Does ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan even know what genocide is? (Daled Amos) ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Wednesday, January 01, 2025

Does ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan even know what genocide is? (Daled Amos)

Back in May, ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan made an odd comment. In a Sunday Times interview, he claimed that Israel should use more restraint--and Khan used Great Britain's reaction to the Irish Republican Army as an example:

“There were attempts to kill Margaret Thatcher, Airey Neave was blown up, Lord Mountbatten was blown up, there was the Enniskillen attack, we had kneecappings … But the British didn’t decide to say, ‘Well, on the Falls Road [the heart of Catholic Belfast] there undoubtedly may be some IRA members and Republican sympathisers, so therefore let’s drop a 2,000lb bomb on the Falls Road.’ You can’t do that.

Claiming a similarity between Hamas and the IRA makes for an odd comparison. The IRA was not dedicated to the destruction of England and did not massacre thousands of English citizens or kidnap hundreds. According to ChatGPT, a Hamas-style massacre in Great Britain would result in 8,155 people murdered and 1,165 kidnapped. Did the IRA do anything comparable?

Just what does Khan think he is comparing here?

ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan. YouTube screencap

Stephen Pollard also finds Khan's comparison absurd. He points out that Hamas is not just a terrorist organization attacking Israel.

It is a terrorist organisation committed by its charter to the elimination not just of Israel but of all Jews – all Jews, everywhere on the planet. It is, literally, genocidal in its aims.

Furthermore, the government of Northern Ireland was run by Great Britain. The IRA was an independent entity launching attacks. Contrast that with Hamas, which does run Gaza--and takes full advantage of that fact to hide among the civilian population, fully aware of the casualties resulting from that policy.

Then there is the Good Friday Peace Agreement. It was possible because the IRA was willing to agree to a political solution to its issues, realizing that it could not achieve its goals through terror. Hamas is not looking for a political solution--it is looking for a military solution, the destruction of an existing country. Can Khan really not see that? His claim that Israel is discriminantly dropping bombs is another worrisome indication of his failure to understand what is going on.

Melanie Phillips sees Khan's equivalence of the IRA and Hamas as proof of his loss of moral compass. The IRA's goal was the reunification of Ireland, a goal which on its own was not objectionable. The IRA's means for reaching that goal defined it as a terrorist organization. Even then, it did not set out to murder all British people. The Hamas goal, on the other hand, is the destruction of the Jewish state.

In a key insight, Phillips notes that the very fact that Khan equates the IRA and Hamas reveals a serious flaw in the prosecutor's case:

To equate IRA terrorism with genocide shows that the ICC prosecutor doesn’t understand what genocide is.

Khan makes no distinction between Israelis deliberately massacred by Hamas terrorists and Gazan civilians killed inadvertently in a war to rescue hostages and defeat the terrorists who threaten to carry out more massacres. As she puts it:

Although Israel says it’s killed around 14,000 combatants — achieving a rate of civilian losses in Gaza vastly lower than achieved by any other country in time of war — Khan makes no distinction between civilians and combatants killed by Israel. Like Hamas, he doesn’t even mention the combatants Israel has killed. They’re all just “Palestinians”. [emphasis added]

Aside from the IRA comparison, there is the question of the prosecutor's advisory panel. According to Khan, "These are great lawyers I respect hugely who have stood up for principle throughout their life." Phillips is not as impressed:

But the panel contained several partisans for the Palestinian cause and vicious Israel-bashers. Khan says of one of them, the 94 year-old American-Israeli lawyer and judge Theodor Meron, that he can’t be antisemitic because he’s a Jew. But Meron has a history of virulent opposition to Israeli policies towards the Palestinians.

These questions of sloppiness in Khan's preparations for his case do not stop in May.

In November, Ynet News revealed that Khan had been using a pro-Palestinian law firm in connection with the case, raising questions regarding his impartiality:

ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan's engagement of Bindmans, a law firm linked to Palestinian advocacy, raises conflict of interest concerns, potentially undermining his impartiality in pursuing arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant

Bindmans represents several Palestinian organizations that have urged Khan to issue arrest warrants against senior Israeli figures. Notably, Tayab Ali, a partner at the firm, is the director of the "International Center of Justice for Palestinians," a London-based organization actively involved in international legal actions against Israel. Another partner, Alice Hardy, represents the Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq, headquartered in Ramallah.

These two Palestinian organizations, closely associated with Bindmans, have submitted multiple notices to the ICC regarding Palestinian issues.

As of yet, there has not been any update on any investigation into the possibility of a conflict of interest. But apart from issues of fact and of law that have been raised against the ICC's case of genocide brought against Israel, there are doubts about the very prosecution of the case itself.