Even Netanyahu’s Israeli enemies don’t support ICC warrants

Israel is about to become engaged in yet another war, this time against the International Criminal Court, which issued arrest warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant last Thursday.

The ICC warrants, which specify that Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant were allegedly responsible for Israel targeting civilians and using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza, were seen as a moral low point for Israel by a small left-wing minority but dismissed as antisemitic by Netanyahu and his ruling right-wing government.

The ICC indictments allege the two Israeli leaders “intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival including food, water and medicine and medical supplies as fuel and electricity”.

The Israeli military campaign was triggered by Hamas massacres in which about 1200 people, mostly civilians, were killed and 250 others taken as hostages to Gaza. More than 44,000 Palestinians have been killed during the war, mostly women and children, according to Hamas health authorities. The IDF has said it has killed more than 17,000 militants.

The mainstream Israeli media quickly adopted Netanyahu’s view, not even considering the possibility that there could be a connection between the IDF’s actions and the warrants The opposition leaders, two of them retired generals, also denounced the warrants.

Palestinians, by contrast, welcomed the warrants as a break with what they view as 76 years of Israeli impunity for a broad array of crimes. They hope this step can also boost the prosecution of Israel for alleged genocide in the ICC.

“Israel had built an unspoken red line they didn’t think would ever be crossed. They always counted on being above any kind of accountability,” said Nour Odeh, a Ramallah-based analyst and former spokesperson of the Palestinian Authority.

“This development can also reach potentially other officers and commanders. There’s a domino effect regarding third-party responsibility and international jurisdiction.”

Odeh said Israeli soldiers might now find themselves “wanted for crimes they posted and boasted about on social media”.

But what would constitute justice for the Palestinians remains up in the air.  With the help of the Trump administration, Netanyahu may turn the tables on the ICC and render it dysfunctional, creating a kind of open season for rights abusers in the view of some.

Left-wing Israeli observers predict Netanyahu will try to do exactly that, just as he responded to his 2021 Israeli indictment on corruption charges by attacking state institutions and damaging the democratic aspects of Israeli governance.

“The worst is ahead,” Alon Liel, former director-general of the foreign ministry, told the Jewish Independent. “There will be a US-Israeli campaign to destroy the ICC and unfortunately, I think [Israel] will succeed.”

Liel predicts Israel and the US will wage the onslaught under the heading of the ICC being antisemitic and that it will take the form of the Trump administration pressuring countries to host Netanyahu despite their ICC obligations to arrest him if he visits.

This will undermine the entire international legal structure put in place after World War 2 to prevent a recurrence of the Nazi atrocities, Liel says. “This will be on the shoulders of Israel,” he warns.

Menachem Klein, emeritus professor of political science at Bar Ilan University shares the concern. He fully supports the issuing of the warrants and says Israel, in Gaza and Lebanon, like Putin in Ukraine, “is undermining the world order”.

 “Unfortunately, Israel may help in destroying the world order that is based on what the Jews suffered,” Klein said.

He termed the warrants “a very dark cloud on the face of Israel.”

“The failure is not only of operational units. It’s the failure of the whole legal system. It’s state-made. It’s not brutal wildcats. It’s the state and the army and that’s why the ICC targeted the heads of the system. They’re saying the system made a crime.”

However, Israeli deputy foreign minister Sharren Haskell says the ICC’s decision is a threat to the world. “The ICC judgment says the Jewish state has essentially no right to defend itself, and it creates a false equivalence between a terror organisation and their barbaric terrorism and the state of Israel. It gives legitimacy to terror and to those who fund it not only in the Middle East but throughout the world,” she said in a statement.

The overwhelming majority of Jewish Israelis believe the IDF has done nothing wrong in Gaza, even though the ICC decision comes as it winds up a siege and mass displacement operation in Jabalia it says is aimed at preventing Hamas from regrouping.

It is not clear if the operation will shift to Gaza City but satellite photos show that the IDF almost completely destroyed Jabalia so that there can be no return of those expelled. The liberal daily Haaretz, joined by the antioccupation veterans’ group Breaking the Silence, termed the IDF operation there “ethnic cleansing”.

Israel vehemently denies any illegal actions and Netanyahu termed the warrants “antisemitic”, and a modern-day equivalent of the 1894 trial on false espionage charges of French Jewish army officer Alfred Dreyfus. The trial is taught to Israeli schoolchildren as the manifestation of antisemitism that led to the creation by Theodor Herzl of the Zionist movement.

For the Israeli security establishment and public, the antisemitism explanation is easier than self-scrutiny. Former National Security Adviser Yaacov Amidror told the Jewish Independent that there is no reason for the IDF to change any of its practices because of the “idiotic” decision to issue the warrants.

“War is a cruel thing,” he said. “And war against terrorism situated among a population is even crueller. If you compare with the US in Iraq, the French in Africa and any other democratic country, the IDF was much more careful.”

Regimes with increasingly right-wing authoritarian trajectories that Netanyahu is close to will also presumably lend a hand in Israel’s burgeoning war with international legal institutions. Hungary’s Viktor Orban has already made clear he is not bound by the warrant and will host Netanyahu.

It seems that the Trump administration in the making is already revving up also. Trump’s chosen National Security adviser Michael Waltz said in response to the issuing of the warrants that the ICC has “no credibility”.

“You can expect a strong response to the antisemitic bias of the ICC and UN come January,” he said. Trump ally Senator Lindsey Graham was quoted by the Independent in the UK as saying the US should “crush” the economies of all countries who comply with the warrant.

Within Israel, a war against the ICC would work well for Netanyahu because it would provide him with a fresh enemy to rally his base against, pose him as Israel’s true defender and distract attention from scandals swirling around him and for his responsibility for the October 7 Hamas massacres.

The media is already helping him. Danny Kushmaro, host of the country’s most popular show, Ulpan Shishi, told the public on Friday what Netanyahu wanted it to hear. “We are enraged by the outrageous warrants that are actually against all of us, against the nation, against the state,” he said.

“We must remind who invaded, murdered, burned, kidnapped babies, women, the elderly and who acted to defend himself.”

The world, Kushmaro said, is “hypocritical, ignorant and stupid”.

READ MORE
Is Netanyahu Now a Fugitive? ICC Arrest Warrants Over Gaza Are Turning point for Israel (Haaretz)
The arrest warrants, which indict the prime minister and former defense minister for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, mandate arrests in 124 ICC member states. They strain Israel's diplomatic and political ties with its allies and shift the way in which it is perceived internationally

Israelis unite behind their prime minister as Netanyahu faces an international arrest warrant (CNN)
A decision by the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for Israeli officials was met with anger and annoyance at Jerusalem’s bustling Mahane Yehuda Market. But the most palpable sentiment was one of unity.

Why ICC decision may mean European arms embargo on Israel (Jerusalem Post)
A far-reaching consequence of the ICC warrants will be difficulties in exporting arms to Israel because of the fear that they will be used to commit war crimes.

No 10 indicates Netanyahu faces arrest if he enters UK (BBC)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces arrest if he travels to the UK, after an international arrest warrant was issued for him, Downing Street has indicated.

Australia tiptoes around ICC decision (ABC)
The Australian government says it respects the International Criminal Court, but it's yet to confirm whether or not it will comply with arrest warrants issued for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant. Both Jewish and Palestinian groups in Australia say they're disappointed by the response from the government here.