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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts to defy an international arrest warrant could be in jeopardy if the US re-establishes ties with Iran, a former top war crimes prosecutor has told The National.
Luis Ocampo, who served as the first chief prosecutor of International Criminal Court from 2003 to 2012, said Mr Netanyahu remains free due to political influences such as Israel’s close relationship with the US. These ties have allowed Washington to lobby for Mr Netanyahu’s continued freedom, he said.
But all this is at risk, Mr Ocampo said, if the US normalises relations with Iran, as Washington and Tehran carry out negotiations on a new nuclear deal. An agreement could provide an overarching “solution” to the issues plaguing the Middle East, he added.
Mr Netanyahu opposed a nuclear agreement signed in 2015 between Iran and world powers, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the deal in 2018. It is unclear where Israel stands on the resumption of talks.
“Right now [Mr Netanyahu] is using his influence to get support from the US in particular, and European countries, to protect him in some way,” Mr Ocampo said. “But this protection is temporary.”
A nuclear deal, and a subsequent improvement of ties between the US and Iran could also be challenging for Mr Netanyahu's political career, he added.
Gaza effect
Israeli and international analysts have said Mr Netanyahu is deliberately prolonging Israel's offensive in Gaza is to delay his own corruption trial at home.
A month ago, Mr Netanyahu said he would not testify in one of the hearings in his trial after ordering an attack on Gaza that effectively ended a 42-day ceasefire there.
The ICC last year issued an arrest warrant for Mr Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant over allegations of crimes against humanity in Gaza. It also issued warrants for three Hamas leaders who are all dead.
Mr Ocampo maintained that efforts to shield Mr Netanyahu from arrest are primarily for political reasons. “The legal decision was taken, it’s clear. The political game is highly complicated and has multiple actors,” he said.
The ICC does not have the ability to execute arrest warrants and has to rely on members of the Rome Statute, the court's founding document, to hand over wanted suspects.
Mr Ocampo said the body was not established to replace existing court systems but to “intervene where they fail”. Still, he believes that the ICC’s arrest warrants against Mr Netanyahu are already having an impact.
France last year said it would adhere to the ICC statutes to arrest Mr Netanyahu but President Emmanuel Macron later said the Israeli Prime Minister enjoys “immunity” from arrest.
Mr Ocampo said statements such as these are meaningless and have no bearing on reality. “Whatever they say, the warrant is there. To remove it, you need more than a statement by [Donald] Trump or sanctions against the prosecutor,” he said.
Mr Ocampo highlighted that because on a global scale the ICC, unlike in a national system, cannot send troops to implement a judge’s decision, states have to decide what to do about outstanding warrants for arrest.
The former ICC prosecutor believes that the US’s close relationship with Israel, will prompt Mr Trump to attempt to “protect” Mr Netanyahu from arrest. One way to do to that, he said, is for the US to play a role in the UN Security Council, where it has veto power, to suspend the investigation against Mr Netanyahu in exchange for peace in Gaza.
During the first week of April, Hungary announced it was withdrawing from the ICC as Mr Netanyahu visited his ally Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
Some of Darwish's last words
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
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Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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