Israel holds itself accountable if mistakes were made.

If Israel genuinely held itself accountable, the International Criminal Court (ICC) would not have opened an investigation or issued arrest warrants against senior Israeli officials. Under the Court's principle of complementarity, it only intervenes when national authorities fail to genuinely investigate or prosecute international crimes. The ICC's intervention therefore reflects the failure of Israel's own accountability mechanisms.

One violation may be a mistake. Systematic, widespread, and sustained violations over eight decades are not. They have been planned by successive governments, implemented by the military, legitimized by the judiciary, defended by state institutions, and carried out with impunity. This is not accidental wrongdoing. It is a settler-colonial project sustained through every arm of the state.

Israel's accountability mechanisms have been repeatedly criticized by UN bodies, human rights organizations, and legal experts for lacking independence, containing structural conflicts of interest, and falling short of international standards, thereby resulting in systemic impunity. In 2016, B'Tselem, Israel's leading human rights organization, ended its cooperation with military investigations, describing the system as a "whitewash mechanism" that protects perpetrators rather than victims.

Israel's military justice system is built on a structural conflict of interest. The Military Advocate General provides legal approval for military "operations," then later decides whether allegations arising from those same operations warrant criminal investigation. A system in which the legal adviser also serves as the gatekeeper for accountability is designed to protect the institution, not to deliver justice.

Israel's military accountability system rarely holds soldiers criminally responsible. Between 2017 and 2021, the military received 1,260 complaints of offenses by soldiers against Palestinians, including 409 killings. Yet only 248 criminal investigations were opened, and less than 1% resulted in indictments. This is not accountability. It is institutionalized impunity.

When a state's highest judicial authority repeatedly sanctions violations of international law, including administrative detention, torture, starvation, punitive home demolitions, blockade, forcible transfer, the annexation wall, and settlements, accountability has already failed at the highest level. Even during the genocide, the Israeli High Court continued to provide legal cover by refusing meaningful intervention to ensure humanitarian aid reached Gaza and upholding detention policies despite mounting evidence of torture.

Israel's dual legal system prosecutes Palestinians in Israeli military courts, where around 96% of cases end in conviction. Israeli settlers accused of attacking Palestinians are tried under the civilian legal system, where less than 3% of investigations result in convictions. This is apartheid in action.

The killing of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh exposes the failure of Israel's accountability system. Israeli officials first blamed Palestinian fighters, denied responsibility, dismissed international investigations, later acknowledged that there was a "high probability" that an Israeli soldier killed her, and then concluded there was "no suspicion of a criminal offense" warranting a military investigation. This case exemplifies a broader pattern of systemic impunity.

States committed to accountability cooperate with independent investigations. States seeking impunity try to stop them. Israel has repeatedly attacked the very institutions responsible for upholding international accountability, rejecting ICC jurisdiction, defying International Court of Justice rulings, obstructing UN investigations, targeting UN agencies and officials, and attacking Palestinian and international human rights organizations.