Why "We will see them at the Hague!" is infantile and maddening

I apologise in advance for this unpopular opinion

Photo by Rafael Ishkhanyan on Unsplash

A friend of mine was one of the first people to testify at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. She was a child. She and her cousins gave testimony of the Podujevo massacre, when their families were rounded up in the garden and murdered - all of them shot together. She was shot 16 times. Her cousin was shot in the throat. Her mother was murdered. Her little brother’s head was blown off. The man who murdered their families was called Sasa Cvjetan. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison. He served 16.

I know people keep talking as though the Hague is some super amazing punishment - but it's like a care home for these old war criminals just with a locked door. I mean the ICC says it on their website, “The ICC detention centre is used to hold in safe, secure and humane custody those detained by the ICC.” I stand corrected, it sounds better than many UK nursing homes.

The name might ring with gravitas but being fed and housed and clothed for free is no punishment for what they've done. ‘We will see them at the Hague’ sounds so pitiable to me. This is all human beings are waiting for? The entire globe is waiting for this? Celebrating that some countries may arrest two men - after by the way, their genocide is done. Because that's what ‘at the Hague’ means. It means accepting the ‘war’ must conclude for ‘justice’ then to be administered. There’s no plan to stop it now just, ‘One day, the Hague!’ with righteous indignation.

The idea that these war criminals and their European supporters are trying hard to ignore ‘international law’ and deny Israel’s genocide because they are scared of the ‘Hague’ due to their complicity in these crimes, completely misunderstands narcissism and psychopathy. These people aren’t scared of the Hague - they don’t think they’ll ever get there. They feel immune and powerful. The only thing accusations against them do is hurt their egos, and this is why they lash out. Narcissism is the disease of ego. Psychopathy is the disease of not seeing anyone as human but yourself. It is infantile to spread the narrative that these people are acting as they do out of fear. The Hague is not scary. Being caught by the people whose families you murdered would be scary. Being beaten in war would be scary. But these people aren’t scared of these things. A private room in the ICC detention centre is not scary. These people are not scared of any of these things because they think they are invincible.

If you’ve been the victim of narcissistic abuse, you’ll know it’s hell. The Palestinians have endured this hell for decades at the hands of a narcissistic Israel and its psychopathic leaders. But enduring such abuse gives you a unique insight into the malignant, malevolent mind of the narcissist—something most people cannot fully comprehend.

Narcissists believe themselves invincible, untouchable, and immune to consequences. They are deluded in their superiority and grandiosity. They live their lives as though impunity is their birthright. They never fear accountability because they can’t fathom it: they think they are too clever and too important to ever face consequences. The idea of consequences doesn’t even register with them—they genuinely believe they will never face justice at The Hague or anywhere else. Instead, their anger over the Hague is because of the mere suggestion of consequences is an insult to them, and it triggers nothing but contempt and narcissistic rage.

This is because a narcissist views themselves as above the law, above morality, and above judgment. They live in a bubble of entitlement. Even when faced with mounting evidence of their wrongdoing or the damage they’ve caused, they will double down, deny, deflect, or project their crimes onto others. Any attempt to confront them only fuels their delusion that they are the victim, and they weaponise this false victimhood to justify even more abuse. Sound familiar?

This narcissistic pathology isn’t unique to Israel—it’s embedded in the neoliberal, imperialistic Western Empire. The ‘democratic’ voting systems in these societies actively reward narcissistic traits: superficial charm, fakery, manipulation, and the insatiable lust for power and control. It’s a job designed for narcissists—where they can enrich themselves through lobbyists, manipulate a gullible public, and impose their abuse on entire populations.

If these narcissistic, psychopathic Israeli genociders ever do end up tried standing trial at the Hague and once the long and prolonged court cases are finally over, then these war criminals may end up in prison somewhere, still with free room and board. It won't be Sde Teiman though, where they had their victims raped to death, urinated on, sexually assaulted by dogs, electrocuted, spat on, beaten, forced to lay upon each other naked while their guards posed for selfies, had their kegs amputated, eyes gauged out, thrown naked into the yard to die. They won't have any of what they inflicted. They'll have ‘humane’ conditions as a punishment for all the inhumanity they inflicted. That’s the great ‘punishment’ the world is cheering at.

And that's only if the US hasn't invaded and got them out first. They have an actual law that allows them to do that. It’s colloquially known as the Hague Invasion Act, and they've already threatened it.

Just FYI, prisoners have far more money spent on them by the state than law-abiding, hard-working families struggling to survive. The money spent on Nethayhu’s potential eventual trial will be millions. His lawyers will make a killing, because you know, ‘justice’. Millions and millions to go through evidence we all know is there. Millions for special planes to transport him to and from. Millions spent on ‘security’ to keep his victims away from the court. Millions on ‘justice’. For high-profile war criminals and genociders, where they are held safe and protected from their victims and other prisoners, it really isn't a punishment of any kind. In fact, in England, prisoners spend more time outdoors than children.

To be honest, I feel like I'm in my own solitary bubble. I genuinely can't believe people jumping for joy with these ICC arrest warrants. The story isn't how they have now issued arrest warrants for these two Israelis - the story is how there are no arrest warrants out for the thousands of IOF soldiers still holidaying in Europe on genocide leave and terrorising Europeans while they are on hard earned ‘break’ from infanticide. The same soldiers glorifying their murders and shamelessly sharing their war crimes on social media with complete and enduring impunity.

The theatrics of it all is bizarre and it is the theatrics which keeps the oppressive status quo afloat. The main thing the ICC arrest warrants seem intended for is to try and push Israeli society to reject Nethanyahu and replace him, whilst still allowing them to be a narcissistic state hellbent on genocide and running on the fumes of hate. The next guy won't be better - he'll just be more charming domestically and internationally far more brutal. There is no other trajectory for Israeli society at this point. This is what the vast majority want - genocide. They want the annihilation of the Arabs and the subjugation of the Muslim world, they sing songs about it in broad daylight and through the nights on the streets of Europe. It's widely accepted as their right, Britian even offering its own citizens lives to their cause.

The fact that the ICC put out an arrest warrant for Mohammed Deif on the same level as Nethayhu and Gallant is nonsensical - not because he may not have done these things - but simply because they do not have independent evidence from Oct 7 because Israel would not let any independent investigator in, and the evidence they did get contradicted Israel's narrative; the mass rapes, 40 beheaded babies etc. Surely you need independent, verified evidence to issue an arrest warrant? The ICC are very clearly letting the entire genocidal Israeli parliament and IOF get away with it. Nethayhu ‘may’ not be able to visit the Louvre, but his genocidal Tik Tok army with their personal Shin Bet and Mossad security are still free to enact destabilisation operations in Europe.

The ICC wants us to arrest Netanyahu and then what? The IOF is still murdering everyone and Europe is still letting them in, giving them top jobs, and criminalising anyone who has a problem with it.

The more important story isn't how the ICC have finally, after over a year of genocide, stuck a white colonist on their arrest warrants, but that it took them so long, and they've done it when we’ve reached final part of this genocide and are in the final solution phase."They have to respect international law!" everyone cries. Whilst Germany, Hungary, Argentina and the US have already said they won't and the UK, Norway and France remain non-committal. In fact, many more states have made statements about ‘respecting’ the ICC but not actually saying they will arrest Nethanyahu. Western mainstream media has reported that to mean they will arrest Nethanyahu - including the UK - though they haven't actually said it. Listen to their words carefully, they are choosing them very deliberately. If not everyone follows your 'international law' the international law does not exist. It's as simple as that. There is no enforcement mechanism for the ICC. International law is a con that the Western world buys into. The rest of the world already know it's a con and exists simply to continue to subdue them. That's why they created BRICs and that’s why every state who is on the receiving end of Western imperialism is clambering to join it.

Of course, the Western media is a tool of propaganda and it seems the narrative they wish to imprint upon their citizens’ minds is that their leaders will accept this perceived higher justice of ‘international law’ to make their populations believe it works and in doing so, not revolt against it. And everyone has lapped it up just as they were supposed to. They feel a tremendous victory and validation, as if this is the best justice that the world can give. Their celebrations embolden their leaders to continue suppressing them, it does not deter them. Their celebrations represent an acceptance of the status quo and the continuation of Western hegemony. They've been played again and do not even realise it.

The main instigator of the war is the one paying the bills and supplying the bombs. That's President Biden. Why isn't there an arrest warrant for him? Could if be because the ICC is a political tool used to keep the Western hegemony status quo? To date it has only ever indicted Africans. It is has been heavily criticised by those annoyed that a European colonialist has now featured on one of their arrest warrants, because that is not what it was built for. The US is playing the pantomime bully and by doing so continues to create the myth of the divine justice around ‘the Hague’ and causing populations in Europe to defend it and insist upon its preeminence. The sheer scale of the psych-ops we are exposed to is breathtaking and this one is a blinder. There is nothing more powerful than the exploited exploiting themselves so you don't have to.

There is no enforcement mechanism to the ICC. It's the biggest con on earth and the Western populations are falling for it.

Even the way the ICC has issued these warrants is a continuation of the colonial mindset. Their initial request was for three members of Hamas to two Israeli genociders. This has now gone down to one Hamas member, because Israel said it killed the other two. Israel has also said this one is dead, yet the ICC puts him on the arrest warrant anyway. If you're going to use Israel as the source of ‘evidence’ of the man's crimes for use on your warrant, why aren't you using their ‘evidence’ of the fact he's dead?

The reason that he needs to be on the arrest warrant- despite the fact he’s likely dead - is so the ICC can both-sides this genocide by trying to create an equivalence with Hamas’s actions on Oct 7. This very much reveals their racist and colonial mindset: they think the number of Israeli victims on 7 Oct is on par with 76 years of colonial murder and ethnic cleansing, and the subsequent genocide of hundreds of thousands of brown victims. They also have vast evidence of the entire Israeli government inciting genocide - a punishable crime under ‘international law' - and vast evidence of individuals committing war crimes, including evidence of one of the soldiers who raped a man to death confessing to the crime and then becoming a celebrity for it on Israeli TV. They know the Knesset argued and screamed that every act of depravity and torture and death could be inflicted on all Palestinians, including children. They have tonnes of evidence and testimony that Israeli drones sniper kids in the head for the sole purpose of ensuring they never grow up. And yet not a single warrant for these people, not a single warrant for those continuing to perpetuate this genocide, thereby very much - and very intentionally - allowing it to continue unabated. If arrest warrants were issued for the war criminals taking breaks to watch football and terrorise Europe, then maybe they'd actually create a deterrent to genocide rather than simply trying a soft power move to get rid of a financially corrupt Nethayhu who is getting on everyone’s nerves a bit and is losing his control over his own people. The Western Empire needs a leader who can continue genocide without his population protesting on the streets that he's not doing it well enough.

It is also the same colonial mindset that the same evidence of guilt is not needed for brown and black people accused of crimes. Independent, verified evidence is not required, Israel's narrative alone will do, while collecting thousands of pieces of independent and verified evidence against Israeli genociders, and yet not bringing them to task.

The story of the ICC arrest warrants isn’t that Nethayhu is named in one. It’s that in the face of the most blatant genocide in history, this institution dragged its feet, failed to issue arrest warrants for the soldiers bulldozing and snippering and bombing, both-sidesing the whole thing, and yet the Western world cheered. It's objectively, utterly bizarre.

The ICC is simply in self-preservation mode - if they had not issued these warrants, no-one would see them as having any authority and their days would be numbered. Throw a few - and a very few - crumbs out, and the Western majority feels vindicated that they are finally seen. No need to replace an institution who sees the genocide of brown people and will act on it, right? Western status quo hegemony can continue.

It's maddening. I may be wrong, I probably am, but I still do not know why people do not understand that 'law' is written by victors, by those who wish power over the rest, and if they are malevolent some good may still get through the cracks, yet if still remains rotten and sick at core.

The ICC is not a mechanism for justice. The Hague is not a punishment for war criminals. It's a slap on the wrist where they are looked after for the rest of their lives, while their victims still cry in pain at the scars they’ve left behind, at the gaping wounds that'll never heal.