Netanyahu: I am the law, and Israel is Über alles. When leaders treat accountability as optional |
When a leader insists on operating as though the rules did not apply to him, it isn’t simply an affront to a set of abstractions. It’s the proclamation of a philosophy. The leader asserts that might trumps right, that the brute fact of their power immunises the powerful, and that the pain of others merely constitutes the necessary shadow side of national resolve. Concerning the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it has been clear to many critics that there has been a stance that boils down to this: I am beyond the reach of international law, and Israel is Über Alles.
Such an impression did not materialise overnight. Nor is it an invention of hostile onlookers. It is, rather, the product of a series of years, where Israel’s leadership regards these global bodies with downright contempt. United Nations probes are rejected as being antisemitic. Human rights reports are brushed aside, labeled propaganda. Arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court are rejected, not as legal objections to be answered, but as exercises of political warfare, to be defeated. The message is, of course, unmistakable. The laws are for others.
International law exists just because we learned the lessons from the histories of world wars, genocide, and large numbers of deaths as a result of violence from those who hold power over their citizens. This law came into existence from the lessons learned from the world’s tragedies that were the result of violence by nations unleashed on innocent civilians. The law did not come into full effect as perfect, but as a global........