World leaders react to ICC prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants for Israeli leaders

as Israel’s prime minister and defense minister find themselves in the international criminal court sites for war crimes and crimes against humanity their number one international Ally has leapt to their defense let me be clear we reject the icc’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli [Applause] leaders and it’s clear isra wants to all do all it can to ensure civilian protection Israel and the US are conspicuous by their absence in the of 124 countries recognizing the authority of the ICC unlike the vast majority of their European allies so the latest move by the court tests European loyalty to a court that has up until now prosecuted overwhelmingly African leaders and never yet officials from a western aligned democracy uh the international criminal court in over 20 years of existence has never indicted a western official and in fact no International tribunal since norenberg uh has done so despite ICC membership the UK prime minister’s loyalty to Israel appears to come first well this is a deeply unhelpful development of course it’s still subject to final decision but it remains deeply unhelpful nonetheless while France on the other hand has come out in support of the Court’s pursuit of accountability for several months France has been sounding the alarm on the impera ative need for a strict respect of international humanitarian law especially regarding the unacceptable nature of Civilian losses in the Gaza Strip and insufficient humanitarian access France supports the international criminal court its independence and the fight against impunity in all situations it is now up to a panel of three judges to assess whether or not to issue the warrants and if they do international law will require any ICC member state to arrest the two men if they enter their territories a state of affairs likely to further isolate Israel and its leadership

The International Criminal Court’s prosecutor said on Monday (May 20) that he was seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his defence chief and three Hamas leaders over alleged war crimes.
#ICC #Gaza #Israel

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20 comments

  4. The ICC has no credibility. If it had there would have been warrants out for Obama, Clinton, Bush, and Blair. There's only one president in recent history who never started a war, and it's not Joe. I'm not surprised at the French response. They did send hundreds of thousands of Jews to their deaths in WWII. This is par for the course. Once an antisemite. Always an anti semite? Btw , how many French leaders were prosecuted for their genocides in Algeria, Polynesia and Vietnam ?

  8. France 24 should get briefed before it makes any comments. ICC should avoid any hurried decision. The Prosecutor is slso poorly briefed. He should first have insisted on "complementarity" and then on habeas corpus for hostages for examination and testimony. Victims are the first witnesses and material evidence in criminal trials. Besides, equating elected government with self-appointed terrorists is in poir taste. Surprising to see French reaction in here.

  14. Biden: "how dare the icc suggest Netanyahu is starving gaza"

    Also Biden: "we're gonna need to airdrop food into gaza bc netanyahu isn't letting food in"

    Careful Biden, your hypocrisy is showing and november is fast approaching.

  15. Listen to the sense of entolitlement and self righteousness. As though we owe Natenyahu/Israel anything they want and are obligated to underwrite, endorse, and share responsibility for war crimes. No.

  16. Uncle Joe, I will vote for you in November because the alternative is insane. But you are wrong on this issue. In fact I think the US should join the ICC and and support International Law. You can't just be for International Law as long as it suits you. You have to be for International Law even when it does not suit your needs. Might does not make right. If the ICC seeks arrest warrants for US War criminals…the US must comply and hand them over to the court. No one is above the law.

  20. Since October, the ICGP started to see what Israel was planning and initiated the collection of significant amount of evidence, which speaks for itself in terms of what Israel was doing on the ground in Gaza. They concluded that Israel was, or there was at least a prima facie case against Israel in terms of war crimes. A significant proportion of that evidence was submitted to the ICC who were also conducting their own investigation along with other countries, doctors, eyewitnesses and journalists. The evidence is overwhelming and unsurmountable.

    The shield of impunity that Israel has been gifted for decades and decades, has kept Israel away from this kind of accountability.

    It's clear that Israel is moving back to its standard playbook, which is to object to any kind of accountability, object to any kind of breaching of their shield of impunity and objecting to any kind of international legal due process. That's what Israel does. When you finally start to break through that shield of impunity, the standard position is that it's anti-Semitic. How could it possibly be anti-Semitic? Karim Khan has provided this evidence to an independent panel who've agreed with him that it's of sufficient standard to apply for an arrest warrant.

    Now, three judges will look at that evidence and decide whether or not to apply for this issue on arrest warrants. And then there's a trial as well. Within all of that process, you can't call that process anti-Semitic. Nobody welcomes a war crimes investigation for accountability, but then both groups are more than able to prepare and present their defenses in a trial in due course. As the ICC collates more evidence, the list of charges will increase, but also the list of suspects will increase.

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