After the Second World War, Nazis and war criminals were tracked down across Europe. But in a time before the ubiquity of information technology and facial recognition software, it was relatively easy for many of the leaders to escape capture. Some, most notably Mengele and Adolf Eichmann, were able to escape to South America where, in most cases, they were able to live out their lives. Some were eventually captured, but many escaped capture or censure to live out their lives as advisors to potentates across the continent.
For decades after the war, organisations such as the Wiesenthal Centre hunted down Nazis and their instruments, the individuals who guarded the concentration camps, forced people onto the trains to the camps, and were party to the executions of political officers and common Jews in Russia. Even as the criminals were being hunted, they were aging and changing their stories, their appearances, and their names. They took advantage of “Rat Lines” to escape to South America and to the Middle East in some cases.
Some had official help. Thousands reached and lived out their lives in the United States. "According to the Associated Press, approximately 10,000 suspected Nazis emigrated to the U.S. after the Second World War — often with the assistance of American intelligence officials, who saw them as potential spies and informants in the Cold War."
What they, the Nazi hunters, didn't have then was facial recognition software. Was that nice German or Polish-speaking person next door a war criminal, or did he, as he claims, spend the war working on this father's farm?
Did he facilitate blowing up hospitals and shooting civilians surrendering, or did he stay on the Kibbutz or in Tel Aviv working as an insurance salesman? Maybe he, or she, was a sniper shooting unarmed civilians, women, and children, as they ran across a street to collect water from the only working tap in the area, or to flee to a "safer" area. Maybe in frustration, they enjoyed destroying apartment buildings, with or without anyone in them.
And make no mistake, there have been war crimes committed by Israel and Israeli soldiers in Gaza. There is the example of the “accidental” killing of two Israeli hostages who had escaped, were shirtless, unarmed, and approached Israeli soldiers with their hands up, waving a white flag and speaking in Hebrew. Had those two been Palestinians it would have been a war crime. The fact that it was allowed to happen suggests that such behaviour is not only tolerated but protected by the Israeli military hierarchy. Shooting your own people is an accident. But that accident did not happen in a void.
Clearview AI has amassed a database of images that they use to identify individuals from a single photo. In 2022, Ukraine used Clearview AI to identify Russian casualties and to inform their families when the Russian government hadn't. Clearview is used by law enforcement agencies, and no doubt by the Israeli government to identify all of the Hamas terrorists who attacked Israel on 7 October 2023. And with justification.
But Clearview AI and other facial recognition software will also identify the Israeli soldiers who have (potentially individually, collectively absolutely) engaged in war crimes. These soldiers, like the civilians that they are at other times, love to memorialise events for themselves and their close friends. They take pictures and have their pictures taken. They are in the backgrounds of other people's pictures. And they are taking these pictures in Gaza.
And they will be identified.
Unlike the Nazis who could wear their hair differently, grow a moustache, and wear different uniforms or clothes, these war criminals will not be able to hide. Well, most of them will not be able to hide. They will be identified, and their names will be reported and recorded.
When it comes time for a post-war reckoning, expect countries such as South Africa and others to indict individual Israeli soldiers for specific war crimes, and Israeli generals and politicians for issuing illegal orders and condoning war crimes. There will be international arrest warrants issued. Israel, and the US no doubt, will brand the indictments as antisemitic and as stunts that they will ignore. However, the international legal frameworks will not make those indictments or arrest warrants disappear.
How many will see the inside of a courtroom and face charges? Very few. They will be protected by their government and some friendly governments willing to ignore the arrest warrants.
But Pinochet thought he was immune to arrest. Until a judge in Spain indicted him for war crimes for the period that he was Dictator of Chile. The principle of Universal Jurisdiction was applied for the first time with Pinochet. It will apply to the Israeli soldiers who have committed war crimes, or have been accused in court of having committed war crimes.
Israel's war criminals from the Gaza war and attempted genocide will find they have a very constrained set of options and futures. They will be able to live in Israel as war heroes. They may even be able to board direct flights from Tel Aviv to New York (or other direct destinations in the US). But they will fear landing or visiting many other countries. That will be their life.
Trips to Europe? Not unless they can get false papers and fake passports, and even then, with facial recognition being used, or going to be used at almost every customs and immigration counter across the continent, even a false moustache and funny glasses, linked to a false name on a passport will not save them.
The boycott of Israel will begin with a simple boycott of anyone who fought in Gaza and any "leaders" who encouraged or accepted war crimes as a means to an end. Their names and images will be matched to arrest warrants across the world.
And we are not only talking about the generals and colonels, and very probably cabinet-level ministers. And most probably Netanyahu himself. We are also talking about the privates and the sergeants and lieutenants. The “little guys” who “just followed orders”, but did so with a bit too much enthusiasm.
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