At a recent convening at The Hague, state representatives to the ICC agonized over the disastrous implications for the international rules-based order should Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant evade accountability for war crimes in Gaza. 

Over 50 nations presented testimony to the ICJ on the legality of the Israeli occupation, with the majority offering stirring arguments for Israeli accountability and justice for the Palestinians. An Advisory Opinion is expected sometime this summer.

More than 1000 academics, artists and intellectuals have signed a “Declaration on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid in Historic Palestine.” There used to be a mainstream prohibition on the word apartheid. In 2021, that logjam has broken. The world’s civil societies have had enough. Across countries and continents, across age groups and ethnicities, the marches, the manifestos, the opeds, the motions passed overwhelmingly have swelled into a torrent.

Dan Shapiro, Obama’s former ambassador to Israel, continues to serve as a mouthpiece for the Israeli government with this laughable claim: “Israel… has a long record of conducting investigations of actions of its own military… it’s quite professional.”

A day after begin rebuffed by the UN Security Council on a bid to end the occupation, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas has surprised the world by signing the Rome Statute, to be able to bring charges against Israel to the International Criminal Court. The US and Netanyahu seethe.