ICC prosecutor to step down tomorrow, new chief to decide Israel's fate
| Author | YONAH JEREMY BOB |
| Date | 15 June 2021 |
| Published date | 15 June 2021 |
| Publication title | Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel) |
The outgoing chief prosecutor also threatened Israel and Hamas with new war-crimes charges during the May 10-21 conflict.
Still, Bensouda has strongly hinted that her office might close the probe against the IDF as the Israeli military performs its own investigations of alleged war crimes.
However, Israeli lawyers are much more concerned that her office will go after the settlement enterprise.
Views on Karim Khan are mixed. He has been associated with Muslim human-rights groups and Pakistani officials, which would prejudice him against Israel. But he has also said the ICC is overextended and should only fight battles it can win and for which it has the resources to fight.
Khan has defended alleged war criminals from Kenya and has represented victims of ISIS.
Bensouda herself is a Gambian Muslim who sometimes wears traditional African dress. But she is equally comfortable in a business suit.
During a Jerusalem Post interview in The Hague in 2016, all indications were that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was not a major issue for her.
Though she ruled against Israel in March by opening a full war-crimes probe, she appeared to be acting as part of a group of internationalists who focus on getting justice for civilians killed in conflict zones. If Bensouda has been hard on Israel, she has also been hard on the US, the UK, Russia and many African nations.
These internationalists tend to criticize Israel, the US and just about any country that uses force, not from antisemitic or anti-American motives per se, but because they believe the world would be more peaceful if Israel and the US used less force.
This ideological group tends to downplay the role of terrorism and aggressive nondemocratic countries in destabilizing and threatening Israel and other countries, assuming that simple dialogue can resolve conflicts.
In that spirit, Bensouda confessed to the Post in 2016 that her office was less focused on achieving peace or balance between the contending parties than in achieving justice for its victims.
While justice for victims is important, that kind of philosophical focus is often too ready to ignore the potential destabilizing impact of such prosecutions.
However, a recent decision...
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