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Israel’s Kafkaesque Ordeal at the ICC
Proceedings at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands, February 16, 2021. Photo: ICC-CPI/Handout via Reuters.
Israel is facing unprecedented and bizarre proceedings at the International Criminal Court (ICC), crescendoing with a request by Prosecutor Karim Khan for arrest warrants against its sitting Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant.
These events are the result of a multi-faceted and long-developing campaign by anti-Israel activists that has largely advanced under the radar.
Firstly, Israel is not a member of the Court and does not recognize ICC jurisdiction over its actions. In the late 1990s, Israel was initially a strong backer of the ICC, but during the drafting of the Court’s governing Rome Statute, the Arab League blocked efforts to include terrorism as an international crime and helped invent a new crime that would specifically target Israeli activity across the 1949 armistice lines. For these reasons, Israel refused to ratify the Rome Statute and join the Court.
In any other situation, this would be the end of the matter. However, beginning in 2009, the Palestinian Authority (PA), acting in collaboration with UN Rapporteurs and European-funded NGOs linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terror group, attempted to join the Court.
Rather than dismiss the PA’s effort immediately because the PA is not a state — and ICC membership is only available to states — the ICC Prosecutor at the time, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, launched a PR campaign to ostensibly “debate” the issue. Three years later, he rejected the PA’s application, but instead provided a blueprint facilitating the Palestinians’ ability to circumvent the clear standards of the Rome Statute.
In November 2012, the Palestinians succeeded in upgrading their status at the UN to “non-member observer state.” Merely on the basis of this semantic, rather than substantive change, ICC officials allowed the Palestinians to game the system and join the Court.
Despite these machinations and exploitation of the Court, the next Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, filed a request with the Court’s Pre-Trial chamber (PTC) in December 2019 seeking authorization to open an investigation into crimes allegedly committed on the territory of the “State of Palestine,” despite the fact that this state does not exist and has no defined territory. Moreover, she argued that the Court could proceed against Israelis, regardless of whether it was a member of the Court.
This action, endorsed by the PTC in February 2021 in a controversial 2-1 opinion, essentially eviscerated the Oslo Accords, the agreement mutually agreed to between Israel and the PLO in the mid-1990s, which lays out governance of the West Bank and Gaza.
A key provision of the Accords is that the PA would not have any authority to exercise or delegate any criminal jurisdiction over Israelis to the Court. The Prosecutor and the Court completely ignored this issue.
In yet another unbelievable move, the Court next also allowed the Palestinians to retroactively assign temporal jurisdiction going back to June 13, 2014, precisely the day after the kidnapping and subsequent murder of three Israeli teenagers, which triggered the war that summer. This meant that Hamas’ brutal murder and kidnapping of Jews, a preview of what Israel would experience on a larger scale on October 7, would get a free pass from the Court.
Fast-forward to Khan’s move to file for arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant. Here, too, the Prosecutor’s office engaged in highly questionable conduct. Khan could have already issued indictments against Hamas leaders on October 7 itself, when their flagrant crimes were broadcast around the world. Instead, he chose to wait until after manufactured allegations of “starvation” could be crafted against Israeli officials. He also inexplicably ignored thousands of other war crimes, including each rocket attack on Israel, committed by Palestinians since 2014.
In yet another outrageous move, at the time of the announcement, Khan’s team had been scheduled to attend meetings in Israel. However, the planned trip appears to have been a bad faith ruse. Instead of the team boarding the plane, Khan went on CNN to tell Christiane Amanpour in an exclusive interview about the arrest warrant requests. It doesn’t take an expert in communications to know that such a step would generate a storm of PR almost solely focused on Israel, meaning attention on the Hamas atrocities and real crimes committed on October 7 would be virtually ignored.
One also wonders if any mind was paid to what this action might mean for any hope of a ceasefire to secure the release of the hostages.
Egregiously, Khan’s actions offended another cornerstone of the Rome Statute, that of complementarity. The ICC is only supposed to act as a court of last resort in situations where a judicial system is unable or unwilling to investigate international crimes. As he himself acknowledged on a visit to Israel in early December, Israel has robust investigatory mechanisms and judiciary — one that has never shied away from intervening in military matters, nor in going after the most senior officials, including prime ministers.
Instead of giving the Israeli system a reasonable time to proceed, however, the Prosecutor disregarded the complementarity requirement and decided to bulldoze forward. In contrast, although Khan has had for years the jurisdiction to act against President Maduro in Venezuela, the Taliban in Afghanistan, and military junta in Myanmar — authoritarian governments responsible for horrific atrocities — no cases have been filed.
Multiple procedural irregularities and political maneuverings of the Office of Prosecutor have been well-documented, and there are several other disturbing aspects to the “Situation in Palestine” not mentioned here. For years, the ICC has been under intense criticism for its lack of accomplishments in its more than 20 years of operation. Khan was brought in to serve as a sober and responsible actor to right the ship. The actions of his office the past few months now call this assessment into question.
In an interview published with the Times of London a few days after his inexplicable actions, Khan stated, “if we don’t hold on to the law, we have nothing to cling onto.” The Prosecutor would be wise to reflect on his Office’s history and follow his own advice.
Anne Herzberg is the Legal Advisor of NGO Monitor, a Jerusalem-based research organization.
The post Israel’s Kafkaesque Ordeal at the ICC first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Conservative Pro-Israel Advocate Charlie Kirk Assassinated at University Event in Utah
Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist credited with amassing youth support for the Republican Party, speaking at the inauguration of Donald Trump in January. Photo: Brian Snyder via Reuters Connect
Conservative activist and staunch pro-Israel advocate Charlie Kirk died on Wednesday after being shot during an event at Utah Valley University, according to a statement by US President Donald Trump posted to the Truth Social media platform. He was 31 years old.
“The great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead,” Trump wrote. “No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie. He was loved and admired by ALL, especially me, and now, he is no longer with us. Melania and my Sympathies go out to his beautiful wife Erika, and family.”
He added, “Charlie we love you!”
Kirk — founder of the Turning Point USA nonprofit, which is credited for drawing masses of young people, typically a reliable voting bloc for Democrats, to the Republican Party — was answering audience questions when a gunman fired off the fatal shot which impacted his neck, causing him to become limp and bleed profusely.
Since the advent of his career, Kirk has been a faithful supporter of Israel, taking on activists of both the far left and far right who promoted rising antisemitism and sought to undermine the US-Israel alliance.
“There’s a dark Jew hate out there, and see it, and I see it,” Kirk told a student during a podcast episode which aired earlier this year. “Don’t get yourself involved in that. I’m telling you it will rot your brain. It’s bad for your soul. It’s bad. It’s evil. I think it’s demonic.”
Born on Oct. 14, 1993, in Arlington Heights, Illinois, Kirk formally entered the political arena in 2012, five months before the reelection of former President Barack Obama, to found Turning Point USA (TPUSA) — which served as a bellwether of declining youth support for the progressive consensus on race, free speech, and economics that took hold in American college campuses in the 1960s.
TPUSA grew rapidly, challenging campus primacy of the College Republicans organization and exuding confidence in conservative ideas at a moment when political scientists and other experts speculated that the Republican Party would decline to the point that the Democratic Party would achieve long-standing majorities in local and federal government.
Following news of Kirk’s death, the Jewish community deluged social media with tributes to Kirk and prayers for his family and friends.
“Please stop what you’re doing and pray for our friend Charlie Kirk. Many in the Jewish community are reciting chapters from the Book of Psalms, and I ask you do the same,” Shabbos Kestenbaum, a Jewish civil rights advocate, tweeted. “Something is deeply broken in America. The political violence must END. GOD HELP AMERICA.”
“We have no words,” StopAntisemitism, a Jewish civil rights advocacy group, tweeted.
Meanwhile, Jewish conservative influencer Emily Austin said, “With deep pain and sorrow, we mourn the passing of Charlie Kirk. May he rest in peace, and may God welcome him into His eternal care. This is a profound loss for the world — Charlie was a truly blessed soul whose impact will never be forgotten.”
Kirk is survived by his wife, Erika, and his two young children.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Lebanon’s Army to Disarm Hezbollah Near Israeli Border Within 3 Months in First Step to Restore State Control
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, and members of the cabinet stand as they attend a cabinet session to discuss the army’s plan to disarm Hezbollah, at the Presidential Palace in Baabda, Lebanon, Sept. 5, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
Lebanon’s army plans to fully disarm Hezbollah near the Israeli border within three months, the first step in the Lebanese government’s plan to restore authority and curb the influence of the Iran-backed terror group within the country.
On Tuesday, Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Youssef Raggi confirmed to AFP that the government received a five-stage plan last week from the military to enforce a policy placing all weapons under state control.
The move follows Lebanese authorities’ approval last month of a US-backed initiative to disarm Hezbollah in exchange for a halt to Israeli military operations in the country’s south.
Amid mounting international pressure to disarm the terrorist group, Lebanon’s cabinet tasked the army with developing a strategy to establish a state monopoly on arms.
For years, Israel has demanded that Hezbollah be barred from carrying out activities south of the Litani, located roughly 15 miles from the Israeli border.
However, Hezbollah has pushed back against any government efforts, insisting that negotiations to dismantle its arsenal would be a serious misstep while Israel continues airstrikes in the country’s south.
The terrorist group has even threatened protests and civil unrest if the government tries to enforce control over its weapons.
But as Hezbollah emerged weakened from a yearlong conflict with Israel, calls for the Islamist group’s disarmament have gained new momentum, reshaping a power balance it had long controlled in Lebanon.
Last fall, Israel decimated Hezbollah’s leadership and military capabilities with an air and ground offensive, following the group’s attacks on Jerusalem — which they claimed were a show of solidarity with the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas amid the war in Gaza.
In November, Lebanon and Israel reached a US-brokered ceasefire agreement that ended a year of fighting between the Jewish state and Hezbollah.
Under the agreement, Israel was given 60 days to withdraw from southern Lebanon, allowing the Lebanese army and UN forces to take over security as Hezbollah disarms and moves away from Israel’s northern border.
However, Israel maintained troops at several posts in southern Lebanon beyond the ceasefire deadline, as its leaders aimed to reassure northern residents that it was safe to return home.
Jerusalem has continued carrying out strikes targeting remaining Hezbollah activity, with Israeli leaders accusing the group of maintaining combat infrastructure, including rocket launchers — calling this “blatant violations of understandings between Israel and Lebanon.”
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Israeli Military Expert: Doha Strike Was Backed by US and Qatar Coup, Will Bring Hostage Deal Closer
A damaged building, following an Israeli attack on Hamas leaders, according to an Israeli official, in Doha, Qatar, Sept. 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
Israel’s unprecedented strike on Hamas leaders in Doha this week was not a rogue act of military aggression, but rather the outcome of quiet coordination between Qatar and the US that could bring a hostage deal closer, Israeli intelligence expert Eyal Pinko said on Wednesday.
The strike, which officials have said was planned months ago, came a day after 10 Israelis were killed by Hamas in Gaza and Jerusalem. Four were soldiers who died in an attack on an Israeli tank in northern Gaza. The separate shooting attack in Jerusalem, in which six Israelis were killed and several more wounded, was the “straw that broke the camel’s back,” Pinko, a national security expert who served in Israeli intelligence for more than three decades, said in a press briefing.
Pinko contended that while Qatar publicly condemned the attacks, it also enabled them. “I am sure they were involved and the attack was coordinated with the [Qataris],” Pinko later told The Algemeiner.
The most recent round of negotiations to secure a Gaza ceasefire and hostage-release deal were nothing more than a “deception” by the US and Israel designed to gather Hamas leaders in one place “in order to set the timing to eliminate them,” he said.
Pinko said the strike should also be seen in light of US President Donald Trump’s impatience with the stalled hostage talks, arguing it showed Trump was on board with assassinations of Hamas leaders despite public declarations that he was “very unhappy” with the attack. He also pointed to Trump’s comments from last month, in which the US president predicted the Gaza conflict would reach a “conclusive ending” within two or three weeks.
Qatar, which has long hosted Hamas’s exiled leadership, benefits strategically from replacing the terrorist group’s leaders loyal to Iran with figures it can trust, Pinko maintained. Doha holds billions of dollars belonging to Hamas officials and has no interest in letting Ankara or Tehran displace it as the group’s patron. The timing of the attack is also significant, Pinko said, coming in the wake of Israel’s strikes against Iran’s nuclear program over the summer. “Iran is in a very bad situation. Qatar can easily overcome Iran,” he said.
Pinko further argued that the strike may serve to bring forward the release of the Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza since Hamas itself was no longer a coherent negotiating partner. The terrorist group operating in Gaza had become fragmented, “divided into five families that are fighting each other” and sometimes giving the impression that “they hate each other more than they hate Israel,” Pinko said. Recent talks proved “there was no longer a decisionmaker in Hamas,” and this disarray had allowed Hamas leaders to drag out the process with unrealistic demands. Removing those figures, he argued, would leave room for Qatar to install leaders who could cut a deal. “This will make the negotiation process much faster,” he said.
Pinko’s assessment stands in stark contrast to the fears of some of the families of the remaining 48 hostages held in Gaza, who said in a statement they had “grave fear” the Doha strike could sabotage the chances of bringing their loved ones home.
He placed the operation in a wider context, linking it to the revival of the Abraham Accords and US efforts to build a trade corridor from India through the Gulf to Israel and Europe as a counterweight to China’s trillion-dollar Belt and Road initiative, ending with Gaza as a key trade hub. “Trump is very serious in making the northern part of the Gaza Strip as [having] US autonomy. That will be the end of the American belt and road initiative to compete with the Chinese,” he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday called on Qatar, which “gives safe haven [and] harbors terrorists,” to expel them or bring them to justice, adding that if they don’t, “we will.”
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, for his part said his country would retaliate over the strike, and accused Netanyahu of “wasting” Qatar’s time in negotiations and “leading the Middle East to chaos.”
Pinko called out Doha for its “duplicity” in pretending to be a peacemaker on the one hand, while “fueling Hamas and hatred” in the US and Europe, on the other.
“They are against Israel in their DNA. They don’t want Israel to exist,” he said. “So Gaza and Hamas are a very important asset for them.”
Some critics have denounced the Doha strike as a violation of international law, but international law experts note that Article 51 of the UN Charter recognizes a state’s inherent right to self-defense and that this right is not confined by geography if attacks are directed from outside its borders. The so-called “unwilling or unable” doctrine holds that if a host country does not act against militants on its soil, the victim state may use proportionate force.
The US relied on this doctrine when it killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in a 2011 operation that was widely hailed by Western governments and the UN, whose then secretary-general Ban Ki-moon said at the time that he was “very much relieved by news that justice has been done” and called it “a watershed moment in our common global fight against terrorism.”