EXCLUSIVE: ICC seeks arrest warrants against Sinwar and Netanyahu for war crimes over October 7 attack and Gaza war | CNN
EXCLUSIVE: ICC seeks arrest warrants against Sinwar and Netanyahu for war crimes over October 7 attack and Gaza war | CNN
The CNN headline is a bit misleading. It's not the International Criminal Court as a whole that is seeking these arrest warrants but the ICC's chief prosecutor Karim Khan. The judges have yet to decide on these warrants.
[Side note: This is the same kind of lazy journalism that uses terms like EU chief or EU leader interchangeably for the President of the European Commission (Ursula von der Leyen) and the President of the European Council (Charles Michel). If this was limited to a short headline, I could excuse it, but CNN continues with the same wording in the first sentence of the article: "The International Criminal Court is seeking arrest warrants for ..." which is absolutely unnecessary, even if CNN clarifies things later.]
I've always considered CNN to stand for Clearly Not News
Edit - the BBC headline starts "ICC prosecutor seeks arrest of..."
Ok, this is very interesting. How is it he took this initiative? Actually, is it an initiative or part of the process?
Modern Journalism, and I use that term loosely, at work. Once you notice these kinds of misleading to incorrect headlines you can't stop seeing them.
I think that's a distinction without a difference. How would the ICC seek an arrest warrant if not by having the chief prosecutor submit one? If the court had approved it, the title would be "arrest warrant issued by ICC".
Biden can't save him, because we wouldn't agree to the Rome act because we thought that somehow meant we couldn't be charged at the Hauge for our war crimes. That's not true tho, we don't have to agree to it.
Israel and the United States are not members of the ICC. However, the ICC claims to have jurisdiction over Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank after Palestinian leaders formally agreed to be bound by the court’s founding principles in 2015.
I mean… yes you do, since that’s a little bit how international law works? Countries who do not sign and ratify the Rome statute and then remain in there aren’t governed by the ICC in the same way.
You will see in the excerpt you quoted, the reason the ICC believes it has jurisdiction is because of events taking place in Palestine, which has taken part in the Rome Statute previously.
And the United States has a law that says it will militarily invade The Hague if any US service member is arrested and held by the court. It came about along with all the other legislative bullshit in the years after 9/11/01. The US had previously been a founding member of the ICC, but withdrew for reasons of sovereignty.
Sovereignity, my ass. They just don't want war crimes committed by their own military investigated by an independent body.
International law gets weird. Tradition is absolutely a legitimate way for something to get recognized. That works because of Sovereignty and the intense political nature of anything between countries. So basically, if someone got an Israeli to the Hague, then the Netherlands could point at the decades of precedent for the moral high ground in refusing to release them. Whether that works depends on politics and what people think. So just because we didn't sign the paper does not mean we can resist it forever. If the world wants to head in that direction, the best we can do is dig our feet in and make it take longer.
And no sane US president would use the Hague Invasion Act. It's an open question if the military would even follow the order. that would require invading a NATO ally with strong defense systems tied into their neighbors. It would be a great way to obliterate our world standing in one fell swoop.
US law doesn’t say that it WILL it says that it CAN. As an American I’d be wayyyy beyond pissed off if we did I to rescue fucking Bibi.
By your logic the nazis shouldn't have been tried at the Hauge...
Is that what youre intentionally saying? Or did you not think it through?
Like even this bit:
And the United States has a law that says it will militarily invade The Hague if any US service member is arrested and held by the court. It came about along with all the other legislative bullshit in the years after 9/11/01. The US had previously been a founding member of the ICC, but withdrew for reasons of sovereignty.
If no US service member could be tried at the Hauge because the US didn't sign the Rome agreement...
Why pass a law saying we're not subject to it?
And when did Bibi join the US military anyways?
I missed that one...
I'm not sure I understand how these warrants can take place. It will come from other member states in case any of them travel there?
Also how is it that Putin has not been arrested yet? Has he avoided those destinations.
If I misunderstood something or everything, please let me know.
Yes, Putin has avoided those destinations so far. He even got warned by South Africa that they’d have to arrest him if he were to travel to a meeting there.
Thank you for the clarification!
They can't make a country arrest it's own leader.
But if they travel to any UN country, the country is supposed to arrest them, or coordinate with countries willing to.
So these are more like an exile than anything.
Kind of like a sanction but instead of money it's on personal travel.
Sanctions are still waaaaaay more effective though and what we should be doing. Money is what these despots care about.
Technically any member state, but they wouldn't refuse him if a non member state arrested him too. And I say technically because there's a few member states that support him and would likely not arrest him.
Good, this is a situation in which both sides are both truly disgusting and vile, using people as pawns, shields, etc.
Yeah, for some reason too many people are having difficulty understanding that in this case, yes, the both side argument works quite well. Both Hamas and the Israeli government are horrible with the citizens on both side suffering
It's worth clarifying that the Palestinian civilians are not Hamas though. It's also misleading to say they elected them democratically, as the median Palestinian was a literal infant when the last election happened, and nearly half weren't even born.
Definitely agree. Although I will add that Israel has likely played a large part in radicalizing many members of Hamas and their actions in Palestine have dwarfed the initial Hamas attack, no atrocity should go unpunished.
And both sides are equally pissed off being put on the same level as the others.
Regardless of the technicalities and nuances in the reporting: this is a good thing.
Can we talk about a story that's fallen through the cracks here? CNN claiming this as an exclusive is madness. Who do these people think they are? And should the ICC issue arrest warrants about it? 😉
Also, not sure if just me, but I couldn't give a flying fuck whether a news outlet is first to break a story or not. Seems a bit self conglatulatory
All the better to control the narrative if you can DCMA the rest?
Is Giuliani behind this tact?
More links
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3ggpe3qj6wo
https://apnews.com/article/icc-khan-netanyahu-070941d21ccd1f2b9611032b88527575
Karim Khan said that he believes Netanyahu, his defense minister Yoav Gallant and three Hamas leaders — Yehia Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh — are responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip and Israel.
The prosecutor must request the warrants from a pre-trial panel of three judges, who take on average two months to consider the evidence and determine if the proceedings can move forward.
Israel is not a member of the court, and even if the arrest warrants are issued, Netanyahu and Gallant do not face any immediate risk of prosecution. But Khan’s announcement deepens Israel’s isolation as it presses ahead with its war, and the threat of arrest could make it difficult for the Israeli leaders to travel abroad.
Both Sinwar and Deif are believed to be hiding in Gaza as Israel tries to hunt them down. But Haniyeh, the supreme leader of the Islamic militant group, is based in Qatar and frequently travels across the region.
Let's check what the left wing "progressive" israelis think about this.
It's not comparing them, they have just all went over the bar for being war criminals.
Herein lies one of the innumerable differences between democratic socialists and liberals
Fucking hell got so confused by the title, was wondering what the fuck do these guys have to do with cricket.
The cricket council honestly has more chance of bringing any of these cunts to justice than the real ICC.
I mean fucking Kony is still on the list, and I forget how long ago that was a thing, and he was on their list long before that.
I finally "learned" the rules of cricket, and now understand why Americans created baseball. A game takes a fucking week‽‽ We don't have time for that shit!
iirc Hitler had it banned from Germany after learning the week long match against England ended with no result lmao.
Anyways that's the test cricket format. The typical game is ODI which lasts about 7 hours, and the world cup happening this June is T20I which lasts 2.5 hours and is the most exciting to watch.
There are one day matches too.
same could be said about NBA, MLB, and NHL playoffs
They've already called it antisemitic.
ICC is hamas
You mean "they did it first" doesn't hold up in international court?
“Let me be clear,” the president said in the statement, “whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence – none – between Israel and Hamas.”
Biden saying the right things as usual. /s
It's true. Hamas is posting rookie numbers. They've got to up their death count by around 10x before they can be in Israel's league.
Anyone else thinks these two look remarkably similar?
I think it's mainly the eyebrows they way they're pointed up in roughly the same spot.
Doesn't seem as much beyond that to me
Haggered
Haguerd
Oh boy, I can’t wait to see the reactions of politicians of the “free world” that prevented anyone to say anything against Israel for years on the pretext of antisemitism.
Especially that useless POS of Emanuel Macron, our infamous president.
Sinwar in a war of sin. Kinda poetic
This is the first one they have issued to a non-Africans, right?
Putin and another Russian, Maria, have been indicted as well, according to Wikipedia
There's also open cases against Putin's puppets in Georgia for the invasion of South Ossetia.
Oh wow. TIL
Slobodan Milošević was put to trial under a parallel organization, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. The ICC didn't exist yet when the ICTY was founded.
Sloby died in jail before coming to a verdict.
FFS so Netanyahu was extremely close to being pushed out of power and this dumbass pulls this stunt (just to get publicity) which only makes it easy for Netanyahu to make the case that "it's us against the world". He's also seeking to prosecute Gallant, the guy that would most likely make the push to remove Netanyahu. So he's pushing Gallant back towards falling back in line with Natanyahu.
Does this idiot want Netanyahu to stay in power? He's basically throwing a lifeline to Bibi while throwing away the credibility of the ICC. Never attribute to malice and all that, so likely just a moron.
Fuck, I was starting to have some hope the Netanyahu could be gone in the next few weeks and this guy is pulling out all the stops to keep him in power. All to get his face on TV.
The position of support for creating a famine (or not giving a shit to stop it) seems to have wider support than just Bibi. This guy's move puts in focus that creating a famine is a war crime, and he's forcing the Israelis players to face that and state their support or lack thereof clearly. Getting rid of Bibi alone might not increase the aid in Gaza. If the other party leaders aren't willing to throw Bibi and Gallant under the bus for this and/or shift gears on aid, then perhaps the Israeli political class is too far gone and the world should increase the pressure till someone gets it and starts telling the Israeli public that what's happening is wrong and is extremely counterproductive for Israel as whole.
Also, some polling shows Bibi's coalition being neck and neck with the alternative so the narrative that Bibi is certain to be ejected by Israel's democracy isn't so solid.
Israel asked for help from Arab countries in providing support in dealing with the humanitarian crisis. They laughed in the Israelis faces.
The problem is too many people are willing to let the Palestinians die in order to win some propaganda war against Israel. I don't feel like anyone really cares about Palestinians. They'd rather Palestinians die so they can have proof Israel is evil.
Joe Biden has built a pier to provide aid. This is more than anyone else has done to prevent famine. But the propaganda says he's "Genocide Joe".
What the fuck kind of argument is this? Courts aren't supposed to play politics, they are supposed to enforce the law. And if you want to do that in a genocide case you have to prove intent. Gallant made several public statements that can interpreted in that way.
This guy is playing politics. If he wasn't he'd just put in the paperwork instead of sitting down for an interview with CNN.
See how Jack Smith, a serious prosecutor rolls. There are very few press conferences and they are concise and to the point.
This guy is playing games to get publicity, he's probably working on a book deal or whatever right now to monetize the publicity.
Do you know what an arrest warrant is?
Also, the ICC court has not yet ruled on it. A prosecutor requested it.
One of the best jokes to come out of the UN in a long time.
The ICC is not a UN organization
Strange timing comes the day after the Iranian leadership are wiped out in an alleged accident.
It was an ancient salvaged U.S. helicopter flying in terrible weather. I don't think we need to start inventing conspiracy theories.
People’s take on this stuff always seems so naive to me. All war ever can be viewed as an attempt to arrest the leader of another group for “crimes”. When you get arrested… that means you lost the war. Winning a war means you didn’t get arrested.
The ICC is such a silly stupid waste of human attention. It’s like an idea that children came up with after watching Star Trek. It has no utility whatsoever for our species. We fight, we have winners and losers. If you start a fight with somebody stronger than you, you are gonna have a bad time. If you start a fight with someone weaker than you, others will think you are dishonorable. That doesn’t mean you get arrested.
Yeah you have no idea what the ICC is or what it does, nor what this warrant implies. You really believe that the ICC has done nothing? You should do some reading.
This warrant won't go away and the countries that this guy can still visit with this warrant will b extremely limited. This also puts much more pressure on Israel as he is now officially lumped in with other convicted war criminals. This is a good thing (tm)
This interpretation is a vague apologia for war crimes. This line of thinking means the Nuremberg Trials were a complete waste of time and the Nazis should not be held accountable.
ICC signatories have to arrest anyone with a warrant against them if they visit that country. That severely limits the number of state visits Netanyahu and others with warrants against them can make. That's not a minor thing. Big deals are made during state visits.
Putting out arrest warrants on both of them is so smart. It's a way to avoid people claiming they are taking sides or playing favorites or aiding terrorists or being in favor of genocide or whatever. Both leaders are culpable because both the IDF and Hamas have committed atrocities.
It is a politically savvy and ethically correct move. Really nice when those line up.
There's something satisfying about it.
At least the ICC is willing to do the right thing.
We'll see in time. Also not sure much will be done if they are. Remember the warrant for Putin was placed March of 2023. The impact on Russia so far seems about summed up to be "Putin can't attend a D-Day remembrance, and he probably shouldn't go see the Olympics, which he wouldn't"
It would be absurd and unjust to issue a warrant for only one of them. This was the right thing to do.
I agree, and I found it interesting that Israeli leaders were not accused of genocide or anything to do with their bombing campaign. Instead, it was the specific war crime of causing starvation due to their interference with humanitarian aid and food delivery. Kind of provides additional context for the US decision to build a floating pier off the Gaza coast.
It's much easier to say that an intentional blockade of food is leading to starvation, and that is a clear war crime. Very simple argument, easier to prove.
Talking about a bombing campaign is more difficult when soldiers are mixed in with the civilians. We may be able to point at the situation and say "that's clearly fucked up", but courts don't work that way. They have to acknowledge that in a war, the army is allowed to destroy the combatants of the enemy. A certain amount of collateral damage in the form of innocent lives lost is allowed by international law. This makes it all much murkier and more difficult to prove what is or is not a genuine war crime. They can't wing it, or guess, or go by what it "looks like", they have to prove it, which again, is difficult.
Starvation and depriving food aid though, very easy to prove.
That is Genocide, the UN tries not to use the general term whenever possible, and instead use the specific method of genocide. That way it's a lot harder to No True Scotsman the issue. but If I remember correctly they also charged Extinction and Murder. Then in the supporting documents they talk about systematic bombing and creation of a famine.