Shlomo Levin
Times of Israel, Dec. 29, 2024
“International law is new, untested, and prone to suffering unintended consequences from rules whose implications have not been thoroughly considered and are not well thought out.”
Many of us are somewhere between perplexed and outraged by the decision of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant. How can these so-called judges believe that Israel’s goal is to starve the population of Gaza, when it’s obviously to free the hostages and fight Hamas?
Rather than vilify the ICC or accuse the judges of anti-Israel bias and antisemitism, we need to better understand the rules the ICC goes by and exactly what the judges decided. Then we’ll see that what’s really happening is that poorly conceived international law is being exploited to Israel’s detriment.
Regular Criminal Indictments
To better understand what’s going on with Bibi and Gallant, we need to compare this case to a regular criminal indictment. I’ll base myself on the legal system in the United States, since for many of us it is familiar.
The police gather evidence and bring it to a district attorney (DA). The DA then decides whether or not the evidence is sufficient to merit pressing charges. Since being accused of a crime harms a person’s reputation and finances even if they are later found innocent, before issuing an indictment the DA must convince a grand jury that there is ‘probable cause’ that the defendant is guilty. The grand jury is a check on the DA’s discretion. ….SOURCE