Who will investigate Gaza's "crimes" in 2023? A Danish jurist who lived in Ramallah, married to a Palestinian woman, who studied at the Palestinian jurists association Al-Haq, which was outlawed in Israel two years ago due to its ties to terrorist organizations, and who says he "loves Ramallah and the Palestinians very much" and volunteered to research Israel.
Yes, the chief prosecutor of the ICC, Karim Khan, out of a dozen people, chose out of a dozen people the Israel-hating jurist at every level of his limb – the Danish Andreas Laursen, who gladly accepted his appointment. Laursen's mandate is to investigate the possibility that "Israel is responsible for war crimes during the Gaza campaign."
Following Cast Lead in 2009, South African Richard Goldstone was appointed chief investigator of the conflict, which began with rocket fire to which the IDF was forced to respond. Israel, of course, boycotted Goldstone and his team, and the investigator's report was a document that disgraced the UN and international tribunals. Only the Palestinians in Gaza were the injured party, the side that was satisfied with testifying for the record, while the investigator searched for every possible source that would accuse Israel of killing innocents.
This appointment symbolizes the cultural and moral bankruptcy of international institutions in their anti-Semitic attitude against Israel. The atrocities of October 7, to which historical crimes against humanity in the past pale in comparison, are not included in the investigator's mandate because they constitute "a legitimate uprising by Palestinians under occupation since 1948." After Red Cross representatives evaded their duty to visit Israeli abductees in Gaza on the pretext of Hamas' lack of cooperation, and after the organization's spokeswoman, Tunisian Iman Trabelsi, attacked the IDF in the media for "firing live ammunition at Red Crescent ambulances," the Palestinians can chant out loud: "The international institutions are in our hands."
Of course, Israel is forbidden from cooperating with Laursen, but in light of the media and political implications of the committee's work, and the conclusions of the Goldstone affair, the government would do well to establish a team to accompany the committee's work with advocacy that will minimize the damage caused to Israel
Laursen joins a long chain of Western "experts" who have tried and failed to change the organizational culture among Palestinians in the territories. He took a leave of absence from the Copenhagen prosecutor's office to establish a professional Palestinian judicial system. Judge for yourself: When Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is accused of corruption and transferring money to his sons, or when his deputy Hussein al-Sheikh was accused of rape and bought the silence of the raped women with money, and when allegations of money leaking to the top echelons of government in Ramallah increase, Laursen claims that "the Palestinians are on their way to creating a better society because of his work." To claims made by various quarters about the appointment, ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan responded with an unfortunate false statement: "I am sure he will be fair and unbiased."
Of course, Israel is forbidden from cooperating with Laursen, but in light of the media and political implications of the committee's work, and the conclusions of the Goldstone affair, the government would do well to establish a team to accompany the committee's work with advocacy that will minimize the damage caused to Israel.
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