Over the past week we have seen the ICC release an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas’ senior leadership on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. We have also seen Spain, Ireland and Norway state that they would recognise Palestinian statehood. They join other nations who have committed to recognising Palestinian statehood this year including the Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and Barbados. They join a list of 143 global nations that recognise Palestine mainly comprised of nation in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Some of the nations who do not are settler colonies like the United States, Canada and Australia alongside predominantly Western European nations many of whom are direct beneficiaries of colonisation and slavery (go figure!)

The arrest warrant and further recognition of Palestinian statehood is progress to an extent, but we need to be wary of the limitations of both. In practical terms the arrest warrant does bring about positives. It forces Western leaders who are still supporting Netanyahu to square with the fact they are siding with an alleged war criminal. The U.K. is a founding member of the ICC and (hilariously) prides itself on being a support of international justice. This leaves both major parties with two choices, refute their inclusion in the ICC or stop supporting Netanyahu. At the same time the ICC only now recognising these acts as war crimes is a testament to how little the institution values Palestinian lives. Since October 7th we have seen endless horrors through social media of civilians being butchered, hospitals being attacked, refugee camps bombed, journalists and medics being killed and thousands of children blown apart by weapons. We shouldn’t need external validation that war crimes are being committed, after seeing what we’ve seen. The idea that we need an adjudicator to decide these things are wrong is patronising. From a practical standpoint it would also be very difficult to arrest and trial Netanyahu. In 2002 the U.S. enacted something called American Service members Protection Act sometimes referred to as The Hague Invasion Act. It basically states that if any U.S. service member, citizen or service member or citizen of any U.S. allied country is ever trialled at the ICC the U.S. army will use military force to “liberate” them. The U.S. definitely counts Israel as an ally which means any attempts to trial Israeli officials for war crimes would mean taking on the U.S. military. 

The last limitation of the arrest warrant to bring about justice is individualising Zionism to its figurehead ignores how political ideologies function. To be clear, this is not to say Netanyahu, Ben Gvir, and all the complicit members of the Knesset should not be held to account. But to use an analogy, cast your mind back to the eventual incarceration of George Floyd’s killer Derek Chauvin. After global protest he was eventually sentenced to unintentional second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. As a Black man, seeing Chauvin locked away and further hearing he was repeatedly stabbed in prison may have been gratifying, but it didn’t remedy the wider problem of police racism and brutality. In fact 2023 was the highest year of police killings in America since records began and the numbers have risen steadily since Chauvin’s imprisonment. The point of this analogy is to say that replacing Zionism’s figureheads with more moderate palatable stewards will reproduce the same outcomes. Which are Palestinian degradation, apartheid and death. Only a complete dismantling of Zionism as an ideology will bring peace to the region.

On the subject of more nations recognising Palestinian statehood, there are benefits. In the global context statehood and sovereignty bear weight. After over seven decades of ethnic cleansing and displacement it is clear the Palestinian people deserve their homeland. In practical terms there needs to be more clarity on what that looks like. Would a Palestinian state have the 1948 borders reinstated? Or the border negotiated in the 1993 Oslo accord that Israel have repeatedly ignored in flagrant disregard of international law? The lack of consequence for endless illegal settlement building in the West Bank also calls into question if the international community would actually do anything to protect the statehood more countries are now advocating for. Much like a two state solution, its easier for other nations to advocate for statehood once its not actually tangible. Supporting theoretical statehood once Palestine has been reduced to rubble is paying lip service. What are the tangible commitments to making that state liveable, protecting its dignity and securing its future? Nations pledging to recognise Palestine as a state need to clarify what measures they are willing to support its creation and upholding. 

This article isn’t an attempt to rain on the parade of what feels like progress and two things can be true at the same time. Any steps towards alleged war criminals being held to account and Palestine achieving statehood are good. But we need to be critical of the institutions and nations who to date have repeatedly failed to deliver either. The announcement of an arrest warrant for Israel’s leader and more Western nations pledging to recognise Palestinian statehood are good things at face value. But if the last 8 months have reinforced anything, its that Western institutions should not be taken seriously as moral arbiters.

Article by Martyn Ewoma