POWERLESS: Biden can’t save Netanyahu from arrest. Here's why.

Right, so Joe Biden is desperately it seems trying to save Benjamin Netanyahu’s backside from an arrest warrant that could be issued by the International Criminal Court, but in truth he hasn’t got a leg to stand on and the most powerful politician on the planet, is utterly powerless in forcing the ICC’s hands. You see as much as the US is subject to the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice at the Hague, the ICJ, the same isn’t the case for the ICC. With the US not being an ICC member state, Genocide Joe can whine and bleat for Israel’s sake all he likes, but as far as the Chief Prosecutor goes, it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. So will Biden’s efforts fail? Well by rights they should, however if they don’t, then something will have happened behind the scenes which the ICC had better have inordinately good answers for – that or the US for Israel’s sake might be prepared to do something a whole lot worse.
Right, so Joe Biden, desperately unhappy that arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu, his defence minister the eternally scowling Yoav Gallant, and the Chief of Staff of the Israeli defence Force Herzi Halevi could be coming potentially at any time as I’m writing this, but reputedly at some point this week, from the ICC, the International Criminal Court and actually it isn’t just Biden because the Republican party are saying exactly the same, but they’re basically threatening repercussions if the ICC go ahead with this.
Now last March when ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin in relation to crimes committed against Ukraine, Biden was all over this, fully in support of it, fully welcoming the war crimes charges levied against him, based on territorial dispute – I’ll come back this point in a minute - but when the same likely charges are going to get levied against Israel? Well justice be damned, they are US allies and we’re not having this. Since when did Biden decide that acting like the mafia and issuing threats to the ICC was an election winning vote puller and besides, they have no say in the matter, no matter how much the whining going on and the behind the scenes conversations lets call them might be happening, the US has no jurisdiction here, they aren’t member states signed up to the Rome Statute, the requirement to be a member state of the ICC.
Now, territorial dispute being the reason Putin got an arrest warrant levied against him, which Biden of course readily agreed with. Russia, just like the US, is not a member state of the ICC, so in what way could they prosecute Putin then? Well a territorial jurisdiction in law is defined as the authority of a court to hear and decide cases within a specific geographic area. It establishes the boundaries within which a court can exercise its power and enforce its judgments, but within the remit of the ICC, with it’s 124 member states around the world, jurisdiction can be established by referral of a case to the ICC by any member state and in the case of Putin, the initial referral came from Lithuania, which is a member state and 38 other states joined them in doing so subsequently.
In the case of Israel, just like Russia, they are not member states of the ICC either, therefore again territorial jurisdiction must be established, however making this slightly different it the fact that Palestine, despite having observer status at the UN and not full member status, is a signatory of the Rome Statute and has been since 2015, therefore is a member of the ICC too.
Now Joe Biden accepted this territorial jurisdiction in the case of Russia and Ukraine – Trump as it happens had been blocking this, he’d applied sanctions to the then ICC chief prosecutor because he didn’t agree with territorial jurisdiction here, but Biden overturned this - therefore saying the court has no jurisdiction with regards to Israel, is complete hypocrisy and won’t wash.
The ICC in turn are pushing back, with the current ICC Chief Prosecutor, Karim Khan, saying in no uncertain terms that addressing what is going on in Gaza at Israel’s hands, is exactly what the ICC was established to address:
‘Current ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan visited Ramallah and Israel in December, meeting Palestinian officials and families of Israelis killed or taken hostage by Hamas militants in the Oct. 7 attack that sparked the Israel-Hamas war.
Khan called Hamas’ actions “some of the most serious international crimes that shock the conscience of humanity, crimes which the ICC was established to address,” and called for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.
Khan said “international humanitarian law must still apply” in the Israel-Hamas war and “the Israeli military knows the law that must be applied.” After the visit, Khan said an ICC investigation into possible crimes by Hamas militants and Israeli forces “is a priority for my office.”’
So it’s not even just Israel that are being looked at here, but Hamas as well, though of course as I wrote about in another recent video, Israel are blocking the UN from investigating the scene and talking to witnesses who saw the events of the night of October 7th and that makes no sense if it was all Hamas’ fault that night as Israel and many other allied nations keep on saying does it?
So what can Biden try and do about this then? He can’t keep saying there is no jurisdiction, he’s a hypocrite for doing that and that will rapidly get exposed given how many people, especially all those protesting, students on campuses the most high profile example right now, but plenty of others too will point this out, so he’s engaging in what some outlets, the Times of Israel for one, are charitably calling diplomacy, that Biden is currently engaged in a ‘nonstop push over the telephone’ to prevent these arrest warrants from being issued. Threats is certainly what other outlets are referring these to, but such are the lengths he’ll go to for Israel and the unusual position of desperation he finds himself in.
Now if I were of the opinion that Karim Khan was subject to such coercion and having said already that the court has jurisdiction and this being demonstrated by Palestine’s membership he’s in a bit of a bind if he does do a U-turn, I’d imagine we’d have seen or heard something before now, but also I’d expect the pressure to come from those Tory ties he has, to come from the UK and Sunak rather than Biden and it isn’t clear if that is happening or not, though I’m sure if Biden said jump, Sunak and Cameron would go how high over this. It’s said Biden is part of diplomatic efforts, so the UK may well be involved and seemingly right now to no avail.
So what else can Biden try? Well there is the small matter of the American Servicemembers Protection Act, better known as the Hague Invasion Act, which swears down if the ICC try and prosecute US allies, they’ll literally invade the Hague. If Biden thinks he has problems on US campuses right now for his ongoing support for Israel, try invading the Hague and see what reaction you get then?
Now I’ve been quite caustic towards Karim Khan and the 6 months of inaction he and the ICC have seemingly shown towards Israel, so I’m going to change tack for a moment with this line of thought. US relations with Israel have been staunch for a long time, so perhaps the ICC were of the view that the prosecution case they were investigating – bearing in mind ICC investigations into Israeli figures in relation to Gaza predate October 7th, a case has been open into allegations dating back to 2014, but has certainly ramped up since with talk of arrest warrants now being issued and in no small part has that comes from Khan having visited the region as aforementioned, but also because prosecutors have in literally the last few days been speaking to the staff of the Nasser Hospital and Al-Shifa hospital where the mass graves of hundreds of patients and other staff members have been uncovered, but in the name of protecting witnesses, we literally know nothing more than people connected to those hospitals have been talking to the ICC. As far as Biden goes, the timing is what makes me think Khan might have bided his time, because the US have elections this year and this policy of constantly supporting Israel is not popular amongst US people. Do these hospital interviews or whatever is going on have more bearing on the speed things are now seemingly happening? I’d argue that it damn well should, amongst so many horrifying stories to come out of Gaza in the last nearly 7 months, this one in particular stand out for the sheer scale of death, destruction and depravity caused by Israel’s forces at the command of their leaders.
So let’s say the arrest warrants get issued. What then? The US will still support them no doubt, but for the 143 member states signed up to the ICC, that is a lot more difficult and that does include us here in the UK. We’d be obligated by law, to arrest those individuals should they ever come here and it’d make the Tory government’s ongoing support for Israel and indeed that of opposition parties, meaning you Keir Starmer to continue to unequivocally support the state with arms and aid still, potentially putting Tory MPs then at risk of prosecution for aiding and abetting I would imagine. Ironically this might be even worse news for Keir Starmer, because he’s heading into an election period and can you imagine still choosing to support Israel as a former human rights prosecutor after arrest warrants get issued and still try and convince people he can be trusted? I mean he lies like he breathes anyway, but wriggle out of this one!
At any rate, it’ll be an interesting few days looking out for those arrest warrants being issued and seeing some people who deserve to have a really bad day have one collectively. Human rights laws, humanitarian laws, international laws they have to mean something and we have too many politicians trying to water them down or erase them on behalf of one the most egregious genocidalist states we’ve borne witness to, to excuse them the deaths of tens of thousands of people that they have caused. It can’t be allowed to stand. If those laws are rendered worthless than the whole world is screwed.
There are no excuses, but some of the worst attempts at them have of course come from the media as much as politicians. Silence is complicity and their silence over what happened at those two hospitals and the mass graves uncovered has damned them utterly. Where many of us have been kept in the dark, at least the ICC haven’t, so let Biden and Co panic, if they want to go down with Israel and its government then that’s on them, find out all about the media blackout in this video recommendation here and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.