| DAILY ALERT |
Sunday, November 24, 2024 |
|
News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
President Joe Biden said Thursday: "The ICC issuance of arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous. Let me be clear once again: whatever the ICC might imply, there is no equivalence - none - between Israel and Hamas. We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security." (White House) See also below Commentary: The International Criminal Court Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto said Saturday that it is "absurd" to put Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the same level as Hamas after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for him for alleged war crimes. He described the ICC move as "more political than technical." "We found it unacceptable and absurd to equate the leaders of a terrorist organization that attacked innocent people with those who legitimately lead a democratic state and are defending themselves." His words echoed statements made by Premier Giorgia Meloni on Friday. (ANSA-Italy) See also Argentina Says ICC Warrants "Ignore" Right to Self-Defense Argentine President Javier Milei on Thursday condemned the warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's arrest. President Milei expressed Argentina's "profound disagreement" with the international tribunal. The decision "ignores Israel's legitimate right to self-defense against the constant attacks by terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hizbullah." Israel was currently "facing brutal aggression, inhumane hostage-taking" and an "indiscriminate" attack on its citizens. "Criminalizing the legitimate defense of a nation while omitting these atrocities is an act that distorts the spirit of international justice." Argentina has the largest Jewish community in Latin America. (Buenos Aires Times-Argentina) Iran will activate "a noticeable number of new and advanced centrifuges of different types," state news agency IRNA reported Friday. The move was in response to the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), whose board passed a resolution Thursday ordering Iran to urgently improve its cooperation with the agency. (CNN) A recent Israeli airstrike in Syria killed Ali Mussa Daqduq, a senior Hizbullah commander who helped plan a 2007 raid in which militants posing as an American security team killed five U.S. soldiers in Karbala during the Iraq War, a senior U.S. defense official said. Daqduq had been captured by U.S. forces but was later released by the Iraqi government, whose officials had assured the U.S. that they would prosecute him. (NBC News) News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
UAE authorities identified the body of Rabbi Zvi Kogan, a Chabad emissary in Abu Dhabi who was missing since Thursday and believed kidnapped and murdered by Uzbek terrorists acting under orders from Iran. (Ynet News) Brian Director, 27, was killed by Hizbullah rocket fire on Thursday in Nahariya. The victim is the fourth fatality in the city within a month. (Ynet News) A ceasefire with Hizbullah will most likely include a phased 60-day withdrawal by the IDF from southern Lebanon, with no leftover security perimeter, a senior defense source said on Thursday. Splitting the process into stages would allow Israel to evaluate Hizbullah's compliance. Additional likely ceasefire terms included a U.S. side letter of guarantees to Israel, American supervision of UNIFIL, and empowering the Lebanese army to truly gain and maintain control of southern Lebanon from Hizbullah. These terms would be in addition to Hizbullah's acceptance of a withdrawal of its own forces to points north of the Litani River, and the U.S. and others committing to help guarantee that Hizbullah will be unable to resupply itself with rockets and other weapons from land, air, or sea. The American letter - which will likely not be made public - will delineate between different scenarios: where Israel can act against Hizbullah violations without checking in with any third party, and in what situations would it need to first complain to an international body before taking action. The most important item is Israel's ability to act to enforce the agreement. (Jerusalem Post) Hamas's general refusal to cut a deal with Israel is what is holding back a return of Israeli hostages and not Jerusalem's refusal to withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor, to withdraw from a Gaza security perimeter, or lack of agreement on "the day after" arrangements, said a senior Israeli defense official on Thursday. The defense official was adamant that Israel will hold onto a security perimeter in Gaza for an extended period even after any ceasefire. The official said Hamas has continued to fight with Israel over other issues, such as how many and which Palestinian security prisoners would be released in exchange for Israeli hostages. The source said the current government strategy is to split Hamas from controlling food and other humanitarian aid by introducing private U.S. contractors into Gaza to transport the supplies. These contractors would be armed and would be charged with protecting themselves, as some have done in Iraq and Afghanistan. The source emphasized that Israel would make sure not to take legal or financial responsibility for Gaza. The official was optimistic that ongoing pressure on Hamas, including in northern Gaza, was starting to bring more flexibility from the group. (Jerusalem Post) A pro-Palestinian demonstration in Montreal descended into riots on Friday night as demonstrators were recorded clashing with police, smashing windows, and setting fire to cars. The protest followed a student strike in Quebec - which saw some student demonstrators perform Nazi salutes, storm university lectures, and chant for a "final solution." (Jerusalem Post) See also Trudeau, Political Leaders Denounce "Violence and Hatred" at Demonstration in Montreal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has joined federal cabinet ministers and other politicians in condemning Friday night's anti-NATO and pro-Palestinian demonstration in Montreal, calling the protesters' actions "appalling." Trudeau said, "Acts of antisemitism, intimidation, and violence must be condemned wherever we see them....There must be consequences, and rioters held accountable." (CBC News-Canada) Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis:
International Criminal Court After the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, the issue is if the issuing of the arrest warrants is ultra vires [beyond the legal power or authority] of the ICC Statute, since there exists no Palestinian state, no sovereign Palestinian territory and hence the court has no jurisdiction. Therefore, the warrants are illegal, in violation of the court's statute and worthless, and should be ignored by all states. The ICC has been permeated by politicization conducted over the years by the Palestinian leadership to such an extent that the court has lost any credibility. Israel has sound legal justification in international humanitarian law for all its actions, as has been acknowledged by leading military experts and as is borne out by accurate statistics and footage. Claims of starvation are false and contrived and footage exists indicating passage of food trucks and statistics regarding calories per person. The ICC prosecutor, in addition to his own personal issues under investigation, has consistently demonstrated stark bias in respect to the Palestinian claims against Israeli political and military personnel, in violation of the terms of his job as set out in the statute. Any state cooperating with the ICC arrest warrants is endorsing an illegal action by the court in violation of the ICC statute. The writer, Director of the Institute for Diplomatic Affairs at the Jerusalem Center, served as Legal Adviser and Deputy Director-General of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. (Jerusalem Center for Foreign Affairs) The ICC's issuance of arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant is a "date that will live in infamy," former Israeli diplomat and former foreign ministry official Yigal Palmor said Thursday. "Not only has the ICC issued arrest warrants, in its communique, it has also determined guilt. The guilt of Netanyahu and Gallant is presented as an established fact." With such an establishment of guilt, there is no need for any legal process. "The ICC is not seeking to arrest suspects for their involvement in alleged crimes, it has determined that the crimes have been committed, and that they were committed by these specific individuals." The warrants cross a line that was "very clear and agreed upon since day one: the line that separates democratic regimes - where the justice system is more or less independent - and the non-democratic regimes - where the justice system is dependent on international intervention.... Now they have erased that line altogether. Everything is permitted now." The ruling means everyone could now sue everyone else. "If you dislike the principles of a certain government, you are now permitted to intervene from the outside, essentially trespassing a country's sovereignty," he said. "The independence of a local justice system will count for nothing." The "thoughtless, clueless" decision has disrupted the whole system of international justice, Palmor stated, "destroying and obliterating the founding principles of the ICC." (Jerusalem Post) In issuing arrest warrants against Israeli leaders for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has undermined - perhaps fatally - its own credibility, as well as prospects for a peace settlement in Gaza. The process was compromised from the very beginning, when the ICC prosecutor, Karim Ahmad Khan, convened a "Panel of Experts in International Law" to provide support for his decision to seek the warrants. The panel's entire membership was selected by Khan, which raised concerns about its impartiality. As Lord Macdonald, the former Director of Public Prosecutions, pointed out in September 2024, at least two of the Panel's members had publicly accused Israel of international crimes beforehand, while at least two others had personal links to the prosecutor. The charges themselves are legally problematic. Netanyahu and Gallant are accused of using starvation as a method of warfare, which would be a war crime. Yet as Dr. Emanuela-Chiara Gillard, a leading expert in the law concerning civilian protection, pointed out, the mere existence of food insecurity in a war zone does not mean that a crime has been committed. Many of the issues with aid delivery in Gaza are caused by self-imposed limitations by aid agencies and the UN, the activities of Hamas, and others. Are they liable to be prosecuted on the same charge? Even more troubling is the fact that the Court had no jurisdiction at all to issue these warrants. A fundamental principle of international law is that a state is not bound to the jurisdiction of an international court unless it has agreed to do so. But Israel, like three of the UN's five permanent members, has chosen to not join the ICC, as is its sovereign prerogative, so the ICC does not have jurisdiction over its nationals. As Professor Richard Ekins KC of the University of Oxford writes, the lawfare against Israel only damages the credibility of the institutions that engage in it. The writer is a senior fellow at Policy Exchange and an assistant professor of international relations and international law at Leiden University. (Spectator-UK) Despite not having access to reliable facts, the ICC has nevertheless felt compelled to issue warrants for the arrest of Israel's prime minister and former defense chief, the first time such action has been taken against the leaders of a democratic country. The ICC decision raises worrying questions for other democratic countries - including the UK - that could find themselves engaged in conflict. It compromises the ability of democracies to prevail over their enemies if their military operations cause civilian casualties. Would Britain have emerged victorious from the Second World War had Winston Churchill been distracted by the prospect of facing war crime accusations? The ICC action is also problematic for the British Government which, as a member of the ICC, is now obliged to detain the accused Israelis if they arrive on British soil, despite the fact that Israel is still supposed to be our close ally in the fight against Islamist terrorism. (Telegraph-UK) How could the ICC prosecutor have got this so wrong, when publicly available information puts the lie to the allegation of starvation and when Israel's conduct in this conflict has been unparalleled in protecting civilians from harm? Who are the winners of this dastardly enterprise? The internationally proscribed terror group Hamas publicly thanked the Court for its interventions on its behalf. But the message that is sent by this disgraceful development is one of encouragement to terror organizations the world over. It is an unconscionable attack on the inherent right of self-defense that other democratic states may well seek to exercise against similar fundamentalist terrorist organizations in the future. The writer is legal director at UK Lawyers For Israel Charitable Trust. (Telegraph-UK) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are accused of engaging in "starvation as a method of warfare." However, the Rome Statute explicitly defines this crime as "intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including willfully impeding relief supplies as provided for under the Geneva Conventions." It is not enough to demonstrate that civilians suffered based on decisions Israel made while fighting Hamas; the prosecutor must show that Israel acted with the deliberate aim of starving civilians as a method of warfare. This is patently untrue. Israel has made extensive efforts to provide humanitarian aid to Gaza, even under the extraordinary challenge of Hamas's systematic theft and weaponization of such supplies. Moreover, to date there is no credible evidence that a single individual has died from starvation as a result of Israeli actions, let alone from a deliberate policy to intentionally starve civilians. Finally, under the terms of the Rome Statute itself, the ICC is meant to be a court of last resort, intervening only when a nation is "unwilling or unable" to investigate or prosecute alleged crimes. Israel, however, has a robust legal system, with an independent judiciary that has repeatedly demonstrated its commitment to upholding international humanitarian law. By disregarding the principle of complementarity, the ICC has acted in clear violation of the court's own rules. The writer, a former law professor, is Director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center. (Newsweek) Several powerful countries, including the U.S., do not recognize the authority of the International Criminal Court and refuse to become members. The U.S. seeks to prevent the tribunal from being used to prosecute Americans. Other nations including China, India, Russia and Israel are not members. U.S. administrations from both parties have argued in the past that the court should not exercise its authority over citizens from countries that are not a member of the court. "There remains fear of...being prosecuted for political, rather than evidence-based, reasons," said David Scheffer, a former U.S. ambassador and a chief negotiator of the statute that established the court. Former ambassador John R. Bolton said, "These indictments [of Israeli leaders] prove precisely what is wrong with the ICC. A publicity-hungry prosecutor first goes after the victims of a terrorist attack, before going after the real criminals. I hope this is the death knell of the ICC in the United States." (New York Times) Nov. 21, 2024, when the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued arrest warrants for alleged war crimes against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant, will be the day that led to the demise of the ICC itself, not the demise of Israel. This decision will be seen by reasonable people around the world as a miscarriage of justice. The decision to issue an arrest warrant for Netanyahu and Gallant for fighting a terrorist army that openly states it wants to destroy the Jewish state and which started this war with a brutal orgy of violence worthy of the Middle Ages and Nazi Germany will ultimately strip the court of any shred of legitimacy. The ICC will lose any relevance as a result of turning democratic Israel into a war criminal for fighting a just war for its survival. Incoming U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said, "The ICC's rogue actions are a threat to our ally Israel and, left unchecked, can pose a threat to America in the future." Because someday a prosecutor may use this as a precedent to go after American leaders or soldiers battling terrorists somewhere around the world. (Jerusalem Post) Anne Herzberg, a human rights expert and the legal adviser to NGO Monitor, responded to the ICC decision Thursday. "There has never been a conflict where a party that was subject to an invasion, missile threats from seven fronts, which has twice faced the largest ballistic missile attacks in history, where 1200 of its citizens were massacred, hundreds of hostages taken, and yet has taken the most extensive measures ever seen to allow for humanitarian aid to enter into enemy territory." "Gallant and Netanyahu have allowed for airdrops, aid trucks, commercial aid, a humanitarian pier, a humanitarian corridor. They have gone above and beyond what the law requires, and yet they were prosecuted for that specifically. And yet, there is no mention of Hamas's role in denying the aid, UNRWA's role in preventing aid, the UN agency's total incompetence in providing aid." (Jerusalem Post) Houthis The Houthis of Yemen are a well-armed and dangerous army of 873,000 fighters threatening Israel, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf Emirates, the U.S. Navy, and international shipping, with drones, ballistic missiles, and rockets. After Hamas and Hizbullah, the Houthis remain Iran's most viable and dangerous proxy. Like Hizbullah, the Houthis view their mission as relieving Israeli pressure on Hamas. Houthis could show up on Israel's borders as Iranian expeditionary forces. In November 2023 and February 2024, Houthi air defense systems shot down two advanced, $30 million, U.S. MQ-9 unmanned combat aerial vehicles. U.S. defense officials focus on the Houthi threat to international shipping and Israel but pay little or no attention to Iran's immense support role in training, and providing weaponry, intelligence, and funding to the Houthis. Ultimately, all violence against the West, Israel, and freedom of shipping in the Middle East is traced back to Iran. The writer is Director of the Institute for U.S.-Israel Relations at the Jerusalem Center. (Jerusalem Center for Foreign Affairs) Multiple intelligence sources indicate that Iran is facilitating talks between the Houthi rebels and Russia to secure Russian P-800 Oniks anti-ship cruise missiles, significantly boosting the Houthis' capacity to target vessels in the Red Sea. The Red Sea is a critical artery for global commerce. Yet the U.S. has largely failed to effectively address the growing Houthi threat. The Biden administration seems to believe that continued downing of Houthi missiles will act as a deterrent, which has not proven to be the case. Instead, the U.S. should go on the offense against the Houthis by going after their command and control centers, logistical infrastructures, arms shipments, and drone production facilities. Without a shift to an offensive posture, the Houthi threat will persist. Failure to decisively neutralize the Houthis would only signal that their aggression successfully pressures the West. The Houthi threat warrants serious attention because the group undermines the principle of freedom of navigation. Once this principle is compromised, it opens the door for other malicious actors to challenge it in critical regions. The writer is a research assistant at the Yorktown Institute. (RealClear Defense) Other Issues In Israel, we know that we need to eliminate the threat of terror from both Lebanon and the Palestinian-administered territories, but attaining it requires continuing a war that has a price. That price is not insignificant. It involves delay in freeing the hostages, continued stress for soldiers' families, and continued risks of military operations. But the price of a reconstituted Hizbullah and Hamas with Iranian backing may be even more expensive. The writer is a fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Foreign Affairs specializing in political psychology. (Jerusalem Post) Observations: Five Requirements Abbas Must Meet to Demonstrate His Commitment to Peace - Lt.-Col. (res.) Maurice Hirsch (Jerusalem Center for Foreign Affairs)
The writer, Director of the Palestinian Authority Accountability Initiative at the Jerusalem Center, was director of the Military Prosecution in Judea and Samaria. |
|