Democracy Now! spoke with Kenneth Roth, international affairs scholar and former head of Human Rights Watch, about revelations that Israel waged a nearly decadelong campaign to intimidate the International Criminal Court in order to stop possible war crimes prosecutions of Israeli officials.
A joint investigation by The Guardian and the Israeli +972 Magazine revealed that Israel surveilled, hacked, smeared and threatened top ICC officials, including chief prosecutor Karim Khan and his predecessor, Fatou Bensouda.
The former head of the Mossad, Yossi Cohen, is said to have personally threatened Bensouda. The revelations come just a week after Khan announced he is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and three top leaders of Hamas.
"This is a crime," Roth says of the Israeli campaign against the ICC. He says the revelations also undermine U.S. claims that Israel can hold itself accountable. "There is no good-faith Israeli investigation. There is a concerted, high-level effort to undermine justice to protect Netanyahu, Gallant and others from war crime charges."
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