Revealed: Israeli spy chief 'threatened' ICC prosecutor over war crimes inquiry | Hacker News Reader

Revealed: Israeli spy chief 'threatened' ICC prosecutor over war crimes inquiry

theguardian.com

134 pointszhengiszen112 comments

More than just hacked and spied on. They are also accused of intimidating the chief prosecutor and others. That's some chutzpah.

The US hacked and spied on Angela Merkel's phone and nobody really cared or did anything.[0]

[0]https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/12/germany-drops-...

They did care. Or at least she did. You're right, though, that they didn't do much about it, other than complain loudly.

The main story about that incident was that the US had been spying on regular German citizens for years (decades?), as per Edward Snowden's revelations, and the German Government knew all about it. They didn't care at all. In fact, at the time it was sort of understood they were quite ok with it. It was only after "one of them" were hacked, they, sort of, cared.

NATO exists to keep Germany down, and Russia out.

The Germans are not oblivious to this fact, so it didn't really come as a surprise when it happened. That's not to say they didn't care of course, as you point out.

The only ones surprised were the ones that actually believe alliances are friendships.

> Or at least she did

"Internet is new territory, uncharted territory to all of us." (the infamous Neuland).

Spoiler: all countries are surveilling each other.

No way. I doubt a single EU country dares to spy on either the US or Israel. They are too scared to attempt that.

Scared of what, exactly? The optics wouldn't matter too much for the population, very few people seem to have any "reverence" to either of those countries. The militaries and intelligence agencies also know those are allied countries so very little would happen to punish them if found out.

I just can't see any real reason for countries in the EU to be scared of doing it, at most there could be some kind of "respect" but that concept doesn't really mean much when espionage is in play.

German intelligence spied on White House: https://www.dw.com/en/german-intelligence-spied-on-white-hou...

Not so sure about that. Not all EU countries have shown a lot of deference to the US, for example.

I did a search and the only thing that I came up with is the Airbus/Boeing mutual industrial espionage.

Funny because I'd have said, if there would be any country to dare to spy on the US, it would be France. Anyway, the number of incidents going in the other direction are much more numerous.

In even EU country we have some parties that are more pro-West (pro-US) and others that are less, although nowadays, these latter are a minority. But openly criticizing US policy is not the same as spying on their dirty laundry.

How would you know what, for example, France is doing? Just working from public sources strikes me as quite insufficient (also given the often touted differences in approaches between US and European agencies).

Perhaps going by the "leaks" we know about we can have some idea? And as far as I know, almost all leaks point to the US doing the spying (and I would dare say the EU spying agencies are much less competent, so proportionally there should be more leaks from EU spies than US spies - but that's not what we observe).

Why do you think the Europeans are much less competent and how would differences in approaches impact leaks?

> Prosecutors say they can find no actionable evidence to support claims German chancellor’s mobile phone was tapped by US National Security Agency

Who knows what happened; it's certainly possible, perhaps even plausible. But neither the absolute "hacked and spied" and "nobody really cared or did anything" are true, according to the article you posted yourself.

And regardless, there is no equivalence with the ICC case here anyway, for many reasons.

Well.. cared and could do anything differ. I think it's lovely we know. I suspect a lot of inter governments negotiated differently given strong evidence one doesn't do it in even the basic good faith manner. But, in state relations maybe good faith is a null concept?

Did they threaten her family too?

The counterpart +972 Magazine article, which goes into more details on the communications interception side of this, was posted earlier as well. The articles are complementary, IMO

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40502432

Guardian have also published on this subject which I submitted but has been flagged for some reason: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40500023

On a side note, has anyone experienced submission posts URLs being changed/corrupted? Including above, correct link in the comments.

Twice in the last month or so I've had submissions links go wrong. Each time wrongly pointing to the exact same Guardian article that I have never accessed (other than following the issue).

The Guardian, +972 Magazine, and Local Call apparently jointly collaborated on this story, and all released their articles today (modulo local timezones).

Multiple people have posted these articles today, most instances of which were flagged. The HN thread I linked above, in fact, has toggled between flagged and not-flagged at least twice already.

Assuming that's true—and it's a significant "if," given that every story has multiple perspectives and The Guardian's known critical stance toward Israel—such behavior by Israel would indeed be disgraceful.

As an Israeli, I must clarify that the current government represents only a small minority. This minority has gained power through political maneuvering orchestrated by Netanyahu.

It's important to note that there are daily demonstrations with thousands of protesters demanding a change in government. These actions are completely out of step with the desires and values of the broader Israeli populace.

Benjamin Netanyahu has been PM of Israel for almost 17 years. Israel has been a state since 1948. 2023-1948 = 75 years. 16.66/75*100 = 22% of the existence of Israel.

Think about that. One man has been the democratically elected leader of Israel for about 22% of the entire time it has existed. He is also the first prime minister to have been born in Israel after its establishment. In so many ways this man is the manifestation of the nation of Israel. Or maybe it could be better said that Israel is a manifestation of Benjamin Netanyahu?

It would be interesting to work out the numbers on what percent of the entire Israeli population of all time voted for him and compare that with the percent of the entire Palestinian population that has existed from the same time period that voted for Hamas that one time Which IIRC was a vote that was only open to males 35+.

Benjamin Netanyahu has generally been averse to war over the years, often avoiding major conflicts. However, following the debacle on Oct 7th, there has been increasing pressure for his resignation. In this context, the current conflict may serve his interests. Netanyahu is aware that once the conflict ends, he will face tough questions and likely need to step down.

Indeed, he's preferred to have a constant simmering conflict that the IOF can control, rather than a major one that results in a boiling over that makes a mess of the kitchen.

Thousands imprisoned without charges, hundreds killed annually (with 2023 PRIOR to Oct 7 being the deadliest year for Palestinians in decades) without most of the world batting an eye is how he prefers it.

Do you consider the occupation of Palestinian territory previous to Oct 7th to be major conflict?

Firstly, the territory in question is contested. Although I acknowledge that it is occupied—the West Bank by Jordan and Gaza by Egypt—historically, these areas were never considered Palestinian. To clarify, I fully support the establishment of a Palestinian state across all of these territories with East Jerusalem as its capital. However, the historical context is crucial as it significantly influences how this conflict is perceived.

Why, you might ask?

Before their occupation by Israel in 1967, when these territories were under Jordanian and Egyptian control, they were not regarded as occupied by the local population. There was no PLO or Hamas fighting the Jordanians nor the Egyptians.

Given this background, many Israelis believe that the Palestinian struggle against Israel has not primarily been about establishing an independent nation to coexist peacefully alongside Israel. Rather, they view the aim of the struggle as attempting to dismantle Israel as a Jewish state by systematically challenging its historical and political legitimacy.

Therefore, Netanyahu position on this subject hasn't been far from the majority vote in Israel, and so he was not challenged about it

It is occupied — the West Bank by Jordan and Gaza by Egypt

I think what you mean to say here is that these were the last modern states to hold recognized sovereignty over the respective territories. But of course they exercised any control over those places since 1967.

Historically, these areas were never considered Palestinian

Correct if, again, one is thinking in terms of a sovereign Palestine state. However there has been nonetheless distinct Palestinian identity in formation since the 19th century, or possibly further depending on whom you ask (even if it didn't align exactly with European models for such at the time).

This is pretty good summation of the mainstream position within Israel society. A corresponding view of the current mainstream Palestinian position might go like this:

Given this background, many Palestinians believe that current Israeli policy is not about establishing its own security (and certainly not within 1967 borders), but about the continuing removal from, and/or permanent subjugation of the Palestinian people within the Occupied Territories. In particular, they see absolutely no interest in a 2SS solution on the Israeli side. They therefore see the dismantling of the Israeli state not just as the only viable alternative to their own destruction, but as a historical inevitability.

That seems to be what it comes down to. The question is -- where to go from here.

Morris would have references to modern "Palestine" (that is: stuff from like the time of the Roman empire doesn't count, and the term was not in use nor was it apparently an ethnic identity during much of the long reign of the Ottoman Empire) starting around 1911, with the "Filistin" newspaper, and points out that up until around 1920 the claimed identity was "Syrian" ("Southern Syrian", from the Suriyya al-Janubiya newspaper), until the Franco-Syrian war screwed that all up.

One of those fun scenarios where everyone with a simple story is wrong. Like, Gaza and especially Jerusalem were clearly centers of nascent Arab ethnic identity? The UN partition was in part a response to unified ethnic identification in the Gaza region?

A good AskHistorians answer on this: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/17552u6/why_...

Benjamin Netenyahu has consistently been winning elections. It took a coalition of 11 parties last time to keep him away from the PM seat.

At what point will people accept that he is the rule, not the exception?

Also, this has been going on since 2015, with serious escalation in 2018-2019, spanning a total of 4 governments, one of which didn’t include Netanyahu, two (and a half) included Netanyahu’s main oppositions.

Spying, and using nefarious methods to undermine international law seems to be a consistent policy of Israel regardless of who is in power.

Democracies usually have a set of policies which the public has no influence over, so perhaps, if given the choice, the Israeli public would vote to abolish these kinds of policies.

That said, these kinds of actions are usually followed by international (and—in case of democracies—domestic) condemnation, and in the worst cases (which this is) sanctions. In the case of Israel, the response seems to be a relatively small demonstrations (think Argentina if you want to see demonstration against actions the public really dislikes) and a lackluster international response. I don’t think Israel is likely to change these policies any time soon, unless the international response really steps up their pressure.

> As an Israeli, I must clarify that the current government represents only a small minority.

Did the majority of the Knesset not vote for this government, and if not, how did it form?

tl;dr: Coalition governments.

A majority of Knesset voting for a coalition government is ... a majority of the Knesset. You may not like it, you may even hate it, the majority of Israelis may hate it, but they vote for representatives, representatives vote for the executive. This is not some undemocratic power grab that happened here, it is in fact how most of the words democratic countries operate and form governments.

Nothing you said contradicts the original message at all though.

It's also true that the british government has some of the lowest support in history, losing the popular vote many times over and only attained power (marginally) due to vote splitting and gerrymandering.

It's not fair to say that "the british people want to bring back mandatory military service" (for example) because the conservative governments do, and the situation in Israel is even more dire in that regard.

I'm fairly sure vote splitting and gerrymandering does not apply to Israel, as they don't have districts for representatives.

If you have any data to back up your claim that the popular vote is vastly different from the composition of the knesset, please share it. But as far as I can tell from Wikipedia this is not the case. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Israeli_legislative_elect...

And the claim was not as to the popularity of policies, the claim was that the government does not represent the electorate, which is categorically false in this case, and would have been even if there were electoral districts.

If a government is elected by the representatives of the people, then that government represents the people.

If the government did not represent the representatives and the population that elected the representatives, who does it represent then?

You are of course right. However, I also think it's a but more complex than that.

For example, if this is everyone in parliament, from left to right:

  [ex] [     centre       ] [ex]

And the government votes are like so:

          <     votes        >
  [ex] [     centre       ] [ex]

Then you need to wonder how representative the coalition is, especially if those on the hard-right have a rather outsized influence. By and large people voted for the centre/centre-right, not hard-right.

Significantly more people voted for left-wing parties than the hard-right parties.

Democracy is never perfect, and normally it's a "shrug, next time we'll be a bit more advantages, so whatever" kind of affair. But when small hard-right parties are being enabled for what seems to be mostly power games (what Netanyahu seems to want more than anything else is to stay in power), I think it's fair to say things are perhaps not working entirely at their best.

> Significantly more people voted for left-wing parties than the hard-right parties.

Is this really the case? I have not really tallied up the numbers but from a brief glance at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Israeli_legislative_elect... it does not seem to quite check out.

edit:

I found this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty-seventh_government_of_I...

> The right-wing bloc of parties, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, known in Israel as the national camp, won 64 of the 120 seats in the elections for the Knesset, while the coalition led by the incumbent prime minister Yair Lapid won 51 seats.[9] The new majority has been variously described as the most right-wing government in Israeli history,[10] as well as Israel's most religious government.[11][12][13]

But to be fair you said hard-right parties, and I think in this you may be right. Still, most people voted conservative/right-wing I think.

> But to be fair you said hard-right parties, and I think in this you may be right. Still, most people voted conservative/right-wing I think.

Yes, I just meant the hard-right extremists, who are on a mission from God to reclaim all the lands of Israel for the Jewish people (RZP and Otzma).

Or to put it this way: there are tons of possible coalitions in this kind of democracies to arrive at a majority. This:

           <  coalition  >
  [ex] [     centre       ] [ex]

Is just as much a majority as:

                <  coalition  >
  [ex] [     centre       ] [ex]

Every country has their extremists of various shapes, and they mostly get excluded from real power, or when they are excluded their influence is very limited. By and large I think that's healthy.

This is also one reason almost all democracies have "checks and balances" in the form of supermajorities, courts, and/or bicameral system. To prevent a simple majority from pushing through changes. Remember, those "checks and balances" the Netanyahu government wanted to abolish before 7 Oct shelved those plans.

I love to read every intelligence news but it seems The Guardian has many issues finding what Putin or others are really doing.

Today the problem is not only the truth and the signal vs. noise but the context. This all seems like the spotlight fallacy.

> ... the current government represent a small minority that through political manipulation by Netanyahu has gained power.

The only part of this sentence that's an Israeli thing is Netanyahu. Right wing hardliners don't get elected to power, they seize it.

>As an Israeli, I can say that the current government represent a small minority that through political manipulation by Netanyahu has gained power.

I sure hope this is true, although I have my doubts that it is a 'small minority'.

A nation willfully ruled by war criminals always becomes their final victim.

First, thanks for the conatructive tone. Every day I am astonished that people directly impacted—whose friends died and might have been sexually abused on 7.10 and people whose families have been blown to pieces by aerial bombardment—somehow still manage to be more reasonable (on occasion) than many of their supporters in the West.

Second, I am not sure that this is a ‘small’ minority. Even ignoring the Channel 14 polls (which do seem to be made up) the current coalition is on about 50 seats (looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_I...). And then I am not really convinced that Sa’ar or Lieberman would really be opposed to this specific action, which would make a majority. For that matter, I saw one poll saying a Sa’ar+Cohen+Bennett tie-up would hit a whole thirty-two seats and reduce the Likud to twelve (that's the one labelled ‘Merger of Gideon Sa'ar, Naftali Bennett and Yossi Cohen & Labor and Meretz under Yair Golan’…) Admittedly maybe Lieberman would say that it’s stupid but that’s different from saying it’s disgraceful.

Its obvious that Bibi is a war criminal and this "Hell on earth" can only be stoppped by harsh economical sanctions. And of course every country should stop delivering weapons while condemning those actroceties. Words are not enough. Does noone has a moral Backbone ?

Haven’t people learned yet, Israel should be able get away with ANYTHING they want in this world.

Feeble International laws shouldn’t be applied to a country with the most moral army in the world!

They deserve a free pass for what they’ve done and everything they are going to do.

And anyone who disagrees is a bloody anti-semite, got it?!

Well Israel has enough merits to back them considering what they're surrounded by. But that has limits.

The Israeli Palestinian problem is complicated going back to WWI as one starting point.

And from time to time I get extremely tired of both sides whining about how they're victims. Similarly, I wish she US would be done with the middle east and focus on china/Russia. I'm tired of us wasting resources there.

At this point we all know what needs to happen. Isreal needs to empty its settlements; then two state solution where both sides mind their own business. Palestine, if they want control will also have commensurate accountability. So whether by action or inaction if hamas/iran/hezbolh screw stuff up, Palestine will be accountable. They're going to have to actually want to run it instead of being a pawn or playing short-termism footsies with terrorists.

We have less leverage on hamas, and more on Isreal. But Isreal doesn't want a two state solution now. That's also a problem.

> Similarly, I wish she US would be done with the middle east and focus on china/Russia. I'm tired of us wasting resources there.

I'm sure all the employees of the 3 letter agencies dealing with these issues and presidential the advisors know better. It's a complex issue involving Iran. If Israel empties the settlements Hamas will keep attacking, just like Hezbollah does from Lebanon.

However, most countries are fed up at this point and want a two state solution.

China & Russia are heavily involved in the middle east as well as Africa. Much of the current war is also a proxy war with them. It's the same war

Luckily the NSA, GCHQ, DGSE, ASIO, and FIS don't exist. And if they did, they would never wiretap or hack anyone ever. Darn you Mossad!

Kinda whataboutism, don't you think? Those aren't the organizations in question here.

I never really understood why whataboutism is meant to be a universally rejected objection.

In this particular case GGP hints that Israel gets favour treatment to gets away with anything. GP then retorts that others get away with as much, which is a valid objection to that claim, since it is invalidates the supposed Israeli exception. Neither GP nor GGP claimed that anybody should get away with crimes.

Neither the claim nor the objection are backed by any argument so the whole thread isn't very illuminating, but it has become in fashion to bring up whataboutism against any attempt at contextualising the discussion and I find this a curious trend.

Saying X is fine because everybody else is doing it is tiresome. It’s implied in the original argument that X is not okay regardless of how many entities are doing X, so obviously it isn’t okay in the other circumstances as well.

Yes - but. Whataboutism is often raised to illuminate the claimant’s topic selection bias - which is entirely valid.

Often when someone’s arguments are valid and convincing, but their entire vocabulary seems confined to an issue, asking yourself a couple “whatabouts” may help you see biases inherent in the topic bias.

Instead of getting lost in manipulative discussions about Hamas and Israels " right for self defense" ( 1200 killed Israelis against 36.000 killed Palästinians and 81.000 wounded ...) The traumatised and wounded felliw human beings can not even be treated, as almost all of their Hospitals have been destroyed. Its time to stop getting caught in Israels net. Why are no countries putting economic sanctions as this is the only logical reaction to Deal with this sadistic Land grap.

Wild stuff. Kudos to Bensouda for refusing to be intimidated.

I don’t get what Israel is doing here. They keep claiming the ICC has no jurisdiction and is a corrupt political organization, but also try to influence its inner workings and decision-making process.

Also, seems like they picked the wrong target since they basically had nothing to pressure the prosecutor with, according to the report. The story is weird.

They just don't care enough and think they can get away with it. It's thuggish behavior. They would rather the ICC didn't exist, the UN didn't exist, the Palestinians didn't exist.

The story indicates plenty of pressure being applied does it not? Ranging from fabricated reputational damage, physical and psychological intimidation and attempts to threaten family members amongst other pressure being applied repeatedly over many years.

For an individual does it get much worse than that? Particularly given the reputation of Israeli intelligence services.

Are you telling me that the full weight of the Israeli government, coming directly from the Prime Minister’s office, and the best they could do is “this will be bad for your career”?

Something here is missing.

Wouldn't you be intimidated/spooked if someone showed you pictures of your spouse walking around? An outright threat in words would be stupid, unsubtle, and reportable; mere suggestions let the thugs get away with things. Although pictures probably already cross the line...

I remember seeing a female friend in a park, she was apparently on a walk-around-town date with some guy from Tinder. I didn't want to interrupt so I didn't approach them. Then I thought it would be a funny prank to follow them around the city and take pictures, and send them to her later. And then I realized, WTF, no, it would be creepy...

Is this a reply to my post, or the one above?

I stated it was much more than risk to career so a bit puzzled.

> Also, seems like they picked the wrong target since they basically had nothing to pressure the prosecutor with,

Makes you wonder what dirt they have on our politicians. The republican party acts like they work for the israeli government.

Student loan forgiveness? Every republican politician cries "No way, we have no money for it".

Affordable healthcare for americans? Every republican politician screams "Impossible, our debt is unmanageable.".

Money for israel? Every republican politician shouts "Whatever israel wants. Damn the debt.".

Peaceful protests by american college students. Every republican politician "Who cares? ... Oh it's against israel's genocide?... Send in the troops".

Its about time for economical sabctions against Israel to Guide it into a two state silution. Why is everyone afraid of that logical step ?

I hope the Israelis manage to kick out this government, reading about what some of them were up to is astonishing. Particularly Ben-Gvir[0], he seems like a horrible piece of work with his repeated calls for genocide, but none of the rest of them seem much better.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itamar_Ben-Gvir

Do they not have the same problem as Russia, though? Kick out Netanyahu or Putin and another group of (potentially even more) unhinged psychos take power.

Getting the HN customary flagged status. Like clock work.

There's a good reason why "Israel, like the US, Russia and China, is not a member", and why Israel has engaged in spying them (and I would be surprised if the others didn't): they completely disregard any sort of global overwatch on their actions. Each of those states believe they are above everyone else.

The countries you listed are basically all the world players that exert outside influence. It's easy for a country like Canada to sit on the sidelines and go along with orgs like the ICC since we're not really under threat, nor is it something we've grown into.

Watch the ICC challenge Canada's sovereignty repeatedly on issues that we hold important, and see how fast our government decides not to recognize their authority.

The ICC is not challenging any country's sovereignty, it's prosecuting criminals whose crimes fall outside the jurisdiction of a single country. The fact that the US has "pressured" the ICC (while not even being a signatory) to not go after Israel, and that Israel has been harassing them, shows that the West is not at all on a higher ground morally than anyone else. They're doing the same thing: killing, waging unjustified wars, spying on and harassing people trying to do good. I am ashamed of what we, the collective West, are doing. The rule of law doesn't mean anything to us if it goes against our interests.

If ICC was doing anything it would have charged the Iranian leadership for example. Yet in practice it's political organization with no morale.

Iran is a signatory but not (yet) a party to the Rome Statute, and as such the ICC does not have jurisdiction in Iran unless explicitly given by Iran (similar to what Ukraine did following the Russian invasion). Palestine is a member, so crimes against humanity committed in the occupied territories are under the jurisdiction of the ICC.

Don’t get me wrong. The Iranian government absolutely should go straight to the Hague for their crimes against the Iranian people. But this whataboutism does not dissolve the crimes of others.

> Watch the ICC challenge Canada's sovereignty repeatedly on issues that we hold important

That's not likely to happen ...

it seems that once Canada embraced the ICC https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/international_re...

    Canada became the first country in the world to incorporate the obligations of the Rome Statute into its national laws when it adopted the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act (CAHWCA) on June 24, 2000. Canada was then able to ratify the Rome Statute on July 9, 2000.

it gained a retroactive free pass on "stuff that happened"

    https://www.aptnnews.ca/national-news/lawyer-says-international-criminal-court-declines-request-to-open-residential-school-investigation/

    A lawyer who was part of a group lobbying the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate Canada and the Catholic Church over the residential school system says they’ve been turned down.

    “The ICC prosecutor declined to open a preliminary investigation,” says Andrew Phypers, one of a dozen lawyers who wrote the ICC requesting an investigation. “Part of their reasoning was that they felt they were prevented as the deaths occurred before Canada ratified the crimes against humanity law.”

Regardless of the merits of the case, that's a solid "No." on even just having a look.

That's one interpretation. Another interpretation is that Israel is convinced that the global scrutiny they experience is so unfair and one-sided that they have to take action ahead of time to try to restore a modicum of balance.

That's kind of ridiculous. Israel has had the support of most of the world for months of war, but at some point it became clear they were just going far over what looked like a proportionate response. And they just kept going, month after month, getting worse and worse... and the outrage from other countries has slowly grown as they kept killing civilians almost indiscriminately. I would say this proves the exact opposite: that Israel, given the history of their people, are given more leeway than basically anyone else by the international community.

I acknowledge that is your interpretation. Others have the interpretation that the support Israel has been given since Oct 7th falls far short of what would be appropriate in the circumstances.

Regarding the accusation of killing civilians indiscriminately: what is the civilian to combatant death ratio, and what level would it have to fall above to count as "indiscriminate"?

> what is the civilian to combatant death ratio, and what level would it have to fall above to count as "indiscriminate"?

I accept the ICC report which says Israel not only killed indiscriminately, it used hunger as a weapon of war. Those accusations were investigated and proven beyond doubt by the people we most trust to investigate such matters.

However, in my humble opinion, any innocent's death caused by war is unjustifiable. I thought so when the Russians started killing civilians in their war (using the same justifications as Israel, by the way), and I still think so when it's Israel killing Palestinians.

It's an "interpretation" but an obviously rubbish one. One doesn't go to such extreme lengths as stalking the Chief Prosecutor, making thinly-veiled threats to their family's safety and so on unless one is perfectly aware of one's precarious fate in the hands of global public opinion -- and perfectly aware also (through knowledge of one's own actions) of the reasons why such scrutiny is legitimate and necessary.

Yes, of course they're aware of their precarious situation vis-a-vis global public opinion. The question is whether that is warranted.

They know perfectly well why it's warranted. That's why they're so desperate.

As in literally every other case of prosecutor intimidation you will find.

They were desperate because they believed (correctly) the court would target their officials. Whether or not it's warranted[1] is a quite independent consideration! For example, in principle a country could be confident that it would not be touched by the ICC, despite deserving to be.

[1] No pun intended!

Frankly, I would expect that many of the States that are members are spying on the ICC internals.

Whatever you think of the merits of the charge, that's low.

Modulo Israel's unpopularity: how would another nation state, say, Korea, act, if a non-state organization attempted to assert its authority to act in substantial force to override the authority of the nation state's government?

It is my theory that, up to niceties, that such acts are a form of war; the nation's government would be under major pressure from its public to act in reciprocal force.

Influence comes in many forms. The US has underfunded international agencies for decades if it differs from their posture. Things like women's reproductive rights can affect funds to agencies like the FAO.

Governments have been running plays on governments (and governmental organizations) since there were governments.

Not a justification, just a statement of reality. If one thinks one's stuff secure, it may be.

btw - its spelt Israel

Indeed. Spelling it Isreal would give it an undeserved legitimacy.

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