Editorial of the “World”. Fifty-four years after the beginning of the occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the policy of the State of Israel in these territories is now under the magnifying glass of the International Criminal Court (ICC), a court created in 2002 under the aegis of the United Nations, which sits in The Hague. The opening of an investigation into this explosive case was confirmed in early March by the institution’s prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda.
The Gambian magistrate, who courageously ignored the pressure exerted on her by Donald Trump, made the announcement shortly after Joe Biden came to power. The reception given by the new Democratic president to this procedure promises to be a marker of his Middle Eastern policy. Especially since the investigation opens at the precise moment when the normalization of relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors, negotiated under Trump, tends to marginalize the question of the Palestinians’ right to a state.
In a report published in 2019, Mr.me Bensouda planned to focus on three topics: alleged crimes committed during the 2014 summer war in the Gaza Strip by both the Israeli army and Hamas; the crackdown on the “March of Return” in the Gaza Strip in 2018, which left 200 dead and thousands injured; and Jewish colonization in the West Bank, violation of the Geneva Convention, which prohibits altering the demography of an occupied territory. Neither the United States nor Israel recognizes the ICC. But the Palestinian Authority joined in 2015, after obtaining observer status at the United Nations.
A credibility test for Biden
British lawyer Karim Khan, who is to succeed Fatou Bensouda in mid-June, will have to show the same inflexibility as his predecessor. Because Joe Biden does not seem in a hurry to respect the independence of the ICC. The new president is even hesitant to lift the sanctions imposed on Fatou Bensouda by Donald Trump, in contradiction with his commitment to restore a diplomacy “of values”. The signal sent by Washington – but also by Berlin, which deplored in similar terms the decision of the prosecutor – is all the more regrettable since it comes at a time when the ideal of universal justice timidly raises its head.
A first verdict against a Syrian torturer was pronounced at the end of February by the court in Koblenz, Germany. Other proceedings are underway in other countries, against other links in the repressive machine of the Assad regime, according to the same principle of universal jurisdiction.
The crimes blamed on the Syrian power in ten years of civil war and those blamed on Israel since 1967 are not of the same nature. But these two conflicts thrive on the same ground: impunity. The Israeli justice system denies Palestinians any ability to seek redress. The other avenues they have explored to defend their rights, whether it be non-violent popular mobilization, negotiations, armed uprising, terrorism or resorting to the UN, have ended in deadlock. Because of the asymmetry between the parties and the reluctance of the great powers to weigh on Israel so that its policy of annexation and a fait accompli ceases.
Referral to the ICC is therefore the ultimate lifeline for the Palestinians. It is a test of credibility for Joe Biden and for all the Western capitals which claim to defend the “two-state solution”. No one can be above international law.
