[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by blankall

I think his point is that these threads always devolve into the same bickering, and you can't actually discuss the relevant events that the thread was meant to discuss.

Can we get back on topic, please?

Canada is reaffirming its unequivocal support of Israel's bid to block a Palestinian attempt to pursue war-crimes charges against the Jewish state at the International Criminal Court.

The Palestinians "made a huge mistake" by going to the ICC, an United Nations institution that Canada played a lead role in creating in the 1990s, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said Monday in Jerusalem.

Prior to meeting Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon as part of his five-day visit to the region, Baird said the Palestinians crossed a "red line," and that he "communicated that in no uncertain terms" to Palestinian leaders a day earlier.

Baird's spokesman Adam Hodge said Canada is "considering a number of options in response to ... the purported Palestinian accession to the ICC." Canada has told the prosecutor that "the Palestinians are not a state" and should not be allowed to join the court.

"We intend to communicate further views to the prosecutor in due course," Hodge said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked Baird personally for the Canadian support.

"You know that it's a travesty of justice to haul Israel to the dock in The Hague, and you know that the entire system of international law could unravel because of this travesty," Netanyahu said.

"I thank you for your support and for your moral leadership, and I pledge this to you: Israel will not have its hand tied by a politicized ICC."

Before shaking hands with Netanyahu, Baird replied: "Canada doesn't stand behind Israel; we stand shoulder-to-shoulder with it."

New Democrat foreign affairs critic Paul Dewar objected to Canada taking action to block the Palestinians at the ICC, describing as overly hyperbolic Baird's characterization that they crossed a "red line."

"We are part of the ICC. The ICC should be independent. It is very important as a judicial institution that it be able to take in information and make decisions independently," said Dewar.

"If a red line is actually people going to the International Criminal Court ... we've gone a far way from where we started years ago, supporting the institution, creating the institution."

One Canadian official, not authorized to discuss the matter and speaking on condition of anonymity, said Baird and Netanyahu met for almost an hour in the prime minister's office and discussed a range of issues, including "the Palestinian Authority's misguided attempt to accede to the Rome Statute."

The Rome Statute is the international treaty that led to the creation of the International Criminal Court, giving it jurisdiction over crimes against humanity and war crimes.

On Dec. 31, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas formally signed the documents necessary to accede to the treaty, one day after the UN Security Council rejected a resolution brought by the Palestinians that would have set a three-year deadline for the establishment of a Palestinian state on lands occupied by Israel.

As Baird arrived in Israel this past Friday, the prosecutor of the ICC announced she was starting a preliminary investigation that could clear the way for a full-scale investigation into possible war crimes in the Palestinian territories —a development with serious implications for both sides of the Middle East conflict.

The investigation could look at allegations of war crimes by Israel during last summer's Gaza war, in which Palestinians suffered heavy civilian casualties, as well as Israel's settlement construction on occupied Palestinian lands.

It would also likely consider alleged war crimes by Hamas, which fired thousands of rockets at crowded Israeli neighbourhoods from Gaza.

Canada has been one of only a few Western countries to stand by Israel as it comes under fierce international criticism over deadlocked negotiations with the Palestinians, the recent Gaza war and its continued construction of settlements.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/01...n_6499056.html

Former US president Jimmy Carter said on Wednesday that the International Criminal Court should probe both Israel and Hamas for possible war crimes committed during Operation Protective Edge.

In an interview with The Huffington Post, the Nobel laureate said that such an investigation would be “good for both sides.”

"I think it might be a good thing for the International Criminal Court to take an inquisitive look not only at what the Israelis have done to the Palestinians but vice versa," Carter said.

"I’ve been to the places in Israel where Hamas rockets land and I have been there and I’ve condemned the rockets on television, so there are problems both ways. But I think that to expose what has happened on both sides to the world in a very careful and judicial way will probably be good for both sides."

When asked if he believed Israel was guilty of war crimes in Gaza, Carter was noncommittal.

"I think that’s something to be determined by a legal investigation,” the former president said. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having the ICC investigate an allegation on both sides and then present their findings to the world.”

Israel has rejected any international inquiry into its 50-day Gaza offensive. It has vowed not to cooperate with the UN Commission of Inquiry headed by Canadian jurist William Schabas.



Carter said that the United States “is in lockstep with Israel” in its opposition to a Palestinian state, a position that is losing traction in the international community.

“About 150 nations recognize Palestine as a nation and an official state, and some of the European countries do as well. Both the parliament of Great Britain and the parliament of France have recently advocated that Palestine be recognized as a state, so even though the United States has always been in lockstep with Israel on these kinds of matters, it’s not a common belief all over the world."

http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Jim...l-Hamas-387700

The ICC has yet to address any violations carried out by Western liberal states. Simply put, the geography of the ICC’s investigations – from Côte d’Ivoire to Uganda – both reflects and reproduces an old colonial frame of justice. Even within this blinkered framework, the court’s success rate has not been particularly impressive: in its 12 years of existence, the ICC has carried out 21 investigations; only two people have been convicted.

Given that record, why has Bensouda’s announcement provoked such outrage in the Israeli government? Binyamin Netanyahu condemned ‘the absurd decision of the ICC prosecutor to ignore international law and agreements under which Palestinians don’t have a state and can only get one through direct negotiations with Israel’. The foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, announced that Israel would take all necessary measures to dismantle the ICC. (Israel signed the 1998 Rome Statute but has so far refused to become a party to the treaty.)

Netanyahu and Lieberman can’t really be worried about Israeli officials being prosecuted. If they are apprehensive, it’s because even the ICC’s preliminary examination may change the way the question of Palestine is perceived, framing it in terms of human rights, international law and war crimes, with the potential to produce a historical narrative very different from the hegemonic Zionist one.

Irrespective of whether the ICC’s examination leads to a full-blown investigation, it already raises some crucial questions. Who is the victim – a particularly charged category given the two peoples’ history – and who is the perpetrator? Can the displacement and ethnic cleansing of indigenous people be legal? Which kinds of violence can be considered legitimate and which illegitimate?

http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2015/01/21...l-and-the-icc/