The issuance of arrest warrants for Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel and the Jewish state’s former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, will go down in history as a marker of the illogic of multilateral law enforcement. It sets the stage for what will be a long-overdue effort, likely taking years, to curb and dismantle the International Criminal Court at the Hague. It beckons the incoming Trump administration to lead in such an effort.
Early indications are that the incoming administration understands the stakes. President Trump’s nominee for national security adviser, Congressman Mike Waltz, took to X to offer a blast of moral clarity. He writes that “The ICC has no credibility … Israel has lawfully defended its people & borders from genocidal terrorists. You can expect a strong response to the antisemitic bias of the ICC & UN come January.” Trump takes office January 20.
The senior senator from South Dakota, John Thune, who will soon lead the Senate, is imploring his Democratic counterpart, Majority Leader Schumer, to “immediately pass sanctions legislation, as the House has already done on a bipartisan basis.” Mr. Schumer, who portrays himself as a defender of the Jewish people, has, at the bidding of the White House, blocked the measures. Mr. Thune calls this “a top priority in the next Congress.”
The Biden administration tells Axios that it is “discussing next steps” in response to “troubling process errors” and the “rush to seek arrest warrants.” Sterner stuff is needed. The problem is not process, but a rogue court implacably opposed to the Jewish state — and American interests and values. Some 124 states are now obligated by treaty to arrest Messrs. Netanyahu and Gallant should they set foot in their domains — or even fly over their air space.
Mr. Netanyahu on Thursday called the ICC’s actions the equivalent of “a modern Dreyfus Trial.” He knows whereof he speaks — Mr. Netanyahu’s father was one of the 20th century’s great scholars of antisemitism. Zionism’s founding father, Theodor Herzl, who reported on Dreyfus’s conviction at Paris, would have known well the spectacle of a kangaroo court blaming the Jews — and Europe hunting them. Hamas applauds the warrants.
The ICC’s decision is internally illogical. Israel is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, which demarcates the court’s jurisdiction. “Palestine” is not a state. An arrest warrant is issued for Mohammed Deif, but Israel believes that he is now before a higher tribunal, having been killed in July. Warrants for Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh are also moot. Meanwhile, chief prosecutor Karim Khan faces his own sexual harassment scandal.
Then there is the principle of complementarity, sometimes referred to as “the cornerstone” of the ICC’s charter. It means that the court is one of last resort and prosecutes cases only when states do not do so on their own. Israel’s courts, though, have sent a president and prime minister to prison and are even now investigating Mr. Netanyahu. The Jewish state is embarked on a wrenching debate over its judicial system, whose vigor is acknowledged by all sides.
Which brings us back to Trump. Another tribunal, the International Court of Justice, the UN’s court, is mulling whether Israel has committed genocide. America can make it clear that every tool will be arrayed not just against these organs of corruption, but also against the states that aid and abet them. The ICC’s folly is a warning that America has even now mortgaged too much of its sovereignty to world bodies. It’s time for a Trump retrenchment.
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