South Africa files case at ICJ over Israel's 'genocidal acts' in Gaza

US lawmakers threatened ICC with 'The Hague Invasion Act', but what is it?

Law authorises US to use 'all means necessary and appropriate' to free US military members and allies from the court, including Israel

US President Joe Biden speaks on Memorial Day at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, on 27 May (Mandel Ngan/AFP)

By MEE staff

Published date: 27 May 2024 19:52 BST | Last update: 2 days 6 hours ago

The Biden administration reacted with fury after the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced he was seeking arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials and Hamas leaders.

US President Joe Biden slammed the move, saying that putting the two on equal footing was "outrageous". Meanwhile, his top diplomat, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, suggested the administration was willing to work with Congress to sanction members of the ICC and come up with a response to the World Court.

Some defenders of Israel have gone even further, warning the ICC against pursuing warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, citing a two-decades-old law that gives the US president power to directly challenge the court.

“If you issue a warrant for the arrest of the Israeli leadership, we will interpret this not only as a threat to Israel’s sovereignty but to the sovereignty of the United States. Our country demonstrated in the American Service-Members' Protection Act the lengths to which we will go to protect that sovereignty,” twelve US senators wrote in a letter to ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan.

The American Service-Members' Protection Act (Aspa), informally called The Hague Invasion Act, was included in the now little-remembered Supplemental Congressional Appropriations Act, signed into law in 2002 by US President George Bush, in response to the 11 September attacks.

Notably, then-Senator Biden joined a bipartisan group of lawmakers who voted in favour of the law.

What exactly is the Hague Invasion Act and what are its implications?

Section 2008

The act gets its name from Section 2008, which authorises the US president to use “all means necessary and appropriate” to free members of the US military and “covered allied persons”.

"The term 'covered allied persons' means military personnel, elected or appointed officials, and other persons employed by or working on behalf of the government of a NATO member country, a major non-NATO ally (including Australia, Egypt, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Argentina, the Republic of Korea, and New Zealand)," the law says.

War on Gaza: The ICC has suspended Israel's licence to kill

Read More »

When the law was passed, Human Rights Watch said the law’s language implied the US president had sweeping powers to fight the court.

“The new law authorizes the use of military force to liberate any American or citizen of a US-allied country being held by the court, which is located in The Hague”.

The Biden administration has refrained from directly citing the law in its condemnation of the court. “We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security,” Biden said in a White House statement responding to the call for warrants.

Other defenders of Israel, however, have cited the law in their calls for a forceful US response to prosecutor Khan, who they believe is targeting the US’s closest Middle East ally.

“As that term 'The Hague Invasion Act' suggests, no one knows how far the ICC is prepared to go - or how far Americans are prepared to go to defend ourselves,” veteran US diplomat Elliot Abrahams said.

Pro-Israel Republican Congressman Brian Mast was more cryptic.

“America doesn't recognize the International Criminal Court, but the court sure as hell will recognize what happens when you target our allies.”

For critics, the US's ambivalence toward the ICC is a sign of its doublespeak. US Senator Lindsey Graham, who threatened to sanction ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan and other court officials, was the same lawmaker last year who advocated for the Biden administration to back its case against Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes.

The most extreme aspects of the law get the most attention but the act has plenty of other more tangible impacts on US policy and can be traced back to the creation of the ICC.

Longstanding tensions

Under President Bill Clinton, the US was instrumental in drafting the Rome Statute, which created the ICC. But it has refused to join 123 other nations, including the US and Nato allies, in signing the treaty to place itself under the court’s jurisdiction.

Aspa is a legacy of the decades-old tensions between the US and the court and imposes sweeping limits on cooperation between the two.

'Loss and revolution': Thousands convene in Detroit to plan the future of a free Palestine

Read More »

Aspa prevents federal, state and local US governments from working with the ICC. It limits national security and law enforcement information the US can share with the ICC and even signatories to the court which can be used to facilitate its investigations and apprehend suspects.

The law also restricts US participation in UN peacekeeping missions unless the US obtains immunity from prosecution for its soldiers.

In many respects, the law codified US scepticism of the ICC.

Just months before the act was signed into law, the US vetoed a six-month extension of the UN’s peacekeeping mission in Bosnia because the Security Council refused to grant US troops serving immunity from the court.

The tensions over the renewal of the Bosnia peacekeeping mission, which flared up again in 2009, were just one part of the US's tensions with the court.

The Obama administration in 2015 threatened its $440m aid package to the Palestinian Authority when it joined the Hague. It also rejected its preliminary investigations of the US-led war in Afghanistan.

In 2018, Donald Trump's national security advisor, John Bolton, announced the shutdown of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation's office in the US after it tried to lobby the ICC to investigate Israel.

He warned the US could sanction ICC officials, saying no international court could take the place of what US President Franklin Roosevelt called America's "righteous might".

Netanyahu “obsessed” with Mossad operation to murder ICC justices, prosecutors and families

Israeli intelligence hacked and surveilled court prosecutor Karim Khan and his family giving forewarning of arrest warrant plans

By

Jonas E. Alexis, Senior Editor

May 28, 2024

1013

5

Share


#### VT Condemns the ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINIANS by USA/Israel
$ 280 BILLION US TAXPAYER DOLLARS INVESTED since 1948 in US/Israeli Ethnic Cleansing and Occupation Operation; $ 150B direct "aid" and $ 130B in "Offense" contracts
Source: Embassy of Israel, Washington, D.C. and US Department of State.


Jewish Sturm Fuhrer Benjamin Netanyahu received advanced knowledge of the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor’s plans for him as a result of surveillance and hacking carried out by his intelligence agencies.

According to a joint report by the Guardian and +972Mag, Israel has carried out an almost decade-long campaign of surveillance against the Hague-based court, as well as hacking, smearing, and allegedly threatening both current chief prosecutor Karim Khan and his predecessor Fatou Bensouda.

International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan speaks at a press conference in Bogota, on 25 April (AFP/Luis Acosta)

By MEE staff

One intelligence source said that Netanyahu was “obsessed” with intercepts acquired by the intelligence agencies from the court.

Sources said the operations against the ICC were carried out by the Shin Bet, as well as the military’s intelligence directorate, Aman, and cyber-intelligence division, Unit 8200.

Information gleaned was distributed to the Israeli ministries of justice, foreign affairs, and strategic affairs.

Stay informed with MEE’s newsletters

Sign up to get the latest alerts, insights and analysis, starting with Turkey Unpacked

Khan hinted at the pressure being applied on him by the Israelis when he announced he was seeking prosecutions for Netanyahu, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, and several Hamas leaders.

“I insist that all attempts to impede, intimidate or improperly influence the officials of this court must cease immediately,” he said at the time, adding that if there were any further attempts “my office will not hesitate to act”.

‘Stalking’

One intercepted message revealed that Khan was under “tremendous pressure from the United States” not to attempt to prosecute Israelis, according to a source familiar with its contents.

An earlier report by the Guardian and +972Mag on Tuesday revealed Yossi Cohen, who at the time was director of the Israeli spy agency, helmed an operation to pressure Bensouda into abandoning an inquiry into Israel.

‘You don’t want to be getting into things that could compromise your security or that of your family’

– Former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen to former ICC prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda

In the years leading up to Bensouda’s decision to open the inquiry in 2021, Cohen allegedly deployed “despicable tactics”, according to accounts by ICC officials who likened his behaviour to “stalking”.

According to one account, Cohen told Bensouda: “You should help us and let us take care of you. You don’t want to be getting into things that could compromise your security or that of your family.”

Mossad also closely observed Bensouda’s family, obtaining transcripts of secret recordings of her husband in a bid to use them to discredit her, two sources allege.

Bensouda’s investigation concluded in last week’s announcement by the current chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, that he was seeking arrest warrants for senior Israeli leaders over war crimes committed by Israeli forces in Gaza.

US lawmakers threatened ICC with ‘The Hague Invasion Act’, but what is it?

Read More »

Alongside Gallant and Netanyahu, the Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar, its military wing’s commander-in-chief Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, better known as Mohammed Deif, and its political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, were named in the statement.

Gallant and Netanyahu face war crimes and crimes against humanity charges over the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare; wilfully causing great suffering; wilful killing; intentional attacks on a civilian population and extermination, alongside several other charges.

The Hamas leaders also face charges related to extermination, murder, the taking of hostages, sexual assault, and torture, alongside several more charges.

https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/05/netanyahu-obsessed-with-mossad-operation-to-murder-icc-justices-prosecutors-and-families/

As S. Africa files against Israel at the ICJ, its own genocidal activities remain unaddressed

June 1, 2024


By Janet Phelan

As South Africa pursues legal remedy against Israel through the International Court of Justice, its own secret cover-up of its genocidal actions which began in the 1980s, when S. Africa was itself under apartheid, but continue on, unabated, necessitate revisiting of the implications of Wouter Basson’s work as director of PROJECT COAST, which was the biological and chemical weapons arm of the S. African government.

The intent here is not to discuss the validity of the claims made against Israel by South Africa, but rather to expose the hypocrisy of, on one hand peculiarly condemning Israel for “acts of genocide,” such as attempts to move civilian populations out of harms way in Rafah, as discussed here—

Continued at link...

Maldives seeks to join South African genocide case against Israel

October 1, 2024


A view from a hearing at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) as part of hearing in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the situation in Gaza begins, as ICJ begins delivering order on additional provisional measures in Israel ‘genocide’ case on May 24, 2024 in The Hague, Netherlands [Nikos Oikonomou – Anadolu Agency]

The Maldives, Tuesday, said it has officially filed a declaration of intervention in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to join the genocide case against Israel for committing massacres in the Gaza Strip, Anadolu Agency reports.

“The Maldives, pursuant to the Article 63 of the CIJ_IC Statute, filed the declaration of intervention to the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa vs. Israel),” Maldives’ President, Mohamed Muizzu, said in a post on X.

“Israel must be held accountable for its unlawful acts in Gaza. The rule of law must be upheld, and Israel must cease its genocidal acts against the Palestinian people,” he added.

The Maldives, he went on to say, will always side with “humanity, peace and justice, and in doing so, we will continue to stand with the Palestinian people”.

Continued at link...