You also called out crimes of aggression: most of what is listed as crimes of aggression amount to just war. You can probably debate about this with regards to the settlements, but don’t forget this current offensive doesn’t happen without Hamas attacking Israeli civilians on October 7th 2023. Israel was and is fully within their rights to prosecute a war against Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and even Iran for which all of these groups are proxies for until they achieve their war aims.

Another correction, the United States has never been party to the Rome Statute. We were part of the negotiations, we did sign but we ultimately decided against ratification therefore it never held the force of law and we withdrew our signature. From what I gathered, Israel is in the same boat, though I’m not clear what their ratification process looks like.

> However signatories are expected to respect the warrants should individuals travel to states that are signatories. Therefore it is not exceeding the bounds of its jurisdiction in issuing these warrants, otherwise one could simply withdraw, do a little war crime and rejoin, thereby creating a loophole. The whole point of the court is that it is international and looks at these crimes happening throughout the world, so its signatories play their part in encouraging them to not happen and prosecuting them when they do, when they can (i.e. when someone guilty of them travels to these nations).

The Court’s territorial jurisdiction is not “the world”, it is the territory and vessels of parties to the Rome Statute, nations which accept the ICC’s jurisdiction in a court filing, and others in situations that are referred to it by the United Nations Security Council. The personal jurisdiction is for all persons of nations over which the ICC has territorial jurisdiction, and likewise can be expanded with a referral of a situation by the UNSC.

The argument for prosecuting a non-party here is that well, Palestine is a party. It’s the stronger argument, but I think it should be insufficient, and it is the position of America and Israel that this is insufficient. In any case, the actual allegations are themselves insufficient in any situation where the ICC would have an interest in investigating and prosecuting if they don’t have the jurisdiction to do it.

> In that respect is it like interpol, where a nation can arrest someone who has committed a crime in a different country, if they flee to a country signed up to interpol, despite them not theoretically not having the juristdiction to do so (given the crime wasn't committed where the arrest was made).

Interpol is an outgrowth of bilateral extradition treaties, not a replacement for them. You still need the requisite extradition treaty in place, and if the crime alleged is not a crime for which they can be extradited per the relevant extradition treaty, then the arresting nation is under no obliteration to turn them over. In that sense, Interpol is more like an informational and cooperation forum between nations, whereas the ICC is an organization operationally separate and distinct from its members.

> Given Donald Trump's bizarre demand that the Europe re-arm itself (which imho is terribly short-sighted and might make US foreign policy more tricky in the future)

So, I’m not against re-arming Europe. From a menu of options that looks something like this:

1) Continuing to prop up Europe against Russian aggression regardless of their minimal defense spending.

2) Re-arming Europe but under continued American leadership.

3) Pushing Europe to re-arm and reconsider that whole American leadership bit.

4) Just pulling out of Europe entirely and ripping up NATO.

I favor number 2. I think even Trump favors number 2 but number 3 is what is actually happening. I would have been fine-ish but not happy about number 1 because there’s a real risk of the American public not being willing to defend say, the Baltics, against a Russian invasion regardless of what I think (I’m very pro keeping to our military commitments, even somewhat grudgingly if we must), and the risk of number 4 would have grown over time even in a world where Trump was never elected the first time, let alone the second, and actually getting to number 4 would be a worst of all worlds situation. I actually like Europe. I would like it to continue to be Europe, without getting obliterated again.

> as seen most recently with Netanyahu's trip to Poland

Did Netanyahu actually make the trek to Poland? I know he was went to Hungary, but Hungary has also decided to withdraw from the ICC. I heard reports he went to Greece, but haven’t actually seen that substantiated. I couldn’t find anything about a Polish visit earlier when I looked.

I only listed the four crimes the ICC deals with in terms of stating its directive, I wasn't asserting that Israel was necessarily guilty of all of them. In terms of things relevant to the current conflict in Gaza, war crimes and crimes against humanity are relatively easy to clear and genocide is a maybe because of the aid blockade. I entirely supported Israel's right to respond to the October the 7th attacks but we're so far past the point of the response being anywhere near proportionate and that we're so far in and Israel's objectives still have failed to have been met, demonstrates the issues with their approach. Its almost as if the cruelty is the point as opposed to the objectives of the supposed mission (especially now they're flinging rockets at Iran seemingly distracting themselves further from recovering the hostages).

There are other factors at play. Palestine is a signatory to the ICC and the crimes were committed in Gaza, also Israel themselves are failing to investigate these war crimes through their own legal system. These are apparently the arguments that give the ICC the confidence to issue these warrants. I mean what does it matter anyway? Netanyahu can just avoid travelling to signatory countries and he's fine.

The whole NATO thing remains short sighted, in the years to come, the USA will learn that some things are priceless. I imagine that GOP donor pressure to reduce the budget to maintain/enact tax cuts is the root source of these desires, which if true, is digustingly short-sighted. I LOVE the USA but the pre-2025 USA, that US hegemony policy from the 20th century promised peace and prosperity at an irksome but acceptable price. However I don't like it right now and if that nation continues to prop up erratic rulers like Donald Trump who enable warmongering rulers like Netanyahu instead of restraining them, then I will start to hate it and I am _far_ from alone on that. Combining that with encouraging Europe to re-arm is just lacking in imagination given that the USA will transition in such a future from the guaranteed winner to a potential loser. You didn't vote for this mess, did you?

Fair enough, even the bit about the Polish resolution is still good intel.

> You didn't vote for this mess, did you?

Oh hell nah. Doesn't matter though, Trump won every single step of the way.

> In terms of things relevant to the current conflict in Gaza, war crimes and crimes against humanity are relatively easy to clear and genocide is a maybe because of the aid blockade.

Even if granted up to but not including the claims of genocide, the question still remains over the ICC's jurisdiction, and the more that behave like Poland, Hungary and Germany, the more likely it is the ICC's claim in this specific conflict just becomes a dead letter regardless of Palestine having acceded to the Rome Statute.

> I entirely supported Israel's right to respond to the October the 7th attacks but we're so far past the point of the response being anywhere near proportionate and that we're so far in and Israel's objectives still have failed to have been met, demonstrates the issues with their approach. Its almost as if the cruelty is the point as opposed to the objectives of the supposed mission (especially now they're flinging rockets at Iran seemingly distracting themselves further from recovering the hostages).

I'm not going to claim to support every single action that the IDF has taken in this war, there's a lot that I don't, but as far this goes:

1) Flushing out and eliminating Hamas.

2) Flushing out and eliminating Hezbollah.

3) Suppressing and eliminating Iran's nuclear weapons development.

I'm pretty on board with that. Israel will never have peace with Hamas as long as Hamas continues to exist for the purpose of eliminating Israel. Israel will never have peace and Lebanon will never be able to fully exercise its own sovereignty over southern Lebanon as long as Hezbollah pursues to exist as a militaristic entity separate from the Lebanon Armed Forces and seeks the elimination of Israel. Israel will never have peace with an Iran that continues to seek its destruction and support proxies in the region that exist for the sole purpose of attacking with the goal of eliminating Israel.

It's pretty difficult for me to argue that the Israeli response has been disproportionate, especially as Hamas infamously uses Palestinians as a resource to be expended as meat shields. Far far fewer Palestinian civilians could have died in this war if Hamas gave a damn about them.

> The whole NATO thing remains short sighted, in the years to come, the USA will learn that some things are priceless.

Yep! Unfortunately it was never going to last, and that's why out of the menu of options I outlined above, I was very much in the #2 camp. #1 has more advantages to America if we can sustain the political will to maintain it but the truth is that the further we get from World War II and the Cold War, the fewer Americans believe that it is worth the full cost to be responsible for the bulk of Europe's defense. You can't really fight that kind of generational sentiment shift, just try to manage it and advocate for a more acceptable middle solution.

tbh, I'm not entirely seeing it. The public mostly prefer local issues and can be quite fickle when it comes to priorities and are often easily influenced. IMHO the low tax lobby are just looking for a scapegoat to justify tax cuts and undermining US geo-political goals is puzzlingly the attack vector to maintain it, which is the biggest break from the old GOP. If I were a betting man, I reckon the moment the US finds the money to start to put a dent in the deficit, will be the moment tax breaks get back on the agenda and the defecit will end up untouched.

The point is kinda moot anyway now since US tax dollars are being spent bombing Iran which is specifically what we were all told _wasn't_ going to happen with this new strategy, so idk anymore. But this administration is like that, fickle, deceitful, reactionary, eccentric.

> I'm pretty on board with that.

I mean I hate Hamas as much as I hate Otzma Yehudit. They're both fascist, genocidal freaks who want the eradication of the other and I'd prefer a world without either. So Otzma Yehudit propping up this current Israeli coallition makes me struggle to pick a side here. I can support the eradication of Hamas, but at the same time I doubt the current strategy is going to be effective in doing that, given that the current campaign is creating another generation of scarred Palestinians who will rightly hold an emotional grudge against the state of Israel. I wouldn't mind if their strategy was swift and effective like the highly successful Hezbollah dismantling, but I can't help but think this is all strung out intentionally to keep Israel in a state of war so Netanyahu remains outside of a jail cell. Yoav Gallent himself stated that continuing the war in Gaza seemed kinda pointless given he felt that Israel's military objectives had been met and got fired for having that perspective. I'm starting to feel the cruelty is the point, especially since Ben Gvir is kingmaker. I can support Israel's right to exist and defend itself, but I can't support a fascist genocidal freak like Ben Gvir, that man is a monster.

I think the strategy on Iran has been an incredible failure, from rescinding a diplomatic agreement in the first Trump adminstration to the bombing today. Taken as a whole its a massive fumble, especially given how weak the Iranian administration has been looking recently and how its not very popular among the Iranian people. Given that US intelligence appeared to suggest that Iran isn't close to building a nuke and Trump has somehow forced Gabbard into a 180 on the subject, it feels like we're back in 2003 hyping up a WMD fear that we'll find out later isn't the case.

2025 has just been a big advert for nuclear proliferation, given that these strikes would never have happened if Iran had a nuke, that Ukraine would never have been invaded if it didn't give up its nukes, with a reluctant ally in the US trying to force a peace on Ukraine with a loss of territory earlier on this year.

> Oh hell nah. Doesn't matter though, Trump won every single step of the way.

Good to hear, I was starting to wonder. Tbf, the final vote count was a lot closer than in the moment his victory was declared. He clearly won but was as puzzlingly close as the last time he won, I guess I should be thankful that I'm insultated from the sort of American that votes for him because he doesn't at all look like the sort of person that the Americans I know and love could ever vote for.