A lesson for Bibi: impunity does not last for ever

Both Hamas and Israel have committed the most appalling atrocities. It is right and proper that their leaders should be held to account for their alleged crimes.

The alleged war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, accused of crimes against humanity and the war crimes of murder, starvation, and deliberate attacks on civilians, now faces arrest in 120 countries.

So does Mohammed Deif, the leader of Hamas’s military wing, if he is still alive, charged with ‘murder, extermination, torture, rape and other form of sexual violence.’

If you take the trouble to read the detail of the arrest warrants issued on Thursday by the International Criminal Court, which I strongly advise you to, your blood will run cold. (Summaries are available here and here.)

Ignore the howls of confected outrage from Israel’s allies. We now have, in clinical legalese, the considered judgement of the highest international judicial body in the world.

The three ICC judges who agreed to the prosecution’s request to authorise arrest warrants were all highly experienced in international humanitarian law: Nicolas Guillou of France, Reine Adélaïde Sophie Alapini-Gansou of Benin, and Beti Hohler of Slovenia.

But it is important to be clear: what the judges issued yesterday was not a verdict. They did not say that the people against whom charges have been laid are guilty. They merely said — I use the word ‘merely’ in its ironic sense — that there are ‘reasonable grounds to believe’ that the defendants (former Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant is also charged) may be guilty as charged.