The Australian government has backed the international criminal court as playing a vital role in upholding international law after revelations of a nearly decade-long secret Israeli “war” against the ICC.
Other Australian politicians were more forthright in responding to the Guardian’s reports about how Israel had deployed its intelligence agencies to surveil, hack, pressure, smear and allegedly threaten senior court staff in an effort to derail its inquiries since 2015.
Independent senator David Pocock said the international community must support the court’s work “without fear or favour”, while the Greens denounced reported threats to the court’s previous prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, as “deeply concerning”.
A covert operation against Bensouda, revealed on Tuesday, was allegedly run personally by Benjamin Netanyahu’s close ally Yossi Cohen, who was at the time the director of Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, the Mossad.
Details of Israel’s nine-year campaign to thwart the ICC’s inquiry into alleged war crimes have been uncovered by the Guardian, the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call.
The Australian government did not respond directly when asked whether it was concerned by the reports of Israel’s campaign of espionage and intimidation against the ICC but reiterated its support for the institution.
“Since John Howard ratified the Rome Statute in 2002, Australia has respected the international criminal court,” a spokesperson for the foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, said.
“This is because it is in Australia’s national interest for international law to be upheld.”
The comments also follow threats by the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, to cut ties with the ICC if an arrest warrant is issued for Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, in connection with the conduct of the ongoing war in Gaza.
A recent intercepted communication suggested that Bensouda’s successor as prosecutor, Karim Khan, wanted to issue arrest warrants against Israelis but was under “tremendous pressure from the United States”, according to a source familiar with its contents.
The Greens senator and justice spokesperson, David Shoebridge, said political leaders and intelligence agencies should not “spy on and threaten courts”.
“That the US and Israel are seeking to undermine the court and its prosecutors to avoid accountability is not surprising, but it would be to Australia’s eternal dishonour if our government joined in this undemocratic interference,” Shoebridge said.
“The reported threats to the ICC prosecutor from the head of Mossad are deeply concerning and look like the actions of a rogue state.”
Pocock said Australia “must continue to protect and defend the ICC’s independence and rebuff any attempts to politicise its actions when it is operating exactly as it was intended to in times of conflict”.
“The opposition to the ICC’s work we are witnessing from some quarters currently in the context of the conflict in Gaza was notably absent when the ICC embarked on an investigation of potential crimes against Ukraine by Russian forces or issued an arrest warrant for the Russian president last year,” Pocock said.
“We cannot pick and choose which potential crimes are politically convenient for the ICC to investigate.”
The ACT senator said it was “critically important to ongoing international peace and security that countries around the world uphold international law and respect the authority of its institutions”.
Pocock said it was “during the most challenging periods” that the value of such institutions was greatest: “We are living through such a time.”
Khan announced last week that he had applied for warrants for the arrest of Netanyahu and the Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare”.
They deny the allegations, arguing the application for arrest warrants amounts to an attempt to deny Israel’s right to self-defence.
Khan simultaneously sought warrants for the arrest of three Hamas leaders – Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh – over the 7 October attacks and the cruel treatment of hostages.
The application now goes to a pre-trial chamber to be decided by a panel of three judges, with the options for the arrest warrants to be approved in whole or in part or rejected.
Dutton said last week that the Australian government must “put pressure on the ICC to make sure that they reverse this terrible decision” and to “stand with an ally and a country that was subject to barbaric attacks by a listed terrorist organisation”.
Dutton and the opposition’s foreign affairs spokesperson, Simon Birmingham, did not respond to requests for comment on Israel’s reported campaign of espionage and intimidation against the ICC.
In response to the earlier reporting, a spokesperson for Netanyahu’s office said: “The questions forwarded to us are replete with many false and unfounded allegations meant to hurt the state of Israel.”
