Sir, – After more than a year of unhindered slaughter in Gaza, the arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court for Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and others are a very welcome development (“Anger in Israel over warrant for Netanyahu”, World, November 22nd).
Hopefully, this is an inflection point and a sign that Israel’s impunity is finally coming to an end. If international humanitarian law is to have any meaning, Israel’s leaders must be held to account for the horror that is ongoing in Gaza.
It is creditable that Ireland, among other countries, quickly made clear its intention to arrest the three individuals named in the ICC arrest warrants should the opportunity arise.
The deplorable reaction from the United States, however, and its recent vetoing of yet another Gaza ceasefire resolution on the UN Security Council – put forward jointly by the 10 non-permanent members – indicates that it continues to view international humanitarian law as applicable only to its enemies and rivals.
US president Joe Biden’s immediate response was to condemn the warrants for Mr Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant as “outrageous” and he repeated that he “will always stand with Israel.” Presumably, he had no problem with the arrest warrant simultaneously issued for Hamas leader Mohammed Deif, while in March 2023 he applauded the ICC arrest warrant for war crimes issued for Russian president Vladimir Putin, describing it at the time as “justified” and making “a very strong point.”
Thankfully, Israel and the US in their contemptuous attitude to the ICC appear to have few allies, apart from controversial figures such as Viktor Orbán in Hungary, and most countries still understand the pressing need for international humanitarian law. But for laws to be taken seriously and respected, they must be applied equitably. – Yours, etc,
FINTAN LANE,
Lucan,
Co Dublin.