Cold War Daily

Every day, tribalism and widening political conflicts of the Mid-east and the Old World threaten, in this networked age, to gobble up the discourse in democracy.

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court this week said he was seeking arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in connection with their actions during the ongoing war in Gaza.

While Israel (and the US) have responded with outrage, the announcement reframes the events of the most recent Israel-Hamas conflict in a new and important light.

Now the ICC panel of judges will probe whether they believe war crimes or crimes against humanity have been committed in the conflict on both sides.

Raising the issue of such crimes highlights the values of the liberal world, and the illiberal tendencies so visible in the Israel-Hamas conflict.

This is important, as the tribalism and old world rivalries of the Mid-east increasingly consume democracy’s discourse, pushing the false idea that citizens in democracy must join one camp in uncritical support.

People are dying. Citizens in democracies feel strongly. There is anger for the perceived complicity/shrugged obligations of the US government. But no citizen of a democracy should be required to support fully one particular side.

If anything, in all of this, democracy’s citizens must not lose their own heads, and succumb to the strange comfort of certainty that polarization offers.

Protest, yes, don’t lose sight of the role of liberal society and values found within it.

One of those values is the admission of the kind of political complexity that cannot be seen through the medieval matrix of opinion sifting on social media.

So what could be a liberal view of the war in Gaza? It could be something like: No to Israeli massacres of Palestinian civilians in pursuit of Hamas terrorists. No to Hamas’ abduction, assault and killing of Jews. No to Israeli’s dysfunctional politics driven by orthodox extremists. No to the abuse of hostages and the use of them in propaganda videos. No to the decision to deprive a civilian population of food, water and electricity. No to pledges for Israel’s destruction. Is it time for the US to review blanket support for the IDF? Yes. Is it time for the US to abandon Israel? No.

In other words, the issue is complex.

Whether ICC warrants are issued, and whether they are acted upon has legal consequences.

But the ICC issue also stands as a reminder of the expectation that human rights matter. International law – founded on universal principles – matters.

And it’s on this, that the preservation of the liberal democratic society rests.

Partisans on both sides will howl at the hypocrisy of so-called “liberal democracies” (especially those with big arms industries). But if liberalism never existed, it’s doubtful something like the ICC could come into existence, either. Neither could liberal democracies.

Much of their power is derived from their ideas.

While it’s true that today the democratic world is in an uphill battle with the authoritarian world. It’s also true that atrocities in one place normalize atrocities elsewhere.

The world watched for years as Bashar Al-Assad systematically attacked his own population. So it is somehow less surprising, somehow less remarkable that Israel has apparently decided to try to starve Palestinians.

It’s important this brutality isn’t normalised.

The ICC warrants act as a reminder to the citizens of countries like Australia of what the big picture actually is.

In a battle of identities and historical narratives, ideas matter.

Political ideas matter.

The side of democracy should be to push for peace, and lasting fairness, even if that means pressure on Israel’s government and Hamas.

There should be some kind of identity that can be built around these intentions.

Not easy, and much more abstract than whatever is trending on social media, but such an identity could further protect democracy’s conversation in a time when it can be so easily overtaken by outside events.