Ever notice how the most vocal critics of Israel’s military strategy against Hamas tend to live quite comfortably in Western countries?
From students protesting at their expensive colleges, to celebrities opining about a complicated war they fail to fully grasp, many of those who decry Israel’s supposed “atrocities” have little of the background that would enable them to make any sort of intelligent or informed judgement.
And, much of the time, even those with that sort of background have still fallen lockstep into the increasing “evil Israel” rhetoric, including one woman who straddled the line between Hollywood and international law — human rights lawyer and wife of actor George Clooney, Amal Clooney.
As the Daily Wire reported, the news that the International Criminal Court had requested arrest warrants for war crimes against, not only Hamas, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has generated massive controversy.
Accusing Israeli soldiers of “war crimes and crimes against humanity committed on the territory of the State of Palestine (in the Gaza strip) from at least 8 October 2023,” ICC’s lead prosecutor Karim Khan, it was revealed, did not rely just on his own poor judgement in deciding this matter.
The New York Post reported, he assembled a huge panel of international legal experts, including Mrs. Clooney herself.
Announcing the news on the official website for the Clooney Foundation for Justice, Clooney said that she and the panel “unanimously determined that the Court has jurisdiction over crimes committed in Palestine and by Palestinian nationals.”
In addition to believing there were “reasonable grounds” to convict Hamas of war crimes, they also determined “there are reasonable grounds to believe that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity including starvation as a method of warfare, murder, persecution and extermination.”
Now, though the ICC and those they consulted might have believed they could issue warrants for both Hamas and Israel, the Daily Wire noted, those warrants would have no legal authority in either Israel or the United States.
Should this international warrant be ignored by Israel?
Moreover, neither Hamas nor Israel were happy with this decision, though Israel for much more justified reasons.
Per the U.K.’s Daily Mail, Hamas maintained its facade of righteousness by declaring they “strongly [denounce] the attempts of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to equate the victim with the executioner by issuing arrest warrants against a number of Palestinian resistance leaders.”
Many of Israel’s leaders likewise responded, with former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett taking to the social media platform X, calling the effort a “huge boost to global Jihadi terror” and saying that “An ICC that compares the executor of a deliberate murderous attack that included raping women and burning babies, with those who are defending themselves against it, is better off not existing.”
The prosecutor’s request is a moment of shame for the ICC and the world community.
It also provides a huge boost to global Jihadi terror.
An ICC that compares the executor of a deliberate murderous attack that included raping women and burning babies,
with those who are…— Naftali Bennett נפתלי בנט (@naftalibennett) May 20, 2024
Now, unlike many of the Hollywood elite with little wisdom, calling vociferously for the end to a conflict they never understood, Clooney does have an extensive background in law.
However, that she joined those same uneducated elites in denouncing Israel for the heinous crime of defending itself against a terrorist attack was rather revealing.
The idea that a free nation defending itself against a terrorist attack is morally equivalent to the same terrorist group is absurd (especially seeing as Israel has gone out of its way to minimize the possible civilian casualties).
Educated or not, Hollywood elites probably shouldn’t persist in condemning the actions of a nation on the defensive — especially when that nation is half a planet away, embroiled in a violent conflict with a terrorist group that explicitly wants to exterminate it.
How anyone could see the footage of the Oct. 7 attacks and conclude Israel and Hamas’ actions are morally equivalent is beyond comprehension.
But, according to the leftist elites, Israel is the “colonizer”; therefore, whatever they do is evil regardless of the reason, even if the “colonized” was the aggressor.
And, in accordance with that logic, Hollywood has spent an outsized amount of time and effort throwing its weight around to put Israelis and the Israeli government on blast for their ongoing war in Gaza.
Funny how most of those working against Israel have safe mansions in secure neighborhoods they can return home to, rather than enduring rocket fire or summary execution courtesy of Islamic radicals.
It’s almost as if they have no real understanding of the reasons for the Gaza war at all.
