Quite a statement by the International Criminal Court, asking that they stop being "intimidated" and "threatened" (no brownie point for guessing by whom...) We can only imagine the pressure they must be under... And those threats are real: remember that the US has a law colloquially known as the "Hague Invasion Act", that authorizes the president of the U.S. "to use all means necessary to bring about the release of any person described in subsection (b) who is being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court" (en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amer…). And a reminder that starting in 2019 the US DID implemented sanctions and travel restrictions against ICC employees engaged in investigating potential allied war crimes in Afghanistan. As part of this the ICC's Chief Prosecutor at the time, Fatou Bensouda, and the Head of the Jurisdiction, Complementarity, and Cooperation Division, Phakiso Mochochoko, were both subjected to asset freezes and travel bans!

This is a must-read interview of Ami Ayalon, former head of the Shin Bet (Israel's secret service), one of the rare senior Israeli officials advocating for a 2-state solution: theguardian.com/world/2024/j… Here is what he says: “We Israelis will have security only when they, Palestinians, will have hope. This is the equation. To say the same in military language: you cannot deter anyone, a person or a group, if he believes he has nothing to lose.” He says Israelis do not accept the concept of a Palestinian identity: “We see them as people, not ‘a people’, a nation. We cannot accept [the idea of a Palestinian people] because if we do, it creates a huge obstacle in the concept of the state of Israel.” But to him this mindset and the resulting occupation only brings violence: "we shall suffer violence because of the occupation. Occupation will not bring us security, it brought us violence and death." He believes Israel should release Marwan Barghouti, a Palestinian who has been jailed since 2002, serving a life sentence for murder after leading the second intifada: “Look into the Palestinian polls. He is the only leader who can lead Palestinians to a state alongside Israel. First of all because he believes in the concept of two states, and secondly because he won his legitimacy by sitting in our jails.” He says support for Barghouti reflects the fact that current Palestinian backing for Hamas is rooted not in enthusiasm for their ideology per se, but the sense they are the only faction fighting effectively for a Palestinian state. Adding that the non-violence embraced in recent years by the rival Fatah faction (the "Palestinian authority" leading the West Bank) has been discredited by their failure to achieve a Palestinian state, which he characterizes as dangerous to both Israelis and Palestinians. He says the alternative - led of course by Benjamin Netanyahu and supported by the majority of the Israeli public - is "hatred": “Every time when I say hatred is not a plan, it is not a policy, people are very upset”. He says there's no military solution here and that the fighting actually makes things worse: "You cannot destroy ideology by the use of military power. Sometimes it will be rooted deeper if you try. This is exactly what we see today. Today, 75% of Palestinians support Hamas. Before the war, it was less than 50%." To me, he's one of the rare sane voices in Israel among (former) senior officials. At the ICJ the Israelis try to argue that the genocidal types are fringe elements of Israeli politics but I'm afraid that advocates for peace like Ayalon are the actual fringe 😓