Germany supports Palestine before the International Criminal Court - by submitting a silly statement

On August 6, 2024, Germany, represented by its foreign office, has, together with about 60 other states, organisations and individuals, submitted a 10 page   statement (ICC-01/18-307) with respect to the request of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue arrest warrants against two Israeli and three Palestinian individuals with respect to the situation in the (illegally) Occupied Palestinian Territories.

In an obvious attempt to come to the "rescue" of the state of Israel and to at least delay the looming arrest warrants against the Israeli prime minister Nethanjahu and the Israeli defence minister Gallant, the German government  reasons as follows:

Since the state of Israel is governed by the rule of law, with a well functioning, independent legal system, the ICC should give Israel, in light of the continuing "armed attack" directed against it, a reasonable time to "put" its first class criminal justice system "into effect", before it renders the requested arrest warrants.

With this reasoning, however, the German government instead confirms the immediate admissibility of the ICC's activity, since the principle of complementarity, on which the ICC's jurisdiction is based, means that the Court must not only act if the respective state is unwilling, but also, if this state is unable to act (see Art. 17 sowie the preamble of the statute of the ICC). 

If, as the German Federal Government argues, Israel, due to a continuing armed attack aginst it, is not able to prosecute those individuals for the foreseeable future, the ICC must, according to its mission, immediately fill the existing time gap instead of inceasing it by inaction.