Netanyahu’s Space To Manoeuvre Is Narrowing
By
Dr. James M. Dorsey for New Age Islam
May 3, 2024
Israeli
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and other leading Israeli figures appear
blinded and progressively cornered by the gathering of increasingly dark
clouds.
The clouds,
including three separate legal proceedings in international courts against Mr.
Netanyahu, other Israeli officials, and the Israeli state, and mass
anti-Israeli protests across the globe, threaten to turn Israel into a pariah
state.
Add to that
stepped-up US scrutiny of the human rights record of Israeli army units, even
if the Bidem administrative has refused to take punitive action.
On the
principle of ‘where there’s smoke, there’s fire,’ Israeli conspiratorial allegations
that assertions levelled against it in the court proceedings are the product of
anti-Semitism and bias against the descendants of genocide victims hardly
constitute a substantive response. They are unlikely to dig Israel out of the
deepening hole it has dug for itself.
Mass grave at Al-Nasser Hospital. Source: CBC
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In the
latest development, International Criminal Court prosecutors have virtually
interviewed witnesses and medical staff of two destroyed medical facilities in
Gaza, Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City and Al Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis,
about mass graves found on the hospitals’ premises.
The court’s
chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, cautioned during recent visits to Israel and the
West Bank that Palestinians in Gaza “must have access to basic food, water and
desperately needed medical supplies, without further delay, and at pace and at
scale.” He warned Mr. Netanyahu’s government: “If you do not do so, do not
complain when my office is required to act.”
With
Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Israel, Mr. Netanyahu, in response to US
pressure, this week reopened the Erez Checkpoint, the sole crossing on the
northern edge of Gaza, allowing aid trucks to enter the Strip,
From Mr.
Khan’s perspective, that may be too little, too late.
Israeli
officials fear that the court is on the verge of indicting and issuing arrest
warrants for Mr. Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Israel Defence
Force (IDF) Chief of Staff Lt. General Herzl Halevi.
The court
is reportedly also looking at indicting Hamas leaders for atrocities committed
during the group’s October 7 attack on Israel.
Western
diplomats suggest that Mr. Khan may wait to hand down indictments to prevent
court actions from complicating Qatar and Egypt-mediated ceasefire and prisoner
exchange negotiations between Israel and Hamas.
Caught
between a rock and a hard place with his ultra-nationalist coalition partners
threatening to bring Mr. Netanyahu’s government down, the prime minister
dampened hopes for a deal by insisting Israeli forces would launch an offensive
in the southern Gazan enclave of Rafah, home to more than a million
Palestinians displaced by the war, with or without a truce.
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is in a bind. Credit: Reuters
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“Netanyahu
needs a way out. The way out is to blame Hamas” for a failure of the ceasefire
negotiations,” said former Israeli Middle East peace negotiator Daniel Levy.
“It seems that the Secretary of State and the (US) president have given
Netanyahu a way out” by putting the onus on Hamas, Mr. Levy added.
On his
seventh visit to Israel, Mr. Blinken pressured Hamas, saying it would bear the
blame for any failure to get a ceasefire deal.
“We are
determined to get a cease-fire that brings the hostages home and to get it now,
and the only reason that that wouldn’t be achieved is because of Hamas,” Mr.
Blinken told Israeli President Isaac Herzog at a meeting in Tel Aviv.
Beyond the
ICC investigations, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is deliberating
whether South Africa’s assertion that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza has
merit. Separately, the court is formulating an opinion requested by the United
Nations General Assembly on the legal consequences of Israeli policies in
occupied Palestinian territory.
The legal
proceedings, particularly in the International Criminal Court, threaten to
undermine an already shaky key pillar of Israel’s global positioning: claiming
the moral high ground that has been a fixture of Israeli policy since the
creation of the state.
Claiming
the high ground was a major driver of Israel’s successful attempt in Western
countries to conflate criticism of the state and Zionism with anti-Semitism at
whatever cost. It also was as much the impetus for Israel’s visceral campaign
against the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement as was concern
about its potential economic and military impact.
Israeli border police and soldiers block Palestinian protesters in the
occupied West Bank. Credit: EPA
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“Netanyahu
is very worried, and not only Netanyahu. This was the moment the whole Israeli
elite, which was involved in the occupation and the war in Gaza, was afraid of…
This is going to change the whole game,” said Israeli columnist Gideon Levi,
one of the most outspoken critics of Israeli policy and the military’s Gaza war
conduct.
Responding
to a potential indictment, Mr. Netanyahu insisted that Israel would stay its
course, regardless of whether the criminal court acts or not.
“International
bodies like the ICC arose in the wake of the Holocaust committed against the
Jewish people. They were set up to prevent such horrors, to prevent such
genocides. Yet now, the international court is trying to put Israel in the
dock. Branding Israel’s leaders and soldiers as war criminals will put fuel on
the fire of ant-Semitism,” Mr Netanyahu said.
Mr.
Netanyahu’s agitation against the court is problematic for multiple reasons.
Indeed, an indictment of the prime minister and other senior officials may fuel
anti-Semitism, but that does not give them license to act as they see fit in
potential violation of international law.
Nor does it
legitimise neglect of reasonable grounds to suspect Israeli leaders of war
crimes, irrespective of whether they are genocidal or not.
Moreover,
the threat of increased anti-Semitism stems from Israeli policies and actions
that failed to recognise Palestinian rights, allowed the Palestinian problem to
fester, and turned it into a binary us-or-them proposition, not from a
potential ICC decision. To be clear, nothing justifies anti-Semitism or any
other expression of racism.
Nevertheless,
Mr. Netanyahu contradicts himself by applying the lessons of the Holocaust to
prevent future genocides, or for that matter, war crimes in general, to Jews
but not to others.
The
contradiction in Mr. Netanyahu’s assertions is compounded by a long-standing
Israeli policy of military sales to regimes across the globe potentially guilty
of war crimes, such as the Myanmar military junta’s ethnic cleansing of
Rohingya Muslims.
Only a
resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that acknowledges Israeli-Jewish
and Palestinian rights as equally valid is likely to put an end to violence and
stymie anti-Semitism.
Hostage families speak outside the International Criminal Court in The
Hague. Credit: Al Jazeera
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Indicating
the cleavages in Israeli society, family members of the more than 100 remaining
Hamas-held hostages, including two captives released in November, have filed a
complaint against Hamas at the ICC.
Hamas
kidnapped 250 people during its October 7 attack on Israel. More than 100 were
released in a Qatar-mediated exchange in November for 240 Palestinians
incarcerated by Israel. An unknown number of the remaining captives have since
died, many killed in the fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian
militants.
“Perpetrators
should be held criminally accountable for the atrocities they committed. We
trust that the ICC has the capacity to bring about justice for the hostages and
their families,” said Shelley Aviv Yeini, a member of the Hostage Families
Forum.
With no
mention of an ICC investigation of Israeli leaders, Ms. Aviv Yeni expressed
“our belief in the integrity and professionalism of the court.”
A cat with
nine lives, Mr. Netanyahu has proven that one underestimates or writes him off
at one’s peril.
Even so,
Mr. Netanyahu’s space to manoeuvre is narrowing. Meanwhile, the gathering
clouds are turning ever darker.
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Dr. James M. Dorsey is an Adjunct Senior Fellow
at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International
Studies, and the author of the syndicated column and podcast, The Turbulent
World with James M. Dorsey.
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Original
Headline: Netanyahu Is Blinded And Cornered By
The Gathering Of Increasingly Dark Clouds.
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-politics/netanyahu-space-manoeuvre-israel/d/132252
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