France's U-turn on Netanyahu's ICC immunity criticized as a 'lie' and 'double standard'

Lawyers, rights groups and politicians accuse Paris of misrepresenting the Rome Statute after its volte-face on obligation to arrest and surrender Israel's PM to the ICC

By Elodie Farge

Published date: 28 November 2024 

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/complicity-genocide-frances-statements-netanyahus-alleged-immunity-spark-strong-criticism

France's claim that Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could benefit from immunity from international arrest after a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) has drawn strong criticism from prominent human rights organisations, lawyers and political leaders.

Asked on French radio about the possibility of an arrest in France of the Israeli prime minister, Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Noel Barrot mentioned possible “questions of immunity” for “certain leaders” provided for by the Rome Statute, which created the ICC.

“It is ultimately up to the judicial authority to decide,” Barrot said.

In a statement published later on Wednesday, the foreign affairs ministry stated that France would respect its international obligations and fully cooperate with the ICC, but it added that the Rome Statute governing the ICC provided that a state cannot be required to act "in a manner incompatible with its obligations under international law with regard to the immunities of states not party to the ICC”.

Israel is not a signatory to the ICC and has claimed that it cannot be held to account under the Rome Statute.

The Quai d’Orsay added that “such immunities apply to Prime Minister Netanyahu and the other ministers concerned and will have to be taken into consideration if the ICC were to ask us for their arrest and surrender.”

"In accordance with the historic friendship that binds France to Israel, two democracies committed to the rule of law and respect for professional and independent justice, France intends to continue to work closely with Prime Minister Netanyahu and other Israeli authorities to achieve peace and security for all in the Middle East," the ministry added.

The statement represented a volte-face from the initial French reaction to the ICC's decision last week to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023.

Last Thursday, France emphasised its commitment to the court's rulings. According to the Rome Statute, all 124 state parties, including all EU members, are now under a legal obligation to arrest the pair and surrender them to the court.

While it can be argued that Netanyahu as a serving prime minister is entitled to immunity before national courts, the rules under international courts are unequivocal in rejecting immunity for individuals under their jurisdiction, experts told Middle East Eye last week. 

‘Harmful double standard’

It is the first time a member of the ICC has argued that Netanyahu is covered by immunity as a sitting head of government because Israel is not a member of the ICC.

France has never publicly raised the issue of immunity for Russian President Vladimir Putin and former Sudanese head of state Omar al-Bashir - who have been issued arrest warrants by the ICC for, respectively, the war crime of deporting Ukrainian children and crimes against humanity in Darfur - although these countries are not ICC states parties.

For specialists, the French position does not hold up.

“The heads of states do not enjoy immunity before the ICC, period, irrespective of whether they belong to state parties or also to non-party states,” international law professor at Leiden University, Giulia Pinzauti, told MEE last week.

Amnesty International secretary general Agnes Callamard declared on X that France's statement “runs counter to France's fundamental obligations as a member state of the ICC”.

“A cornerstone principle of the ICC Statute is that no one is above the law, including heads of state sought for arrest, such as Vladimir Putin or Benjamin Netanyahu. This has been confirmed in a decision by the Court's Appeals Chamber in jurisprudence which is binding on all member states,” she explained.

“France's position is deeply problematic. Rather than inferring that those indicted by the ICC may enjoy immunity, France should expressly confirm its acceptance of the unequivocal legal duty under the Rome Statute to carry out arrest warrants, and affirm that all persons subject to ICC arrest warrants will be arrested and surrendered to the Court if they find themselves in France's jurisdiction,” Callamard stressed.

For the France director of Human Rights Watch (HRW), Benedicte Jeannerod, the French position is "shocking".

“Has French diplomacy misread Article 27 of the Rome Statute, which clearly states that there is no immunity for the most serious crimes under the ICC?” she asked on X.

“They apparently read it differently regarding Putin. Harmful double standard," she added.

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) also called the move a "complete disgrace”.

"The arrest warrants of the ICC are non-negotiable,” FIDH wrote in a statement, adding that the French position "dangerously undermines” international law “at a time when it is urgently needed”.

“Such remarks are unacceptable and fall short of the rigour and competence expected of French diplomacy,” said the Human Rights League (LDH), FIDH’s member organisation in France.

“There was no question of immunity for Mr Putin: this double standard is damaging to France’s reputation, particularly in relation to the countries of the South."

French lawyer and political activist Juan Branco explained on X that immunities relating to heads of non-member states mentioned in Article 98 of the Rome Treaty “are not applicable in our country”. 

“There is, today, in French law and according to its own judges, no incompatibility between our international obligations and the execution of the arrest warrant targeting Mr Netanyahu,” he wrote.

“It is inconceivable that the Legal Affairs Department of the Quai, among the most renowned in the world, did not warn the minister that the Paris Court of Appeal had, on 26 June 2024, ruled that the personal and functional immunities of heads of state and government were irrelevant concerning the commission of crimes punishable by customary international law, including obviously all those covered by the Rome Statute.”

Last June, the Paris Court of Appeal validated an arrest warrant for Bashar al-Assad, accused by French investigating judges of complicity in crimes against humanity for the deadly chemical attacks of August 2013 attributed to the Syrian president. The decision decisively changed the French case law on the immunity of sitting heads of state, recognising for the first time that the personal immunity of a sitting head of state is not absolute.

The ‘deal’ behind the deal

According to Branco, the statement by the Quai d'Orsay "is clearly the result of maximum political pressure."

On Wednesday, Israeli media Haaretz and Maariv suggested that France’s statement on Netanyahu’s possible immunity had been linked to negotiations with Israel to accept a ceasefire in Lebanon.

Macron has been deeply involved in ending the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in recent months. At the end of September, Paris and Washington proposed a 21-day ceasefire plan at the United Nations which was publicly dismissed by Netanyahu.

An Israeli source told Haaretz that the French government, according to the prime minister's circle, agreed to publish this statement only in light of an Israeli ultimatum and a threat to otherwise leave France out of the ceasefire negotiations process and mechanism.

While cautioning about the veracity of this “spin”, as it called it, the Hebrew newspaper added that “a likelier explanation is that France offered this as a sweetener, knowing that Netanyahu often places his personal interests above those of the state.”

According to the US news site Axios, US President Joe Biden called Macron on Friday to tell him of Netanyahu's anger after hearing the first reaction of the Quai d'Orsay to apply the ICC decision. Macron then reportedly spoke with Netanyahu.

"France agreed to take steps to improve its relations with Israel, and Israel agreed that France would play a role in implementing the [ceasefire] agreement," a US official told Axios on Monday.

Statement denounced as 'shameful'

In France, several political figures, mainly on the left, have strongly criticised the Foreign Affairs Ministry's announcement and the possibility of a behind-the-scene agreement with Israel to boost Paris’ stance on the international diplomatic scene.

The leader of the Ecologists party, Marine Tondelier, called the ministry’s statement “shameful”.

“France once again bows to Benjamin Netanyahu's demands by choosing him over international justice. Surely this was the ‘deal’ so that France would be cited in the official communique announcing the ceasefire in Lebanon published jointly by France and the United States yesterday,” she wrote on X.

Tondelier denounced “a historic error, a very, very serious one”.

“We are taking down international justice and the multilateral system that we have patiently built for decades. But also, quite simply, what is left of our international credibility. It is tragic,” she added.

Manuel Bompard, coordinator of left-wing party France Unbowed (LFI), adopted a play on words after sharing a news piece titling that “Netanyahu enjoys ‘immunity’, according to French diplomacy”.

"Isn't it rather 'impunity'?" he asked on X.

“The government's complicity in the genocide of the Palestinians is total,” tweeted LFI MP Louis Boyard.

Those who claim China is waging ‘supply chain warfare’ have got wrong playbook: Global Times editorial

By Global Times Published: Nov 29, 2024

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202411/1324008.shtml

A recent article in The New York Times accused China of waging so-called supply chain warfare by sanctioning the American drone company Skydio. The article also mentioned a Global Times editorial titled "US company sanctioned by China 'cries out in pain,' tearing off American façade," but it failed to acknowledge that Skydio was sanctioned by China due to its involvement in US arms sales to Taiwan island. Inventing new terms to exert the discourse hegemony and label other countries, including China, is a typical tactic employed by some US media and think tanks. 

Currently, the second China International Supply Chain Expo (CISCE) is being held in Beijing, attracting over 620 companies, institutions, and international organizations, a 20 percent increase from the inaugural expo. One notable feature of this year's expo is the joint exhibition booths set up by Chinese and foreign companies. 

For example, Apple and its Chinese suppliers are exhibiting together; German company Bosch, Chinese electric vehicle maker Xpeng, global mining and materials company Rio Tinto, and China Baowu Steel Group are showcasing their collaboration in an industrial chain partnership; and New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra is displaying its green agriculture supply chain alongside Chinese partners. Clearly, these companies want cooperation. None of them would agree with The New York Times' claim that China is waging "supply chain warfare."

The supply chain emerged alongside global industrial division and cooperation, serving as a "win-win chain" that benefits all countries. The successful hosting of the CISCE is a strong testament to this. Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, who appeared at this year's CISCE, praised the event, saying "I think it's a very great expo, a tour de force of innovation." 

In fact, since the 1990s, economic globalization has developed rapidly, significantly reducing the costs of multinational collaboration. Many companies have enhanced the quantity and quality of supply chains through the global division of labor, outsourcing, and cooperation, maximizing the comparative advantages of various countries while also increasing employment and enhancing people's well-being.

However, a few countries, such as the US, have initiated "supply chain warfare," transforming the "win-win chain" into a "blockade chain" and a "confrontation chain." This has caused disruptions and damage to the originally smooth-running global supply chain. These countries narrowly view trade deficits as "losses," forcibly swaying public opinion, and attempting to reverse so-called "unfair trade" through imposing additional tariffs. The ultimate result is that domestic consumers pay higher price. 

A few countries feel uneasy and anxious about China's rising status in the global supply chain, which has led them to strengthen control over key technologies, critical resources, and essential links. They artificially politicize and weaponize the supply chain, promoting "decoupling," building "small yard, high fences," and abandoning international cooperation based on the resource endowments and comparative advantages of various countries. They enforce the "de-sinicization" of multinational companies' supply chains and reduce their own dependence on Chinese products. As a result, the institutional costs of supply chain cooperation are continuously increasing, undermining the original advantages of high efficiency and low costs, while adding more and more uncertainty and instability.

The reason the supply chain is referred to as a "win-win chain" lies in the fact that it is not merely a simple accumulation of independent links, but rather a complex system that is tightly interconnected and interdependent, formed over a long period of time through the collaboration of various countries, enterprises, talents, technologies, and regulations. Just as the skeletal and nervous systems of the human body are the cornerstones of sustaining life, every link and component of the supply chain is an organic part of the normal functioning of the global economy. Once this organic structure is damaged, it is akin to a broken bone or dislocated joint in the human body, and the difficulty of repair far exceeds the superficial loss. When the global supply chain experiences "dislocation" due to political interference, many long-accumulated structural advantages cease to exist. Although the supply of certain products or resources can be restructured, the deep cooperative relationships formed historically are difficult to repair. Furthermore, the rupture of a single link can trigger a chain reaction, leading to the accumulation of systemic risks in the global economy.

The supply chain belongs to the world, not to any single company or country, and it should not be used as a weapon. In the era of economic globalization, only by adhering to open cooperation in global industrial and supply chains can we achieve win-win development. China is committed to promoting the establishment of an open world economic system and maintaining the stability and smooth operation of global industrial and supply chains. It is not only a participant and beneficiary of the global industrial and supply chain cooperation but also a steadfast defender and builder of economic globalization. Those who claim that China is waging "supply chain warfare" have got the wrong playbook.

Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire begins, but can it last?

As long as Israeli forces remain on Lebanese soil, the risk of the conflict reigniting — deliberately or inadvertently — will remain significant.

Trita Parsi

Nov 26, 2024

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/lebanon-israel-ceasefire/

A ceasefire that ends Israel's indiscriminate bombing of Lebanon is welcomed and long overdue. However, it remains unclear whether this deal actually will work, given that the agreement gives Israel 60 days to withdraw. As long as Israeli forces remain on Lebanese soil, the risk of the conflict reigniting — deliberately or inadvertently — will remain significant.

Had the Biden administration exercised its leverage and prioritized U.S. interests, this conflict would never have reached this level to begin with. And ironically, though the deal was struck by Biden's team, the parties in the conflict appear to have agreed to it mainly with an eye to Donald Trump's expressed desire to see the fighting end before he takes office in January.

Contrary to Biden’s spin at the press conference today, the agreement text appears more balanced. Both Israel and Hezbollah agree not to take any offensive actions against each other, while recognizing both Israel and Lebanon’s right to continue to use force in self-defense.

It puts the Lebanese government — which includes Hezbollah — in charge of supervising and controlling any sale, supply and production of weapons or weapons-related materials.

The agreement also established a committee “acceptable to Israel and Lebanon” to monitor and assist in ensuring the implementation of the deal.

Netanyahu, who is wanted by the ICC for war crimes, has declared victory. There is some truth to Netanyahu's narrative: Through this agreement, Hezbollah appears to have given up a key position, that is, the refusal to disconnect Gaza from Lebanon.

But on the other hand, Netanyahu promised to destroy Hezbollah, which clearly he has not achieved. Though the organization is weakened, its ability to shoot at Israel — including penetrating Israel's air defenses, continues to be intact. Just Sunday, they shot more than 250 rockets and other projectiles at Israel.

Indeed, Hezbollah's capacity to inflict pain on Israel may have been a key reason why Netanyahu agreed to the deal. Had his campaign against Hezbollah been more successful, he'd likely be less inclined to stop the fighting.

Tehran has reportedly pressed Hezbollah to agree to the terms of the ceasefire, even though it betrays Hezbollah's earlier position. Tehran has several reasons for doing this: It has opposed the expansion of the conflict from the outset, given its own challenges at home. While it is in a conflict with Israel, the timing of this war suits Israel far more than Iran.

But Tehran may have also seen this as a gift to Trump, demonstrating Tehran's ability to help deescalate the situation while signaling Iran's own desire to strike a deal with Trump rather than to return to a state of heightened U.S.-Iran tensions.

What To Expect from Trump II

by James Carden Posted on November 27, 2024

https://original.antiwar.com/james-carden/2024/11/26/what-to-expect-from-trump-ii/

Remarks at the Yerevan Dialogue on November 23.  Reprinted with permission from the American Committee for US-Russia Accord (ACURA).

About a quarter of a century ago around this very time, a newly elected Republican president who campaigned on a promise of a more humble, less arrogant foreign policy was assembling his foreign policy and national security team.  By the time he was finished, even the new president’s critics had to agree that the team he had assembled was an impressive one.

The new Secretary of State – Colin Powell – had previously served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and was so popular among the American people that he had been often urged to run for president himself.

The incoming Secretary of Defense – Donald Rumsfeld – had previously served as a congressman, Ambassador to NATO, White House Chief of Staff and secretary of defense.

The young and brilliant national security adviser – Condi Rice – had previously been the principal Soviet expert on the National Security Council, and was a renowned political scientist who at the young age of 39, was named provost of Stanford University.

And yet.

In a matter of three years this most experienced and accomplished of national security teams steered the United States into a needless and disastrous series of wars that ended up killing hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of people and gave rise to terrorist groups such as ISIS.

All of which is to say, experience isn’t always a predictor of success for presidential administrations.

Journalists and foreign affairs analysts who today are quick to criticize Trump’s incoming team for its inexperience might do well to keep that in mind.

On the other hand, from the standpoint of those of us who care about global peace and stability,  who worry about whether the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East might spin out of control, Trump’s proposed team gives plenty of reasons for concern – but for reasons other than their lack of experience.

In order to explain why, I need to set the discussion in the context of the debate in Washington around US foreign policy generally and then within the context of the Trump team specifically.

For those of you who are not overly familiar with the parameters of the foreign policy debate in Washington, I want to quickly review the  three principal schools of foreign policy in the United States: neoconservatism, liberal interventionism and realism.

Neoconservatives view military force and the threat of military force as the solution to nearly  every problem. The conservative thinker Russell Kirk once noted that neocons “mistook Tel Aviv for the capital of the United States” – which is about as pithy and accurate a description of neoconservatives as can be imagined.

Liberal interventionists, by and large, are the people who staff the Biden administration. The policies they favor have become hard to distinguish from those that the neocons want – the big difference is that they pay lip service to multilateral institutions such as the UN and couch their militarism in the vocabulary of humanitarianism.

Both neocons and liberal interventionists share what the greatest statesman of the 20th century, Charles de Gaulle, once described as “the American Messianic impulse which swelled the American spirit and oriented it toward vast undertakings.”

America, said de Gaulle, had developed, “a taste for interventions in which the instinct for domination cloaked itself.”

Yet such impulses are anathema to the 3rd school of American foreign policy, realism. The primary difference between realism and the first two schools is that realists are able to distinguish between core and peripheral interests.

Generally speaking, we realists are critical of wars of choice which we see as too often counterproductive and indeed immoral. We also understand the imperative of achieving a stable balance of power and recognize dangers of unipolarity.

There is a widely held assumption that Donald Trump’s America First has some relationship in connection with the realist school. It is also often and wrongly assumed that “America First”  is simply an updated brand of isolationism that was popular in the US in the 1930s.

I dispute these assumptions: Given the makeup of his incoming national security team, Trump’s American First seems more and more like a marketing ploy – employing the rhetoric of realists for the purpose of disguising, laundering, camouflaging what are essentially neoconservative policies. In other words, America First is just neoconservatism in realist drag.

If this is so, we should expect a good amount of continuity with the policies of the Biden administration.

On the war in Ukraine, Trump’s “plan” or, more accurately, his expectation that he and he alone will be able to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine smacks of unreality. Despite his oft-stated intention to end the war, it seems to me there is a real risk that he and his team might try to escalate it in an attempt to end it.

And there is a troubling precedent to such an approach: Recall that in 1968 Richard Nixon campaigned on promise to end the war in Vietnam – Nixon said he had a secret plan to end the war.  Yet once he and his secretary of state Henry Kissinger were in office they escalated in the mistaken assumption that that would bring the North Vietnamese  to the negotiating table.

So it is very easy for me to envision Trump attempting such a gambit, after all it was he, in his first term, who sent Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine, repeatedly sanctioned Russia, expelled Russian diplomats and appointed a hardline neocon as his Ukraine Envoy. Now a few from team Trump have criticized Biden’s recent decision to sent ATACM long range missiles to Ukraine, but honestly, given their past comments, the criticism smacks of partisan opportunism.

Now I fully admit it would hard to imagine Trump doing a worse job than Biden did in the Middle East. But ask yourself:  Where will the blank check Trump will no doubt hand over to Bibi Netanyahu lead?

It could very well lead to a direct war with Iran.

And Israel’s neighbors seem to be readying for some kind of confrontation.

Consider: In the year and a half since China brokered the historic rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia has accused Israel of genocide and forcefully condemned Netanyahu’s bombing of Lebanon. Only recently, the chief of the Egyptian armed forces met with his Turkish counterpart for talks on deepening military cooperation between the two nations. Turkey has also just announced it has severed all diplomatic ties with Israel.

All the while, Trump’s soon to be national security adviser has been publicly calling for Israel to escalate its war on Iran. In October he suggested that Israel bomb Kharg Island, from where Iran ships 90 percent of its oil exports.

Meanwhile, neoconservatives in Washington have been busy spreading pernicious propaganda — similar to the kind they spread in the run up to the 2003 Iraq War.

A  neoconservative operative at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, recently published a report that accused Iran of developing a new kind of chemical weapon. “Iran,” says the report, “now appears to have produced fentanyl-based” chemical weapon which they have allegedly provided to partners and proxy groups in Iraq and Syria.

De Gaulle once wrote that “Deliberation is the function of many; action is the function of one.”

Ultimately, it is up to Donald Trump to decide whether to allow the neoconservatives to drag us into a war with Iran – a war which has the very real potential – to ignite a world war. I wish I had a happier scenario to present – but having come all this way, there is no point in not being honest with you.

HOW WILL SHEINBAUM'S GOVERNMENT MUST DEAL WITH DONALD TRUMP?

Yesterday, the president-elect of the United States announced on his Truth Social network that he will impose 25% tariffs on all products that the United States imports from Mexico and Canada, if its two main commercial partners and neighbors do not stop the flow of undocumented migrants and drugs that pass through their countries to the United States.

Including Canada in this measure seems excessive, since most of the undocumented migrants and drugs (especially fentanyl) that arrive in the United States pass through Mexico, not Canada.

Even so, Justin Trudeau has already contacted Trump to begin working on the president-elect's concerns; and for her part, the president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, has already sent a letter to Trump in which she points out that the arrival of migrants at the border between the two countries has decreased by 75% in the last year and that fentanyl overdoses in the United States have decreased by almost 14.5% in the last year.

However, Sheinbaum did not fail to mention in a press conference that "for every tariff from the United States, another will come in response from Mexico"; and that 2/3 of the weapons used by drug cartels in Mexico come from the United States.

However, analysts of U.S.-Mexico relations have pointed out that the Mexican government must prepare for a series of very harsh measures against it, which will have the objective of drastically stopping illegal migration to the United States, drug smuggling and the establishment of U.S. factories in Mexico.

To this end, Trump himself has already announced what policies he will implement from the first day of his mandate:

-      Sealing the border (it is still not clear what he means by this term).

-      Mass deportation of illegal migrants, starting with nearly one million who are considered dangerous criminals.

-      Designating Mexican drug cartels as “terrorist organizations.”

-      Application of 25% tariffs on all products that Mexico sells to the United States, if the Mexican government does not stop the flow of migrants and drugs. And increases to 50%, 75%, etc. if the Mexican government refuses to cooperate.

-      Tariffs of 100%, 200% or more on American companies that establish themselves in Mexico (mainly automotive companies) to force them to build their plants in the United States.

-      Tariffs of 100%, 200% or more on Chinese companies that want to use the USMCA to export their products from Mexico.

How can Claudia Sheinbaum's government respond to these policies?

There are three possible courses of action:

1. That Sheinbaum's government, as López Obrador's did to a certain extent, comply with Trump's demands and orders, with the enormous cost that this will cause to the Mexican economy and society; in addition to the public humiliation of national independence and sovereignty that this will entail.

In this case, Sheinbaum would have to accept the hundreds of thousands of deportees (criminals or not) that the United States sends to Mexico, including those from countries that do not accept the deportees that the United States intends to send them (China, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua).

Thousands of members of the National Guard would have to be placed on the southern and northern borders and on human trafficking routes, to stop the flow of migrants.

Likewise, she would have to accept the arrival in Mexico of special forces of the United States Army, to carry out operations within Mexican territory against drug cartels; as well as a greater number of DEA personnel (and even the CIA, due to the issue of terrorism), to carry out the intelligence work necessary for these operations.

In economic matters, she would have to agree to change the energy policy established by López Obrador, which gives preference to state-owned companies Pemex, in oil and gas; and CFE in electricity, over private national and foreign companies.

Sheinbaum would also be forced to reach reparatory agreements with numerous American companies, which have sued the Mexican government for public policies that have supposedly damaged their investments and their present and future profits.

And surely, Trump would try to force President Sheinbaum to hinder or outright deny the access of Chinese capital in different sectors of the Mexican economy.

2. That the Sheinbaum government tries to resist, to the extent of its possibilities, the pressures of the Trump government.

First, in the face of the massive deportation of migrants, the Mexican government could create real chaos for Trump, if it decides to only accept those of Mexican origin; for which, Mexican consular personnel will have to interview each one of them in the United States territory to determine their nationality.

Obviously, a response like this from the Mexican government would trigger Trump's threat to impose tariffs, first of 25% on all Mexican products; and then gradually increase them.

The Mexican government would then have to activate the clauses provided for in the USMCA that prohibit this type of tariffs, if they are not based on commercial issues. And at the same time, initiate a procedure against the United States in the World Trade Organization.

Since these actions would take months to have any effect, the Mexican government would have to apply equal tariffs to an equivalent number of exports from the United States to Mexico, especially on those products that are exported from states that are governed by Republicans (the South and the Midwest); it would also have to initiate a process of import substitution and the accelerated search for suppliers in Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America and even Canada to avoid shortages of products vital to Mexican industry and to feed the population.

Regarding the claims of American companies against Mexico, the Mexican government could well leave them on “stand by” if relations between the two countries do not improve, and on the contrary, resolve favorably those of companies from countries that show solidarity with Mexico in these circumstances.

Likewise, on the issue of energy policy, the Mexican government could relax its nationalist policy, but favor European, Asian (even Chinese) and Latin American companies, over those of the United States, if Trump's policies against Mexico are not softened.

And, of course, the entry of military personnel into Mexico to fight the cartels, as well as more personnel from U.S. intelligence agencies, would not be accepted.

It should also be made clear that if the United States were to carry out unilateral military actions on Mexican territory, it would be considered a flagrant violation of national sovereignty, which could lead to the breaking of diplomatic relations.

3. A hybrid response between accepting Trump's pressure and resisting it could have the following elements:

Accepting all migrants sent by the United States to Mexico, in exchange for the US government providing a substantial amount of funding to be able to care for such many people in Mexican territory.

A significant part of the National Guard would be deployed to stop the flow of migrants, but Mexico would also demand that the United States exert diplomatic and even economic pressure on the countries through which this flow of migrants passes, that is, countries in Central, South America and the Caribbean.

With respect to military operations against drug cartels, they would need to be limited and joint with the military and security forces of Mexico.

And at the same time, Mexico should demand an efficient mechanism in US territory that would to some extent stop the flow of weapons reaching the Mexican cartels.

On energy policy, Mexico will have to largely open its energy sector to private investment, but in exchange it should demand that in the matter of claims by companies that say they have been affected by public policies of the Mexican government, a very specific review be carried out, to decide which ones really have grounds and which ones are attempts at blackmail and abuse.

Regarding China, accept that Mexico cannot be a platform for the shipment of Chinese products to the USA, but in exchange establish that Chinese investments that are already in Mexico, and serve the Mexican market, will not be hindered.

In short, for each demand from Trump, Claudia Sheinbaum's government would have to demand something in return, because let us remember that this type of transactional policy is the one that best suits the quarrelsome former 45th president of the United States, and the next 47th president.

The ICC Arrest Warrant for Netanyahu Is Also an Indictment of US Policy and Complicity

Ultimately, this is the story of how the Israel lobby undermined America, wrecked the Middle East, and set a series of international crimes against humanity in motion.

Jeffrey D. Sachs

Nov 21, 2024

Common Dreams

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/icc-arrest-warrant-netanyahu

It’s official now. America’s closest ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the one accorded more than 50 standing ovations in Congress just months ago, is under indictment by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity and war crimes. America must take note: the U.S. Government is complicit in Netanyahu’s war crimes and has fully partnered in Netanyahu’s violent rampage across the Middle East.

For 30 years the Israel Lobby has induced the U.S. to fight wars on Israel’s behalf designed to prevent the emergence of a Palestinian State. Netanyahu, who first came to power in 1996, and has been prime minister for 17 years since then, has been the main cheerleader for U.S.-backed wars in the Middle East. The result has been a disaster for the U.S. and a bloody catastrophe not only for the Palestinian people but for the entire Middle East.

These have not been wars to defend Israel, but rather wars to topple governments that oppose Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people. Israel viciously opposes the two-state solution called for by international law, the Arab Peace Initiative, the G20, the BRICS, the OIC, and the UN General Assembly. Israel’s intransigence, and its brutal suppression of the Palestinian people, has given rise to several militant resistance movements since the beginning of the occupation. These movements are backed by several countries in the region.

The obvious solution to the Israel-Palestine crisis is to implement the two-state solution and to demilitarize the militant groups as part of the implementation process.

Israel’s approach, especially under Netanyahu, is to overthrow foreign governments that oppose Israel’s domination, and recreate the map of a “New Middle East” without a Palestinian State. Rather than making peace, Netanyahu makes endless war.

What is shocking is that Washington has turned the U.S. military and federal budget over to Netanyahu for his disastrous wars. The history of the Israel lobby’s complete takeover of Washington can be found in the remarkable new book by Ilan Pappé, Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic (2024).

Netanyahu repeatedly told the American people that they would be the beneficiaries of his policies. In fact, Netanyahu has been an unmitigated disaster for the American people, bleeding the U.S. Treasury of trillions of dollars, squandering America’s standing in the world, making the U.S. complicit in his genocidal policies, and bringing the world closer to World War III.

If Trump wants to make America great again, the first thing he should do is to make America sovereign again, by ending Washington’s subservience to the Israel Lobby.

The Israel Lobby not only controls the votes in Congress but places hardline backers of Israel into key national security posts. These have included Madeleine Albright (Secretary of State for Clinton), Lewis Libby (Chief of Staff of Vice President Cheney), Victoria Nuland (Deputy National Security Advisor of Cheney, NATO Ambassador of Bush Jr., Assistant Secretary of State for Obama, Under-Secretary of State for Biden), Paul Wolfowitz (Under-Secretary of Defense for Bush Sr., Deputy Secretary of Defense for Bush Jr.), Douglas Feith (Under-Secretary of Defense for Bush Jr.), Abram Shulsky (Director of the Office of Special Plans, Department of Defense for Bush Jr.), Elliott Abrams (Deputy National Security Advisor for Bush Jr.), Richard Perle (Chairman of the Defense National Policy Board for Bush Jr.), Amos Hochstein (Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State for Biden), and Antony Blinken (Secretary of State for Biden).

In 1995, Netanyahu described his plan of action in his book Fighting Terrorism. To control terrorists (Netanyahu’s characterization of militant groups fighting Israel’s illegal rule over the Palestinians), it’s not enough to fight the terrorists. Instead, it’s necessary to fight the “terrorist regimes” that support such groups. And the U.S. must be the one to lead:

The cessation of terrorism must therefore be a clear-cut demand, backed up by sanctions and with no prizes attached. As with all international efforts, the vigorous application of sanctions to terrorist states must be led by the United States, whose leaders must choose the correct sequence, timing, and circumstances for these actions.

As Netanyahu told the American people in 2001 (reprinted as the 2001 foreword to Fighting Terrorism):

The first and most crucial thing to understand is this: There is no international terrorism without the support of sovereign states. International terrorism simply cannot be sustained for long without the regimes that aid and abet it… Take away all this state support, and the entire scaffolding of international terrorism will collapse into dust. The international terrorist network is thus based on regimes—Iran, Iraq, Syria, Taliban Afghanistan, Yasir Arafat’s Palestinian Authority, and several other Arab regimes, such as the Sudan.

All of this was music to the ears of the neocons in Washington, who similarly subscribed to U.S.-led regime change operations (through wars, covert subversion, U.S.-led color revolutions, violent coups, etc.) as the main way to deal with perceived U.S. adversaries.

After 9/11, the Bush Jr. neocons (led by Cheney and Rumsfeld) and the Bush Jr. insiders of the Israel Lobby (led by Wolfowitz and Feith), teamed up to remake the Middle East through a series of U.S.-led wars on Netanyahu’s targets in the Middle East (Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Syria) and Islamic East Africa (Libya, Somalia, and Sudan). The role of the Israel Lobby in stoking these wars of choice is described in detail in Pappe’s new book.

The neocon-Israel Lobby war plan was shown to General Wesley Clark on a visit to the Pentagon soon after 9/11. An officer pulled a paper from his desk and told Clark: "I just got this memo from the Secretary of Defense's office. It says we're going to attack and destroy the governments in 7 countries in five years—we're going to start with Iraq, and then we're going to move to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran."

In 2002, Netanyahu pitched the war with Iraq to the American people and Congress by promising them that “If you take out Saddam, Saddam’s regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region[...] People sitting right next door in Iran, young people, and many others, will say the time of such regimes, of such despots is gone.”

A remarkable new insider account of Netanyahu’s role in spearheading the Iraq War also comes from retired Marine Command Chief Master Sargent Dennis Fritz, in his book Deadly Betrayal (2024). When Fritz was called to deploy to Iraq in early 2002, he asked senior military officials why the U.S. was deploying to Iraq, but he got no clear answer. Rather than lead soldiers into a battle he could not explain or justify, he left the service.

In 2005, Fritz was invited back to the Pentagon, now as a civilian, to assist Under-Secretary Douglas Feith in the declassification of documents about the war, so that Feith could use them to write a book about the war. Fritz discovered in the process that the Iraq War had been spurred by Netanyahu in close coordination with Wolfowitz and Feith. He learned that the purported U.S. war aim, to counter Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, was a cynical public relations gimmick led by an Israel Lobby insider, Abram Shulsky, to garner U.S. public support for the war.

Iraq was to be the first of the seven wars in five years, but as Fritz explains, that follow-up wars were delayed by the anti-U.S. Iraqi insurgency. Nonetheless, the U.S. eventually went to war or backed wars against Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Lebanon. In other words, the U.S. carried out Netanyahu’s plans—except for Iran. To this day, indeed to this hour, Netanyahu works to stoke a U.S. war on Iran, one that could open World War III, either by Iran making the breakthrough to nuclear weapons, or by Iran’s ally, Russia, joining such a war on Iran’s side.

The neocon-Israel Lobby teamwork has marked one of the greatest global calamities of the 21st century. All of the countries attacked by the U.S. or its proxies—Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Syria—now lie in ruins. Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s genocide in Gaza continues apace, and yet again the U.S. has opposed the unanimous will of the world (other than Israel) this week by vetoing a UN Security Council ceasefire resolution that was backed by the other 14 members of the U.N. Security Council.

The real issue facing the Trump Administration is not defending Israel from its neighbors, who call repeatedly, almost daily, for peace based on the two-state solution. The real issue is defending the U.S. from the Israel Lobby.