Gaza and the International Criminal Court

Articial Intelligence translation of my opinion piece of this week published in Portuguese in daily national newspaper Diário de Notícias (26 JAN 2024)

Gaza: an earthquake in international politics

Victor Angelo

The Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs was in Brussels this week, at the invitation of Josep Borrell. The purpose was to allow the minister to discuss three major issues with his European counterparts: the dramatic situation in which the population of Gaza finds itself, within the framework of the enormous military intervention ordered by Benjamin Netanyahu; the requirements for an immediate ceasefire; and the dimensions and phases of preparing a peace plan.

Borrell was aware of Security Council Resolution 2720 (2023), which approved on December 22 the implementation of humanitarian pauses and the opening of corridors that would allow essential goods for their survival to be delivered to the inhabitants of Gaza. The Security Council had recognized the extreme urgency of humanitarian assistance.

A month later, it is undeniable that the situation continues to worsen. Israel reveals absolute disrespect for the Security Council. Controls became even tighter. The hundreds of humanitarian trucks that should enter Gaza daily are faced with a tragically different reality. Borrell mentioned that the average would be around eighty trucks a day. Calls for “humanitarian pauses” have been met with an intensification of military operations and the continuation of attacks against civilian targets, including UN installations, which prefigure war crimes. Resolution 2720 has been simply ignored, despite its mandatory nature.

Regarding peace, the approach proposed by Europeans would be multidimensional. The first concern would be the creation of a sovereign State of Palestine, capable of peacefully coexisting with the State of Israel. This idea is nothing new. It was approved in 1947 by the United Nations General Assembly (Resolution 181) and reaffirmed in the 1993 Oslo Accords and at the Camp David Summit in the USA in 2000. But it never went beyond paper, with both sides accusing each other for failures.

The international community is firmly committed to this solution – two independent states. This is the only viable, albeit complex, solution that can lead to the construction of a peaceful neighbourhood. It will only happen if there is an unquestionable commitment from interested parties, as well as from countries in the region and the main members of the UN. It needs, above all, Israeli and Palestinian leaders of exceptional vision and calibre.

The current Israeli government does not accept this solution. And contrary to the Palestinian National Authority, there are Palestinian extremists who also do not accept it. This shows that the tragedy that is taking place in Gaza, and to a certain extent in the other occupied Palestinian territories, in the West Bank, can seriously contribute to a radicalization of positions.

The Israeli minister did not understand the message that awaited him in Brussels. He talked nonsense about strange, meaningless things, such as the construction of an artificial island off Gaza and a railway corridor that would connect this territory to the rest of Palestine. In my opinion, it was a way of conveying to Europeans a clear position from the Netanyahu government, for whom the EU is seen as a featherweight.

Borrell responded, at the press conference after the meeting, that Europe has “a moral responsibility”. He spoke of looking for a path to peace. I would respond that the moral responsibility that must weigh on our consciences is not only to fight for peace, but also to ensure that humanitarian laws and the laws of war are respected. And bring individuals suspected of having violated these international rules to the attention of Karim Ahmad Khan, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC). That's what the ICC is for, to judge political leaders. It is a separate instance from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which judges conflicts between States, as is now the case of South Africa against Israel and which today issues a first Order on the accusation of genocide. Khan, who is a British citizen, was very active in the case of the accusations against Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova. He did what he was expected to do. But he has been as low as a stone in the face of the atrocities committed on October 7th and ever since. The credibility of the ICC is thus called into question.

We live in a time of great dangers and enormous challenges. Anyone who has their eyes open and sees beyond their parish knows that this is the case. Extraordinary times require extraordinary political courage. And serious justice, impartial and expeditious.

They keeping echoing Putin's lies

The restlessness of confused intellectuals

Victor Ângelo

 

Some of our intellectuals are somewhat confused, especially when it comes to the war in Ukraine. They complain, for example, about the media and the political class, which are allegedly engaged in persecuting those who do not follow what they call "the one way of thinking". They even claim that there is an attack against "the faculty of thinking". It must be a very sneaky attack, because the TVs and newspapers are full of all kinds of opinions and the most foolish and biased theories, including some of their own.

This manifest confusion leads them to try to explain the unacceptable at all costs and with supposed geopolitical and historical approaches, which were developed during the Cold War and are now largely obsolete. And the unacceptable is the violation of international norms by the undemocratic and aggressor regime that Vladimir Putin personifies. And they also forget the war crimes and crimes against humanity that Putin's troops carry out on a daily basis, as Amnesty International reminded us of this week. Crimes that are already under investigation by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, as well as documented by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, based on a resolution by member states passed on March 4.

These intellectuals add to their ideological clumsiness several attacks against intergovernmental institutions to which Portugal belongs and which are fundamental to guarantee our defence, security and prosperity. In doing so they seem not to understand the gravity of the crisis in which our part of Europe finds itself, in the face of Putin's revanchism and his aggression against the people of Ukraine, including Russian-speaking Ukrainians.

I want to believe that political alignment with the adversary is part of a visceral attitude of opposition to the prevailing order and common sense, a philosophy of good-natured contrariness, proper to those who think they are smarter than the rest. At a time like the present, some may see in this positioning something close to a betrayal of national interests. I think it is an exaggeration to characterize these people in this way, because we are not in an open war against any state, and therefore it is not appropriate to talk about treason.

To understand the defence Europe of now, it would be good to remember that the countries of the former Soviet area of influence, which joined NATO in the late 1990s and already in this century, could have sovereignly opted for an alliance with Russia. Moscow had created a parallel military structure to NATO in 1992, currently known by the initials CSTO - Collective Security Treaty Organization. However, on the European side, only Belarus and Armenia made this choice. In addition to these states and Russia, only three Central Asian countries have joined, the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The other countries, and there are several, either stayed out or preferred the Atlantic Alliance. The so-called NATO enlargement was, in reality, the result of a series of sovereign national decisions. What authority does a Portuguese thinker have to tell the Polish, Latvian, Romanian, or any other people that they should not have made the choice they did? The same question can be addressed to Vladimir Putin.

To the theory of strategic zones of influence, an analytical construction dating from the early 1960s of the last century, but which had its origins in the colonial and imperialist movements of the 19th century, and which was consolidated at the Yalta Conference in 1945, the United Nations proposes a new vision. An alternative that has as its foundation the respect for human rights and universal norms, peaceful resolution of conflicts, and international cooperation. This may sound like idealism and geopolitical unrealism, especially when one bears in mind Putin's way of doing things or the strategic competition between the US and China. But this should be the banner of progressive intellectuals and all reasonable people.

(Automatic translation of the opinion piece I published in the Diário de Notícias, the old and prestigious Lisbon newspaper. Edition dated 1 April 2022)

 

 

 

On matters of War

War without a concomitant, serious, persistent search for a political solution to the conflict is not morally justified. It´s unacceptable state terror. It´s a crime against the people. 

War crimes in Syria

Madaya, the Syrian town that has been under siege for more than six months, surrounded by government troops, is a symbol. As are the towns of Foah and Kefraya, in the Northern part of the country. They have also endured a very long siege, this time by rebel groups that are fighting the regime of President al-Assad.

In Madaya, around 40,000 people have been without food and medicines supplies. In the two government-controlled towns, the numbers are close to 20,000. All three are not only a reminder of the ferocity of the conflict that is consuming Syria since 2012, of the widespread human suffering, they are also an example of the many war crimes that every side is committing.

Indeed, starving masses of civilians to death, as it is the case in these towns, is a war crime, as defined by international law. But after so many atrocities, we are losing sight of the very serious violations of the law of the war that keep occurring in the country. That´s certainly not a very good approach to justice. The peace process, when it happens, has to take these matters into account as well. 

Israel should be reminded of some basic principles of international law

Hamas is certainly an extremist group included in the Western list of terrorist organizations. It needs to be fought and its actions ought to be stopped.

But fighting Hamas is not an excuse for Israel to behave as a State that does not respect the laws of the war, the principle of proportionate force, and the overriding rules about the protection of civilians and the interdiction to inflict collective punishment on innocent populations.

These norms should guide the actions of any civilised State, even when that State is exercising the right of self-defence. In all legislations, self-defence has its limits and needs to be advised by a great sense of restraint. That´s what the modern world is about. 

War crimes are being committed

When the law of the war is not respect – and one should be reminded all the time that wars have their own body of international law that ought to be followed – war crimes are committed. And when they are committed the key leaders of the international community have to speak the words and say the right things. Leadership is about that. To call a spade a spade.  

Putin's writings

President Putin’s opinion text in the New York Times is worth the reading. First, it is well written. Second, it says a few things that make sense, including the reference to the “exceptionalism” the US claim. Third, it keeps the door open for dialogue.

But it is also an extraordinary piece of cynicism. Many of the accusations he implies against the US can also be made towards Russia, including an extreme form of Russian nationalism that is not far from the American exceptionalism.

The wise thing to do is to take the good points he makes and engage the Russians on them. That’s why the meeting that is taking place in Geneva between Secretary Kerry and Minister Lavrov is of great importance. It has, however, to produce concrete results. Time is of the essence. Agreements and action plans, and above all a UN Security Council Resolution on the destruction of Syria’s chemical arsenal, need to be out and running soonest.

Furthermore, besides addressing the chemical weapons issue it is also critical to bring to justice the perpetrators of the 21 August massacres. A Resolution on this matter is also necessary.

With all this in mind, Syria’s case remains the priority number one in the global lists of issues. The daily death toll and the incredible number of refugees and internally displaced people are a reminder of that. A painful reminder, a dramatic reality for millions of people. 

Assad is a war criminal

The gas attack against civilians in the suburbs of Damascus simply reveals how little respect Assad and his circle have for the international community and in particular for the United Nations.  They all know that the UN is divided and that the just launched international inspection is a mere tooth-less tiger. The many deaths caused by this unacceptable chemical massacre only serve to remind all of us that Assad has long become a war criminal with powerful godfathers.