In Decem­ber 1948, the New York Times pub­lished a let­ter by 27 Amer­i­can Jew­ish intel­lec­tu­als, includ­ing Albert Ein­stein and Han­nah Arendt, warn­ing of ​“the dan­gers to Israel” posed by the far-right Free­dom Par­ty (Herut). The let­ter described how the party’s mili­tia had killed ​“most of the inhab­i­tants — 240 men, women and chil­dren” of the Arab vil­lage of Deir Yassin, except for a few that were kept ​“alive to parade as cap­tives through the streets of Jerusalem.” The sig­na­to­ries denounced Herut leader Men­achem Begin and urged ​“all con­cerned not to sup­port this lat­est man­i­fes­ta­tion of fascism.”

B’Tselem, a human rights group, said, “Israel … has made Gaza a huge prison, yet forbids the prisoners even to protest against this, on pain of death.”

In 1973, Herut merged with oth­er par­ties to form Likud, the par­ty now chaired by cur­rent Israeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu, who gov­erns in coali­tion with oth­er right-wing par­ties, has proven every bit as vio­lent as the Herut thugs of yesteryear.

This year, from March 30 to May 15, tens of thou­sands of Pales­tini­ans demon­strat­ed at the barbed wire fence that sur­rounds Gaza to protest the Israeli block­ade, the mov­ing of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, and their con­fine­ment to the crowd­ed and immis­er­at­ed Gaza Strip.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) respond­ed by mas­sacring a total of 112 demon­stra­tors (includ­ing 13 chil­dren). On March 31, after snipers killed 15 pro­test­ers, the IDF bragged in a tweet: ​“Every­thing was accu­rate and mea­sured, and we know where every bul­let land­ed.” Defense Min­is­ter Avig­dor Lieber­man said the IDF sol­diers ​“deserve a medal.” Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Netanyahu praised the IDF for allow­ing Israelis to enjoy Passover obser­vances ​“peace­ful­ly.”

Not every­one in Israel was at peace. B’Tselem, a human rights group, said, ​“Israel … has made Gaza a huge prison, yet for­bids the pris­on­ers even to protest against this, on pain of death.”

Not­ing that ​“lethal force is banned by inter­na­tion­al law except to meet an immi­nent threat to life,” Human Rights Watch called for a for­mal inves­ti­ga­tion by the Inter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court (ICC), which was cre­at­ed by the Unit­ed Nations in 2002 (but runs inde­pen­dent­ly from it).

Since 2015, the ICC’s chief pros­e­cu­tor, Fatou Ben­sou­da, has been con­duct­ing a ​“pre­lim­i­nary exam­i­na­tion” of the 2014 Gaza War, which killed 2,251 Pales­tini­ans (includ­ing 1,462 civil­ians) and 73 Israelis (includ­ing 6 civil­ians). On April 8, she warned that ​“any new alleged crime com­mit­ted in the con­text of the sit­u­a­tion in Pales­tine may be sub­ject­ed to my office’s scrutiny.”

On May 18, the U.N. Human Rights Coun­cil vot­ed to set up a com­mis­sion of inquiry to exam­ine Israel’s use of force, 29 to 2 (the Unit­ed States and Aus­tralia) with 14 absten­tions (includ­ing Britain, Ger­many and Japan). Because the Unit­ed States has veto pow­er on the Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil, any rec­om­men­da­tion is unlike­ly to move forward.

As the Likud­niks see it, the only thing Israel has done wrong in Gaza is lose the pub­lic rela­tions war. Speak­ing at a brief­ing for the Jew­ish Fed­er­a­tions of North Amer­i­ca, IDF spokesper­son Lt. Col. Jonathan Con­ri­cus said, ​“The ​‘win­ning pic­ture’ over­whelm­ing­ly, by a knock­out, unfor­tu­nate­ly, have been the graph­ics from the Pales­tin­ian side. The amount of casu­al­ties has done us a tremen­dous dis­ser­vice, unfor­tu­nate­ly, and it has been very dif­fi­cult to tell our story.”

That wouldn’t sur­prise Albert Ein­stein, Han­nah Arendt, Sey­mour Mel­man and the oth­ers who signed that let­ter to the New York Times 70 years ago. The authors were prophet­ic: ​“It is in its actions that the ter­ror­ist par­ty betrays its real char­ac­ter; from its past actions we can judge what it may be expect­ed to do in the future.”

That future is now.

It’s time for ICC Chief Pros­e­cu­tor Ben­sou­da to move the pro­ceed­ings from the court of pub­lic opin­ion, where Israel’s lead­ers are cur­rent­ly being tried, to a more prop­er venue: The Hague.