Comment by jmyeet | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jmyeet | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

It seems more likely than not that the ICC will approve the warrants. This is unprecedented for the ICC to turn its gaze toards a key US ally.

As for how far will the US go, well in 2002, Congress passed (and Bush signed) the American Service Members Protection Act, more colloquially known as the Hage Invasion Act. It authorizes the president to use all necessary force including invading the Netherlands if an American servicemember or appointed official is ever taken into ICC custody. This includes officials and servicemen of key allies, including Israel.

So will Betanyahu or Gallant actually be arrested? Almost certainly not. The practical effect of this is political not legal.

The goal of protests, boycotting, ICJ applications, ICC warrants, UN (GA and SC) motions, "Undecided" voting in Democratic primaries and so on are to incrementally pressure the two key players here: Israel and, more importantly, the US. Why? Because the US could end the conflict with a phone call. They could end it with a press release.

BDS (Boycott, divest, sanction) movements were considered successful in isolating and ultimately toppling the Apartheid South African regime in the 1970s and 1980s. Given this success, an awful lot of lobbying has been directed at US politicans to pass so-called "anti-BDS" laws that are laws in ~37 states. For example, to be a teacher in Texas, you need to sign a contract agreeing to never participate in a BDS movement against Israel.

So the practical effect of ICC warrants is just to incrementally isolate and pressure Israel.

One phone call to whom? Hamas? The conflict is 2 sided. It may pause. But not end. This is very different from Russia invade Ukraine, there is no dispute of the sovereignty in a wider sense. Even china would not say U belong to R. But the hell of P and I, …

There is no easy solution … from camp David to now.

> There is no easy solution … from camp David to now.

Everyone from the Hague to UC Berkeley administrators is learning one hard truth: agreements with some polities in that part of the world and their ambassadors are not worth very much. But if you pretend that they are then it seems like there are easy solutions.

> One phone call to whom? Hamas?

To Israel. The modern state of Israel simply cannot exist without the largesse and political cover the US provides.

> There is no easy solution

Yes and no. End the genocide. End the apartheid. Nuremberg-like trials to deal with war criminals on both sides. Reconstruction of a single state. 750,000 settlers has made a two-state solution impossible.

We've been here before: post-US civil war and post-apartheid South Africa.

There is the idea that the currently oppressed population will rise up in vilence against their former oppressors. History doesn't back up this view. Our modern examples such as Reconstruction showed the opposite: the rise of the KKK and the rise of violence against former slaves by their former oppressors.

Afghanistan has been described as the graveyard of empires. This region may be vying for that title.

Israel existed for decades without US support. No Jews will agree to live under a Muslim majority one state solution, it will inevitably decay into something similar to Lebanon, Syria, or Egypt.

> No Jews will agree to live under a Muslim majority one state solution

Couldn't you say the same about whites in apartheid South Africa?

The situations aren't comparable. Most Israeli citizens are of MENA origin; they are not, as activist wisdom would have it, ambitious Europeans.

It's really not the same thing. Jews have a very long history of being oppressed by Muslims and Christians.

I don’t know that you want to bring South Africa as an example of success. Even the majority is fed up with their government.

How can the US end the conflict with a phone call? I think that is unlikely because I suspect those phone calls have already been had.

And really the only way we are resolving this is by actually solving the underlying issue, which is that there are a set of people essentially locked up in a prison for 30 years and/or slowly being shot by settlers in the West Bank.

Press release: "We're halting all arms shipments to Israel". There's even a legal basis for it, the so-called "Leahy laws" [1]. Israel cannot exist without hte largesse and political cover the United States provides.

I agree about solving the underlying issues and the injustices that have historically taken place but the above is intended to answer the question and engage in analysis rather than arguing the merits, which is likely an unproductive conversation.

[1]: https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/PP410_INVES...

Israel hardly needs those arms to continue their war in Gaza. It's nice, certainly, and the precision weapons help reduce Palestinian deaths, but Israel does not require it.

You also forget that Israel has fought all its major wars without the US.

They also get $3.8 billion in military aid from the US each year.

And Israel's GDP is ~500billion, of which ~25b is spent on defense. So, that 3.8b would be a dent, but not insurmountable.

Economic measures could be a different story, but pulling that lever on an an ally of 75+ years would damage the US's credibility. Not to mention to the domestic impact in the US. I don't think any decision makers weighing national interest would go there.

Plus, if the US successfully isolated Israel, it's highly likely the whole region would be at war in short time. Hard to imagine the West not getting involved again at that point, except now in a significantly worse position.

The issue is not the genocide in Gaza. The issue is restocking iron Dome, and the ability for Israel to defend against attacks from Hezbollah and Iran… assuming other powers don’t change their stance towards Israel.

The lack of working Iron Dome would mean that Israel would have to go on a big offensive. The lack of US aid will elevate Israel's war posture, not decrease it. People seem to keep forgetting this is an existential war for Israel, there is no clear end goal for Israel's enemies besides its destruction. Of course Israel will never "give up", give up what? Its existence?

Well, they could start by giving up the illegally occupied parts of Palestine.

Obviously this conflict didn't start with the 1967 borders. Was the situation peaceful before 1967?

No, but completely eliminating Israel isn't (and shouldn't be an option), so hopefully 1967 borders is where it can end. Israel returns occupied territories, Palestine/Hamas stops wanting revenge for everything Israel has done, international community puts pressure on both sides to accept that. Probably not gonna happen, but I think it's the optimal outcome.

Palestinian leadership has not shown willingness to take peace offerings that would improve the lives of their people

- '2000 Camp David Summit offer

- '2001 Taba Summit offer

- '2007 Olmert offer

In fact, during the peace talks between '2000 and '2001, the Palestinian leader at the time, Arafat, with control over the main armed faction in PLO at the time, Fatah, has failed to thwart the waves of violence against Israeli citizens, for the following 4-5 years, known as the Second Intifada.

Really interesting - how did Israel fare without Iron Dome (ie, before 2011)?

Iron Dome simply allows Israel to do more offense. Without it, they would need to be more cautious.

Israel is a net exporter of arms. Israel supplies a long list of countries with technologically advanced and strategically important weapons systems that are difficult to substitute. A US embargo would be economically painful, but Israel is perfectly capable of living without US military aid and exports.

https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/2022-03/fs_2203_at...

I’d honestly love to see them give it a go. They have a LOT of enemies in the region.

If they lose the support of the US they might actually have to play nice.

They’ve fought them all before and repeatedly won. Before they had US funding, before they had nuclear weapons, before they had an overwhelming advantage in material and technology.

US funding of Israel is used to buy votes in the US, and to buy some influence in Israel, it will not change the military situation much.

What does playing nice look like to you, if not:

- Giving up Sinai for a peace treaty with Egypt

- Giving up access to the Temple Mount for a peace treaty with Jordan

- Repeatedly offering peace deals to the Palestinian leadership following the Oslo Accords ('2000 Camp David Summit, '2001 Taba Summit, '2007 Olmert offers etc.)

2000 Camp David Summit

[1]

> Shlomo Ben-Ami, then Israel's Minister of Foreign Relations who participated in the talks, stated that the Palestinians wanted the immediate withdrawal of the Israelis from the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, and only subsequently the Palestinian authority would dismantle the Palestinian organizations. The Israeli response was "we can't accept the demand for a return to the borders of June 1967 as a pre-condition for the negotiation." In 2006, Shlomo Ben-Ami stated on Democracy Now! that "Camp David was not the missed opportunity for the Palestinians, and if I were a Palestinian I would have rejected Camp David, as well."

Multiple members of Clinton's negotiating team also dispute that interpretation:

> Robert Malley, part of the Clinton administration and present at the summit, wrote to dispel three "myths" regarding the summit's failure. First myth, Malley says, was "Camp David was an ideal test of Mr. Arafat's intentions". Malley recalls that Arafat didn't think that Israeli and Palestinian diplomats had sufficiently narrowed issues in preparation for the summit and that the Summit happened at a "low point" in the relations between Arafat and Barak.

> The second myth was "Israel's offer met most if not all of the Palestinians' legitimate aspirations". According to Malley, Arafat was told that Israel would not only retain sovereignty over some Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem, but Haram al Sharif too, and Arafat was also asked to accept an unfavorable 9-to-1 ratio in land swaps.

> The third myth was that "The Palestinians made no concession of their own". Malley pointed out that the Palestinians starting position was at the 1967 borders, but they were ready to give up Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, and parts of the West Bank with Israeli settlements. Further, the Palestinians were willing to implement the right of return in a way that guaranteed Israel's demographic interests. He argues that Arafat was far more compromising in his negotiations with Israel than Anwar el-Sadat or King Hussein of Jordan had been when they negotiated with Israel.

---

2001 Taba Summit

[2]

> A new round of talks was held at Taba in January 2001, during the last few days of the Clinton presidency, between President Arafat and the Israeli foreign minister, and it was later claimed that the Palestinians rejected a "generous offer" put forward by Prime Minister Barak with Israel keeping only 5 percent of the West Bank. The fact is that no such offers were ever made.

[1] Camp David wiki page

[2] Carter - Peace Not Apartheid

>Given this success, an awful lot of lobbying has been directed at US politicans to pass so-called "anti-BDS" laws that are laws in ~37 states. For example, to be a teacher in Texas, you need to sign a contract agreeing to never participate in a BDS movement against Israel.

These are unconstitutional laws that unfortunately are easy to pass but difficult to remove. There needs to be more legal challenges to remove these laws. There have been positive efforts to remove these laws although the states find new ways to keep amended versions of the laws on the books which requires further lawsuits to challenge.

[1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws#Constitutional_c...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com