(Ottawa) A group of prominent former politicians and academics is calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to change his tone on the possibility of arrest warrants against senior Israeli leaders.
Former Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy and former Attorney General Allan Rock are among 375 signatories challenging Mr. Trudeau’s advice suggesting the International Criminal Court (ICC) committed a false equivalence in seeking charges against the leaders of Hamas and Israel.
“To assert that there is something wrong with holding Israeli officials to the same standards of international criminal justice as Hamas officials is to promote a double standard and suggest that the rights of Palestinians matter less than those of Israelis.” , we can read in the letter.
This is a racist, dehumanizing and discriminatory approach to international justice that Canada cannot in any way endorse.
Excerpt from the letter
The ICC’s chief prosecutor last week requested arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister, as well as three senior Hamas leaders.
Mr. Trudeau did not comment on the request itself, but instead expressed concerns about what he called “a suggestion of equivalence between the elected leadership of a democratic country, such as Israel, and the leaders of the deadly terrorist group Hamas.
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland and Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly made similar comments, which the letter said undermined a motion passed by the Liberals in March that included a commitment to support the work of the ICC.
Mme Joly recently avoided saying whether Canada would arrest Israeli officials if they found themselves subject to an international arrest warrant and visited Canada. She said this was a theoretical situation, while pointing out that senior Hamas leaders are already barred from the country, in part because the group is on Canada’s list of terrorist entities.
“Strong support is vital,” say the signatories
Wednesday’s letter calls on Mr. Trudeau to issue a statement of “unwavering” support for the court, including pledging to cooperate with any requests, including arrests, and condemning threats of personal sanctions against staff of the court.
The letter includes eleven former Canadian ambassadors, as well as numerous lawyers and activists. One of the signatories, Mark Kersten, a criminology professor at the University of the Fraser Valley and a global expert on the ICC, noted that the court had brought different charges against Hamas and Israeli leaders.
The letter notes that the court examines charges based on alleged violations of international law, instead of comparing the actions of the warring parties.
“Strong support is vital at this time as the Prosecutor, ICC staff and the ICC as an institution face considerable political pressure, unfounded and inflammatory criticism (and) attacks on the “independence of the Court,” the letter reads.
This is clearly not the time for champions of international justice to hesitate or be ambiguous.
Excerpt from the letter
The charges stem from the war between Israel and Hamas, which began when the militant group killed 1,200 people in an attack in Israel last October that the ICC prosecutor said included rape and torture as crimes against humanity.
In response to the Hamas attack, Israel bombed the Gaza Strip, claiming it was trying to defeat Hamas. The group, which Canada considers a terrorist organization, runs the territory’s health ministry, which says 36,000 people have since been killed, including fighters.
The ICC prosecutor says Israel starved civilians as a method of war and intentionally directed attacks against civilians, which constitute war crimes.