New investigation reveals scale and timetable of attempts by US, UK and Israeli government, intelligence and others to ‘derail’ ICC
An investigation by Middle East Eye (MEE) has uncovered an intense and escalating campaign by Israeli, US, UK and Israel-linked figures and organisations to smear and ‘derail’ International Criminal Court (ICC) Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan. his ICC crimes against humanity case against Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant and the court’s arrest warrants for the war criminal pair and others.
The campaign, parts of which bear strong resemblance to the tactics used against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, includes:
• sexual assault allegations in which the alleged victim said she wanted to play no role and remained friendly with Khan and his wife throughout, even seeking his help in pursuing a complaint against another figure and messaging him to say how pleased she was to be working with Khan again
• an implied threat from a UK-Israeli lawyer working at the ICC, who had spoken to Netanyahu’s lawyer, if Khan did not “climb down the tree” of arrest warrants; when Khan asked why Israel was not conducting its own war crimes investigation, the lawyer told him, “This is impossible” but that Israel might hold a “non-criminal, non-investigative process”
• a pro-Israel group of lawyers within the ICC “working to discredit him” and trying to get female staff to make allegations against him. A female lawyer responded to them that “he is the last person on my list of men who would do that”
• threats of defunding and disaffiliation from then-UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron if the court issued arrest warrants
• surveillance of Khan and those around him by Israeli intelligence service Mossad – and briefings from ICC security that he was under a tangible threat from Mossad – the same group had targeted Khan’s predecessor Fatou Bensouda for daring to open an investigation into Israeli war crimes
• threats to target Khan, his employees, family and associates
• promises that the ICC and Khan would be ‘destroyed’
• now-notorious comments that Khan would be punished because the ICC is ‘for Africans and… Putin’, not US-favoured regimes
• false media campaigns alleging that Khan pursued the arrest warrants to deflect attention from the sexual assault allegations, when the warrant applications considerably pre-dated the accusations
• figures who played a leading role in allegations against Khan saying privately they had doubts about their veracity
• the investigation into the allegations against Khan breaking usual protocol and naming him publicly
Khan and the ICC have been sanctioned by the Trump regime after deranged far-right senator Lindsey Graham who “screamed” at him and his ICC team:
[If you issue arrest warrants] you may as well shoot the hostages yourself… we will sanction you… [the ICC was] made for Africa and thugs like Putin, not democracies like Israel.
The sanctions were first imposed in Febuary, then escalated in July as the US accused the ICC of “illegitimate actions” against Israel and the US
According to MEE, senior judges had:
grave concerns about the way the OIOS investigation into the allegations against Khan has been conducted, questioning why the prosecutor was publicly named as the subject of a complaint, and the need for an external investigation into his alleged misconduct.
Notoriously, then-Foreign Secretary and former UK PM David Cameron furiously threatened to end UK funding to the court and to withdraw from the very treaty that founded the ICC and established the ‘core crimes’ of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression that form the basis of international law:
Cameron, a former prime minister who had been appointed foreign secretary in November 2023, phoned Khan while the prosecutor was on an official visit to Venezuela on 23 April.
Last month MEE revealed details of the call based on information from a number of sources, including former staff in Khan’s office familiar with the conversation and who have seen the minutes of the meeting.
Cameron told Khan that applying for warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant would be “like dropping a hydrogen bomb”.
According to MEE’s sources, the foreign secretary spoke aggressively and repeatedly shouted over Khan.
Cameron threatened that if the ICC issued warrants for Israeli leaders, the UK would “defund the court and withdraw from the Rome Statute.
Just a day after the threat from Cameron, twelve US Republican senators – including Marco Rubio, now Trump’s Secretary of State – added their own, sending Khan a letter warning him:
Target Israel and we will target you… [we will] sanction your employees and associates, and bar you and your families from the United States.
Aspects of the campaign against Khan closely resemble the attempts to criminalise and extradite Australian journalist and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange from the UK to the US after Assange exposed US war crimes. Just as the Swedish women who supposedly accused Assange of rape said they had never wanted any action against the Australian, the woman working at the ICC told Khan in texts that:
there were “games being played” and attempts to make her a “pawn in some game I don’t want to play”. Two internal ICC investigations into the allegations were closed after she refused to cooperate with them.
The MEE article also lists the steps Khan took above and beyond normal procedure to ensure that the ICC case and his applications for arrest warrants were legally sound and watertight, including appointing panels of independent legal experts to go through them in detail.
Khan has been forced to take leave since May, putting his apparent applications for arrest warrants for fascist Israeli ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar ben-Gvir in limbo. Israel has been desperately and vociferously trying to discredit the ICC ever since the warrants were first mooted. False claims of rape and sexual assault have been a staple of Israel’s attempt to justify its genocide in Gaza and repeated by western media and politicians, and Israeli apologists, ever since despite being completely discredited.
Read the full MEE article here.
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Israel abducted starving children at Gaza “aid” sites, then tortured them
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/israel-abducted-starving-children-gaza-aid-sites-then-tortured-them
This represents yet another example of an extremely long list of similar behaviour carried out with impunity on behalf of [checks notes] “Western Interests” – which, when unpacked, boils down to the interests of a minority class/caste of elite oligarchic psychopaths who operate one rule for themselves and another for everyone else they regard as ‘useless eaters’.*
One can trace similar examples back for several centuries – taking in similar examples from Iraq (half a million dead children was “a price worth paying”); Indonesia (well over a million slaughtered); Nicaragua; El Salvador; Chile; Vietnam; North Korea; Sudan; The Congo; Indigenous Aboriginal peoples in North America, Australia, New Zealand, and across Africa, South and Central America and the Global South.
The point being that simply dropping examples like this into the discourse with no reference to the wider context of this “Rules Based International Order” and how it operates to enable the example provided (among others) to be carried out with impunity merely hides – either by accident or design – the reality of that systemic operational context to the benefit of those ‘holding the (in this case Israeli) spear.’
A context encapsulated in this quote from the above article:
“[If you issue arrest warrants] you may as well shoot the hostages yourself… we will sanction you… [the ICC was] made for Africa and thugs like Putin, not democracies like Israel.”
Given the past record of this particular BTL poster in regard to slavishly following that particular double standard via his PDS (Putin Derangement Syndrome) it seems more than reasonable to conclude this omission is by design rather than by accident and thus, in the wider context of this posters record, represents yet a further example of a lie of omission.
QED.
*(c) WEF “Guru” Yuval Noah Harari, who is, quelle surprise, from Israel:
https://www.naturalnews.com/2022-05-02-world-economic-forum-believes-people-useless-eaters.html
Dave – 😘
Don’t forget your hat on the way out, Billy.
The lumpen West falling for ‘The Great Man of History Thesis’ but the ICJ ruling was made by a collection of judges.
And movements make history.
The old Right Wing tactic – attack the messenger because they can’t cope with the message!
The Lumpen Western Leaders should stop trying to bully international law and as two lines in one of my new songs goes:
“I see the poison.
Of the vain and spiteful Right.”
Some have been clear on the Palestinian issue, whilst supporting a Free Palestine from the rivers to the sea, they never agreed with the military & political strategy of Hamas as it attacked heavily armed illegal Israeli settlements, because they knew that there would be a massive over reaction by the illegal occupation force.
But it’s previous leader knew he would be a target and had hundreds of cadres trained, each able to take over as leader and they no doubt continue to build more.
But WE on the side of the Palestinians need to be wary.
All this talk from some lightweight Western
Leaders of recognising a Palestinian State is playing the world.
They really mean a Two State Solution which gives Palestinians 20% of their country back but even that would be under the supervision of the Israeli illegal occupation force.
So heads (status quo) or tails (2 states) the Genocidal Land thieves win!
And let us remind ourselves that The Balfour Declaration (1917) said “A Jewish Home in PALESTINE” (but not a state or country which Zionists at the time had been pressing for) and it also said “And this should not do anything that is detrimental to the indigenous (Palestinian) population.”
We should stand with the many Palestinian voices who call for One Multi Ethnic Democratic State of Palestine from the rivers to the sea.
Yours in Peace.☮️❤️
As Bernard at MoA highlights here (from Hala Jaber)
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2025/08/hala-jaber-what-the-world-is-offering-palestinians-isnt-a-state.html#more
“Let’s assume, just for argument’s sake, a Palestinian state was declared tomorrow, its functionality would be impossible under current conditions.
The proposed state would consist of two disconnected territories: Gaza in the southwest and the West Bank in the northeast, separated by a heavily militarized Israel. Israel controls all borders, airspace, and movement between these regions, rendering Palestinian autonomy dependent on Israeli permission.
A state without control over its borders, economy, or defense is not sovereign. The Oslo framework demanded a demilitarized Palestine, leaving it defenseless against blockades, settler violence, or military incursions. Even if Palestine were “recognized,” it would be a state in name only with:
No army.
No control over borders, airspace, or economy.
No right to defend itself.
No protection from bombs, blockades, or settler militias.
This is not statehood, it’s an open-air prison with a flag and better branding.
But more importantly: it never acknowledged the Nakba: the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians, the theft of 78% of their homeland, the erasure of their right to return.
Even the limited territory promised under Oslo II, Areas A and B, roughly 40% of the West Bank, has been eroded. Area C, comprising 60% of the West Bank, remains under full Israeli control. Over 700,000 Israeli settlers now live in 150 settlements and 128 outposts, most built post-Oslo, fragmenting the West Bank into disconnected enclaves.
Settlement expansion and land theft have made a contiguous Palestinian state impossible. What remains is a patchwork of cantons, surrounded by apartheid infrastructure, that cannot form the basis of a viable state.
Instead, it asks Palestinians to accept symbolic scraps while their homeland is devoured and call it peace, when truth be told, that’s not reconciliation, it’s Western diplomacy laundering colonial dispossession.
This isn’t a “solution.” It’s a settlement of guilt, for everyone but Palestinians. The two‑state model is a corpse: cold, buried, kept artificially warm by leaders who want to say they “tried.” But geography, justice, and reality have pronounced it dead.
Symbolic gestures, like international recognition of a Palestinian state, are meaningless without control over land, resources, or security. The two-state solution has become a diplomatic prop, a way to maintain the appearance of progress while enabling occupation.
Netenyahu’ statements including: “Any future independent Palestinian state would pose a threat to Israel’s existence,” further underscore the futility of negotiations.
Recognition without sovereignty is publicity for occupation, not liberation.”
Successive generations of chiefly British and subsequently US Oligarchic Administrations have pursued the same arrogant and ignorant policies which have resulted in where we are now for over a hundred years. They have had their turn, along with other Western colonial powers, of the self-identifying “Garden” in the wider region. They have no further part to play, legitimate role, or any meaningful say so and should be forcibly expelled and kept out of the region and made to keep within their own borders to prevent further damage to civilisational progress.
Preferably via a cull of those rabid elites and their toady’s and a quarantine of the collective West until the West gets its house in order and demonstrates conclusively that it is fit to rejoin civilisation.
God, these people really are the scum of the earth. As I’ve said on many occasions…. but for the psychopaths our reality – and our history – would be completely different. I just referred to them as people, but they are in fact inhuman monsters; sick, twisted, demented mass murdering war-mongering hate-mongering fear-mongering planet-destroying psychopathic inhuman monsters.
And totally TOTALLY evil!
Dehumanised is as dehumanised does.
Netanyahu claims there is no starvation in Gaza and for those who say it is, that is a bald face lie. https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=netanyahu+says+there+is+no+starvation+in+gaza++youtube&mid=2D4B8537ADD2A85ABE5C2D4B8537ADD2A85ABE5C&FORM=VIRE
The Canary published this yesterday:
A list of all the experts saying Israel is committing genocide in Gaza
https://www.thecanary.co/explainer/2025/08/01/genocide-accusations-israel
This persecution of Khan is outrageous ..
Of course the Israeli Govt are committing war crimes – and
in plain sight too with plenty of evidence from our TV screens
of visible atrocities as well as independent reports
Netanyahu has Kahanists*** within his Govt – members of
an organisation proscribed as terrorist by the US.
Evidently ONE terrorist organisation was not sufficient for
Netanyahu because he had been propping up Hamas for many years
before the deaths and hostage taking on October 7th 2023
[as reported by “Times of Israel ” ]. Anything to undermine
justice for Palestine.
*** after Meir Kahane who briefly served in the Israel
Parliament but who cleared the House each time he
spoke as he was so racist.
Talking about October 7th 2023:
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/08/03/what-was-israel-supposed-to-do-after-october-7-is-asking-the-wrong-question/
“A much more useful and interesting question than “What was Israel supposed to do in response to October 7?” is “What were Palestinians supposed to do in response to all of Israel’s abuses prior to October 7?”
Nobody’s ever been able to give me a serious response to this question which doesn’t entail mountains of lies and/or the dehumanizing expectation that Palestinians should accept conditions that none of us would willingly accept ourselves.
That’s why you never see me criticizing Hamas. If someone could tell me what specifically Palestinians should have done in response to Israel’s tyranny that they haven’t already tried in order to obtain real material justice, I’d happily say Hamas should have taken that option instead of resorting to violent force. But if that option truly existed, Hamas never would have been created in the first place. That’s why nobody’s been able to tell me what such an option would have looked like without lying.
What was Israel supposed to do after October 7? Same thing they should have done before October 7: dismantle the apartheid state, give everyone equal rights, pay massive reparations, and right all the wrongs of the past. October 7 was a response to the tyranny and abuse of Israel; the correct thing to do when things finally came to a head with the Hamas attack would have been to remove all the tyranny and abuse which gave rise to it.”
As winteringham, below, observes, the Western elites – and their ignorant shills – take it upon themselves to frame the agenda and the narratives. Everything starts on a date of their choice – whether it’s October 7th 2023 or February 22nd 2022 – and nothing happened prior to those chosen dates designed to create a self-serving narrative to justify the agenda of this pathocracy and its Stockholm Syndrome suffering supporters who fall for this propaganda.
Disappearing the wider context and their role in creating it to serve that agenda, more effectively than Lenin removing rivals from early Soviet era photographs.
Typical islamophobia. Hes not the only vocal member but hes always a zionist target. Zionism should be proscribed as a terrorist ideology.
Washington post published a full list of children dead in Gaza. The comments on twitter from zionists are abhorrent https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2025/israel-gaza-war-children-death-toll/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&s=08
You can’t prosecute us, we’re from the world’s elite. We OWN the justice system! Says Trump, Rubio, Starmer, Lammy, Cameron, Blair, Netanyahu and his genocidal Gang.
We have discovered who REALLY owns the world now.
People eulogise over the 1945 Attlee government. They forget that at the time ALL politicians were seriously concerned for their own lives should they not (for once in a million years) not give “the people,” a share in their own country. That ended with Callaghan and Thatcher.
Exactly.
All those demobbed soldiers who grew up and experienced the 1920’s and 1930’s returning from Europe with guns in their hands.
Considering the pressure Khan was put under by corrupt politicians he did bloody well to issue the warrants. Respect
There is a behind the scenes look at the witch hunt on You Tube which focuses on this in detail.
I despair of the complete lack of morality and lack of accountability that this cess pit of a country has become.