The legal earthquake of the International Criminal Court against the leaders of Israel

– International News – Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, announced on Monday the request to issue an arrest warrant against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli War Minister Yoav Galant for crimes against humanity in the Gaza war. This will be the largest and most unprecedented international court order against the authorities of the occupation regime in the 76-year history. Of course, the prosecutor of this court has also announced the issuing of similar sentences for senior leaders of Hamas.

Three levels of crime

Usually, three concepts with different legal burdens are proposed about wars that lead to mass killing of civilians, which are “genocide”, “crime against humanity” and finally “war crime”. From the point of view of the severity of the killing of civilians and members of a society and nation, genocide is considered the most serious crime, followed by crimes against humanity. The last two concepts have a collective nature, and war crime is of a lower order, and it means the anti-individual behavior of the soldiers of one of the parties involved in the war.

Genocide, according to the definition of Polish lawyer Raphael Lemiken, is “a systematic program consisting of various actions designed to destroy the main foundations of the survival of national groups and ultimately to destroy the groups themselves.”

Also, the Convention on the Prohibition of Genocide adopted in 1946 in the United Nations defines this concept as follows: all actions with the intention of destroying all or part of the national group, occur ethnically, racially or religiously; including killing the members of a group, seriously harming the physical or mental health of the members of that group, intentionally exposing the group to an inappropriate living situation that leads to the total or partial deterioration of its physical powers, measures to prevent the birth and reproduction of that group and finally the forced transfer of the children of that group to another group.

Article 3 of this convention also includes mass killing, collusion to commit genocide, direct incitement And to openly commit genocide, it also adds the beginning of committing genocide and participation in the crime of genocide. It does not accuse Israel of committing genocide, but considers them to be crimes against humanity. Of course, there is another case in the International Court of Justice in The Hague following South Africa’s complaint and it is investigating the accusation of genocide against Israel.

On the other hand, crimes against humanity[1]are a set of specific acts committed intentionally by a state, or on behalf of a state. , as part of a widespread or organized policy, usually against civilians, in time of war or peace.

Article 8 of the Rome Statute which The founding document of the International Criminal Court considers examples of crimes against humanity to be mass murder, deliberate extermination, slavery, forced labor, human trafficking and forced migration.

Many of the actions and crimes of the Israeli army in the last 7 months in the Gaza Strip can be an example of these three concepts, but the International Criminal Court, Benjamin Netanyahu and Prime Minister and War Minister Yoav Galant highlighted this regime’s deliberate attacks The Israeli army has accused the civilians in the Gaza Strip of crimes against humanity. passed and the mass killing of civilians, children and women (more than 1.4% of the total population of Gaza) as well as the wounding of about 80 thousand Palestinians living in Gaza (more than 3.5% of the total population) and the failure to consciously stop it, among the bases of Karim Khan’s arguments It is against Israel. Also, preventing humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza Strip and creating famine as a war tool to intensify the situation in Gaza and further harass the people of this strip is also the second dimension of Karim Khan’s argument for issuing an arrest warrant against the leaders of the Zionist regime.

If the said verdict is issued, Netanyahu will be the first leader of a political unit with western orientation to be accused of crimes of this level. Reid Brody, a veteran war crimes prosecutor, told Reuters: “This event is a turning point in the history of international justice. In its more than 21 years of existence, the International Criminal Court has never indicted a Western official. In fact, no international court has had such an incident since Nuremberg (against representatives of Nazi Germany).

As ​​a result of this ruling Netanyahu and Gallant are essentially wanted in 124 countries around the world, including almost every Western country except the United States.

The Prime Minister and the Minister of War of the Zionist regime will be wanted by the governments of the mentioned countries as soon as they enter the countries that have signed the Rome Statute. In fact, the governments that signed the Treaty of Rome should arrest Bibi and Gallant and hand them over to the Hague Criminal Court or any court of its choice.

Arguments from the Zionist side

Tel Aviv and pro-Zionist legal institutions have put forward 4 arguments to reject the arguments of the World Court prosecutor; The first argument is that Israel did not sign the Rome Statute and therefore the International Criminal Court does not have the jurisdiction to issue judgments against the Israelis.

The second argument Zionists, which is called the “principle of complementarity”, is based on the fact that the International Criminal Court does not have the jurisdiction to deal with officials in political units with independent judicial systems. In fact, the jurisdiction of the said court can be established when the officials and citizens of the states whose internal judicial system is not capable of opening similar cases. This argument claims that in the occupied territories, even non-governmental organizations can file lawsuits against government officials and institutions, and the Supreme Court hears all these lawsuits. Among other things, the annulment of the basic law of judicial reforms and the fact that 6 separate cases are pending against Netanyahu are signs of this.

The third argument of the Zionist side is this. That the International Criminal Court, based on the request of the Palestinian Authority to become a member of this court in 2014, recognized this organization as the Palestinian government and therefore considers itself competent to hear all the events that occur in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. , but self-governing organizations are not considered an independent and governing government[2].

Basic consequences of issuing an arrest warrant

Issuing an arrest warrant for the Prime Minister and the Minister of War of the Zionist regime, first of all, it will seriously distort the reputation and the international position of the Zionist regime, and will change this regime from the usual claimant and victim of anti-Semitism to the position of a cruel and bloodthirsty political unit. whose leaders are accused of crimes against humanity by an institution created and paid for by the West, will be degraded.

The final form is that the signatory governments of the Treaty of Rome can (whether directly or at the request of the Palestinians and their supporting legal institutions) cut off economic relations with the heads of the Zionist regime, lower the level of their relations with them, and this regime isolate them.

The third consequence of the possible verdict of the International Criminal Court is the direct impact it will have on the proceedings of the Israeli genocide case in the Gaza Strip in The International Court of Justice will directly establish a stronger legal basis for condemning Israel for genocide in the Gaza Strip.

The fourth consequence of this ruling The creation of a stronger legal basis for the recognition of the independent state of Palestine by the various governments of the world. Based on this historic ruling, Palestinians can request the different governments of the world to elevate the legal dignity of Palestinian institutions to a sovereign and independent state, like the International Criminal Court.