Biden’s Ceasefire in Lebanon, and the ICC’s indictment of Netanyahu and Gallant, shows that the West’s bombs and Israel’s Savagery can only go so far.
Biden’s Belated Ceasefire
It has dawned on the West that southern Lebanon will remain as such, and will not become Northern Israel as some Zionists had projected. Also, the US and Europeans will not militarily deliver the new Middle East that Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu has proposed in the UN General Assembly Meetings of 2023 and 2024. In addition, the global south does not fear or revere the US, Europe, and Israel as a result of their Genocide in Gaza, in line with how Netanyahu argued that America’s invading a country makes others to fall in line with it. Instead, developing countries have continued to vote against Israeli war at the UN, and some have taken legal actions against the jewfish state.
Amidst this total failure by the West and Israel, these parties are shifting to political means using a twisted adaptation of the saying ‘if you cannot beat them, join them’ by appearing to lead the rest of the world to bringing ceasefire and indicting Israeli leadership through the ICC. The West may have allowed the ICC to indict Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yaov Gallant primarily to shift the responsibility of the genocide in Gaza from themselves and Israel to the two individuals. Also, the US and Europe are trying to launder Israel’s image by creating an illusion that it is still below the international law, hoping to strengthen it for diplomatic and political settlements. However, the result of this transition will suffer from Israel’s long history of disregarding the international law, which will not be forgotten as easily as the west believes.
Reining in Netanyahu, but why now?
Biden’s administration had repeatedly feigned powerlessness over Netanyahu, while empowering him to conduct savage massacres in Gaza, and Lebanon over the past year. However, this position was deceitful, but successfully concealed the West’s interest in the Middle East’s war. The US and Europe have been giving Israel all the weapons it wanted, making them key drivers of this war of their imperial interests. Even Netanyahu, in a press address on 26th November 2024 revealed that the ceasefire was forced on Israel, adding that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) lacked shells, which reinforces the view that the Americans have been moving this war. Their efforts to appear as if stopping hostilities now is not out of altruism or respect for international law, since they have already enabled genocide in Gaza.
The West enabled Israel to kill over 250 Gazans per day, the highest rate in the 21st century, hoping they could achieve their imperial goal of ethnically cleansing Gaza and southern Lebanon. It continued backfilling the IDF’s weapons despite the ICJ ruling that Israel was engaging in Genocide. By July 2024, Israel and its backers had killed over 40000 Palestinians, while rejecting efforts to be held to account. Before, in April 2024, the US department of State revealed its stand that the ICC lacked Jurisdiction over Israel, but the court was helping Washington in Ukraine and Darfur, suggesting that it was an unofficial branch of Washington, a view reinforced by how it has never indicted George W. Bush or Tony Blair for invading Iraq under false pretext, conducting massacres, and torture.
The US and Europe could have ‘forced’ Israeli-Lebanese ceasefire earlier, and the fact that they are doing it now shows a fundamental shift in key factors. Drastic changes must have occurred between April and November 2024, which made the same ICC that works for Washington to indict Netanyahu and Gallant, for overseeing the Gazan Genocide. Gallant is a self-confessed war criminal, who referred to Gazans as human animals and announced how his country would disconnect them from water, electricity, and supplies, war crimes that have since been implemented. Also, the IDF announced that attacks on Gaza would focus on destruction, and not precision, which explains why over two thirds of those killed in Gaza are women, and children.
The West’s shift to a ceasefire has resulted from diminishing returns on its savage escalation since October 2023. The IDF’s multiple rounds of bombing hospitals, mosques, refugee camps, and family houses have failed to move all Gazans towards the border with Egypt’s Sinai, in what Israelis would call ‘voluntary relocation’. Notably, the IDF’s escalations, for instance in Raffah were designed to break the victims’ spirit, and force them to wade into the Mediterranean towards Biden’s floating pier which was installed over this period, a plot that also failed. Later, Israel’s bombing of Lebanon and eliminating Hezbollah’s leadership also failed to force the resistance to leave the coveted southern Lebanon for Zionists settlers. Due to these cumulative failures, Biden, while announcing the ceasefire on the 26th November 2024, changed his tone and described how Gazans deserve to live without displacement, marking a shift from a past when he blamed Israel’s atrocities on Hamas. This shift results from American’s realizing that violence will not defeat Gazans, and Lebanese. Also, Europe must have realized that another round of atrocities will not bring their proxy closer to strategic victory, while, the world’s majority is irked by Israel’s systematic violence against Palestinians for the last 70 years. Therefore, Europe’s allowing the ICC to indict Netanyahu may be geared towards restoring the world’s majority’s trust in the ICC and other bodies, which can politically support Israel now that military means have failed.
Shifting to Political Means
Israel has continuously missed its strategic goals despite having a limitless supply of American and European weapons, and targeting data. Meanwhile, armed groups in Gaza and Lebanon, remain capable of inflicting significant cost to IDF and have Stoic support from their populations. Gazans, Lebanese, Syrians, and Yemenis retain a strong will to exist, and live in dignity despite the American’s and European’s military savagery meted on the region through Israel. The West’s violence has also failed to intimidate the global south, but has instead exposed its hypocrisy and cruelty, eroding its credibility among the global majority.
Therefore, countries from the global south have consistently voted for ceasefire and distanced themselves from Israeli brutality, while others have taken legal action against the Jewish state. Therefore, the US and Europe have shifted to calling a ceasefire in Lebanon, promoting one in Gaza, and allowing the ICC to indict Israeli leadership to deceive the global majority that Israel too is bound by international law. They aim to launder Israel’s genocidal image to earn the arrogant state some international support after accepting that Israel may lose militarily in the near future and will need a favorable view from the global majority.
Simon Chege Ndiritu, is a political observer and research analyst from Africa
