Ferg

[Ferg @fergusstrachan]

@james_rogers Great that we have "defence experts" like you talking up nuclear war.

I'll feel confident tucking the kids in bed tonight. 🙄

[Ferg @fergusstrachan]

@MilitarySummary Hopefully he told you not to give in to your Kollektivschuld and stop supporting you-know-who...

[Ferg @fergusstrachan]

@kajakallas "illegal"? According to... the US.

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

There's one interesting dimension of the US's sanctions on the ICC 👇 that, as far as I saw, no media caught.

The US has sanctioned many ICC officials over the past few years but Abdoulaye Seye - one of 2 persons sanctioned this time (the other being ICC President Tomoko Akane) - was the first non-elected one.

So there is something quite unique about his case.

Seye's role at the ICC? Senior Trial Lawyer and Head of the Team handling the Situation in the State of Palestine (I know, quite a mouthful): in other words, the guy is the ICC's lead lawyer on the Palestine case.

Already, that alone should make it absolutely obvious that these sanctions have nothing to do, as Marco Rubio wrote, with "protecting Americans" but everything to do with protecting Israel.

But that's not the only thing special about Abdoulaye Seye.

See, ICC judges are elected officials: they serve non-renewable nine-year terms, and these terms are staggered so that one-third of the bench (6 judges out of 18) comes up for replacement every three years. All 124 member countries vote by secret ballot.

And that's where things get interesting: the next election is coming up in December this year and Seye is actually candidate to becoming a judge, proposed by his country of Senegal (https://t.co/z8fNaXMqME).

There are 14 candidates running for the 6 judge seats (https://t.co/6D2AXA7tCF) and Seye is the only one sanctioned by the U.S., which actually puts him at enormous practical disadvantages versus the other candidates.

For one thing, very concretely, the election takes place at the UN in New York, and being on the US sanctions list means being physically barred from entering the United States.

And it's not just about the vote itself. The whole campaign plays out in New York over months: in particular during the UN General Assembly in September, the High-level meetings, the candidate public roundtable interviews on November 4–5, and the Assembly of States Parties (ASP) session in December. That's where candidates meet delegations and lobby for votes.

The other 13 candidates will be freely doing this. Seye cannot do any of it.

So there is actually a huge election meddling angle to this: with these sanctions, the US is effectively rigging the race by banning one candidate from the entire campaign trail.

Perhaps more importantly, it also re-raises the question of whether the US is a fit place to host international institutions at all.

It's painfully obvious that a host country that weaponizes its territory to influence elections at international institutions (which, in the case of the ICC, it doesn't even belong to) is not an appropriate ground: for their own survival, these institutions should be as far away and as insulated from the US as possible.

It also raises the crucial question of how the rest of the world should respond.

The insanity here is that almost no other country globally - be in the West or the Global South - stands with the US on this, save for a handful of exceptions (like Israel). Yet they all behave like deer in the headlights (or, as we say in French, like "ostriches burying their head in sand") and do absolutely nothing concrete about it besides meaningless "we're preoccupied" statements.

The EU's behavior is particularly egregious in this regard. They too host a number of international institutions, such as... the ICC! ICC bench elections may be occurring in NYC but it's in The Hague, Netherlands, that the institution is physically located (I visited the place last year with my daughters: https://t.co/WyUgXUylj8).

So, given that they oppose these sanctions and literally host the court, you'd expect the EU to take some measures to protect the institution and the officials targeted by the sanctions.

All the more because they have a tool designed EXACTLY for this purpose: the so-called "blocking statute", a regulation that prohibits EU entities from complying with extraterritorial US sanctions.

On its own website the EU describes it as "an important achievement of unified EU action to protect EU operators, whether individuals or companies, from the extra-territorial application of third country laws" (https://t.co/W3IbD6Ummg)

It's perfect: activate the blocking statutes, and European banks can no longer close ICC officials' accounts, cancel their credit cards, or freeze their transactions just because Washington says so.

It's exactly what China did (they have their own "blocking statute") when the US started sanctioning Chinese refineries to prevent them from buying Iranian oil (see ): they activated their blocking statutes, making it illegal for Chinese companies to comply with these US sanctions and there is jack shit the US can do about it. It's a very powerful legal tool.

Yet, incomprehensively, the EU refuses to activate it. The blocking statute sits there, purpose-built but completely unused, while European companies have no choice but to enforce America's sanctions.

It's insane: the EU literally standing by while Washington destroys the lives of people on European soil - they oppose it, have the perfect tool to fight it, but they stand by. Again: incomprehensible.

All the more incomprehensible because it's actually a golden geopolitical opportunity for Europe: if Europe wants to be taken seriously as an independent actor on the world stage - as it keeps saying it does - there is literally no easier win than this. Activate a tool you already have, protect an institution you already host, defend a principle you already claim to believe in.

The fact that even this is too much unfortunately tells the rest of the world everything it needs to know about what European "sovereignty" actually means in practice.

[Ferg @fergusstrachan]

@RnaudBertrand Brilliant post again Arnaud. Just when you thought they might have reached the peak of their nefariousness... (Just kidding, I never think that)

[Ferg @fergusstrachan]

@vonderleyen Waiting for you to actually do something about it......

Still waiting....

[Ferg @fergusstrachan]

@freelanceengllc @Megatron_ron I don't really get the disconnect with some people between the hubris of their war machine and the reality back home of broken bridges, rail systems, people living on the streets...

Is the plan to steal your way to a better society? I'd say not because it hasn't happened yet.

[Ferg @fergusstrachan]

@BBCBreaking Then there's this...

[Muhammad Shehada @muhammadshehad2]

Disappointed the BBC cancelled my interview on Israel's killing of Hind Rajab

2 producers eagerly reached out. They confirmed the time & one called to prepare a brief for the anchor

She asked me whether Israel's announcement is positive, I explained in detail it was a cover up.

The IDF is blaming the killing of Hind, her uncle, aunt & 4 cousins on the family itself for trying to flee by car & on the ambulance sent to rescue her for "failures in the co-ordination of the movement."

None of this is remotely true! The Red Cross immediately informed the IDF about 5-year-old Hind who was hiding in that motionless car, & they requested permission from Israel to allow an ambulance to rescue them.

After multiple long hours, Israel granted greenlight to the ambulance & provided them with a designated route on a GPS to drive on.

As soon as the ambulance reached Hind's car, the IDF ambushed & bombed them immediately with an American made anti-tank missile then opened fire on Hind's car. The car was hit with 355 bullets.

Israel then kept that area under lockdown for 12 days, & prevented anyone from approaching.

Hind's mom went daily to the Ahli baptist hospital hoping to find her daughter, until her lifeless body was brought in along with the charred remains of the ambulance men.

Israel then claimed after an "initial investigation" that its troops were NEVER in that area to begin with. They maintained that claim for 2 years despite ample recordings & satellite images debunking this lie.

The only reason Israel is now making this new announcement of a deeper investigation is to shield its soldiers & generals from the International Criminal Court by invoking the principle of "complementarity;" that the ICC cannot investigate a state that is already investigating itself in good faith.

I told the BBC producer Israel today also quietly shut down the investigation into the triple tap killing of American, Canadian, British, Australian & Polish citizens in the WCK massacre. Israel blamed the massacre on the aid workers themselves for "deviating from the predesignated route" & for hiring an armed security guard "without informing the IDF" (both claims where debunked by WCK themselves, who had coordinates their every step with the IDF).

I told the producer the Israeli commander responsible for this massacre, Nochi Mendel, is a fanatical settler who had signed a petition calling for starving Gaza & that he was celebrated by settler leaders & supported by Israeli government leaders after what he did.

Mendel even received a box of chocolate from the settler council's leader & a letter of support for what he did.

Mendel was initially dismissed by the IDF & blamed for the massacre, but was quickly & quietly reinstated & promoted in the Defence Ministry as the head of the settlements and national infrastructure unit.

It's abundantly clear Israel is NOT serious about prosecuting any of the atrocities committed in Gaza. Since the genocide began, only two soldiers were punished by the IDF; one for microwaving a living frog & another for cooking sausages in the army kitchen on Shabbat.

The producer asked me: What about the 150 cases the IDF said are pending review?

I answered: it's just a number designed to give the appearance of seriousness, but it's essentially meaningless.

If it took the IDF two whole years to admit the simplest of facts that the entire world had already known, which is that their troops were the ones who fired on Hind Rajab's car, how do you expect them to do with the remaining cases that are not as high profile?

Five minutes after the call, the producer wrote me that they decided to cancel the interview & will not even host anyone else to comment on the issue, & instead they'll play archival footage!

[Ferg @fergusstrachan]

@BBCBreaking Hey BBC, here's something for you investigate if you dare:

How many allegations of war crimes against the idf since Oct7?
How many criminal investigations carried out by the IDF?
How many soldiers were convicted of anything?

It's approx 3000, 52 and 1.

You seem quite gullible

[Ferg @fergusstrachan]

@Megatron_ron Run Forrest!

[Ferg @fergusstrachan]

@horton_official Did Kath tell you to write this?

[Ferg @fergusstrachan]

@eucopresident @vonderleyen @IntlCrimCourt What are you going to do about it?

[Ferg @fergusstrachan]

@vonderleyen @eucopresident @IntlCrimCourt I give it 6 months max before you start telling us how bad the ICC is because it's holding to account people the Americans are protecting.

[Ferg @fergusstrachan]

@RichardDawkins Cofnas is a guy who seems keen on eugenicism, who maintains that black poeple are way less intelligent, but whose own work is brought into serious question by his colleagues at Ghent University.

It isn't beyond the realms of possibility thst his beef is racially motivated.

[Ferg @fergusstrachan]

@imbrokeidc @srkntnyldz That's a thing only in Black Mirror.

[Ferg @fergusstrachan]

@Channel4News Look at the state of that guy.

Man of the people, huh? 🙄

[Ferg @fergusstrachan]

@karllson2 @TheOtherSideRu I know, I'm just messing. Of course you didn't mean that, I'm just pointing out that the words and the order can definitely be taken that way though. 👍

[Ferg @fergusstrachan]

@karllson2 @TheOtherSideRu Alright alright, we brits aren't all scumbags, no need to put that word in there. 😁

[Ferg @fergusstrachan]

@it_unprofession 😂

[Ferg @fergusstrachan]

@joni_askola Is this where we are now? Proposing to steal the assets of another country?

Dangerous road...