Kemi Badenoch and Nir Barkat. (Photo: Department for Business / Flickr)
Britain’s business secretary wants to strike a new trade deal with Israel amid its brutal onslaught on Gaza.
Badenoch is negotiating with an Israeli minister who threatens to “wipe out” its enemies
UK-Israel trade talks took place a week after the IDF killed three British aid workers
She decided to continue arms exports to Israel at the same time
The UK government, led by business secretary Kemi Badenoch, has been trying to finalise a new trade agreement with Israel throughout its invasion of Gaza.
The latest – and fifth – round of negotiations between officials of the two countries began on 8 April.
That was just seven days after three British aid workers were killed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Gaza.
The talks on a free trade agreement (FTA) continued even as UN agencies reported over 33,000 Palestinians had been killed by Israel and the Israeli government announced a date had been set for invading Rafah.
These negotiations were hosted by the UK, with a delegation of Israeli officials travelling to London for in-person discussions.
“An upgraded trade deal will play to British strengths and unlock trade for our world-leading services and digital sectors”, the UK’s Department for Business and Trade noted.
The negotiations are another aspect of Britain’s complicity in genocide, adding to its military and diplomatic support for Israel as it engages in mass attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure in Gaza.
On the same day the trade talks began in April, Badenoch also authorised continued British arms exports to Israel.
An Israel Defense Forces tank and soldiers are seen in this view of Gaza from southern Israel on May 15, 2024. (Photo: Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images)
One NGO called the move “yet another attempt by Israel to hide its war crimes against Palestinians.”
The White House and press freedom advocates were among those who on Tuesday criticized the Israeli government’s shutdown of The Associated Press‘ live video shot of northern Gaza for violating a new media law by providing access to the banned Al Jazeera network.
The AP said Israeli authorities confiscated its camera and broadcasting equipment from a home in the southern Israeli city of Sderot. The live shot was broadcast from a balcony on the home.
“The Associated Press decries in the strongest terms the actions of the Israeli government to shut down our long-standing live feed showing a view into Gaza and seize AP equipment,” said Lauren Easton, vice president of corporate communications at the New York-based news organization.
“The shutdown was not based on the content of the feed but rather an abusive use by the Israeli government of the country’s new foreign broadcaster law,” Easton added. “We urge the Israeli authorities to return our equipment and enable us to reinstate our live feed immediately so we can continue to provide this important visual journalism to thousands of media outlets around the world.”
In its latest assault on press freedom, Israel has confiscated equipment from the Associated Press and shut down live coverage from northern Gaza — yet another attempt by Israel to hide its war crimes against Palestinians.https://t.co/KVIIQKwSso
The law to which Easton referred empowers the Israeli government to shut down the operations of foreign media outlets if they are deemed national security threats. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right Cabinet used the law to ban Qatar-based Al Jazeera—the sole international media outlet providing 24/7 live coverage from Gaza—from operating in Israel.
Israeli Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi said the AP broke the foreign broadcaster law by providing the live feed to Al Jazeera, one of thousands of AP clients. Karhi accused the AP of “causing real harm to the security of the state.”
“It should be noted that a warning was given to the AP agency already last week that according to the law and the government’s decision they are prohibited from providing broadcasts to Al Jazeera, however they decided to continue broadcasting on the channel,” Karhi said.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One en route to New Hampshire on Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that U.S. President Joe Biden believes journalists should be free to do their jobs. Addressing Israel’s shutdown of the AP live feed, Jean-Pierre said, “Obviously this is concerning and we want to look into it.”
Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) was one of several press freedom groups that condemned Israel’s shutdown of the AP live feed.
“After having banned Al Jazeera, Israel is lashing out at the AP,” RSF said in a statement. “RSF denounces the seizure of the news outlet’s camera and the interruption of the continuous feed that films Gaza under the pretext that these images are supplying, among others, Al Jazeera.”
After banning @AlJazeera, #Israel goes after @AP. RSF denounces the seizure of a news agency's camera and the shut down of a live feed showing a view of #Gaza, on the pretext that these images are supplied to @AlJazeera, among other media. This is outrageous censorship.
The U.S. advocacy group Freedom of the Press Foundation said on social media that “Israel is now using its Al Jazeera ban as a pretext to seize equipment belonging to one of the world’s largest news agencies, stripping millions of people of a view into Gaza at a time of war and mass atrocities.”
Kenneth Roth, a visiting professor at Princeton University in New Jersey and former head of Human Rights Watch, said that “rather than stop the war crimes charged yesterday by the International Criminal Court, Israel tries to cover them up.”
Roth was referring to Monday’s decision by ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan to seek arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh, and Mohammed Deif for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with the October 7 attacks on Israel and that country’s genocidal retaliation—which has killed, wounded, or left missing more than 126,000 Palestinians, according to Gazan and international officials.
More than 100 journalists, the vast majority of them Palestinians, have been killed by Israeli forces since October 7 in what the Committee to Protect Journalists and others say are often intentional targetings of not only media workers but also their families. Previous investigations—including the probe of Israeli troops’ 2022 killing of Palestinian American Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh—have confirmed that Israel has deliberately targeted journalists.
Israeli forces have also attacked newsrooms during every major Gaza war, including in May 2021 when the 11-story al-Jalaa Tower—which housed offices of Al Jazeera, AP, and other media outlets—was leveled in an airstrike.
Even Yair Lapid, who leads Israel’s political opposition and is a former journalist, called the AP shutdown “an act of madness.”
“This is an American media outlet that has won 53 Pulitzer Prizes,” Lapid said in a statement. “This government behaves as if it has decided to make sure at any cost that Israel will be outcast all over the world. They went mad.”
Original article by BRETT WILKINS republiahed from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan delivers an address before Venezuela’s National Assembly in Caracas on April 22, 2024. (Photo: Pedro Rances Mattey/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“Biden will feel he must attack the ICC because it directly implicates his own decision-making to repeatedly defend atrocities and their authors,” said one critic.
Human rights defenders around the world on Monday accused U.S. President Joe Biden of double standards and worse after he condemned a decision by the International Criminal Court’s top prosecutor to pursue arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders for alleged crimes committed during the October 7 attacks and subsequent obliteration of Gaza.
Karim Khan, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, said the court has formally applied for arrest warrants targeting two Israeli and three Palestinian officials. Khan is seeking to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged “crimes of causing extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, including the denial of humanitarian relief supplies, [and] deliberately targeting civilians in conflict.”
Khan said charges against Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh, and Mohammed Deif include “extermination, murder, taking of hostages, rape, and sexual assault in detention.”
A panel of ICC judges will determine whether to issue arrest warrants for any of the suspects.
Note language Biden uses to dismiss ICC action, referring to "this prosecutor," attributing the decision to one man, when in fact there was unanimous support for this action by the ICC's panel of experts; and "this prosecutor" was Israel's preferred candidate for the position. https://t.co/7EeuSxQ9iO
Biden blasted the effort to arrest Netanyahu and Gallant as “outrageous.”
“Let me be clear: Whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence—none—between Israel and Hamas,” the president said in a statement. “We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemned what he called the ICC’s “shameful… equivalence of Israel with Hamas.”
Critics were quick to pounce on what some called Biden’s hypocritically disparate responses to the ICC’s pursuit of arrest warrants for Israeli leaders and for Russian President Vladmir Putin over his invasion of Ukraine.
“What’s outrageous is Biden’s utter disregard for victims of war crimes,” said Mark Kersten, an assistant professor of international law at the University of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford, British Columbia. “But let’s be clear: Biden will feel he must attack the ICC because it directly implicates his own decision-making to repeatedly defend atrocities and their authors.”
Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now, said that “there’s certainly no quantitative equivalence between Hamas and Israeli officials in terms of the sheer number of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including humans murdered, homes demolished, hospitals bombarded, journalists executed, aid workers snuffed, land stolen, children starved, men tortured… I could go on and on.”
Furthermore, “‘equivalence’ between two actors has zero bearing on who should be arrested and prosecuted,” Whitson added. “The ICC has prosecuted individuals for a single offense irrespective of how it compares to other crimes committed by other actors at the same time.”
This is the same childish logic as "Gaza can't be a genocide bc genocide=Holocaust."
The ICC is not asserting equivalence. It's charging a slate of crimes.
Imagine someone gets shot, and the police say "The only murder I ever saw was a stabbing, so this can't be murder, sorry"
Former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis—who heads the leftist Democracy in Europe Movement 2025—said on social media that “Biden just declared the International Criminal Court null and void because it dared pursue Israel’s war crimes which Biden is actively and enthusiastically enabling.”
“In the tradition of George W. Bush, the U.S. president has declared the U.S. a rogue state,” he added.
According to Israeli officials, 1,139 Israeli soldiers and civilians and foreign nationals were killed during the Hamas-led attacks on October 7. An unknown number of the victims were killed by so-called “friendly fire.”
Israel’s retaliatory war on Gaza—which is the subject of a genocide case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ)—has killed at least 35,562 Palestinians, mostly women and children, while wounding nearly 80,000 others, according to Palestinian and international officials. At least 11,000 other Palestinians are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of damaged or destroyed homes and other buildings.
Approximately 2 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced and at least hundreds of thousands of others are facing growing famine in the northern strip and widespread starvation throughout the besieged coastal enclave as Israeli soldiers and settlers continue to block aid shipments and attack both humanitarian workers and Palestinians desperately trying to receive food, water, medicine, and other necessities. Nearly 1 million Palestinians have fled Rafah as Israeli forces invade and bombard Gaza’s southernmost city.
Mary Robinson, Chair of The Elders, welcomes the decision by @IntlCrimCourt Prosecutor @KarimKhanQC to apply for arrest warrants against Hamas leaders and Israel's Prime Minister and Defence Minister.
“The decision by ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan to apply for arrest warrants… https://t.co/lYRoOQcPBg
The United States—which provides Israel with billions of dollars in military aid and diplomatic cover—had reportedly been working with Israel on how to thwart the ICC’s effort to arrest Israeli leaders. Meanwhile, a dozen Republican U.S. senators earlier this month threatened retaliation against the tribunal if it issued arrest warrants for Israelis.
“Target Israel and we will target you,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter that drew rebuke from Khan’s office.
Under the American Service Members’ Protection Act—also known as the Hague Invasion Act—the president is authorized to use “all means necessary and appropriate” including military intervention to secure the release of American or allied personnel held by or on behalf of the ICC.
U.S. and Israeli officials often note that neither country is party to the Rome Treaty that established the ICC. However, the court “has jurisdiction in relation to crimes committed on the territory of Palestine, including Gaza,” as well as “over crimes committed by Palestinian nationals inside or outside Palestinian territory.”
Wow, watch StateSpox on ICC and where Palestinians can seek justice for war crimes
Lee: Who has jurisdiction here
Miller: Israel
Lee: So if Palestinians have complaints they have to go to Israeli courts
Under then-Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, the ICC in 2021 launched a formal investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes and apartheid in the illegally occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza.
Israeli and Hamas officials reacted angrily on Monday to Khan’s move, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling the application “absurd” and the “new antisemitism” and Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri lamenting that it equates “the victim with the executioner.”
South Africa—which filed the ICJ case now joined by over 30 nations—welcomed Khan’s announcement, with President Cyril Ramaphosa asserting that “the law must be applied equally to all in order to uphold the international rule of law, ensure accountability for those that commit heinous crimes, and protect the rights of victims.”
Original article by BRETT WILKINS republiahed from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan issued warrants for the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister, as well as for three Hamas leaders
On May 20, International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor, Karim Khan, issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Netanyahu and Gallant stand accused of “war crimes and crimes against humanity,” including but not limited to “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare,” “wilfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health,” and “intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population.”
Khan also issued warrants for Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Al Dief, and Ismail Haniya. They also stand accused of crimes against humanity, including rape and sexual violence, extermination, murder, and taking hostages.
The move, though largely symbolic, has created an international stir. International forces supporting Israel have reacted with outrage, including US President Biden, who said in a statement that “The ICC prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous.”
“Let me be clear: whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence—none—between Israel and Hamas. We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security,” Biden said.
The Palestinian resistance movements and largely movements for Palestinian liberation issued different reactions. Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, was largely positive in his reaction, stating, “We consider this to be the first step towards condemning the crimes of genocide committed by the rulers and army of Israel against the Palestinian people in Gaza and holding them accountable for committing these crimes according to international law and international humanitarian law.”
Hamas denounced the actions against its own leaders. “The Public Prosecutor should have arrest and detention orders against all officials from the occupation leaders who gave orders, and soldiers who participated in committing crimes,” the resistance organization stated. “The Hamas movement strongly denounces the attempts of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to equate the victim with the executioner by issuing arrest warrants against a number of Palestinian resistance leaders, without a legal basis, in violation of the international conventions and resolutions that gave the Palestinian people and all the peoples of the world under occupation the right to resist the occupation in all forms, including armed resistance, especially as stipulated in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.”
Others have similarly criticized the move based on the equivalency Khan draws between Hamas and Israel, especially since many have pointed out inconsistencies in accusations made against Hamas forces of rape. Meanwhile, Israeli forces have many credible accusations of rape made against them. Khan has a history of siding with imperialist forces during his time as ICC prosecutor, including excluding US troops from a probe into war crimes in Afghanistan.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chairs a cabinet meeting at the Kirya military base, which houses the Israeli Ministry of Defense, in Tel Aviv, Israel, on December 24, 2023
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The point is not that Britain undermines its supposed reputation as a defender of democracy or international law by backing Israel. Few beyond its borders believe in that of the country that connived at the 2019 coup against elected Bolivian president Evo Morales, or helped start the illegal and utterly catastrophic wars against Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.
The point is that Israel is part of the same, US-led imperialist alliance as Britain, and the ICC’s move reflects growing pressure globally for the members of that alliance to be held to the standards they demand of other countries. The ICJ genocide case is one example of what has been termed a “mutiny” of the global South; the ICC arrest warrants are another.
No such legal actions will bring the Israeli war machine to a halt in Gaza, nor can we expect international courts to effectively uphold a system of sovereign and equal states in the United Nations that has always been a polite fiction.
But we can use every prosecution to raise pressure to stop the arms sales, to demand an end to a British foreign policy that ties us, through the US alliance, to defence of an indefensible world order, and to call out the hypocrisy of our war-addicted leaders — so that one day they too can be held to account for their crimes.
