Op-Ed by Farrukh Abadi
The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Karim Khan has applied for arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, and Ismail Haniyeh for war crimes and crimes against humanity. While the decision has been celebrated by some pro-Palestine activists for further isolating the Israeli government, ultimately it is an attempt to preserve Israel and the imperialist system behind it by sacrificing a few individual butchers in order to legitimize and return to the pre-Al-Aqsa Flood status quo. The reality of Khan’s prosecution is to focus all responsibility of the genocide on two Israeli leaders and three Palestinian leaders, placing greater blame and more charges on the Palestinians for the genocide happening against them than the Israelis.
There are some grounds for celebration—the decision is a concession that has only been won through the heroic armed resistance of the Palestinian people and the international solidarity of millions. The fact that Israel’s crimes will result in prosecution from the ICC rather than once again being swept under the rug reflects the fact that the masses have forced the hand of the ICC and imperialism more broadly to legitimize itself or risk total obsolescence.
But even as a concession, the charges should be understood as the bare minimum the ICC could have brought forward. The charges against Israel—which do not include the charge of genocide—only begin with actions dating back to October 2023 and is confined solely to the Gaza Strip, ignoring the last 76 years of Israel’s crimes against Palestinians and the ongoing actions in the West Bank, which has seen a significant increase in murders, land grabbing, and detentions. As for the recently exposed nearly decade-long history of Israel spying on and intimidating ICC members to prevent cases being brought against it, all they get is a warning, not even a slap on the wrist.
While clear evidence of systematic genocide and other crimes exists for many Israelis that they have not been charged with, the Palestinians have received the exact opposite treatment—there is little to no evidence for many of their charges, including the disproven claims of mass rapes and direct control of the actions of soldiers by the leaders being accused.
The ICC is used to maintain the US’s domination in the world. Khan’s history as chief prosecutor—a role he gained in 2021—makes this vividly clear. Within a few months of taking his position, Khan derailed a probe into US war crimes in Afghanistan to change the focus on investigating the actions of the Taliban and ISIS instead. He also did not take action on an investigation into Israel that his predecessor Fatou Bensouda had opened in 2021 into alleged war crimes that took place in the Palestinian territories since 2014, nor did he act on a case brought before the court by Al Jazeera in 2022 regarding Israel’s murder of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh—for whom there still has been no justice. It is no surprise then that in an interview with CNN regarding his decision, Khan himself stated that a “senior leader” pushed back against his decision, telling him that “this court is built for Africa and for thugs like Putin.”
The facade is shattering. The institutions that are meant to enact justice are openly in cahoots with genocide. Some may argue that Khan and his team are doing all they can to bring Israel to justice—even if this is true, that is precisely the point! Khan may genuinely desire to stop the genocide. But if all the ICC can accomplish is to facilitate a change in the representatives of imperialism in Israel, something Biden seems to be angling at with his recent ceasefire talk as well, then it is this limitation inherent to imperialism that people must be educated in, and even further, that this limitation has been exposed primarily through the guns of the Palestinian national resistance.
So if the order of the day for the imperialists is to preserve their system, what should they do? The imperialists and their lackeys have learned that sometimes the best way to preserve their system is to “attack” it, denouncing part of it in order to preserve the whole of it. They get the people to have faith in the due process of imperialism, in elections and the various illusions of bourgeois democracy, and reject revolutionary violence.
Israel is in mortal danger. A significant percentage of Israel’s own population believes that Israel is losing the war, thousands march in the streets of Israel denouncing their own government for its political failures, and the Resistance continues to deal blows to Israel on a daily basis across multiple fronts, not to mention the millions-strong international mass movement in defense of Palestine.
The best Israel can manage now is to put all the blame for their political and military failures on a few people and vote in a more moderate party, such as Benny Gantz’s “centrist” National Unity Party, which is more aligned with US foreign policy and is pushing for elections to oust Netanyahu and renew support for the Israeli state. Netanyahu does not at the moment best serve the interests of the imperialists he is beholden to—his naked genocide has dirtied the hands of his masters in the US and the West, and with elections approaching in the US and EU, they want to be rid of him and bring in someone who will continue the killings but only more quietly—a hangman instead of a firing squad.
While the ICC ruling pins the genocide on only a few Israelis and thus legitimizes Israel itself, it also attacks the political leadership of the Palestinian resistance in an effort to separate the rebelling masses from their leadership and end their struggle. This is in line with the imperialists’ designs of setting up a two-state solution in which a “legitimate” Palestinian state is established alongside Israel—subservient not only to US and Western imperialism but even under the tutelage of Israel, something that Gantz himself has called for.
The imperialists and Israel increasingly realize that they cannot defeat the Palestinian resistance through war because a war of the masses under correct leadership is invincible, and so they switch back to diplomacy, aiming to undermine mass support for Hamas through a PA-style puppet government and conceding a semi-colonial freedom in exchange for an end to the struggle. Their logic is the same whether they’re dealing with uprisings at college campuses or national liberation struggles—bring the struggle of the masses under “legitimate” (read: subservient) authority within the confines of the existing system while carrying on attacks against the leadership of the masses by portraying them as selfish and fanatical, antagonistic to the interests of those they lead.
This explains the sheer arrogance of the European governments that have recently announced they are recognizing the state of Palestine. It only took the holocaust of tens of thousands of civilians on top of over a century of colonialism for these brave European politicians to do what over 140 countries have already done—which is what? Recognize the American and Israeli puppet Mahmoud Abbas, who cannot even preserve the illusion of independence under the increasingly aggressive tutelage of Israel, who even goes so far as to hand over Palestinian prisoners to Israel and has no support among the Palestinian people. For this recognition the leaders of Ireland, Spain, and Norway grandstand as champions of justice—while at the same time continuing to maintain ties with Israel and repress pro-Palestine demonstrations in their own country.
Consider the statement from Hugh Lovatt, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, to Al Jazeera regarding Norway’s recognition of Israel: “The hope is that a strong endorsement of Palestinian self-determination can demonstrate to the Palestinian public that diplomacy can deliver results and provide a credible alternative to armed violence.”
It’s clear then—now that armed violence is becoming widely recognized as a credible path for liberation, imperialists and their lackeys are scrambling to restore faith in the imperialist system.
The US, the main imperialist master of Israel, has the most to lose from Israel’s defeat among the imperialists and doesn’t even pretend to condemn Israel’s actions. Its leadership and politicians, the most backward and reactionary in the world, go so far as to invite Netanyahu to speak at congress about “defending democracy.” When Trump is convicted, Biden says “no one is above the law,” but when Israeli leaders may be prosecuted, Biden calls this decision “outrageous” and supports Republican-led efforts to sanction ICC officials. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham—who weeks ago implied that Israel should use nuclear bombs against Palestinians—aptly explains the reasoning for opposing the ICC: “If they do this to Israel, we’re next.”
The foot-dragging by US politicians to acknowledge the ICC ruling reflects the fact that a concession has to be made. To concede to the resistance is more than just losing a war—it is acknowledging that even the most high-tech weapons crumble when confronted by a popular war; in other words, it is to acknowledge that there is no future for imperialism.
Despite US hostility, the ICC ruling is perfectly in line with the objectives of US imperialism: place the blame of the genocide primarily on the Resistance and get a more obedient puppet to govern Israel in order to create more stable conditions for exploitation and secure the US’s position as the top imperialist power, all the while conveniently continuing to ignore all US involvement despite clear evidence that US weapons have been used to commit war crimes.
Freedom for Palestinians—or any people—will not come through the intervention of imperial courts or the recognition of puppet governments. Recognition of a Palestinian state is a victory, but a victory that reflects what has already been won through the battlefield. Freedom, which is the ability of a people to carry out and defend their interests, can only be conquered by force of arms from those who restrict it by force of arms. While the pessimists and legalists rejoice at the justice of imperialism, it must be remembered that it was the same justice that allowed the genocide to happen in the first place, and their concession now is only a means to preserve that very same notion of justice—the right for imperialists to exploit and oppress in relative peace. Al-Aqsa Flood and the broadening resistance is the deserving answer to imperialist justice.
Photo: Aftermath of an Israeli airstrike in Rafah in October 2023. Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90
