: if you're going to comment in this thread, please review the
| site guidelines
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). Make sure
| that your comment is following them, and that you are posting in
| the intended spirit: intellectually curious, respectful
| conversation.
|
| "Respectful" here means respectful to the people who are wrong
| (in your view) and _most_ respectful to the people who are _most_
| wrong (in your view). If you can 't do that, that's ok, but
| please don't post until you can. _Comments should get more
| thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more
| divisive_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
|
| Hellish flamewars in deep subthreads are not ok. I'm going to
| lower the bar for banning accounts that do this, so please don't
| do this. If you're hotly indignant, step away from the keyboard
| until that changes. Nobody 'wins' on the internet anyway, and
| it's not worth destroying this community for. Not to mention your
| heart.
| blackhawkC17 wrote:
| The ICC just gave Netanyahu more strength. Israelis would likely
| rally around their leader. Netanyahu will be emboldened to do
| maximum damage on his way out. What more does he have to lose at
| this point?
|
| Besides, the U.S. government is on Netanyahu's side, so he will
| never be arrested.
| Georgelemental wrote:
| Unfortunately I think this is correct. All the people cited in
| this warrant request are fully guilty of the crimes of which
| they are accused--but a peace deal that lets the murderers off
| scot-free is preferable to more endless war.
|
| The reputational damage to Israel, from being put on the same
| level as Putin, is significant though.
| Klaus23 wrote:
| > The ICC just gave Netanyahu more strength. Israelis would
| likely rally around their leader. Netanyahu will be emboldened
| to do maximum damage on his way out. What more does he have to
| lose at this point?
|
| His support is waning on both sides of the political spectrum.
| Gantz is threatening to quit the war cabinet. I don't think the
| ICC decision will give Netanyahu much of a boost. If he goes
| crazy, the Knesset could oust him.
|
| > Besides, the U.S. government is on Netanyahu's side, so he
| will never be arrested.
|
| I don't think the US has that much influence in this case. They
| would have to push hard to threaten the Israeli president, and
| even then I am not sure what would happen. Netanyahu will not
| be arrested because he will just stay in Israel. Israel will
| probably not extradite him, even if they agree with the
| arguments, simply because it would look bad to allow an
| international court to arrest a former president. However, he
| could be arrested on corruption or other charges if he loses
| his position.
| tda wrote:
| Leaving out personal opinions, I would love to hear some
| thoughtful speculation on how this might pa out. Will the ICC
| actually approve the warrants? How far will the US and/or Israel
| go to threaten or discredit the ICC leadership? Will Egypt or
| other neighbours respond? What is the reaction in China? Will
| Europe and the Netherlands stand by the ICC unconditionally?
| blackhawkC17 wrote:
| Biden has already called the indictment "outrageous." [1]. The
| U.S. Secretary of State has also spoken out against the
| indictment [2].
|
| Needless to say, they're backing him, and the ICC can't arrest
| Netanyahu. At worst, the U.S. government will sanction ICC
| officials as they did under the Trump administration.
|
| I personally can't believe the ICC is equating the actions of
| Hamas and the Israeli government. What a shameful organization.
|
| 1- https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-
| releases...
|
| 2- https://www.state.gov/warrant-applications-by-the-
| internatio...
| bawolff wrote:
| > I personally can't believe the ICC is equating the actions
| of Hamas and the Israeli government.
|
| I think that is an unfair statement. Just because they asked
| for a warrant to be issued for both does not imply that they
| think both are the same.
| strulovich wrote:
| It does mean that in the realm of logic.
|
| But media, PR and politics don't play by these rules.
| Mention two things together and the messages will go
| through.
|
| A similar example would be Whataboutism, a logical fallacy,
| but it seems to work very well in politics.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| While I understand your point about the optics of it,
| optics should play no role in determining whether
| somebody is guilty of war crimes. When optics are a
| primary factor, war crime laws are a tool the powerful
| use to punish the weak.
|
| I have my issues with the ICC, but they are supposed to
| enforce international law impartially.
| worik wrote:
| > does not imply that they think both are the same.
|
| They clearly not the same. One is a modern state and one is
| not.
|
| The actions of both are not so different. Killing civilians
| is not good. Whether it be guerilla terrorism or bombs and
| troops
| golergka wrote:
| > Killing civilians is not good.
|
| International law looks at this differently. There's a
| huge difference between targeting civilians and striking
| genuine military targets that have civilian human
| shields, especially after issuing a warning and taking
| reasonable precautions. The first is a war crime, the
| second is actually allowed by Geneva conventions. The
| phrase "killing civilians" throws these differences out
| of the window and simply shouldn't be used in intelligent
| conversion about this topic.
| worik wrote:
| Really?
|
| I think that is a distinction without a difference
|
| If your siblings are killed or maimed in their home or at
| a party, do you care?
|
| Killing people is a bad thing
| golergka wrote:
| Then you disagree with international law and common
| sense. If my siblings are killed with a rocket that
| targeted a hospital turned a weapon silo, I would blame
| those who put the weapons there, not those who launched
| the rocket.
| phatfish wrote:
| Obviously Hamas are responsible for the hospital becoming
| a target.
|
| But there is version of this where weapons at the
| hospital are removed by force, without bombing it.
| mhb wrote:
| Yeah, but it's a magical version in an imaginary realm.
| phatfish wrote:
| Protecting a few key humanitarian sites from bombing
| doesn't seem impossible if there was a will to do so.
| mhb wrote:
| Maybe you can explain how you envision that working.
| phatfish wrote:
| The Israeli army would use their miliary assets on the
| ground. They invaded and established a temporary
| occupying force to deal with Hamas, so resources other
| than air are available.
|
| The air force can hit the targets required around the
| hospital to allow an easier time for ground forces. Reach
| the hospital, and use those ground forces to secure it.
| worik wrote:
| Two things:
|
| 1. In many cases whole Gazen families have bee killed in
| their homes.
|
| 2. I always blame those giving orders. On both sides.
| ImJamal wrote:
| Does anybody look at it like that though? If a sibling of
| yours was accidentally killed in a car accident would you
| consider that to be the equivalent as somebody
| deliberately running down your sibling? While the end
| result is the same the intent is different.
|
| Maybe you could argue Israel is not accidentally doing
| this, but collateral damage of civilians will almost
| always happen regardless of how careful attacks are
| planned. I don't think there has ever been a war that
| occurred in such a densely packed area that has had no
| civilian causalities.
| worik wrote:
| > Maybe you could argue Israel is not accidentally doing
| this,
|
| I think there is an element in glee at civilian
| casualties on both sides
| bawolff wrote:
| International law thinks there is a significant
| difference between different types of death in war, and
| that is the basis of these proceedings.
|
| You can personally think international law is wrong, but
| that probably won't affect what the ICC does very much.
| xdennis wrote:
| > Killing people is a bad thing
|
| There are videos of them celebrating on Oct 7 and crowds
| attacking the hostages when they're brought into Gaza.
|
| Did they think killing is a bad thing?
| worik wrote:
| > Did they think killing is a bad thing?
|
| I do not know, but not on the face of it
|
| But we can all do better than justify our actions on the
| basis of "they did it too"
|
| That is school yard logic, and nation states can do
| better
|
| Silly me, tho. The nation states involved all seem to be
| devoid of principals
| nolongerthere wrote:
| Context and nuance are very important. Are the allied
| forces of WWII all mass murderers?
|
| Or to put it more broadly what distinguishes a soldier
| who has killed dozens of enemy soldiers from a school
| shooter who killed dozens of his peers?
|
| According to your statement they are morally equivalent,
| society at large would vehemently disagree with you.
| Georgelemental wrote:
| > There's a huge difference between targeting civilians
| and striking genuine military targets that have civilian
| human shields
|
| Even in the latter case, the cost to civilian lives has
| to be proportional to the the military value/lives saved
| long-term by ending the threat. This is not proportional:
| https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/
|
| But unfortunately, the latter case does not account for
| all that we've seen in the last few months and years.
| There's been plenty of "targeting civilians" too
| bawolff wrote:
| As far as i understand, Israel disputes much of this (not
| that civilians have died, but that it has been non
| porpotional). ICC is innocent until proven guilty, so its
| going to take more evidence than anonoymous leaks to get
| a guilty verdict.
|
| Additionally they werent charged on the basis of
| unporportionality afaik, i think all the charges are
| based around failing to let in enough food aid, causing a
| famine.
| Georgelemental wrote:
| > i think all the charges are based around failing to let
| in enough food aid, causing a famine
|
| No, starvation is only one of the alleged offences: "the
| use of starvation as a method of warfare, together with
| other attacks and collective punishment against the
| civilian population of Gaza"
|
| https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/statement-icc-prosecutor-
| karim-...
| bawolff wrote:
| I guess we'll have to wait and see what the case is when
| it gets to trial. The legal report https://www.icc-
| cpi.int/sites/default/files/2024-05/240520-p... makes it
| sound like the primary thing is alleged use of
| starvation, with other attacks being in the context of
| that (with the caveat that other charges are still under
| investigation):
|
| > The Prosecutor seeks arrest warrants against Benjamin
| Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, and Yoav
| Gallant, the Israeli Minister of Defense, on the basis
| that they committed the war crime of 'intentionally using
| starvation of civilians as a method of warfare' under
| article 8(2)(b)(xxv) of the ICC Statute. The Prosecutor
| also seeks to charge the two suspects with various other
| war crimes and crimes against humanity associated with
| the use of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare
| under articles 7 and 8 of the ICC Statute
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > especially after issuing a warning and taking
| reasonable precautions
|
| Ahh, yes, like when the IDF told Gazan civilians by
| evacuation order to move to the south of Gaza because
| they were going to intensify bombing in the north.
|
| And then increased bombing of southern Gaza by 85% in the
| next 10 days...
|
| Source: https://news.sky.com/story/gaza-war-satellite-
| data-shows-isr...
| AnarchismIsCool wrote:
| It's a PR play ultimately, they can't just say "Netanyahoo
| is a war criminal, K thx bai". That would call the court's
| judgement into question for a lot of people. If massacring
| civilians and aid workers is a war crime, then yeah, he's a
| war criminal, but they have to also address the elephant in
| the room, that Hamas is also wantonly committing war crimes
| and is calling for even more even though they're
| significantly less powerful in this dynamic.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| I don't like this "but Hamas is worse" rethoric. War
| crimes are ware crimes, you're not allowed to commit them
| because the other side is worse than you.
|
| This may be how things played out after the second world
| war, but it's a horrible standard to live by. If the ICC
| has any integrity, they won't take "but they started it"
| as an excuse.
| kbelder wrote:
| >you're not allowed to commit them because the other side
| is worse than you.
|
| Aren't you? I thought the Geneva convention and similar
| treaties all require reciprocity.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Under the Geneva conventions, yes, but the Rome statute
| only copies select passages of the Geneva convention, and
| I don't believe the "we can commit war crimes as long as
| you don't promise not to commit war crimes" is part of
| what's copied.
|
| The Rome Statute does allow foe the ICC to convict
| according to the Geneva conventions as well, but the
| exemptions therein don't necessarily apply.
| 8372049 wrote:
| First of all, _" In cases not covered by this Protocol or
| by other international agreements, civilians and
| combatants remain under the protection and authority of
| the principles of international law derived from
| established custom, from the principles of humanity and
| from the dictates of public conscience."_ (Article 1,
| second paragraph, Additional Protocol I.)
|
| Second, both Israel and Palestine have signed the main
| conventions. Israel with reservations, and have not
| signed AP I and II. Palestine have signed all of them,
| unconditionally.
|
| Since both are signatories, they are both bound by the
| conventions even if the other party breaks them.
| bawolff wrote:
| It should also be noted that the geneva conventions have
| passed into customary international law. They apply even
| to countries that haven't signed them.
| bawolff wrote:
| > Aren't you? I thought the Geneva convention and similar
| treaties all require reciprocity.
|
| No, i don't think so.
|
| To quote the fourth geneva convention (fourth convention
| is the part related to treatment of civilians):
|
| > Although one of the Powers in conflict may not be a
| party to the present Convention, the Powers who are
| parties thereto shall remain bound by it in their mutual
| relations.
| ars wrote:
| So why did it take them 7 months to issue a warrant? It
| should have been issued on Oct 8.
|
| The fact that it didn't tell you all you need to know
| about how legitimate this "court" is.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| For the same reason they didn't issue a warrant against
| the Israel government over the past twenty years: the
| conflict spiraled out of control months ago.
|
| In 2019, the ICC got involved following the 2014 Gaza war
| and concluded that war crimes were taking place (on both
| sides, in different ways), but they concluded that they
| lacked jurisdiction. Investigations has been ongoing ever
| since.
| AnarchismIsCool wrote:
| You're not wrong, but the world is imperfect and they're
| forced into this weird role of being both a political
| institution and an "international court" which, as
| constructs go, doesn't make a lot of sense.
|
| Short of going full "one world government" or the next
| best thing, "team america world police" you can't really
| violate state sovereignty even if someone is doing
| atrocities so instead you need to convince key players or
| a critical mass that something should be done. If
| successful, you can then tighten the screws on that
| person as fast as you can get all the relevant
| bureaucracies moving.
| ars wrote:
| By combing these warrants into a single press release
| they've completely lost any legitimacy.
|
| There were no "screws needed" to issue an arrest warrant
| against Hamas months ago. Yet they didn't.
|
| They should have issued arrest warrants years ago against
| Hamas for deliberately firing into civilian territory.
| It's an easy case to make, no one at all claims Hamas
| didn't do that.
|
| But, nope, they did not issue any warrant.
|
| No, they only issued a warrant against Hamas to pretend
| like they have some balance in trying to issue a warrant
| against Netanyahu.
|
| It's no longer Netanyahu on trial, it's actually now ICC
| that is on trial. If the ICC actually grants the warrant
| against Netanyahu they have proven themselves to be a
| bunch of clowns with no legitimacy.
|
| We shall see.
| AnarchismIsCool wrote:
| Yeah, again, you're not wrong. While I'd maybe call that
| position a bit idealistic, it _is_ really weird that they
| didn 't go after various people earlier. That said, they
| don't have their own carrier strike group so they have to
| generate international cooperation. The US is already
| kinda iffy on the ICC's existence because they've called
| out our war criminals before and, for reasons I don't
| fully understand, that's a problem. The whole thing is
| very...contrived I guess?
| AnarchismIsCool wrote:
| Absolutely, most people don't think that far though so
| they're trying to hedge a bit.
| mc32 wrote:
| A big complication is that on the one hand you have an
| identifiable army, on the other hand you have something
| akin to a militia/guerrilla where combatants and non-
| combatants are hard to ID often because one person can be
| both. When you have a resistance it get further muddied
| because like in WWII France, the resistance was
| civilians. So you can be a civilian and a combatant.
|
| Things like what Milosevic or what Janjaweed leaders do
| are identifiable.
| ars wrote:
| It took them 7 MONTHS! To issue an arrest warrant for some
| blatantly obvious crimes.
|
| Issues warrants for both sides at the same time is utterly
| repugnant and calls the entire court into question.
| tptacek wrote:
| The Biden situation is predictable and calls into question
| the strategy behind the ICC arrest warrants.
|
| First things first: neither the Polizio di Stato, the Garda,
| nor the RCMP are actually going to arrest Sinwar or
| Netanyahu. The practical impact of the warrants will be (at
| least in the near term) negligible.
|
| Concurrently: unlike the ICC Genocide case, which is
| difficult and unlikely to succeed, the ICC war crimes
| warrants are probably broadly going to be seen as strong and
| compelling. Reporting has Biden and his team maneuvering for
| months to keep any kind of supply lines open to Gaza; he
| knows firsthand that some of these charges have validity.
|
| But the USA is Israel's most important ally; further,
| reporting suggests that Biden's team has been the only thing
| between the current situation and abyss that would kill 3-5x
| as many civilians. That pushback only functions because of
| soft power (Israel would not depend on US arms suppliers for
| indiscriminate bulk bombing, massed land incursions, or
| supply blockades).
|
| What else can Biden say in this situation? He cannot both
| assent to the validity of the ICC charges and continue
| negotiating with Israel for things like US-built supply piers
| on Gaza's seafront. You can't really do diplomacy wth a world
| leader while at the same time saying (or implying) that they
| belong in the Hague.
|
| There's a general vibe where people want international
| justice to work in simple moral terms, where everyone just
| lays the truth as they understand it out, a tribunal sorts
| out the details, and the chips fall as they may. But
| international law absolutely doesn't work that way; for
| similar reasons, Assad won't be charged by the ICC for
| killing half a million Syrians (Syria is not a signatory to
| the ICC).
|
| Once you accept that the court is fundamentally political,
| you're left asking: are the politics of this move effective?
| Will they hasten an end to the conflict, or save lives?
|
| Either way: once the warrants were announced, I think you
| could have taken bets on what Biden (or literally any other
| American president in the last 50 years, or any major party
| candidate for the presidency) would have said, and all the
| money would be on exactly this. We're not signatories to the
| ICC to begin with!
|
| (I think Netanyahu is a criminal; the Hague is fine with me,
| though I think it's more likely he'll do his time in
| Maasiyahu after the Israelis convict him once his coalition
| falls apart).
| mandmandam wrote:
| > reporting suggests that Biden's team has been the only
| thing between the current situation and abyss that would
| kill 3-5x as many civilians
|
| Um. What?
|
| Biden's team vetoed UN calls for a ceasefire three times.
|
| Biden's team has delivered how many billions of dollars of
| weapons in the last 8 months?
|
| Biden's team has consistently and repeatedly lied in front
| of the whole world, saying that they see "no evidence" of
| genocide. This, during the most documented mass murder in
| all history. This, despite clear and unequivocal genocidal
| statements from Israeli leadership, media, and populace.
|
| How many people have resigned from his team now, saying
| they can't have this much Palestinian blood on their hands
| any more? To claim that Biden has _prevented_ deaths in the
| last 8 months is breathtaking. At every juncture he and the
| team he still has have been complicit.
| tptacek wrote:
| What's your point? I agree with some of this but disagree
| with most of it, but either way, it doesn't intersect
| with anything I wrote.
| mandmandam wrote:
| I honestly have no idea how you're not seeing the point.
| I quoted your text and responded to it.
|
| Which of the facts I stated do you disagree with? I'm
| sure I can find you a source for any of them.
| adw wrote:
| I believe that 'tptacek's point could be summarized as
| "the facts are, in a real sense, not material to this
| conversation, as we are operating entirely with the
| domain of realpolitik rather than morality".
|
| Biden, in _theory_, could say to Israel that "continued
| arms supplies are contingent on surrendering Netanyahu
| and Gallant to The Hague immediately", but a) it's not at
| all clear that that would work, b) in the near term it
| probably causes Israel to make the situation on the
| ground in Gaza even worse, and c) it would come with
| serious domestic political repercussions in an election
| year.
|
| I hate all of that too, and it doesn't speak well of us
| as a society or species, but what _should_ happen and
| what _would_ happen are two very different things.
| mandmandam wrote:
| > tptacek's point could be summarized as "the facts are,
| in a real sense, not material to this conversation
|
| Tptacek is demonstrating this well by editing the part of
| the comment I quoted, then acting confused. However, I
| don't subscribe to the idea that facts are not material
| to discussions involving claims of fact.
|
| The claim Biden is _preventing_ deaths in Gaza while
| sending the bombs that are killing them and vetoing
| ceasefire resolutions left right and center, even against
| the will of his own voters, would require stronger
| evidence than has been provided.
|
| Also, international law, including the Genocide
| Convention, is binding on all signatory states.
| 'Realpolitik' is not a defense for complicity in
| genocide.
|
| However, let's look at your abc points, ignoring
| international law for the moment:
|
| a) it's not at all clear that that would work
|
| We've skipped past the issue, which is that we shouldn't
| be sending arms at all at this point. We also have other
| leverage which hasn't been used yet - sanctions, trade
| restrictions, etc.
|
| b) in the near term it probably causes Israel to make the
| situation on the ground in Gaza even worse
|
| This has merit - Israel did threaten to use more unguided
| bombs if the arms flow stopped. Too bad Biden's people
| vetoed the UN ceasefire resolutions _three times_ ,
| against the will of basically the entire planet. What
| about the realpolitik of that loss in our global
| standing?
|
| c) it would come with serious domestic political
| repercussions in an election year.
|
| Believe it or not, and despite tptacek's claims above
| that most people don't care, polls in fact show that
| significantly more registered Democrats disapprove of
| Biden's handling of the situation in Gaza (sending arms)
| than approve, and that this is affecting their vote [0].
|
| > "This issue is a stone-cold loser for Biden," said
| Douglas Schoen, a pollster and strategist who reviewed
| the Reuters/Ipsos poll results. "He's losing votes from
| the left, right and center."
|
| 0 - https://www.reuters.com/world/us/democratic-divide-
| gaza-war-...
| ronjobber wrote:
| The 'political repercussions' case is pretty flimsy [0].
|
| Bigger picture - this disagreement seems fundamentally
| rooted in conflicting political philosophies, as alluded
| to above. More facts are not going to change that.
|
| An example... "'Realpolitik' is not a defense complicity
| in genocide." Says who? I mean I agree with you on the
| face of things, but who gets to decide what genocide
| means? And what does it mean for international law to be
| "binding on all signatory states"? Some view
| overconfidence in this notion as Wilson's great and
| lasting mistake.
|
| Unfortunately, there is no compiler that can adjudicate
| these types of questions for us.
|
| 0 - https://www.natesilver.net/p/your-friends-are-not-a-
| represen...
| _3u10 wrote:
| Realpolitik is a defense. The ICC issues a verdict that
| your committing war crimes, and are to be put to death.
| Your 10 carrier strike group, says you aren't, therefore
| you are not put to death. Proving that the court of the
| carrier strike group is superior to the court of the ICC.
|
| Maybe your court of carrier strike group says the ICC
| judges are committing war crimes, issues a warrant for
| their arrest, the SEAL team executes the warrant against
| the fugitives from justice, and tries, convicts and
| executes them.
|
| If you still think realpolitik isn't a defense, look at a
| practitioner of it like Kissinger, ask yourself why
| Pinochet, et al, were tried, but say Kissinger was not
| for Operation Condor.
| mandmandam wrote:
| > Realpolitik is a defense.
|
| Outside of a courtroom, and ignoring all international
| law and externalities, sure. Within the Hague, or the
| parts of the world where international justice is
| respected, not so much.
|
| > the court of the carrier strike group is superior to
| the court of the ICC.
|
| Until your 10 carrier strike group gets fucked up by
| Yemeni drones, or Iranian swarms. Or no country wants to
| trade with you any more, because you can't be trusted and
| their citizens are furious.
|
| Or until China utterly dominates you economically and
| geopolitically, because they invested in growth instead
| of carrier groups. Or until you're stretched too thin on
| too many fronts and no one wants to help any more, or any
| of the other unintended (possibly world-ending)
| consequences of our wilful and belligerent disrespect of
| long established international law.
|
| ... But the claim that "Biden actually saved lots of
| Palestinians from dying" because of the "realpolitik" of
| the situation is silly. The claim that Kissinger actually
| saved lives by coordinating assassinations so that South
| America didn't need to be bombed into submission would be
| farcical, and so is this.
| _3u10 wrote:
| Well, the IDF is executing lots of war criminals, even
| future ones in Gaza ;) and the ICC can't do squat about
| it. MAGA. From the river to the sea what is the only flag
| you see?
|
| Last time I checked when the US attacked Iran its
| response was to shoot down its own plane full of its war
| criminals. I relish the thought of a Yemeni single drone
| getting through to a CSG, I see a 'proportionate'
| response.
|
| South America is wonderful, very few communists here, I
| wonder what happened, when I go to the football stadium I
| smile, and thank them for their help building the
| stadiums, truly a stadium of the people they built for us
| capitalists to watch our football games.
|
| I'm glad that Kissinger found Che who enslaved millions
| and he was brought to justice in Bolivia.
| ronjobber wrote:
| This still is not quite grappling with the fundamental
| issue imo
|
| Realpolitik, in the sense Morgenthau and Kissinger
| understood it, absolutely takes into account management
| of public opinion and risks related to violation of
| international standards. It just does not _only_ take
| those into account in decisions related to national
| interests.
|
| > But the claim that "Biden actually saved lots of
| Palestinians from dying" because of the "realpolitik" of
| the situation is silly. The claim that Kissinger actually
| saved lives by coordinating assassinations so that South
| America didn't need to be bombed into submission would be
| farcical, and so is this.
|
| This is stated as a fact and dismissed on the basis of a
| tacit moral argument rather than reasoning. Why would the
| claim be silly? I see no reason for those statements to
| be cast aside as un-addressable or 'farcical'.
|
| On the other hand...
|
| > 10 carrier strike group gets fucked up by Yemeni
| drones, or Iranian swarms
|
| If this were possible Houthi drones would have done it
| already (against a single carrier).
|
| > because they [China] invested in growth instead of
| carrier groups
|
| China has been investing heavily in their military for
| three decades [0]. And we will see about that growth
| part... it is not looking so rosy for Xi currently.
|
| 0 - https://www.macrotrends.net/global-
| metrics/countries/CHN/chi...
| corimaith wrote:
| You need to make a distinction between positive (what-is)
| claims and normative (what-ought) claims. When you say
| realpolitik is a "defence", whether or not it is actually
| used as a "defence" in reality is disconnected on the
| validity of that position as a moral fact.
| _3u10 wrote:
| Look up judgement proof, or jury nullification, ever
| heard of the OJ Simpson trial? Realpolitik is why OJ
| wasn't convicted.
|
| Juries in and of themselves are realpolitik, it's why
| most countries don't use them, because they deliver
| verdicts the legal professions dislike.
| lupusreal wrote:
| You seem to be saying in your above comment that Biden's
| only possible choice is to appease Israel to hopefully
| get some humanitarian concessions from them. This is
| probably true due to the reality of American domestic
| politics, but if we ignore that then other choices are
| obvious. Treat Israel as we once treated South Africa.
| Force regime change by isolating them.
| tptacek wrote:
| Yes, that is what I am saying. Cutting off arms sales to
| Israel will not prevent a supply blockade of Gaza or a
| Rafah invasion, both of which are issues that the US has
| publicly campaigned on --- we don't know what other red
| lines the US has set up, or how much worse this could yet
| become. Contrary to popular belief, it's not at all clear
| that Israel is dependent on the US militarily; we're a
| small part of their defense budget.
|
| I think domestic politics are certainly a factor, but not
| a big one in an ICC case, because Americans, to a first
| approximation, do not give a shit about the ICC; further,
| we aren't a party to the ICC, so it's not as if the
| administration is being asked to do something or help
| adjudicate.
|
| I want to say again that I think this particular case is
| well-founded. But an ICC warrant against the leader of a
| non-signatory is fundamentally a political act, and while
| I don't take issue with the stated intent of that act, I
| don't get the theory of change behind it.
|
| I put it to you directly: what good comes of this while
| Netanyahu remains in power?
| lupusreal wrote:
| > _Yes, that is what I am saying. Cutting off arms sales
| to Israel will not prevent a supply blockade of Gaza or a
| Rafah invasion_
|
| It would if Israel has any sense of self preservation at
| all. They need the support of the American government
| more than they need Gazan land.
| tptacek wrote:
| I think that's unlikely to be true. I think it's a self-
| serving western myth that Israel, with one of the largest
| economies and the best trained and resourced military in
| the region (see the Arab States performance vs. the IRGC
| in Syria and Yemen for counterexamples) is a US-dependent
| proxy. The west tried to ice Russia out of supplies for
| the Ukranian invasion, and that didn't work despite near-
| unanimity. Israel will just buy bombs from China, which
| is their next largest trading partner after us. We will
| lose all influence over Israeli policy, at least until
| [insert US partisan political argument here].
|
| (I also think it's not at all clear that serious
| policymakers in Israel "want Gazan land", let alone need
| it; the messianic nutballs bolstering Netanyahu's
| coalition are, to put it mildly, not representative of
| mainstream Israel policy thinking.)
|
| A reminder that we're just talking about this stuff here;
| this is HN, not the UN Security Council. If we're going
| to have threads like this here, we're going to have to
| accept that we're having curious conversations, not high-
| stakes deliberations. So: I can be wrong about all of
| this stuff, and I'm glad to hear why. But we're not going
| to solve Israel/Gaza on a thread.
|
| (You didn't say anything to prompt that disclaimer, it's
| just a stress reaction from previous threads).
| bawolff wrote:
| > Israel will just buy bombs from China
|
| Or just make them themselves. That seems fully within
| their capabilities if push comes to shove. After all, we
| are talking about bombs not fighter jets.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| I think the biggest thing the US is doing for Israel is
| discouraging regional actors from getting involved. If
| the US took no position here either way, the conflict
| would probably turn into a proxy war pretty quickly.
| Whether you think that's good or not depends on your
| viewpoint. I personally prefer that the states in the
| area, even if they don't necessarily directly represent
| the Palestinians, negotiate the conflict because they
| have to deal with the fallout on their own
| borders/politics.
|
| Being able to purchase weapons from the US also gives
| them significant political latitude internally. When a
| significant amount of your economy and government
| spending goes to making weapons, you're going to affect
| domestic budgets, which will make coalition building much
| harder especially in a country with as many small parties
| as Israel. We see this in Russia as well but because
| Russia is not democratic when it comes to defense
| allocation, it simply throws its dissidents in jail or
| encourages them to leave.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > (I also think it's not at all clear that serious
| policymakers in Israel "want Gazan land", let alone need
| it; the messianic nutballs bolstering Netanyahu's
| coalition are, to put it mildly, not representative of
| mainstream Israel policy thinking.)
|
| And yet are regularly re-elected. And have been for
| decades.
| tptacek wrote:
| It is not the case that the ultra-right fringe parties
| like Jewish Power had governing power for decades. It's a
| parliamentary system, weirdos get elected to the Knesset,
| but the governing authorities --- at least prior to
| Netanyahu, and even during Sharon's time! --- were
| normies, not neo-Kahanist terrorists. It's easy to find
| lots and lots of political analysis about why this has
| happened, much of it having to do with the probability
| that Netanyahu could wind up imprisoned (for things
| having nothing to do with Gaza) once he fails to assemble
| a governing coalition.
|
| See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40421217
| adw wrote:
| This dynamic - a political leader trying to run away from
| justice - has, historically been a very common way in
| which states fail; which is why a lot of people who pay
| close attention to such things are very concerned about
| the state of US democracy.
| hexane360 wrote:
| H.W. Bush brought Israel in line:
| https://www.huffpost.com/entry/george-hw-bush-israel-
| palesti...
|
| Reagan did it with a single phone call:
| https://www.nytimes.com/1982/08/13/world/reagan-demands-
| end-...
| tptacek wrote:
| Bush's settlement policies didn't work at all. West Bank
| settlements drastically increased in the years following
| that showdown. Can you look at a graph and spot the point
| where Bush "brought Israel in line"?
|
| (I kind of like Bush 1, at least as a competent operator
| with some discernible principles, and think Israeli
| settlement of the West Bank is abhorrent).
| dralley wrote:
| >Biden's team vetoed UN calls for a ceasefire three
| times.
|
| "Calls for ceasefire" that didn't include "calls to
| release the hostages", to say nothing of the fact that
| Hamas leadership had already been shouting they would
| "repeat October 7th again and again until the final
| destruction of Israel" and so on.
| ronjobber wrote:
| I think this here is what Hilary Clinton was talking
| about recently... she got panned in the media for it, but
| I'm pretty sure she was right (and I'm by no means a
| fan).
| Animats wrote:
| > But the USA is Israel's most important ally.
|
| However, Israel is not the USA's most important ally.
|
| The US is not really an ally of Israel at all. The NATO
| countries are. Japan and South Korea are. They have US
| troops and bases. The US does not send troops to fight in
| Israel's wars. The US just sends money.
| tptacek wrote:
| Right, my point is that we're most important external
| input to Israel's decision-making process, not that we
| depend on them (beyond the political fact that the US
| electorate broadly supports Israel as an enterprise, and
| ranks the Gaza war at the bottom of important issues).
| jcranmer wrote:
| As I saw someone else put it, this will probably be
| studied in decades to come as a case study in "why not to
| piss off your superpower ally."
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| "The US does not send troops to fight in Israel's wars.
| The US just sends money"
|
| That's what Ukraine is begging for.
| phatfish wrote:
| Luckily Ukraine can focus on something other than
| "begging" the US now, as the politics got sorted on the
| US side, for the moment.
| csomar wrote:
| Israel was one of the US most important assets in the
| Middle East. At that time, gas/oil ran the world and it
| was _the_ energy source. The US is simply stuck with that
| baggage. Meanwhile China is building solar like there is
| no tomorrow and essentially creating and monopolizing the
| new energy source.
|
| The US is really in a bad position now.
| datavirtue wrote:
| I know, we need The Art of the Deal.
| lupusreal wrote:
| If it weren't for a large portion of the American public
| having religious motivation (evangelical protestantism) to
| support Israel _unconditionally, no matter what_ , then the
| US would be able to exert considerable pressure on Israel,
| for instance by threatening to cut off Israel as Israel has
| been cutting off Gaza. No more arms shipments, no more UN
| Security Council vetos of any anti-Israel resolution, etc.
|
| But of course this is politically impossible for the US.
| Near half of the US population would throw an absolute fit.
| tptacek wrote:
| Evangelicals are a small component of the electorate
| relative to Israel's support (they're like a quarter of
| the population, and, of course, they're locked in
| completely to the opposition party; Democrats don't
| meaningfully campaign for evangelical votes.)
| Qwertious wrote:
| Democrats are only half of congress, though - Republican
| support is needed to pass bills, currently.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| But unconditional support for Israel is a rare topic with
| mostly bipartisan agreement from the leadership class.
| The disagreement from the public is very likely more
| correlated with age than with the party someone supports.
| jcranmer wrote:
| > Near half of the US population would throw an absolute
| fit.
|
| But a large chunk of the population is already throwing a
| fit, and given the spread in views among different age
| groups, that's a growing chunk of the population.
| tptacek wrote:
| If by this you mean they're throwing a fit over Israel
| and Gaza, no, I don't think polling bears this out at
| all. Even within the context of the schools themselves,
| protesters are small minorities of the students and
| faculty. A large chunk of the media is throwing a fit, to
| be sure!
|
| I think the best way to sum up public opinion from what
| we know given polling and on-the-ground numbers is that
| Americans just don't much care about this. We care. But
| as is so often the case, caring about this issue makes us
| the weird ones.
| lupusreal wrote:
| The situation is ripe for a new political party that
| isn't wed to zionism. Opposition to zionism is growing on
| both the left and the right, particularly among young
| people, but neither had a party to represent this.
| Qwertious wrote:
| I'm hoping that the last year or so will finally deliver
| a replacement for American FPTP - the Republicans are
| split between RINOs and MAGA devouts, and the democrats
| are split too between the centrist and progressives too.
|
| I don't know if it'll actually happen, but this is
| probably the most likely path towards it, if there is
| one.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| The RINOs are moving towards the welcoming arms of
| Democrats and the "progressives" don't have a home
| anywhere as they are barely even tolerated in the
| Democratic party.
| octopoc wrote:
| Normally you'd think at least one of the parties would
| adapt to appeal to the younger generations. Unfortunately
| I think there is some truth to the idea that Israeli
| influence is very strong in D.C., so neither party has so
| much as offered an olive branch to the young.
| ars wrote:
| What the heck does "Opposition to Zionism" even mean?
| Opposing Zionism is the same as opposing the Irish desire
| to have Ireland, or the Kiwi desire to have New Zealand.
|
| I suspect you don't know what Zionism is, because
| otherwise your message makes no sense.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| It is the opposition to Israel as an ethnostate, which
| describes neither Ireland nor New Zealand.
| ars wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnocracy#Northern_Ireland
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_ethnostate#New_Zealan
| d
|
| And I'm not picking on them - tons of countries are like
| that, and that's fine as long as they ensure equality of
| all citizens, which Ireland, New Zealand, and Israel have
| all done.
| racional wrote:
| The section on NZ refers to a set of racist policies that
| ended in the 1980s and are now thoroughly discredited.
| Are you sure you want to cite it as a comparator to
| Israel?
| runarberg wrote:
| Same with Norther Ireland. Parent links to policies of
| Northern Ireland aimed at minimizing Catholic's political
| powers, including via controlling the demographics.
| History has shown these policies to be very wrong and
| very much the reason for the Troubles.
|
| Historically this region suffered from settler
| colonialism where Britain encourage Protestants to move
| into the area. If you wanted to make a comparison to
| anti-Zionism, then the Nationalist's fight for civil
| rights and political representation is much more apt,
| then Protestant hardliners wanting to keep the
| demographics in their favor in order for continue
| suppress the rights of Norther Irish Catholics.
|
| Ironically, the IRA were not afraid to use terrorism to
| further the nationalistic cause (similar to a certain
| Palestinian resistance movement), and when the British
| tried to defeat them militarily (including via
| occupation) it only made matter worse. What did work
| however was stopping these policies which stripped
| Catholics from their civil rights, and granting them a
| political avenue for their prospects. Turns out that if
| you have political means for your goals, you are less
| likely to use terrorism.
| racional wrote:
| Yeah, I didn't really drill down into the Ireland
| section. I can pretty much only do one deeply flawed
| country analogy at a time.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| I didn't know about the "White New Zealand Policy", but
| it seems to have been rolled back in the 80s. Ireland is
| not the same as Northern Ireland, which is part of the
| UK.
|
| I assume you chose the word "citizen" carefully, so let's
| just imagine that in a hypothetical Palestinian state --
| whether alongside or unified with Israel -- Palestinians
| would enjoy the same rights as Israelis, unlike today.
|
| Anyway, obviously _you_ aren't picking on them for any of
| that, and I'm not super interested in debating it. I'm
| just answering your question about what "opposition to
| Zionism" means.
| whodidntante wrote:
| "let's just imagine that in a hypothetical Palestinian
| state -- whether alongside or unified with Israel --
| Palestinians would enjoy the same rights as Israelis,
| unlike today."
|
| If/when there is a Palestinian state, there is no basis
| to assume that they would enjoy the same rights as
| Israelis. It would be their own state, and their rights
| are determined by them. For example, Syrians do not have
| the same rights of Israelis, and Israelis do not have the
| same rights as Syrians.
|
| Currently, Israeli Palestinians (Israeli Arabs) have the
| same rights of Israeli Jews.Palestinians in West Bank and
| Gaza do not have those same rights.
| whodidntante wrote:
| There are at least two dozen countries in that area (mid
| east) of the world who are, constitutionally and in
| practice, ethnostates. Their constitution explicitly
| states that they are an "Arab state" and that their laws
| are based on Sharia law. Just Google for and read the
| constitutions of those countries in the Arab league, for
| example Egypt, Jordan, Sudan, Syria, etc. And then there
| is Iran.
|
| Those who actively claim they are opposed to Israel
| because it is an ethnostate but are not also actively
| calling for these other states to be dismantled need to
| explain why that is not anti-semetic.
|
| There is also the related question on those opposed to
| Israel because it is a "European settler/colonial" state.
| A significant majority (66%) of Israel consists of brown
| people. 25% of Israel is not Jewish, and of the rest (the
| Jewish population), at least half of those are indigenous
| to that area, and are, from a racial perspective, just as
| "non-white" as anyone else from that area.
| gslepak wrote:
| > What the heck does "Opposition to Zionism" even mean?
|
| If I had to guess, I suspect they might mean "opposition
| to Zionist control of American foreign policy" rather
| than "opposition to Zionism".
| ars wrote:
| That's a weird thing to oppose considering most parties
| see the control running exactly the other way. The US
| needs Israel more than Israel needs the US.
| racional wrote:
| _The US needs Israel_
|
| It absolutely does not - and it is not anti-Israel
| sentiment to say so; it's just geopolitics. For the the
| US, Israel is optional.
|
| Meanwhile if Israel ever decides to pretend it doesn't
| need the US -- well, you know what would happen.
| ars wrote:
| > For the the US, Israel is optional.
|
| That's not really true. The reason are complicated and
| involve the cold war. I touched on some of the highlights
| here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40425327
|
| > well, you know what would happen.
|
| Nothing would happen. Israel has defended itself from
| multiple wars without US help, if anything Israel's
| enemies are weaker than they were in the past.
|
| Weirdly enough it's actually Israel's enemies that
| benefit from the US - without the US Israel would just do
| what it needed to to stay safe, and never mind if the
| other country is hurt. Israel would not care, because
| their own security comes first.
|
| With the US Israel is like "fine, we'll do the bare
| minimum".
|
| This is also why all those people who what the US to stop
| helping Israel are so incredibly foolish. If Israel felt
| less secure they would fight with even greater ferocity.
| If you want Israel to stand down make them feel very very
| secure.
| theoldlove wrote:
| Honest question: why does the US need Israel? Or, to put
| it another way, what concrete help or advantages has
| Israel given the US over the last few decades?
|
| Even in the (ill-conceived and disastrous) Iraq and
| Afghanistan wars other ME nations produced a lot more
| help than Israel did.
| ars wrote:
| The easiest answer is military tech.
|
| More complex answers involve having an allied county in
| an area with a lot of Russian influence.
|
| The history is long and complex, but keep in mind Israel
| ran all by itself for decades, and defended itself in
| multiple wars, without any US help. It was when Russia
| started helping Egypt that the US recruited Israel. It
| was not the other way around.
|
| For a while when Russia seemed powerless people started
| questioning the relationship, but after Ukraine it was
| re-energized.
|
| Other answers are cultural: Israel is very similar to the
| US and Europe, same equal rights for citzens, same
| democracy, same culture of freedom. And the US is allied
| with all countries that are similar to it.
| tptacek wrote:
| Zionists don't control American foreign policy any more
| than does motherhood, apple pie, or General Mills
| breakfast cereals --- they are all just things that the
| American public is aligned on. Israel enjoys broad
| support in both parties, and that's in part because the
| voters of those parties support Israel.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| Except unlike all of those things, explicitly Zionist
| organizations spend millions of dollars lobbying and
| campaigning. For example, AIPAC alone has spent almost $2
| million to unseat Jamal Bowman in his race against George
| Latimer, whom AIPAC themselves recruited. [1].
|
| "Controls American foreign policy" is hyperbolic; I don't
| think support for Israel would just collapse if those
| orgs vanished. But come on, comparing Zionism to
| "motherhood" and "apple pie" is disingenuous.
|
| [1] https://theintercept.com/2024/05/16/aipac-jamaal-
| bowman-atta...
| datavirtue wrote:
| No lasting and significant opposition to Zionism will
| ever take root. To boil it down to a jingoist set of
| phrases understandable by the masses would require overt
| antisemitism.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| << set of phrases understandable by the masses
|
| I.. think I disagree. In a sense, Trump technically laid
| a foundation for that with a rather clever MAGA phrase.
| Regardless of what you think about him, his policy or his
| stance on anything, he showed that there are phrases
| could be utilized to tap into that section with little
| effort and are not as easily dismissed.
|
| Now.. those could be attacked as overly nationalistic,
| but that is a separate discussion.
|
| << No lasting and significant opposition to Zionism will
| ever take root.
|
| I think I agree despite (n)'ever' being a really long
| time. A year is eternity in politics and this year is
| already pretty crazy. I honestly can't say it is
| impossible.
| emmelaich wrote:
| I think a lot of fundamentalist Christians are actually
| anti-Jewish and anti-Israel. They're not the bloc you
| think they are.
| defrost wrote:
| What propotion are so fundie they're pro-rapture and all
| in for war between Israel and elsewhere though?
| im3w1l wrote:
| > What else can Biden say in this situation? He cannot both
| assent to the validity of the ICC charges and continue
| negotiating with Israel for things like US-built supply
| piers on Gaza's seafront. You can't really do diplomacy wth
| a world leader while at the same time saying (or implying)
| that they belong in the Hague.
|
| He doesn't have to do diplomacy with them. He could call
| their bluff. He could unilaterally start delivering food
| and dare anyone to stop him. If Israel starts killing "3-5x
| as many civilians" he could declare war on Israel.
|
| All of these are things he could do. Won't. But could.
| tptacek wrote:
| We cannot in fact unilaterally establish supply
| operations off the Gazan seafront over the objections of
| the Israeli leadership.
| umanwizard wrote:
| The US Navy can unilaterally establish supply operations
| by sea almost anywhere in the world. If a carrier group
| sailed in and started setting up a port in Gaza to
| deliver food, there's no chance Israel would be able to
| do anything about it.
| boppo1 wrote:
| They could definitely stop it, but things would get
| _incredibly_ ugly from there.
| tptacek wrote:
| Right, this is like an Orson Scott Card fantasy. Which,
| don't let me yuck your yums or anything, but no, this
| isn't really a possible scenario. Israel will be an
| Article 5 NATO member before it is a military adversary
| of the United States (neither thing will happen, but if
| we're betting on impossible scenarios.)
| nolongerthere wrote:
| Is that what was wrong with his later books? They assumed
| a level of rationality and immoral clarity that doesn't
| exist in real life?
| FireBeyond wrote:
| I think that "an enforced naval military blockade of
| Gazan seafront since 2007" is a more accurate phrasing of
| that state of affairs than "Israel's leaders may
| object...".
| berkut wrote:
| Isn't the SA-brought Genocide case the ICJ, not the ICC?
| tptacek wrote:
| You're right! Thanks!
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > What else can Biden say in this situation? He cannot both
| assent to the validity of the ICC charges and continue
| negotiating with Israel for things like US-built supply
| piers on Gaza's seafront.
|
| He didn't have to say anything about the substance. He
| could even use them as leverage in negotiations without
| publicly saying anything about the substance, by
| conditioning US efforts to get the UNSC to hold them in
| abeyance (which it explictly can!) conditioned on a cease-
| fire and concrete steps on aid.
|
| Would it work? Probably not. Would it be better for the US
| interestd broadly than getting nothing at all while
| undermining the credibility of an institution that the US,
| while not a member of, has found practically and
| diplomatically useful in a number of past cases? Absolutely
| yes.
|
| > We're not signatories to the ICC to begin with!
|
| We have shut up about, or actively supported, the ICC in
| many cases, and given the US public nominal goal of a two-
| state solution demonstrating that international
| institutions are willing to take on abused on both sides of
| the conflict without ignoring the legitimate interests or
| rights of people on either side is something the US ought
| to be backing rather than burning down.
| tptacek wrote:
| Everything you're pitching here seems predicated on the
| idea of breaking off all practical diplomacy with
| Netanyahu. Which, if you think you can topple Netanyahu,
| sure, but I imagine there are career diplomats telling
| the administration that moves like these are as likely to
| bolster Netanyahu's position as they are to hasten his
| ouster.
|
| Certainly it is not my contention that the US is
| consistent with respect to the ICC.
|
| It's a bad situation. I genuinely think that the
| administration is playing the best it can with the cards
| it was dealt. I think we're all clear what the
| counterfactual other administration would be doing.
| yyyk wrote:
| It's really not in Israel's interests to hamper any aid if
| it ever was. There's no need to coerce on this point. Biden
| could have gone 'Yay ICC!' and still got cooperation here.
|
| Israel has three alternatives:
|
| Option 1: Do a real siege (never tried. Gaza has less
| malnutrition deaths than Cali according to their own
| figures, and besides everything would have been over months
| ago if it did. That's the real weakness with the ICC case).
|
| Option 2: Provide aid yourself (expensive).
|
| Option 3: Let other people do it for you and not pay for
| it.
|
| Obviously the optimal choice is the last one. The real
| differences between US and Israel are elsewhere (e.g.
| delusional postwar planning by both sides).
| tsimionescu wrote:
| This is all extremely weak. The Biden administration could
| stop the war today by calling Netanyahu and saying they
| will cut off aid and protection guarantees if they don't.
| Reagan has actually done so in the past.
|
| Everything else is domestic politics, and personal
| convictions for Biden. But Israel will not continue this
| war if the USA tells them to stop it. They are _far_ too
| dependent on USA aid for it.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/1982/08/13/world/reagan-demands-
| end-...
|
| Edit: here is the full quote about the events in 1982:
|
| 2 P.M. (8 A.M., New York time) -The Israeli Cabinet meets.
| A message from President Reagan arrives, expressing
| ''outrage'' and, reportedly threatening to halt the Habib
| mission. The Cabinet decides to end the raids and order new
| ones only if they are ''essential.''
|
| 4 P.M. (10 A.M., New York time) -President Reagan tries for
| hour to call Mr. Begin but cannot get through. 4:50 P.M.
| (10:50 A.M., New York time) - King Fahd of Saudi Arabia
| calls Mr. Reagan. 5 P.M. (11 A.M., New York time) -A new
| cease-fire goes into effect in west Beirut. 5:10 P.M.
| (11:10 A.M., New York time) - Mr. Reagan reaches Mr. Begin
| for 10-minute telephone call. 5:40 P.M. (11:40 A.M., New
| York time) - Mr. Begin calls President Reagan to say that a
| ''complete cease-fire'' had been ordered.
| mr_toad wrote:
| The domestic political situation was different. Begin's
| grip on power at the time seems like it was tenuous, the
| economy was in bad shape and the war had escalated out of
| control. It even seems that Begin wasn't fully aware of
| what was going on in Lebanon. Netanyahu has already
| stated that they'll continue without US support.
| harimau777 wrote:
| The ICC isn't equating the actions of Hamas and Netanyahu.
| They are being accused of separate crimes.
| xdennis wrote:
| These warrants were released simultaneously even though
| Hamas broadcast the footage immediately after Oct 7. (The
| footage of the man being decapitated with a hoe was even
| shown live from the UN, before the news cut off the
| broadcast.)
| viccis wrote:
| >I personally can't believe the ICC is equating the actions
| of Hamas and the Israeli government. What a shameful
| organization.
|
| I agree 100%! Over the past year, Israel has caused orders of
| magnitude more innocent deaths by terrorist actions (as
| outlined in the warranted issued here), has a much higher
| civilian death rate during military operations (Oct 7 was
| around 60%, while IDF's battles have been higher, with both
| sides hiding military targets within civilian areas) and
| should be taken far more seriously, as their support from
| other national aggressors like the US makes them far more
| dangerous.
| yyyk wrote:
| The real issue with the warrants isn't 'equating'. It's the
| political point to cover two deeper issues:
|
| First, that Biden admin and others can't escape culpability
| for any such claim if it's considered credible. Second, the
| dubious factual basis (trucks were allowed in all the time;
| temporary port and air supply obviously with Israel's
| approval; the very low malnutrition death count according to
| Gaza health ministry's own reports).
|
| The first made the admin's reply inevitable. The second made
| it even more likely, but it's a too complex point for PR I
| guess, so they went with 'equating'.
| slaymaker1907 wrote:
| Biden technically has authority to invade the Netherlands if
| they arrest any member of the military or government of
| Israel under the American Service-Members' Protection Act
| since Israel is a major non-NATO ally.
| nabla9 wrote:
| Warrants requests are for five people.
|
| I think warrants issued against Sinwar, Al-Masri and Haniyeh
| are very likely. Warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant IMHO are
| over 50%
|
| Proportationality and intention are important when the ICC
| interprets what constitutes war crime or crime against
| humanity. These cases also set up a precedents. Arrest warrant
| for Netanyahu and Gallant is for:
|
| - Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare as a war crime
| contrary to article 8(2)(b)(xxv) of the Statute;
|
| - Wilfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body
| or health contrary to article 8(2)(a)(iii), or cruel treatment
| as a war crime contrary to article 8(2)(c)(i);
|
| - Wilful killing contrary to article 8(2)(a)(i), or Murder as a
| war crime contrary to article 8(2)(c)(i);
|
| - Intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population
| as a war crime contrary to articles 8(2)(b)(i), or 8(2)(e)(i);
|
| - Extermination and/or murder contrary to articles 7(1)(b) and
| 7(1)(a), including in the context of deaths caused by
| starvation, as a crime against humanity;
|
| - Persecution as a crime against humanity contrary to article
| 7(1)(h); Other inhumane acts as crimes against humanity
| contrary to article 7(1)(k).
| pyuser583 wrote:
| If Netanyahu produces a document from the Israeli Supreme
| Court allowing his actions, doesn't that make it impossible
| to prosecute him?
|
| ICC works in conjunction with national courts. If a country
| has a functional, independent judiciary, that judiciary gets
| the right to address the wrong. Or not.
|
| Israel's judiciary is both functional and independent. Very
| independent. Of Netanyahu in particular.
|
| And the Israeli judiciary seems to be going along with this.
|
| Source: https://www.icc-cpi.int/about/how-the-court-works
|
| > The ICC is intended to complement, not to replace, national
| criminal systems; it prosecutes cases only when States do not
| are unwilling or unable to do so genuinely.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _If Netanyahu produces a document from the Israeli
| Supreme Court allowing his actions, doesn't that make it
| impossible to prosecute him?_
|
| No. Israel's courts ratifying alleged war crimes is the
| Israeli national system being "unwilling or unable to
| [apply international law] genuinely."
| alephnerd wrote:
| And to add on to JumpCrisscross, ICC warrants are only
| valid in countries that are currently member states of
| the ICC [0], though countries will gladly turn the other
| eye depending on mutual interests (eg. Narendra Modi's
| close relationship with Japan, France, Singapore, UAE,
| and Israel because they didn't enforce US travel
| sanctions on him when he was CM of Gujarat in the 2000s).
|
| Notably, the US is NOT a signatory of the ICC (this was a
| whole thing in the Iraq War days).
|
| [0] - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ICC_member_
| states.sv...
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| For folks interested in this process, take a look at the
| ICC proceedings against Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman
| [1] regarding war crimes in Darfur.
|
| [1]: https://www.icc-cpi.int/darfur/abd-al-rahman
| alephnerd wrote:
| Also the Frontline documentary from 2019 about Ratko
| Mladic's trial [0]
|
| (Edit: I'm a dummy, this was the ICTY, not the ICC, but
| the ICTY was the precursor model of the ICC in the
| aftermath of the Yugoslav Wars).
|
| [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJh8fuaqslo
| bawolff wrote:
| I don't think this is relavent to the complementary
| principle.
|
| If the israeli judicial system made a good faith attempt
| to prosecute this crime following the standards of
| international law, it would probably prevent this warrant
| even though Israel is not a party to the court.
| sweeter wrote:
| It kind of gives the game away when you see that the US
| is not a signatory but had a big say in appointing the
| Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan in 2021 and have instituted
| the "Invade the Hague Act" that would allow the US to
| invade the Hague if they were to prosecute any American
| personnel
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-
| Members%27_Pr...
|
| The Biden admin cooperated with the ICC, specifically
| quietly handing documents to the ICC that details Putin's
| war crimes and urging them to submit arrest warrants for
| Putin. Notably Russia is also not a signatory of the ICC,
| so there is definitely precedent for this process that
| even has had the backing of the US.
|
| IMO Khan's speech today really speaks for itself. The
| "International Rule of Law" is nothing but a joke if we
| don't not apply it equally and blindly that will
| ultimately lead to the degradation of modern society and
| our species. I highly urge people to go and check out his
| speech on the matter and to form your own opinion.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| International rule of law is a joke.
|
| "Rule of law" means all people are equal before the law.
|
| It's hard to pull off. Some nations have, most haven't.
|
| But Chairman Xi isn't going to face charges for his
| crimes against Uyghurs.
|
| Most countries have no rule of law, and internationally,
| none do.
| himinlomax wrote:
| The _international_ in international law should give you
| a hint as to why it doesn 't apply to the Uyghurs.
| _heimdall wrote:
| There is precedent for the ICC [1], I believe a majority
| of all the ICC convictions were actually charging
| individuals committing crimes against their own people
| without crossing state lines.
|
| The fact that China gets away with its treatment of the
| Uyghurs (and plenty of other major powers that
| technically break ICC laws) is definitely an example of
| how much international law is a farce, though they aren't
| getting around the ICC by staying within their own
| borders.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_indict
| ed_in_t...
| mhuffman wrote:
| >The "International Rule of Law" is nothing but a joke if
| we don't not apply it equally and blindly that will
| ultimately lead to the degradation of modern society and
| our species.
|
| Part of the "Rule of Law" is enforcement of that law. Who
| could realistically enforce it against the US? How about
| China?
| corimaith wrote:
| Rule of Law requires you first establish monopoly on
| violence via global hegemony. If you are willing to
| accept some kind of global state where individual nations
| have lost sovereignity then okay, but if not what ends up
| happening is you limit your own actions while your
| enemies (who don't care for such rules) can walk free to
| do whatever.
| nabla9 wrote:
| >produces a document from the Israeli Supreme Court
|
| This would mean that Netanyahu has been charged, tried and
| eventually acquitted of the same crimes. ICC investigates
| if the national proceedings are genuine.
|
| To start the process, Israeli prosecutor must prosecute.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| Israel courts have a process of pre-clearance. If the
| "criminal act" was pre-cleared by the Israeli courts and
| found lawful, that's a big deal.
| rbanffy wrote:
| That would make the Israeli court system "unwilling" to
| apply international law.
| dotancohen wrote:
| That just sounds like the term "unwilling" is to be
| arbitrarily applied when the ICC doesn't like the
| national court's decision.
| 8372049 wrote:
| If Israeli courts give clearance to conduct that violates
| IHL, then that is certainly an unwillingness to enforce
| said laws.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > If Netanyahu produces a document from the Israeli Supreme
| Court allowing his actions, doesn't that make it impossible
| to prosecute him?
|
| No, it does not.
|
| > ICC works in conjunction with national courts
|
| Not in the way you are suggesting.
|
| > If a country has a functional, independent judiciary,
| that judiciary gets the right to address the wrong
|
| No, the ICC will rule a case inadmissible if a state has
| investigated and/or prosecuted _that specific case_ (not
| just if it has some general level of legal functionality),
| _unless_ the ICC also fines that the investigation or
| prosecution was not genuine (e.g., was pretextual for the
| purpose of, say, giving the accused an exonerating document
| to wave around to protect against ICC prosecution.)
|
| See Article 17 of the Rome Statute.
| Fatnino wrote:
| Does a country have to be a signatory to the Rome Statute
| to be subject to it?
| lucubratory wrote:
| No, in fact Putin was recently subjected to it.
| runarberg wrote:
| Putin's crimes were committed in Ukraine, which is a
| signatory (though not a party to it [yet]).
| Caligatio wrote:
| My limited understanding is the location/country of the
| proposed violation or the violators need to be a
| signatory. In this case, Palestine is a signatory so the
| actions of Israel in Palestine as well as the actions of
| Hamas (acting anywhere) are within the court's
| jurisdiction.
| jd3 wrote:
| The US states:
|
| > The ICC was established by its state parties as a court
| of limited jurisdiction. Those limits are rooted in
| principles of complementarity, which do not appear to have
| been applied here amid the Prosecutor's rush to seek these
| arrest warrants rather than allowing the Israeli legal
| system a full and timely opportunity to proceed.[0]
|
| ---
|
| The ICC defines:
|
| > 1. Complementarity: The principle of complementarity
| governs the exercise of the Court's jurisdiction. This
| distinguishes the Court in several significant ways from
| other known institutions, including the international
| criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda
| (the ICTY and the ICTR). The Statute recognizes that States
| have the first responsibility and right to prosecute
| international crimes. The ICC may only exercise
| jurisdiction where national legal systems fail to do so,
| including where they purport to act but in reality are
| unwilling or unable to genuinely carry out proceedings. The
| principle of complementarity is based both on respect for
| the primary jurisdiction of States and on considerations of
| efficiency and effectiveness, since States will generally
| have the best access to evidence and witnesses and the
| resources to carry out proceedings. Moreover, there are
| limits on the number of prosecutions the ICC, a single
| institution, can feasibly conduct.[1]
|
| namely,
|
| > The ICC may only exercise jurisdiction where national
| legal systems fail to do so, including where they purport
| to act but in reality are unwilling or unable to genuinely
| carry out proceedings.
|
| The US argues that the ICC has not adequately allowed this
| process to play out through the courts in Israel.
|
| ---
|
| The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs states:
|
| > The criteria of unwillingness or inability to carry out
| proceedings would involve some indication of purposely
| shielding the accused from criminal responsibility or a
| lack of intent to bring the person to justice. This may be
| inferred from political interference or deliberate
| obstruction and delay, from institutional deficiencies due
| to political subordination of the legal system, or
| procedural irregularities indicating a lack of willingness
| and inability to investigate or prosecute genuinely.[2]
|
| ---
|
| Imo the hermeneutics are clear, though it will be up to the
| lawyers from either side to make arguments in favor
| of/against.
|
| [0]: https://www.state.gov/warrant-applications-by-the-
| internatio...
|
| [1]: https://www.icc-
| cpi.int/sites/default/files/NR/rdonlyres/20B...
|
| [2]: https://jcpa.org/article/would-judicial-reforms-in-
| israel-op....
| nabla9 wrote:
| a counterpoint
|
| _" Prosecutor's rush to seek these arrest warrants"_
| does not seem to be true.
|
| ICC prosecutor did not bring this case quickly without
| warning. He has consistently demanded that action must be
| taken or he will prosecute. Israel's Supreme Court has
| the authority to conduct judicial review of laws and
| government decisions and intervene in exceptional,
| extreme cases. Israeli prosecutors have had time to
| charge.
|
| >Since last year, in Ramallah, in Cairo, in Israel and in
| Rafah, I have consistently emphasised that international
| humanitarian law demands that Israel take urgent action
| to immediately allow access to humanitarian aid in Gaza
| at scale. I specifically underlined that starvation as a
| method of war and the denial of humanitarian relief
| constitute Rome Statute offences. I could not have been
| clearer.
|
| >As I also repeatedly underlined in my public statements,
| those who do not comply with the law should not complain
| later when my Office takes action. That day has come.
|
| https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/statement-icc-prosecutor-
| karim-...
|
| btw. The US has demanded same and put conditions to
| military aid.
| YZF wrote:
| But the amount of aid going into the Gaza strip has
| increased dramatically (up to the Rafah crossing being
| taken). i.e. Israel did take action on this matter.
|
| EDIT: It's also important to note the odd timing of
| asking for arrest warrants for the Hamas leadership at
| the same time as the Israeli arrest warrants.
|
| Clearly unlike Israel there is no chance in *$#@ that
| Hamas would prosecute their own leadership for violation
| of international humanitarian law. The Hamas violations
| have also occurred earlier.
|
| I.e. Israel should be given more time for its independent
| legal system to evaluate whether or not there's a case
| and pursue it. Israel justice system has put prime
| ministers and presidents on trial. Hamas shouldn't be
| given any time.
|
| Given this you'd think arrest warrants for Hamas
| leadership would come a lot sooner.
|
| Since this isn't the case one has to wonder if the
| prosecutor is doing a "both sides" kind of thing, maybe
| afraid of backlash if they only go after one side, in
| which case the response of Israel to the request to
| increase aid (which has happened) is not relevant.
| downWidOutaFite wrote:
| > up to the Rafah crossing
|
| How long was that supposed ramp up? Maybe a couple weeks
| out of 7 months.
| YZF wrote:
| There are details here:
| https://govextra.gov.il/cogat/humanitarian-efforts/home/
|
| EDIT: I can't find a concise summary but latest update:
| "422 aid trucks were inspected and transferred to the
| Gaza Strip, yesterday, (May.19). These trucks entered
| from the various aid routes we developed: Ashdod port,
| Erez crossing, Judea and Samaria, and JLOTS (maritime
| route)."
|
| Supposedly the UN said Gaza needs a minimum of 100 trucks
| a day. https://www.newarab.com/news/un-puts-gaza-
| humanitarian-aid-n...
|
| EDIT2: It's worth mentioning that since Israel took
| control of the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing Egypt is
| refusing to let aid in through that crossing.
| dotancohen wrote:
| I live about eight kilometers from Gaza, the aid trucks
| are on all the highways at pretty much capacity, and it's
| been like this for quite a while. I really don't see how
| much more aid could get in without building more
| infrastructure, and in fact there is a new port in the
| strip being built (maybe done already).
|
| It should be noted in context that even bringing in aid
| is dangerous. The population attacks the aid drivers for
| two reasons (one, to get the aid, and two, they consider
| those drivers "traitors" and have been attacking them for
| long before the current conflict). And there is not
| insignificant risk to the Gazans as well, there was an
| incident a few months ago where an aid truck ran people
| over trying to stop it and some people were killed in a
| very gruesome fashion.
| edanm wrote:
| > and in fact there is a new port in the strip being
| built (maybe done already).
|
| I think yesterday or the day before the first aid came in
| via the port, actually.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| If you assume rice is 600 calories per kg. And an average
| need of 2000 cal/day-person. 2,000,000 people in Gaza,
| and a truck can carry 35,000 kg.
|
| Need about 2X10^6 X 2000 = 4X10^9 calories as day.
|
| At 600 cal/kg you need then 6.67 X 10^6 kg of rice per
| day.
|
| Truckloads = 6.67X10^6 kg / 35,000 kg/truck = 190
| truckloads of rice per day.
|
| Most likely conclusion is Salafists and their supporters
| lie about everything.
| mowmow wrote:
| ...but rice is 1300kcal/kg, so you need 88 trucks/day.
|
| Are you the salafist you speak of?
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| I fucked up, rice is about 600 cal/lb freedom.
|
| > Are you the salafist you speak of?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salafi_movement
| harimau777 wrote:
| If the Israeli Supreme court allows his actions, then that
| sounds like it would fall under the "unwilling" part of
| "unwilling or unable to do so".
| bimguy wrote:
| If that was true then Putin would also be immune to ICC
| prosecution, so, it doesn't seem to work like that.
|
| > it prosecutes cases only when States do not are unwilling
| or unable to do so genuinely.
|
| And if you read the last part of the sentence you quoted it
| should make it pretty clear that it doesn't work like you
| have interpreted it.
| mrbonner wrote:
| The Israeli military often cites that it is impossible to
| make a difference between Hamas militants and civilians. It
| reminds me of the VN war in which the VC often dressed as
| civilians to kill US military personnel. The US was condemned
| leading attack against VN villages allegedly housing the VC.
| At some point, they used mercenary like the South Korea
| military to squash those VC by hitting the whole village with
| extreme prejudice. Who was at fault?
| csb6 wrote:
| > Who was at fault?
|
| Pretty clearly the U.S. and the South Vietnamese military.
| Just because you can't tell who is a combatant and who
| isn't doesn't give you permission to slaughter entire
| villages.
| Fatnino wrote:
| The rules of war evolved specifically so armies would not
| feel the need to slaughter civilians. Uniforms, military
| facilities kept separate from civilian infrastructure,
| etc. are rules for a reason.
|
| If the group killing your soldiers isn't adhering to
| these rules of war then all the civilians in the area
| will find themselves at risk.
|
| There is no world where combatants can expect to be
| allowed to enjoy the protections civilians are afforded
| while still killing you.
| tdeck wrote:
| Bold of you to take the same stance Germany took about
| murdering civilians in the territory they were occupying.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francs-tireurs
| nayaketo wrote:
| He's taking the same stance allied forces took in Germany
| and Japan.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > took
|
| The US base in Okinawa has a rather dubious reputation
| that continues.
| 8372049 wrote:
| > There is no world where combatants can expect to be
| allowed to enjoy the protections civilians are afforded
| while still killing you.
|
| That is true, but this does not take away the protection
| afforded to civilians. As a concrete example, if you take
| fire from people in civilian clothing holed up in a
| hospital, then you can return fire in that specific
| occasion, but you may _not_ start to indiscriminately
| fire upon people in civilian clothing or hospitals.
|
| (Also, you are not required to wear a uniform. You are
| required to distinguish yourself from the civpop by at
| least openly wearing arms and/or wearing a distinctive
| sign. Keep in mind not everyone in a uniform is a
| combatant, and not all combatants are armed.)
| gmerc wrote:
| Both. Which is why the court targets both sides
| datameta wrote:
| I see a parallel to the absolute annihilation of Manila
| during WW2 by a sustained artillery barrage lasting a few
| days, by U.S. forces - estimates are that, despite the
| battle also known as the Rape of Manila, 40% of civilian
| casualties are due to Allied bombardment.
| cess11 wrote:
| The right to resist invasion and occupation is not
| conditioned on forming a regular military force, so the
| answer to your question is quite obvious.
| vkou wrote:
| Displacement of civilian populations in occupied areas, and
| mass settlement of occupier civilian populations into the
| West Bank also needs to be up there.
|
| It is also a war crime, and doesn't even have the fig leaf of
| an active war to justify it.
| dotancohen wrote:
| > Displacement of civilian populations in occupied areas,
| and mass settlement of occupier civilian populations into
| the West Bank also needs to be up there.
|
| Despite the international hatred of Israeli settlements in
| the West Bank, there is no international rule or law
| forbidding it. The Israeli occupation can not change laws,
| only make temporary orders, and so could the Jordanian
| occupation. The British did have mandate to change the
| laws, but they did not change the complicated Ottoman
| property laws. So the Ottoman property laws still stand.
| And those property laws specifically state that anyone who
| comes to that land and "works the land" owns it - no matter
| if they were Muslim or Jewish or Christian or Druze or
| anything else. Those laws were enacted to encourage
| settlement of the then-nearly-barren area, to collect more
| taxes. And it worked - the population increased
| dramatically since the laws were passed, with very notable
| immigration. People only like to talk about the Jewish
| immigration, but the Arab immigration during the time
| period was about five times higher.
|
| There was a UN resolution in I think 1973 that deemed
| Israeli settlements in the West Bank "illegal" without
| stating what law was being transgressed. There is a law
| that governments can not move their populations into
| occupied territories (as the Germans did to Poland, and the
| law exists specifically in response to that) but no law
| against the population getting up and moving itself (as the
| Germans did to France) because international law applies to
| States, not Persons.
|
| The term "no legal basis" is often thrown around referring
| to Israeli settlements but that is quite the red herring -
| anything is legal if there is no law forbidding it. And
| specifically in this case, actually, there in fact _is_ a
| law saying that anyone can build a house in the West Bank -
| the Ottoman law that nobody today has any legal
| jurisdiction to change.
|
| A final argument against Israeli settlements is that Israel
| must "give back" the land to the Arabs. It is true that the
| Israelis occupy the West Bank, but the "give back" part is
| not. The last state to rule this area that was not an
| occupation was Great Britian, and even that only under UN
| Mandate that has since ended (remember, the Jordanian rule
| was occupation as well). And the ruler before that, the
| Ottoman Empire, no longer exists and the successor state
| (Turkey) is not interested in ruling the area (interesting
| how that might play out, actually).
|
| I actually have been looking for some solid basis of
| denying the Jews the right to live in the West Bank for
| about a year and a half now, but I simply can not find such
| a base. Unless one considers the UN resolutions to be a
| solid base, but the basis of those resolutions is
| completely missing - they just seem to be decisions not
| based on any existing laws in the best case and willfully
| misinterpreted in the worst case. I'm reading them, and
| other related documents, in English because I don't speak
| Chinese, French, or Spanish and my Arabic and Russian are
| very poor.
| edanm wrote:
| > Despite the international hatred of Israeli settlements
| in the West Bank, there is no international rule or law
| forbidding it.
|
| This flies in the face of most of what I've heard/read on
| the subject. Israel is considered an occupying power (in
| WB and Gaza), and occupying powers in general aren't
| allowed to build settlements in occupied territories, no?
|
| I'm not sure how the Ottoman law is connected to this at
| all? Why is that the reigning law of that land, the
| Ottomans haven't had ownership of it since 1918. Isn't it
| considered Jordanian land, since they annexed it after
| 1948?
| 8372049 wrote:
| Not sure what GP is on about. Article 49 of the Fourth
| Geneva Convention is very clear on this matter:
|
| _" The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer
| parts of its own civilian population into the territory
| it occupies."_
| dotancohen wrote:
| I addressed that. The Israeli government did not and does
| not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian
| population into the territory it occupies. The citizens
| move there of their own accord, which is permissible. In
| fact, in this specific case, there exists a pre-
| occupation law that specifically allows for it.
| 8372049 wrote:
| That is the same as a transfer under IHL.
| dotancohen wrote:
| We seem to be discussing this in parallel in two places.
|
| Anybody interesting in this should look a bit further up
| in the thread for my response to the same comment by the
| same poster. I've continued the conversation only there.
| anonymousDan wrote:
| Give me a break. So the settlements are all just fine and
| dandy in your eyes?
| dotancohen wrote:
| Yes, just as fine and dandy as any other village in the
| world. The Ottomans specifically said "come, all peoples,
| come settle this land" and nobody has changed the law
| since (one mandate that didn't and two occupations that
| can not). All talk of "it's illegal" either do not
| mention any law being broken, or grossly misinterpret
| laws that are applied with the correct interpretation in
| other geographic places.
|
| There is much noise me about the settlements, but after a
| year and a half of researching this I come up empty
| searching for any solid arguments against them.
| boffinAudio wrote:
| > The Israeli government did not and does not deport or
| transfer parts of its own civilian population into the
| territory it occupies.
|
| False. It directly funds organizations which promote
| settlement.
| dotancohen wrote:
| > This flies in the face of most of what I've heard/read
| on the subject. Israel is considered an occupying power
| (in WB and Gaza), and occupying powers in general aren't
| allowed to build settlements in occupied territories, no?
|
| The occupying power is not allowed to move its citizens
| into the occupied territory. The citizens are allowed to
| move themselves, in fact that happens in many occupied
| territories and even the German citizens moved into
| France (the German forced moving of citizens into Poland
| is what sparked this law).
| edanm wrote:
| Wait, you're saying that because Israel isn't _moving_
| citizens into the WB, and it 's being done voluntarily,
| then that makes it legal?
|
| First I've heard of this interpretation of international
| law, interesting.
|
| How does incentivizing civilians financially to move
| there fit into this? How does protecting civilians via
| the military fit into this?
| dotancohen wrote:
| > Wait, you're saying that because Israel isn't moving
| citizens into the WB, and it's being done voluntarily,
| then that makes it legal?
|
| Yes. That is both the letter of the law and the intent of
| the law. That was the specific case with the Germans for
| whom this law was introduced, and that is how it has been
| applied in other areas as well. > How
| does incentivizing civilians financially to move there
| fit into this? How does protecting civilians via the
| military fit into this?
|
| There is no financial incentive, other than far more
| general financial considerations such as the expense of
| living in e.g. Tel Aviv. But one could move to Dimina,
| Eilat, or Kiryat Shmona for the same reasons - there is
| nothing special about the West Bank financially. As for
| the military protecting civilians, does not every
| military protecting it's civilians? When I was serving,
| we would protect Arab civilians just like we would
| protect Jewish civilians. The Arab clan wars are seldom
| discussed, but are a far greater cause of casualties than
| the Arab-Israeli conflict excluding wars.
| edanm wrote:
| > Yes. That is both the letter of the law and the intent
| of the law. That was the specific case with the Germans
| for whom this law was introduced, and that is how it has
| been applied in other areas as well.
|
| Do you know of a good place to read about this?
|
| > There is no financial incentive, other than far more
| general financial considerations such as the expense of
| living in e.g. Tel Aviv
|
| This seems false to me. I don't know many details, but
| it's pretty often discussed that there are different
| incentives. I can link you to a B'Tselem report about
| this, but I assume you dislike them as much as I do. So
| here's instead a CBS story about there being financial
| incentives to encourage settlers
| (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/israeli-govt-offers-
| incentives-...).
|
| And if that doesn't work for you, here's a Hebrew-
| language source about why there's been a rise in home
| purchases in the WB: https://bizreef.co.il/%D7%94%D7%96%D
| 7%99%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%A7-%...
|
| I'll quote a few relevant sentences (translated to
| English):
|
| > For example, the government eased the rules for
| obtaining loans to purchase properties in the area.
| Additionally, it lowered the taxes on property purchases.
| Moreover, the government created incentives for
| entrepreneurs to build in the area.
|
| > As for the military protecting civilians, does not
| every military protecting it's civilians?
|
| Of course, but the specific accusation against settlers
| is that they go and build settlements, sometimes
| purposefully to disrupt Palestinian villages, and then
| the army has to go surround them and protect them,
| disrupting the villages more.
|
| There have been numerous terrible incidents, since
| October 7th, of settlers using various forms of
| intimidation to drive out Palestinians, e.g. setting
| houses on fire, sometimes while being protected (but not
| stopped) by the IDF.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| None of this addresses the resettlement or removal of
| existing people, which is plainly a violation of article
| 49.
|
| Establishment of settlements is also at least tacitly,
| and in some cases explicitly, supported by the
| government, which undercuts the claim that this is
| citizens acting solely of their own accord.
| dotancohen wrote:
| > None of this addresses the resettlement or removal of
| existing people, which is plainly a violation of article
| 49.
|
| Yes, you are correct. The people who already live on land
| are protected from displacement by an occupying power.
|
| If you have specific incidents of displacement that you
| word like me to address, I'll do that. The recent Sheik
| Jarrah incident that made international headlines was a
| property dispute - in fact a terrific example if you want
| to discuss it as the Jordanian occupation displaced the
| Jewish family living there.
| dotancohen wrote:
| > Isn't it considered Jordanian land, since they annexed
| it after 1948?
|
| The Jordanians occupied the land, and the annexation was
| recognized by only two States (Iraq, ruled by the
| Jordanian king's brother, and I forgot the other one).
| The Arabs now disregard that annexation, under fear that
| it would legitimize an Israeli annexation.
|
| Everything in this conflict is a war of words and
| changing one's interpretation of past events to suit
| current goals.
| 8372049 wrote:
| If you have looked then you can't have tried very hard:
|
| _" The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer
| parts of its own civilian population into the territory
| it occupies."_
|
| Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 49, last paragraph.
|
| https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-
| treaties/gciv-1949/art...
|
| https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-
| ihl/v1/rule130
| dotancohen wrote:
| I addressed that. The Israeli government did not and does
| not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian
| population into the territory it occupies. The citizens
| move there of their own accord, which is permissible. In
| fact, in this specific case, there exists a pre-
| occupation law that specifically allows for it.
| 8372049 wrote:
| > The Israeli government did not and does not deport or
| transfer parts of its own civilian population into the
| territory it occupies. The citizens move there of their
| own accord
|
| That is the same as a transfer under IHL.
| dotancohen wrote:
| If you have something official that I could read, I would
| appreciate it. I have been researching this for quite
| some time. But a blog post, but official declaration or
| regulation.
|
| Thank you.
| defrost wrote:
| There's the most recent _Report of the United Nations
| High Commissioner for Human Rights_
|
| https://www.un.org/unispal/document/israeli-settlements-
| in-t...
|
| Legal Framework, 11: According to the
| Central Bureau of Statistics, construction began for
| approximately 1,280 housing units in the first half of
| 2023 in Area C. All of these Israeli
| settlements are illegal under international law, because
| they amount to the transfer by Israel of its population
| into an occupied territory.
|
| They discuss settlers moving of their own accord and then
| the later "legalizing" of such moves by the State of
| Israel.
| dotancohen wrote:
| For one thing, that is only documentation of Israeli
| building, not a statement of what law is being broken.
|
| For another, that document specifically mentions that the
| new buildings are in Area C, which has been recinded by
| the PA (for purpose of discussion, the details are far
| more complicated than that).
| defrost wrote:
| I'm not making any case here.
|
| _You_ asked for "something official", "[not] a blog
| post", "an official declaration".
|
| I took up the challenge and found _for you_ an official
| document of the United Nations High Commissioner for
| Human Rights declaring " All of these Israeli
| settlements are illegal under international law".
|
| > not a statement of what law is being broken.
|
| From the linked document: International
| human rights law and international humanitarian law apply
| concurrently in the Occupied Palestinian Territory of
| Gaza, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the
| occupied Syrian Golan. This includes the obligations
| contained in the international human rights treaties to
| which Israel is a State party,[4] as well as the
| Regulations respecting the Laws and Customs of War on
| Land of 1907 (Hague Regulations) and the Geneva
| Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons
| in Time of War (Fourth Geneva Convention), which are
| binding upon Israel as the occupying Power under
| international humanitarian law
|
| as stated in an above comment by another party.
|
| I have no stance on the matter.
|
| You're welcome.
| boffinAudio wrote:
| "Since 1967, government-funded settlement projects in the
| West Bank are implemented by the "Settlement Division" of
| the World Zionist Organization.
|
| Though formally a non-governmental organization, it is
| funded by the Israeli government and leases lands from
| the Civil Administration to settle in the West Bank."
| boffinAudio wrote:
| > The Israeli government did not and does not deport or
| transfer parts of its own civilian population into the
| territory it occupies.
|
| This is false.
|
| West Bank settlement is funded by the Israeli government
| through the World Zionist Organization.
|
| EDIT: downvoters, please understand, the above statement
| is _true_. The government of Israel supports settlement
| via the WZO, which has a division (named "Settlement
| Division") with the specific purpose of making settlement
| possible through whatever loopholes can be exploited.
|
| The downvotes are an attempt to obfuscate this _fact_.
|
| " _One of the mechanisms used by the government to favor
| the Jewish local authorities in the West Bank, in
| comparison with local authorities inside Israel, is to
| channel funding through the Settlement Division of the
| World Zionist Organization. Although the entire budget of
| the Settlement Division comes from state funds, as a non-
| governmental body it is not subject to the rules applying
| to government ministries in Israel._ "
|
| https://www.btselem.org/publications/summaries/200205_lan
| d_g...
| boffinAudio wrote:
| Pop quiz: who funds the World Zionist Organization?
| mikrotikker wrote:
| Well Netanyahu should be OK given how careful, reserved and
| calculated the IDF has been, and this will be reflected in
| any court proceedings.
|
| If Netanyahu is punished for this, then GWB must face a more
| severe punishments for his actions in Iraq and Afghanistan
| which saw far more collateral damage.
| dotancohen wrote:
| These reasons for the arrest warrant could apply to a dozen
| heads of state that I could mention offhand, and I'm just a
| layman in that field. Is there such a warrant issued already
| for Assad, president of Syria? Wasn't the recently deceased
| president of Iran called "The Butcher of Tehran" for a
| reason?
| zarzavat wrote:
| It has to happen in a place where the ICC has jurisdiction.
| Palestine has ratified the Rome Statue, and the crimes are
| happening in Palestine. Syria and Iran have not.
| dotancohen wrote:
| > It has to happen in a place where the ICC has
| jurisdiction.
|
| Oh, convenient. > Palestine has ratified
| the Rome Statue
|
| There has not been a political entity called Palestine
| since the Rome statue was enacted. I believe that you are
| referring to The Palestinian Authority, the distinction
| is in fact important here in a conflict where words are
| often deliberately misapplied and misused in order to
| direct a narrative.
|
| In any case, The Palestinian Authority does not rule the
| Gaza strip. Then were overthrown in a very bloody coup,
| 2005 or 2006, in which Hamas threw some 100 PA members
| off the top of the buildings.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| > I believe that you are referring to The Palestinian
| Authority
|
| You would be incorrect [0]. The UN recognizes a "State of
| Palestine" independent of the specific government, which
| includes both Gaza and the West Bank. This entity, the
| state of Palestine, not the PLA (that would be weird,
| like saying the Tory party is signatory to the Rome
| statute), is signatory to the Rome statute. The state of
| Palestine is a non-member observer state in the UN.
|
| You're correct that it's good to be precise here, so you
| should do so around the specific political entity of
| Palestine when that is what is being discussed.
|
| [0]: Depositary notification of Accession to the Rome
| Statute by the State of Palestine; https://treaties.un.or
| g/doc/Publication/CN/2015/CN.13.2015-E...
| dotancohen wrote:
| Terrific, thank you, I much appreciate the correction.
| You'll notice that I stated "I believe", showcasing the
| uncertainty. I appreciate any additional information to
| help wade through the mess of information and
| misinformation surrounding the conflict.
| Emma_Goldman wrote:
| The question of Palestine's admissibility to ICC
| proceedings was subject to a sophisticated legal review
| years ago, in relation to a former case.
|
| The gist of the argument can be gleaned from its sub-
| headings:
|
| Palestine is a State for the purposes of the Statute
| under relevant principles and rules of international
| law...... 25
|
| C.1. The Montevideo criteria have been less restrictively
| applied in certain cases........ 25
|
| C.2. It is appropriate to apply the Montevideo criteria
| less restrictively to Palestine, for the purposes of the
| Rome Statute ..... 29
|
| C.2.a. The Palestinian people have a right to self-
| determination and it has been recognised that this
| implies a right to an independent and sovereign State of
| Palestine... 30
|
| C.2.b. The exercise of the Palestinian people's right to
| self-determination is being obstructed by practices
| contrary to international law................... 32
|
| C.2.c. Palestine has been recognised by a significant
| number of States.............. 34
|
| C.2.d. No other State has sovereignty over the Occupied
| Palestinian Territory............ 35
|
| C.2.e. Palestine's status as a State Party must be given
| effect........ 36
|
| C.2.f. The Prosecution's alternative position is
| consistent with international law ........ 39
|
| C.2.g. Participants' arguments regarding a possible
| referral by the Security Council are unclear.......... 40
|
| D. The Oslo Accords do not Bar the Exercise of the
| Court's Jurisdiction........ 40
|
| D.1. The Oslo Accords regulated a gradual transfer of
| power to the Palestinian Authority over most of the West
| Bank (excluding East Jerusalem) and Gaza.............. 40
|
| Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20230609070357/http:/
| /www.icc-cp...
|
| Coincidentally, Josep Borrell, the foreign policy chief
| of the EU, announced earlier in the month that several of
| the bloc's member states intend to recognise Palestinian
| statehood on the 21st of May - today.
|
| See: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/spain-
| ireland-reco....
| megous wrote:
| You forgot to mention that the coup attempt was by some
| Western powers and Fatah, against a democratically
| elected Hamas government, where western powers supplied
| weapons, intelligence, incentives and training for a
| coup. They just lost.
|
| > Hamas threw some 100 PA members off the top of the
| buildings
|
| Also you should support this, because this seems 1)
| ridiculous given the total number of casualties and
| nature of the fighting 2) I can only find claim of 2
| persons being thrown off building, 1 from Fatah and 1
| from Hamas.
|
| Eg. hundred page report from PCHR named "Report on Bloody
| Fighting in the Gaza Strip from 7 to 14 June 2007"
| doesn't mention 100 PA thrown off the rooftops.
| HL33tibCe7 wrote:
| > Will the ICC actually approve the warrants?
|
| Almost certainly
| ronjobber wrote:
| What gives you that impression? Commentary I've seen suggests
| highly likely for Sinwar et al., but 50/50 on Netanyahu and
| Gallant.
| tjpnz wrote:
| It's either both or none at all. Anywhere between would
| destroy any and all of the ICC's remaining legitimacy.
| riku_iki wrote:
| > How far will the US and/or Israel go to threaten or discredit
| the ICC leadership? Will Egypt or other neighbours respond?
| What is the reaction in China? Will Europe and the Netherlands
| stand by the ICC unconditionally?
|
| ICC warrant will likely just be ignored.
| Timber-6539 wrote:
| Sure. But Netanyahu will have to choose sparingly out of
| state visits lest he finds himself arrested in a foreign
| country and shipped to the Hague.
| riku_iki wrote:
| its well manageable risk.
|
| I am not an expert, but I am under impression that he will
| be jailed in Israel too once/if loses power.
| slillibri wrote:
| Why? Israel isn't an ICC signatory nation.
| eqvinox wrote:
| I think that was meant as a reference to Netanyahu's non-
| ICC Israeli domestic legal problems. AIUI if he weren't
| PM he'd be in jail already.
| slillibri wrote:
| Ah, that makes sense.
| gavanm wrote:
| He would definitely would - though I'd imagine that most
| his travel would be done on a diplomatic basis - so it's
| possible the Vienna conventions might apply and preclude
| detention. (not really sure, I'm not a lawyer).
| mattfrommars wrote:
| Latest news is that Biden rejects ICC decision. Netanyahu
| leaves scot free
| jmyeet wrote:
| It seems more likely than not that the ICC will approve the
| warrants. This is unprecedented for the ICC to turn its gaze
| toards a key US ally.
|
| As for how far will the US go, well in 2002, Congress passed
| (and Bush signed) the American Service Members Protection Act,
| more colloquially known as the Hage Invasion Act. It authorizes
| the president to use all necessary force _including invading
| the Netherlands_ if an American servicemember or appointed
| official is ever taken into ICC custody. This includes
| officials and servicemen of key allies, including Israel.
|
| So will Betanyahu or Gallant actually be arrested? Almost
| certainly not. The practical effect of this is political not
| legal.
|
| The goal of protests, boycotting, ICJ applications, ICC
| warrants, UN (GA and SC) motions, "Undecided" voting in
| Democratic primaries and so on are to incrementally pressure
| the two key players here: Israel and, more importantly, the US.
| Why? Because the US could end the conflict with a phone call.
| They could end it with a press release.
|
| BDS (Boycott, divest, sanction) movements were considered
| successful in isolating and ultimately toppling the Apartheid
| South African regime in the 1970s and 1980s. Given this
| success, an awful lot of lobbying has been directed at US
| politicans to pass so-called "anti-BDS" laws that are laws in
| ~37 states. For example, to be a teacher in Texas, you need to
| sign a contract agreeing to never participate in a BDS movement
| against Israel.
|
| So the practical effect of ICC warrants is just to
| incrementally isolate and pressure Israel.
| outside1234 wrote:
| How can the US end the conflict with a phone call? I think
| that is unlikely because I suspect those phone calls have
| already been had.
|
| And really the only way we are resolving this is by actually
| solving the underlying issue, which is that there are a set
| of people essentially locked up in a prison for 30 years
| and/or slowly being shot by settlers in the West Bank.
| jmyeet wrote:
| Press release: "We're halting all arms shipments to
| Israel". There's even a legal basis for it, the so-called
| "Leahy laws" [1]. Israel cannot exist without hte largesse
| and political cover the United States provides.
|
| I agree about solving the underlying issues and the
| injustices that have historically taken place but the above
| is intended to answer the question and engage in analysis
| rather than arguing the merits, which is likely an
| unproductive conversation.
|
| [1]: https://www.state.gov/wp-
| content/uploads/2020/06/PP410_INVES...
| ars wrote:
| Israel hardly needs those arms to continue their war in
| Gaza. It's nice, certainly, and the precision weapons
| help reduce Palestinian deaths, but Israel does not
| require it.
|
| You also forget that Israel has fought all its major wars
| without the US.
| lysp wrote:
| They also get $3.8 billion in military aid from the US
| each year.
| ronjobber wrote:
| And Israel's GDP is ~500billion, of which ~25b is spent
| on defense. So, that 3.8b would be a dent, but not
| insurmountable.
|
| Economic measures could be a different story, but pulling
| that lever on an an ally of 75+ years would damage the
| US's credibility. Not to mention to the domestic impact
| in the US. I don't think any decision makers weighing
| national interest would go there.
|
| Plus, if the US successfully isolated Israel, it's highly
| likely the whole region would be at war in short time.
| Hard to imagine the West not getting involved again at
| that point, except now in a significantly worse position.
| r00fus wrote:
| The issue is not the genocide in Gaza. The issue is
| restocking iron Dome, and the ability for Israel to
| defend against attacks from Hezbollah and Iran...
| assuming other powers don't change their stance towards
| Israel.
| jbenjoseph wrote:
| The lack of working Iron Dome would mean that Israel
| would have to go on a big offensive. The lack of US aid
| will elevate Israel's war posture, not decrease it.
| People seem to keep forgetting this is an existential war
| for Israel, there is no clear end goal for Israel's
| enemies besides its destruction. Of course Israel will
| never "give up", give up what? Its existence?
| 8372049 wrote:
| Well, they could start by giving up the illegally
| occupied parts of Palestine.
| jbenjoseph wrote:
| Obviously this conflict didn't start with the 1967
| borders. Was the situation peaceful before 1967?
| jdietrich wrote:
| Israel is a net exporter of arms. Israel supplies a long
| list of countries with technologically advanced and
| strategically important weapons systems that are
| difficult to substitute. A US embargo would be
| economically painful, but Israel is perfectly capable of
| living without US military aid and exports.
|
| https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/2022-03/fs_2203
| _at...
| r00fus wrote:
| I'd honestly love to see them give it a go. They have a
| LOT of enemies in the region.
|
| If they lose the support of the US they might actually
| have to play nice.
| mr_toad wrote:
| They've fought them all before and repeatedly won. Before
| they had US funding, before they had nuclear weapons,
| before they had an overwhelming advantage in material and
| technology.
|
| US funding of Israel is used to buy votes in the US, and
| to buy some influence in Israel, it will not change the
| military situation much.
| ngcc_hk wrote:
| One phone call to whom? Hamas? The conflict is 2 sided. It
| may pause. But not end. This is very different from Russia
| invade Ukraine, there is no dispute of the sovereignty in a
| wider sense. Even china would not say U belong to R. But the
| hell of P and I, ...
|
| There is no easy solution ... from camp David to now.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| > There is no easy solution ... from camp David to now.
|
| Everyone from the Hague to UC Berkeley administrators is
| learning one hard truth: agreements with some polities in
| that part of the world and their ambassadors are not worth
| very much. But if you pretend that they are then it seems
| like there are easy solutions.
| jmyeet wrote:
| > One phone call to whom? Hamas?
|
| To Israel. The modern state of Israel simply cannot exist
| without the largesse and political cover the US provides.
|
| > There is no easy solution
|
| Yes and no. End the genocide. End the apartheid. Nuremberg-
| like trials to deal with war criminals on both sides.
| Reconstruction of a single state. 750,000 settlers has made
| a two-state solution impossible.
|
| We've been here before: post-US civil war and post-
| apartheid South Africa.
|
| There is the idea that the currently oppressed population
| will rise up in vilence against their former oppressors.
| History doesn't back up this view. Our modern examples such
| as Reconstruction showed the opposite: the rise of the KKK
| and the rise of violence against former slaves by their
| former oppressors.
|
| Afghanistan has been described as the graveyard of empires.
| This region may be vying for that title.
| dbdoskey wrote:
| Israel existed for decades without US support. No Jews
| will agree to live under a Muslim majority one state
| solution, it will inevitably decay into something similar
| to Lebanon, Syria, or Egypt.
| murderfs wrote:
| > No Jews will agree to live under a Muslim majority one
| state solution
|
| Couldn't you say the same about whites in apartheid South
| Africa?
| tptacek wrote:
| The situations aren't comparable. Most Israeli citizens
| are of MENA origin; they are not, as activist wisdom
| would have it, ambitious Europeans.
| jbenjoseph wrote:
| It's really not the same thing. Jews have a very long
| history of being oppressed by Muslims and Christians.
| nolongerthere wrote:
| I don't know that you want to bring South Africa as an
| example of success. Even the majority is fed up with
| their government.
| mrangle wrote:
| Support / condemnation will be staunchly factionally split from
| within all Western Nations. Speaking about a National Unified
| Will is ridiculous at this stage in history. Eventually, the
| anti-Israel faction will dominate everywhere except for one or
| two select Nations that does not include the US. Though, its
| possible that the US also stays loyal for an indefinite time
| period. Accurate predication for support / condemnation is
| rooted in deeper history and geopolitical logic than most
| people consider.
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| I think this is very much up in the air.
|
| A high profile Islamic terrorist attacks would shift the
| narrative, for example. On the other side, if the war cools
| down a bit people will gradually lose interest in the same
| way that no one cares about Modi's past actions.
| mrangle wrote:
| It could be up in the air.
|
| For perspective, I'm with Israel. Though, I'm for saving as
| many Palestinian lives as humanly possible. Which should be
| all of them, should the clerics and State Actors stop
| abusing them via radicalization and the Islamic World works
| with Israel toward offering appropriate options.
|
| But what I'm speaking about, in terms of prediction, isn't
| the way that the wind blows. What I'm speaking about is
| high level State intention.
|
| No one today can seriously believe that State political
| orientation is a grassroots effect. The reality is that,
| with the exception of extremely unstable States that are de
| facto puppets of other Nations, the broad political
| orientation of modern States is an effect of the allowable
| movements, opinions, revolutions, propaganda, and
| migrations that are facilitated by the agencies over
| decades. Ergo, the eventual orientation of any State toward
| or away from Israel has to be assumed to be in that State's
| geopolitical interest as dictated at the highest level.
|
| As we can easily observe, if there was an event and the
| resultant popular effect was not in the State's interest
| than, no matter what, the event would be minimized into
| oblivion by State Press.
|
| Conversely, the Press will manufacture events out of
| virtual non-events if that assists the State's interest.
|
| Only the State or God will determine whether or not it
| supports Israel, in any future. That's my starting point
| for prediction.
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| >Only the State or God will determine whether or not it
| supports Israel
|
| Seems like in most cases the state is more pro-israel
| than the population.
|
| And God killed that Turkish guy so apparently he's pro-
| Israel too.
| mrangle wrote:
| >Seems like in most cases the state is more pro-israel
| than the population.
|
| In some cases. But like I said, Western Nations are now
| factional at a high level (in my observation, and whether
| or not this is an intentional result - in my view, it
| might be). And the short to medium term may not predict
| the long term. What is also possible is that what the
| State says, in any period, may not predict its long-term
| strategy.
| ars wrote:
| > Seems like in most cases the state is more pro-israel
| than the population.
|
| Not really. Go check the results of the popular vote for
| Eurovision. Israel came in second.
|
| There's a huge quiet population that is pro-Israel. They
| don't make noise with protests though, so some people
| don't realize they exist.
| jltsiren wrote:
| If there are 25 candidates, how many votes do you need to
| come in second? And how many supporters do you need for
| those votes, when it's pay-to-vote and everyone can vote
| as many times as they want?
|
| The fact that Israel didn't win the popular vote suggests
| that the support for them is not particularly strong in
| Europe.
| ars wrote:
| > The fact that Israel didn't win the popular vote
| suggests that the support for them is not particularly
| strong in Europe.
|
| They came in second place. How is that "not particularly
| strong"?
|
| And the difference between the popular vote and the jury
| vote was especially dramatic for Israel. No one expected
| anything else though......
| jltsiren wrote:
| You don't need much support to win when everyone else's
| votes are split between 24 candidates.
|
| And there is already a precedent for strong popular
| support. In 2022, Ukraine won the popular vote with 439
| points, with 239 points for the next country. This year,
| Israel lost with 323 points vs. 337 points for the
| winner. Ukraine, which came in third, also got pretty
| close with 307 points.
|
| Similar forms of activism, such as petitions and
| protests, are supposed to demonstrate support for
| something, but they often end up showing the opposite.
| Because the absolute number of supporters rarely matters.
| What's more important is the number of supporters as a
| fraction of the total, or relative to the expectations.
|
| Once upon a time, I was involved in something
| controversial. There was a petition opposing us, with a
| very large number of signatures for that context. But the
| petition ended up strengthening our case, because it
| showed that the opposition to our plans was no more
| widespread than what we had assumed. The next elections
| proved us correct. A large number of people with a
| particular opinion didn't matter, because they were a
| small enough fraction of the total.
| spookie wrote:
| I agree, it's easy to be blinded by the protests. The
| full picture isn't as obvious.
| mattfrommars wrote:
| You are right. This explains the current trend that's
| happening on social media, "being silent is being
| complicit".
|
| There is a huge quiet population that is OKAY with 40k
| Palestinian bombed by Israeli regime.
|
| I had no idea on Eurovision result and to see Israel to
| be second, I guess people are blind to the genocide
| dotancohen wrote:
| These tactics of inflated numbers only hurt your cause.
| The number just last week was 30K, not 40K, and it was
| cut in half by both the Gaza Ministry of Health and the
| UN a few days ago. It's under 20K now I think, or close
| to it. And 13K of that are Hamas, as per Gazan sources.
|
| So you can certainly make a case for 7K dead civilians.
| That's a lot - multiple times what the US lost in 9/11.
| No need to inflate numbers and loose credibility.
| kuerbel wrote:
| That is not true. It is still at around 40k. https://www.
| theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/13/gaza-m...
|
| >They showed 24,686 dead which appeared to be a downward
| revision from the figure of about 35,000 which had been
| reported earlier in May, with 7,797 children and 4,959
| women confirmed dead, about half the toll cited in
| previous reports. But the UN said on Monday that
| estimated overall death toll remained about 35,000.
|
| >Farhan Haq, a UN spokesperson, said the new smaller
| numbers reflected those bodies which had been fully
| identified. The bigger figures included corpses for whom
| identification has so far not been completed. Haq said it
| was expected that, as the process of identification
| continued, the official tolls among women and children
| would also rise.
| ars wrote:
| Or, and I assume you have not considered this, but maybe
| you should, there is no genocide. And virtually everyone
| except for some noisy activists knows this.
|
| You live in a bubble if you think social media represents
| people. Social media represents the highly motivated
| ones. It does not reward quiet thinkers, it rewards
| "useful idiots" who have brainless slogans.
|
| The normal people who actually think about things don't
| participate because they have better things to do than
| useful idiots.
|
| And then you have people like me who also have better
| things to do, but feel obligated to post occasionally to
| at least try to reduce the amount of misinformation.
| kuerbel wrote:
| > there is no genocide
|
| So the ICC already decided on this? No? Well, then I
| wouldn't be so sure about this if I where you. Because
| starving a population, denying them water, fuel and
| medicine amounts to genocide in all but name.
| downWidOutaFite wrote:
| That was an astrotrufed campaign funded by Israel, https:
| //twitter.com/InTrustweDoubt/status/179001795639239479...
| ars wrote:
| Oh sure, Israel managed to astroturf millions upon
| millions of votes, and manged to control the votes of
| around 50% of Europe.
|
| Yes, definitely, that's what they did.
| cess11 wrote:
| Why not?
|
| The main reason I can think of would be that they didn't
| need to 'astroturf' that many, due to europeans generally
| being conservative and anti-arab or anti-muslim. But they
| ran a campaign to get votes, and exactly how efficient it
| was is very hard to pinpoint.
|
| Zionists have quite extensive tooling and robust
| parasocial networks for running propaganda campaigns. Why
| wouldn't they use that to try and become the next host of
| the Eurovision pop tournament?
| brabel wrote:
| The US seems to have been extremely strong in its reaction to
| the ruling.
|
| ""My colleagues and I look forward to make sure neither Khan,
| his associates nor their families will ever set foot again in
| the United States," Republican Senator Tom Cotton wrote on
| X."
|
| "The ICC is the world's first permanent international war
| crimes court and its 124 member states are obliged to
| immediately arrest the wanted person if they are on a member
| state's territory."
|
| Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/21/no-
| equivalence-bide...
|
| I don't understand how the US and many other EU governments
| can be so extremely critical of a court which as far as I
| know has been considered legitimate by all of them (except
| the US which apparently removed its signature... anyone knows
| why?), and whose decisions have always been applauded by all
| of them (including Putin's arrest [1]), except for this last
| one.
|
| Quoting from the linked article [1]: "British journalist
| George Monbiot wrote in a Guardian op-ed that the ICC
| targeting Putin was an example of the organization's bias in
| favor of prosecuting crimes by non-Westerners, ...".
|
| Looks like that's the real issue here, doesn't it?
|
| Imagine a leader of a country saying that the judiciary's
| decision is wrong and that the judge won't be allowed to
| travel freely anymore because of that. That would be the end
| of the rule of law. Why is it different in this case?
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Cour
| t_a...
| yyyk wrote:
| Without expressing opinion on the warrants:
|
| A) I'm told warrant approval is almost always a rubberstamp.
|
| B) There will be a discrediting campaign, but ICC's future is
| the least interesting thing to me.
|
| C) I'm not sure this leads to a conviction, but actual trials
| will probably take years by which time Bibi and co will be out
| of office. Again not so interesting.
|
| D) Bibi was already done for. But paradoxically this
| strengthens him domestically temporarily and massively
| strengths the Right next elections. I'll expand on this below
| since this is IMHO interesting.
|
| E) It makes attacking Israel a bit more 'legitimate', but in
| the ME legitimacy for that was already sky-high. War with
| Lebanon was very high likelihood anyway.
|
| F) Saudi normalization is DOA for this term (always was, but
| admin was blind to everyone's interests. Qatar would have had
| to be nuts not to put every possible roadblock here, and Biden
| admin could never see what was in front of its eyes).
|
| G) Hamas has not so simple problems here. The various ideas for
| reintegration has hit serious roadblocks, and later on I
| believe this will cause them bigger problems than Israel which
| can always change leaders.
|
| ---
|
| D is not 'rally around the flag'. It has to do with the
| opposition is built: its deep links with the 'security state'.
| The security state is outraged and itself vulnerable to
| possible warrants. The same logic could have easily justified
| adding Gantz.
|
| An Israeli Left opposition which can't claim the world likes
| them more (due to warrant risk) and loses its security
| credentials (security state links to pre and post Oct failures,
| warrant risk again) is dead in the water. Which means it needs
| more time before an election to find its footing again... But
| on the other hand, it wouldn't like possible ICC isolation
| either. So a temporary delay before losing in the elections.
| nabla9 wrote:
| ICC does not have trials or conviction in absence.
|
| After the arrest warrant goes out, everything stops until
| people charged are in custody. It's very unlikely that
| Gallant or Netanyahu will ever be arrested. Their travel will
| be just limited for the rest of their lives.
| yyyk wrote:
| True. I never assumed that, though I see now why my
| phrasing could imply it. You're right - they're probably
| not stepping in that court. But even if they did, it would
| take years.
|
| My other point - ICC _can_ issue secret warrants, and no
| denial would be credible due to its very nature... This is
| poison to Gantz 's political career and same for any active
| general who would want to join the current opposition
| following service. The current Israeli opposition is just
| not competitive without generals, and all they've left are
| certain people who are very... outspoken to put it mildly.
| arlort wrote:
| > ICC can issue secret warrants
|
| Do you have a source for that? This doesn't make sense to
| me since it relies on more than a hundred different
| countries to enforce them, it'd be impossible to keep
| anything they do a secret
| yyyk wrote:
| Search for the Thomas Lubanga and Mr Jean-Pierre Bemba
| Gombo cases. The ICC can issue 'sealed' (secret) warrants
| and tell the countries very late in the process.
|
| Yeah, in practice any such warrant will eventually leak,
| but it's still a risk for anyone who might be on the
| other end which de facto creates limits to anyone who
| might fall under suspicion.
| arlort wrote:
| Interesting, TIL, thanks
| csomar wrote:
| > ICC can issue secret warrants, and no denial would be
| credible due to its very nature
|
| If that's the case then they are defacto banned from
| travelling. Still these secret warrants will be shared
| with the respective countries, right? So they should
| know?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > I'm told warrant approval is almost always a rubberstamp.
|
| Its pretty similar to an indictment in the US (to judges
| rather than a grand jury); its an unopposed process where the
| prosecutor knows the standards and chooses when to bring a
| case to that step based on confidence in being ready to meet
| the standards. There's not a lot of probability of surprises
| if the basic work is done competently and in good faith and
| not with an intent to push the envelope.
|
| > I'm not sure this leads to a conviction, but actual trials
| will probably take years by which time Bibi and co will be
| out of office.
|
| Trials won't take start until the individuals being tried are
| in custody for trial. (They don't have to be at the same
| time.)
| yyyk wrote:
| >There's not a lot of probability of surprises if the basic
| work is done competently and in good faith and not with an
| intent to push the envelope.
|
| It's a tiny bit higher since IMHO he pushed the envelope on
| starvation (the reported malnutrition death count is 32 out
| of over two million people), and on not engaging with
| Israel (was due to a trip to the country before issuing
| indictments), but given unopposed nature, his advantage is
| so large I don't see odds of this being rejected.
|
| >Trials won't take start until the individuals being tried
| are in custody for trial. (They don't have to be at the
| same time.)
|
| Yeah, the other comment slagged me on this. The essential
| 'this isn't resolved for years, by which time they are out
| of office' is right.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > It makes attacking Israel a bit more 'legitimate', but in
| the ME legitimacy for that was already sky-high.
|
| On the other hand, it defuses the situation away from an
| world war wannabe into something Israel fights alone.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _How far will the US and /or Israel go to threaten or
| discredit the ICC leadership?_
|
| If warrants are issued, I'd bet at least the House votes to
| sanction the ICC [1]. If Trump wins, I'd bet it passes. (Which
| is ironic, since every moment of attention on Israel and
| Palestine is a win for Trump. This war is Biden's abortion
| debate. He's checkmated, with massive vote losses regardless of
| what he does.)
|
| [1] https://www.axios.com/2024/05/20/icc-netanyahu-arrest-
| warran...
| WhackyIdeas wrote:
| Yes. I reckon Trump will win this presidency purely on the
| number of conscience voters not voting for Biden this time
| around. I don't think the (probably PR) building of the port
| is going to save Biden here.
|
| That is not to say I think Trump would have handled the
| situation any better. I'm sure it would have been fuel on the
| fire.
|
| Can we all agree on one single thing though:
|
| The Governments of USA, Germany, UK and Israel would be best
| informing the world of their definition of genocide as there
| is definitely a massive difference in opinion of what
| genocide is. It is super important. If they can explain why
| and how what is happening doesn't match the definition of
| genocide agreed upon in the Genocide Convention of 1948 then
| maybe the world will stop using the word. But until they can
| change everyone's minds, people are going to keep believing
| it. I think that would solve a lot of this back and forward.
| ajross wrote:
| > People aren't using the 'G' word lightly
|
| They absolutely are. Really everyone with a non-cynical
| opinion in this whole mess, on both sides, is deeply
| unserious. There are no solutions here, at all. Everyone
| wants something terrible. Push one side and you eventually
| get to "The Palestinians Deserve What They Get". Push the
| other and you get to "Jews are Colonizers Who Need to be
| Driven Out". And _BOTH SIDES_ use the term "genocide",
| largely incorrectly, to describe those horrors and are
| _SHOCKED AND OFFENDED_ that anyone would describe their own
| opinions so.
|
| I've just given up. My general political feelings align
| mostly with the Palestinians here, if for no other reason
| than it stops the immediate bleeding faster. But there will
| be no peace here, not within our lifetimes.
| WhackyIdeas wrote:
| I disagree, but I appreciate your opinion regardless.
|
| The thing is, there is a definition of Genocide and while
| I think what Hamas did in October was absolutely
| monstrous I just can't logically conclude they committed
| Genocide. So anyone saying that is just 'saying it' if
| you catch my drift. But for what is happening in Gaza, I
| just want my Government to explain why so I can know for
| sure that I am mistaken about it and it isn't genocide.
| The definition shows it is, but my Govt are saying that
| it isn't. It just feels like a whole load of double think
| to me. Y'know what I mean? If there's a definition of
| what it is, then why is the world seeing with their eyes
| it is genocide and a few powerful allies of Israel saying
| it isn't.
|
| Why does logic need to be so controversial eh? A
| definition is right there yet 'opinions' are taken more
| than fact in this age.
|
| Feeling the same as you - won't be any peace in the
| middle east at this rate.
| ajross wrote:
| > what Hamas did in October
|
| ...is not all of what Hamas is responsible for, nor a
| limited statement of its goals or desires. Nor frankly
| does it even reflect the limits of what _non-
| palestinians_ like you are calling for. All the kids in
| NYC chanting "From the River to the Sea" are _embracing
| a genocidal frame_ (that the expulsion of an existing
| population from its home is an OK thing to do). And...
| you don 't really care, and choose to excuse that while
| you condemn the other side.
|
| And so you (yes, you personally) are making things worse
| and not better. Because when Hamas or whoever finally
| gets to the line with an army capable of marching across
| it, _they 'll think they have your support_.
|
| Like I said, there will be no peace here. And the reason
| is opinions like yours that choose to excuse one evil
| while you rail against another.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| << is not all of what Hamas is responsible for
|
| I read and then re-read the parent. It does not not
| appear that he has been discussing the totality of both
| 'sides' actions ( and there is a loooong history there ),
| but rather focused on most recent Hamas action and
| Israel's response to it.
|
| From where I sit, OP is not wrong. It is tiring - it is
| especially tiring when it is couched in moralistic 'you
| should support <my side>' with the undertone of 'because
| we are the good guys'. I am starting to seriously doubt
| there are good guys here.
|
| << And so you (yes, you personally) are making things
| worse and not better. Because when Hamas or whoever
| finally gets to the line with an army capable of marching
| across it, they'll think they have your support.
|
| And I guess this is the weirdest part. There is really
| one army in this conflict. An army with technology,
| training, supplies and knowledge seemingly to do whatever
| is needed -- some of it courtesy of American taxpayer --
| and still managing to fail so hard across the board
| against seemingly inferior enemy, who adopted guerrilla
| warfare.
|
| << And the reason is opinions like yours that choose to
| excuse one evil while you rail against another.
|
| I remain unconvinced. OP is not excusing anything.
| Personally, I can easily say Hamas is bad.
|
| Can you openly say Israel's response is bad? Can you even
| openly state its response is 'over the top'?
|
| No? Then the discussion will remain fruitless and the
| issue will remain as-is for and will not be solved within
| our lifetimes. Might as well check out and keep US semi-
| safe.
| ajross wrote:
| > Can you openly say Israel's response is bad? Can you
| even openly state its response is 'over the top'?
|
| Israel's response is bad. Israel's response is 'over the
| top'.
|
| Can you state that responses to that which embrace
| eliminationist goals are _likewise_ bad? Do you condemn
| not just "Hamas" but Palestinian nationalist aims (oft-
| parroted by activist westerners who don't really
| understand what it means) of retaking the 1948 land? Or
| do you just look the other way and figure The Jews Have
| It Coming? You're picking a side here, whether you admit
| it or not. And picking a side means that someone loses.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| << Can you state that responses to that which embrace
| eliminationist goals are likewise bad?
|
| Sure, elimanationist goals are likewise bad. I will go
| even further, it is a really bad idea for the humanity to
| go down that path, because, if history taught us
| anything, it is really, really hard to stop violence once
| it starts.
|
| << Do you condemn not just "Hamas" but Palestinian
| nationalist aims?
|
| Can you define those a little more closely? I am hedging,
| because it is already moving way past the discussion at
| play and if want to evaluate all nations nationalist
| aims, I am not sure we should be limiting ourselves to
| just Palestinians.
|
| << You're picking a side here, whether you admit it or
| not.
|
| I worry that you may have chosen a side and are not
| arguing in good faith ( whether you admit it or not ).
| Based on your statement, no matter what I say, you have
| already made a determination about me and my views. That
| is fine. I am ok with stopping this conversation here. I
| am not expecting to change minds. I was, however,
| expecting more.
|
| << And picking a side means that someone loses.
|
| Does it really have to be that way? Is it truly a zero-
| sum game? It is not a rhetorical question. I am curious
| if you can imagine a non-binary world.
| WhackyIdeas wrote:
| "choose to excuse one evil while you rail against
| another."
|
| Well that is incorrect and to put words in my mouth and
| then personally attack based on said words is kind of
| pointless.
|
| My argument is about genocide. Words don't equate
| genocide, but certain actions are. I don't think you'll
| be winning any nobel peace prizes for figuring out the
| difference.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| I've been having fun.
|
| This is like the Flat Earth equivalent in geopolitics --
| and getting people to explain why they think things is
| fascinating.
|
| I also like irony -- so seeing Israel "prosecuted" for
| the lowest civilian casualty rate in modern history is
| hilarious.
| pyth0 wrote:
| Please tell me by what metric and to what other conflicts
| are you comparing this to where over 35,000 people (over
| 15,000 of which are children) killed constitutes the
| "lowest civilian casualty rate in modern history". The
| smugness with which you treat the tragedy that is
| currently unfolding is disgusting.
| decohen wrote:
| Not parent, but let's take each side's numbers at face
| value:
|
| The Gaza Ministry of Health says as of today that 35,562
| people have been killed [0]. The Israeli Ministry of
| Defense in March said it has killed 13,000 Hamas
| operatives [1].
|
| Leaving aside the two month gap between these figures,
| the civilian casualty ratio is 1:1.7.
|
| I tried to find a source for what a "typical" casualty
| ratio is in urban conflicts. This source [2] claims that
| 90% of overall casualties is a typical number. That would
| be a ratio of 1:9.
|
| John Spencer, who chairs the Modern Warfare Institute at
| USMA, and seems to be an authority on the subject, has a
| tweet addressing this specifically [3], in which he cites
| the Battles of Mosul, and Manila as having casualty rates
| of 1:2.5, 1:6 respectively.
|
| I don't think proving the negative of "lowest civilian
| casualty rate in modern history" is feasible, but a
| nearly 5x improvement in civilian casualties compared to
| the assumed norm, and lower civilian casualties than
| Spencer's comparisons seems to indicate that the claim is
| not without merit.
|
| [0]
| https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/10/9/israel-
| ham... [1]
| https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/hamas-says-
| gaza... [2] https://civiliansinconflict.org/our-
| work/conflict-trends/urb... [3]
| https://x.com/SpencerGuard/status/1786612914117349769
| theoldlove wrote:
| It's hard to believe those numbers when (according to
| anonymous Israeli military officers) the Israelis are
| willing to routinely accept civilian casualties of 20 to
| 1. https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/
| mr_toad wrote:
| The battle of Manila stands out as one of the most
| horrifying in modern history, hardly a good standard to
| be targeting.
| corimaith wrote:
| Modern History is already quite good compared to the
| entirety of history. The bog standard Siege of La
| Rochelle ended up starving the civilian population of
| 27,000 to 5,000. War is brutal, and when you dealing with
| brutal enemies like Hamas it's never going to an orderly
| affair.
| downWidOutaFite wrote:
| The IDF counts every grown man that they kill as a "Hamas
| operative"
| kgwgk wrote:
| Hamas counts every Hamas operative younger than 18 who
| dies as a child.
| kgwgk wrote:
| > 35,000 people (over 15,000 of which are children)
|
| For what is worth, the UN estimates are significantly
| lower with less than 8'000 children (and 5'000 women) out
| of the 25'000 identified casualties. Maybe there are
| indeed 10'000 additional victims as Hamas claims (the UN
| take that number at face value, Israel estimated are
| slightly lower) but it seems unlikely that 75% of them
| are children. It's not physically imposible though.
| WhackyIdeas wrote:
| The number of dead will be higher than reported, as there
| are many still under the rubble of thousands of homes.
|
| And there will still be many more starving to death each
| day, thanks for aid trucks being attacked and burned
| (with IDF collusion apparently).
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/21/isr
| ael...
| csomar wrote:
| > If a country has a functional, independent judiciary,
| that judiciary gets the right to address the wrong. Or not.
|
| There is no definition of Genocide but only of what you can
| get away with. These countries are engaged in a proxy war
| via Israel. They can't replace Israel right now, heck they
| can't even replace the current leadership. So they just
| have to explain away and launder the reputation of the
| operation.
| shmatt wrote:
| Its not just the US. A western democracy has never been issued
| a warrant like this. It's not that hard to find crimes being
| committed by western leaders (is no one listening to this
| seasons Serial podcast? Guantanamo is still open).
|
| If this goes through every western leader past and present can
| have a warrant out for them at any minute, it really doesn't
| take much to find 1 suspected violation and a need to arrest
| and stand trial to see if they are guilty.
| ronjobber wrote:
| At that point the court would effectively lose it's
| legitimacy, as it would be unable to enforce/execute those
| warrants. Not saying that that is a) good or b) isn't where
| we are heading... it mirrors the trajectory of the UN and
| it's certainly in line with trends in economic fragmentation.
| mhuffman wrote:
| This is the real crux of any "Rule of Law" body. Can you
| enforce it? With the US attached, nearly any law could be
| enforced globally (by force if necessary) if it got out of
| hand. But what do you do if the target is the US? Or now
| China? or even protected by them?
| _3u10 wrote:
| Build an economy that outcompetes them, and is
| technologically more advanced and then build, carrier
| strike groups conventional forces, and nuclear weapons.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _But what do you do if the target is the US? Or now
| China? or even protected by them?_
|
| You do nothing. Which is why all of hand-wringing around
| this ICC decision is for pointless. There is no such
| thing as "international law" in any practical sense.
| eunos wrote:
| Cynically from Russian/Chinese point of view that is much
| preferable. The "Free World" consistently drums out
| propaganda for universal "Rule-Based Order". Should the ICC
| fail to move forward with this, Rus/CN can cynically claim
| that "Rule-Based Order" is no more than fraud. Good luck
| forcing China to accept South China Sea Arbitration (which
| they didn't even participate in the 1st place)
| potatoicecoffee wrote:
| sounds good
| _blk wrote:
| ...but that's not going to happen, is it? Kinda shows how
| politically loaded the topic is.
| abtinf wrote:
| Would it be correct to think of an ICC warrant not as a "warrant"
| in the traditional sense, but as sanctions?
|
| That is, a court ordered warrant is typically executed by a
| government's law enforcement. There is no such proactive
| enforcement mechanism available to the ICC.
|
| Instead, the governments that have ratified the ICC-related
| treaties have simply agreed to arrest warrant targets if they
| happen to travel to their jurisdiction.
|
| As such, it seems more like a "travel-ban" or "house arrest" than
| a warrant. Is that correct?
| akira2501 wrote:
| A warrant is a standing order to arrest someone on sight.
|
| A warrant may additionally grant the police extrajudicial
| powers to enforce the warrant but that's a separate legislative
| concern. In the case of the ICC the enforcement is left up to
| individual member states. There may be consequences for not
| enforcing a warrant when the opportunity presents itself.
| duskwuff wrote:
| It's a real arrest warrant when its target is in a country
| which is a party to the Rome Statute. The ICC has conducted a
| number of investigations involving war crimes and crimes
| against humanity in Africa, for example; many of those have led
| to convictions.
| swashboon wrote:
| This is more akin to empaneling a grand-jury in the USA - it is
| driven by the prosecutors office and is the first step before
| review to see if adequate evidence exists to justify a "real"
| warrant that would lead to arrests.
|
| If they get a warrant - its just like a warrant in the USA,
| maybe the cops bother looking for you i.e. go to your house /
| work / last known address but more often they just wait until
| you get a traffic ticket or something where you happen to
| interact with them. If you had a warrant from another state,
| the local cops would need a pretty good reason to bother
| actually looking for you.
| reaperman wrote:
| > If you had a warrant from another state, the local cops
| would need a pretty good reason to bother actually looking
| for you.
|
| Often goes slightly further than this. The state issuing the
| warrant must pay "transport fees" to the state doing the
| arresting. The arresting state calls the warrant state to see
| if their transport fees will be authorized. Most of the time,
| those fees are not authorized by the issuing state. So the
| suspect is let go, if the police interaction wasn't otherwise
| justified in an arrest.
|
| The reasons for why transport fees are generally declined
| vary, but I'd imagine that as long as the suspect stays out
| of the issuing state, they can't commit more crime in that
| state, so the outstanding warrant is itself an effective
| deterrent against crime _in the issuing state_ ...the suspect
| generally will avoid returning. Also jails/prisons are
| overcrowded, dockets are overflowing, etc.
|
| But generally any police interaction which shows a valid
| warrant in another state, the "local police" will by default
| attempt an arrest. It's not "unimportant" to them. Just they
| can't do anything with the suspect if they arrest them
| without approved transport fees so there's simply no point in
| completing the arrest.
|
| I learned all this just last week by picking up a homeless
| fugitive hitchiking along the interstate. But he'd had enough
| interactions with police in various states and seemed
| otherwise intelligent enough to be a reliable narrator on the
| matter.
| pests wrote:
| In my area (Metro Detroit) it must be flipped. I had a
| rougher life when I was younger and did pass through the
| jail system once or twice...
|
| The main counties around me go pick you up, not relying on
| the arresting jurisdiction to transport. One county in
| particular, Macomb, has a bad reputation in that it will
| drive across the country to pick you up. Traveling pick up
| buses criss cross the country. The bad part was the
| sometimes multi-week long trip spent in handcuffs sleeping
| in shitty hotels eating cheap McDonald's for every meal.
| reaperman wrote:
| This fellow caught his charge in Las Vegas. Thanks for
| sharing your story from Macomb! Very familiar with the
| area.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| It's my understanding that it also has knock on effects to
| countries hosting those people, or refusing to arrest them, as
| it means that weapons shouldn't be exported to the hosting
| country.
|
| However I can't find a reference to that.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > Would it be correct to think of an ICC warrant not as a
| "warrant" in the traditional sense, but as sanctions?
|
| I think it is best to think of it as a warrant because it is a
| standing order for any member state to arrest them. Whether
| those member states actually do so is not certain, South Africa
| for instance has shirked recent ICC arrest warrants multiple
| times.
| kelnos wrote:
| I don't think it makes sense to look at it this way. I would
| look at it as any other warrant issued by any body. If the
| target of the warrant lives in a country that recognizes ICC
| warrants, then it's more or less similar to a warrant issued by
| that country's government. If not, then it's similar to a
| country issuing a warrant for the arrest of someone who lives
| outside their jurisdiction, with no extradition treaties in
| place.
|
| I do agree that the end result is a sort of "travel ban", but
| that's no different than if the US issued a warrant for (say) a
| Chinese citizen living in China. The Chinese government is
| probably not going to hand that person over, and that person is
| effectively barred from travel to the US (and likely other
| countries like Canada that might help the US enforce that
| warrant if the opportunity presented itself), unless they want
| to get arrested.
| RachelF wrote:
| ICC signatory countries are meant to arrest anyone on the ICC
| warrant.
|
| South Africa did not with a Sudanese war criminal: "As a
| signatory to the Rome Statute that governs the jurisdiction and
| functioning of the Court, South Africa was obliged to arrest
| al-Bashir when he was in the country, and to extradite him to
| The Hague to face trial."[1]
|
| Last year, Putin cancelled a visit to South Africa as there's
| an ICC arrest warrant out for him.
|
| [1] https://theconversation.com/icc-ruling-on-south-africa-
| and-a...
| megous wrote:
| Nobody prevents Netanyahu from traveling to The Hague. It's not
| a travel ban.
|
| I'd welcome if he came. :)
| bawolff wrote:
| One of the interesting aspects to me, is that ICC considers this
| both a non-international and international armed conflict (mildly
| different laws apply depending on which it is, but the difference
| is small as far as i understand)
|
| How could something be both? Palestine is either a separate state
| from Israel or it isn't.
| zahma wrote:
| I's guess it depends on who you're talking to: some
| organizations or states see Palestine as a state, others do
| not, and others see it as a future state but not one at this
| time. Keeping a definition broad lessens the chance of outright
| dismissal of otherwise cogent claims of wrongdoing.
|
| That's all insofar as anyone or entity actually respects
| international law. It comes down to states agreeing that it's
| in their best interests to cooperate on a matter. As long as
| the USA and Europe support Israel and don't bring to bear any
| leverage to stop this insanity and form an independent state,
| the ICC can call Palestine whatever it wants to describe the
| situation.
| bawolff wrote:
| I don't think it matters what other groups think, it matters
| what the ICC thinks, and they already ruled they think
| Palestine is a state, at least in a preliminary fashion (i'm
| sure if this gets to trial the question will be relitigated).
|
| Additionally ICC only has juridsiction if Palestine is a
| state. So the entire thing goes away if Palestine is not a
| state (since only states can aceede to the rome convention).
|
| I do not think Palestine being a state is the same question
| as if this conflict is international. I think it may be
| possible for both Palestine to be a state and this conflict
| be non international. However IANAL and that is pure
| speculation.
| keefle wrote:
| I'm wondering the same, but also wonder if the situation off
| the coast of Yemen and Iran's recent response to Israel bombing
| their embassy made the conflict partially international?
| thsksbd wrote:
| The conflict cannot be not considered international simply
| because Palestine's recognition is blocked by the US on
| Israel's behalf.
|
| Nor can it be not international due to the vagueness of
| Israel's borders. Israel has internationally legally
| recognized borders (the Green Line) and is acting outside
| them.
|
| This conflict is international.
| zarzavat wrote:
| In fact Palestine's recognition is not blocked by the US.
| What is blocked by the US is Palestine becoming a full
| member of the UN.
|
| The two things are different. Switzerland did not join the
| UN until 2002. I'm sure that we can all agree that
| Switzerland was recognized as a state prior to 2002.
|
| Becoming a full member of the UN is a sufficient but not
| necessary condition for recognition. The other way is
| simply to get as many other states as possible to recognize
| you.
|
| Arguably Palestine's recognition by the UN General Assembly
| is also sufficient.
| bawolff wrote:
| None of the charges are related to those incidents so i doubt
| that is relavent.
| digging wrote:
| > How could something be both? Palestine is either a separate
| state from Israel or it isn't.
|
| I don't think this is correct. Palestine's status is disputed.
| Legal status isn't a physical property, it's a social one, so
| if many people think "A" is "B", then "A" is in some sense
| genuinely "B".
|
| Considering the conflict in both contexts avoids "Oops, the
| entire thing is nullified because it's technically Conflict
| Type 1, not Conflict Type 2."
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| "so if many people think A is B, then A is in some sense
| genuinely B."
|
| Rather, A is A for many people, and B is B for many people.
| Both groups aren't mutually exclusive
|
| ( GroupA [?] GroupB ) != [?]
| bishbosh wrote:
| I don't see how this relates. The point was about Palestine
| as a state. If enough people recognize Palestine as a
| separate state, this becomes an international issue. I
| believe this was the A is B claim digging made. What would
| be the analogous claim for your point? That some folks
| believe Palestine is it's own state, and some folks don't,
| and that the views are not mutually exclusive?
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| Yes, that is my point. The same applies to Taiwan.
| Guatemala considers Taiwan a country, China does not.
| Some countries belong to both groups depending on the
| context.
| atoav wrote:
| Yeah, but we are judging a thing that happened in time. So
| the sets will have some noise/overlap who will specify the
| conflict as A or B during which time of the conflict.
|
| The ICC likely judges about crimes that happened during
| multiple phases of the conflict, hence the conflict could
| have multiple types.
| bawolff wrote:
| I agree its disputed, but i don't think it follows from that
| that it is both. Like hypothetically (i say hypothetically
| since this is not the situation at hand afaik) if there was
| one crime that only applied to non international armed
| conflicts and one that applied to international, i don't
| think it would be just to charge with both just because its a
| bit unclear which is the correct one.
|
| --
|
| I also found in the legal report the following that partially
| explains the reasoning https://www.icc-
| cpi.int/sites/default/files/2024-05/240520-p... :
|
| War crimes require a nexus to an armed conflict, and for some
| war crimes this conflict must be international.5 For this
| reason, it is necessary to assess the situation in Gaza and
| in Israel to determine whether an armed conflict exists and
| if so, its nature. 13. The Panel agrees with the Prosecutor's
| conclusion that the conflicts in Israel and Gaza comprise an
| international armed conflict and a non-international armed
| conflict running in parallel. Hamas is a highly organized
| non-State armed group, and the hostilities between Hamas and
| Israel have been sufficiently intense to reach the threshold
| of a non-international armed conflict. The Panel's assessment
| is that the non-international armed conflict between Israel
| and Hamas began, at the latest, on 7 October 2023, when Hamas
| and other Palestinian armed groups launched Operation al-Aqsa
| Flood against Israel and Israel launched its Operation Iron
| Swords in response. The Panel has also concluded that there
| is an international armed conflict between Israel and
| Palestine on the basis either that: a) Palestine is a State
| in accordance with criteria set out in international law, for
| which there is a sufficiently strong argument for the purpose
| of an application to the Court for an arrest warrant, and an
| international armed conflict arises if a State uses force
| against a non-state actor on the territory of another State
| without the latter's consent; or b) Palestine and Israel are
| both High Contracting Parties to the 1949 Geneva Conventions,
| and that pursuant to the text of Common Article 2 of the
| Conventions, an armed conflict between two High Contracting
| Parties is international in character; or c) There is a
| belligerent occupation by Israel of at least some Palestinian
| territory. 14. The Panel's assessment is that the
| international armed conflict began at the latest on 7 October
| 2023, when Israel first started responding to the Hamas
| attack on its territory by using force on the territory of
| Palestine without the latter's consent.
| atoav wrote:
| Also, it is not that hard to imagine conflicts that are
| technically both, e.g. a conflict that starts out as non-
| international and becomes international at a certain point.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Palestine is either a separate state from Israel or it isn
| 't_
|
| I don't believe the ICC's jurisdiction is limited to state-on-
| state conflicts. The more-curious question is how the ICC is
| claiming jurisdiction over non-signatory nations.
| ajb wrote:
| They aren't: they are asserting jurisdiction over
| individuals:
|
| - who are alleged to have committed crimes on the territory
| of the signatory nation, or
|
| - who are nationals of the signatory nation
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Oh interesting, TIL [1].
|
| [1] https://www.icc-
| cpi.int/sites/default/files/2024-05/240520-p... _page 3,
| paragraph 9_
| dmayle wrote:
| Except Isreal isn't a signatory nation, and all of the land
| in question is part of Israel. That's not a judgement
| either way, there have been some attempts to change that,
| but the ICC doesn't actually have any jurisdiction here.
| YZF wrote:
| Apparently "Palestine" (which is not a state/country)
| signed on and due to that the court ruled (in some other
| case) that it does have jurisdiction. Also the
| "Palestine" side of the warrants are against Hamas which
| also feels weird (Hamas is also not a signatory nation
| and many suggest that Hamas != Palestine). Given
| Palestine is a signatory does it mean they have to take
| action to extradite the Hamas leadership to face trial?
| What consequences do they face if they fail to do that?
| bawolff wrote:
| Generally when states sign treaties it applies to the de
| jure state, not just what it de facto controls.
|
| > Given Palestine is a signatory does it mean they have
| to take action to extradite the Hamas leadership to face
| trial? What consequences do they face if they fail to do
| that?
|
| Almost certainly nothing. They are obligated to help, but
| realistically if the palestine authority had the ability
| to capture hamas leadership i imagine they would have
| done so a long time ago, as the two sides fought what was
| essentially a civil war a while back.
| VagabundoP wrote:
| The only UN approved borders are the 1967 ones I think.
| Interesting to see that it would apply to a lot of the
| settler colonies in the West Bank as well.
| draaglom wrote:
| >Also the "Palestine" side of the warrants are against
| Hamas which also feels weird (Hamas is also not a
| signatory nation and many suggest that Hamas !=
| Palestine).
|
| The ICC prosecutes individuals not states, so there's no
| contradiction here.
|
| >Given Palestine is a signatory does it mean they have to
| take action to extradite the Hamas leadership to face
| trial?
|
| Yes
|
| >What consequences do they face if they fail to do that?
|
| There's no penalties built into the statute. It tends to
| have diplomatic blowback. See [1] for a prior example.
|
| [1]: https://press.un.org/en/2018/sc13623.doc.htm
| dghf wrote:
| > all of the land in question is part of Israel
|
| Gaza isn't actually part of Israel, though, is it? Even
| Israel says it's not, if I understand correctly.
| mjfl wrote:
| It is not a separate state. Israel controls the borders and the
| airspace of Palestine and Palestine is not allowed, at least by
| law, to raise its own army, navy, air force. Israel is thus
| sovereign over Palestine and the Palestinians are its subjects,
| which is why Israel is _not_ a democracy, and why this conflict
| is a rebellion.
| srj wrote:
| Considering the Oct 7 attack it seems pretty wise of Israel
| to have not allowed Hamas a more advanced military. It is the
| professed goal of their government to eliminate Israel.
| mjfl wrote:
| Israel's rationale for de-facto annexation is irrelevant.
| bawolff wrote:
| You could argue it is de-facto occupation, but it is
| pretty clearly not annexation (annexation means fully
| integrated into civil structure).
| ashconnor wrote:
| Parties and signatories of the Rome Statute
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Court#/...
| octopoc wrote:
| Interestingly looks like both the US and Israel withdrew their
| signatures at some prior point.
| sirbutters wrote:
| Certainly wouldn't want US or IDF soldiers to be held
| accountable. smh.
| hirsin wrote:
| I don't think the US govt gives a hoot for the common
| soldier except where their warrant would provide precedence
| for a senator or president to also be arrested.
| NomDePlum wrote:
| It's politically embarrassing as attempted prosecutions
| of soldiers in Northern Ireland have shown. It all gets
| swept under the carpet, on a pretence it's not good for
| national security. If you prosecute successfully an
| individual there is a reasonable chance all military
| personnel involved could be successfully prosecuted is
| perhaps another reason it won't happen.
|
| Using the military to prosecute aggressive military
| operations in an area the clear majority are unarmed,
| unprotected civilians again shows there is virtually no
| chance of prosecutions being taken.
|
| Add to that the severe limits added to press freedom, to
| the point it's obvious the plan is there is no
| independent reporting, the repeated and systematic
| targeting of hospitals, ambulances, medical and aid
| workers, treatment of people detained, never mind densely
| packed civilian areas which in similar ongoing conflicts
| (Ukraine/Russia) would be directly called out as war
| crimes without equivocation, but are ignored, then is
| there even any point attempting to prosecute individual
| soldiers?
|
| Seeking arrest warrants for those with most direct
| decision making powers is far more legitimate, necessary
| even. Demands for limitless, in all senses, military
| operations help no one longer term.
| edanm wrote:
| It's not about being held accountable at all - it's about
| _who_ is holding them accountable.
|
| The belief is that as sovereign nations, they can hold
| their own people accountable, and no one else should have
| the right to hold them accountable instead.
| bigbacaloa wrote:
| A more undemocratic, anti human rights perspective is
| hard to imagine. Only I can hold myself accountable is
| the essence of authoritarian thinking.
| justinclift wrote:
| > they can hold their own people accountable
|
| Except when they can't, as in the case of senior
| government figures.
| edanm wrote:
| > Except when they can't, as in the case of senior
| government figures.
|
| It is a principle of democracy that senior government
| figures _can_ be held accountable.
|
| E.g. in the US, Trump, a former president and a potential
| future president, is currently in several trials.
|
| E.g. in Israel, where Netanyahu is under trial in several
| cases (unrelated to the ICJ) and where e.g. a former PM
| was convicted of several charges and served time in
| prison.
| wffurr wrote:
| Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Bush have yet to be held
| accountable for their war crimes after a conviction by
| the ICC.
|
| Obama deserves an investigation and trial at the ICC for
| much the same reasons, but was somehow seen as better by
| the ICC and signing countries.
|
| All of your examples are domestic crimes.
| oaiey wrote:
| Is not one of the principles of the ICJ that if a nation
| process their own war criminal citizen, the ICJ has no
| jurisdiction. But if they do not properly, the ICJ does.
| bawolff wrote:
| You are confusing ICJ & ICC. But yes, that is one of the
| principles of the ICC.
|
| (ICJ = a court for countries to go to when they disagree
| on how to interpret a treaty. ICC = throw individual
| people in jail who commit war crimes, crimes against
| humanity or genocide)
| VagabundoP wrote:
| Only if the country brings good faith cases themselves
| against the individuals involved in the war crimes. And
| it only gives them cover for the crimes they are tried
| for.
| hnbad wrote:
| > The belief is that as sovereign nations, they can hold
| their own people accountable, and no one else should have
| the right to hold them accountable instead.
|
| There is no such thing as a sovereign nation in the
| modern age.
|
| Even if you ignore the dependence on international trade
| (i.e. relying on other nations to trade with you),
| sovereignty requires the military ability to defend
| yourself against any adversary trying to impose their
| will on you. In the nuclear age we've effectively
| abolished this concept thanks to Mutually Assured
| Destruction. If China wants the US gone, either China
| "wins" (i.e. the US surrenders or offers a compromise) or
| the world ends (i.e. the outcome of global thermonuclear
| war makes "US" and "China" meaningless concepts).
|
| So if "as sovereign nations" is no more than a meaningful
| flourish, the belief becomes simply this:
|
| > they can hold their own people accountable, and no on
| else should have the right to hold them accountable
| instead
|
| We can break this down again:
|
| > they can hold their own people accountable
|
| It's interesting that you say "can", which already admits
| that there is a difference between the ability and
| willingness to do so. But even if we ignore this, the
| important consideration here is that there can be a
| mismatch between what "they" think "holding their own
| people accountable" means and what others think.
|
| By "they" you reference the US and Israel but legal
| entities don't do anything, people do things. Granted,
| those people exist within social systems of power but at
| the end of the day people within those states will be the
| ones holding people accountable or not. If you think of
| this in terms of people, a potential conflict of interest
| becomes apparent: the people being held accountable are
| the military and political leadership and legislators,
| the people holding them accountable are military and
| political investigators and courts. The victims of the
| alleged crimes are not represented by either of these
| groups as Gazans are generally not fully Israeli
| citizens.
|
| This isn't to say that Israel's legal system might be
| unfairly biased against Gazans or that it might err on
| the side of ignoring crimes against them or that this
| might be a systemic problem. My point is merely that
| there's a credible reason to believe that an
| investigation by Israel into alleged actions by its
| government against Gazans might be biased simply based on
| an in-group/out-group distinction between the involved
| groups.
|
| > no one else should have the right to hold them
| accountable
|
| This is begging the question of "accountable for what".
| You can only hold someone accountable if there's some bar
| they're supposed to meet. Israel was a signatory to the
| Rome Statute (although it walked back from it in 2002
| along with the US) and we're talking about the ICC so the
| bar seems to be "upholding human rights and abstaining
| from human rights abuses and war crimes".
|
| You might argue that no outside state should be allowed
| to intervene in another state's human rights abuses as
| long as they are contained to that state's territory or
| only people who are subjects of that state. But clearly
| Israel doesn't believe this or otherwise the Mossad
| wouldn't have a history of abductions and assassinations.
| And it's a good thing too because otherwise we wouldn't
| look at events like the Rwandan genocide as a horrific
| failure of the international community and instead just
| consider it business as usual.
|
| Legally speaking, the ICC clearly has the "right to" do
| what it is doing. But if you mean morally, again I don't
| think you believe this unless you believe interventionism
| is never justified. In other words that would mean you
| want to go back to the Peace of Westphalia and abolish
| the notion of universal human rights entirely and allow
| states to commit genocides, engage in chattel slavery or
| do all kinds of unspeakable horrors as long as they do so
| within the confines of their own territory.
|
| I don't think you're saying any of that. I think what
| you're instead arguing for is nothing more than special
| pleading: it's different when {the US, Israel} does it.
| justinclift wrote:
| The US is still actively pursuing one of the well known
| people (Assange) who dared publishing evidence, further
| destroying their own reputation. :(
| jeroenhd wrote:
| The US signature was shaky to begin with (it was never really
| ratified through the proper channels) and I doubt they
| would've kept their signatures with the impending invasions
| following 9/11.
|
| With the so-dubbed "The Hague Invasion Act" I'd say the US
| has not only withdrawn its signature, it actively threatens
| anyone trying to hold their citizens accountable to things
| like war crimes. Officially, they're an observer these days,
| but practically, I think they're only there to see their
| enemies get convicted, and nothing else.
| candiodari wrote:
| Whereas Palestine's signature is fake. I don't know how
| else to call it. I mean are we now to believe the "state of
| Palestine" is going to arrest and deliver Sinwar, Deif AND
| deliver the hostages to Israel just because this guy asks?
|
| And they didn't waste any time in stating they would never
| actually execute the signed treaty. At least we already
| know that:
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cmllykpwgdyo
|
| (Yes, I know what the BBC title says, Hamas statement that
| they won't follow the treaties they agreed to uphold is
| there, for their own people. In THE SAME STATEMENT they
| complain that it isn't applied faster to their opponents)
|
| (Also: obvious conclusion, if Hamas has no intention of
| holding up treaties they signed, then that makes any peace
| with them worthless, even if it's a signed treaty. Without
| a trusted counterparty there is no choice)
| moomin wrote:
| I think you need to make a distinction here between the
| Palestinian Authority (which signed it) and Hamas (that
| supplanted it through violent uprising). The PA still
| exists and would happily comply, they just don't have a
| presence in Gaza.
| candiodari wrote:
| So? Hamas agreed to abide by international treaties
| signed by Palestine.
|
| AND they "demand" it is held up against Israel.
|
| Plus the basic point stands. With people who think like
| this, treaties aren't worth the paper they're written on.
| bigbinary wrote:
| Absolutely true; Gaza's system of government has
| collapsed since long ago, and the "democratic" election,
| that many people use to justify the equivocation of the
| Gaza population and Hamas, involved less than half the
| population of the enclave and had numerous other issues
| that make the Hamas rule a farce.
|
| That being said, even those that didn't vote for Hamas
| would probably not have elected the PA, as public trust
| of Palestinians in the PA has eroded due to Mahmoud
| Abbas's unwillingness to step down and the perception
| that the PA is a puppet government.
|
| All this to say that Palestinians lack a trustworthy
| government, much less a government that could be
| responsible for turning in the Hamas members the ICC
| wants to arrest.
| candiodari wrote:
| If you think like this, then "warcrimes" are bullshit.
| The whole point of the UN, the Geneva convention,
| warcrimes legislation, ... is that it would apply 100% in
| situations where government collapses, in situations
| where there is nothing but violence, in civil wars
| (arguably worse than the current situation). That
| genocide is forbidden AND punished even in the total
| absense of public trust, in the absense of government, in
| war, ...
|
| So that's the problem I have with the statement: it's
| true, absolutely, but if we think like this then human
| rights aren't human rights, but merely subject to
| governance. Your statement is true, but is a denial of
| international law. If your statement is true, you may as
| well abolish the international criminal court. After all,
| if a government exists, there's no need for them and if a
| government doesn't exist (or doesn't apply) then, as you
| say, the rules don't apply. So what's the point?
|
| Your statement is true, but the world would be a much
| better place if your statement was false, and therefore
| we'll at least pretend it is false.
|
| (and, of course, if you think like this, then absolutely
| anything goes in war)
| epolanski wrote:
| Biden has had a vague position on that. The US assisted and
| supported the ICJ for the charges against Putin for the
| alleged Ukrainian kids abductions.
| Xelbair wrote:
| I wonder why US president assisted and supported it on
| the case that's beneficial to US..
| skissane wrote:
| > The US signature was shaky to begin with (it was never
| really ratified through the proper channels) and I doubt
| they would've kept their signatures with the impending
| invasions following 9/11.
|
| What you are saying here is a bit confused. Under US
| domestic law, the President has the unilateral authority to
| _sign_ whatever treaties the President wishes. Ratification
| comes _after_ signature, the US never ratified the Statute.
| So there was nothing actually "shaky" about the signature.
|
| This is a topic which confuses a lot of people. Agreeing
| treaties under international law is a two-stage process -
| the first stage, "signature" is in-principle agreement but
| isn't actually legally binding; "ratification" (sometimes
| also called "acceptance" or "approval") is fully binding
| agreement. For less important treaties, the two stages are
| sometimes collapsed into one, but for major treaties the
| distinction is generally preserved. Also, joining a
| multilateral treaty subsequent to its entry into force is
| often a single stage process ("accession"). However, the
| average person doesn't understand this two-stage process,
| and is used to everyday contexts where signing a contract
| is sufficient to make it legally binding.
|
| There are some particular reasons why Americans find this
| even more confusing than people of most countries do. Many
| Americans have the idea that the US Constitution requires
| treaties to be ratified by a two-thirds majority of the US
| Senate. However, strictly speaking, the President ratifies
| treaties, not the Senate; the Senate just gives the
| President permission to do so. Furthermore, US law
| distinguishes between "treaties" (whose ratification
| requires two-thirds Senate consent) and "international
| agreements" (whose ratification _doesn 't_) - but as far as
| international law is concerned, both are treaties - whether
| some act of ratification requires consent by the US Senate
| is an internal American matter with which international law
| is largely unconcerned.
|
| Actually, US law distinguishes three types of
| "international agreements" (all of which are treaties as
| far as international law is concerned) - treaties
| (President ratifies with consent of two-thirds of Senate),
| congressional-executive agreements (President ratifies with
| consent of ordinary majority of both House and Senate), and
| sole executive agreements (President ratifies
| unilaterally). It is generally understood that "treaties"
| are used for foundational legal issues, military alliances,
| borders, human rights, etc; congressional-executive
| agreements are primarily used for trade; sole executive
| agreements are used for more minor matters of international
| cooperation. However, there is no precise legal rule
| regarding what type of agreement is to be used for which
| category-the Supreme Court views it as a "political
| question" which it expects the President and Congress to
| sort out between themselves, largely without its input.
| Under international law (Vienna Convention on the Law of
| Treaties article 47), if the President ratifies something,
| that ratification is still binding under international law
| on the US, even if US Congress (or even the Supreme Court!)
| decides the ratification to be illegal or unconstitutional
| - unless its illegality/unconstitutionality was "manifest"
| and "objectively evident" to the other states parties at
| the time the President made it.
| bawolff wrote:
| In fairness, Israel did have a point that the original judge
| selection process was unfair to them. Realistically though
| that is probably not the main reason they didn't sign it and
| that issue has since been rectified.
| jaynetics wrote:
| Another interesting question is, will it end Netanyahu's career
| if it goes through? It seems like a major deficit for a PM to be
| unable to travel to the majority of relevant states. Most of his
| international trips have been to central Europe so far, and I
| think Europe is too invested in the ICC to circumvent it, even if
| some member states were to criticize this decision.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Very strongly doubt it - decisions like these probably only
| benefit Netanyahu's rally around the flag effect. If it feels
| like the whole world is against you, you rally to your leaders.
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| On the other hand, half of Israelis disapprove of Nethanyahu.
| The "warrant" would also be >something< all opposition would
| have agaisnt him
|
| https://m.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-
| diplomacy/artic... (grain of salt)
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Significant portions of those disapproving are people who
| want to _intensify_ the war in Gaza, so I doubt an ICC
| warrant would make them more opposed to Netanyahu.
|
| Think it is easy in the US to think Israeli public opinion
| somehow mirrors the US but the vast majority of people in
| Israel right now are pro-war (similar to the US post-9/11)
| and anti-two state
|
| e: not sure why I'm downvoted for something that can easily
| be confirmed by googling polls
| fineIllregister wrote:
| > Significant portions of those disapproving are people
| who want to intensify the war in Gaza, so I doubt an ICC
| warrant would make them more opposed to Netanyahu.
|
| Israel has a multi-party legislature. Netanyahu can be
| outflanked on the right.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Certainly, but if he is outflanked on the right it won't
| be because of the ICC arrest warrant. If anything, that
| might help prevent him from being outflanked on the
| right.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > Netanyahu can be outflanked on the right
|
| He was outflanked by the right in 2019 when Avigdor
| Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu and Lapid's Yamina withdrew
| it's support for Likud and joined Bennett's and Lapid's
| anti-Netanyahu coalition in 2021, but Bibi was able to
| leverage fringe Kahanist and Mizrahi parties to reclaim
| the top seat.
|
| Hell, Bibi would make a coalition with the Arab
| List/Ra'am (the Islamist Party in Israel) if it meant
| remaining PM (and thus retaining immunity)
|
| Traditionally, the hard right Jewish parties would always
| win around 20 seats in Knesset but would never be a major
| part of any coalition - but Bibi has alienated just about
| every single faction in Israel at this point trying to
| extend his rule.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > half of Israelis disapprove of Nethanyahu
|
| Yeah but part of that half probably supports Gallant, who
| has split with Netanyahu, but is also charged alongside
| him.
| nabla9 wrote:
| Nethanyahu is survivalist but he faces uphill battle as time
| passes.
|
| The fact that Hamas attack was so successful under his watch
| has not disappeared.
|
| His career is full of scandals and corruption. He is still
| going to have domestic charges in near future.
|
| His war cabinet is going to collapse soon if he continues
| without any plans for the future of Gaza.
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| "How far will the US and/or Israel go to threaten or discredit
| the ICC leadership?"
|
| I think the US would not comment on the matter. Candidates for
| Office (Trump) would loudly comment about it.
|
| The US has deep political and geopolitical ties with Israel. It
| will never go agaisnt Israel (the country) when it matters.
| falcrist wrote:
| I could see the US pulling back on Israel if it starts to
| cost them soft power elsewhere, but you're fundamentally
| correct. Israel is the primary instrument of US hegemony in
| the middle east, and they aren't going to risk losing that.
| rusk wrote:
| Biden has already started drawing lines though. He has been
| actively been distinguishing between defensive and
| offensive use cases and basically saying that US aid isn't
| for the latter
| nebula8804 wrote:
| Likely just political nonsense to help stop the
| (supposed) bleeding from the swing states. As it stands,
| if the election were held today polls show a massive loss
| for him.
|
| What even is his plan anymore? Keep beating the "im
| better than Trump" drum and hope for the best?
| boppo1 wrote:
| Yes, that appears to be his plan.
| mindslight wrote:
| Personally I'm no fan of the two party duopoly and 2020
| was my first time voting for a mainstream party in a
| national election (after decades of voting). Lest we
| forget, the last Trump term had a paralyzed federal
| government incapable (unwilling?) to respond to national
| or international crises, the polar opposite of leadership
| with the bully pulpit used to divide as if still
| campaigning, and culminated in an economic catastrophe of
| massive inflation that we're still reeling from today.
| And that was all _before_ the chode embraced wholesale-
| reality-rejecting big lies, and grew a massive chip on
| his shoulder indicating a desire for straight revenge on
| his political opponents. So at least to me, affirmatively
| supporting the conservative option of Biden simply so we
| continue to _have a country to criticize_ , despite all
| of the abhorrent status quo military industrial
| surveillance complex shit continuing to go on, has a
| pretty strong appeal. If "I'm better than Trump" can't
| carry the election on its own, then frankly we're doomed.
| mkoubaa wrote:
| I don't see evidence of any lines drawn
| Levitz wrote:
| Rather relevant: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-
| room/statements-releases...
|
| >Statement from President Joe Biden on the Warrant
| Applications by the International Criminal Court
|
| >The ICC prosecutor's application for arrest warrants against
| Israeli leaders is outrageous. And let me be clear: whatever
| this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence -- none
| -- between Israel and Hamas. We will always stand with Israel
| against threats to its security.
| lossolo wrote:
| > The ICC prosecutor's application for arrest warrants
| against Israeli leaders is outrageous. And let me be clear:
| whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no
| equivalence -- none -- between Israel and Hamas. We will
| always stand with Israel against threats to its security.
|
| This is the hypocrisy of the West, when the same court
| issued a warrant for Putin, it was praised but when it
| involves a U.S. ally, it's labeled as "outrageous". This
| only fuels the sentiment prevalent in many Global South
| countries about us (the west) "rules for thee but not for
| me".
| mkoubaa wrote:
| Some actors in the "West" might have some credibility but
| certainly not the USA. In recent decades our state
| department has been openly Machiavellian, which I
| wouldn't have minded if they weren't also utterly
| incompetent.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Not sure why it's hypocritical just because you praise
| one action by a group but not another. It's not as if the
| circumstances are identical.
| tarasglek wrote:
| I think motives matter. Putin and Hamas decided to rape
| and kill for the sake of it.
|
| Seems unlikely that Israel would be causing this much
| destruction if the group that they were seeking to
| retaliate against wasn't using civilians as shields
| (which is a war crime in itself).
|
| Seems weird to put all responsibility on Israel here.
|
| But in general I agree that a world government criminal
| court is a political joke that nobody takes seriously
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > I think the US would not comment on the matter.
|
| Sitting US officials, up to and including the President, have
| already strongly condemned the pursuit of the warrants.
|
| > The US has deep political and geopolitical ties with
| Israel.
|
| Which is fine as a basis for opposing things like this as
| long as the US doesn't ever want anyone to believe any of its
| claims that its policies are based on principals beyond bloc
| interest.
| phone8675309 wrote:
| The current political situation in the US gives me every
| indication that the US would provide Netanyahu asylum if these
| warrants to through. The US has withdrawn from the Rome Statute
| and therefore has no obligation to arrest him.
| tptacek wrote:
| Why would he need US asylum? Israel isn't an ICC signatory.
| rusk wrote:
| When the horror of what Israel has done dawns on them they
| might want to hand him over themselves.
| saintkaye wrote:
| I genuinely don't understand this opinion. Israel was
| viscously attacked unprovoked (regardless what you think
| of the history of the two orgs) by the organization that
| governs the province. They're states goal is to
| demilitarize the area while their enemy insists on
| playing out the war in highly populated urban areas.
|
| This isn't a guerilla war either, it's the actual
| official government party. One who has actively promised
| sequels of the attack.
|
| What would you do in such a situation?
| boppo1 wrote:
| As a fairly emotionally disinterested party: greater
| specificity of strikes, focus on Hamas leadership. It
| seems to me that Israel (and the west more generally)
| will be facing a generation of motivated terrorists in
| about 15-20 years, as the young people who went through
| this come of age.
| tptacek wrote:
| People say this a lot, for obvious and fair reasons, but
| it's worth noting that a rational policy person in Israel
| could look at Hamas as a distinct and unlikely form of
| militant nationalism: overtly Islamist, funded and
| trained by the IRGC, and led (since 2017) by a messianic
| lunatic.
|
| I've been saying, only kind of jokingly, that a more
| likely outcome than arrest or Israel-directed
| assassination of Sinwar is Haniya (or his successor)
| taking him out to a field to talk about the alfalfa
| they're going to plant, and how Sinwar will get to feed
| the rabbits. Sinwar really fucked Hamas over here. Easy
| to lose sight of how good a thing they had going! It had
| tacit Israeli government support and was making a bunch
| of Hamas people fairly rich.
|
| Anyways, from that point of view: yes, killing tens of
| thousands of civilians is certainly going to radicalize
| people and drive them into militant groups. But those
| groups might look more like the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades
| than the Al-Qassam Brigades.
| saintkaye wrote:
| Yea,but the thing that changed was Saudi flipping more
| western recently. It meant that directionally the region
| was going have a much bigger problem with this kind of
| behavior in the future and it seems like (as an amateur)
| they saw the writing on the wall and thought the more
| messy the region gets the longer it would take to move
| toward a capitalist ideals motivated region.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| After having signed the Abraham Accords, Israel could
| have gone a long way to keeping their hands clean by
| pursuing Hamas through a joint effort with Egypt, UAE,
| KSA, and other states in the region. Israel has a long
| history working with Egypt regarding Gaza. Several actors
| in the region that already receive tacit US support are
| opposed to perceived Islamic dictatorships due to various
| complicated reasons. There are complicated reasons why
| Israel didn't and continue not to, a lot of which comes
| down to having a direct line to US support, but this
| option was something they could have done and chose not
| to. Though full disclosure, I'm not an unbiased party
| here, but I can view this situation from a realpolitik
| lens as well.
| tptacek wrote:
| I mean, I agree. I'm a 2-stater. Netanyahu and his
| governing coalition have for a decade now been redlining
| "culpability" as far as I'm concerned!
|
| (I'll say again though that Hamas in 2018 is a different
| entity than Hamas in 2016. They're both very bad
| organizations, but only one of them was literally working
| to bring about the end of days.)
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| IMO Israel is digging its own grave in the region by
| being so unwilling to work with their neighbors. KSA and
| UAE are brutal to opponents and KSA's own meddling in the
| region shows that they'd do anything to keep militant
| Islamism from gaining a larger foothold in the region.
| All they had to do was to open up a dialogue with their
| neighbors, it would have stopped Muslims from unifying
| around this issue, probably normalized relations even
| further between these states, and would have given Israel
| significant leverage in the region as a bulwark of
| diplomatic stewardship. Now even though the US is doing
| everything they can to tow the line between supporting
| Israel and stopping a bloodbath, Israel itself has
| probably lost any and all support from its neighbors sans
| maybe Egypt, and the US will be hard-pressed to offer
| support in further instances of aggression against
| Israel.
| tptacek wrote:
| I'm less sure. I think the most salient conflict in MENA
| is between the Arab states and Iran, not Israel and
| Palestine (look no further than the grim track record of
| the surrounding states at actually helping Palestinians
| for evidence).
|
| It's hard to look at October 7th and its aftermath as
| anything but a setback for literally every party in the
| region. Even Iran seems to have been caught flat footed.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| It would end up in a proxy war, surely. Iran would back
| Hamas and a coalition of KSA, UAE, Egypt, and Israel
| would spearhead the Gaza situation from the other side.
| It's still a shitty outcome but IMO a better one. For
| one, regional actors are incentivized to deal with the
| situation in a way that spillover doesn't affect them
| (Lebanon and Egypt have both been vocal about not
| accepting refugees), but most importantly it wouldn't be
| as affected by the US political news cycle and the heart-
| rending imperialism that creates (essentially American
| domestic interests and politics affecting regional
| politics in the Middle East, meaning Palestinians have no
| say over their own politics in any meaningful way, unlike
| American college students.) The biggest risk would
| probably be Russian and Chinese interests coming into the
| region which would surely prompt a US reaction, but I'm
| not sure how much Russia or China would have to gain here
| if the US were not involved.
|
| It would have probably ended in a civil war type
| situation but at least you wouldn't have widespread
| famine or the bombing of hospitals or further civilian
| atrocities. Also forcing regional states to allocate
| their own resources to the conflict means there's a
| direct incentive to wind it down since their resources
| are a lot smaller than the resources of the US. Israel
| would eventually face domestic pushback over wartime
| spending and the autocratic states in the region would
| have to balance their funding of the proxy conflict
| against their own ambitions and budgets. Iran is somewhat
| democratic and they too could only fund Hamas so far
| before looking after their own affairs. A civil war would
| also create a generation fatigued by conflict and more
| open to compromise. The unilateral nature of this
| conflict will guarantee that Palestinians and dissidents
| in the region will hold this as a grudge over Israel and
| the US for decades and might even open the possibility of
| further terrorism against the US.
|
| The US's own nation building efforts in the Middle East
| after 9/11 flagged due to outrageous spending that
| materialized in minimal results. The same effect with
| poorer governments would naturally circumscribe the
| conflict in the area.
| jcranmer wrote:
| In one respect, October 7th was a success for Hamas.
| Before then, it looked likely that most of the Arab
| countries would have made peace with Israel without
| Israel having to concede an iota on the Palestinian
| issue. After the attack and Israel's response, Israel
| probably has to make visible progress on the issue before
| the current holdouts would move forward, or at least wait
| 10, 15 years before everything is forgotten.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| It's a victory for militant Islam that didn't need to
| happen. KSA, UAE, Oman, and Turkey could have been great
| examples of Muslim countries with high standards of
| living that engaged in the international diplomatic
| process, as opposed to the pariah states of Iran and the
| wartorn Yemen and Syria. Since the decline of ISIL
| Islamists have achieved little save the Taliban taking
| Baghdad in Afghanistan. But with this new round of
| aggression in Palestine, Islamist movements once more
| have a grievance to look at.
| boppo1 wrote:
| >...Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades than the Al-Qassam Brigades.
|
| Can you tell me more about the difference here?
| tptacek wrote:
| The former is the former armed wing of Fatah, the latter
| of Hamas. Fatah is a (notoriously corrupt) secular
| nationalist organization. The story goes that Netanyahu
| tacitly supported and helped fund Hamas for many years as
| a check against Fatah consolidating power into a coherent
| Palestinian state.
| adw wrote:
| The first is Fatah/PLO, who are in many ways much closer
| to, eg, the IRA (also nominally religiously inspired)
| than what we understand as modern Islamist terrorist
| groups.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > but it's worth noting that a rational policy person in
| Israel could look at Hamas as a distinct and unlikely
| form of militant nationalism: overtly Islamist, funded
| and trained by the IRGC, and led (since 2017) by a
| messianic lunatic.
|
| Funded and trained by Mossad and others too, at times. In
| fact, Netanyahu was approving tens of millions a month to
| Hamas to stay militant and provide a more extremist
| opposition to Arafat and the PLO who were calming down
| and more peaceable in their old age.
|
| This is the thing that really gets frustrating.
|
| Israel's hard right is as opposed to a two state system
| as Hamas is. People point to "from the river to the sea"
| as "proof" of Hamas' genocidal intent (and I won't
| pretend they haven't said other things to that end,
| either), ignoring that it was literally Likud's platform
| slogan since the 1970s.
| ignoramous wrote:
| > _Easy to lose sight of how good a thing they had
| going!_
|
| Some millions from Qatar with no political engagement
| towards 2SS isn't _good_ by any measure. It was most
| certainly good for the Israelis: the Abraham Accords and
| recognition of the Western Golan Heights + Jerusalem by
| the US, with practically no opposition.
|
| Sinwar may be a lunatic, but we'd be lunatics just the
| same to assume Hamas were happy with the status quo. They
| are _not_ PA for a reason.
| tomp wrote:
| Not if they win decisively and eradicate not just the
| terrorists, but the terrorist indoctrination as well.
|
| Note: there hasn't been a "generation of motivated
| terrorists" coming out of Japan and Germany after WWII,
| those populations were entirely subdued.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Having your parents, or your children, "eradicated" by
| someone is a powerful motivator.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Having your parents, or your children, "eradicated" by
| someone is a powerful motivator_
|
| But again, Japanese and Germans aren't blowing up
| Americans and Indians aren't blowing up London. Claiming
| this _will_ create more terrorists is saying the
| Palestinians are irredeemably violent. I don't think
| that's right.
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| Both Japan and Germany were left with their home
| countries and were given substantial aid to rebuild after
| the war. That aid was given by their former enemies.
|
| Unfortunately I don't see it as very likely that Israel
| will give back all the territory in Gaza and provide aid
| to the Palestinians to rebuild.
| saintkaye wrote:
| Oh my this is not true
| rbanffy wrote:
| I'm pretty sure that, unless some time traveler really
| screwed up, this is how it played out on this timeline.
| tomp wrote:
| This has been the case for the past decade - Israel has
| been financing Gaza and providing it with resources (e.g.
| electricity) as well as jobs.
|
| Gaza was quite beautiful! And given its prime location on
| the mediterranean sea, I don't see why it couldn't be
| built up again.
|
| https://twitter.com/InsiderWorld_1/status/178854608101537
| 840...
|
| But of course the massive mistake was not eradicating the
| evil terrorist genocidal mentality of its nominal
| leadership, Hamas. Israel (and the world) shouldn't make
| that mistake again.
| YZF wrote:
| This statement about Israel creating a new generation of
| terrorists is said a lot but I think we have pretty
| strong counterexamples. Germans didn't become motivated
| terrorists after WW-II despite great devastation and
| killing of civilians by the Allies. Neither did Japan.
| I'm sure there are similar WW-I examples. One might argue
| that not fighting this war until the enemy surrenders is
| a much stronger motivation for terrorism. A more recent
| example might be Russia's campaign against Chechnya or
| Sri Lanka's campaign against the Tamil Tigers, both
| fought until the enemy was crushed and both seemingly
| have for now resolved the terrorism issue.
|
| With respect to your proposal. Can you be more specific
| about how Israel is supposed to target Hamas leadership
| when they are in tunnels underground below civilian
| populations and holding hostages? That Hamas leadership
| is not dead is not due to lack of Israel trying to target
| them specifically. I don't think it's possible to get at
| Hamas without taking over the entire Gaza strip which
| leads me to repeat the OP's question of what would you
| do. Another question is whether you're suggesting to give
| free pass to the Oct 7'th attackers and kidnappers (which
| seems to be implied by saying "focus on Hamas
| leadership").
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| > Germans didn't become motivated terrorists after WW-II
| despite great devastation and killing of civilians by the
| Allies. Neither did Japan. I'm sure there are similar
| WW-I examples.
|
| Heh this is funny because this was an _explicit_ concern
| for the US after WWII. This is the reason behind the
| creation of the Marshal Plan and directly the reason why
| the US occupied both Germany and Japan and assisted in
| nation building there. The idea that losing a war leads
| to radicalism is as old as WWII, but probably even older,
| as the UK came to a similar conclusion when divesting its
| colonies in South Asia.
|
| For more recent cases on how political instability and
| sectarian conflict leads to a rise in terrorism, look at
| what happened in Iraq after the toppling of Saddam
| Hussein and the dissolution of the Baathist party.
| tptacek wrote:
| An _absolutely wild_ video from the time about this:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=821R0lGUL6A
|
| If you've never seen "Your Job In Germany", bookmark and
| it and make sure you do at some point. It is pretty
| unreal.
|
| Of course, the counterpoint here is: the reason we
| worried about German terrorism but didn't see it is
| because we trained our forces with videos like this, and
| we were the nice guys about it compared to the Soviets.
| YZF wrote:
| Germans were hung from streetlamps after the war in some
| places. I think you're referring to after the Germans
| were defeated? We're not at that stage yet.
| tptacek wrote:
| See the preceding comment, " _after WW-II_ ".
| YZF wrote:
| Right. But first the Germans were defeated totally. They
| were forced to surrender. Imagine if the war was halted
| with massive German casualties but with the Nazis still
| in power. Which option results in more radicalization?
| xdennis wrote:
| > Israel [...] will be facing a generation of motivated
| terrorists in about 15-20 years
|
| The Palestinians are taught from primary school to hate
| Jews[1] (books paid with western money). They couldn't
| possibly hate Jews more.
|
| [1]: https://www.cfr.org/blog/teaching-palestinian-
| children-value...
| rusk wrote:
| Well that's what happens when you cowardly murder people
| in the middle of the night and turf them out of their
| ancestral homeland
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| As the other person stated, more targeted attacks. Israel
| is well known for their assassinations of Iranians. Why
| not Palestinians too?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I promise you, Israel does plenty of targeted
| assassinations in Palestine. For instance [0] (mildly
| graphic, shots are fired by Israeli assassination squad
| into car) - stuff like this is very common in WB and now
| Gaza.
|
| [0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/17p7
| mfx/bett...
| threeseed wrote:
| > Israel was viscously attacked unprovoked
|
| Unprovoked is a stretch.
|
| Settlers have been given free rein to commit terror acts
| all throughout the Palestinian Territories.
|
| And Hamas has been propped up by the Netanyahu government
| for years.
| amluto wrote:
| > Settlers have been given free rein to commit terror
| acts all throughout the Palestinian Territories.
|
| Not quite:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_disengagement_fro
| m_G...
|
| This is not to say that Israel permitted Gaza to have any
| reasonable sort of economic development (as a simple
| example, it's effectively a country with two not-very-
| open land borders _and no port_ , which surely made trade
| rather challenging).
|
| If you want an analogy, imagine roughly the population of
| San Francisco plus San Mateo County, but with under half
| the land area, hostile relations and extremely limited
| travel across the land border with Santa Clara County and
| points South, with no bridges and no port. Throw in a
| near-complete dependency on Santa Clara for water and
| electricity, and nowhere near enough agriculture. (At
| least San Mateo County has a decent amount of farming to
| the West.) Take out the hot tech scene as well, and the
| economic situation would not be awesome.
| YZF wrote:
| Palestinians in Gaza were not provoked and there were no
| settlers in the Gaza strip. Not sure about your last
| statement there, Hamas being propped up by Netanyahu was
| how Israel provoked them to attack?
|
| What was the total number of Palestinians killed by
| Settler terrorist attacks in 2022? Do you have that
| handy? What was the number of Israelis killed by
| Palestinian terrorist attacks during that time?
| Hikikomori wrote:
| Gaza is under military occupation by most definitions,
| that is provocation.
|
| 167 Palestinians and 12 Israelis in the west bank. All
| deaths, not just by settlers etc.
| YZF wrote:
| You're evading my question. For good reasons. It doesn't
| support your case.
|
| If a Palestinian attempts to stab someone and is shot
| that's not the same situation as "settler" terrorist
| attacks.
|
| I think you should answer my question.
|
| Also please count Israelis in Israel killed by
| Palestinians from the west bank.
| YZF wrote:
| Gaza was _not_ under military occupation by any
| definition. That is a fact that anyone can verify for
| themselves. Gaza was put under a blockade in 2007 after
| Hamas came to power (still has a border with Egypt, maybe
| Egypt is actually occupying Gaza by your definition). A
| blockade is not an occupation.
|
| Maybe by "is" you mean since Oct 7th. But again that's
| not provocation, that's after the fact. If you think Gaza
| was occupied how come the IDF needs to re-occupy it?
| Hikikomori wrote:
| Unprovoked, really?
|
| 60% of homes destroyed, 80% of schools, all universities,
| 31/35 hospitals.
|
| What Israel [0] could have done was to not create this
| situation in the first place, but their goal was never
| solve it anyway.
|
| [0] I mean the current government in power and right wing
| extremist settlers
| saintkaye wrote:
| They killed and raped kids at a concert. If calling that
| unprovoked terror is too far across the aisle, it's hard
| to imagine an intellectually honest conversation, no?
| Hikikomori wrote:
| Its not unprovoked because its an ongoing conflict and
| occupation, it cannot be viewed in isolation no matter
| how horrible it was.
| saintkaye wrote:
| What? They targeted innocents at a music festival, the
| people you're talking about are dying during war time in
| the actual theatre of war. Can you seriously not agree
| that the target and method of killing is very different?
| YZF wrote:
| I believe we're talking about the provocation for the Oct
| 7th attacks and you are giving us the outcome of the war
| that was a result of that attack? Is there time travel
| involved here?
|
| Israel withdrew from Gaza. Is your proposal that Israel
| should not have withdrawn to "not create the situation in
| the first place"? Or re-taken Gaza when Hamas took it
| over from Fatah by force in 2007 after winning the
| elections?
| Hikikomori wrote:
| The provocation is the continued blockade and military
| occupation of Gaza, as that is what most consider it to
| be. With the exception of the US and Israel of course.
|
| Not to mention the continuation of apartheid in Israel
| itself and expansion of settlements in the west bank.
|
| This situation was created because Netanyahu has
| supported Hamas for a long time, even before 2005, as a
| classic divide and conquer strategy, to not allow PA to
| control both territories. But the US also helped as Bush
| forced elections early when PA had a reputation of being
| corrupt, and when they lost the election they tried to
| get PA to do a coup and Hamas kicked them out from Gaza.
| YZF wrote:
| You're mixing stuff up. Why are you looking at "what most
| consider it to be"? How can you be military occupying a
| place where your military is not and you are not. There
| is no way there was a military occupation of Gaza by any
| normal definition of this term. Gaza was under the
| authority and control of the government of Hamas. Not of
| Israel. The rest is politics.
|
| There's no apartheid in Israel itself but let's not get
| into that.
|
| Expansion of settlements in the west bank. True. I don't
| understand how that's a provocation to Gazans to rape and
| murder random Israeli civilians. It's also true that
| Netanyahu pursued a divide and conquer approach. Again
| you're trying to claim that Israel's support of Hamas'
| rule in Gaza is provocation for Hamas to launch attacks
| on Israel civilians which makes no sense.
|
| EDIT: To be fair the legal question of "when does an
| occupation end" is complicated. Gaza was occupied from
| Egypt and Egypt does not want it back. The uni-lateral
| withdrawal of Israel without a peace agreement left Gaza
| in a weird legal situation. This is why despite Gaza
| being under Palestinian control and not occupied the
| legal state of occupation is perhaps not fully resolved.
| There's reality on the ground though (not occupied) and
| international law status (debated).
| Hikikomori wrote:
| I mean the UN, Amnesty, other organizations like them.
| Israel has controlled their land borders, even the one to
| Egypt, their water and airspace. They control what goes
| in and out, people and goods. They might have left but
| Gaza is not free.
|
| No apartheid? I guess Palestinians enjoy the right to
| return then? https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/
| 2022/02/israels-...
|
| The west bank is part of the whole situation, of course
| it matters to Gaza what happens there. It also shows
| exactly what would happen if Hamas did not exist, Israel
| would continue to allow settlers to take land and homes.
| I'm not saying that Hamas should exist, but its very much
| a situation created by Israel themselves and Hamas has
| support from Palestinians because of Israels actions.
|
| May the hasbara be strong in you.
| YZF wrote:
| Do Germans that were expelled from the Sudettes have a
| right to return?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudeten_Germans
|
| Does this make the Czech Republic an Apartheid state?
|
| Is Russia an Apartheid state? Can Ukranian refugees
| return to their homes? What about the millions of other
| refugees from random places?
|
| There is zero connection between the right of return
| (which does not exist, refugees have no right to return
| after they lost a war) and Apartheid.
|
| It's not "Hasbara" (which means explaining in Hebrew, so
| yes, I'm explaining). It's just common sense.
| rusk wrote:
| Well if you believe it was unprovoked then I can
| understand why this point of view would be so confusing.
| throw310822 wrote:
| I don't understand why you say "unprovoked". Gaza has
| been under occupation for decades (yes, it's technically
| an occupation, regardless of whether there are settlers
| or not). It's been periodically bombed, each time with as
| many victims as an October 7th. It's been under a
| complete blockade for 16 years. The fact that everything
| was fine in Israel on October 6th doesn't mean that there
| was a peace- it just means that they weren't expecting
| their victims to be able to fight back.
|
| > What would you do in such a situation?
|
| The situation is that Israel is an oppressor and an
| occupier, so what should it do? Well, first of all it
| should have made different choices in the past, honest
| and fair and peaceful choices. Which it didn't make, and
| it's its fault. But it's never too late. It should have
| made honest, fair and peaceful choices also in this
| occasion- mourned its deads, vowed to bring those
| responsible to justice, and engaged with Palestinian
| counterparts to withdraw within the 1967 borders and
| promote the birth of a Palestinian state.
|
| Of course, it didn't do any of those things. It did
| exactly what Hamas expected.
| tptacek wrote:
| And, as a result, Hamas has been gone from a rent-
| extracting governing authority with 16 combat-effective
| brigades, deep connections to the IRGC, and ongoing
| funding not just from the Gulf States but from Israel
| itself(!) to an international pariah with military
| leadership hiding in tunnels and its last 2 allegedly
| combat-effective brigades preparing to make a valiant
| last stand behind a wall of civilian refugees in Rafah.
|
| Yes: Israel did exactly what Hamas expected. The problem
| for Hamas is twofold:
|
| * Hamas thought the urban combat to root them out of Gaza
| City and Khan Younis would be a Vietnam-scale bloodbath
| that would tie the IDF up indefinitely until they were
| forced to make a truce.
|
| * Hamas's messianic nutbag leader genuinely believed that
| he was ushering in the end of days, and that the IRGC's
| other assets would immediately commit to full scale
| combat operations against the IDF. Instead: Hezbollah
| noped the hell out, and Iran launched a large scale drone
| attack that ended up providing a Boeing and Lockheed-
| style fireworks display in which other Arab states, even
| as Israel was massacring Palestinian civilians, pitched
| in to help. Then Iran "declared the matter resolved".
| Gulp.
|
| Sometimes, if only strategically, it makes sense to do
| what your enemy wants you to, because your enemy is
| stupid.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > Hamas's messianic nutbag leader genuinely believed that
| he was ushering in the end of days
|
| This is more or less why Israel has so much support
| between Evangelical Christians. A relatively large number
| of these people actually want the world to end because
| they really believe in the Rapture and that they'll be
| saved.
| tptacek wrote:
| People overindex on this. Israel enjoys overwhelming
| support in both parties, and, for those unfamiliar with
| US politics, evangelicals belong overwhelmingly to just
| one of them.
| rbanffy wrote:
| In the US, not supporting Israel is political suicide.
|
| That said, a lot of evangelicals do believe the world is
| about to end and are willing to pay to hasten the
| process.
| throw310822 wrote:
| Hamas was designated a terrorist organisation and the
| Gaza strip was subject to a total blockade since 18 years
| because of Hamas having won regular elections (at the
| time). So much for becoming an international pariah.
|
| No, the real news here is of course the news: the ICC
| seeks to arrest Israeli top leaders as much as the Hamas
| leaders. The subject that is going from being everyone's
| darling to international pariah is Israel, absolutely no
| doubt about this. This is a massive win for Palestine and
| those who claim to fight for it, including Hamas- with
| the potential for historical consequences.
|
| My take is that this was the intention behind the October
| 7th attack- to drive Israel to such a violent retaliation
| as to force the world to take notice and to condemn
| Israel. I might be wrong and the victory might be
| entirely an unintended consequence. However your
| interpretation essentially requires Hamas to have zero
| knowledge of the real ratio of military force between
| Hamas/ Iran and Israel, and zero knowledge of the fact
| that the US have always been ready to commit their entire
| military for Israel. And even your imagined "win"
| scenario for Hamas is Israel committing to "a truce"-
| which is what they already had before Oct 7.
|
| * Iran's fireworks display is the result of Israel, not
| Hamas, trying to drag Iran into the war.
| YZF wrote:
| It has not been "technically" occupied. There's no such
| thing. Either a place is occupied, or it's not, and Gaza
| was not. What is true is that most in the international
| community refused to accept Israel's withdrawal from Gaza
| as the end of Israel's occupation. That's a political
| statement.
|
| You're missing an important part about tens of thousands
| of rockets and mortars being fired from Gaza at Israel
| and terrorism originating from Gaza at Israel. Israel
| didn't just randomly attack Gaza.
|
| Here's what really happened in Gaza: Israel completely
| withdrew in 2005 and was not occupying Gaza any more. It
| handed the entire Gaza strip to the Palestinian
| Authority. There was even an agreement for safe passage
| between Gaza and the West Bank: https://en.wikipedia.org/
| wiki/Palestinian_freedom_of_movemen...
|
| Not to mention that even before 2005 Israel handed
| control of most of the Gaza strip to the PA as part of
| the Oslo accords (and agreement to hand Gaza and Jericho
| over to the Palestinians predates the Oslo accords).
|
| In 2007 following Palestinian elections Hamas took
| control of the Gaza strip by force.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gaza_(2007)
| Israel only imposed a full blockade of Gaza as a result
| of this change because Hamas' stated goal is/was the
| destruction of Israel. Despite Israel's blockade Gaza has
| a border with Egypt and had no shortage of goods (and
| weaponry) through smuggling and other means. There was
| also plenty of travel in and out of the Gaza strip (both
| towards Israel and the West Bank and towards Egypt) and
| there were plenty of good going into Gaza through Israel.
| Gazans also worked in Israel. Gaza also had a power
| station and a water desalination plant. It has billions
| of dollars of aid and investment flowing into it (Ismail
| Hanyah needs to be a billionaire after all).
|
| So Israel was neither an oppressor nor an occupier in
| Gaza. It took actions to try and prevent Hamas from
| arming itself.
|
| The other part wrong with your premise is that
| Palestinians want to live in peace with Israel within the
| 1967 borders. They do not. Maybe some of them do. But
| many do not. When the Oslo peace process was accelerating
| towards that goal Palestinians started a suicide bombing
| campaign against Israeli civilians which results in the
| killing of Rabin, the rise of the right, and the
| termination of the peace process.
|
| EDIT:
|
| Bombings by Hamas starting 1993: https://en.wikipedia.org
| /wiki/List_of_Palestinian_suicide_at...
|
| Rabin's assassination 1995: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
| /Assassination_of_Yitzhak_Rabin
|
| 1993: Oslo accords
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo_Accords
|
| 2007: Blockade of Gaza:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip
|
| 2005: Disengagement from Gaza: https://en.wikipedia.org/w
| iki/Israeli_disengagement_from_Gaz...
|
| Rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza: https://en.wikipedia.
| org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_...
|
| Gaza-Israel barrier:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza%E2%80%93Israel_barrier
| Hikikomori wrote:
| It's not technically occupied. Israel just controls their
| border with Gaza. And their coastline. And their
| airspace, also bombed their airport. Oh and the border to
| Egypt as nobody can visit Gaza without Israels approval.
| Israels continued denial of a Palestinian state and the
| basic rights of statehood, like the control of their own
| borders, is what makes it an occupation.
|
| Netanyahu has supported Hamas long before 2005 as part of
| a divide and conquer strategy. The elections were pushed
| by Bush at a time when PA were seen as corrupt. When they
| lost Bush tried to get them to coup and Hamas took over
| and kicked them out as a reaction to that.
|
| >In July 1995, Netanyahu led a mock funeral procession
| featuring a coffin and hangman's noose at an anti-Rabin
| rally where protesters chanted, "Death to Rabin"
|
| Should tell is everything we need to know about the
| people in power now.
|
| Maybe the Palestinians were not happy with the deal, them
| losing their land. Not to forget previous atrocities
| perpetrated by Jewish terrorists and the nakba.
| saintkaye wrote:
| Israel does not control the Egypt border and almost all
| of this is opinion through implication not fact. This
| type of post does not belong on this message board.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafah_Border_Crossing
|
| > Under a 2007 agreement between Egypt and Israel, Egypt
| controls the crossing but imports through the Rafah
| crossing require Israeli approval.
| YZF wrote:
| This is Egypt's choice. Egypt has the control. If they
| choose to let Israel have a say it's their choice. Their
| making an agreement with Israel != Israel controls the
| border. Plenty of tunnels too but that's besides the
| point.
| YZF wrote:
| I can give you an endless list of atrocities committed by
| Arabs against Jews going to the beginning of Islam rule
| in the region. The Nakba was an outcome of Arabs deciding
| to attack Israel in 1948, they wanted to wipe it off the
| map, and they lost. They rejected the partition plan.
|
| Factually this was never Palestinian land. This was
| Ottoman land, then British land, then Israel. Many
| Palestinians are not native (e.g. El-Masri, "The
| Egyptian", is a common family name in Gaza, because they
| are Egyptians) and the Jewish people have as much of a
| claim on the land as they do. Parts of the land were also
| under Egyptian and Jordanian control for some time (ask
| them why they didn't establish a Palestinian State over
| these lands while they had them by the way). Jewish
| refugees immigrated to the region before 1948 because
| they had nowhere else to go. Many Israeli Jews have been
| expelled from Arab countries under violence and their
| assets stolen. The Arab behavior toward Jews in the
| region is purely racist, there's no other way to look at
| it.
|
| Also factually what pushed the Israeli right wing to
| demonstrate was Hamas' suicide bombing attacks. I was
| there and I know this first hand. You're not going to
| rewrite history by referring to some random fact.
|
| Israel blockaded Gaza. Blockades are legal. Gaza still
| had a border with Egypt which Egypt chose to blockade as
| well. Gaza was effectively a polity
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polity) and was at war
| with Israel. What should amaze you is that Israel
| supplied Gaza with electricity (Gaza also had their own
| power station) and with water (Gaza has wells and a
| desalination plant) and allowed good in all while being
| enemy territory under the control of Hamas. Hamas stole
| the aid flowing into Gaza to buy weapons and build
| tunnels.
| throw310822 wrote:
| I know it's pointless bickering but...
|
| > The Nakba was an outcome of Arabs deciding to attack
| Israel in 1948, they wanted to wipe it off the map, and
| they lost. They rejected the partition plan.
|
| The "partition plan" was a plan to give part of Palestine
| to Israel. It's pretty natural that one side refused and
| the other accepted- the action is the same but the
| outcome is the opposite for the two parties. Trying to
| spin it like "they both got the same generous offer" is
| propaganda.
|
| But even more important is that the partition plan
| assigned to a "Jewish state" a territory whose population
| was 45% Palestinian. This means that either
|
| a) they thought it was possible to create a Jewish
| democratic state with a 45% of the population non-Jewish,
| or
|
| b) the plan was to enforce apartheid from the beginning,
| or
|
| c) the plan was ethnic cleansing from the beginning.
|
| And- lo and behold- ethnic cleansing is exactly what
| happened one minute after the creation of Israel. How
| convenient that it was the Palestinian's fault.
| throw310822 wrote:
| > It has not been "technically" occupied. There's no such
| thing. Either a place is occupied, or it's not, and Gaza
| was not.
|
| Gaza is considered an occupied territory by all
| international bodies with the power and authority to make
| such a determination, for excellent reasons that you can
| look up. End of the story. What you do (and Israel does,
| for propaganda purposes) is to confuse the civilian
| settlement with the military occupation, or to pretend
| that since soldiers are not inside Gaza but just all
| around its borders, Gaza is free. Which is like saying
| that a prison camp is free if the guards are all outside
| the fence.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Neither is the US nor most countries in the World.
|
| The only major countries/blocs that are ICC members are the
| EU/EFTA/EU ascension candidates, UK, Canada, Mercusor
| (lowkey surprised Venezuela's still a signatory), Mexico,
| South Africa, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and NZ.
|
| Edit:
|
| Yes. 124 nations did initially sign the Rome Statute.
|
| I meant regional powers/countries that matter.
| amiga386 wrote:
| If anyone here is from the US and doesn't like Israel
| scoffing at the ICC, they should read up on the American
| Service-Members' Protection Act
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-
| Members'_Prot...
|
| > The United States is not a member of the International
| Criminal Court (ICC). The Act authorizes the president of
| the United States to use "all means necessary and
| appropriate to bring about the release of any U.S. or
| allied personnel being detained or imprisoned by, on
| behalf of, or at the request of the International
| Criminal Court". This authorization led to the act being
| colloquially nicknamed "The Hague Invasion Act", as the
| act allows the president to order U.S. military action,
| such as an invasion of the Netherlands, where The Hague
| is located, to protect American officials and military
| personnel from prosecution or rescue them from custody.
|
| It was introduced in 2002 when the US invaded Afghanistan
| and Iraq and hasn't been rescinded. So if the US ever
| committed war crimes in those countries, or any other
| ones; too bad. The US so totally and completely doesn't
| recognise the ICC's jurisdiction that it will literally
| invade the Netherlands in order to not be bound by it in
| any way, shape or form.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| What's frustrating about that is that a lot of the US's
| early efforts to not get involved in the ICC was to
| protect Henry Kissinger from prosecution, who, most
| objective observers tend to agree did commit or authorize
| multiple war crimes, from assassinations of Chilean
| leaders, to the carpet bombing of Indochina, particularly
| Cambodia, and others.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > What's frustrating about that is that a lot of the US's
| early efforts to not get involved in the ICC was to
| protect Henry Kissinger from prosecution
|
| No, it wasn't; the ICC (which the US had a lead role in
| negotiating and initially signed despite never ratifying
| it) was never going to have retroactive authority, and
| the US knew that was not an issue long before it
| "unsigned" the Rome Statute.
|
| Both the unsigning and the "Hague invasion act" were in
| 2002, during the runup to the 2003 Iraq War; it was about
| protecting people then in office from consequences in the
| war of aggression they were about to launch, to the
| extent it was about protecting specific people and not
| just the broad idea of American exceptionalism and
| opposition of the US government of the time to the idea
| of international institutions not fully subordinated to
| the US.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > No, it wasn't; the ICC (which the US had a lead role in
| negotiating and initially signed despite never ratifying
| it) was never going to have retroactive authority, and
| the US knew that was not an issue long before it
| "unsigned" the Rome Statute.
|
| The ICC was formed out of the ICJ, to tackle matters that
| rose beyond 'dispute' between states. The ICJ came out of
| the IMT, which was the Nuremburg trials, which defined
| war crimes and crimes against humanity for the first
| time, so it would not have been really retroactive. These
| things were already crimes, there just wasn't a body
| capable of prosecuting them.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The ICC was formed out of the ICJ
|
| No, it wasn't. In any sense.
|
| It was a permanent successor to ad hoc criminal tribunals
| like the International Military Tribunal, the
| International Military Tribunal for the Far East, the
| International Criminal Tribunal for the Former
| Yugoslavia, and the International Criminal Tribunal for
| Rwanda.
|
| > The ICJ came out of the IMT, which was the Nuremburg
| trials
|
| No, it didn't, it was the UN system's successor to the
| League of Nations system's Permanent International Court
| of Justice (the ICJ statute is modelled on that of the
| PICJ, the PICJ transferred irs assets and archives to the
| ICJ on its dissolution, the ICJ was headquartered in the
| Peace Palace that had held the HQ of the PICJ, and the
| ICJ even adopted the PICJ seal.)
|
| The ICJ--like the PICJ, a court for disputes between
| nations--was in no respect a successor to International
| Military Tribunal, which dealt with crimes by individuals
| (and, indeed had most of its lifespan _during_ that of
| the ICJ, starting work only a few months before the ICJ.)
| tptacek wrote:
| Is this all that weird? The ICC is fairly Eurocentric.
| India and China aren't signatories either.
|
| The "Hague Invasion Act" is performative silliness
| enacted in the immediate wake of September 11. The truth
| is that no major European country is going to arrest an
| American, Indian, Philipino or Israeli politician.
| There's kind of a deus ex machina thing happening with
| the ICC; you still have to do standard-issue diplomacy.
| KKKKkkkk1 wrote:
| What do you mean they wouldn't arrest? Israel's foreign
| minister Tsipy Livny had arrest warrants issued against
| her by courts in the UK and in Belgium.
| tptacek wrote:
| The UK literally apologized to Livny for doing that;
| that's how not toothy these things are.
| KKKKkkkk1 wrote:
| That depends on who is in power. I don't think Jeremy
| Corbyn's Labour government would have apologized.
| rbanffy wrote:
| A real shame a Corbyn Labour government isn't a reality.
| craftkiller wrote:
| > nor most countries in the World.
|
| Wikipedia says there are 124 states party to the Rome
| Statute and there are 193 sovereign states that are
| members of the united nations. Thats 64%, which is most
| countries.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| The State of Palestine is a State Party of the Rome
| Statute but only a non-member observer state of the UN,
| so treating the parties to the Rone Statute as a subset
| of the UN members is not quite right.
| eynsham wrote:
| There are 124 state parties to the Rome Statute, which is
| more than a majority, counting standardly.
| tptacek wrote:
| And? It's not a vote. Pick a person from the world out at
| random; it's a coin flip whether they live in a country
| that has or hasn't ratified Rome.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Considering China, India, and the US didn't sign it, the
| odds are considerably in favour of not being in a country
| that ratified it.
| runarberg wrote:
| I did a quick tally with my calculator and tallied up the
| population of each country above 10 million which isn't
| among the 137 countries which are current signatories to
| the Rome Statute. My final tally was 4,6 billion which is
| around 57% of the world, leaving around 43% of the world
| population living in a country which is at least a
| signatory to the Rome Statute.
|
| Non-signatories are overwhelmingly represented by a
| handful of countries with very large populations. None of
| the 5 most populated countries in the world are
| signatories, and out of the 10 most populated, only 4 are
| signatories (Nigeria, Brazil, Bangladesh, and Mexico).
| Out of the top 20 most populated countries, 10 are
| signatories.
|
| Indonesia, Pakistan and Turkey have all previously
| expressed intentions of signing the Rome Statute, if only
| these countries would do so, it would bring over 60% of
| the world's population under it.
| eynsham wrote:
| >Neither is the US nor most countries in the World.
|
| The standard semantics of 'most countries' counts
| countries, not the people in them. Of course the related
| claim that the majority of /people/ do not live in state
| parties to the Rome Statute has different truth
| conditions.
| bawolff wrote:
| His career is already in a bad place as far as i understand. If
| anything it might help him because he could cry that they are
| unfairly (regardless of if true) out to get him.
| amirhirsch wrote:
| His career was already over. Nearly all Israelis would support
| exchanging Netanyahu for hostages, again.
| xenospn wrote:
| As a former Israeli, I cannot say this enough: please take
| Netanyahu, dig the deepest hole you can, throw him in there,
| lock it up and throw away the key.
| cromka wrote:
| You mean him, not them?
| rbanffy wrote:
| There are a couple people that should be handed to the
| ICC.
| xenospn wrote:
| I do! Thank you
| rbanffy wrote:
| I would strongly suggest handing him over to the ICC and
| signing the Rome treaty. Let the ICC deal with what to do
| with him exactly.
| dang wrote:
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40419037. (Nothing wrong
| with the reply, but I'm trying to prune the top-heaviest
| subthreads.)
| Cody-99 wrote:
| >Khan said the ICC's prosecution team is also seeking warrants
| for Israel's Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as two other
| top Hamas leaders -- Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, the leader
| of the Al Qassem Brigades who is better known as Mohammed Deif,
| and Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas' political leader.
|
| That is it..? Hamas has thousands of militants and hundreds of
| officials in Gaza and Qatar. At minimum the ICC should be issuing
| warrants for every Hamas member of al-qassam (their military
| wing) and Hamas core leadership.
|
| 3k Hamas fighters attacked Israel and posted it openly on social
| media. Half of those died in the initial attack and lots have
| surely died in the war since but there is no reason not to get
| arrest warrants for these war criminals who directly posted their
| war crimes to the internet.
| ugh123 wrote:
| Probably because those are "soldiers" and not leaders and
| decision makers.
| Georgelemental wrote:
| Are they also supposed to submit arrest warrants for all the
| IDF soldiers who committed war crimes and shared them on social
| media? It's the job of the political/government/military
| leaders to keep their soldiers in check, and the job of the ICC
| to keep the leaders in check. (In theory at least)
| Cody-99 wrote:
| Yes..? If someone commits war crimes and posts the evidence
| of them doing so on the internet one would hope the ICC would
| take note.
| HL33tibCe7 wrote:
| You are ignorant of the point of the ICC
| mkoubaa wrote:
| "get all the bad guys" isn't the point of the ICC
| throw_a_grenade wrote:
| I find it meaningful that they're mentioned in the same
| document/release. Newspeople will obviously shorten that gap even
| further and put them in the same sentence, separated only by
| comma (like the CNN article currently linked).
|
| If that doesn't say "your're no better than the other side", I
| don't know what would. It might be especially disrespectful to
| the Israeli, who usually play moral high ground, but it's
| probably also true the other way around.
|
| Titling the official release "... in the situation in the State
| of Palestine" is a cherry on the top. (https://www.icc-
| cpi.int/news/statement-icc-prosecutor-karim-... -- thanks to
| sibling comment)
| ars wrote:
| You find it meaningful, I find it disgusting, and furthermore
| it calls the entire "court" into question. It's pretty obvious
| this is not a real court, and it should be ignored by all.
|
| Why did they wait 7 months?
|
| If the Netherlands had any morals they would have ejected these
| clowns long ago.
| tivert wrote:
| > ...and furthermore it calls the entire "court" into
| question. It's pretty obvious this is not a real court, and
| it should be ignored by all.
|
| Yeah, it's not a real court, it's just a bunch of
| "transnational" bureaucrats imitating the _forms_ of a court,
| without the foundational basis [1], and at great remove from
| whatever situations they 're pretending to judge. At best,
| it's a political prop.
|
| [1] Which would include things like de-facto power over its
| claimed jurisdiction, and having law known and respected by
| the people there.
| jupp0r wrote:
| The optics of equating a terrorist organization on the one hand
| with a democratic state with functioning judicial system and
| accountability for any crimes committed on the other hand by
| putting them in the same press release is pretty bad for the
| court.
|
| I'm all for investigating if there were any orders of directly
| targeting civilians being given to the Israeli military, etc, but
| that's a pretty far fetched assumption in my opinion. On the
| other side you have what's a pretty clear case of a large scale
| terror attack against innocent civilians.
|
| In addition, why doesn't the ICC look into Egypt's conduct of
| refusing to allow civilians to flee from this conflict?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _equating a terrorist organization on the one hand with a
| democratic state with functioning judicial system and
| accountability for any crimes committed on the other hand by
| putting them in the same press release is pretty bad for the
| court_
|
| War crimes are war crimes, and these were committed in the same
| war. This is like complaining a corporation and an employee
| were charged in the same press release. They're different, but
| not in the respect of the alleged crimes.
|
| > _why doesn 't the ICC look into Egypt's conduct of refusing
| to allow civilians to flee from this conflict?_
|
| Refusing refugees isn't a war crime and isn't--to my knowledge
| --under the ICC's jurisdiction.
| mkoubaa wrote:
| Furthermore, if Egypt did accept refugees, depending on how
| it was done, they could be implicated as an an accomplice to
| ethnic cleansing
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| In that sense, the UK and America (among others) were
| accomplices to the Holocaust, by accepting Jews who were
| fleeing Germany?
| danans wrote:
| The US and UK have a checkered record with respect to
| accepting people fleeing the Holocaust [1].
|
| Saving them was not an objective of the war effort and
| was opposed by many due to domestic anti-Semitism and
| ethno-nationalism (Nazism had significant open sympathy
| in the US at the time).
|
| Until the political tides changed in the US/UK, both
| countries definitely wasted time during which many
| perished in the Holocaust. Mostly people watched as the
| Nazis killed millions. There was no public uproar to
| intervene while the events were happening.
|
| It's also not clear that either country would have ever
| accepted millions of Holocaust refugees, even though the
| US certainly had the space. The creation of the state of
| Israel after the war in a way helped them not have to
| face that question.
|
| 1. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-
| united...
| mkoubaa wrote:
| My reading of the history is that a not insignificant
| fraction of early Western support for Zionism was
| explicitly to avoid Jewish immigration to Western
| nations.
| danans wrote:
| That was among the secular/ethno-nationalist rationales.
|
| But there is also a religious rationale. In
| fundamentalist Christianity, the re-establishment of the
| state of Israel to its biblically described borders is a
| precondition for the return of the Messiah and Judgement
| Day, when the same Jewish people will supposedly be given
| a last chance to convert ... or else. So the policy is in
| part rooted in the anti-Semitism of Christian
| eschatology.
|
| Those ideas had strong appeal after WW2, and they are a
| major policy motivator of the Christian religious right-
| wing in the US today.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Just one minor note: these are parts of American
| Protestant fundamentalist Christianity, I don't think
| similar concepts can be found in even the more
| fundamentalist factions of Catholic, Orthodox, Calvinist,
| Lutheran, or Ethiopian Christian sects.
| danans wrote:
| Yes, I don't generally include Catholicism, Orthodox, and
| several other Christian sects when I use the term
| fundamentalist Christianity (although I'm sure
| fundamentalists exist in any sect of any religion).
|
| I suppose a better term would be "evangelical protestant
| fundamentalist Christianity", although I suspect that
| even there, some small number of them are not focused on
| politicizing Christian eschatology.
| mkoubaa wrote:
| An interesting comparison. If they took in every Jew in
| Germany they would have been accomplices to an ethnic
| cleansing but would effectively have prevented an ethnic
| extermination. So while technically the answer would have
| been yes in that case it might have been a good thing
| anyways.
|
| But the analogy breaks down here because (1) the UK and
| USA had strongly antisemitic attitudes at the time and
| imposed very small quotas on the number of Jews they
| accepted as refugees and (2) it appears that Israel is
| not pursuing extermination of Palestinians.
| llm_trw wrote:
| The point is that a law which would label people saving
| the victims of the holocaust as being complicit in a
| genocide then it's a stupid law.
| ars wrote:
| > War crimes are war crimes, and these were committed in the
| same war.
|
| Some were committed 7 months ago, the other were allegedly
| committed a short time ago.
|
| Putting them both in the same release is utterly repugnant.
| xdennis wrote:
| Palestine using human shields are not Israel's war crimes.
| They are Palestine's war crimes.
|
| Israel is not at fault for trying to recover hostages from a
| population aiding and abetting terrorists. Have you even seen
| footage of a Hamas member in uniform being killed? They dress
| as civilians so their rightful killing is interpreted as "war
| crimes" by gullible American students.
| ignoramous wrote:
| > _gullible American students_
|
| The prosecutors at the ICC are neither gullible nor
| American.
|
| > _Palestine using human shields are not Israel 's war
| crimes_
|
| Starvation as a war tactic ... can't be _human shields_?
| Dropping a bomb every 50secs for the first 2 weeks and now
| again in the past week killing 15k+ can 't be _human
| shields_? Withholding aid, inciting genocide, destroying
| large swathes of infrastructure isn 't merely _human
| shields_.
| Georgelemental wrote:
| There are many, many pieces of evidence I could cite to
| refute this argument, but the one I find the most
| compelling is the situation in the West Bank. Hamas does
| not control that area, there are no "human shields" there.
| And yet the IDF kills civilians and commits crimes there
| regularly (with reams of documentation from organizations
| like https://www.btselem.org/ and
| https://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/). Why should I trust
| the IDF to be any less criminal in Gaza?
|
| > gullible American students
|
| I know one such student quite well. They are Jewish, right-
| wing, and all their life were taught (at the Jewish school
| they attended, and by their family) to support Israel. Then
| they went out into the world, and met some Palestinians.
| Now they are leading protests against the war
| benced wrote:
| It's not a war crime but it is against the 1951 and 1967
| refugee conventions, both of which Egypt is a signatory to. I
| wish more time was spent lambasting them for that.
| feedforward wrote:
| How about Israel take them as refugees. After all, some of
| them still have the keys to their homes which were stolen
| in the Nakba.
| xenospn wrote:
| You're confused. The people of Gaza have always been in
| Gaza. You're thinking about others who left Israel to go
| to Jordan, Syria or Lebanon.
| AnarchismIsCool wrote:
| I'm not sure that's historically accurate. Gaza was where
| a lot of Arabs fled during the Nakba and surrounding
| periods.
| 20240519 wrote:
| That cannot be true based on any logical thinking. It
| would be amazing if that were the case. That people
| fleeing in Nakba all said "we will go anywhere but the
| remaining unoccupied Palestinian territory"
| istjohn wrote:
| That's absolutely false. Yes, there were Palestinians in
| Gaza before the Nakba, but the reason there are refugee
| camps and the reason UNWRA exists is to provide for the
| Palestinian refugees from the Nakba.
| benced wrote:
| I agree, you should be roughly 50-50 in terms of
| pressure.
| feedforward wrote:
| > terrorist organization
|
| Is that the "terrorist organization" that Netanyahu sent the
| Mossad head to Qatar a few months ago so he could beg them to
| fund Hamas? (
| https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/world/middleeast/israel-q...
| )
|
| > democratic state
|
| Israel says it controls Palestinian territories and it does
| (with some trouble in Gaza since October). None of those
| millions can vote in the Knesset (although a foreign Jew who
| moves to a West Bank settlement can vote). It is not a
| democracy. Even for those who can vote, Netanyahu is trying to
| get rid of the judiciary.
|
| It is a colonial settler state like Rhodesia or French Algeria,
| and will have the same fate as those states. It is a relic in
| 2024, and becomes more so every year.
| petra wrote:
| Analysing the Israeli-arab conflict as colonialism takes a
| very complex issue and describes it in a very shallow, non-
| accurate way.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Israel administers multiple territories, some of them
| democratically (e.g. Israel proper, where Arabs are citizens
| with equal legal rights), and some of them undemocratically
| (e.g. the West Bank).
|
| In other words, if by "Israel" you mean only within the borders
| of its sovereign territory, yes it's a democracy. If by
| "Israel" you mean all territory controlled by the State of
| Israel, it's clearly not.
|
| So, they at best get partial credit for being "a democracy". If
| they wanted to get full credit, they would have to either
| relinquish control over the West Bank (and Gaza for that
| matter), or grant the people living there equal citizenship and
| voting rights.
|
| > In addition, why doesn't the ICC look into Egypt's conduct of
| refusing to allow civilians to flee from this conflict?
|
| Nobody has to let foreigners into their country if they don't
| want to. Israel has every right to limit what goes over their
| border with Gaza, too. What bothers me is that they also
| restrict Gaza's territorial waters and airspace (and have been
| doing so since long before Oct. 7th), which AFAIK Egypt isn't
| involved in.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Nobody has to let foreigners into their country if they
| don 't want to_
|
| Eh [1]. But not the ICC's business.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_Relating_to_th
| e_S...
| xg15 wrote:
| > _Israel administers multiple territories, some of them
| democratically (e.g. Israel proper, where Arabs are citizens
| with equal legal rights), and some of them undemocratically
| (e.g. the West Bank)._
|
| This is one aspect of the whole conflict that has always
| seriously irked me.
|
| The West effectively treats Israel as if it were the legal
| guardian of the Palestinians: Israel controls the entire
| territory, controls the tax revenue, population registry,
| borders, airspace, energy and water supply, can precisely
| restrict what (is allowed to) go in and out, can construct or
| demolish buildings at will, can arrest people at will, or
| even shoot them, can arbitrarily set the rules for court
| proceedings, etc. Western and neighbor countries fully
| support this view, to the point where, if Palestinians import
| or export goods into their own territories without Israel's
| authorisation, this is called "smuggling".
|
| Yet at the same time, Israel seems to have no obligation to
| actually consider or represent the _interests_ of the
| Palestinians: They are not allowed to vote in Israeli
| elections; they don 't have any representation in the
| Knesset; laws can be passed that arbitrarily disadvantage
| them without loss of democratic status; Israeli politicians
| openly call the Palestinians "our bitter enemies".
|
| In any situation where any individual person were the legal
| guardian of another person and at the same time called them
| "their bitter enemy", we'd be deeply alarmed and suspect an
| abusive relationship. Yet in the case of Israel and the
| Palestinians, that's "how things are supposed to be" and
| everyone who tries to _change_ that status quo is the
| problem.
|
| This feels extremely wrong to me.
|
| (The UN is clearer here: They give Israel the specific legal
| role of "occupation force" and point to various obligations
| towards the occupied population that come with that role.
| However, the western countries somehow both deny that any
| occupation even takes place _and_ demand that Israel must
| continue to have full control over the territories - which is
| contradictory in itself)
| ignoramous wrote:
| > _Israeli politicians openly call the Palestinians "our
| bitter enemies" ... This feels extremely wrong to me_
|
| Wait till you find how in response to _white nationalist_
| attacks, the US political elite instead end up making laws
| to ban Palestinian groups.
|
| An issue involving 14m peoples shouldn't be this
| international and should have never shaped the West's
| domestic policy (let alone foreign policy) as much as it
| has.
|
| https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/instruments-of-
| dehuman... / https://archive.ph/BWrzw
| YZF wrote:
| > Israeli politicians openly call the Palestinians "our
| bitter enemies".
|
| I don't think this is really true or at the very least it's
| nuanced. There are some extreme right politicians that say
| very questionable things but Palestinians (including
| Israeli Arabs, Palestinians in the west bank, and
| Palestinians in Gaza) are not generally, as a whole,
| thought of as bitter enemies. The Hamas maybe. People on
| both sides generally get along in many situations (e.g.
| Palestinians that are Israeli citizens, Palestinians
| working in Israel, Israelis shopping in the West Bank, even
| most settlers in the West Bank with their Palestinian
| neighbours).
| tsimionescu wrote:
| One of those "far right wing" politicians happens to be
| the President of the country, who has repeatedly claimed
| that "[Gazans are] an entire nation out there that is
| responsible... This rhetoric about civilians not aware,
| not involved [in the October 7 onslaught] -- it's
| absolutely not true." [0]
|
| Even in his denial that these claims are basically
| holding all (or at least most) of the people of Gaza
| responsible for October 7th, he has actually reiterated
| the same claim:
|
| "But the reality cannot be ignored, a reality which we
| all saw with our own eyes as published by Hamas on that
| cursed day, and that was the involvement of many
| residents of Gaza in the slaughter, in the looting, and
| in the riots of October 7. How the crowds in Gaza cheered
| at the sight of Israelis being slaughtered and their
| bodies mutilated. At the sight of hostages -- God knows
| what they did to them -- wounded and bleeding being
| dragged through the streets. In view of such terrible
| crimes, it is appropriate that the honorable court
| investigate them in depth, and not casually in passing."
|
| He then goes on to say that despite this, they are of
| course not targeting civilians. But it's hard to see any
| way to interpret both of these statements other than as
| claims that the people of Gaza, collectively, deeply hate
| Israelis.
|
| And other figures of power (members of the Knesset
| certainly, even some minsters I believe) have said much
| more explicit, and more heinous, things. I can search for
| quotes if you haven't seen them.
|
| Quotes taken from
|
| [0] https://www.timesofisrael.com/a-blood-libel-herzog-
| says-icj-...
| YZF wrote:
| But your quotes do not support your statement. They do
| not refer to Israeli Arabs which are also Palestinians or
| to Palestinians in the west bank.
|
| Your statement is incorrect but you're doubling down on
| it.
|
| I think the sentiment of Gazans towards Israelis is a
| topic we can look at via surveys if you want to go that
| way.
|
| It's also a matter of fact that some Gazan civilians were
| aware and did indeed participate in the Oct 7th attack.
| The first wave was combatants but random people followed
| that pillaging, killing, taking hostages. The statement
| about cheering in Gaza at slaughtered Israelis is also
| true. Neither of those truths support the idea that in
| general Israelis view all Gazans or all Palestinians
| (your original claim) as "bitter enemies". I can find you
| many quotes of Israelis saying their war is not against
| all Gazans. Those opinions outnumbers by 2 orders of
| magnitude. You can't just cherry pick, you need to look
| at the entire picture. Even Netanyahu clatified many
| times that Israel's war is not on Gaza's civilians
| (despite the truth of some of them participating in Oct
| 7th).
| tsimionescu wrote:
| I said nothing about Israeli Arabs or even Palestinians
| in general (though I'm sure I can find statements about
| Palestinians in general).
|
| But these are clearly statements about Gazans in general,
| not some specific subset of Gazans. Mr Herzog is clearly
| saying, or at the very least heavily implying, that
| _Gazans_ in general are bitter enemies of Israel. Not
| every single Gazan, but Gazans in general. He could have
| said "there was some small group of Gazans that [...]".
| He could have said "There are some X thousand Gazans that
| [...]". But he didn't: he chose to say "Gazan civilians",
| without any other discriminant.
| YZF wrote:
| Yes you did:
|
| > "Israeli politicians openly call the Palestinians "our
| bitter enemies"."
|
| As I said the bulk of statements from Israeli military,
| politicians, and government, in Hebrew and in English say
| that the war in Gaza is not against civilians but against
| Hamas. If you insist on cherry picking some statements
| and building your story on those then I would
| respectfully ask that you reconsider.
|
| I would also urge you look at surveys and see what Gazans
| think about Israelis instead of obsessing with the (IMO
| not true) idea that Israelis consider Gazans their bitter
| enemy. Find me surveys before Oct 7th that show that
| Israelis had more negative opinions about Gazans than
| Gazans held about Israelis overall and I'm open to
| changing my position. I also urge you to see footage of
| Oct 7th and ask yourself a question about the mindset
| towards Israelis leading to these actions.
| hedora wrote:
| The actions of these politicians are more important than
| their words.
|
| According to Amnesty International (which has a separate
| report detailing Palestinian war crimes), the politicians
| you are defending directly authorized the killing of
| 10,000's of children, the maiming of 10,000's more,
| torture of civilians (often to death, and including
| residents of Israel), created a famine that lead to a 93%
| starvation rate last winter, and also committed
| systematic violations of LGBTI's rights in Israel.
|
| There are many, many more war crimes enumerated in the
| report, and it also documents the connection to top
| Israeli officials.
|
| The above is indefensible, as are the actions of Hamas.
|
| https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-east-and-
| north-af...
| YZF wrote:
| The UN has revised its estimate of the number of children
| killed to 7,797 admitting the "fog of war" makes it hard
| to know how many were killed. The definition of "child"
| is anyone under 18yo which can include combatants.
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-69014893
|
| The UN numbers come from Hamas, there is no independent
| verification of those numbers and Hamas is a side to the
| conflict.
|
| Either way, your statement about "authorizing the killing
| of 10's of thousands of children" is false.
|
| I'm not sure what systemic violation of LGBT right you're
| referring to. The LGBTQ+ community in Israel has no
| issues unlike anywhere else in the middle east (for
| example). Israel ranks above most countries in the world
| in LGBT legal rights and friendliness:
| https://www.equaldex.com/equality-index
|
| I don't know what 93% starvation rate you're talking
| about. This is just an outright lie. Also straight from
| Hamas. This lie has been repeated endlessly since the war
| started but somehow the markets are still full of food.
| People (e.g. Hamas) are also stealing aid and re-selling
| it.
|
| Everything happening in Gaza is a result of war. Yes,
| Israeli went to war after Oct 7th, which Israel's
| government has authorized. The goal of the war is to
| destroy Hamas something that is within Israel's
| legitimate right to self defense. These outcomes you're
| describing including civilian casualties, hunger, etc.
| are not just a function of Israel's decision, they're
| also a function of Hamas' decision to hold onto its
| hostages and continue fighting. The reason for the war is
| Hamas attacking Israel. Hamas, the government of Gaza, is
| responsible for the condition of the people it governs.
| haberman wrote:
| Everything you say is true. The only reason Western nations
| tolerate it, in my view, is because they have witnessed the
| alternative.
|
| To continue your analogy, Israel tried to "graduate" Gaza
| to adulthood in 2005. The army removed all Jewish settlers
| and settlements, and all military presence, and left the
| Gazans to form their own government. Gaza held elections
| that were judged to be free and fair by international
| observers.
|
| Unfortunately, Gazans elected a Hamas, a recognized
| terrorist organization dedicated to the destruction of
| Israel. Don't get me wrong, I can understand if
| Palestinians feel sore about the creation of Israel on some
| of the land that they desired for an undivided Palestinian
| state. But 10 million people live there now, including
| generations of Jews who have no other home, many of whom
| were expelled from other Arab countries when Israel was
| founded. A settlement between Israel and Palestinians will
| require compromise, but Hamas is not interested in
| compromise. Hamas dedicates every available resource
| towards an absolutist goal of destroying Israel.
|
| Moreover, Hamas does not see itself as having any
| responsibility towards the people of Gaza. It builds
| tunnels to protect its fighters, but considers it the UN's
| responsibility (through UNRWA) to protect its civilians. In
| this sense it operates differently from almost any
| government in the world, in that it is not actually trying
| to build a society and govern it. In the eyes of Hamas
| Palestinians are in a war that has been going since 1948,
| and this war will continue until Israel is destroyed. It
| considers all of its people refugees and wards of the UN
| until Israel is destroyed.
|
| I have plenty of criticism for Israel, primarily that it
| builds settlements in the West Bank, sabotaging prospects
| for a future Palestinian state. But it's hard for me to
| fault Israel for acting as the legal guardians of the
| Palestinians when I witness the Palestinian's disinterest
| in actually building a state that could coexist with
| Israel, not to mention the means by which they enact their
| resistance.
| 1shooner wrote:
| >But it's hard for me to fault Israel for acting as the
| legal guardians of the Palestinians when I witness the
| Palestinian's disinterest in actually building a state
| that could coexist with Israel, not to mention the means
| by which they enact their resistance.
|
| I suspect this is an aspect of the collapse of support
| for Israel in the US along demographic lines. For many of
| young Americans' adult lives, Israel's 'guardianship' has
| been somewhere between anti-democratic and outright
| oppressive, and certainly not a context in which a people
| could be expected to 'build a state' for themselves.
| haberman wrote:
| Why can they build a war machine (tunnels, rockets, etc)
| but not a civil society?
|
| I really am curious what young Americans expect Israel to
| do.
| theoldlove wrote:
| I think young Americans have learned all their lives that
| ethnostates are bad, especially those based on religion.
| I think they (we) want a one state solution where
| Palestinians are full Israeli citizens who can move,
| work, and vote freely.
| haberman wrote:
| I don't think Hamas wants to be citizens of Israel, the
| western-style democracy. Its charter (even the softened
| 2017 version) unambiguously rejects recognition of
| Israel: "There shall be no recognition of the legitimacy
| of the Zionist entity."
|
| Hamas wants an Arab Islamic state to rule Palestine from
| the river to the sea. It doesn't want equal rights and
| seats in the Knesset, it wants Arab Muslims to govern the
| land under Islamic law. This is all spelled out
| explicitly in their charter.
| edanm wrote:
| This is by far the worst way to think about this
| conflict. It comes from a good place, but it's advocating
| for something that is:
|
| 1. Not even remotely likely to happen.
|
| 2. Not what almost any of the parties on the ground
| _want_ to happen.
|
| 3. If implemented, would almost certainly lead to
| atrocities.
|
| 4. The opposite of what most people who have studied this
| issue think is a good option.
|
| It is the essence of not being really engaged with the
| problem, and trying to fit it into a mold that doesn't
| make any sense, and therefore coming up with solutions
| that will leave everyone worse off.
|
| I highly suggest that if you want to better the lives of
| people in the region, especially the Palestinians (since
| they're currently the worst off), you advocate for some
| form of 2-state solution, just like almost every other
| peace advocate in the region.
|
| (I'm happy to elaborate on any of the points above, if
| you'd like.)
| downWidOutaFite wrote:
| The biggest mistake in the last 20 years was when Hamas
| took power and Netanyahu took an immediate hardline,
| imposing a crushing blockade, full demonization
| propaganda, "mowing the lawn" policy, and refused to even
| try to work with Hamas from day one. But Netanyahu has
| never wanted peace.
| naasking wrote:
| > Yet at the same time, Israel seems to have no obligation
| to actually consider or represent the interests of the
| Palestinians: They are not allowed to vote in Israeli
| elections; they don't have any representation in the
| Knesset...
|
| Doesn't the US have a bunch of territories that don't have
| representation? Like Puerto Rico. It seems like this sort
| of arrangement is not alien even to Western politicians,
| although the treatment of people certainly differs.
| YZF wrote:
| It's more complicated than that. Israel did not administer
| Gaza nor does it administer PA controlled territories in the
| West Bank.
|
| Last I checked the question of democracy didn't expand to
| occupied territories. When the US occupied Afghanistan or
| Iraq (or German or Japan) those countries did not get a vote
| in the US elections. Puerto Rico also don't get a vote in the
| US?
|
| Handing over the west bank to Palestinians isn't an option
| because: a) the world would not recognize that as the end of
| Israel's occupation just like it didn't accept Israel's
| handing Gaza over as the end of the occupation. b) That area
| would be taken over by Hamas just like Gaza was taken over
| and would be staging ground for launching attacks into Israel
| just like Oct 7th or the rocket barrages that came from Gaza
| over the years since Israel's withdrawal. The West Bank has a
| significantly longer border with Israel which would put most
| major Israeli cities minutes of driving and within
| rocket/mortar range. c) The option of annexing the West Bank
| and Gaza and making everyone citizens is also not acceptable
| to either the Palestinians or the international community.
|
| This really answers your unasked question of why is this area
| under military occupation for so long (IIRC Germany and Japan
| were also controlled for a pretty long time but anyways).
| Initially Israel needed the area so Arab armies aren't
| sitting 10 minutes from its population centers (when the
| entire Arab world was still at war with Israel). Now that
| there's peace with Jordan and Egypt it's more of a
| Palestinians aren't willing to make peace in exchange for
| this land, they don't want to become Israelis, and there's no
| realistic option that ensures both the safety of Israelis and
| their rights and the rights of Palestinians.
|
| After all this you might be right to complain about e.g.
| settlements in the west bank. And there I'd finally agree
| with you. Israel should not allow Israelis to live in the
| west bank before it's final status is determined. That said,
| it wouldn't really make the problem that easier to solve, if
| anything it is taking us closer to a day where that area is
| annexed and Palestinians do become Israeli citizens.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| Israel has had complete control over Gaza's borders, even
| the Egyptian border side. And that's since the 1980s,
| before Hamas even was a thing. That means that Israel
| either was blockading or "administrated" the border if we
| want to sugarcoat it. I'm not sure about you but that sure
| sounds like either an act of war, or occupation.
|
| Also, settlers in the west bank aren't just a "that sucks"
| type of thing. It shows exactly the intentions of Israel
| once any territory is pacified. Which is exactly what
| happened to the west bank since they stopped fighting back.
| YZF wrote:
| Israel had no control of the Egyptian border to Gaza
| since it withdrew in 2005. That is a fact.
|
| You got the settler vs. Palestinian violence in exactly
| the wrong order. Before the first Intifadah there were
| hardly any settlers in the west bank. The settlement
| movement is a response to Palestinian violence, not
| something that happened because the violence stopped.
| Palestinian violence against Israelis and Jews predates
| 1967 (when the west bank was occupied from Jordan) and
| predates 1948 (When the state of Israel was created).
| 8note wrote:
| Alternatively, the settler movement has its own start,
| unrelated to violence, and will continue whether there's
| violence or peace.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| Yes and Israeli violence against Palestinians also dates
| from 1948. In fact the Israelis killed much more
| Palestinians than the reverse.
|
| Also I don't get your point. So they started settling
| because of the intifada? That doesn't make sense, and
| I've never seen settlers claim that it was related to
| anything expect that they see it as their god given land
| regardless of what happens to those who live there
| already.
|
| I mean it's pretty simple, when the Fath ceased armed
| combat, the settlers came and Israel did nothing expect
| provide IDF protection to them. That's what the
| Palestinians got for trying to actually normalize the
| situation and create the PA and even fight their own
| little civil war against extremists (Fath vs Hamas):
| unrelenting settlement.
|
| I'm sure the settlers wouldn't be so brazen if Hamas was
| also on the west bank. Funnily enough though, Israel
| ministers were also openly discussing allowing
| settlements again in last year in Gaza.
|
| Still, it's very weird to see settlement as a "oh well
| that sucks but what can we do" when Israel could stop it
| any moment they want like they did in 2005. Oddly enough,
| only Israel gets to have literal conquest and blatant
| disregard for international law and even their allies
| marked as an oopsie.
| YZF wrote:
| The Israeli right wing is supports (to some extent)
| settlement in the west bank and the rise of the Israeli
| right is related to Palestinian violence. That's the
| correlation/connection. Israel's left wing, that used to
| support a two state solution and peace, has ceased to
| exist as a direct result of Palestinian terrorism.
|
| You story doesn't jive with the facts. The period between
| 1967 and the mid eighties was the least violent period in
| the west bank. Palestinians worked in Israel. Israelies
| shopped in the west bank. That period also had virtually
| no settlement activity in the west bank.
|
| The extreme right in Israel sees settlement as the
| "proper" answer to Palestinian violence. That's another
| thread connecting these things. But the government that
| enables this was literally brought into power by Hamas.
|
| When did Fatah cease armed combat exactly according to
| you? Are you talking about the Oslo agreements and the
| return of Arafat to Ramallah? I'm not following you (and
| I used to live in Israel during those times so I'm not
| making stuff up).
|
| Hamas _is_ also in the west bank so your other statement
| doesn 't compute either.
|
| Israel has dismantled settlements in Sinai, and in Gaza,
| as part of an agreement. During the Oslo process there
| was support in Israel to dismantle those as part of a
| peace agreement. The Palestinians didn't want peace
| (Arafat thought he'd be murdered if he makes peace with
| the Israelis and anyways Hamas and the PIJ wouldn't abide
| which makes the whole thing moot).
| mardifoufs wrote:
| Hamas is in the west bank? I'm sure they have a few
| militants but they literally are hunted down and killed
| by the Fatah. Also, I really wonder what happened in the
| 1980s that lead to more violence. Could it be that the
| IDF enabled and even caused the massacre of 3000
| Palestinians in Lebanon?
|
| I'm not sure I'm following though. You are saying that
| Palestinian terrorism caused the right wing to come in
| power and disregard international law. Sure, okay. I hope
| you realize that in the 1980s, most of said terrorism was
| happening in areas that Israel was _already_ occupying.
| Also, again, you seem to imply that Israel 's left wing
| actually gave the Palestinians more than apartheid and at
| best, a ghetto to live in semi undisturbed. That has
| never happened. Again, the poster child for that was
| 2005. What the Palestinians got was a a completely choked
| out, blockaded strip of land.
|
| Like were the Palestinians supposed to be grateful and
| just accept that they will have to live in a state of
| semi servitude and protectorate because at least it
| wasn't the right wing in power? That's just completely
| irrelevant from the Palestinians pov. Again, who cares
| about the political climate of Israel as if it's some
| sort of actual excuse for settling and stealing land at
| gun point? Again, there's an incredible double standard
| here.
|
| Palestinian motives and goals and politics don't matter,
| but Israel is always justified because it could've done
| worse. I mean sure? It reminds of Russian propaganda for
| the war: they have really tried to stay peaceful but NATO
| _FORCED_ them to invade and steal land. It could 've been
| worse though! They could've used nukes.
|
| Yes, Israel wasn't doing settlement back then. But that's
| the point now isn't it? Back then, they already occupied
| the west bank. And the extremism and fascist inspired
| ideology of settlers didn't emerge yet. On both sides,
| extremism was less prominent. But again, the double
| standard is to excuse the Israeli settlers and their
| batshit insane ideology.
| Georgelemental wrote:
| > Before the first Intifadah there were hardly any
| settlers in the west bank. The settlement movement is a
| response to Palestinian violence, not something that
| happened because the violence stopped.
|
| Even if this is true, all it demonstrates is that Israel
| is willing to take any measure necessary to avoid giving
| Palestinians in the West Bank full legal and political
| rights. Mere military occupation was met with violence,
| so instead of taking it as a sign that they weren't
| welcome and letting the population govern itself, they
| resorted to civilian settlement on top of that to
| solidify their hold.
| YZF wrote:
| Israel offered them full rights multiple times. During
| the Oslo peace process
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo_Accords and later in
| the Camp David:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Camp_David_Summit
|
| Many (IMO most) Palestinians don't want to govern
| themselves. They want Israel erased. Israel tried "govern
| themselves" in Gaza.
|
| There is nobody representing Palestinians that will
| accept resolving the conflict in return to control over
| the west bank and Gaza. This is true in multiple ways,
| firstly the Palestinians are fractured and have no one
| representative. None of the different factions would
| accept this either. Find me one Palestinian leader that
| says that.
|
| It's super naive (sorry) to think that this conflict
| would be over as soon as Israel withdrew from the West
| Bank and Gaza. Ariel Sharon wanted to withdraw from the
| West Bank if the withdrawal from Gaza proved successful.
| Most Israelis do not sympathize with the settlers (at
| least that's the way it used to be, public opinion
| shifted a lot with all the violence). What would happen
| is that Hamas would take over, just like it did in Gaza.
| The PA is relies on Israel's support right now which
| prevents that from happening. Then all of Israel would be
| bombarded with rockets, mortars, etc.
|
| The Palestinians demand the right of return, that is any
| refugee from the war of 1948 and all their descendants
| should be allowed to return to Israel. This is a non-
| starter for Israel and something without precedent in any
| other war in history. What this means in practice is the
| destruction of Israel by killing or expelling all
| Israelis. The other point of contention is Jerusalem.
| Israeli maintains freedom of religion and access to all
| religions. When Jerusalem was under Jordanian control
| Jordan did not. It's unlikely that Jerusalem under Hamas
| control would maintain free access. Jersualem is the
| holiest city for Jews.
| Georgelemental wrote:
| > Israel offered them full rights multiple times. During
| the Oslo peace process
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo_Accords and later in
| the Camp David:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Camp_David_Summit
|
| Oslo (which never included a firm promise of a
| Palestinian state in the first place, or even an end to
| the settlements) was sabotaged by the extremist fringe on
| both sides. If there is ever to be peace, those fringes
| can't be allowed to have a veto over the process. As for
| Camp David: https://www.democracynow.org/2006/2/14/fmr_is
| raeli_foreign_m...
|
| > Israel tried "govern themselves" in Gaza.
|
| To be specific, Israel tried "govern themselves, but also
| help fund and bolster Hamas terrorists. And blockade Gaza
| by land, air, and sea (including bombing out their
| airport) so their economy has no possibility of ever
| growing. And shoot to kill civilians in wheelchairs if
| they dare protest this state of affairs." _That 's_ what
| the situation in Gaza has been for the past two decades.
| Any nation-- _any nation_ --subjected to such treatment
| for such a span of time would consider it casus belli.
|
| > the Palestinians are fractured and have no one
| representative.
|
| Yes, and that's because Netanyahu and co worked
| tirelessly for years to fracture them, so that they would
| be able to make this argument.
| https://original.antiwar.com/scott/2023/10/27/netanyahus-
| sup...
|
| Barghouti perhaps could be a unifying figure if released,
| though maybe that wouldn't be a good thing... In any
| case, lack of unity between Gaza and the West Bank is no
| excuse to block work towards peace and ending the
| occupation in either locale. Israel could make separate
| deals with both factions.
|
| > The Palestinians demand the right of return
|
| They demand that RoR be _acknowledged_. In practice,
| their negotiators have admitted on several occasions that
| all of them returning would be impracticable. Instead,
| Israel could let only a small percentage in, and
| financially compensate the rest as restitution.
|
| > Israeli maintains freedom of religion
|
| Eh, they are trying to destroy the Armenian Christian
| quarter. But mostly true
| jdietrich wrote:
| Egypt is a sovereign nation with control over their
| borders. It is entirely within their power to facilitate
| as many border crossings as they see fit. The Egyptian
| side of the Rafah crossing is staffed by the Egyptian
| Border Guard Corps. The Philadephi Corridor is
| demilitarized as per the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty
| and is controlled by the Egyptian Border Guard Corps.
| Egypt has chosen to cooperate with Israel on the security
| arrangements at the border, largely because the Egyptian
| government regards Israel as an ally and Hamas as a
| hostile power.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| This is either not true or misleading. Palestinians can't
| move without Israeli consent. It doesn't matter that what
| the egyptians have chosen voluntarily (they haven't),
| when every other path in and out of Gaza is controlled by
| Israel and subject to force and threat of death. For any
| other territory or nation that would be considered a
| threat of war.
|
| >Under the Agreed Principles for Rafah Crossing, part of
| the Agreement on Movement and Access (AMA) of 15 November
| 2005, EUBAM was responsible for monitoring the Border
| Crossing. The agreement ensured Israel authority to
| dispute entrance by any person.[14]
|
| This was in 2005, before Hamas. Now if you can't get to
| Gaza from the sea, because of Israel. Or from Egypt,
| because of Israel. Or from Israel itself...
|
| Again, any territory or nation would consider something
| like this as an act of war, or if we don't see them as
| nation then apartheid. But no, the Gaza strip was
| completely free otherwise I guess?
| YZF wrote:
| Well, Hamas and Israel are at war, and have been at war
| since Hamas came to power, so not sure why "act of war"
| matters here. Firing rockets at Israel surely is an act
| of war.
|
| If Israel has such good control over the Egypt-Gaza
| border how do Hamas fighters get to train in Iran?
|
| https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/hamas-fighters-
| trained...
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-
| security/2023/10/09/...
|
| How did they get all the rocket manufacturing technology?
| Weapons?
|
| This: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafah_Border_Crossing
| says: "It is located on the Egypt-Palestine border. Under
| a 2007 agreement between Egypt and Israel, Egypt controls
| the crossing but imports through the Rafah crossing
| require Israeli approval."
|
| There is no mention of controlling movement of people.
| Anyways, this is something Egypt agreed to and it's
| sovereign and free to agree to anything it wants to. What
| do you mean "Egypt has no chosen voluntarily"?
|
| Do you have a reference to your claim that Palestinians
| can't move without Israel consent?
|
| You're mentioning EUBAM but EUBAM hasn't been there since
| 2007: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Border
| _Assistan...
| mardifoufs wrote:
| This was before Hamas took power. That's why I said 2005.
|
| And yes, so between 2005 and 2007 Israel already had
| control over the border. That's before Hamas. Once Hamas
| got into power, Israel restricted the border policy even
| more, but Egypt just basically closed theirs.
|
| I mean I'm not sure what's the debate here. Even Israel
| is very clear that they issue visas for entry to Gaza.
| That sure sounds like administering a border to me. In
| the west bank, they completely control every border
| point. In Gaza, it's de facto the same thing as Egypt
| doesn't open theirs for most of the year as they consider
| Israel the administrative authority that deals with Gaza
| borders. Which is something Israel acknowledges. Does
| your country emit visas for territories it doesn't
| administer?
|
| https://www.gov.il/en/service/entry-to-gaza
|
| https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2016-03-10/ty-
| article/.p... https://www.btselem.org/freedom_of_movement
| /20170515_thousan...
|
| Edit: as for Egyptian control of the border, here's a
| source that explains how it's in many ways nominal only,
| with a tacit agreement between Israel and Egypt about
| dual use materials.
|
| https://features.gisha.org/red-lines-gray-lists/
|
| Which I guess can make sense considering Hamas. But then
| one has to remember that this has been the case before
| Hamas took power too. So that catch all excuse doesn't
| hold water.
| jdietrich wrote:
| Gaza was under Israeli control until 2005. The Agreement
| on Movement and Access was made between Israel and the
| Palestinian Authority as part of Israel's unilateral
| withdrawal from Gaza. That agreement collapsed in 2006
| when Hamas took power. The PA had fled Gaza and were no
| longer able to uphold their side of the agreement; Hamas
| did not recognise the agreement and were unwilling to
| negotiate with the PA, Egypt or Israel on border security
| arrangements.
| legulere wrote:
| Egypt lost the six-day war and had to sign the Camp David
| accords and peace treaty to regain the Sinai peninsula.
| In return it gave up upon part of its sovereignty needing
| consent of Israel on topics like arming of the border
| guard or wares that are allowed the crossing.
| etc-hosts wrote:
| > if anything it is taking us closer to a day where that
| area is annexed and Palestinians do become Israeli citizens
|
| I doubt the current state of Israel would ever make the
| Palestinians full Israeli citizens, because then Israel
| would no longer be majority Jewish. Being known as the
| Jewish homeland is very important to Israel.
| YZF wrote:
| They would. Even with the current numbers Israel still
| maintains Jewish majority and also the proponents of this
| annexation also say it'll come hand in hand with a "de-
| radicalization" program. There are other tools Israel can
| leverage (e.g. a constitution) to ensure Israel remains
| the Jewish homeland while making Palestinians full
| citizens. These don't have to contradict. Either way the
| Palestinians have no interest in being equal citizens in
| the country of Israel so it's more or less a moot point,
| for now.
| legulere wrote:
| Previous negotiations like the 2000 Camp David Summit
| have failed because (among other points) the right of
| return:
|
| > Almost all Israeli Jews oppose a literal right of
| return for Palestinian refugees on the grounds that
| allowing such an influx of Palestinians would render Jews
| a minority in Israel, thus transforming Israel into an
| Arab-Muslim state. In addition to the right-wing and
| center, a majority of the Israeli left, including the
| far-left, opposes the right of return on these grounds.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_right_of_return
| YZF wrote:
| That is correct. My scenario of annexation does not
| include the right of return. Israel is never going to
| allow that.
| Georgelemental wrote:
| > then Israel would no longer be majority Jewish
|
| It still would, as long as the Gaza strip is not also
| included (West Bank only).
| eynsham wrote:
| Juxtaposition and equation are different. The press release
| makes very clear which charges apply to which parties--the
| charges against the Hamasnikim are quite different from those
| against Israeli leaders. It also makes clear that the principle
| of subsidiarity of course applies.
|
| If you think the prima facie case against Bibi and Gallant is
| convincing, the Israeli AG is quite plausibly doing so little
| that subsidiarity is no longer engaged. If you think it is
| unconvincing, as you say, the problem is not some
| inappropriately symmetric ignoring of subsidiarity but that the
| charges themselves are unconvincing.
|
| A final point is that the Rome Statute does not prohibit merely
| 'orders of directly targeting civilians', and so other
| potential crimes must be considered. These include 'cruel
| treatment as a war crime contrary to article 8(2)(c)(i);
| [e]xtermination and/or murder contrary to articles 7(1)(b) and
| 7(1)(a), including in the context of deaths caused by
| starvation, as a crime against humanity; [and o]ther inhumane
| acts as crimes against humanity contrary to article 7(1)(k)'.
| Of course, you may think that Khan has jumped the gun on each
| of these in that each of these charges is also implausible, but
| that is a stronger position than doubting that there were
| orders to directly target civilians.
|
| (edit: I should add that Khan [I imagine] and I would say that
| while subsidiarity may not preclude proceedings against Israeli
| officials because of Israeli inaction, Hamasnikim are not
| subject to anything that remotely resembles a judicial system
| worth the name, so there is nothing comparable to even fail to
| act.)
| jupp0r wrote:
| I realize that the charges are different and clearly
| attributed to each party they are brought against. The optics
| of this will still practically lead to people equating both
| parties and the charges. An alternative (ie seeking both
| warrants separated by time (ie a week) and space (different
| press releases)) would have been better.
|
| Again I'm all for investigating whether war crimes have been
| committed by Israel. It's going to be a nuanced argument in
| any case to prove so that will probably involve how many
| civilian casualties are acceptable to achieve legitimate
| military aims.
|
| The contrast must be pointed out by all who want nations and
| non state actors to be accountable for their actions.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| The crux of the matter is not the casualties inflicted by
| Israel, not directly. If it were just numbers of
| casualties, then Hamas's horrific attack wouldn't even
| register at this point (2000 victims compared to 35000).
| Even if it were about percebtages, Hamas's brutal attack on
| October 7th wouldn't be far from Israel's operation (about
| 25-35% of the victims of Hamas's attack were IDF personnel,
| if I recall the numbers correctly; IDF is not giving any
| numbers about their Hamas VS civilian calculations, but
| comparing their published numbers of killed militants with
| the available casualty numbers suggests at best a 50% rate,
| though likely much worse).
|
| Instead, the case is mostly about intent, and that can be
| gaged from public declarations and actions outside of mere
| combat. The case against Hamas is clear, they attacked in
| secret, with quite likely no military targets at all, and
| with a clear history of anti-civilian sentiments and
| declarations.
|
| The case against Israel is also relatively simple from this
| point of view: numerous Israeli leaders, from the president
| to ministers to members of the Knesset have given public
| declarations about the collective guilt of Gaza's civilian
| population, and their actions in preventing aid from
| entering Gaza, attacking refugees, attacking journalists
| and international aid workers have been thoroughly
| documented.
| eynsham wrote:
| If people are stupid enough to misread the current press
| release, they are stupid enough to misread two press
| releases separated by a week as if they were one press
| release.
| mkoubaa wrote:
| The better comparison is between Hamas and the current Israeli
| executive branch, not the state of Israel per se. Even so, I
| see no equating the two. The ICC is implicating both parties
| with war crimes, not claiming they are equal
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| Is it possible to conduct a lawful urban war?
|
| I might not want to ever be on either side of such a war, but
| that seems to be the biggest, intellectually honest hole in
| the ICC's warrants.
|
| After all they are supposed to be an alternative to the
| justice system of violence.
| istjohn wrote:
| The US fought in urban settings in Iraq without putting
| civilian populations under siege and starvation. By all
| appearances, Israel isn't even trying to conduct a lawful
| urban war.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| Is it possible to win an urban war lawfully?
|
| Iraq is kind of a terrible example.
|
| Over a hundred thousand civilians died in Iraq. Maybe
| most of them died in urban combat settings.
|
| Isn't the "Battle of Fallujah" a whitewash of the Siege
| of Fallujah?
| (https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2012/1/4/seven-years-
| afte...)
|
| "Early Target of Offensive Is a Hospital" (https://www.ny
| times.com/2004/11/08/world/middleeast/early-ta...)
|
| "US Admits Using White Phosphorus in Fallujah"
| (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/nov/16/iraq.usa)
|
| This isn't whataboutism. War is horrible.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Is it possible to conduct a lawful urban war?
|
| Yes.
|
| > that seems to be the biggest, intellectually honest hole
| in the ICC's warrants.
|
| No warrants have been issued nor have the specifics of any
| of the charges sought, beyond the names of the crimes, been
| made public. No oene can talk about what the holes in the
| charges that might ne issued in the future are, only of
| strawman charges that they have invented to argue against.
| neilv wrote:
| I assumed the ICC named the two opposed leaders in the same
| press release because the ICC had concerns about both, and it
| is a politically charged situation.
|
| (If they had named only one leader in that press release,
| perhaps quietly expecting to name the other later, I would
| think that would appear to be a judgment of the multiple
| obvious potential concerns, and a taking of sides.)
| threeseed wrote:
| > why doesn't the ICC look into Egypt's conduct of refusing to
| allow civilians to flee
|
| Because Egypt believes this would amount to supporting ethnic
| cleansing:
|
| https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2024/02/27/why-e...
|
| And given that many on the far-right in the Israel government
| want Palestinians out of Gaza it's a reasonable position.
| itronitron wrote:
| Has anyone asked whether the Palestinians in Gaza want out of
| Gaza? That seems like a more important question.
| dathinab wrote:
| they don't, in general
|
| but they also don't want to die, want flowing water, food,
| electricity, medical infrastructure etc.
| lr4444lr wrote:
| Many of them have demonstrable property ownership (or their
| parents/grandparents did) in Israel proper.
| ok123456 wrote:
| They want to return to their homes from before the Nakba.
| They tried to march for this peacefully in 2018 and had
| snipers shoot their kneecaps out.
| Sabinus wrote:
| They tried to walk through a militarized border fence,
| which will get you shot. If they had got to the homes
| they meant to reclaim the 'march' would have been
| anything but peaceful.
| jupp0r wrote:
| Egypt may well believe that (and others have rightfully
| pointed out that not following UN conventions for refugees is
| outside of the jurisdiction of the ICC), but I don't think
| there is a plausible case to be made that refusing to help
| people wanting to flee from armed conflict can be considering
| "supporting ethnic cleansing".
| HL33tibCe7 wrote:
| Nice whataboutism
| chakintosh wrote:
| Except only one of those organizations killed 30 000 civilians
| within 7 months.
| HL33tibCe7 wrote:
| And cut off water supplies and electricity, and killed
| international aid workers, and rained hellfire on hospitals,
| and killed workers from the UN, and wiped out entire
| Palestinian families, and razed Gaza to such an extent that
| it changed the colour of it as seen from space, and plunged
| Gaza into famine in the worst drop in nutritional status in
| recorded history.
| throwitaway222 wrote:
| I suppose if Hamas was the larger one, those 30k would have
| been 30 days, but most likely 5 if given the same resources.
| HL33tibCe7 wrote:
| If my grandmother had wheels, she would have been a bike.
| ThePowerOfFuet wrote:
| Nothing but the truth from Gino. As usual.
| curiousgal wrote:
| Yeah still does not excuse Israel..
| lr4444lr wrote:
| Those are the Gaza ministry of health's numbers for all
| killed, IIRC, not just civilians.
| longitudinal93 wrote:
| And not just all who were killed but everyone who has died
| since Oct. 7
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Hamas only makes up 40,000 of Palestine's 2.3M.
|
| Unless you're trying to claim that Israel has decimated 75%
| of Hamas, and is almost done, let's not try to diminish
| this.
|
| The number has also been largely substantiated by press and
| aid agencies, it's not just Gazan propaganda.
| ddoolin wrote:
| Not to mention that Israel is practically recruiting for
| Hamas since Oct. 7th. I don't know where the 40,000
| number comes from, but if it's from before the war, I
| have to guess that the needle probably hasn't moved much,
| even if the # of Hamas killed are accurate.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| How exactly do you expect a war in a dense urban area, where
| the enemy is not uniformed and is directly embedded in and
| under civilian populations, to transpire?
| genman wrote:
| It is even worse than this - the document calls Israel "a
| territory" and Gaza "a state". I really expected that ICC can
| be less biased even when a Muslim is appointed as a prosecutor
| against Israel.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Why don't you ask Pakistan if he counts as one.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| It's bad optics that the court didn't immediately move after
| 10/7.
|
| A point. The reason a lot of countries want a two state
| solution is because they plan on deporting all their
| Palestinians once that happens.
| xenospn wrote:
| I've never heard that before. Did you just make that up?
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| After the gulf war Kuwait kicked out 300,000 Palestinians
| giving them one month to leave.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_exodus_from_Kuwai
| t...
|
| Lebanon has built walls around Palestinian refugee camps.
|
| https://www.dw.com/en/lebanon-builds-wall-around-
| palestinian...
|
| The moment Arab countries have a place they can deport
| Palestinians they'll do that.
| jjulius wrote:
| >In addition, why doesn't the ICC look into Egypt's conduct of
| refusing to allow civilians to flee from this conflict?
|
| I see phrases like this tossed around in countless political
| debates - "Well, if they're investigating X, why the heck
| aren't they investigating Y!?".
|
| To that, I ask - how are you 100% sure that that's not also
| happening?
| verteu wrote:
| > I'm all for investigating if there were any orders of
| directly targeting civilians being given to the Israeli
| military, etc, but that's a pretty far fetched assumption in my
| opinion
|
| The Panel's report is not based on "far fetched assumptions."
| It names the explicit acts that Israel is known to have
| committed (eg: mass starvation via blockade of food and
| shelter):
|
| "based on a review of material presented by the Prosecutor, the
| Panel assesses that there are reasonable grounds to believe
| that Netanyahu and Gallant formed a common plan, together with
| others, to jointly perpetrate the crime of using starvation of
| civilians as a method of warfare. The Panel has concluded that
| the acts through which this war crime was committed include a
| siege on the Gaza Strip and the closure of border crossings;
| arbitrary restrictions on entry and distribution of essential
| supplies; cutting off supplies of electricity and water, and
| severely restricting food, medicine and fuel supplies. This
| deprivation of objects indispensable to civilians' survival
| took place in the context of attacks on facilities that produce
| food and clean water, attacks against civilians attempting to
| obtain relief supplies and attacks directed against
| humanitarian workers and convoys delivering relief supplies,
| despite the deconfliction and coordination by humanitarian
| agencies with Israel Defence Forces. These acts took place with
| full knowledge of the extent of Gazans' reliance on Israel for
| essential supplies, and the adverse and inevitable consequences
| of such acts in terms of human suffering and deaths for the
| civilian population."
|
| https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/2024-05/240520-p...
| ronjobber wrote:
| Not sure if this is what OP was saying, but evidence of
| orders to directly target civilians would be an open and shut
| case.
|
| The starvation charge could at least in theory fail (e.g.,
| along the lines of intent - although Gallant's words in the
| beginning of the war certainly do not help Israel's case).
| kmeisthax wrote:
| If this was October 2023, sure. I'd agree with you. The problem
| is that, as the war has continued, Israel has engaged in a
| number of actions that, depending on how you spin it, are
| either catastrophic fuck-ups or deliberate attempts to starve
| out Gaza, including _bombing a humanitarian aid convoy_.
|
| Furthermore, there's no way in hell Netanyahu gets his endgame
| (wiping Hamas off the face of the planet) without either
| exterminating all Palestinians in Gaza (which absolutely is a
| war crime, orders or no) or significantly backing down on
| several of the things Israel does to Palestine to make it mad.
| He also has no reason to simply snipe some of the higher-ups,
| patch up the holes in the Iron Dome, and declare victory.
| Netanyahu needs the war to continue so he can continue delaying
| his corruption trial long enough to declare himself above the
| law with a judicial reform.
|
| To be clear, _yes_ , Israel is more western and more liberal
| than Palestine, but that gap is closing faster than I think
| anyone would like to admit.
|
| >In addition, why doesn't the ICC look into Egypt's conduct of
| refusing to allow civilians to flee from this conflict?
|
| Because countries do not recognize migration as a human right.
| If the ICC did this and was consistent about it, they'd have to
| challenge basically every restrictive immigration policy ever.
| I'd personally love that, but given how many countries in the
| EU are making handbrake turns to the right wing _specifically_
| so they never have to take in another refugee ever again[2],
| the EU would rather just invade the Hague like Bush threatened
| to.
|
| Furthermore, (one of) the reason(s) why the 'three state
| solution'[3] never really panned out is because Egypt and
| Jordan don't want to become hosts for further revaunchism.
| Hamas will set up shop in their new home and Israel will just
| invade them - like they did in the Yom Kippur War. For similar
| reasons Israel has never wanted to entertain the 'one state
| solution'[1] that would also have solved this conflict decades
| ago, because they (mostly correctly) think Hamas will never be
| satisfied until Palestine extends from the border to the sea
| and all the Jews have been deported.
|
| [1] Just abolish the Palestine/Israel border and let people
| live and work wherever
|
| [2] Which, to be clear, is also a travesty.
|
| [3] Move Palestinians to Egypt and Jordan and let Israel take
| over the rest of the land
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| > or deliberate attempts to starve out Gaza
|
| The Israeli defense minister went on TV on 9 October 2023 [0]
| and declared that he was going to starve Gaza:
|
| "We are imposing a complete siege on the city of Gaza. There
| will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel,
| everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we
| are acting accordingly."
|
| I assume that this explicit admission of guilt is why he has
| been charged.
|
| 0. https://youtu.be/ZbPdR3E4hCk?si=Gx1Uf_jWeRVUNELr
| xdennis wrote:
| A blockade is completely legal. Israel is not responsible
| for feeding Gaza. Do you think the Allies fed the Nazis?
|
| The Geneva Conventions prohibit attacks on agricultural
| areas, livestock, production of food, etc. Not blockades.
|
| > We are fighting human animals, and we are acting
| accordingly.
|
| He's referring to Hamas and those are the nicest words said
| about them.
| camel_Snake wrote:
| The Geneva Convention specifically has a section
| regarding this[0] - the occupying force is required to
| allow in relief supplies. ICC is accusing Bibi and Gantz
| of specifically using starvation as a tactic, which is a
| war crime.
|
| [0]: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-
| treaties/gciv-1949/art...
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > A blockade is completely legal. Israel is not
| responsible for feeding Gaza. Do you think the Allies fed
| the Nazis?
|
| Okay. Sure. The Israeli navy has blockaded Gazan ports
| since 2007, not since October. It bombed the control
| tower of the airport in 1999 and bulldozed the runways in
| 2002.
|
| And it told Gaza any attempt to build an airport would
| have the same happen to it.
|
| Israel is not responsible for feeding Gaza. But with
| closed land border, and those blockades, it is
| responsible for some of the results.
|
| > He's referring to Hamas and those are the nicest words
| said about them.
|
| Why did Netanyahu give them billions over the last couple
| of decades, these human animals?
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| Whenever people say, "But the Allies did X in WWII," I
| wonder if they realize that a lot of international law
| was established specifically to make things that were
| done in WWII illegal.
| flawn wrote:
| Exactly - totally agree.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > Furthermore, there's no way in hell Netanyahu gets his
| endgame (wiping Hamas off the face of the planet)
|
| Citation needed. When the PLO and Arafat were becoming less
| militant, and more diplomatic, that's when Netanyahu and
| Mossad started sending tens of millions a month to Hamas, to
| keep it as the "public enemy number one". But if Hamas goes
| away, then Netanyahu has to explain why he won't support a
| two party state (because "from the river to the sea" has also
| been Likud's platform and policy).
| Sabinus wrote:
| >that's when Netanyahu and Mossad started sending tens of
| millions a month to Hamas
|
| Wasn't this internationally donated Palestinian aid money?
| komali2 wrote:
| Aid money to Palestine is only "donations to Hamas" when
| it's politically convenient, apparently. I've heard many
| justify the bombing of convoys because the food would
| feed Hamas people.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _The optics of equating a terrorist organization on the one
| hand with a democratic state with functioning judicial system
| and accountability for any crimes committed on the other hand
| by putting them in the same press release is pretty bad for the
| court._
|
| I don't think anyone is actually doing that, though. The leader
| of a terrorist group and the leader of a democratic state can
| both commit war crimes. We need not compare them directly or
| try to say which one of them is worse in order to acknowledge
| that fact. Putting them in the same press release (this isn't a
| press release, though; this is a CNN article) seems fairly
| natural to me, since both are actors in the same conflict,
| regardless of how it started.
|
| > _I 'm all for investigating if there were any orders of
| directly targeting civilians being given to the Israeli
| military, etc, but that's a pretty far fetched assumption in my
| opinion._
|
| You don't need direct orders to target civilians. You merely
| need negligence or a lack of care that causes civilian deaths
| in excess of what is "necessary" (ugh) to achieve the military
| objectives. I personally believe that Israeli forces have been
| indiscriminately killing civilians in Gaza in a way that would
| constitute war crimes, and apparently that just means I'm in
| agreement with the ICC.
|
| > _On the other side you have what 's a pretty clear case of a
| large scale terror attack against innocent civilians._
|
| Again, it is perfectly possible to acknowledge that two
| different parties have committed war crimes, even though
| they've done so in completely different ways, and the
| organizations they represent are completely different.
|
| > _In addition, why doesn 't the ICC look into Egypt's conduct
| of refusing to allow civilians to flee from this conflict?_
|
| Because that's not against international law. Even if it was,
| your question here is just whataboutism.
| lr4444lr wrote:
| You're right, the optics are weird, but sufficient conditions
| that define criminal acts can be multiple and varied.
|
| Egypt's non-involvement may violate some other principle, but
| probably not a "war crime".
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| The arrest warrants are for individuals, some from Hamas and
| some from Likud. Where do you see an arrest warrant for Israel?
|
| I spent a while trying to see what you wrote but am not finding
| it.
| hirako2000 wrote:
| A terrorist organisation is what typically a government stamp
| on that group for using terror to gain political advantages,
| those against it. Such government may use terror tactics which
| it would stamp as national security, preemptive actions,
| necessary interventions, collateral damage. Anything to justify
| what could be qualified as brutal unjust "terrorism".
|
| On that basis all of the targets of the ICC are leaders of
| terrorist organisations. Hamas is considered terrorist
| organisation by certain authorities, you bet the Israeli
| government is considered terrorist by other authorities.
|
| The ICC is meant to act on the evidence of war crimes. The
| definition of war crimes is far more formal than the
| qualification of terrorism. Consider giving a definition of
| terrorism, you will find that any arm belligerent who happen to
| cause civilian casualties can be categorized as such.
|
| Finally, it is also worth noting the french resistance to the
| country's occupation and Nazism was considered led by terrorist
| groups. Those did employ sabotage, kidnapping, bombing, instill
| terrors. The collaborating french authorities and the Wermacht
| put those resistants on their terrorists lists, back then.
|
| The ICC is surely meant to be above the arguments in the lines
| "these terrorists and those aren't", or politically and some
| government's biases as arguments. It would look into the
| evidence and prosecute based on these.
| TMWNN wrote:
| >The optics of equating a terrorist organization on the one
| hand with a democratic state with functioning judicial system
| and accountability for any crimes committed on the other hand
| by putting them in the same press release is pretty bad for the
| court.
|
| It's obvious to all that the warrants for the Hamas leaders
| only exist in order to justify the warrants against Netanyahu
| and co.
| tootie wrote:
| It's an interesting question. Even if you believe Netanyahu is
| guilty he was elected in a functional democracy. His ruling
| coalition is tenuous but legal. But if the ICC is trying to
| prevent atrocities then the size of the constituency behind an
| atrocity is irrelevant. At least to the mission. It does make
| enforcement seem kinda impossible. The best outcome they can
| hope for is shaming the Israeli electorate into doing something
| different.
| 20240519 wrote:
| You are using characterisations there rather than facts. Or
| irrelevant facts, such as how the leader was elected. Think
| about who else in history has been democratically elected.
|
| Courts can only deal in facts otherwise they are ineffective.
|
| Courts that care about "optics" are ineffective. And there are
| no optics here that will please everyone. So just follow law.
| gnulinux996 wrote:
| > The optics of equating a terrorist organization on the one
| hand with a democratic state with functioning judicial system
| and accountability for any crimes committed on the other hand
| by putting them in the same press release is pretty bad for the
| court.
|
| What's pretty bad is attempts to discredit the ICC by those who
| oppose it's decisions.
|
| > I'm all for investigating if there were any orders of
| directly targeting civilians being given to the Israeli
| military, etc, but that's a pretty far fetched assumption in my
| opinion. On the other side you have what's a pretty clear case
| of a large scale terror attack against innocent civilians.
|
| No you are not; Your pro-genocide stance is nauseating.
|
| > In addition, why doesn't the ICC look into Egypt's conduct of
| refusing to allow civilians to flee from this conflict?
|
| Whataboutism and deflection from the issue at hand must not and
| will not be tolerated.
|
| What an unacceptable conduct.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The optics of equating a terrorist organization on the one
| hand with a democratic state with functioning judicial system
| and accountability for any crimes committed on the other hand
| by putting them in the same press release is pretty bad for the
| court.
|
| They aren't being equated by the fact that people associated
| with each are having charges sought. The five individuals
| charged are in the same press release because it is the outcome
| of one investigation of the conflict by the prosecutor's
| office.
|
| > In addition, why doesn't the ICC look into Egypt's conduct of
| refusing to allow civilians to flee from this conflict?
|
| Because, even if that were to constitute a crime within the
| general subject matter jurisdiction of the court, that's not an
| crime that took place on the territory of Palestine or any
| other State Party to the Rome Statute, or by nationals of
| Palestine or any other State Party to the Rome Statute, so the
| ICC, under Article 12 of the Rome Statute, lacks the ability to
| exercise jurisdiction over them.
| ajb wrote:
| This is the statement of the panel of legal advisors to the
| prosecutor: https://www.icc-
| cpi.int/sites/default/files/2024-05/240520-p...
|
| One of them, incidentally, is Judge Theodor Meron CMG, a
| holocaust survivor.
| teyc wrote:
| There were some suggestions in the past that the US's unbridled
| support for Israel is harmful to the long term interests of
| Israel. Over the years I've seen less and less intelligent
| arguments coming from Israeli leadership, particularly in a world
| where smartphones can turn any citizen into a reporter.
|
| Some days it is apparent that the wrath meted upon the
| Palestinians has turned into bloodlust. While I understand the
| grief and anger following such a massacre, there has long been a
| pattern of wilfully misplaced reaction against stone throwing
| kids and targeting of journalists and their families. These
| cannot be attributed to Oct 7.
|
| Now with Israeli funds making its way back to US politics, the
| crazier the politician the better his chances. With time, the
| benevolence of the US will be questioned by their allies and make
| the world a less predictable place.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| >Now with Israeli funds making its way back to US politics, the
| crazier the politician the better his chances. With time, the
| benevolence of the US will be questioned by their allies and
| make the world a less predictable place.
|
| What alternative do these other "partners" have? The Ukraine
| war has exposed how badly atrophied all their military might
| has become and lets be honest, post Ukraine, its clear that is
| the most important thing.
|
| The EU still isn't meeting their minimum NATO commitments
| despite how far behind they are. It would take a massive amount
| of pain that the EU populations would have to bear in order to
| turn this around. I suspect all of a sudden EU population will
| become like the US population caring only about their own short
| term self interests more than what is "morally right". So the
| partnerships with the US will stay until the EU is willing to
| make that painful sacrifice to build out an alternative to the
| US military.
| teyc wrote:
| A war only happens when the chances of winning or losing is
| indeterminate. Ukraine would have achieved a sane political
| outcome without loss of blood and treasure if the Russians
| managed to roll in their tanks and replaced the government
| with a Russian leaning one. This may sound unpalatable it
| would have restored status quo to the pre-western-funded coup
| against the Russian-friendly government that was in place.
|
| Geopolitically, the NATO was heading towards obsolescence as
| Germany and Russian integrated their economies and achieve a
| lasting peace in the region. The US meddling in Ukraine
| weakens Europe and maintains the US status as the global
| hegemon.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| _and maintains the US status as the global hegemon._
|
| The post-1945 globe evidently demands a hegemon. Which
| would you prefer, the US and its allies, or Russia and
| China? Those are your options. "None of the above" is not
| among them.
| teyc wrote:
| I believe that US has been an essential partner for a
| very long time. It demands great leadership but it is
| something sorely lacking over the past couple of decades.
| c-cube wrote:
| You sure seem very eager to taste Putin's boot.
| teyc wrote:
| Apologies for the off topic discussion.
|
| The eastern bloc countries suffered badly under soviet
| rule. When the Ukraine war started, I'm as eager as
| anyone to see that the Russians were dealt a black eye.
|
| In retrospect, given the gas shortages that occurred in
| Europe, and the destruction of the German economy; the
| large number of deaths that occurred on both sides, and
| the war zone being turned into a weapons testing ground,
| I am left wondering who are the real winners and losers?
| dindobre wrote:
| The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact could also be considered an
| integration of German and Russian geo-political interests
| to achieve a lasting peace in the region. Just surrender.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| Is Israel a signatory of the ICC treaty? Does the ICC have
| universal jurisdiction?
| xg15 wrote:
| Israel is not, however Palestine - as a UN observer state - is.
| This was enough for the ICC to declare jurisdiction.
|
| To my knowledge, this is also the grounds on which the US and
| UK dispute jurisdiction: They say, no country in this conflict
| _that they recognise_ is ICC signatory, so the ICC does not
| have jurisdiction.
|
| (Not a lawyer, but this seems a pretty spurious and self-
| referential legal argument to me and in any case the UN
| accepted Palestine as an observer state, so I doubt that it
| would fly.)
| pyuser583 wrote:
| Does Palestine, as recognized by the UN, include the West
| Bank?
|
| Because from what I hear, that "Palestine" doesn't really
| exist.
|
| There's Gaza, and there's the West Bank.
| xg15 wrote:
| See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_recognition
| _of_t... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_status_of_
| the_State_of_P... .
|
| Most countries which recognise Palestine as a state seem to
| recognise it in the 1967 borders, i.e. Gaza + West Bank +
| East Jerusalem.
|
| Not sure about the UN though.
| irishloop wrote:
| From the NYT:
|
| > For now, the announcement is largely symbolic. Israel is not
| a member of the court and does not recognize its jurisdiction
| in Israel or Gaza, meaning that Israeli leaders would face no
| risk of arrest at home.
|
| The US is also not a member
| dathinab wrote:
| international law, courts, treaties etc. don't really work like
| that
|
| Like there is no such thing as a "universal" right, law, lawful
| action or anything. There is just "agreements/policies"
| countries enforce by the power of their
| military/economical/geopolitical might not by jurisdiction,
| through for practical reasons most times there is a _self
| imposed_ jurisdiction of some form.
|
| Through in most cases (i.e. not war, special military
| operation) this "upholding" is limited to their territories.
|
| The jurisdiction the ICC has imposed on themself is, more or
| less, to judge war crimes and genocide by anyone anywhere
| internationally.
|
| In practice this means anyone anywhere as long as the power of
| the ICC member states allow them to do so (in a for the member
| reasonable way).
|
| Practically the only place in which countries can reliable
| enforce such things is in their territory/people. E.g. this
| means they don't enforce it when the person committing the
| crime is an US Citizen because they are not powerful enough to
| force the US to allow them to do so.
|
| What that means in this case is, that assuming a warrant is
| issued, they will be arrested iff they step into member state
| territory. And even then it might depend on the individual
| power of the member state and the context under which they
| stepped into the member state.
|
| Through iff ICC members would be far more powerful and united,
| things could be very different.
|
| E.g. the US imprisoning no US Citizens arrested outside of US
| territory in Guantanamo was a case of "having enough power to
| enforce their rules outside of their territory". (But it's also
| a terrible example given such arrests in general didn't follow
| the procedure you would expect from a state of law (or the ICC)
| and we know today involved more then just one or two innocents.
| Heck if the ICC had the power they would likely have judged
| that to be a war crime and issued an arrest for the people
| responsible for it.)
| tndibona wrote:
| For a quick moment, I thought Netanyahu is wanted by the
| International Cricket Council for ball tampering.
| isametry wrote:
| I, for one, realized quite soon that this is well out of
| International Color Consortium's jurisdiction and capacity
| (however non-compliant the color profile implementations in
| Gaza might be).
| octopoc wrote:
| This is an opportunity for Israel to reverse course. They can
| blame everything on Netanyahu, throw him out of office, stop all
| attacks into Gaza, stop depriving Gaza of food and water, and
| start deliberately working with respected members of the Gaza
| community to help build local businesses. They can make an
| international call to all successful Palestinians around the
| world to bring their business back to Gaza. Make it like when
| Israel was formed--a call to build something good for their
| ethnicity.
|
| Honestly this could be a really great thing for the region. It
| could be an opportunity to shift blame from an entire ethnicity,
| the Jews, onto a single member of that ethnicity, in order to let
| the Jews and Palestinians be at peace with each other.
| yyyk wrote:
| * There isn't blame on an entire ethnicity regardless of the
| outcome of this case. I don't think you want to open that
| pandora box.
|
| * Ironically, Bibi will be _temporarily_ strengthened. No sane
| Israeli leader would want to depose him and risk being seen as
| collaborating with the warrant or risk getting a warrant too
| later on. Over time Bibi will still inevitably be replaced (too
| many reasons for Israelis to hate him), but this may stretch to
| 2025.
|
| * Israel allowed aid since the beginning and especially
| recently. Warrants will help focus the mind here.
|
| * Result of US elections big key here.
| istjohn wrote:
| > The U.N. says at least 500 trucks a day of aid and
| commercial goods need to enter Gaza. In April, an average of
| 189 trucks entered a day - the highest since the war
| started.[0]
|
| 0. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/aid-trucks-
| begin-m...
| yyyk wrote:
| '_and commercial goods_.'
|
| There's no right for 'commercial goods'. The only issue in
| question is food, and trucks with food going in are twice
| the prewar level (the rest was mostly construction goods
| used for we know what exactly - that's not gonna go in).
| gyudin wrote:
| Most interesting part is that Putin on that list for "kidnapping"
| children, while in fact just providing a temporary refuge. While
| Netanyahu bombed and killed like 15,000 children and it's not a
| war crime for some reason, huh.
| ggm wrote:
| Forgive me if I misremember, but I believe the US refused to
| recognise the jurisdiction of the ICC over it's own citizens and
| soldiers, and continues to require that its forces have effective
| indemnification against actions in economies they are invited
| into.
|
| They state that actual crimes will be dealt with by JAG, but I
| think the Okinawan community disputes that they were taken
| seriously when it comes to domestic violence and sexual assault.
| CommanderData wrote:
| About time. Let's hope he's arrested quickly.
| karaterobot wrote:
| > The decision puts Netanyahu in the company of the Russian
| President Vladimir Putin, for whom the ICC issued an arrest
| warrant over Moscow's war on Ukraine
|
| How's that working out? Until proven otherwise, my assumption is
| the outcome will be roughly the same in most of these cases,
| especially for Netanyahu and Sinwar.
| tijtij wrote:
| Putin wanted to visit South Africa for the BRICS summit. South
| Africa warned him that they would be obligated to attempt an
| arrest if he did.
| rq1 wrote:
| The optics of equating a resistance organization on the one hand
| with a colonial and apartheid state with dysfunctional judicial
| system and no accountability for any crimes committed by settlers
| or its military on the other hand by putting them in the same
| press release is pretty bad for the court.
|
| I'm all for investigating if there were any orders of directly
| targeting civilians being given to the Palestinian resistance,
| etc, but that's a pretty far fetched assumption in my opinion.
|
| On the other side you have what's a pretty clear case of a large
| scale terror attack against innocent civilians, indiscriminately
| bombing schools and hospitals.
|
| In addition, why doesn't the ICC look into US and Germany conduct
| of delivering weapons enabling the genocide?
| rq1 wrote:
| For comparison, the French resistance was called a terrorist
| organisation by the Germans, as Algerian FLN was called
| terrorist organisation by the French... etc. History would be
| kind of funny if it wasn't tragic.
|
| And this whole "terrorist" word was jeopardised by Bush.
| There's no "terrorism" per se as an emanation of evil.
|
| It's just an asymmetrical and violent extension of political
| expression, where dialogue failed to reach a settlement.
|
| Otherwise you'd need to explain the ideological similarities
| between Al Qaeda and eg. ETA.
| ngcc_hk wrote:
| If they also do putin, hamas (included), Xia etc ... it is all
| good. But if it is just another one sided attack, then no.
|
| The question really is ... whilst it is not totally useless, is
| it more to demo how weak this is and so dictator can free to do
| as they are dare. Like bombing other people places or even yours
| (per claim) and flattening them; would it be more war crime than
| war fighting in disputed land.
| 58028641 wrote:
| They have done Hamas and Putin. https://www.icc-
| cpi.int/news/statement-icc-prosecutor-karim-...
| https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/situation-ukraine-icc-judges-is...
| SXX wrote:
| While it mostly useless to actally prevent war crimes this hurt
| dictators freedom of movement as majority of countries in the
| world would arrest by warrant of ICC. E.g Putin dont really
| travel abroad much after getting his warrant.
|
| Though Putin's warrant isn't for common war crimes, but for
| deporting / indoctrination of children as it's something that
| is super easy to prove.
| YZF wrote:
| This video has two retired US military lawyers discussing this
| news:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mCOi71b6AU
|
| "Responding to Legal Challenges to IDF Operations in Gaza"
|
| It's from a pro-Israeli viewpoint but is informed and has a lot
| of interesting details and maybe insight into the ICC/ICJ and the
| process.
| ggm wrote:
| A Biography of the prosecutor: Trained in the UK Legal system.
| He's also put Putin on the block
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/law/article/2024/may/20/iccs-kar...
| andy_ppp wrote:
| Everyone seems to be arguing as if they have lots of evidence
| disproving the Israeli part in war crimes and I've seen plenty of
| videos of absolutely cold blooded murders of unarmed civilians
| and massive destruction of civilian infrastructure. If Israel is
| not starving Palestinians why did the US build a jetty to take in
| aid?
|
| I don't mention that Hamas are also war criminals because I think
| everyone can agree they are already. It's obvious.
|
| Anyway I always thought that courts like this should have a
| special higher authority and any of us arguing on hacker news, I
| believe they are brave to take this case, will review the
| evidence fairly and a court case can happen at some point. If
| these leaders are innocent then I'm convinced the court will find
| them not guilty, but they should be allowed to follow any
| evidence, your or my opinion on hacker news really isn't very
| relevant compared to that of experts in war crimes and
| international law.
| AmericanChopper wrote:
| The merits of the case are mostly irrelevant because the ICC
| doesn't have the authority to enforce any of its judgements.
| Any country that has one of its citizens (or leaders) convicted
| by the ICC cannot be compelled to honor the judgement, it can
| only do so voluntarily, whether it's a signatory or not. If a
| country chooses not to comply, the only option is for the ICC
| to wage a war to enforce its judgement, which it can't do, and
| is unlikely to convince others to do.
|
| The name of the ICC does not describe what it actually does.
| The only role it's ever actually fulfilled is to punish people
| who have already lost wars. Which is why it's pretty much only
| ever been used to prosecute WWII losers, Yugoslavian civil war
| losers, and random African warlord losers.
|
| The most optimistic outcomes for the ICC here are sanctions
| (which Israel's closest allies wont participate in) or
| restricted international movement for the involved parties
| (which Israel's closest allies will also ignore), and I still
| think that's rather optimistic.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| Well I think the ICC disagrees with your assessment of them,
| and they are in fact proving you incorrect by doing the exact
| opposite of what you're claiming; attempting to try people
| who have potentially committed war crimes even though they
| are allies of western countries. I think this is an excellent
| thing personally and while it might be a new development for
| the court I think it's very reasonable to follow the evidence
| and come to a conclusion despite huge political pressure.
| AmericanChopper wrote:
| Of course they would disagree. Their entire existence is
| based upon this fiction. The fact that they are attempting
| to reinforce this narrative doesn't prove anything. If
| Netanyahu appears in handcuffs in The Hague I'd be forced
| to reassess my position, or better yet one of the too-many-
| to-count US war criminals. But I'm quite confident that's
| never going to happen.
|
| Talk is cheap, and it doesn't matter what the ICC says, its
| role is defined by what it actually does. Which is as I've
| described.
| VagabundoP wrote:
| We all thought the ICTY would never get their hands on
| Milosevic. I'm old enough to remember the day he appeared
| in handcuffs.
|
| We can only hope that the law catches up with these
| fucks.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Eh, a conviction would make domestic US political support a a
| lot dicier to maintain.
| Xylakant wrote:
| A conviction would also require signatory states to arrest
| the convicted persons - or give up the support for the ICC.
| Almost all of the EU is member of the ICC. A conviction, or
| even just an arrest warrant would lead to massive political
| complications for the EU-Israel relations.
| lozenge wrote:
| This the US that passed the Hague Invasion Act?
| bawolff wrote:
| > The merits of the case are mostly irrelevant because the
| ICC doesn't have the authority to enforce any of its
| judgements. Any country that has one of its citizens (or
| leaders) convicted by the ICC cannot be compelled to honor
| the judgement, it can only do so voluntarily
|
| This misunderstands how icc works. Generally the accused has
| to be in ICC custody for the case to go forward. Once the
| accused is in custody, the ICC has all sorts of power over
| them.
|
| Perhaps you mean arresting people is hard. That is true, but
| the merit part only cones after that part.
|
| > Which is why it's pretty much only ever been used to
| prosecute WWII losers, Yugoslavian civil war losers
|
| Neither of those were the ICC.
|
| ----
|
| You're not entirely wrong of course. The ICC has trouble
| enforcing warrants against powerful people from powerful
| countries.
| AmericanChopper wrote:
| You're right about that, The ICC has actually only ever
| prosecuted Africans (and recently issued a couple of
| warrants against Russians). But The ICC, The ICTY and the
| IMT/IMTFE all have essentially the same authority when it
| comes to enforcing "international law", which is none at
| all. International laws aren't real, there is no
| international government, international police or
| international armed forces. All international legal or
| military actions take place only with the voluntary
| cooperation of all countries involved. If any country
| decides to withhold that cooperation on any particular
| issue, then there is no enforcement mechanism. Which is why
| all of history's "international courts" have only ever
| prosecuted the losers of wars.
| skissane wrote:
| > International laws aren't real, there is no
| international government, international police or
| international armed forces
|
| What you are expressing here is essentially a variant on
| the philosophy known as "legal realism" - laws only exist
| to the extent they are enforced, so a law lacking a
| sufficiently effective enforcement mechanism isn't really
| a law at all.
|
| However, that perspective was rarely heard prior to the
| 20th century. Historically, international law grew out of
| the work of early modern European scholars such Grotius.
| Many of them (Grotius included) were natural law
| theorists - they saw the law of nations as grounded in
| human nature, and ultimately established by God. In those
| days, much of Europe - even in the purely domestic sphere
| - was still governed by customary law: laws evolved due
| to custom, whose content was never entirely clear, and
| which were never perfectly enforced. The continental
| legal tradition was founded on ancient Roman law, which
| continued to be studied as a kind of abstract
| intellectual system in universities long after it had
| ceased to be enforced in practice - however, rather than
| an exercise without any practical relevance, lawyers and
| judges would apply its provisions to every day cases, but
| only when they could get away with doing so - an attempt
| whenever they could to impose some neat Roman order on
| the anarchic mess of royal decrees and Germanic pagan
| custom. Against that historical background, the idea of
| international law without any clear lawgiver or law-
| enforcer made much more sense than it does to you.
| AmericanChopper wrote:
| The way it works today is the way it's always worked.
| Laws have always needed enforcers, and international laws
| have only ever been enforced by the winners of war
| against the losers of war. That's why the Romans enforced
| egregious reparations against the Carthaginians after the
| first Punic war (and took many of their men into
| slavery), which lead to the second Punic war (after which
| the same thing happened again).
| Teever wrote:
| Why don't they just try war criminals in absentia, sentence
| them to death and then put bounties on their heads?
|
| The US put bounties out on Osama Bin Laden. This isn't
| unprecedented.
| gengwyn wrote:
| The US putting a bounty on the head of an
| internationally-recognized terrorist and leader of a
| violent non-state actor like Al-Qaeda is nowhere near
| comparable to an international body putting bounties out
| for the leaders of sovereign states of millions.
| Teever wrote:
| Well sure they aren't comparable if you leave out the
| 'convicted war criminal' part of this hypothetical.
| mst wrote:
| I find it a little unfortunate that the ANC, who have
| explicitly stated they won't enforce the ICC warrant
| against Putin (and have previously ignored ICC genocide
| charges against a Sudanese leader), were still considered a
| reasonable group to prosecute Israel.
|
| Makes it look rather like they did so at the behest of
| Russia (whether on behalf of their ally Iran or as a simple
| continuation of Russian support for the ANC, who knows).
|
| Even if it only _looks_ like that, the conflict of interest
| is sufficiently obvious that I find it difficult to regard
| the ICC 's indictments wrt Israel as judicially legitimate.
|
| (this is not to imply that Israel is anywhere near innocent
| of all accusations made against her, only that I see no
| reason to trust the ICC's judgement in the matter of which
| ones she's guilty of)
| piokoch wrote:
| "The merits of the case are mostly irrelevant because the ICC
| doesn't have the authority to enforce any of its judgements."
| - tell this to Slobodan Milosevic
| dagw wrote:
| Milosevic died before any judgement could be rendered. So
| we have no idea what would have happened if had been found
| guilty.
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| > If a country chooses not to comply, the only option is for
| the ICC to wage a war to enforce its judgement
|
| not just does the US criminal elite not recognize ICC but
| they took it one step further with spelling out[1] what might
| happen if a US criminal is being charged by the court:
|
| _" The Hague Invasion Act", allows the president to order
| U.S. military action, such as an invasion of the Netherlands,
| where The Hague is located, to protect American officials and
| military personnel from prosecution or rescue them from
| custody._
|
| ... so not only should Israeli and Hamas war crimes be
| prosecuted, but in order not to appear utterly hypocritical,
| and "to do right by history", should US/UK war criminals like
| Dick Cheney, G.W. Bush, Tony Blair, and all other despicable
| criminal soldiers face the music for what they did in Abu
| Ghraib, Gitmo, and other places. Kidnapping from a sovereign
| country, torture, etc ... Just utterly barbaric.
|
| But the US especially is a lost cause considering how they
| treat the worst transgressors and war-criminals like the
| execution without trial as in the case of Osama bin Laden. So
| just imagine if anyone would propose having US war criminals
| meet that very same fate? It would get you banned on every
| Internet site for "hate speech" LOL. Which is why it's
| pointless to cite laws, the justice system or pen and paper
| to solve something that is immune to that.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-
| Members%27_Pr...
| gengwyn wrote:
| - You act like it's unreasonable for the United States to
| not want US citizens held by bodies the United States
| doesn't recognize the authority of. No sovereign country
| would accept this.
|
| - What crimes and under whose jurisdiction are Dick Cheney,
| Tony Blair, and George Bush guilty of? Osama bin Laden was
| indicted by a US grand jury under US jurisdiction and
| refused for extradition by the Taliban, not to mention his
| Interpol arrest warrant from Libya.
|
| You also linked the Wikipedia page for the Hague Invasion
| Act but didn't bring up this paragraph from the Abu Ghraib
| one:
|
| > In response to the events at Abu Ghraib, the United
| States Department of Defense removed 17 soldiers and
| officers from duty. Eleven soldiers were charged with
| dereliction of duty, maltreatment, aggravated assault and
| battery. Between May 2004 and April 2006, these soldiers
| were court-martialed, convicted, sentenced to military
| prison, and dishonorably discharged from service. Two
| soldiers, found to have perpetrated many of the worst
| offenses at the prison, Specialist Charles Graner and PFC
| Lynndie England, were subject to more severe charges and
| received harsher sentences. Graner was convicted of
| assault, battery, conspiracy, maltreatment of detainees,
| committing indecent acts and dereliction of duty; he was
| sentenced to 10 years imprisonment and loss of rank, pay
| and benefits. England was convicted of conspiracy,
| maltreating detainees and committing an indecent act and
| sentenced to three years in prison.
| shmatt wrote:
| You're ignoring 2 major things
|
| * Israel is the one operating the jetty. If you look at photos
| the trucks bringing the aid from the sea to land have yellow
| Israeli civilian plates. These are civilian Israeli contractors
| being paid by the Israeli government to disperse the aid
| because the Americans refused to have boots on the ground
|
| * it only takes 3 people (prosecutor + 2 judges) to completely
| crumble the western block. You could _suspect_ war crimes for
| any post 9 /11 war campaign and arrest every past and present
| leader of the Us, France, UK, Australia since 2001 because 3
| people said so. That's way too much power for a small group
| cyclecount wrote:
| Think for a minute why Israel might be "providing security"
| for this floating pier (built by the US), or why a sea-route
| for aid is even necessary in the first place. Wouldn't it be
| much, much simpler to bring in aid by land (via the many
| border crossings also administered by Israel)?
|
| The pier provides something else to Israel: a large escape
| hatch for forcibly transferring a large population without
| resettling them in Israel (or Egypt). This plan was suggested
| last year by an Israeli think tank linked to Likud and the
| current Israeli war cabinet:
| https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231024-israel-think-
| tank...
|
| (By the way, there is still some aid attempting to enter Gaza
| via the land routes but there are multiple examples of trucks
| being blocked and food being destroyed. Here's a video from
| last week where the IDF watched as food aid was blocked and
| burned:
| https://x.com/sapir_slam/status/1791143191988543538?s=46)
| andy_ppp wrote:
| The tragedy of a people who often experience racism being
| perpetrators of it always shocks me. The difficulty the
| majority of human beings have differentiating people who
| look like my enemy, from my enemy, is really impossible for
| me to understand. Targeting every part of a group in this
| way rather than as individuals based on the content of
| their character is something that is still a pipe dream :-(
| skissane wrote:
| > * it only takes 3 people (prosecutor + 2 judges) to
| completely crumble the western block. You could suspect war
| crimes for any post 9/11 war campaign and arrest every past
| and present leader of the Us, France, UK, Australia since
| 2001 because 3 people said so. That's way too much power for
| a small group
|
| There are two additional checks-and-balances which you have
| not mentioned: (1) Decisions of the Pre-Trial Chamber can be
| appealed to the Appellate Chamber (2) the UN Security Council
| can by resolution suspend proceedings in any case for up to
| 12 months (indefinitely renewable).
|
| So, a prosecution requires (1) the Prosecutor to decide to
| prosecute, (2) at least two out of three Pre-Trial judges to
| approve the prosecution, (3) at least three out of five
| Appellate judges to dismiss any appeal of that decision, (4)
| either a majority of the UN Security Council or else at least
| one of its permanent members to oppose suspending the
| prosecution. That's more than just 3 people's say-so. That's
| six people plus at least one major world power say-so.
| gunalx wrote:
| Isn't this politics and therefore off topic? Or is it something I
| missed.
| hggh wrote:
| Read the guidelines carefully (hint: "off-topic" is inside
| "What to Submit"). If you think this is off-topic you can flag
| it.
| globalnode wrote:
| > Khan's office risks attracting criticism that it places a
| terror organization and an elected government on an equivalent
| footing
|
| thats the point isnt it?
|
| edit: although ICC has had plenty of opportunities to punish war
| crimes from various states in the past, wonder why they decided
| to make a move now. because of the scale?
| oaiey wrote:
| War criminal is war criminal. Nothing else factors in. And that
| they point both out at the same time makes it easier for them
| to avoid being seen one sided.
| piokoch wrote:
| Well, IDF soldiers themselves were adding to their social media
| proofs of their war crimes...
| VagabundoP wrote:
| It is lucky they are so concisiconscientiousous in documenting
| their own abuses.
|
| I'm sure it will never come back to haunt them... /s
| cbeach wrote:
| The ICC document describes Israel as a "territory" and Palestine
| as a "State" (capitalised).
|
| Their political bias couldn't be any more obvious.
|
| Among the G20, countries like China and Russia consider Palestine
| as a "state" but the UK, US, Germany, France, Canada and others
| do not. Make of that what you will.
|
| https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/statement-icc-prosecutor-karim-...
| cess11 wrote:
| No, it refers to the territory of Israel, and the territory of
| the State of Palestine.
|
| Did you read the text or just grab the talking point from
| someone else?
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