The most lethal enemies are the ones attacking with munitions. The most devastating enemies darken their victims’ soul and make them deaf to despair.
Some excerpts;
The Israeli government has responded with indignation that the ICC would have the temerity to compare it to Hamas. Israel has called the court “antisemitic.” President Biden declared the quest for arrest warrants “outrageous.”
“Let me be clear: Whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas,” Biden said in a statement.
The notion of a humane war is a lie combatants tell themselves. The rules of engagement, the laws of war, don’t negate the reality that people die even if those people are uniformed young men and women who are loyal to a cause or who have been drafted or indoctrinated into it. Even morally defensible wars have civilian casualties, deaths that are neither heroic nor acceptable. They are simply devastating.
Democracies are glorious and admirable — the most high-minded form of government — but there is nothing that makes those who lead them inherently immune to revenge, retribution and acts of barbarity. The United States outlaws torturing its enemies until leaders find a way to justify it, rename it or alter the definition to absolve themselves from an unbearable guilt and an unfathomable crime.
It may be that Khan’s request is denied. It may be that the advisory panel’s assessment of Netanyahu’s and Gallant’s actions do not rise to the level of criminal. But the pressing question is not one of jurisdiction or outrage over who else was mentioned in the same breath, but of how a democracy — any democracy — can reach such a dire place on the world stage. How does the defense of its people and protections of its rights lead a democracy to a place where the ICC had “reasonable grounds” to question its moral compass?
posted by f.sheikh