Re:ICC seeks arrest warrants against Sinwar and Netanyahu fo...
by tptacek on Monday May 20, 2024 @05:58PM
(#40420928)
Everything you're pitching here seems predicated on the idea of breaking off all practical diplomacy with Netanyahu. Which, if you think you can topple Netanyahu, sure, but I imagine there are career diplomats telling the administration that moves like these are as likely to bolster Netanyahu's position as they are to hasten his ouster.
Certainly it is not my contention that the US is consistent with respect to the ICC.
It's a bad situation. I genuinely think that the administration is playing the best it can with the cards it was dealt. I think we're all clear what the counterfactual other administration would be doing.
He didn't have to say anything about the substance. He could even use them as leverage in negotiations without publicly saying anything about the substance, by conditioning US efforts to get the UNSC to hold them in abeyance (which it explictly can!) conditioned on a cease-fire and concrete steps on aid.
Would it work? Probably not. Would it be better for the US interestd broadly than getting nothing at all while undermining the credibility of an institution that the US, while not a member of, has found practically and diplomatically useful in a number of past cases? Absolutely yes.
> We're not signatories to the ICC to begin with!
We have shut up about, or actively supported, the ICC in many cases, and given the US public nominal goal of a two-state solution demonstrating that international institutions are willing to take on abused on both sides of the conflict without ignoring the legitimate interests or rights of people on either side is something the US ought to be backing rather than burning down.