Do the right thing, even if it's painful
This Green and Strangely Pleasant Lands ponders why Britain is still trying to hinder trails for war crimes in Gaza
Britain’s new Labour government has an early opportunity to demonstrate whether it has the backbone to put morality and respect for international law at the centre of its foreign policy.
Yes, yes, I am well aware that this will provoke harrumphing from self-proclaimed pragmatists. Morality is all very well, they say, but how does it put bread on the table? As for international law, the now ejected Tory government was serially quick to decry this notion and assert that Britain should never be subject to the rule of ‘foreign courts’.
Yet Britain was a founding member of a world order that created international jurisdiction to secure human rights and obligations. Courts such as the more recently established International Criminal Court (ICC), are not ‘foreign courts’, they are, as the name implies, international courts because member states volunteer to join them.
This means that members are subject to their jurisdiction and have the opportunity to hold others to account in the interests of safeguarding human and civil rights.
This long-winded preamble takes us to the ICC where prosecutors are seeking arrest warrants for the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leaders on suspicion of war crimes. To be clear, this is far from the end of the process because determination of guilt requires a full trial.
One of the last acts of the dying Conservative government was to try and block the prosecution of Mr. Netanyahu on the spurious grounds that the long dead Oslo Peace Accords prevented the Palestinians from prosecuting Israelis.
In other words Britain thinks it is right give Mr. Netanyahu immunity from trial despite the most compelling evidence of war crimes coming, not least, from brave sources within Israel who hold their prime minister responsible for prolonging the war in Gaza which has prevented the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas. His actions have contributed to a death toll of over 38,000 Palestinians, mainly civilians, caused the displacement of the entire population of Gaza and the reduction to rubble of this densely populated zone.
ICC prosecutors are also seeking the arrest of Hamas leaders who were responsible for the 7 October massacre of Israeli civilians, have shown no compunction over using their own people as human shields and vow to continue aiming missiles at Israeli civilian targets. Britain has expressed no objection to calling the Hamas leadership to account.
In the light of all this there can be no reasonable doubt that war crimes have been and continue to be committed. A necessary response from Britain should be to help bring the perpetrators to justice.
It may be argued that Britain is a much-diminished power on the world stage and it matters little what it thinks or does. There is also the suspicion that the UK is acting as a surrogate for the United States which shamefully does not belong to the ICC but is vocal in urging this court to bring its enemies to justice.
The argument about British weakness in international affairs is not without substance however Britain is not so diminished as to have become irrelevant on the world stage. Moreover, the way it conducts its international relations also matters within the country itself.
It matters because standards matter, and it matters for Britain because if a nation cannot stand up for the values of decency and rule of law when it becomes inconvenient to do so what is to prevent aping the intolerance and lawlessness of the international bullies and dictators who hold these values in contempt and will visit their contempt on other nations.
But does morality put a single loaf of bread on the table? It emphatically does because a society that maintains a respect for liberty ensures an impartial system of justice, which in turn underpins a thriving economy. Having an elected and accountable government means that arbitrary and unjust government is constrained by the ultimate right of the people to kick poor governments out of office.
Governing is a tricky old business, often involving uncomfortable compromise but also the courage to be brave enough to do what is right even if doing the right thing attracts considerable criticism. In this case any intervention in the bitter conflict between Israel and Palestine is fraught with danger and stirs up a storm of passion.
It’s a price worth paying because the most difficult challenges are the real testing grounds for leaders.
As an Israeli who has experienced Netanyahu's betrayal of his own people I would enjoy seeing him on trial and would like nothing more than seeing him being led to prison. However, legal action against Netanyahu should be in Israeli courts for countless crimes. At the international tribunal Netanyahu is accused as a representative of his country, Israel. Everyone is very careful not to say that Hamas represents the Palestinian people and explains that the Palestinians are victims of their leadership. Such consideration is not granted Israel, supposedly because Israel is more democratic than "Palestine" but Hamas was elected in Gaza in a manner similar to how Netanyahu was elected in Israel, by a narrow margin and coalition considerations.The international tribunal places Israel and Hamas on equal status as if they are two children fighting in school, and suggests that they should both be punished. This is not the situation.
Whatever Israel's crimes or cruelties towards the Palestinian people, on Oct. 7 Hamas brutally attacked innocent civilians, murdering, raping and kidnapping. Israel had no choice but to respond. Many argue that Israel's response was not "proportional". One could argue about Israel's and Hamas' military tactics but I don't think that is in the realm of the International Court. Israel, under the leadership of Netanyahu's, admittedly crummy government, didn't have much choice but attack their enemy that uses its civilians as human shields. The killing of innocent civilians is Hamas' greatest weapon. It sets the world against Israel and they care more about that than their own people. Hamas certainly had the choice of not attacking and starting this disaster. Even when Palestinians were given opportunities for a peace agreement and the establishment of some kind of state, they clearly stated that they preferred the total destruction of Israel. This conflict is about weather the State of Israel should exist or be destroyed. Where is the symmetry here?
Also the court ignores the fact that Hamas is part of a much larger network of fundamentalist Islamic forces that support it financially and with ideological propaganda, much of which is simply not true. All sorts of support for Hamas has been garnered from unrelated countries such as South Africa, Russia, China, North Korea, etc. and the so called "left". One wonders how much money was invested in that.
The International Court and its activity is influenced by many unrelated factors and is not the arena on which this conflict should be discussed or judged. The same is true of the UN which has passed more resolutions against tiny Israel than against any other country in the world. Israel is also being attacked by Hizbollah, an Iranian proxy army. So why not judge Iran and Lebanon and Syria?
Sadly this supposedly objective court is tainted and not the suitable arena for a discussion of the Jewish-Arab conflict in the Middle East.
And while we are discussing this, why do you think that Britain has any right to participate in any kind of judgement on this conflict when it was Britain that created the conditions for its development? The same is true for most European countries, so maybe this is a good time to support the existence of the Jewish State, created as a reaction to how Jews were treated for centuries in Europe rather than pretend the situation is symmetrical, just two bad apples in the barrel?
Netanyahu should see justice in Israel, and Hamas should be judged by its own people as well. The war between the two groups can only solved by each accepting the other and seeking coexistence. This war has made that more difficult than before which was, I think, its main purpose. It came a second before peace accords between Israel and Saudi Arabia were to be signed. Critical as we are of Netanyahu, it may not have mattered if Israel had a better government and built no settlements in the West Bank. Presently both sides are led by those who wish to destroy the other, but Israel is smaller and weaker in the long run.