The International Criminal Court’s issuing of an arrest warrant against Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is an outrageous antisemitic-fuelled ruling made by a court that has lost all credibility.
Regrettably, the decision that accuses Israel of deliberately targeting civilians will likely amplify hatred towards the Jewish state, and give energy to antisemites globally.
The warrants are not just personal attacks, but assaults on Israel’s fundamental right to defend itself. The ICC is acting as a political weapon on behalf of the enemies of Israel and enemies of the West. Israel isn’t even a member of the court.
It also makes a mockery of international law itself. It rewards and legitimises regimes that blatantly violate international law, while punishing a state that is committed to keeping it. For governments worldwide that regard the ICC as a credible moderator, they now have to make a moral stand of rejecting this injustice and stand with Israel.
But disappointingly, a spokesperson for the UK Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, stated, “The UK will always comply with its legal obligations as set out by domestic law and indeed international law.”
The response was in contrast to President Biden, who described the decision as “outrageous”.
“Whatever the ICC might imply, there is no equivalence – none – between Israel and Hamas,” Biden said in a statement, external. “We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security.”
Israel does everything it can to protect Palestinian civilians. Hamas on the other hand, does everything it can to increase Palestinian civilian casualties by using innocent women and children as human shields as well as using homes, hospitals and schools to operate its terrorist activities .
The ruling also accuses Israel of deliberately starving Palestinians, whereas Israel is doing everything it is being asked to do, and more, including facilitating 700,000 tons of food since the war to feed the people of Gaza, and is proving daily truckloads having just completed rolling out polio vaccines for children in Gaza. As CUFI has reported previously, delays caused by UN aid agencies have left hundreds of containers of unclaimed aid on the Gaza-side of the border and Hamas does everything to exploit aid to the detriment of those who genuinely need it.
Colonel Richard Kemp described the ICC’s decision as “an obscenity that removes all credibility from the court,” adding, “The US should immediately sanction the ICC chief prosecutor and other officials.”
The bias against Israel is clear. The ICC has never issued an arrest warrant against the leader of Iran or Hezbollah, for example. In addition to the arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, the inclusion of an arrest warrant for Hamas’s Mohammed Deif, might give the illusion that the ICC is holding Hamas to account and unnecessarily attempting to be “balanced”, but nothing could be further from the truth. Mohammed Deif is dead. The ICC are making a mockery of Israel.
Prime Minister Netanyahu denounced the ruling, which he described as an “absurdity”, saying that Israel will not recognise the validity of the decision and will continue to do everything to defend Israel’s citizens.
“The truth is simple. No war is more just than the war that Israel has been waging in Gaza after Hamas attacked us unprovoked, launching the worst massacre against the Jewish people since the Holocaust.
“The decision to issue an arrest warrant against me, the democratically elected prime minister of the State of Israel, and our former defense minister was made by a rogue prosecutor who is trying to extricate himself from sexual harassment charges, and by biased judges who are motivated by antisemitic sentiments against the one and only Jewish state,” Netanyahu said.
“These judges did nothing, they did nothing, against the real war crimes committed against the millions who have been murdered or uprooted by the dictatorships in Iran, Syria and Yemen.
“Instead, they falsely accuse the one democracy in the Middle East, Israel, thereby imperiling the right of all democracies to defend themselves against murderous terrorists and tyrants.
“Nor did the court do anything against the Hamas terrorists who raped our women, beheaded our men, burned babies alive in front of their parents and kidnapped hundreds of men, women and children to the underground dungeons of Gaza. They’re still holding 101 hostages, citizens of many lands, including the United States.”
Israel’s enemies are gloating at the announcement. The head of Iran’s IRGC described it as the “end and political death” of Israel.
“This means the end and political death of the Zionist regime, a regime that today lives in absolute political isolation in the world and its officials can no longer travel to other countries,” Revolutionary Guards chief General Hossein Salami says in the speech aired on state TV.
Salami called the ICC warrant “a welcome move” and a “great victory for the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance movements,” in reference to terror organizations supported by Tehran.
Prime Minister Netanyahu Statement in full:
“The antisemitic decision of the international court in The Hague is a modern Dreyfus trial, and it will end the same way.
One hundred and thirty years ago, the French Jewish officer Alfred Dreyfus was falsely accused of treason by a biased French court.
In response of these false accusations, the great French writer Émile Zola wrote his monumental essay, J’Accuse.
He accused the French court of antisemitic lies against an innocent officer, who was later exonerated of all guilt.
Now, an international court in The Hague, also headed by a French judge, is repeating this outrageous offense.
It is falsely accusing me, the democratically elected prime minister of the State of Israel and Israel’s former defense minister Yoav Gallant, of deliberately targeting civilians, this when we do everything in our power to avoid civilian casualties.
We issue millions of text messages, phone calls, leaflets to the citizens of Gaza to get them out of harm’s way – while the Hamas terrorists do everything in their power to keep them in harm’s way, including shooting them, using them as human shields.
The court in The Hague accuses us of a deliberate policy of starvation. This, when we have supplied Gaza with 700,000 tons of food to feed the people of Gaza. That’s 3,200 calories for every man, woman and child in Gaza.
And these supplies are routinely looted by Hamas terrorists, who deprive their people of much needed food.
Yet just in the last few weeks Israel facilitated the vaccination of 97 percent of the people of Gaza against polio. This doesn’t prevent the court of accusing us of genocide.
What in God’s name are they talking about in The Hague?
The truth is simple. No war is more just than the war that Israel has been waging in Gaza after Hamas attacked us unprovoked, launching the worst massacre against the Jewish people since the Holocaust.
The decision to issue an arrest warrant against me, the democratically elected prime minister of the State of Israel, and our former defense minister was made by a rogue prosecutor who is trying to extricate himself from sexual harassment charges, and by biased judges who are motivated by antisemitic sentiments against the one and only Jewish state.
These judges did nothing, they did nothing, against the real war crimes committed against the millions who have been murdered or uprooted by the dictatorships in Iran, Syria and Yemen.
Instead, they falsely accuse the one democracy in the Middle East, Israel, thereby imperiling the right of all democracies to defend themselves against murderous terrorists and tyrants.
Nor did the court do anything against the Hamas terrorists who raped our women, beheaded our men, burned babies alive in front of their parents and kidnapped hundreds of men, women and children to the underground dungeons of Gaza. They’re still holding 101 hostages, citizens of many lands, including the United States.
Come to think of it, the court did issue one arrest warrant against Hamas.
Now hear, this. They issued an arrest warrant against the corpse of the Hamas arch-terrorist, Muhammad Deif. His corpse.
What an absurdity.
No biased anti-Israel decision in The Hague will prevent the State of Israel from defending its citizens.
I want to thank our many friends around the world, especially those in the United States, who have condemned this outrage and who have said this decision will have severe consequences for the ICC and those who cooperate with its decision.
Israel does not, Israel will not recognize the validity of this decision. We will continue to do everything we must do to defend our citizens and to defend our state against Iran’s axis of terror. Iran and its terrorist proxies, which include Hamas, Hezbollah the Houthis and others. Our enemies are your enemies, and our victory will be your victory, the victory of civilization over barbarism and tyranny”.
