Bulletin No 52 novembre 2024 After months of procrastination and multiple pressures, after the resignation and replacement of one of the judges, the ICC has finally decided to issue the arrest warrant that many have long awaited against the genocidaires Netanyahu and Gallant. For good measure, it added the Palestinian Mohamed Deif, whose death is not certain; it would have been difficult to issue a warrant against Yahya Sinouar, who died fighting the Zionists, or Ismaël Haniyeh, cowardly assassinated in Tehran.
Why the ICC was created and what it reveals
The Court could not have done less, but what a difficult birth it was! This is the first thing to note: the ICC has, for the first time in its existence, deviated from the path that had been mapped out for it. A creation of the Western imperialist countries, including the USA, which ultimately decided not to be part of it, it bears their mark and has served them well. Its predecessor, the International Criminal Tribunal, established for crimes in Yugoslavia, tried and at least let die in prison the former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, but did not try any of the NATO leaders for the blind and murderous bombings of 1999, nor its Gauleiter Bernard Kouchner, who probably covered up organ trafficking. And the court itself, at the urging of the imperialist powers USA and France, who had chosen other leaders at their beck and call for Ivory Coast, detained the legitimate president Laurent Gbagbo for eight years before acquitting him.
Clearly, the ICC was never designed to try Western leaders. As its prosecutor Karim Khan said, revealing comments made by a US diplomat: " The ICC is for trying Africans and renegades like Putin ." This idea is not only expressed in the corridors. In its editorial of November 24, the Washington Post, the famous flagship of Uncle Sam's press, declares: " The ICC is not the competent body to hold Israel accountable ." The lead of the article states that the ICC is necessary to help resolve war crimes committed in Sudan, Russia or Myanmar, but not Israel. The author of the editorial believes that it is in Israel that Israeli crimes against the Palestinians must be judged. That is enough to satisfy the Zionist government. Of course, in that case, Netanyahu would not risk much. He is at least ten times more likely to be convicted of corruption than of genocide, which the vast majority of the population approves of or tolerates.
What this reveals is this ongoing desire since the end of the socialist countries on the part of Western imperialists to rule the world, to decide who is good and who is bad, and this in the name of a system they call " democracy ", something whose only criterion would be to have supposedly free elections. Former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin recently had a spat with a journalist from LCI who sheds light on this situation. As the diplomat said that Israel was not a democratic country, the "journalist", clearly flabbergasted by such audacity, replied: " But there are free elections in Israel ". And Villepin replied that this was not enough to make it a democratic state.
In the name of what do the ideologues of the dominant imperialism and its vassals allow themselves to judge the entire world? In the name of the so-called democratic ideal and of " Human Rights ". And in the name of " Enlightenment ". Let us recall that this dubious concept lumps together Rousseau and Diderot, defenders of human nature whatever it may be, and the bourgeois Voltaire, who owned shares in the slave trade. Let us also recall that it was in the name of this same " democracy ", of these same " human rights " and of civilization that these same States organized colonization in the 19th century. For some of their ideologues at the time, it was a mission, what Rudyard Kipling called: " the white man's burden ".
So stealing land and wealth, exploiting the natives, locking up or killing the recalcitrant is part of “ democracy ”; no wonder Netanyahu is serving up civilization again.
Why, then, this decision by the ICC?
The ICC has therefore failed in its mission, which was to protect the Western imperialists and to put their adversaries out of harm's way. Let us ask ourselves about the reasons for this about-face. The evidence of the genocide cannot be held as a cause, this evidence, the communications of the UN which increasingly evokes the very word genocide have not prevented any of the governments most involved in supporting the Zionists from continuing to frequent the genocidaires, without diplomatic rupture or economic sanctions and to supply them with weapons. It would be risky to think that the ICC is now out of the fold and is independent: it is the West who pays.
So there is the mythical international law, we mentioned it last week. In France, many left-wing politicians (apart from the pro-Zionists Valls, Guedj, Dray, Glücksmann and company) refer to this famous law when they comment, to rejoice in it, the decision of the ICC. This is not surprising, because, when for example LFI, which defends the Palestinians much more than the others, claims international law, it is also to approve the arrest warrant against Mohamed Deif, for the shared wrongs, for putting on the same level a colonized people and a colonizing State.
Law, national or international, is a function of the balance of power. In France, law is the El Khomri law which breaks labor law, it is the law transforming the civil service, which deprives agents of union assistance, it is retirement at 64, it is still the offense of apology for terrorism, as modified by the left in 2014 and which serves as the main tool for the repression of those who support the anti-colonialist struggle of the Palestinian Resistance. It is the same on an international scale, if the ICC was created and was able to keep an African president in detention for eight years, it is because international law is imperialist law, more precisely the law of dominant imperialism. On the contrary, one can even think that the ICC's decision is contrary to international law as conceived by the dominant imperialists, contrary to what our " journalists " call the " international community " thinks.
No, the only explanation for this decision is, once again, the balance of power. The international protest of workers, of peoples, including in countries that are part of the Western imperialist bloc, is enormous. It cries out so loudly that the judges in The Hague have heard it. May all those who regularly participate throughout France or the world in demonstrations or rallies in support of the struggle of the people of Palestine against the Zionist colonialists, who sometimes wonder if they are useful, who sometimes complain because they would like to be more numerous, rest assured. They are useful, as proven by the ICC!
What can it change?
This issue needs to be studied as realistically as possible, without any illusions. A number of Palestine solidarity activists believe that the repercussions could be enormous, particularly for defenders of Palestine who are legally targeted by the Zionists or the state, accused of anti-Semitism or apology for terrorism. It is possible, but we will see with experience. For the time being, let us simply note that the famous offence has very little chance of becoming what it was before 2014, given the balance of power in Parliament.
As for the vehicles of the dominant ideology, it is clear that after a brief moment of shock, because they did not believe it was possible, everything went back to normal and even worse than before. The ICC arrest warrant does not prevent harsh criticism of the Court from CNews, does not prevent a columnist from thinking and declaring that the fact that Karim Khan is a Muslim means that he cannot be objective, does not prevent all the outcry around the couplet " Israel, a democratic country ", does not prevent Yaël Braun-Pivet from saying that Israel is not an invader.
Special mention to the " journalist " Géraldine Woessner, editor-in-chief of the very reactionary magazine Le Point , who declares: "Once again, there is no Palestinian journalist. You are sticking a Western concept on an entity that does not exist. " In reality, if we take her literally, she is not necessarily wrong, because " journalist ", in France or in the EU, is tantamount to being a propagandist for the dominant imperialism. Relaying the truth, basing oneself on the facts is another activity, totally unknown to her.
Politicians are more cautious, of course, France is a signatory to the treaty that founded the ICC and Séjourné had declared at the time that France would respect the decisions of the Court. Let us note all the same that, unlike the Italian, Spanish, Dutch and Canadian governments, the French government has still not clearly said whether or not it would arrest the genocidal Netanyahu if he set foot on our soil. We are still waiting for Raphaël Glucksmann's reaction on social networks, but he must no longer have any connection...
Above all, after the first two days, when it was difficult not to mention these famous arrest warrants, the media and politicians did everything they could to talk about something else, the arrest of Boualem Sansal in Algeria, the unbearable suspense over the government's censorship, or the convolutions of the former supporters of Mercosur, who became opponents...
And in the Zionist entity, the Earth does not stop turning. The new Minister of Defense, Israel Katz, has decided that pretrial detention without trial would no longer concern settlers. There were not many of them, but now the only ones concerned by this totally arbitrary (and not really democratic) procedure are the Palestinians. And some will tell us that there is no apartheid in Israel. Let us also note this sentence pronounced on November 25 by Bezalel Smotrich, the fascist Minister of Commerce, reproduced by Haaretz : " It is possible to create a situation where the population of Gaza will be, in two years, less than half of its current size. "
In conclusion
This decision by the ICC is undoubtedly a good point for the defenders of the Palestinian cause, of which we are one; it is significant of the importance of the balance of power, but let us not make it more than a point of support. Therefore, the important thing is the continuation and amplification of solidarity struggles, in all their forms.
Like all supporters of the liberation of Palestine around the world, we continue and will continue, tirelessly, to demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire, as well as free access for humanitarians throughout the Gaza Strip, and the complete withdrawal of the occupying forces from the enclave. But this will not be enough.
A just peace means the dismantling of the colonies, the return of the refugees and an independent Palestinian state. What prevents such a peace is the existence of a colonial state. The workers of Israel cannot be free if they do not break with Zionism, if they continue to find themselves objectively in the camp of the colonizers. Solidarity with Palestine cannot be satisfied with general phrases about peace. We need a state where all inhabitants enjoy the same rights and can live together, regardless of their origin, in this case, a democratic Palestinian state. Similarly, the national liberation struggle of the Palestinian people does not need compassion, but real political support and actions of internationalist solidarity. And for France, where the Revolutionaries, as elsewhere, must first fight their capitalists, this begins with the political struggle against the support of French imperialism for the Zionist colonial state.
This is why the Revolutionary Communist Party intends to continue to bring together all those who want an immediate ceasefire to end the massacre of Palestinians and who speak out for peace. For us, this means supporting the fundamental demands of the Palestinian national liberation movement, especially after the assassination of one of its leaders: an immediate end to Zionist military aggression, the right of return for refugees and the formation of a Palestinian state on the territory of Mandatory Palestine.