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| The International Criminal Court at the Hague (JNS) |
“The suspects can decide to appear on a voluntary basis and surrender to the ICC. They have all the rights of the defense that are guaranteed, including the presumption of innocence.”
That’s what Fadi El Abdallah, the spokesperson and head of the Public Affairs Unit at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, told JNS when asked what is expected now from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, now that the ICC has issued warrants for their arrest on charges of genocide.
Anyone that has heard what ICC chief prosecutor Karim A. A. Khan has said about Netanyahu and Gallant knows that the exact opposite is true. They will be considered guilty until proven innocent.
That the leaders of so many countries have said they will abide by those arrest warrants if the ‘suspects’ set foot in their country pretty much tells you they too believe Netanyahu is guilty of genocide. That the ICC warrants included one for a Hamas leader (who is very likely no longer alive) is yet another fig leaf to show that it isn’t antisemitism that motivates them. Can anyone spell ‘bridge’ and ‘Brooklyn’?
I had originally criticized French President Emmanuel Macron for a similar attitude. He too called Netanyahu’s conduct of the war genocide.
Well, it turns out that unlike Canada whose Prime
Minister Justin Trudeau said that Canada would honor those warrants, Macron said France would not.
It might seem like Macron has come to his senses. But that would contradict his past accusations of genocide against Israel and then he stopped shipping Israel arms. However, it turns out that his antisemitism is alive and well. The reason they won’t be arrested is technical, As noted by JTA:
The French foreign ministry statement said the warrants were flawed because Israel was not a party to the agreement establishing the court.
And then he had the gall to talk about France’s long standing friendship with Israel. Which is nothing more than an excuse to be involved in monitoring compliance to the ceasefire agreement in Lebanon. And from there proceed to blame Israel first for any skirmish that might ensue.
As I said a couple of days ago, Thank God for the US presence
there. President Biden has completely rejected the ICC charge of genocide and called
those warrants outrageous. I’m sure that the next administration will be at
least as dismissive of the ICC if not more so. It wouldn’t surprise me if Trump placed some sort of well deserved sanctions on them. But I digress.
One may wonder why it is so outrageous to see the death of over 40.000 civilian casualties of war anything less than genocide? Doesn’t the ICC have a point? And what about the humanitarian crises caused by the lack of food to the point of near starvation? And the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes since the beginning of the war? Many of which have been destroyed by Israel’s relentless year long bombing campaign. Aren’t these obvious war crimes?
And if so, isn’t the US complicit by providing them with military aid for Israel to carry out the bombings that have resulted in all those deaths and near starvation? (This is what the Bernie Sanders faction of congress has been saying. Bernie and 19 of his fellow Democratic colleagues in the Senate voted to stop sending Israel arms. Fortunately 80 Senators on both sides of the political aisle refused to sign it.)
If you’re watching the war via the mainstream media, that is what you will see every single day since the war began over a year ago. Hard not to come to those conclusions based on those images. Especially as teary eyed reporters convey those images.
But western governments like France and Canada do not rely on the media for information about the war in Gaza. They know what the context of this war is about via their own intelligence agencies and their embassies in Israel. They know that the things I have been saying ever since the war began are true. Which is the same thing the president, and most of congress knows.
They know who started the war and how it was started. They know that Hamas uses their civilians as human shields and martyrs – purposely increasing the number of civilian casualties in order to increase world condemnation of Israel.
They know that Hamas does not distinguish between actual civilians and Hamas terrorists in their inflated body count. They know Israel has a right to defend itself by going after Hamas and have no choice but to kill the innocent civilians Hamas places in their way.
They have to know that Israel has never targeted a single civilian, while Hamas purposely targets civilians. They have to know that Israel warns entire populations to get out of the way of any impending bombing target. They have to know that food does get into Gaza but that the UN - who is in charge of distributing it. hasn’t been able to do so because Hamas terrorists commandeer most of it for themselves at gunpoint. And thAT in some cases it is a free for all among Palestinians themselves desperate To feed their families and grabbing whatever they can as soon as they can.
And finally they have to know that genocide is the intentional extermination of an entire group of people. And that Israel is not intentionally exterminated a single Palestinian civilian.
Macron and Trudeau ought to know better. That they ignore
these simple truths speaks to their latent antisemitism, Even if they completely reject that accusation because some of
their best friends are Jewish.
So as I recently said, knowing all this makes these reprobates posing as humanitarian leaders of free world nations plain old fashioned antisemites, Same as the fathers and/or grandfathers before them.
It is important for people who care about the truth to know that. And not to accept what these people are selling corroborated by what they see on the nightly news. It is important to get the message out to the average person not privy to the full story.
We need to do a better job of getting the truth out. And I am going to try and do that every chance I get.