The ICC Prosecutor has applied for arrest warrants for the leaders of Hamas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Prosecutor Khan released a video statement to announce the arrest warrants.
The warrants stilll need to be approved by the judges, but we already see Republicans attacking the mere idea that Netanyahu could be held accountable for war crimes committed in Gaza that “continue to this day” according to Khan.
It appears that it’s okay to hold people accountable for war crimes if they are an adversary, like Vladimir Putin, but an ally, who has committed similar crimes, should never be held accountable. The same opinion on holding powerful people accountable is on display with the reaction to former President Donald Trump facing indictments for crimes he committed before, during, and after his time in office. This is dangerous threat to democracy. What makes it a threat is that we see members of the government attacking a separate but equal branch of the government and undermining the rule of law. Without that, our democracy collapses.
The war crimes being alleged by the ICC include the use of starvation as a weapon of war, purposefully targeting civilians, and the blocking of humanitarian aid. Anyone paying attention to this war—anyone with social media—has witness the alleged crimes taking place with their own eyes.
One thing that people against the war have questioned is why the U.S. has resorted to dropping aid packages from planes and building a pier solely for use in delivering aid into Gaza (after Israel completes their mandatory inspections, of course) if Israel is our ally. If they were a true ally, why would they fight against us every step of the way? Why do they need to inspect aid coming directly from us? Do they think we are going to aid Hamas and sneak weapons in with the aid? Bringing this question back to the forefront are the remarks from a State Department official when asked about getting the American doctors trapped in Gaza out of the strip:
Again, if Israel is a true ally, why wouldn’t they allow American medical personnel to leave Gaza? None of it makes sense. It only serves to show everyone paying attention that Israel does whatever it wants, regardless of what the President of the United States says, making him look ineffective and weak. Why do we continue to send them money on a regular basis? Especially when they have more money than we do.
The ball is now in the U.S. government’s court. Unfortunately they are already avoiding that ball instead of catching it. Secretary Blinken has already denounced the idea of arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Galant. President Biden has denounced the move by the ICC. Did we honestly believe there would be any reaction other than this to the announcement? Luckily the answer is “no” and luckily in the sense that it prevents us from being let down by our government—Again. If you heard this news and reacted with hope that Israel’s far-right government would be held accountable for the killing of Palestinians and the famine that can’t be described as anything other than purposeful, you must be feeling very let down by the reaction of the Biden administration.
We’ve seen from the charges of genocide brought by South Africa against Israel, that the U.S. was the lone country to veto any charges against Israel for their actions during the war. It’s difficult to call this a war because a war insinuates 2 parties fighting against each other. In this case it’s Israel attacking Palestinians. They say their war is with Hamas, but they aren’t just going after members of Hamas. IDF soldiers have said that any male in Gaza is considered a terrorist. There was also a video that showed a group of IDF soldiers chanting to “kill all Palestinians” They’ve been “kidnapping Palestinian men, women, and teens for no reason other than their mere presence in Gaza. Parents have been taken away in front of their children. We’ve seen imabes of men stripped down to their underwear, zip tied, on their knees in the cold, surrounded by IDF soldiers taunting them.
The UN has released reports of soldiers using sexual assault as a weapon of war against Palestinian women and girls. While officials on the Right lost their minds about reports of Hamas assaulting and raping Israeli women—demanding that anyone and everyone condemn them for it—they’ve stayed silent about the IDF committing the same atrocities. Women have been locked in cages, naked, out in the rain and cold, yet not a peep.
The fact that our government still believes they can gaslight us in the age of social media is both infuriating and ridiculous. We see everything that is happening in Gaza as they tell us not to believe our lying eyes. In the past they could control the narrative using corporate media and statements from the government, but that is no longer the case. In fact, Mitt Romney and Anthony Blinken said as much during a live event. They discussed how TkTok doesn’t have enough pro-Israel content and it’s destroying their “narrative.” They said the quiet parts out loud! Both the reason for banning TikTok and their attempt to control a narrative.
That could explain their reaction to campus protests against the killing of innocent Palestinians. They appeared to be a little caught off guard while attempting to silence the students and crush dissent. They attempted to do so by using mainstream media to demonize the protesters by labeling the protests as “Pro-Hamas” and “Anti-Israel” instead of accurately describing them as Pro-Palestinian, Peace Protests, or protests against the intentional killing of innocent civilians. They’ve used the police to attack and arrest protesters, destroy the peaceful encampments, and stand idly by as Pro-Israel counter protesters attack students in the encampments. Luckily the attack on the UCLA campus was caught on video and CNN did an investigation to identify the counter protesters and confirm that they, along with outsiders, were the perpetrators of chaos and violence, not the peace protesters in the encampment.
Overall we’ve seen some media outlets cover the war much differently than in the past. Instead of automatically reporting Israel as the good guy and Palestinians as “terrorists” they’ve told us what’s really happening in Gaza. CNN has done some incredible investigative reporting to reveal the lies told by the IDF. It’s refreshing to see, but it doesn’t change the fact that our government continues to support Israel unconditionally. They continue to send them our tax dollars and use our hard-earned money to enrich weapons manufacturers and send those weapons to Israel. Israel has policies that we’ve fought for unsuccessfully for decades: universal healthcare and paid family leave. They manufacture weapons of their own. They had a government surplus while we’ve been in debt since 2001 , the last time we had a surplus. That begs the question: If Netanyahu is going to blatantly defy our requests and “red lines,” making a complete fool of President Biden, why do we continue to supply Israel with money and weapons? He should have been told to take care of his citizens himself and “carry out this “war” using Israel’s own funding and weapons” a long time ago.
The announcement by the ICC on arrest warrants for the leaders of Hamas and Benjamin Netanyahu should bring a sense of justice, of relief, that perpetrators of horrific war crimes are being held accountable. Instead, it elicits a sense of futility and defeat knowing that the Biden administration is going to fight against it every step of the way.
Excellent work, AIPAC. We see you.
For information on AIPAC contributions to members of Congress, visit Open Secrets for up to date accounting of who took the money and how much. Take note of how the largest recipient of contributions has voted and how they’ve spoken about the Israel-Hamas war.
So see how AIPAC has spent $2 million on attack ads against Jamal Bowman as retribution for his commentary on the conflict.
