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The ICC spying revelations show the Israeli government to be a lawless regime | Kenneth Roth

I was shocked to learn of the brazenness of Israel’s intimidation effort. It is to the credit of the ICC prosecutors that it has failed

I should not be surprised at the lawlessness of a government that bombs and starves Palestinian civilians in Gaza, but I was still shocked by the brazenness of Israel’s efforts to subvert the international criminal court’s investigation of its war crimes. As exposed by the Guardian along with Israeli media outlets +972 and Local Call, the Israeli government over the course of nine years “deployed its intelligence agencies to surveil, hack, pressure, smear and allegedly threaten senior ICC staff in an effort to derail the court’s inquiries”.

The effort was brazen. Mysterious men visited the former chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, outside her private home and handed her an envelope of cash, which the ICC believed “was likely [Israel] signalling to the prosecutor that it knew where she lived,” the Guardian has reported. They allegedly threatened her and her family, saying: “You should help us and let us take care of you. You don’t want to be getting into things that could compromise your security or that of your family.” They mounted an apparent sting operation against her husband and a “smear campaign” against her. They also extensively monitored her and her staff’s communications with Palestinians, according to this reporting.

Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch (1993-2022), is a visiting professor at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/o7qQxwz

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