Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, Nov 23, 2024

Arrest warrants [1] from the International Criminal Court (ICC) on November 21 for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu & former defence minister Yoav Gallant are of great significance for international justice. The court that came into force in 2002 has an impeccable reputation for following rigorous investigative standards on crimes of Genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Its attempts to book top officials from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Darfur, Sudan, Libya and the Russian Federation have gone well with Western powers that call the shots as long as it didn’t rock their boat. ICC indicting top Israeli officials is a very challenging move and is likely to face huge headwinds. Israel (like the US, India China and Russia) is not party to the Rome treaty that created the ICC. Netanyahu and Gallant have reacted to the ICC move, with their usual mud-slinging at the credibility of International institutions like the UN, —