However, white supremacists face an immediate contradiction due to the essential role of undocumented labor in the U.S. Some capitalists have already begun to beg the president to scale down the raids, complaining that ICE is taking all their best workers and hurting their profit margins. Every fascist accusation against the Global South is an admission², whether directed at Black people in South Afrika for “white genocide” or undocumented people in the imperial core for bringing violence to a society that seeks to exploit and assault them. 

30 years after apartheid, the 7% minority of white settlers continue to occupy 72% of South Afrika’s farmland. Legalistic mechanisms for land reforms have failed to address the problem; only 9% of the land has been returned to the Black people it was stolen from. Before it can return land, the government needs to provide compensation to the white settler. In other words, the law requires the government to pay thieves to return stolen land. Black South Afrikans can’t get their land back because doing so would bankrupt the country. The result? In 2025, South Afrika has the highest wealth inequality of any country in the world. The average Black household owns 5% of the wealth of the average white household. These statistics alone explain why South Afrikan white lobbying groups — who project false claims of supposed “racial persecution” throughout the world  — have spoken out against relocation to the U.S. Relocating white settlers would only hamper domestic settler efforts towards retaking full political power and overturning the basic legal rights won by the Black majority in 1994. One white pensioner spelled the situation out clearly: “If you haven’t got any problems here, why would you want to go?” 

Trump’s relocation of white settlers appears to be part of a larger U.S. attack on South Afrika’s government. In 2024, President Cyril Ramaphosa enacted the “Land Expropriation Act” —  essentially an eminent domain law which allows the government to repurpose private land for the public benefit. According to the law, land can only be expropriated without compensation in limited scenarios, like when property is unused or abandoned. To this day, no land has been seized in South Africa without compensation. This is the law that Trump claims will cause “white genocide” in South Afrika. The U.S. had already cut off nearly all foreign aid to South Afrika back in February, throwing the country’s healthcare system into a new crisis overnight. 

Although Trump and his imperialist collaborators understand the reformist nature of South Afrika’s government, the country is still centered in the U.S.’ crosshairs because of its rejection of outright western colonial rule. South Afrika has been represented by the ANC (African National Congress) — the party of Nelson Mandela — since the end of apartheid. In all likelihood, the U.S. wants to remove the ANC from power and replace it with one of the more imperialist-friendly parties representing white interests. In its 30 years of rule, the ANC has built strong economic relationships with enemies of the U.S. such as China, Russia, and Iran. The South Afrikan lawsuit against so-called “israel” in the International Court of Justice — supposedly the highest court in the world — continues to isolate the zionist entity, which has lost sympathy even in the West. If the U.S. were to succeed in its regime change effort, they would replace the ANC with a party such as the Democratic Alliance. With its bedrock of white support, this party would be quick to submit to the U.S. by signing extortionist trade deals and dismissing the I.C.J. lawsuit. For Trump, the chance to bully an oppressed country like South Afrika while pandering to the white base at home was too convenient to pass up. 

From within the U.S., we can see how the relocation fiasco is in perfect alignment with the current fascist playbook. The illusions of a multi-racial participatory society in a racist settler colony are dissipating in the face of an explicit preference for white immigration, especially those who show loyalty to the imperial project. I.C.E. agents and deputized local police are snatching undocumented people from their homes and workplaces. The most immediate hurdle to the new terror project lies in the capitalist class itself, who keenly appreciate the essential role of undocumented immigrants in the Amerikan economy. Capitalists in both meatpacking and agriculture economic sectors pleaded directly to Trump that the ICE raids are having a bad effect on business. By working the hardest jobs for the least pay, undocumented workers ensure that Amerikans have access to cheap produce while guaranteeing a steady profit for the capitalist. The class collaboration between these capitalists and Amerikans at large is essential to the arrangement. Without undocumented labor, the already small profit margins in agriculture and meatpacking would vanish, which would then trigger skyrocketing food costs. The takeaway from this is that there was already ample reason to be in the streets before the ICE raids began. Instead of waving the Amerikan flag like the recently-arrived South Afrikan settlers, protesters should agitate based on the general conditions of racial hierarchies in labor. Violent ICE raids will of course continue, although the business enterprises of certain capitalists will now be spared by the Trump regime. The federal and municipal pigs will continue to arrest grandparents, parents, and children. 

While fascists balance the contradictions between their rhetoric and reality, they still agitate their base by attacking a sovereign nation with racist dog whistles. On June 2, 9 more settlers from South Afrika arrived in the U.S, and more will be on the way unless South Afrika bows under the pressure. We must never forget that Land Back is as desperately needed here on Turtle Island as it is in South Afrika. Amerikan fascists feign horror at Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of land repossession. Imagine their response to a real campaign for Land Back on what they consider to be their home territory. 

Spend these summer months engaged in social investigation or engaged in study. USU and the All-Empire Workers’ League are here to join you in struggle with materials and assistance as we work on tangible projects in the real world. Whatever you do, don’t let the summer pass you by as white supremacists continue their push to convert the mass fascist state into its final, deadly form. 

1.  The term “global flea market” is borrowed from George Jackson’s Blood in my Eye (page 118)  ︎
2. For further discussion of colonial psychology, see Chapter 2: The Historical Background in Robert Biel’s Eurocentrism and the Communist Movement, with special attention paid to page 32 (local page source) ︎

It makes a certain sense to see people place their hope in international institutions. After all, we’re told they’re above the settler butchers (the zionists and their handler, the U.S.). We’re told it’s their job to hold everyone accountable. Most recently, the International Criminal Court (ICC) sparked a wave of this sort of hope on May 20 when its prosecutor, Karim A.A. Khan, applied for the arrest warrants of the zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, for seven violations of international law. 

On Tuesday, June 4, the U.S. House passed a bill to sanction the ICC for investigating “protected persons” and allies of the U.S.. The bill implicates anyone on the court’s staff, anyone who “assisted” investigations, even witnesses. All would be subject to economic and political repression. And though the White House and the Democrats mostly opposed the Republican-drafted bill (aside from the 42 blue fascists who crossed imaginary party lines to support it), they’ve stressed their own desires to retaliate against the ICC for “overstepping.” The partisan bill is merely too aggressive for their liking. To the Democrats, sanctioning an international criminal court is much like the U.S. resolution to invade the Hague: good to have up your sleeve, but best not to wave around. 

Despite the indignation of both factions of the ruling party, and likely because of it, people sympathetic to the Palestinian cause may find themselves invested in the ICC case. It is validating after months of being gaslit about the most blatant, irrefutable atrocities to feel that such a prestigious organization is on the side of justice. The zionist colonizers will finally be held accountable. Finally, someone could seize the blood soaked hands.

But this is a mistake.

In the official application for the warrants of arrest, the condemnations of Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant which list their seven charges for violations against international law, are buried. They are buried beneath the warrants of arrest of three Hamas leaders — Yahya Sinwar, head of Hamas; Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, commander-in-chief of Al-Qassam Brigades; and Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Hamas Political Bureau — charged with eight violations of international law. The application for arrest is aimed at the “situation in the State of Palestine,” in which, according to the ICC, the Palestinians are the worst criminals. This is how the statement by the ICC Prosecutor opens. Condemning Hamas. The only thing worse than committing a genocide is resisting one. It is the position of this prestigious order of international justice that the Palestinians have committed greater crimes in attempting to break their chains than the fascist settlers have in butchering them for it. 

We’ve quoted the Palestinian writer, Mourid Barghoutti, elsewhere, but it bears repeating: “A killer can strangle you with a silk scarf or can smash your head in with an axe; in both cases you are dead.” The genocide has been going on for 76 years, beginning with the smashing of an axe into the head of the Palestinian people with the Nakba, and continued for intermittent periods of the silk scarf. Always broken by the axe. Always followed by the scarf, with the expectation that the nation bleeding from its head must be grateful for such gentler suffocation. What the ICC really opposes, what the international order of capitalist countries really condemn, is that this period of axe massacre has gone on too long. It has made the simplistic, undeniable reality of genocidal apartheid naked to the world. And the ICC and other similarly useless organizations resent that their impotence is made equally undeniable by such uncontested crimes. 

ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan revealed that, in response to his meek arrest warrants for the zionists, a U.S. senior advisor threatened him, bluntly stating: “This Court is built for Africa and for thugs like Putin,” not Western leaders. Khan was offended to hear this, which is by all accounts the ugly truth — international institutions like the ICC do not resist the atrocities of imperialism, they serve imperialism. They are built, staffed, and funded by imperialist countries. The ICC provides another layer of legitimacy for global oppression. It has never been the case that the extremes of colonial violence have been stopped or brought to justice by its beneficiaries. The zionist settler colony is U.S. imperialism’s most vital outpost in West Asia. These warrants are part of a larger effort to pin the blame of zionism’s intrinsic reality on a couple of “rogue actors,” who can be shuffled out and replaced with identical butchers. Wipe off the blood. Sheath the axe. Bring that scarf out with a kind smile. 

The ICC doesn’t exist to abolish zionism. It exists to save it. 

It is not enough to cry “Free Palestine” in a march or a protest. Your job isn’t done now that the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu. Yes, it’s meaningful that the ICC issued criminal charges against Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant. We are witnessing a seismic shift in European and Amerikan opinion of so-called “israel.” But never forget that the Hague is a useless child of liberalism. Remember that genocide and land theft of the Palestinian people has been on-going for 75 years, and in all that time not a single warrant was issued for any of the numberless zionist war criminals who have murdered, raped, and burned their way across Palestine.

By way of background, the ICC was established in 2002 with the purpose of investigating and prosecuting war criminals. In the 21 years since its inception the court has heard 31 cases, issued 46 arrest warrants, detained 21 people, 17 people remain at large, issued 9 summonses to appear,  issued 10 convictions and 4 acquittals and charges have been dropped against 7 people due to their deaths.

The Court’s founding treaty, the Rome Statute, grants the ICC jurisdiction over four main crimes.

• First, Genocide, “characterised by the specific intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial or religious group by killing its members or by other means: causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; or forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” 
• Second, Crimes Against Humanity, “serious violations committed as part of a large-scale attack against any civilian population. The 15 forms of crimes against humanity listed in the Rome Statute include offences such as murder, rape, imprisonment, enforced disappearances, enslavement – particularly of women and children, sexual slavery, torture, apartheid and deportation.”
• Third, War Crimes, “grave breaches of the Geneva conventions in the context of armed conflict and include, for instance, the use of child soldiers; the killing or torture of persons such as civilians or prisoners of war; intentionally directing attacks against hospitals, historic monuments, or buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes.
• Fourth, “the Crime of Aggression, “the use of armed force by a State against the sovereignty, integrity or independence of another State.”

On May 21, 2024 the ICC issued two warrants for the zionist leadership: one for Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of israel, and one for Yoav Gallant, the Minister of “Defence” of israel. The warrants alledge that “from at least” October 8 2023, Netanyahu and Gallant bear criminal responsibility for: the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, wilfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health or cruel treatment, wilful killing/murdering, intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population, extermination and/or murder, persecution as a crime against humanity and other inhumane acts as crimes against humanity. The ICC Prosecutor, Karim A.A. Khan, states that there has been “widespread and systematic attack[s] against the Palestinian civilian population pursuant to State policy. These crimes, in our assessment, continue to this day.”

You can almost hear the collective sigh of relief from liberals and “leftists” who think that these warrants mean that the “adults” have taken charge and now all will be fixed. While there are many things wrong with our society, chief among them is the idea that we as individuals cannot do anything and we must hope and pray that the powers that be will finally take up the mantle of justice. History and current events continue to show us otherwise.

International law is predominantly used as a tool of imperialism and capitalism. Look no further than the austerity campaigns that the Inernational Monitary Fund has forced on Jordan and Pakiastan (just to list a few) or the current genocide in Congo where corporations are allowed to hire private militias to displace, starve and murder millions of people with impunity. Notably, since its inception in 2002 the court has failed to bring to justice any figures from major capitalist powers. This is not meant to downplay the importance of those war criminals that have been brought to justice, but it is clear that the ICC typically only issues warrants for individuals who are not part of the capitalist elite. George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Barack Obama immediately come to mind as perfect candidates to be tried for their roles in Iraq, Afghanistan, and drone strikes on civilians.

What is the basis of international law? Force. Ask any international lawyer what governing power can control the behavior of a “sovereign” state, and they will tell you: force. The fear of being invaded, of economic sanctions, of force is the only thing that backs international law. The NATO alliance, the progenitors of this regime, are not afraid of the ICC because no other country will ever force them to abide by its rulings.

Leaders from Africa have astutely pointed to the fact that until January 2016, the nine situations which the ICC had investigated were all exclusively in African countries. The ICC largely ignores war crimes when they are perpetuated by white and rich countries. Another glaring issue with the ICC is that it is “financed by contributions from its states’ parties” as well as “international corporations, individuals, and other entities”.

House Speaker Mike Johnson stated on May 22, 2024, that “if the ICC is allowed to threaten Israel’s leaders, we know that America will be next.” Anthony “Butcher” Blinken, the Secretary of State, told the melting dough-boy Lindsey Graham that he would support a bipartisan effort to sanction the ICC, not only for “israel,” but to protect future Amerikan interests.

On June 4th, 2024, the United State House passed a bill for sanctions against the ICC. It passed by a vote of 247-155. The “yea” vote included 42 Democrats. While it seems unlikely this bill will pass in the House, were the sanctions to be imposed they would “revoke any U.S. visas held by ICC officials and restrict them from making property transactions in the U.S.”

Of course war criminals like our leaders don’t want to see other war criminals face judgment. What would our Amerikan war criminals do if they actually had to face the consequences of their policy decisions? As Amerikans, it’s their god- and country-given right to commit war crimes with impunity. 

The very year the ICC was established, George Bush and his administration announced it was “renouncing” U.S. signature on the treaty” and “vetoed continuation of the U.N. peacekeeping force in Bosnia in an effort to obtain permanent immunity for U.N. peacekeepers” from the ICC. Additionally, “U.S. officials launched a campaign around the world to obtain bilateral agreements that would grant immunity for Americans from the court’s authority.” In a transparent act of Amerika’s violent imperialist interests Bush signed into law the “American Servicemembers Protection Act of 2002.” This law authorizes “the use of military force to liberate any American or citizen of a U.S.-allied country being held by the court, which is located in The Hague.” Additionally, the law provided “for the withdrawal of U.S. military assistance from countries ratifying the ICC treaty, and restricts U.S. participation in United Nations peacekeeping unless the United States obtains immunity from prosecution.”

In order for there to be any true justice for Palestinians a much broader net of accountability must be cast. Netanyahu and Gallant are not the only people leading the slaughter in occupied Palestine. There are many “israeli” officials who are just as complicit. Law for Palestine has a database which is continuously updates its lists of “500+ Instances of Israeli Incitement to Genocide.” This list includes the following categories: army personnel and officers, decision makers, and former government officials. This list would be a good start in terms of making a docket of who else should be airlifted and dropped in the center of a court that is actually meant to deal with war criminals. Those who are active participants in the genocide of Palestine are not limited to “israelis,” Biden is among many world leaders who continually provide aid and resources to the war criminals of “israel.”

Finally, as if any other proof was needed that international law is a smoke and mirrors show, a mere 48 hours after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) made a ruling requiring “israel” to halt its assault on Rafah and reopen the Rafah border crossings, “israel” launched over 60 additional air strikes on Rafah. (It should also not inspire confidence in international law that the ICJ chose not to rule for an immediate and/or permanent ceasefire.)

It is only through collective action that these many monsters will finally get a sliver of what they are due for the death and destruction that they have caused. If we want to look for a court system that is equipped to handle the zionist war criminal case list that should exist we will have to make it. The format of the Nuremberg trials would certainly be a good jumping off point. There, after the atrocities of WWII “199 defendants were tried, 161 were convicted, and 37 were sentenced to death.”

Do not think that the battle is over simply because warrants for two people, in a “country” of 9.5 million, have been issued. As Robespierre said: “Peoples do not judge in the same way as courts of law; they do not hand down sentences, they throw thunderbolts; they do not condemn kings, they drop them back into the void; and this justice is worth just as much as that of the courts.”