“There is absolutely no reason for Biden to be involved in this,” said one analyst. “But once again, Biden steps in to protect Netanyahu from the consequences of the war crimes he commits.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly growing increasingly concerned that the International Criminal Court is preparing to issue arrest warrants for him and other top government officials for committing war crimes in the Gaza Strip.
The Times of Israel reported Sunday that the Israeli government, in partnership with the U.S., is “making a concerted effort to head off” possible arrest warrants from the ICC, which first launched its war crimes investigation in the occupied Palestinian territories in 2021.
Israel does not recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction and has refused to cooperate with the probe. The ICC says it has jurisdiction over Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem.
Citing an unnamed Israeli government source, The Times of Israel reported that “a major focus of the ICC allegations will be that Israel ‘deliberately starved Palestinians in Gaza.'” Other officials who could face arrest warrants are Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi.
The Times of Israel‘s reporting came shortly after Israeli journalist Ben Caspit wrote that Netanyahu is “under unusual stress” over the possibility of arrest warrants and is leading a “nonstop push over the telephone” to forestall ICC action.
Like Israel, the U.S. is not a party to the Rome Statute, which established the ICC in 2002. The legal body is tasked with investigating individuals, not governments.
The U.S., Israel’s leading arms supplier, has opposed the ICC’s Palestine investigation from the start, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying in a 2021 statement that the court “has no jurisdiction over this matter” because “Israel is not a party to the ICC.”
Seeing commentary that ICC arrest warrants against Israeli officials would create a dangerous precedent because Israel isn’t a party to the Rome Statute.
Guess who else isn’t a party to the Rome Statute?
Russia.
ICC already crossed that bridge with warrant for Putin.
The Israeli government has been accused of committing numerous war crimes in Gaza since the October 7 Hamas-led attack, including genocide, ethnic cleansing, and using starvation as a weapon of war. Late last year, the human rights group Democracy for the Arab World Now submitted to the ICC the names of dozens of Israeli military commanders who are believed to have been directly involved in violations of international law.
Reports of potentially imminent ICC action have sparked alarm among conservatives in the United States.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) wrote on social media Friday that the court should “should stand down on this immediately.”
In an editorial published that same day, The Wall Street Journal suggested the U.S. and United Kingdom could “risk finding Americans and Britons under the gun” next if they don’t warn ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan against issuing arrest warrants for Israeli officials. Human rights organizations and legal experts have said Biden and other U.S. officials could be held liable under international law if they continue supporting Israel’s war on Gaza.
“Mr. Khan’s candidacy was championed by his native Britain and supported by the U.S.,” continues the Journal editorial, “so both countries may have influence if they warn Mr. Khan of what will happen if he proceeds.”
The Times of Israel noted Sunday that according to reports in several Israeli media outlets, the U.S. is “part of a last-ditch diplomatic effort to prevent the International Criminal Court from issuing arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials.”
Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, argued Sunday that “there is absolutely no reason for Biden to be involved in this.”
“But once again,” Parsi added, “Biden steps in to protect Netanyahu from the consequences of the war crimes he commits, which Biden claims he privately is frustrated about.”
Students set up a Gaza Solidarity Encampment on Harvard Yard (Photo: Micah Fong)
Police continue to crack down on growing movement of Gaza Solidarity Encampments, students stand their ground
Police throughout the country have continued to heavily repress students engaging in protest in solidarity with Gaza. Despite the brutalization of student protesters on campuses such as University of Texas – Austin and the University of Southern California, students continue to stage encampments across the globe.
This is happening in the backdrop of US President Biden signing a bill into law that would provide USD 26 billion to Israel as it conducts genocide in Gaza. Even the European Union has backed a UN call for an investigation (which the US refuses to support) into the over 300 killed Palestinians found in mass graves beneath the ruins of two hospitals. Israel has also begun its attack on Rafah, killing five people in an air strike on a residential building in Rafah City.
Students at UT Austin have had to withstand brutal repression, as ultra-right wing Texas Governor Greg Abbot called in State Troopers, some mounted on horses, who violently clashed with protesters and made multiple arrests.
Despite the downpour of state violence, student protesters held their ground, chanting ““You don’t scare us!” and “Get off our campus!”
University of Texas students chanting “You don’t scare us” and “Get off our campus” to state troopers sent by Gov. Abbott with support of Biden and Democrats. But students can’t defeat the state on their own or on the campuses. They must turn to the working class to defend their… pic.twitter.com/VmVoGbitf1
Protesters also experienced a wave of repression at the University of Southern California, where arrests are currently underway as Los Angeles Police attempt to clear the encampment.
Happening now: USC protestors being arrested by heavy police presence, students are standing their ground to maintain the Gaza encampments. pic.twitter.com/8CjrwG07q3
Earlier in the day, Los Angeles police used batons and fists to violently beat organizers. Organizers continued to be defiant in the face of such repression, however, and managed to successfully de-arrest a protester who had been detained in a police car, surrounding the car and chanting, “Let him go!”
BREAKING: At USC’s Gaza solidarity encampment, protestors surround an LAPD car and successful de-arrest a student. Brutal crackdown by police is ongoing but the students are undeterred pic.twitter.com/nub0TqtQcf
— Palestinian Youth Movement (@palyouthmvmt) April 24, 2024
On the morning of April 24, Columbia student organizers made important announcements to those participating in the week-long protest, the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” at Butler Lawn. The previous night, Columbia administration had threatened to bring in the National Guard to sweep the encampment, in a disturbing echo of the Kent State massacre in 1970 of four students protesting the US war in Vietnam by the Ohio National Guard.
However, that morning, students announced to the entire encampment that “we won a huge concession—we have it in writing that we are here for 48 hours and we will not be swept; we will not be moved!”
Due to a mass mobilization of both students and supporters, inside and outside campus gates, the administration was deterred from sweeping the camp, according to organizers. The administration has set a new deadline for an encampment sweep: Friday at 3 am.
As student organizers at Columbia plan for repression, other campuses across the country and around the world continue to establish their own encampments in solidarity with Gaza at universities such as Harvard and Brown. On April 24, students Sciences Po in Paris erected their own encampment in solidarity with Gaza.
Just yesterday, Harvard University placed the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) under suspension. Less than 24 hours later, students launched a Gaza solidarity encampment.
— National Students for Justice in Palestine (@NationalSJP) April 24, 2024
‼️‼️BREAKING: SciencesPo Paris, the top university in France which hosts a dual degree program with Columbia, has just launched a Gaza Solidarity Encampment. This officially marks the spread of the protests to Europe. So incredibly proud of my peers🔥🇵🇸💪 pic.twitter.com/wooD1wPSHm
Students across the globe have issued messages of solidarity with the US students braving repression in solidarity with Gaza. The Arab and Maghreb Youth Student Front Against Normalization and in Support of Peoples’ Causes has called for a “global youth student battle in support of Palestinian resistance and all solidarity forces with it,” stating that “what happened at Columbia University in the United States today is the best evidence of what we say, as after six days of sit-ins inside the campus, many other American universities like the University of California witnessed student movements supporting Palestine, shaking the throne of the entity and pushing the Biden administration to ruthlessly suppress protests supporting the Palestinian people and demanding an end to the genocide in Gaza.”
The Student Front has called for a mobilization of all Arab and Maghreb youth students to “to intensify field movements in support of the Palestinian cause and to stop the genocidal war in steadfast Palestine, strengthening the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement and protesting in front of American embassies and their symbols.”
The International People’s Assembly (IPA) also issued a statement denouncing the “brutal repression and mass arrests of students peacefully protesting their administrations’ investments in the Zionist entity and demanding an end to all academic partnerships and cooperation.”
Robert A. Wood, deputy permanent representative of the United States to the United Nations, vetoes Palestine’s U.N. membership during the Security Council meeting on April 18, 2024. (Photo: Manuel Elías/United Nations)
Palestine’s permanent observer at the United Nations said the resolution’s failure “will not break our will, and it will not defeat our determination.”
U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration on Thursday used the country’s veto power at the United Nations Security Council to block Palestine’s bid to become a full member of the U.N.
While 12 nations voted in favor of Palestinian membership and two abstained, the United States is one of five countries—along with China, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom—who have veto authority at the Security Council.
Since Israel launched what the International Court of Justice has said is a “plausibly” genocidal assault of the Gaza Strip in response to a Hamas-led October attack, the Biden administration has blocked three cease-fire resolutions at the Security Council. Under mounting global pressure, the U.S. finally abstained last month, allowing a cease-fire measure to pass.
In the lead-up to Thursday’s vote, the Biden administration was pressuring other countries to oppose the Palestinian Authority’s renewed membership effort so it could possibly avoid a veto, according to leaked cables obtained by The Intercept.
“Take a moment to ponder how isolated Biden has made the U.S.,” said Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, after the veto. “Biden lobbied Japan, South Korea, and Ecuador HARD to oppose the Palestine resolution so that the U.S. wouldn’t have to veto. They refused. So Biden cast his fourth veto in seven months (!!) This is the opposite of leadership.”
In addition to the nations Parsi highlighted, Algeria, China, France, Guyana, Malta, Mozambique, Russia, Sierra Leone, and Slovenia voted for giving Palestine full U.N. membership while Switzerland and the United Kingdom abstained.
After the vote, U.N. News reported on remarks from Riyad Mansour, a U.N. permanent observer for the state of Palestine:
“We came to the Security Council today as an important historic moment, regionally and internationally, so that we could salvage what can be saved. We place you before a historic responsibility to establish the foundations of a just and comprehensive peace in our region.”
Council members were given the opportunity “to revive the hope that has been lost among our people” and to translate their commitment towards a two-state solution into firm action “that cannot be maneuvered or retracted,” and the majority of council members “have risen to the level of this historic moment, and they have stood on the side of justice and freedom and hope, in line with the ethical and humanitarian and legal principles that must govern our world and in line with simple logic.”
“The fact that this resolution did not pass will not break our will, and it will not defeat our determination,” Mansour added. “We will not stop in our effort. The state of Palestine is inevitable. It is real. Perhaps they see it as far away, but we see it as near, and we are the faithful.”
Parsi said that “a Western-friendly senior Global South diplomat” told him of Biden’s veto: “Whatever agonizing claim the U.S. had to lead a self-appointed free world has died a very loud public death on the Security Council horseshoe tonight. YOU CAN’T LEAD IF YOU CAN’T LISTEN.”
Biden, a Democrat seeking reelection in November, has faced fierce criticism in the United States and around the world for U.S. complicity in Israel’s war on Gaza—which Hamas, not the Palestinian Authority, has controlled for nearly two decades. In under seven months, Israeli forces have killed 33,970 Palestinians, injured another 76,770, displaced most of the besieged enclave’s 2.3 million population, devastated civilian infrastructure, and severely limited the flow of lifesaving humanitarian assistance.
Israel—which already got $3.8 billion in annual U.S. military aid before October 7—continues to receive weapons support from the Biden administration, even as a growing chorus of critics, including some Democrats in Congress, argues that the arms transfers violate U.S. and international law.
Estimated 27 children killed by famine, with fears many more will suffer lifelong effects, despite Israel’s promise of more aid
Even if the war in Gaza ended tomorrow, for some of the Palestinian territory’s children, it would not help. Hunger and malnutrition have already claimed an estimated 27 young lives, and for many more, it may be too late to reverse the excruciating toll that starvation takes on small, growing bodies.
Nuzha Awad’s triplets, Malek, Khader and Moustafa, born two months before the war began when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October, did not stop crying as she spoke to the Guardian. She fled Gaza City when food and formula for her babies began to run out; in their new home, a makeshift tent in the central town of Deir al-Balah, she is still desperately afraid for their futures.
“At this age a child should weigh 8 kilos. They weigh 2 kilos … They don’t have thighs yet. At this stage they are supposed to be crawling and preparing to walk. And now you can see the state they’re in,” she said.
“Are these the arms of an eight-month-old child? … It’s death there, death, death. Death in the literal meaning of the word.”
UN-backed food insecurity experts assessed in mid-March that famine n Gaza could set in between later that month and mid-May. Last week, Samantha Power, the head of the US humanitarian and development agency, USAid, became the first American official to confirm publicly that in some areas, famine had already taken hold.
The Biden administration’s declaration of ‘ironclad support’ for Israel threatens to drive a wedge between the president and progressive voters, a potential electoral gift for Trump. In this photo, a woman walks by an election campaign billboard in Tel Aviv for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party that shows the Israeli leader with Donald Trump, Sept 15, 2019. Hebrew on billboard reads: ‘Netanyahu, in another league.’ | Oded Balilty / AP
President Joe Biden declared Saturday that U.S. support for Israel is “ironclad” as more than 300 slow-moving Iranian drones and missiles meandered across the sky toward Israeli military installations. With assistance from the U.S., Britain, France, and Jordan, it’s estimated that 99% of the weapons were destroyed in the air before reaching their targets. There were zero people killed.
As Biden’s declaration was being reported, the Pentagon issued a statement saying that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had spoken with his Israeli counterpart “and made clear that Israel could count on full U.S. support.”
On television, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu peddled the image of a besieged Israel fighting for its life. Wearing a stern face, he said, “We will defend ourselves against any threat and will do so level-headedly and with determination.”
Of course, once the cameras were off, the Israeli leader was no doubt smiling. That’s because the pledges from Biden and Austin guaranteed that U.S. weapons will keep flowing his way and that Western leaders’ criticism of his genocidal war in Gaza—which has killed more than 33,000 Palestinians—will be tamped down.
It wasn’t just Netanyahu celebrating this weekend, though. Here in the U.S., ex-President Donald Trump and his allies were also beaming. The militaristic neocons and religious extremists that make up different wings of the Republican coalition were united in cheering for a bigger war and blaming Biden for disaster.
They sense a moment of opportunity to divide anti-MAGA forces, and the policy being pursued by the White House is unfortunately aiding them in their effort. All these developments combine to make the demand for an immediate arms embargo on Israel all the more urgent.
Settler rampage: A Palestinian woman attacked by illegal Israeli settlers arrives at the Palestine Medical Complex in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Friday, April 12, 2024. While the world was consumed with the Iranian attack on Israel, dozens of Israeli settlers rampaged through a Palestinian village, killing Palestinians and destroying property. In Gaza, meanwhile, the genocidal destruction also continued unabated. | Nasser Nasser / AP
Netanyahu’s partial victory
The U.S. response to the Iranian attack was a partial victory for Netanyahu.
The weekend assault by Tehran was the result of Israel’s April 1 bombing of the Iranian Embassy in Damascus, Syria. That last part is worth stating again—the Iranian attack this weekend was not some unprovoked incident; it was retaliation for an Israeli action that killed 13 people at an Iranian diplomatic outpost two weeks ago.
If one were only getting their news from the mainstream corporate media in the U.S. or listening to the words of many political leaders in Washington, they would probably never know that it was Israel that had provoked Iran.
That doesn’t make the latter part of some anti-imperialist alliance nor necessarily a friend of the Palestinians, but it is a context that is inconvenient for the narrative of an innocent Israel alone against aggressive neighbors.
At any rate, Netanyahu managed to prompt Iran to elevate the war danger. That will get him his weapons and temporarily hush the increasingly critical voices of allies skeptical of his execution of the war in Gaza. But the Iran provocation was not quite the complete win he’d hoped for.
The bigger goal was to escalate the war against Gaza into a wider regional war that would include direct U.S. involvement in the fighting. He wants to make U.S. imperialism not just his accomplice but his direct partner in waging war in the Middle East.
Why? The reasons are many.
So far, the Gaza genocide is not achieving many of its declared aims. Hamas has not been smashed. The hostages have not been freed. Gaza has been destroyed and tens of thousands have been killed, but the plan to completely eradicate the Palestinian presence there hasn’t materialized. That’s the case thanks to both Palestinian resistance and the refusal of Israel’s neighboring states to transform themselves into permanent refugee camps.
Meanwhile, the war is increasingly unpopular at home, and hundreds of thousands are demanding elections in Israel—elections which would certainly result in Netanyahu’s removal from office and the resumption of a long-delayed corruption trial that could send him to prison.
Clearly, he needs and wants this war to drag on as long as possible and to become as big and involve as many countries as possible, particularly one country—the United States.
To Netanyahu’s disappointment, however, Biden told him to consider the shootdown of all the Iranian missiles “a win” and close the book for now: Don’t expect U.S. help in any follow-up attacks on Iran.
The coalition for war
But there are other forces coalescing to give Israel the bigger war it wants.
John Bolton—former Trump cabinet member and one of the architects of the U.S. war in Iraq—is rallying neocons in the U.S. to squeeze Biden. Ever since President George W. Bush declared Iran to be part of the “Axis of Evil” over 20 years ago, Bolton and his allies have been angling for a fight with that country.
In January this year, he was already telegraphing the message that the U.S. has “no option but to attack Iran.” This weekend, he said “passivity…would be a big mistake” and said Biden was “an embarrassment” for urging Israel not to attack Iran (again).
The Evangelical Christian leaders who command major swathes of the Trump MAGA coalition, meanwhile, are revving up their followers for war, as well.
Televangelist Pastor John Hagee, founder of the lobbyist group Christians United for Israel, characterized the Iranian attack as the fulfillment of prophecy, the beginning of the “Gog and Magog war” predicted in the Bible. Demonizing those who advocate a ceasefire in Gaza, Hagee said on Sunday that “the word de-escalate is music to the ears of Hamas and Iran.”
He and other pro-war Christian leaders will be going to Congress “like a bulldozer” in the coming days, he said, ordering lawmakers to “bless Israel” with more U.S. taxpayer-funded weaponry. In the meantime, he urged the faithful to bless the ministry run by him and his son with their hard-earned money.
Then, turning to the 2024 U.S. elections, Hagee indirectly endorsed Donald Trump when he called the Iranian attack on Israel “a tribute to the weak and pathetic leadership of Joe Biden.”
Fascist threat, imperialist strategy
Although Hagee’s remarks are often dismissed as the ravings of a conman cult leader, he illuminates the class and democratic contradictions that define U.S. capitalism and an electoral contest that is forcing voters to choose between two varieties of imperialism.
The absurdity of the moment was perhaps best illustrated when the red-hatted legions at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania on Sunday broke into chants of “Genocide Joe,” and their leader responded, “They’re not wrong!”
Trump paired his apparent acknowledgement that Israel was committing genocide with U.S. complicity with a “God bless Israel” platitude and an affirmation that the Iranian attack wouldn’t have happened if he was president.
Follow the logic (if there is such a thing with Trump), and you get a pledge that he will do an even better job at assisting in genocide and supporting the Israeli military if he is re-elected.
An open fascist who has already tried to overthrow the U.S. government before and is working tirelessly with Republican officials across the country to destroy democracy is openly and cynically attempting to drive a wedge between the Democratic nominee and anti-war voters with a pro-war message.
Does Trump actually expect to win the votes of many pro-Palestinian voters? No, most of them wouldn’t give him the time of day, and he knows it. The goal is to demobilize progressive voters and stoke discontent toward Biden. Trump’s team has done its calculations, and it knows that getting Democratic-leaning voters to stay home in a few key states could be enough for him to win. And the threat extends down-ballot, because it’s not just Biden who’d be in trouble but other progressive candidates running on the Democratic ticket at the state and local levels, as well.
Unfortunately, the imperialist strategy being pursued by the Biden administration is making Trump’s task easier. The unity that’s needed to block fascism at the polls in November is jeopardized every time the president approves another weapons shipment to Israel or reaffirms his “ironclad” support of the government in Tel Aviv.
Ceasefire alone cannot be the demand of the peace movement in our country. A total and complete arms embargo on Israel is an absolute necessity—not just for saving the lives of the Palestinian people and preventing a wider Middle East war, but for saving U.S. democracy from a fascist takeover.
Many organizations and leaders are already making that call, including Jewish Voice for Peace, which on Sunday issued yet another call for the U.S. to end all military funding and weapons sales.
Rep. Cori Bush again reiterated the demand she and other lawmakers have made for an end to the “shameful and unconditional” arming of the Israeli government as it commits war crimes. “The people of our country do not want war,” she said.
There are a million reasons to vote against Trump in November, and almost everyone who is a part of or connected to the mass labor, anti-war, African-American, Latino, immigrant rights, LGBTQ, and other democratic movements know them by heart. But the Democratic National Committee and the Biden campaign cannot simply rely on the bogeyman of Trump to motivate voters. The administration’s Gaza policy must change.
Every dollar for Israel’s war is another crack in the anti-MAGA coalition that’s needed to stop fascism in November.
As with all news-analytical and op-ed articles published by People’s World, this article reflects the views of its author.
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