The downfall of international law extends to the West Bank, where the occupation government has used all possible ways to make the lives of Palestinians impossible. Storming cities, using lethal force, arresting civilians, building settlements, and plundering the wealth of the land is a daily routine that portends to massive ethnic cleansing, including the legalisation of five settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank in a move many have seen as a step towards annexation.
There is no issue in the rules of international law or its clarity, rather the problem lies in those responsible for applying them. All states and agencies concerned with implementing these rules have betrayed it. The international community has not been able to curb the Israeli criminal machine that continues to kill and burn Palestinians, due to the open support Israel receives from colonial countries, led by the United States and Britain. This support has led to aborting all attempts to stop the genocide or even allow the flow of humanitarian aid.
These countries are partners to Israel’s crimes, as they provide it with all kinds of lethal weapons without any morality. They also provide it with the political and legal cover it needs to prevent its conviction and the prosecution of its officials, as we have seen with Britain submitting a memorandum to the Pre-Trial Chamber in the International Criminal Court (ICC) to prevent the issuance of arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.
It is no wonder the UK submits such a memorandum, since it does not believe in the power of the law and the importance of applying and adhering to it. Rather, it believes in the law of force and the subjugation of the law and the ICC to serve its agendas.
The clearest example of this is Ukraine and Russia, where Britain, the US, and many colonial countries pressured the Prosecutor of the ICC and pumped millions into the court’s treasury to accelerate the prosecution of Russian officials accused of committing crimes in Ukraine. In record time, the court issued arrest warrants for five suspects, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, without any country objecting to its decisions.
In the case of Israel, the ICC prosecutor has requested arrest warrants for only two of the hundreds of people involved in the crime of genocide. However, Britain objected to the possibility of such arrest warrants being issued, claiming that the court is not competent, based on flimsy arguments, such as that the Oslo Accords stipulated that Israelis were not subject to Palestinian judiciary, and therefore it is not possible to be transferring this jurisdiction to the ICC, or that the Court’s Prosecutor did not negotiate with Israel to discuss the possibility of Israel investigating the crimes committed, since the jurisdiction of the ICC is complementary to the jurisdiction of the national judiciary.
With regards the first argument, it is weak, baseless and meaningless to say that suspects from one country are not subject to the jurisdiction of another under one agreement or another, as this falls within the framework of the ICC, which was established by the Rome Convention. Moreover, the Oslo Agreement is not an international treaty. It is an understanding between the PLO and Israel, marred by many non-existent and unbinding provisions under international law.
As for the fact that the public prosecutor did not engage in negotiations with Israel to investigate the crimes committed or explore whether Israel wishes to prosecute the crimes under investigation, it has been proven over time that Israel is unwilling to investigate any of the crimes it committed, and for decades, the perpetrators of serious crimes have escaped punishment, and in very limited cases where an investigation was conducted, it was merely a formality with no actual results. It would not be logical after all these massacres to demand the activation of Article 1 of the Rome Convention regarding complementarity of jurisdiction.
It is not surprising for Britain to descend to the lowest level of immorality, as it had been supporting Israel since it was only a group of naked, barefoot refugees, and it sponsored them until they became terrorist gangs and grew in numbers to become what they are today; a brute force that causes only destruction and death everywhere.
Our only solace is that today we will witness the defeat of the Conservative Party through the ballot boxes, if not for its disastrous foreign policy, then it would be for the chaos its party’s leadership has caused in all sectors of the country, including health, education and living standards which have reached an unprecedented low level, in addition to the scandals of government officials, most notably former Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
A government with a prime minister and ministers who have not taken responsibility towards their citizens, betrayed their trust, and circumvented the country’s legal system to serve their own interests are not expected to respect international law or care about the lives of the people who are killed daily in the Gaza Strip or in any other country.
They have enjoyed impunity and escaped punishment, so they behaved in such ill-manners that they want to stop any action, no matter how small it is compared to the massive ongoing genocide. They are criminals supporting each other who have not been met with anyone to accuse them of participating in the crime of genocide, as Nicaragua did when it brought Germany before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
The accumulating evidence of the participation of officials in the British government in the ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip is crystal clear. This should prompt some countries to have some courage to bring Britain before the ICJ, and prepare cases against members of the British government, led by the prime minister, to face the charges brought against them as a result of their participation in committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The request submitted by Britain in defence of the criminals Netanyahu and Gallant firstly aims to obstruct the procedure for issuing arrest warrants. Secondly, submitting the request in a decided electoral matter aims to drag the Labour Party which is expected to win in the election, to follow the Conservative policy of supporting Israel in its extermination of Palestinians.
Therefore, the Labour government must be consistent with the position announced by the Shadow Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, who said that the Labour government would implement the arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant once they are issued by the court, and this requires the Labour government, once formed, to withdraw the request to object to the arrest warrants and not get involved in what the Conservative government was involved in.
It is true that the Labour Party’s leadership aligned with the Conservative government’s policy of supporting genocide and supported Israel’s actions, where the party’s leadership made disgusting and terrifying statements. However, after a lot of pressure we saw a change and this pressure must continue with the formation of the new government to take a different path that brings about a real change that would restore respect to the rules of international law. The new Labour government has two options; either to follow the footsteps of supporting genocide or help stop it.
No comments:
Post a Comment