ICC Should Stand on the Right Side of History – Palestine

Palestinian officials have submitted this year’s third dossier of evidence on Israeli war crimes to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.

The fresh dossier contains evidence of extrajudicial killing, home demolition, and collective punishment by Israeli forces. The legal move comes at a time when tensions in occupied territories have dramatically escalated in recent weeks. The deadly clashes have been triggered by Tel Aviv’s imposition of restrictions on the entry of Palestinian worshipers into the al-Aqsa Mosque. Palestinians say Tel Aviv seeks to change the status quo of al-Aqsa.

However, that’s not the point of this write-up. The point is that international impunity encourages the US-backed regime to commit, order, incite and encourage human rights abuses against Palestinians – and it is past time for the ICC to speed up the probe.

The world’s only permanent war crimes Court should speed up its probe into Israeli atrocities which fall within its international jurisdiction. It is important to expedite the process as Tel Aviv feels no pressure to end its apartheid. This is while there is sufficient evidence of total disregard for human loss by Israel to merit ICC’s long-overdue investigation. This includes verified photos and videos as well as eyewitness accounts and numerous reports by international human rights groups.

The Court has a solid basis and enough evidence to prove that Israel has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in Palestine. If still in doubt, the Court can send a team of observers to the Holy Land to see first-hand how Tel Aviv’s mistreatment of Palestinians is deliberate and knowing.

What is going on in occupied Palestine is a grossly unequal conflict that ought to be considered an obscenity worthy of universal condemnation. This has nothing to do with Israeli claims of exercising sovereign right to self-defence and security. This is about the colonial domination of Palestinians, which continues to be the prime cause of violence in the conflict.

Under this colonial policy, Israel continues to demonstrate the absolute impunity that it has enjoyed for so long to kill Palestinians when it likes and however it likes. Without any pressure and accountability from the international community in general and the ICC in particular, the regime continues to bomb Palestinian lands and take Palestinian lives.

It is only through the preventive force that necessary deterrence can be created against all these indiscriminate and disproportionate violations. Negotiating a solution to the conflict is no longer an option here. So far, Israel hasn’t paid the price for denying Palestinians their freedom and rights. The apartheid regime has to be held to account. It has a lengthy history of unpunished human rights abuses, with no accountability, no outrage, and no calls for international action. Israel can and should be stopped.

The ICC has the chance to be on the right side of history. It can and should stand up for justice by speeding up the probe. There is no other way to tell the usurper regime that it is not above the law.

FNA

R.S