Why is the west defending Israel after the ICC's request for Netanyahu’s arrest warrant? | Kenneth Roth

It is disappointing, if not surprising, that the west's response to the ICC accusations was to defend Israel despite its war crimes

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, responded with predictable vitriol to international criminal court (ICC) accusations against him and the Israeli defense minister, Yoav Gallant. Yet his arguments are all spin, designed to divert attention from their devastating conduct in Gaza. The American, British and German governments were little better.

On Monday, the court's chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, announced that he would seek arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant as well as three senior Hamas officials. He proposed charges against the Hamas leadership for atrocities on 7 October as well as the mistreatment of the hostages since then. He proposed charges against the Israeli officials primarily for their efforts to starve the Palestinian civilian population of Gaza. These important proposed charges offer the possibility of breaking through the wall of impunity" that victims of Israeli and Palestinian abuses have long suffered, as Human Rights Watch put it.

Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch (1993-2022), is visiting professor at Princeton's School of Public and International Affairs