Netanyahu’s ICC Arrest Warrant Has Finally Quashed The Israel “Democracy” Myth

-OpEd-

CAIRO — Hamas’ October 7 attack was a turning point in the history of the Palestinian cause. And we will judge with similar significance the International Criminal Court’s order to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Galant on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. It is the world’s fundamental challenge to the Zionist narrative that Israel is the only bright spot of democracy in a sea of savage, backwards Arabs.

For the generation of the outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden — who’s gained the nickname “Genocide Joe” in the Arab world — the establishment of the Zionist entity in 1948 represented a miracle and a successful completion of failed colonial projects.

European Jewish groups, who flocked to Palestine from countries with a long history of anti-Semitism like Russia, Poland, Germany, France and Britain, managed to build a strong state in the midst of a hostile environment. These groups received support from the west which wanted to get rid of the guilt of turning a blind eye to the extermination of Jews in the Nazi gas chambers.

Our Arab countries were colonized by the same countries that helped build the Zionist entity. As a colonial state, Britain had no qualms about the Balfour Declaration which promised the Zionist groups a “national homeland” in British-occupied Palestine.

In the wake of the June 1967 defeat, western fascination with the Zionist project and Israel’s military superiority increased; especially after it succeeded in tripling its territory. Volunteers from the West — both Jews and non-Jews — poured in to help build settlements and kibbutzim, which the Zionists portrayed as utopian state projects where the inhabitants would work together to develop their cities and communities, reaping the benefits in a system of complete equality.

The western citizen in Israel did not feel far removed from his mother country. The liberal life prevailed among white people, they claimed, while the surrounding Arab countries were mired in poverty, ignorance, tribal and ethnic wars. In these Arab countries there was also the rampant oppression of women.

This biased view of Israel made the West ready to accept everything it did, refusing to even listen to the Palestinian and Arab point of view on their oppression by a racist colonial state that stripped them of their core basic rights, identity and land.

But this dazzling image began to change gradually with the invasion of Lebanon in 1982, and the ugliness of the Israeli project, specifically the Sabra and Shatila massacre in Beirut. With the development of media and communication and the ease of transmitting images via satellite, the West for the first time could see the extent of the killing and destruction at the hands of Israel.

Seeing Israeli crimes

Then the first Intifada broke out, with scenes of occupation soldiers breaking the arms of children throwing stones. It was another step towards changing Israel’s image in Western countries. The West started to realize that there are other people demanding their legitimate rights, fighting to retain their land, and refusing to be forcibly displaced and expelled from it to meet the needs of a racist colonial project.

The image of democratic Israel was gradually and slowly changing with every popular uprising and Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinians in Gaza, and the continued resistance against the expansion of settlements and the seizure of land in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem.

The sympathy quickly evaporated.

Of course, there was widespread sympathy for the Zionist entity after Hamas’ Al-Aqsa flood attack of Oct. 7. The propaganda machine of the occupying state exaggerated the incidents of kidnapping old people and children and killing civilians attending a musical concert, ignoring the killing of hundreds of occupation soldiers along the watching points between Gaza and the rest of the Palestinian territories.

Netanyahu and Biden promoted lies about the slaughter of children, as if Israel was not waging an annual battle in the United Nations to prevent its name listed on the blacklist of countries killing children.

However, this sympathy quickly evaporated, with the widespread horror of Israeli revenge and indiscriminate killing. More than 44,000 Palestinians were killed and over 105,000 others were wounded in Gaza. Israel also used starvation as a weapon and bombed hospitals, schools and shelters, even in areas described by the occupation authorities as the safe humanitarian zone.

Sanders makes history

Even in the United States, where criticism of Israel was almost forbidden, public opinion — especially among the youth, the educated, and the progressive parties — could not bear the scale of Israeli crimes. For the first time, we saw protests where tens of thousands demanded not only an end to the war, but also an end to the racist occupation of Palestine and the recognition of the Palestinians’ right to self-determination and the establishment of their independent state on their land.

Last week, Senator Bernie Sanders introduced the first draft resolution calling for an end to American arms exports to Israel because it prevents the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Palestinians in Gaza.

It is true that the resolution was rejected by a majority of 79 votes. But the fact is that for the first time in the history of the United States, about 20 senators of the 100-member chamber voted in favor of such a resolution. Those who are aware of the power of the Zionist lobby in American politics know how nearly unimaginable such a move was just a few years ago.

Rogue state

And thus, in the same context, the International Criminal Court issued its arrest warrant for Netanyahu and Galant last week. The decision was not easy in the face of mounting threats and intimidation from Israel and the United States. They attempted to challenge the integrity of the court’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, who requested the arrest warrants, by raising an old case in which he was accused of sexual harassment.

Although President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for the post of National Security advisor, Michael Waltz, threatened the court over its decision, no effort will change the fact that the highest international criminal court has put a definitive end to the narrative related to the occupying state since its inception: all its acts are justified and it cannot be held accountable.

The court also acknowledged a fact that Israel rejects, namely that the Palestinians are an independent people with rights equal to all the peoples of the world, and are not destined to be subjected to continued and reckless killing.

Bias of Israel’s judicial system

The ICC decision, even if it is difficult to implement, reinforces the image of Israel as a pariah state that practices the most heinous types of human rights violations, and whose leaders are on a par with the leaders of African dictatorships that the ICC specializes in trying.

The decision also challenges the independence and integrity of the Israeli judicial system. The Israeli judiciary is certainly incapable of holding its own officials accountable for their crimes at a time when the majority of Israelis support the extermination and displacement of Palestinians as punishment for the October 7 attack.

They will be forever haunted by the shame of war crimes.

Israel’s judiciary system has never been independent or impartial in dealing with the Palestinians, but rather, like any judiciary in an occupying and apartheid state, it is always biased in favor of the occupier.

But from now on, and forever, Netanyahu and Galant, and perhaps many other Israeli military officials, will be haunted by the shame of war crimes. They are criminals who killed children, women and civilians and used starvation as a weapon to achieve their goals in clear violation of all international laws and treaties.

Israel is a racist state led by criminals. It is not an oasis of democracy as the west has imagined and sought to convince the world for more than seven decades.