Al-Qalam 
[Photo: Politico]
By Iqbal Jassat
Has the world reached a moment of truth as far as findings against Israel by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and International Criminal Court (ICC) are concerned?
According to Ilan Pappe, it has.
In a recent interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, the renowned historian Pappe, who is currently professor of history and director of the European Center for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter, explained why he believes that it is crunch time for international tribunals.
The ICJ and ICC are facing governments unwilling to implement their rulings against Israel. And while they are confronted with a lack of cooperation by Western governments, Pappe correctly argued that the rest of the world, especially the Global South, will have a keen interest in determining whether terms such as “universal” and “International” really mean what they stand for.
He suggested that while Palestine is just one case of many in which “we have now a real struggle to define, again, what is universal, what are universal values, and what is international justice. And I think that’s why it’s such an important historical moment”.
To recap the context of Pappe’s profound observation, it is imperative to underline the significance of the rulings by both the ICJ and the ICC.
It took seven months of horrific mass murders in Israel’s genocidal campaign and its relentless assault on Rafah – which continues to this day – before the ICJ issued a preliminary order on May 24.
This followed an urgent application by South Africa resulting in the court calling on Israel to “Immediately halt its military offensive, and any other action in the Rafah Governorate, which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”
It also ordered Israel to keep the Rafah crossing open and permit United Nations investigative commissions to enter Gaza and investigate allegations of genocide.
Four days earlier, on May 20, ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan announced that he had applied to the court to issue arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.
It is certain that Khan did not take this dramatic step voluntarily. Though he included three Hamas officials as well, it can be argued, as many legal experts have done, that armed resistance against Israeli occupation, colonialism and genocide is justified as a legal right.
In 1983, the UN General Assembly reaffirmed “the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for their independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial domination, apartheid and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle.”
But, that Khan broke the stranglehold of the West, particularly the United States, by going after Israel’s top officials has been received as an overdue yet welcome move.
Commenting on the ICJ and ICC decisions, Raed Jarrar, advocacy director for Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), said that International action is needed because Israel will not hold itself accountable nor will it voluntarily end its crimes.
The concerns raised by many about rulings and demands on Israel by the highest legal institutions of the world being defied and a Western world unable or unwilling to enforce compliance reinforce the arguments advanced by Pappe.
Non-compliance by Israel ought to render it a pariah regime, subject to global isolation, boycott and sanctions, yet we find that as Netanyahu defiantly intensifies the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, his Western allies stand by – unmoved and untouched.
The Rafah Tent Massacre, which occurred two days after the ICJ ruling, demonstrates the Zionist regime’s extreme level of impunity. It bombed tents, sheltering refugees in what was supposed to be a safe zone. The air strikes killed dozens of Palestinians, mostly women and children.
Hundreds more, many of them women and children, suffered serious injuries, including horrifying burns.
In Truthout, Michel Moushabeck described it as “a large inferno and massive casualties, including children who were burned alive in a sea of flames”. Elsewhere on various social media platforms, video clips show “a headless child, charred bodies of children, women and children frantically running in all directions trying to escape the fires,” he added.
“They bring Israeli atrocities in Gaza to a new level of unspeakable cruelty and horror.”
It is not surprising to read Jonathan Cook making a compelling argument that to continue the Gaza Genocide, Israel and the US must destroy the laws of war.
Cook confirmed a joint investigation by the Israeli website 972 and the British Guardian newspaper revealed this week that Israel – apparently with US support – has been running a covert war against the ICC for the best part of a decade.
“Its offensive began after Palestine became a contracting party to the ICC in 2015, and intensified after Bensouda, Khan’s predecessor, started a preliminary investigation into Israeli war crimes – both Israel’s repeated attacks on Gaza and its building of illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their lands. “
While the Western world dithers, Palestine is in flames. Ilan Pappe is troubled, as many should be, about the failure of the moment of truth to confront Western hypocrisy and double standards.
*Iqbal Jassat is an Executive Member of the MEDIA REVIEW NETWORK, Johannesburg.
