Very interesting thought provoking article. Well written. The only good thing about it is the further legitimacy it gives to campaigners demanding weapons be stopped.
I get it. Netanyahu spending a decade or so in a detention centre is not justice for the atrocities he committed. I get it too, that it is after the fact and will not stop a deranged psychopath. But it is important. It is important that we have “rules of war” and that you can be convicted as a “war criminal”. I think the ICC ruling is pivotal for civilisation.
Had they failed to issue it then international law becomes mute, an extension of western imperialism. The cascade that would have ensued is unthinkable.
The fact it has issued an arrest warrant despite the bullying of western countries such as the U.S. is monumental. The law is the law. And if Netanyahu becomes only the 12th person to be convicted by the ICC then his place in history is where it should be - among tyrants and the most wicked of people!
The National Security Act which bars a journalist exposing government corruption, is law.
IPP prison sentences are law.
Preventing trafficked child, Shamima, from returning, is law.
Once we understand that and understand how the idea of 'law' being just and moral by virtue of being 'law' is completely false, then we can start getting out of this mind prison we are in.
The law - as Caitlin Johnstone so beautifully put it only this week - is not there to protect ordinary people from the powerful, but to protect the powerful from we ordinary. The Hague literally does that. Look to history prior to the ICJ/ICC to see how tyrants who fell were punished by the people they had tyrannised and oppressed. The entire Western made structure is designed to ensure no retribution for the most serious of crimes commited by the powerful. They commit the most horrific violence - 4.5 million dead since 9/11, 81 million displaced, but lecture ordinary people that there is no place for 'political violence.' They needed the adjective because only those in power - the political - shouldn't be targeted. The ordinary can be slaughtered en masse. It's why Gandhi is lauded and lied about - they say it was his non-violence which liberated India. It wasn't, it was the armed resistance that simultaneously existed and which the British were floundering against. That's what their army documents say. But they have to create the myth that they should be untouchable from what they wreck on others and that they are reasonable and will leave if you just ask them nicely. Even the US still has the death penalty for the ordinary man, but can't fathom the powerful even in a comfortable, humane cell in the Hague, hence their Hague Invasion Act.
There is nothing momentus about being forced to act and then minimising your actions to very much allow genocide to rage on. The whole Israeli government should be arrested, not just a couple of them. The whole army should be stopped. The fact that people even recognise this as 'momentus' holds the axiom within that the ICC is indeed racist and noone quite believes that on this occasion they've done something that doesn't seem so racist. To think this is a turning point is premature and misplaced as explained in the article. Arrest warrants exist not just for crimes committed but also to prevent said crimes from continuing. Prison exists - allegedly - to protect the public, i.e. the ordinary. But that's not what these warrants are designed for. The powerful within these apparatus are the ones protected.
By celebrating this we accept this fact as enduring and further lend our full support to its continuance. It is a testament that we accept the status quo power structure in its entirety - the powerful, untouchable. The ordinary, free to be murdered.
Ordinary folks must be able to realise: If we let the oligarchs get away with wiping out Palestine, then they'll be emboldened to do it again, on a larger scale. When our turn comes, who will there be left to defend us?
Pfft! Bourgies don't understand how power works. The rulers make the rules, they don't follow them. That is for the ruled. The ICC warrants are only important to the middle classes, because they have an incentive to believe their society works.
Tom Cotton was one the "US soldier" that taking selfies with the gold bar he looted back in Iraq. I hope that can explained his current deranged behaviour. Some monster never changed. Only turned into more dangerous one.
Brilliant, as always. Unless it's intentional, do a search and replace for "Netanyahu." His name's mis-typed a few times. You or someone wrote recently that law is not law which isn't enforced. The problem for me isn't the humane conditions these guys would be held in if ever convicted. To me the main purpose of incarceration--if it has any value--is to prevent the monsters from continuing to monster. But, A) as you so rightly said, Biden then should also have an arrest warrant issued, B) the rest of the psychopaths in government and industry should, and C) there is no enforcement of the law. I'd kind of like to see the U.S. law about invading The Hague put to the test. Not because I wish war on the Dutch but because I don't think that's going to go they way they want.
Ha I'd like to see it too! I wonder if they even get over the border.
Thanks for the shout out re Netanyahu. I always spell it wrong. I mean, let's be honest though, his real name is Benjamin Mileikowsky, they changed their name to try and look more Middle Eastern.
There is a lot of truth in what you say Aya, and there is an underlying tone of a demand for revenge, an equivalence of suffering to be doled out to the perpetrator. This as we all know just perpetuates a cycle of revenge that even the ancient Greeks knew would have to be stopped: hence the Harpies become the "kindly ones", all this after a trial where the jury is deadlocked. But I get it, we are slow to learn.
I think revenge is the wrong word. As a caveat, on a personal level, I have never sought revenge and my piece wasn't meant to convey it. This is because, on a spiritual level, I am a follower of Islam—but I am strictly a follower of the Qur'an and not the hadith (purported sayings of the Prophet (pbuh)). It is the latter from which people come out with all sorts of nonsense about the religion, such as stoning to death, killing gay people, etc.—none of that is in the Qur'an. In fact, both are singled out as heinous acts. On a spiritual level, I feel there are some instances in life where earthly justice cannot be done. Even where it can be, I am content on a personal and spiritual level to leave it to the Hands of God and Divine Justice. I have no personal interest in revenge but only in justice to the extent it can be reached on earth.
In regard to your comment about 'revenge,' I’ll point a few things out. The first is that prison was invented, in part, as a mechanism for revenge. That is what punishment partly is—retribution. There are six main purposes for prison:
Punishment
Retribution
Deterrence
Rehabilitation
Protection of society
Restoration and justice
I would say the Hague does not provide any deterrence; it is used so infrequently against the most heinous of crimes and most depraved of criminals that it has no deterrent value, and some countries do not even sign up to its jurisdiction. It provides no rehabilitation. It usually provides no protection of society, as once individuals are in the Hague, they have already done their deeds and have been brought low, hence their capture. There is no more harm they can do to society—they’ve finished their rampage. Restoration and justice aren't even mentioned. This would, at the very least, involve compensation, reparations, and the return of Palestine. Yes, all of Palestine—no one had the right to throw off the people living there and replace them. As noted above, the punishment is minimal.
The Western world balks at the idea of restorative justice. The King of England has been swanning around Africa as if he is important, and his Prime Minister has congratulated him for ignoring the call for reparations from a woman whose ancestors were victims of his family's genocide, whose resources were stolen, and whose suffering made them (and thus, him) rich. The UK refuses to pay reparations. Instead, they tell those who suffered so heavily under them to 'look to the future' and move on. That is not justice, nor is there any desire to deliver it. COP29 was a disaster as nations walked out. These nations deserve restorative justice but are being left high and dry to suffer yet more injustice—this time climate injustice—at the hands of their former and current colonial oppressors.
The reason 'revenge' is given a negative connotation is because of the West's monopoly on Christianity as a form of state-controlled religion and identity. White Jesus said, 'Turn the other cheek,' according to the English-language Bible. We can never know what the original Bible actually said, but the state-controlled religion relies on this line. It's not what the Old Testament or Torah says. The Old Testament is clear, "eye for an eye, "fracture for fracture," "hand for a hand," tooth for tooth" etc.
And it is not what Islam says. Islam says that if you are oppressed, you have permission to fight that oppression. If the person oppressing you stops, then you must stop. You have no right to continue—that is, you have no right to revenge. In regard to punishment, if a life is taken, there are options: forgive them as humans (i.e., leave them to God in the next life) and take reparations and compensation for the life taken, or apply the death penalty. At all times, the guidance is toward forgiveness.
This is why Muslims are a particularly hard people to beat in battle. They believe in fighting back against oppression until they defeat it (the resumption of justice), and they believe dying in the pursuit of this, (martyrdom). This is very different from 'turn the other cheek.' Since 9/11, 4.5 million Muslims have been murdered. Yet the West is still fighting them. They are good at murdering women and children, but they cannot defeat men fighting them back. They left Afghanistan defeated. They are losing the seas to Yemen. They cannot advance in Lebanon. And after over a year of genocide, relentlessly pounding Gaza with bombs greater than every nuclear bomb ever used, day after day, they cannot subdue this tiny strip of land.
My Gazan friends, who cry every night with PTSD and pray every day for death, do not care about Netanyahu. They don’t wish for his death or fantasise about revenge. They just want their people to be left alone and to live in peace and safety. I am sure the majority of Palestinians would prefer to leave Netanyahu to God, have their land returned, and be given reparations and compensation as restorative justice for what they’ve had to endure on earth.
But that wouldn’t sit well with the West, who prefer theatrics to true justice.
Thank you for your reply Aya. It is very passionate and moving, I am feeling tearful. You have brought up many interesting points. I ended my comment with a slightly frivolous statement about a message from Ancient Greek tragedy, but just as your narrative of Muslim retribution plays a big role in your consciousness, the Orestian story is important for me. I now have another narrative to learn from. Thank you.
I totally understand it. I agree with you, revenge is never the way to go. What is interesting though, is that despite what the Americans have done, none of these countries - or their populations - ever seek revenge. Revenge is something that is glorified in the neoliberal West (there are so many shows with the theme of revenge, the hero/heroine being the one who successfully is avenged), but in people steeped in spirituality and wisdom (which Anciet Greek tragedies form a part of), do not care for it. They just want to be left alone.
Aya, there are many who join you in your 'solitary bubble' and I am one. Thank you for this comprehensive, well-written, passionate and irrefutably truthful commentary. It's quite understandable why people are delighted by the very long-overdue issuance of arrest warrants for some of the worst criminals in history. But you rightly point out the sham and the shame of this ultimately meaningless gesture and the negligible prospects of it leading to any real justice - even under the best of circumstances. And we all know why. There are no effective mechanisms for enforcement, especially considering the slavish, rabid, despicable support for the perpetrators by the most extensive, powerful, and brutally dominant criminal enterprise in the history of the planet: amerikkka.
You make solid points, and I agree with the sentiment. Over the years I have often felt this sentiment you identify, this kind 'sigh...finally...', this being baffled that a certain event/moment was the one that opened peoples' eyes, after such a multitude of events preceded it. Yet over time these moments have unexpected ways of having an effect, if only to inspire future movements to take up the banner and fight for change. While that is utterly useless to people suffering in the present moment, which does not look like it is going to change anytime soon, I do find hope in taking that longterm view, where these events could serve as yet more cracks that eventually bring the whole rotten system down. So yes, I think you're right, the ICC/ICJ rulings are unlikely to have much meaningful impact directly, but they'll only be truly useless if we let them remain so.
I agree their are positives, namely the PR and propaganda has gaps that the Western world is having trouble papering over.
The trouble is western populations are way to pliant for that to cause a mass movement for real and radical change - which is needed.
So yes it does very much cause a PR issue for western 'we are the good guys' narrative. But in terms of having a rebellion on their hands which will change the global status quo and create a just and equitable system - which is the root of all this madness and genocide - they have nothing to fear.
Yet. There is only so long that you can paper over such glaring contradictions. Whether it will all end well or badly remains to be seen. In any case, regardless of the final outcome or whether there is any hope, we should do what we can to make things better simply because it is the right thing to do.
I'm hoping it does make things better, namely exposing the ICC, the UN et al as tools for imperialism and hopefully ensuring in a completely new system based on justice equality and equity. I hope BRICS manages to help usher in a new system which is more fair. I hope the bases of intentional courts are not controlled in Europe and the US indicating where power is consolidated, but throughout the globe.
The UN has been a disgrace from it's inception by pretending to be a global institution yet allowing the few and the powerful full veto of its laws. It was skewed and biased from the first day and was designed to be so. It can't be rehabilitated from that - the veto must end or another system must replace it. The UN has allowed it's colleagues to be murdered, tortured, attacked with white phosphorus and allowed the murderers to walk in, make speeches full of lies - calling the UN anti Semitic and terroristic - and using their phones to launch attacks in sovereign states.
I know it's an unpopular opinion but the system that caused these injustices and endless genocides will not be the one to save them from it: they are designed precisely to allow them. In fact, the UN contributed directly to the genocide of Srebencia and the lead poisoning of the Roma in Kosovo. The master's tools will not dismantle the master's house.
The ICC is a continued tool of imperialism. That's precisely why it was invented. The ICJ cares more about states' ability and rights to wage war than to intervene to stop a genocide. The UN was silent on the two attacks on Iran and their right to invoke art.51. They have remained silent on Isabel's mass pager terror attack in Lebanon (when I say silent I mean no resolutions).
It is easy for us in the west to want to believe in 'international law' and a system that works and keep the status quo because our lives aren't bad. But the rest of the world suffers so much and it suffers because the global system is not designed to be collaborative but to be one of control (eg the UN) of the powerful over the weak. Until it becomes one of collaboration it will never be just.
We should do what we can to make things better. And that means insist on an international law which is not symbolic but real; which is not superficial justice but restorative; which does not both-sides a genocide but indicts armies of genociders and war criminals: an actual international court of justice which enacts justice and intervenes to stop genocide not refuse to put in interim measures - who deliberates during an active genocide not after the fact.
The support of these unjust systems because we get crumbs of validation is not something 'right' to do. What is right is to reject their crumbs and instead on a cake. That is the right thing to do.
We should insist on our rights and the rights of humanity. Instead we sit there content with not even the bare minimum.
Definitely not going to argue with that. The only thing I would add to what you're saying is that precisely because more and more people/countries are realising what the limits are of these institutions and how disconnected they are from their (stated) founding principles, can alternatives be realised. Looking at moments of change in history, the failures of the old systems often inspire the ambitions of the new. So in that sense I would say it was definitely better to have the UN we have now as opposed to no UN, just like the UN was created after the Leage of Nations failed. Now the next organisation can hopefully use the failure of the UN to take the next step.
I’d say that’s seeing the silver lining and making the best out of a bad situation :) - but yes, it works.
Today I put in the statements that British governments made about the ICC arrest warrants into ChatGPT. They all said they would respect the ICC, but Starmer said ‘UK courts’ are ‘independent’, Ed ball’s wife said something about it requiring a ‘domestic legal’ process and no-one has used the word, ‘arrest’.
ChatGPT called bullshit! Ha, it thought that the UK would try to bypass the arrest warrants in some way and blame the UK courts.
I mean I did not think AI should replace humans but its far more insightful than every single mainstream media 'journalist’.
Ha, yes that's how I tend to do it, look all the darkness and madness straight in the face and then reassess how to move on constructively from there.
And that with chatgpt is truly sad, and to be honest I'm surprised it said that. A kink that will be ironed out in future with microsoft at the helm, I'm sure. The reason, as you're probably aware, the 'journalists' do so badly is because they aren't trying to or are otherwise unable to spread truth, a thing like that can only be systemic.
I'm so sorry I removed your comment by mistake!! I meant to delete mine because of a typo! To reply:
I don't think it's a jolt. They are planning to carpet bomb Beirut. They are still pointing their missiles towards China and have allowed their missiles into Russia. And Starmer has promised the UK to BlackRock and British citizens to Israel's army.
But yes, the PR and propaganda has gaps that they are having trouble papering over.
The trouble is western populations are way to pliant for that to cause a mass movement for real and radical change - which is needed.
So he's it does very much cause a PR issue for western 'we are the good guys' narrative. But in terms of having a rebellion on their hands which will change the global status quo and create a just and equitable system - which is the root of all this madness and genocide - they have nothing to fear.
Bravo!
No need to apologize to me. I'm with you 100%.
Very interesting thought provoking article. Well written. The only good thing about it is the further legitimacy it gives to campaigners demanding weapons be stopped.
I get it. Netanyahu spending a decade or so in a detention centre is not justice for the atrocities he committed. I get it too, that it is after the fact and will not stop a deranged psychopath. But it is important. It is important that we have “rules of war” and that you can be convicted as a “war criminal”. I think the ICC ruling is pivotal for civilisation.
Had they failed to issue it then international law becomes mute, an extension of western imperialism. The cascade that would have ensued is unthinkable.
The fact it has issued an arrest warrant despite the bullying of western countries such as the U.S. is monumental. The law is the law. And if Netanyahu becomes only the 12th person to be convicted by the ICC then his place in history is where it should be - among tyrants and the most wicked of people!
Law is written by whoever wields power.
Nuremberg laws were laws.
Apartheid laws were laws.
A black man 2/3rd a white man was law.
Border and immigration laws are law.
The National Security Act which bars a journalist exposing government corruption, is law.
IPP prison sentences are law.
Preventing trafficked child, Shamima, from returning, is law.
Once we understand that and understand how the idea of 'law' being just and moral by virtue of being 'law' is completely false, then we can start getting out of this mind prison we are in.
The law - as Caitlin Johnstone so beautifully put it only this week - is not there to protect ordinary people from the powerful, but to protect the powerful from we ordinary. The Hague literally does that. Look to history prior to the ICJ/ICC to see how tyrants who fell were punished by the people they had tyrannised and oppressed. The entire Western made structure is designed to ensure no retribution for the most serious of crimes commited by the powerful. They commit the most horrific violence - 4.5 million dead since 9/11, 81 million displaced, but lecture ordinary people that there is no place for 'political violence.' They needed the adjective because only those in power - the political - shouldn't be targeted. The ordinary can be slaughtered en masse. It's why Gandhi is lauded and lied about - they say it was his non-violence which liberated India. It wasn't, it was the armed resistance that simultaneously existed and which the British were floundering against. That's what their army documents say. But they have to create the myth that they should be untouchable from what they wreck on others and that they are reasonable and will leave if you just ask them nicely. Even the US still has the death penalty for the ordinary man, but can't fathom the powerful even in a comfortable, humane cell in the Hague, hence their Hague Invasion Act.
There is nothing momentus about being forced to act and then minimising your actions to very much allow genocide to rage on. The whole Israeli government should be arrested, not just a couple of them. The whole army should be stopped. The fact that people even recognise this as 'momentus' holds the axiom within that the ICC is indeed racist and noone quite believes that on this occasion they've done something that doesn't seem so racist. To think this is a turning point is premature and misplaced as explained in the article. Arrest warrants exist not just for crimes committed but also to prevent said crimes from continuing. Prison exists - allegedly - to protect the public, i.e. the ordinary. But that's not what these warrants are designed for. The powerful within these apparatus are the ones protected.
By celebrating this we accept this fact as enduring and further lend our full support to its continuance. It is a testament that we accept the status quo power structure in its entirety - the powerful, untouchable. The ordinary, free to be murdered.
In this structure genocide won't stop.
And the fakery of the ICC will continue.
Tell it!
Ordinary folks must be able to realise: If we let the oligarchs get away with wiping out Palestine, then they'll be emboldened to do it again, on a larger scale. When our turn comes, who will there be left to defend us?
I couldn't agree more. It's a farce, much like the recent US election. Unfortunately, people tend to cling to their delusions. 🙁
Pfft! Bourgies don't understand how power works. The rulers make the rules, they don't follow them. That is for the ruled. The ICC warrants are only important to the middle classes, because they have an incentive to believe their society works.
This is so succinctly written and 100% in the nose.
"We'll see them.at The Hague" is simply cope born of impotence.
Nothing more.
Tom Cotton was one the "US soldier" that taking selfies with the gold bar he looted back in Iraq. I hope that can explained his current deranged behaviour. Some monster never changed. Only turned into more dangerous one.
Yeah…she’s probably right…but then what? Capital punishment?
The only appropriate punishment for netenyahu and his clique is the Death Sentence ☠️👁️
Brilliant, as always. Unless it's intentional, do a search and replace for "Netanyahu." His name's mis-typed a few times. You or someone wrote recently that law is not law which isn't enforced. The problem for me isn't the humane conditions these guys would be held in if ever convicted. To me the main purpose of incarceration--if it has any value--is to prevent the monsters from continuing to monster. But, A) as you so rightly said, Biden then should also have an arrest warrant issued, B) the rest of the psychopaths in government and industry should, and C) there is no enforcement of the law. I'd kind of like to see the U.S. law about invading The Hague put to the test. Not because I wish war on the Dutch but because I don't think that's going to go they way they want.
Ha I'd like to see it too! I wonder if they even get over the border.
Thanks for the shout out re Netanyahu. I always spell it wrong. I mean, let's be honest though, his real name is Benjamin Mileikowsky, they changed their name to try and look more Middle Eastern.
The fact that you can even spell his Polish name is super impressive to me.
Lol I can't take credit, it was a copy and paste job!
There is a lot of truth in what you say Aya, and there is an underlying tone of a demand for revenge, an equivalence of suffering to be doled out to the perpetrator. This as we all know just perpetuates a cycle of revenge that even the ancient Greeks knew would have to be stopped: hence the Harpies become the "kindly ones", all this after a trial where the jury is deadlocked. But I get it, we are slow to learn.
Thanks for your comment Peter.
I think revenge is the wrong word. As a caveat, on a personal level, I have never sought revenge and my piece wasn't meant to convey it. This is because, on a spiritual level, I am a follower of Islam—but I am strictly a follower of the Qur'an and not the hadith (purported sayings of the Prophet (pbuh)). It is the latter from which people come out with all sorts of nonsense about the religion, such as stoning to death, killing gay people, etc.—none of that is in the Qur'an. In fact, both are singled out as heinous acts. On a spiritual level, I feel there are some instances in life where earthly justice cannot be done. Even where it can be, I am content on a personal and spiritual level to leave it to the Hands of God and Divine Justice. I have no personal interest in revenge but only in justice to the extent it can be reached on earth.
In regard to your comment about 'revenge,' I’ll point a few things out. The first is that prison was invented, in part, as a mechanism for revenge. That is what punishment partly is—retribution. There are six main purposes for prison:
Punishment
Retribution
Deterrence
Rehabilitation
Protection of society
Restoration and justice
I would say the Hague does not provide any deterrence; it is used so infrequently against the most heinous of crimes and most depraved of criminals that it has no deterrent value, and some countries do not even sign up to its jurisdiction. It provides no rehabilitation. It usually provides no protection of society, as once individuals are in the Hague, they have already done their deeds and have been brought low, hence their capture. There is no more harm they can do to society—they’ve finished their rampage. Restoration and justice aren't even mentioned. This would, at the very least, involve compensation, reparations, and the return of Palestine. Yes, all of Palestine—no one had the right to throw off the people living there and replace them. As noted above, the punishment is minimal.
The Western world balks at the idea of restorative justice. The King of England has been swanning around Africa as if he is important, and his Prime Minister has congratulated him for ignoring the call for reparations from a woman whose ancestors were victims of his family's genocide, whose resources were stolen, and whose suffering made them (and thus, him) rich. The UK refuses to pay reparations. Instead, they tell those who suffered so heavily under them to 'look to the future' and move on. That is not justice, nor is there any desire to deliver it. COP29 was a disaster as nations walked out. These nations deserve restorative justice but are being left high and dry to suffer yet more injustice—this time climate injustice—at the hands of their former and current colonial oppressors.
The reason 'revenge' is given a negative connotation is because of the West's monopoly on Christianity as a form of state-controlled religion and identity. White Jesus said, 'Turn the other cheek,' according to the English-language Bible. We can never know what the original Bible actually said, but the state-controlled religion relies on this line. It's not what the Old Testament or Torah says. The Old Testament is clear, "eye for an eye, "fracture for fracture," "hand for a hand," tooth for tooth" etc.
And it is not what Islam says. Islam says that if you are oppressed, you have permission to fight that oppression. If the person oppressing you stops, then you must stop. You have no right to continue—that is, you have no right to revenge. In regard to punishment, if a life is taken, there are options: forgive them as humans (i.e., leave them to God in the next life) and take reparations and compensation for the life taken, or apply the death penalty. At all times, the guidance is toward forgiveness.
This is why Muslims are a particularly hard people to beat in battle. They believe in fighting back against oppression until they defeat it (the resumption of justice), and they believe dying in the pursuit of this, (martyrdom). This is very different from 'turn the other cheek.' Since 9/11, 4.5 million Muslims have been murdered. Yet the West is still fighting them. They are good at murdering women and children, but they cannot defeat men fighting them back. They left Afghanistan defeated. They are losing the seas to Yemen. They cannot advance in Lebanon. And after over a year of genocide, relentlessly pounding Gaza with bombs greater than every nuclear bomb ever used, day after day, they cannot subdue this tiny strip of land.
My Gazan friends, who cry every night with PTSD and pray every day for death, do not care about Netanyahu. They don’t wish for his death or fantasise about revenge. They just want their people to be left alone and to live in peace and safety. I am sure the majority of Palestinians would prefer to leave Netanyahu to God, have their land returned, and be given reparations and compensation as restorative justice for what they’ve had to endure on earth.
But that wouldn’t sit well with the West, who prefer theatrics to true justice.
Thank you for your reply Aya. It is very passionate and moving, I am feeling tearful. You have brought up many interesting points. I ended my comment with a slightly frivolous statement about a message from Ancient Greek tragedy, but just as your narrative of Muslim retribution plays a big role in your consciousness, the Orestian story is important for me. I now have another narrative to learn from. Thank you.
I totally understand it. I agree with you, revenge is never the way to go. What is interesting though, is that despite what the Americans have done, none of these countries - or their populations - ever seek revenge. Revenge is something that is glorified in the neoliberal West (there are so many shows with the theme of revenge, the hero/heroine being the one who successfully is avenged), but in people steeped in spirituality and wisdom (which Anciet Greek tragedies form a part of), do not care for it. They just want to be left alone.
Aya, there are many who join you in your 'solitary bubble' and I am one. Thank you for this comprehensive, well-written, passionate and irrefutably truthful commentary. It's quite understandable why people are delighted by the very long-overdue issuance of arrest warrants for some of the worst criminals in history. But you rightly point out the sham and the shame of this ultimately meaningless gesture and the negligible prospects of it leading to any real justice - even under the best of circumstances. And we all know why. There are no effective mechanisms for enforcement, especially considering the slavish, rabid, despicable support for the perpetrators by the most extensive, powerful, and brutally dominant criminal enterprise in the history of the planet: amerikkka.
You make solid points, and I agree with the sentiment. Over the years I have often felt this sentiment you identify, this kind 'sigh...finally...', this being baffled that a certain event/moment was the one that opened peoples' eyes, after such a multitude of events preceded it. Yet over time these moments have unexpected ways of having an effect, if only to inspire future movements to take up the banner and fight for change. While that is utterly useless to people suffering in the present moment, which does not look like it is going to change anytime soon, I do find hope in taking that longterm view, where these events could serve as yet more cracks that eventually bring the whole rotten system down. So yes, I think you're right, the ICC/ICJ rulings are unlikely to have much meaningful impact directly, but they'll only be truly useless if we let them remain so.
I agree their are positives, namely the PR and propaganda has gaps that the Western world is having trouble papering over.
The trouble is western populations are way to pliant for that to cause a mass movement for real and radical change - which is needed.
So yes it does very much cause a PR issue for western 'we are the good guys' narrative. But in terms of having a rebellion on their hands which will change the global status quo and create a just and equitable system - which is the root of all this madness and genocide - they have nothing to fear.
Yet. There is only so long that you can paper over such glaring contradictions. Whether it will all end well or badly remains to be seen. In any case, regardless of the final outcome or whether there is any hope, we should do what we can to make things better simply because it is the right thing to do.
I'm hoping it does make things better, namely exposing the ICC, the UN et al as tools for imperialism and hopefully ensuring in a completely new system based on justice equality and equity. I hope BRICS manages to help usher in a new system which is more fair. I hope the bases of intentional courts are not controlled in Europe and the US indicating where power is consolidated, but throughout the globe.
The UN has been a disgrace from it's inception by pretending to be a global institution yet allowing the few and the powerful full veto of its laws. It was skewed and biased from the first day and was designed to be so. It can't be rehabilitated from that - the veto must end or another system must replace it. The UN has allowed it's colleagues to be murdered, tortured, attacked with white phosphorus and allowed the murderers to walk in, make speeches full of lies - calling the UN anti Semitic and terroristic - and using their phones to launch attacks in sovereign states.
I know it's an unpopular opinion but the system that caused these injustices and endless genocides will not be the one to save them from it: they are designed precisely to allow them. In fact, the UN contributed directly to the genocide of Srebencia and the lead poisoning of the Roma in Kosovo. The master's tools will not dismantle the master's house.
The ICC is a continued tool of imperialism. That's precisely why it was invented. The ICJ cares more about states' ability and rights to wage war than to intervene to stop a genocide. The UN was silent on the two attacks on Iran and their right to invoke art.51. They have remained silent on Isabel's mass pager terror attack in Lebanon (when I say silent I mean no resolutions).
It is easy for us in the west to want to believe in 'international law' and a system that works and keep the status quo because our lives aren't bad. But the rest of the world suffers so much and it suffers because the global system is not designed to be collaborative but to be one of control (eg the UN) of the powerful over the weak. Until it becomes one of collaboration it will never be just.
We should do what we can to make things better. And that means insist on an international law which is not symbolic but real; which is not superficial justice but restorative; which does not both-sides a genocide but indicts armies of genociders and war criminals: an actual international court of justice which enacts justice and intervenes to stop genocide not refuse to put in interim measures - who deliberates during an active genocide not after the fact.
The support of these unjust systems because we get crumbs of validation is not something 'right' to do. What is right is to reject their crumbs and instead on a cake. That is the right thing to do.
We should insist on our rights and the rights of humanity. Instead we sit there content with not even the bare minimum.
Definitely not going to argue with that. The only thing I would add to what you're saying is that precisely because more and more people/countries are realising what the limits are of these institutions and how disconnected they are from their (stated) founding principles, can alternatives be realised. Looking at moments of change in history, the failures of the old systems often inspire the ambitions of the new. So in that sense I would say it was definitely better to have the UN we have now as opposed to no UN, just like the UN was created after the Leage of Nations failed. Now the next organisation can hopefully use the failure of the UN to take the next step.
I’d say that’s seeing the silver lining and making the best out of a bad situation :) - but yes, it works.
Today I put in the statements that British governments made about the ICC arrest warrants into ChatGPT. They all said they would respect the ICC, but Starmer said ‘UK courts’ are ‘independent’, Ed ball’s wife said something about it requiring a ‘domestic legal’ process and no-one has used the word, ‘arrest’.
ChatGPT called bullshit! Ha, it thought that the UK would try to bypass the arrest warrants in some way and blame the UK courts.
I mean I did not think AI should replace humans but its far more insightful than every single mainstream media 'journalist’.
Ha, yes that's how I tend to do it, look all the darkness and madness straight in the face and then reassess how to move on constructively from there.
And that with chatgpt is truly sad, and to be honest I'm surprised it said that. A kink that will be ironed out in future with microsoft at the helm, I'm sure. The reason, as you're probably aware, the 'journalists' do so badly is because they aren't trying to or are otherwise unable to spread truth, a thing like that can only be systemic.
I'm so sorry I removed your comment by mistake!! I meant to delete mine because of a typo! To reply:
I don't think it's a jolt. They are planning to carpet bomb Beirut. They are still pointing their missiles towards China and have allowed their missiles into Russia. And Starmer has promised the UK to BlackRock and British citizens to Israel's army.
But yes, the PR and propaganda has gaps that they are having trouble papering over.
The trouble is western populations are way to pliant for that to cause a mass movement for real and radical change - which is needed.
So he's it does very much cause a PR issue for western 'we are the good guys' narrative. But in terms of having a rebellion on their hands which will change the global status quo and create a just and equitable system - which is the root of all this madness and genocide - they have nothing to fear.