Ken Roth in The Guardian: In a terse statement, Joe Biden called the charges “outrageous”, stating that “there is no equivalence – none – between Israel and Hamas”. The German government, while saying it “respects the independence” of the court, echoed this “false equivalence” charge. But Khan made no claim of equivalence. He simply charged both Israeli and Hamas officials for their own separate war crimes. Indeed, given the severity of the offenses, it would have been outrageous had Khan ignored one side’s crimes. The dual charges underscore a fundamental principle of international humanitarian law: war crimes by one side never justify war crimes by another.
Ironically, Hamas responded to the proposed charges with a variation of this theme, saying that Khan’s action “equates the victim with the executioner”. But regardless of the perceived justness of one’s cause, it never justifies war crimes.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, claimed, without elaborating, that the ICC “has no jurisdiction”. The US government had long opposed the power granted to the court by its founding treaty to prosecute crimes committed in the territory of member states by nationals of non-member states, but Biden abandoned that position when he called the ICC charges against the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, for war crimes in Ukraine, using the same territorial jurisdiction, “justified”.
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