Arrest warrants issued for genocidal babykiller, Benjamin Netanyahu 

After 13 months of live-streamed, sadistic slaughter inside the open-air concentration camp that once was Gaza, the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. 

The ICC cited “crimes against humanity and war crimes committed from at least 8 October 2023 until at least 20 May 2024”. The decision was unanimous. 

Proving the Court has access to social media, eyes, and brains, it further stipulated that “The Chamber found that the alleged crimes against humanity were part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Gaza.” 

The ruling went on to state that there are “reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant bear criminal responsibility for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare,” and that “Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant bear criminal responsibility as civilian superiors for the war crime of intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population of Gaza.”

From schools to refugee tent encampments, mosques, cemeteries and hospitals, the fact Gaza has been entirely flattened at this point – and that Israel has announced its plans to resettle the area multiple times – this should be fairly easy to prove in a court of law. If the court fails to do so, its reputation will be shattered. 

Within an hour, the Netherlands announced it would comply with the ruling and arrest both Netanyahu and Gallant if they set foot on Dutch soil. Canada followed shortly afterwards. 

Within minutes of the announcement, Israel called the ruling anti-Semitic. The ICC now joins a lengthy list of organisations, inanimate objects and dead children to be thusly labelled: hospitals, refugee tents, the skulls of sniped kids, aid workers, journalists, you name it – all totally anti-semitic.

Australia’s Foreign Minister and chief apologist for the Zionist genocide, Penny “gravely concerned, inc.” Wong took to the Xwitter platform to talk down from high to her legions of admirers. She issued a characteristically vague statement that assured Australians that international law needs to be complied with, but she did not specify whether Netanyahu would be arrested if he arrived in Australia. 

This should not be taken as a given. Australia is deeply entrenched in this conflict, both politically and culturally. And the language of Wong’s statement still uses the genocide denialist framing of not naming the charged perpetrators, Israel and Netanyahu, and using the term “ceasefire” to imply this is a war and not mechanised ethnic cleansing on a massive scale. 

I sincerely doubt both-sidesing genocide is the vote winner the ALP is desperately hoping it is. Kamala Harris found this out a few weeks ago, and the ALP’s silent complicity is giving progressive voters, and indeed conservatives of conscience, a massive dose of the ick.  

From here, the ALP is going to attempt the slimiest, lamest of re-positionings on this issue. It recently allowed Jason Clare onto mainstream television to say the exact types of things Fatima Payman was warned internally to shut the fuck up about.

Like Wong’s statement above, mostly the ALP will try to say nothing much at all about this. It will be business as normal, with ever so slightly milder and more palatable genocide apologia. It is a cowardly party, self-interested and subservient to US imperial interests. Presently, it is too busy saving children, not from the hatred that cycles eternally when you support genocide, but from being able to use Facebook and TikTok.

The cultural connection to the slaughter runs deeper, still. Consider the fact that on the same day the ICC issued these arrest warrants, local Zionists were holding an event in St Kilda to celebrate genocidal war criminals that had been on “frontline” of this massacre. And apparently no one in politics thinks this is inappropriate?

The cultural enmeshment is undeniable at home. The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra sacking a performer for mentioning they’d composed a piece about Gaza. The ABC sacking Antoinette Lattouf for telling the truth. The State Library abandoning Palestinian writers. The universities cracking down on peaceful protest. The entire mainstream media ecosystem contorting this 76-years-long slaughter into a war of “defence”, most recently running cover for fascist, racist football hooligans that ran around Amsterdam ripping down Palestinian flags and chanting “Why is school out in Gaza? Because there are no kids left there.” 

This is us. This is mainstream, ruling class Australia.

This has also been the bleakest 13 month period for humanity in my living memory. We have all seen so many things we cannot unsee. Any illusions of Western morality, or even the benevolence and effectiveness of our political systems, should be well and truly out the fucking window by now. Hold it all in contempt, you do not need to cheer for any of these people. Personally, I don’t think any of this deserves your “social cohesion”. 

No matter how small it may prove to be in the end, these warrants are a win for justice and humanity. May they make it as awkward as possible for genocide deniers to carry out their horrendous work.