‘If ICC has any credibility, it should be going after those committing genocide’
Diana Buttu, a lawyer and former spokesperson for the PLO, says the ICC’s Khan is doing “a lot of bothsidesism”.
“He’s looking and seeing that there is a genocide that Israel is perpetrating – a genocide that Israel has been very open about perpetrating with over 35,000 Palestinians killed, mass starvation, 15,000 children killed, and in order to balance it out, he has to make it seem as though he’s addressing both sides,” Buttu told Al Jazeera.
“But if we want to be honest, we should be looking at what it is that the Israeli government has been doing and the orders that it has issued to its soldiers,” she said. “If this court is to have any credibility, it should be going out after the people who are committing genocide rather than just simply trying to play this game of bothsidesism,” Buttu added.
South Africa has accused Israel at the ICJ of carrying out a genocide in Gaza, an allegation Israel has denied.
Political pressure at work. It's a miracle Khan is actually seeking arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant.
‘World increasingly telling Israel enough is enough’
Israeli columnist and author Gideon Levy calls the ICC prosecutor’s decision to seek arrest warrants “just” but said he expected Israeli officials to double down.
“Israel will again protect itself with this wall of ‘the whole world is anti-Semite and the whole world is against us,’ and it will unite again the Israelis in an even more nationalistic wave,” he told Al Jazeera. “Everyone will feel so just and such a victim by this evil decision.”
Levy noted, however, that the impact of the possible arrest warrants could not be underestimated. “The fact that an Israeli prime minister will or might become wanted in all kinds of corners of the world and will be prevented from travelling must have an effect,” he said.
“It’s unprecedented. It was never the case – for sure not in a country that is supposed to be a democracy, which considers itself as a democracy,” Levy added.
“You have to see the overall picture. It’s not one case. It’s an overall picture in which the entire world more and more so, more loudly and more clearly, tells Israel, ‘Enough is enough. We have had enough with you.'”
Palestinian official welcomes ICC decision
Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, has said that this step affirms “that no one is immune from international law”.
In a statement, Barghouti added: “We consider this to be the first step towards condemning the crimes of genocide committed by the rulers and army of Israel against the Palestinian people in Gaza and holding them accountable for committing these crimes according to international law and international humanitarian law.”
