[Opinion] Why is the west defending Israel after the ICC's request for Netanyahu’s arrest warrant? | Kenneth Roth
[Opinion] Why is the west defending Israel after the ICC's request for Netanyahu’s arrest warrant? | Kenneth Roth
It is disappointing, if not surprising, that the west’s response to the ICC accusations was to defend Israel despite its war crimes
It is disappointing, if not surprising, that the west’s response to the ICC accusations was to defend Israel despite its war crimes
Archived version: https://archive.ph/Br7gq
Because the built-in function of the international rules-based order is "rules for thee, not for me". Let's not forget that this is the first warrant request of a Western official since the court's founding.
It's easy to see why the US is defending Israel over the ICC, the US never ratified the treaty that gives the ICC any political power and we ignore anything they do. It wouldn't matter if it was Israel or George W. Bush or even Obama, we ignore everything they do.
They were all about supporting the ICC when they issued an arrest warrant for Putin. It just shows that the 'rules based international order' was always a sham. International law exists to give a legal veneer over the pure power politics that were always at play.
Short answer: it isn't, some far right news outlets and reactionaries on Twitter don't represent the entire civilization,
Short answer: it isn’t
The power structures that make 'the west' a bloc in the international system are 100% defending Israel's genocide.
We're giving them weapons, vetoing on their behalf in the UN, denying that the text book genocide going on is a genocide. Netanyahu's war crimes are as obvious and publicly committed as trump's money laundering and election subversion, yet biden is pretending that the ICC warrant is unjustified.
Despite a growing number of brutally beaten protestors, it's still true to say that the west is supporting israeli war crimes.
entire US govt = some far right news outlet and/or reactionaries on twitter. got it.
If your country was suddenly invaded and had 1200 mostly civilian, including women and children gunned down in one of your cities, including shooting up a concert, and your country had the means to stop it from happening again, would they? Even if it meant other likely innocent people would die in the process as well? Would your country be willing to wipe another country off the map in order to make sure that your people were never attacked and killed again?
So that's the reason. Isreal was attacked with no regard by a country that ran by a group of people after the goal of completely eliminating Isreals existence.
Now the entire middle easts history is convoluted as hell and many sides have fought with many others. The "blame game" puck could be passed around 100 times. But what would you feel your country would be justified to do if they were invaded by surprise like that? Would they make sure it couldn't happen again? Would you feel it was justified? It may not be a clear yes or no answer, or where a line should be drawn.
<...> your country had the means to stop it from happening again, would they?
By killing more civilians? Oh yes, that will definitely make sure it will never happen again. That might work in fiction, but in real life, it just guarantees more violence in the future.
Even if it meant other likely innocent people would die in the process as well?
That's a war crime. If the country is willing to do that, they should be willing to accept the punishment for it.
Would your country be willing to wipe another country off the map in order to make sure that your people were never attacked and killed again?
Has the history not taught you anything? Peaceful Palestinians who had nothing to do with Hamas, who had their entire families slathered, are NOW more likely to blame Israel for their crimes and join the Hamas (or someone new) in retaliation. Israel is the obstacle to peace, not the other way around. Ignorant people like you who justify civilian killings are the reason monsters like Netanyahu are in power in the first place. His own people don't like him and want him to step down, since when he was offered to bring the hostages in December, February, and April he refused. He needs this war to go forever, since the minute it ends he's done himself.
Would you have a problem with dropping a bomb on a school in your city if people there were taken hostage by some terrorists? By Israel's actions, that would be justified killing.
So that's the reason. Isreal was attacked with no regard by a country that ran by a group of people after the goal of completely eliminating Isreals existence.
Most people don't an issue with targeting people responsible for civilian deaths. Hamas and IDF are militants, and Israel has absolute right to attack them in the name of "self-defense" or even simple vengeance. On the other hand, dropping bombs on schools, hospitals, religious buildings or residential buildings where civilians are is a war crime.
Without justice, there cannot be peace.
End Israeli apartheid.
Except Palestine isn't a country, and Israel had already killed more Palestinians over the course of the year before Oct 7 happened. Gaza is an occupied territory, and you shouldn't be surprised if an occupied people decided to kill occupiers (most of which were actually active IDF personnel).
And then there's the question of the response. With the benefit of hindsight, how would you rate the US response to 9/11? Did the actual response make the US safer? Was killing and maiming millions of completely uninvolved people in 20 years of war worth it?
You mean to tell me that Israel, with all those billions of dollars, couldn't see with their own eyes people flying in to their territory with guns? There is no convoluted middle east history, at least not any more than anywhere else on this planet. There is no excuse to kill anyone in violation of international law, especially when the politicians guiding that policy see the enemy as less than human and makes reference to genocidial intent in doing so. If you want to talk about history, the history that is so convoluted and confusing to you, just start in 1947-1948. That should make it a lot easier for you to understand.
Every event in 'Israeli' history can be checked. They never acted in genuine self-defense. They always had ulterior motives, to drive their force as an imperialist proxy with a massive budget, extremist ideology, and settler-colonialism. There is no blame game. Palestinians have fought against occupation. Israel is the one occupying. Now this rougue state is claiming, implicitly, that they lay claim to a Greater Israel project that threatened the entire Middle East and North Africa region. Rather than occupying territory in war, they occupy territory in aims of extermination of the native population. If they were an occupying force in war, they would be required to ensure every citizen has access to food, water, security, and other necessities of life. Instead, they occupy territories and kill or displace the population there. Either it's not a war or this rogue entity is incapable of conducting itself without constantly committing war crimes.
If your country was suddenly invaded and had 1200 mostly civilian, including women and children gunned down in one of your cities, including shooting up a concert, and your country had the means to stop it from happening again, would they?
Ignoring that your country is a settler-colony built upon the land of the displaced people resisting, and that this concert was right next to the fence of a concentration camp housing the repressed native population, that Hamas exists because of Israel, and that Israel's own helicopters shot up the crowds and their own forces blew up houses killing many of the total, and everything else, I hate this framing.
So that's the reason. Isreal was attacked with no regard by a country that ran by a group of people after the goal of completely eliminating Isreals existence.
“It is not a war against terror, and not a war against extremists, and not even a war against the Palestinian Authority. These too are forms of avoiding reality. This is a war between two people. Who is the enemy? The Palestinian people.
Why do we have to make up a new name for the war every other week, just to avoid calling it by its name. What’s so horrifying about understanding that the entire Palestinian people is the enemy? …the morality of war (yes, there is such a thing) is founded on the assumption that there are wars in this world, and that war is not the normal state of things, and that in wars the enemy is usually an entire people, including its elderly and its women, its cities and its villages, its property and its infrastructure.
They are all enemy combatants, and their blood shall be on all their heads. Now this also includes the mothers of the martyrs, who send them to hell with flowers and kisses. They should follow their sons, nothing would be more just. They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there”
— Uri Elitzur, former chief of staff and advisor to PM Benjamin Netanyahu; shared by Ayelet Shaked, Israel’s Minister of Justice (2015-2019) and Minister of Interior (2021-2022), in 2015
Read up on the open admissions of Israeli leaders and Zionists. Israel itself exists as a country by eradicating the native population and it will continue to do so to its ability.
But what would you feel your country would be justified to do if they were invaded by surprise like that? Would they make sure it couldn't happen again? Would you feel it was justified? It may not be a clear yes or no answer, or where a line should be drawn.
If my country were a brutal genocidal state built on the repression of the native population? I'm not denying the Zionist entity is doing everything to keep their state afloat and expand it; their motives are not unknown. But to put me in their shoes as if that justifies anything is ridiculous nonsense that could be applied to numerous scenarios you wouldn't like.
genocide lover detected
die nazi
Holy strawman gish gallop, Batman!
The author of the article effectively refutes all of your novel of deflection with one sentence:
The proposed charges are not about whether Israel can defend itself but how, that is, not by committing war crimes.
Later on, he encapsulates the very thing that all of civilized society is based on:
regardless of the perceived justness of one’s cause, it never justifies war crimes.
Never. Under any circumstances. Ever.
Your question without all the rhetoric is: Does self defence justify elimination of an entire nation, country, ethnicity or people? The simple answer is no. Elimination of a nation, country, people or ethnicity is the textbook definition of genocide. If you read the article, you would know that ICC is charging hamas for war crimes as well as the Israeli regime, because war crimes by one party do not justify war crimes by the other party. So you do not need to think where the line should be drawn. The line already exists and Israeli regime has crossed it.
..
My country was invaded by terrorists on September 11th, 2001, killing nearly 3,000 people. We waged war on the entire region the terrorists came from, eventually killing the leader of the group, and nothing changed. All our bombing did nothing, all our sacrifices of innocent people were for naught.
Amazingly, killing a bunch of people who had nothing to do with the terrorists that attacked your country is a bad move, and only serves to create more terrorists as people watch their loved ones die by your hand and grow to hate you.
If your takeaway from America's terrible actions post-9/11 is that we should've been even more brutal and wiped out the entire mostly-innocent population of the middle east, you've got the wrong takeaway.
Disgusting genocide apologist spotted!
Most Israelis killed in October 7th were killed by the IOF.
Oops.