Israeli Reactions to the ICC Arrest Warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant
Alon Mizrahi breaks it down in Substack Notes. For those of you who don't yet subscribe to him (you should) I share it here.
The phenomenally humane and talented Alon Mizrahi will be showing up more and more in my Substack. A Jewish Palestinian from Israel who now lives in the Bay Area, Mizrahi writes from a unique perspective. Of Moroccan and Palestinian descent, Mizrahi (whose name is literally Hebrew for “of the East” or “Easterner”) is an Arab Jewish Israeli. Most people are familiar with Ashkenazim (Jews of Central and Eastern European origin) and Sephardim (literally “The Spaniards,” referring to Spanish Jews exiled 1492-1450, including many who were invited by the then-Sultan of what became Turkey to relocate in that Muslim country." The Mizrahim are Jews of Arab origin. I’ve written a bit about this elsewhere in my Substack, but entire books have been written about the Mizrahi experience in Israel. I haven’t time to do it justice here.
But I strongly recommend you follow Alon, both because his humanism is inspiring, but also because, as a citizen and former resident of Israel, and reader of Hebrew, he is in a unique position to share his perspective, and it is one that is vital.
Alon wrote:
<div class="substack-post-embed"><p lang="en">The reactions to the ICC decision are rather fascinating. In Israeli media, for instance, I found this morning an article in which Israeli seniors state off the record something in the spirit of 'when we're done with them they're going to beg us to help them', and 'we're going to remodel them into their original size' ('them' being the ICC).
As always in Israel in all things, delusion is the name of the game, especially as regards underestimating the opposition to Israel's violence, be it on the battlefield, in culture, or on the legal front.
It doesn't surprise me one bit. Israel is going to do the only thing it knows how to do, and that's escalation. It's going to take upon itself a new and ambitious project of dismantling the international legal system, with the help of the Trump administration.
This project will fail (well, duh), because people had enough of this kind of garbage. There is a wide and energetic coalition of people, organizations, and countries determined to put an end to Israel's bullying, arrogance, and domination - among other things because it is being used by the US as a whip against humanity and native people in West Asia and the world over.
The Global South, human spirit, and general popular disgust with Israel won't allow it. The jig is up.
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Two more aspects of the arrest warrant:
1. They disincentivize Netanyahu further to end the war, throwing him into conflict with the relatively saner element of Israel's military, who will start fearing for their skin. The more messianic element of Israel's military leadership will follow Netanyahu into hell singing and dancing. So the war won't stop, and generally, it won't stop before Israel is defeated and depleted. It is war and bloodshed till the last day.
This kind of evil knows no repentance.
2. The legal voice of the international community also said something strategic about its trust in Israel's judicial system: it virtually doesn't exist anymore.
Internal investigations and fake proceedings, which had been allowed to make a mockery of justice and a slaughterhouse of Palestine don't cut it anymore.
This is a brutal slap in the face of Israel's previously esteemed judges and institutions, and I can definitely see a future where those people and institutions will be required to provide answers about their involvement in legitimizing occupation, land theft, mass killings, starvation, and torture, among other things.
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Much denial and delusion are going on at the moment, and people find it hard to believe such a seismic shift can happen. But it was always going to happen. In Israel's leftwing circles the joke 'see you at the Hague' was prevalent for years. Many of us knew that was going to be the end result: legal action, sanctions, and chaos.
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Israel is going to remain defiant, even after the ICJ orders a ceasefire, as it eventually will. Trump's administration will do all they can to help it, and will probably go to war in the Middle East as well. It won't help. Zionism is finished. Seeing what's going on in so many different places, I'd say about 100 legal teams are currently working on devastating action against Israel and Israeli entities. More arrest warrants are on the way, and so are sanctions.
By choosing occupation and genocide Israel chose self-destruction, and there's no going back.</p><p> - Alon Mizrahi</p><a data-comment-link href="https://substack.com/@alonmizrahi/note/c-78366786">Read on Substack</a></div><script async src="https://substack.com/embedjs/embed.js" charset="utf-8"></script>