GGEC welcomes the request by the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court for arrest warrants to be issued against Netanyahu and Gallant for war crimes.
The warrants should have been issues many months ago; indeed every Israeli government since 1948 has planned and executed massacres of Palestinian civilians with intent to drive the survivors out of Palestine en masse.
It is significant that this move by the ICC follows the South African case presented to the ICJ for Israel to be charged with the crime of genocide, a case that persuade the panel of judges that there is a ‘plausible’ case for genocide against the apartheid state.
It remains to be seen how the UK Government will cope with the American threats against the ICC given that the chief Prosecutor was a British nominee and it is a crime under the Rome Statute to attack or impede the work of the ICC.
GGEC calls on the Scottish Government and all political parties to welcome and defend the ICC Chief Prosecutor’s decision to call for arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant.
Apart from Vladimir Putin, the ICC has only ever gone after African villains; those who invaded and devastated Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Libya and Palestine previously escaped the Court’s attention.
The ICC chief prosecutor yesterday expressed his fear that continuing such a policy “will be creating the conditions for [the ICC’s] collapse.”
The ICC chief has only moved against two of the top criminals in the Israeli regime of genocide after decades of turning a blind eye to the ongoing program of ethnic cleansing underway across the whole of Palestine.
The war crimes charges, however, together with the South African case for genocide, will persuade more people to call for a ceasefire in Gaza now and campaign in support of the Palestinian call for BDS – Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions – to isolate the genocidal state and hasten freedom for the Palestinian people.