Impunity shifted global perceptions of Israel

Last weekend’s Israeli strikes on Iranian ballistic missile production and fuel sites have demonstrated that two Western powers have provided Israel with 90 per cent protection from retaliation from foes and granted Israel nearly unrestricted offensive capacity.

While possessing a large-scale arms industry which is partially funded by exports and foreign aid grants, Israel also imports warplanes, bunker-buster bombs, armoured vehicles, flak jackets, spare parts and munitions from the US.

It accounts for 69 per cent of Israel’s external materiel.

Germany, which has supplied 39 per cent of arms exports to Israel, including components for its Merkava tanks, has slowed down deliveries since March this year due to the Gaza war while the US has stepped up the flow.

US material, political, economic and moral backing for Israel in its devastating war on Gaza and Lebanon and repression of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem has given Israel impunity and enabled Israel to wage a yearlong military campaign on several fronts. This is a very dangerous development.

Impunity is so widespread and risky that it was adopted by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres when he addressed the opening of the General Assembly in September.

He argued, “We are in a purgatory of polarity” and said that increasing numbers if countries believe they can breach international law, ignore the UN Charter, and devastate entire communities.

He held that the rising level of impunity “is politically indefensible and morally intolerable” as many governments and actors believe they “get out of jail free card.” He continued, ““We see this age of impunity everywhere — in the Middle East, in the heart of Europe, in the Horn of Africa.”

Focusing on this region, he stated, “The speed and scale of the killing and destruction in Gaza are unlike anything in my years as Secretary-General.”

He warned that the world cannot tolerate the possibility that Lebanon will be turned into another Gaza.

Israel has almost always enjoyed impunity while waging wars it has claimed were in self-defence, but over the past year Israel has committed multiple war crimes and crimes against humanity by killing 43,000 Gazans, burying 11,000 beneath the rubble of their homes, turning Gaza into a wasteland, repressing Palestinians in the West Bank and attacking Lebanon.

Israel argues that the country destabilising the region is Iran and claims Israel is targeting Iranian allies — Hamas, Daesh and Hizbullah — while wreaking havoc in Palestine and Lebanon.

Israel has been accorded a maximum level of impunity by US President Joe Biden who has consistently failed to use the leverage he possesses to curtail Israel’s excesses and end its war on Gaza.

Biden could have curtailed Israel’s worst actions if he had withheld weapons Israel has used to wage war and insisted last November or December on a long-term ceasefire.

It would have finished the Gaza war and Hizbollah’s efforts to exert pressure on Israel by opening a front on its northern border.

Biden waited until May 31 to lay claim to the existing ceasefire plan but did nothing to compel Israel to agree and implement it. 

As a result, the war goes on and the Democratic party candidate who replaces him, Vice President Kamala Harris, has been assailed by members of her party over the administration’s refusal to put the brakes on Israel.

Arab and Muslim voters in the swing state of Michigan have been reluctant to vote for Harris and have encouraged others to question her ability to deal fairly with Arab and Palestinian concerns.

Since next week’s US presidential election is on a knife edge, Biden’s decision to grant Israel total impunity might well give even more dangerous Donald Trump a second term.

Harris’ partnership with Biden could cost her the job.

Impunity has undermined Israel’s standing in the world and Israel’s legitimacy.

If Israel had been compelled to abide by the laws of war, the Fourth Geneva Convention, and humanitarian conventions, Israel would not have been condemned on the international scene.

Israel has been charged with the crime of genocide at the International Court of Justice and Israeli leaders would not have been faced with the possibility of arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court.

Israel’s war on Gaza has exceeded all limits and has changed the image of Israel, which always portrayed itself as a victim.

Israel is now recognised as an aggressor, vicious oppressor and victimiser.

Impunity has gone to the head of Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu who is using warfare to postpone reckoning for his failure to predict and thwart Hamas’ October 7 attack on southern Israel.

Netanyahu has also claimed the need to devote full attention to Israel’s war to delay his testimony at his ongoing trial for bribery, fraud and breach of trust.

War accords him temporary impunity while he tries to figure out how he can escape reckoning for October 7th and jail.