The International Criminal Court prosecutor who prosecuted Netanyahu steps down after a year of pressure.
The career of International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan is over. This Friday, he announced that he is temporarily stepping down from his post until the investigation into an alleged case of sexual harassment reported by a court employee is completed. Khan was the one who initiated the investigation. The international arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. Established in 1998, the ICC is going through the most delicate moment in its history. In recent weeks, an atmosphere of fear has reigned in the Netherlands, and senior officials of this judicial body, which is responsible for investigating and prosecuting war crimes and genocide around the world, have resigned.
This week, as President Donald Trump was touring countries in the Middle East, the United States news agency Associated Press published a report on the dramatic situation at the International Criminal Court, based in The Hague. sanctions imposed by the Trump administration against its staff have scared many of his employees into considering quitting their jobs. Employees who are US citizens have been warned that traveling to visit family risks arrest.
Khan asked the court to issue the arrest warrant last November. As the ICC was about to issue it, leading Israeli and foreign legal experts advised Netanyahu to open an internal investigation into the events in Gaza, as this would automatically paralyze the ICC's proceedings. But the prime minister ignored it, preferring a direct, head-on confrontation with the court.
Once again, Netanyahu was right, because time has shown that he alone is stronger than the international community as a whole. The result is that the ICC is rapidly crumbling under the pressure of Israel and the silence of the powers, including European leaders. Due to the sanctions, Karim Khan cannot even withdraw money from his bank ATM in the United Kingdom. The bank has frozen his accounts on Washington's orders, the AP reports.
Western political and legal officials have pointed out that Netanyahu and his government have committed genocide and war crimes in the Gaza Strip, where more than 50,000 Palestinians have died in the last year and a half, the vast majority of them women and children. On Thursday, the same day that the AP reported on the ICC's problems, Israel killed more than 115 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them civilians.
The natural thing would be for the courts to investigate whether war crimes and genocide are being committed, and the ICC should lead the investigation. But that won't be the case, because Israel and the United States have more power than international courts. The ICC will fall before Netanyahu sits in the dock at The Hague. A situation that speaks volumes about our society and the limits of justice.
One anecdote says it all: Emmanuel Macron demanded that Mongolia arrest Vladimir Putin, pursued by the ICC, when the Russian president recently flew to Beijing. But Macron himself ignored the demand a few weeks ago to arrest Netanyahu when he flew over France en route to Washington. Macron himself said this week that historians will have to decide whether Israel is committing genocide, when in fact it should be the courts.
