ICC Prosecutor Files for Arrest of Netanyahu, Gallant, and Three Hamas Leaders for ‘Crimes against Humanity’

May 20—Today, Prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, announced his request to the Court to issue warrants for the arrest on charges of “war crimes and crimes against humanity” of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders: Ismail Haniyeh, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, and Yahya Sinwar. Among enumerated charges against Netanyahu and Gallant, were “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare”; “wilfully causing great suffering, or serious injury”; “intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population as a war crime”; and “other inhumane acts as crimes against humanity….”

The Court’s response to the request for arrest warrants is expected within a matter of weeks.

It is clear to all the world what grounds and evidence exist for these charges. Yesterday, UN Deputy Secretary General for Humanitarian Aid Martin Griffiths said that without intervention in the Gaza Strip, there will be “apocalyptic consequences.”

It is also well known that the ICC has been for two decades a tool of the West against figures of the Global South, especially African leaders, and other targets of the ’collective West." But the justification in the ICC prosecutor’s new “war crimes” initiative stands, despite the wrongfulness of the ICC’s past record.

Why is the ICC acting now? Theorizing will have it that, for example, the U.S.-UK axis has activated a maneuver to shunt Netanyahu aside, get a different, less odious government in Israel, get Biden re-elected, and make fantasy geopolitical associations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, against the BRICS, and on and on. In fact, the legal advisory panel for the ICC in this instance, includes none other than a gaggle of British barristers, a lord and baroness or two, from the British establishment. They issued a report today, publicized in the Financial Times, in support of the ICC prosecutor’s action.

Their report, “Panel of Experts in International Law.”

But whatever any backstory about the ICC action, the motion is filed for warrants for arrests for committing “crimes against humanity.” There is truth. There is justice. There is morality. This new ICC war crimes initiative, no matter the ICC’s past record, breaks the Big Narrative that anyone against Netanyahu is anti-Semitic. The ICC “war crimes” initiative is supportive of South Africa’s filing at the International Court of Justice, calling out Israel for genocide. The latest nation to join that suit is Egypt.

The ICC “war crimes” initiative comes amidst escalating calls for immediate ceasefire in Gaza, full-scale humanitarian aid, and for statehood for Palestine. Crucially, the Oasis Plan approach for the region is now circulating ever more widely, calling for the same economic development principle for peace everywhere. In Brussels, on May 19 Sunday, over 40,000 people demonstrated for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

In the U.S., a long-rehearsed attempt to stage a favorable event for President Biden failed yesterday in Atlanta, Georgia. Biden gave the commencement address at the graduation ceremonies at Morehead College, where Martin Luther King, Jr. attended. Many students silently turned their backs to the podium when Biden spoke; some walked out. The valedictorian urged for an “immediate and permanent ceasefire” in Gaza, at which point Biden was shown clapping, but Biden himself conspicuously spoke of only a ceasefire. Nothing “permanent.” Just façade and lies.

Schiller Institute leader Helga Zepp-LaRouche, in reviewing these and other events today, addressed the need to engage in “the battle for ideas,” promoting those that accord with advancing humanity.

As pointed out on May 17 by Ray McGovern, veteran analyst, in a special to Consortium News, Washington is misunderstanding “the tectonic change in the world’s balance of power.” Their “outdated assessments” are leading the U.S. into what can be “a two-front war.” This can end in nuclear annihilation. Famed filmmaker Oliver Stone, in a new video interview on the Swiss platform TV network “Weltwoche,” warns, “War could happen very easily now.”

The International Peace Coalition is expanding its networks and impact. A special task is to “get the West in conformity with the character of the human species,” IPC initiator Helga Zepp-LaRouche said today. Join up with the IPC now, for humanity’s sake.