The authorities in Türkiye have hit their stride regarding international humanitarian law, a subject they are not always consistent about. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the defence minister Israel Katz, and others are facing arrest warrants for genocide from the Istanbul Criminal Court of Peace. This is plucky, assertive, and undoubtedly, from the perspective of the Erdoğan government, stealing publicity. It also brings up that hoary old chestnut of parochial interest and the merits of the accuser.
A November 7 statement from the Istanbul chief public prosecutor’s office said that as many as 37 suspects were on the list, though not all were named. We know that it includes, in addition to Netanyahu and Katz, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, the IDF Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, and Navy Commander David Saar Salama. They are charged under Article 77 (crimes against humanity) and Article 76 (genocide) of the Turkish Penal Code.
Reference is made to the March 21 bombing of the Turkish Palestinian Friendship Hospital, the October 17, 2023, attack on the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, the deliberate destruction of medical equipment by Israeli soldiers, and the blockading of Gaza and the denial of humanitarian aid to the enclave. The October attack on the humanitarian Global Sumud Flotilla in international waters, and the seizure by Israeli forces of crew members, is also mentioned.
This enterprise is not without problems. Türkiye is not particularly amenable to punishing genocide within the context of its own, strictly invigilated history. Such nationalistic, convenient laxity brings to mind George Orwell’s formidable argument made in the October 22, 1943 issue of The Tribune. Reviewing a work outlining the case for trying the Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini for war crimes, Orwell trawls through the record of hypocrisy among British figures who saw much merit in the skull-cracking antics of Italy’s fascist leader, at least when things seemed rather rosy. He points out the hobbling problems of those making such accusations, given that a trial for Mussolini might well be justified alongside those of the then-current Prime Minister Winston Churchill, or former Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, and even the Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek. When seeking to place leaders of a country in the dock, be careful what you wish for.
To this day, it is forbidden to describe the sadistic and opportunistic killing of Armenians within the proto-Turkish state that arose from the stricken body of the Ottoman Empire as genocidal. Power, as always, smudges the record.
Given that Turkish prosecutors are not coming to the table with sprightly, clean hands, any such move will cause not merely discomfort among human rights advocates but stabbing derision from political critics. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar was quick to take up the challenge, observing that “in Erdogan’s Turkey, the judiciary has long since become a tool for silencing political rivals and detaining journalists, judges and mayors.” This is not a charge Erdoğan can be easily acquitted of, given his successful efforts to bring the entire judiciary under the control of the executive branch. Independent judges and prosecutors have been imprisoned. Sympathetic Islamists and nationalists have swelled the ranks.
In the United States, guffawing pundits can be found aplenty, poking fun at Türkiye’s charges as “nonsense”. This remains stock practice in an imperium that adulates international law even while battering it, suggesting an often-schizophrenic approach. Michael Rubin, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, offers a case in point. Striking in his criticism of the Turkish effort, Rubin is worried about the implications of targeting democratically elected leaders for how they mistreat their own subjects. What of, say, violent acts and misdemeanours committed against India’s Muslim minorities? It becomes clear that Rubin assumes that leaders of democratic societies are above suspicion when it comes to human rights violations, while Islamic states are opportunistic and villainous. “The Indian government,” he broods, “should not ignore the outrage, for what Erdoğan targets Israel with today, he will apply to India tomorrow.”
Were Erdoğan successful in getting any Israeli into court, it would “only be a matter of time until he and his Pakistani, Qatari, and Malaysian allies try to do the same with democratically elected Indian leaders like Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and senior Indian diplomats and military officers as part of a similar ‘lawfare’ campaign to pursue their Kashmir and Khalistan ambitions.” (Notice the lazy bracketing of all these states.)
This is not to say that charges of genocide won’t fly. The International Court of Justice in The Hague is currently tasked with assessing Israel’s conduct in Gaza, alleged by South Africa’s submission to be genocidal in nature. While the judges have yet to reach a decision on the genocide question, they have made several provisional orders cautioning Israel to abide by the UN Genocide Convention. The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory was somewhat bolder, asserting in its September 16 report that four of the five elements of genocide outlined in the Convention had been met by Israel’s ruthless waging of war in the Strip. Innumerable civil society and human rights organisations, including the Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem, have made similar findings.
Governments the world over often misuse international law as a pretext to attack their enemies. This effort by the Turkish court system might be seen as another play in the politicisation of human rights. But States and their legal organs can also exercise universal jurisdiction in punishing the most abhorrent of crimes – crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide, and torture. The other option, one stubbornly resisted by Israel, the United States, and Türkiye, is becoming a party to the Rome Statute and the International Criminal Court. In refusing to become parties to the statute, all three are, at least on that score, in violent agreement.
The post Parochialism, Justice and International Law: Türkiye’s Genocide Warrants for Israel first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
