Tel Aviv’s reaction to The Hague’s decision: fear, arrogance, and a call for America’s help

- After the International Court of Justice decision, which Israel expected, Netanyahu initiated a special national security meeting with the participation of the government's legal advisor and the Minister of Defense and the exclusion of the two ministers in the war cabinet, Gantz and Eizenkot, which indicates the possibility of dismantling the war cabinet. - Gantz, who is close to the Biden administration, made a lengthy call from the Ministry of Security in Tel Aviv with Blinken, to discuss the overturns of the International Justice decision and in an effort to push the administration to use its veto power in the Security Council as part of the procedure to implement the International Court's decision. - The justification for the court's decision calling for an immediate halt to the Israeli invasion of Rafah was a contradiction to the official American narrative and the Biden administration's assessments, which were stated by Blinken and his claim that Israel had taken reassuring measures, according to h im, by not harming civilians in the Rafah operation, which the Israeli government considered a green light to invade the city. . - According to Israeli political and judicial assessments, the decision comes in the context of the claim that Israel committed genocide in the Gaza Strip. On the other hand, the court looked exclusively at the occupation military operation in Rafah and the forced transfer of the civilian population and those displaced from the northern Gaza Strip, and did not address the invasion of the northern Gaza Strip and its transformation into Sustained occupation zone. The Israeli response, as expected, is to accuse the court of anti-Semitism and of being biased and offering a gift to terrorism, but it cannot bypass it and its projections. Resorting to the Biden administration to use its veto power in the Security Council to prevent the adoption of the resolution confirms the fundamental decline in Israel's international status as a state that has become a legal and moral pariah, and is s tigmatized for committing acts of genocide, mass starvation, and crimes against humanity. - The court's orders to open the Rafah crossing immediately, like all land crossings, are also a contradiction to the American-Israeli position, which seeks to adopt the American floating military dock under Israeli supervision, and contradicts the Israeli claim of accusing Egypt of responsibility for closing the Rafah crossing, a decision that holds Israel directly and exclusively responsible for the crime of starvation that occurred. It is considered a crime of genocide. - Limiting the International Court's investigation to the aggression against Rafah may be interpreted by Israel as meaning that it does not apply to the entire Gaza Strip and exclusively does not affect the intense and most deadly aggression in the north of the Strip, especially the massacres and ethnic cleansing taking place in the Jabalia camp and Gaza City. However, the Israeli judicial and political circles saw it as more problematic, according t o the Ynet website and others, because it makes the possibilities of Washington using its veto in the Security Council decline, especially since the Biden administration has reservations about invading Rafah, and the resolution does not call for a complete cessation of the war on Gaza, which Washington rejects and would have used. He vetoed him in the Security Council and thwarted him. Estimates: Official Israel is facing an external state of intensified international accountability at the level of the two most important judicial bodies in the world, justice and international criminal law, which has legal and political implications for European and Western countries' dealings with Israel, exclusively in the field of supplying it with weapons and ammunition. The International Justice Department's decision will increase the momentum of demonstrations and popular and student movements around the world to stop the war and hold Israel accountable. In the short term, Israel will reject the international just ice's decision. Rather, it will seek to intensify its operations in Rafah and northern Gaza alike, in a race against time. The Israeli government may resort to promoting its readiness to proceed with deal negotiations, talking about negotiations for the sake of negotiations and buying time, but there is nothing that suggests reaching a deal. Intensifying the occupation's aggression against the Palestinian presence in the West Bank, seeking to undermine the foundations of people's lives on the one hand and undermining the Palestinian Authority on the other hand, as part of the occupation's punitive measures in response to international transformations, and seeking to eliminate the components of a Palestinian state in any circumstances. Source: Maan News Agency