International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan speaks during an interview with Reuters in The Hague, Netherlands, Feb. 12, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw
The shocking announcement by the International Criminal Court (ICC) that it has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is more than a perversion of international justice. It is an outrageous assault on the global order, and an attempt to destroy the leadership of free nations from within.
Never before has the international criminal system pursued the leaders of democratic countries in such a manner, as they are generally presumed to police their abuses through an independent judicial system. After these unjustified prosecutions, the world has taken a significant step backward from the diplomatic order that emerged after the Second World War.
In the first place, the issuing of these arrest warrants is a grotesque twisting of justice in the simple sense. Can anyone have forgotten why Israel found itself at war with the terrorist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip in the first place?
Israel unilaterally withdrew from the territory in 2005; two years later, in 2007, the terrorists of Hamas seized control from the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority by force in a brutal coup. After years of biding their time, on October 7, 2023, Hamas launched a massive, Iran-armed invasion of Israeli territory, in which they butchered 1,200 Israelis and foreign nations, committed grotesque acts of rape and torture, and took 251 living and dead victims (including 12 Americans) back to Gaza as hostages.
Israel launched a war against Hamas in response; it is a defensive war, meant to ensure that the events of October 7 — the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust — can never happen again.
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office rightly compared the ICC persecution to the Dreyfus Affair, a 19th century incident in which France falsely accused a Jewish army officer of being a German spy, leading to his long-term imprisonment and an outburst of antisemitism.
The disgusting reality is that the ICC emerged out of a process that began with the world community’s resolute decision to prosecute the Nazi war criminals who slaughtered most of European Jewry. Now, the ICC has perversely used its mandate to attack Jews seeking to prevent another genocide against our people.
Now that they have been issued, the warrants have real and deleterious consequences. The ICC itself has no enforcement power, and indeed, there is still an unenforceable outstanding ICC warrant for the arrest of Russian President Vladimir Putin. However, many nations have already agreed that they will arrest Netanyahu and Gallant if they land on their territory, which limits Netanyahu’s ability to travel and represent the Jewish State abroad. Notably, Vice President of the European Commission, Josep Borrell, stated that the ICC ruling applied to all member states of the European Union.
More importantly, it makes Netanyahu and Israel itself seem guilty — although all objective evidence points in the opposite direction.
The United States, thankfully, has maintained a firm response, with a White House National Security Council spokesperson saying that the US “fundamentally rejects the Court’s decision to issue arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials [and is] deeply concerned by the Prosecutor’s rush to seek arrest warrants and the troubling process errors that led to this decision.”
Similarly, President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming National Security Advisor, Florida Congressman Mike Waltz, opined that “Israel has lawfully defended its people & borders from genocidal terrorists,” and pledged a “strong response to the antisemitic bias of the ICC & UN come January.” Incoming US Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) warned that the Senate would pursue sanctions against the ICC and Khan if they “do not reverse their outrageous and unlawful actions to pursue arrest warrants against Israeli officials.”
This bipartisan US response has been echoed by a few other clear-sighted leaders around the world, who understand the stakes.
The foreign minister of one EU state — Peter Szijjártó of Hungary — recognized that the ICC’s “shameful and absurd … decision disgraces the international judiciary by equating leaders of a country attacked by a heinous terror attack with the leaders of the terrorist organization responsible.” Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, noted his “deep disagreement” with the decision, which he pointed out “ignores Israel’s legitimate right to self-defense against the constant attacks by terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah.” However, these brave voices are few and far between.
What would the consequences be if these warrants were universally enforced? Israel would come under a state of siege, its leaders unable to leave the country for fear of being incarcerated in a foreign land, in contradiction to the ordinary rules of diplomatic immunity. There would be many other consequences — but this symbolic one is very important. As in the not-so-long-ago days when Jews could not leave their area of many cities at night without breaking the law, the ICC is trying to raise a new ghetto wall around Israel.
As usual in history, the destruction of civilization may start with the targeting of Jews, but does not end with them. Just imagine if Iran were to successfully seek arrest warrants against the US president, or North Korea against the leaders of South Korea and Japan — and leading democracies vowed to uphold them. Now is the time for the US and other responsible powers to push back, and hard, ensuring that the ICC never again has the power to commit such abuses of justice.
Lizzy Savetsky works with numerous non-profit and philanthropic movements as an outspoken advocate for Israel and the Jewish people. You can find her on Instagram @lizzysavetsky.
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