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HomeRead, Watch, ListenIsrael
Israel Hamas WarFeatureIsrael

Israel at war with the International Criminal Court

France has cast doubt on the validity of the warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant, in a statement likely to have been part of ceasefire deal in Lebanon.
Ben Lynfield
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The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands

The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands (AP/Peter Dejong)

Published: 25 November 2024

Last updated: 29 November 2024

Israel will appeal the decision by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, Israeli media reported on Wednesday.

Netanyahu made the decision at the last minute, as Israel had to respond to the court by midnight on Wednesday regarding appealing the arrest warrants.

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 ICC's decision also implies that Netanyahu and Gallant will be unable to travel to countries that are a part of the court's 120-plus member states, which includes most of Europe but not the US.

But there is a chink in international support for the arrests. Hours after Israel and Lebanon signed a cease-fire agreement, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement saying that Netanyahu and Gallant could be entitled to immunity because Israel is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, the treaty that founded the ICC, implying that the court may not have jurisdiction with respect to Israel.

The French statement is believed to be connected to Israel's demands during the negotiations for the ceasefire agreement.

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.

Israeli reaction, Palestinian reaction

The mainstream Israeli media and politicians across the board have opposed the warrants, , not even considering the possibility that there could be a connection between the IDF’s actions and the warrants. The opposition leaders, Yair Lapid of Yesh Atid, Benny Gantz of National Unity, and Yair  Golan of the Democrats, the latter two retired generals, both 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 International Court of Justice.

“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.”

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 launch a war on the ICC, 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.

There will be a US-Israeli campaign to destroy the ICC and I think it will succeed.

Alon Liel, former director-general of the Israeli foreign ministry.

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. 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”.

It’s the state and the army. That’s why the ICC targeted the heads of the system.

Menahem Klein, emeritus professor of political science at Bar Ilan University

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.

The judgment creates a false equivalence between a terror organisation and the state of Israel.

Israeli deputy foreign minister Sharren Haskell

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

France Says Netanyahu and Gallant Possibly Entitled to Immunity From ICC Arrest Warrants (Haaretz)

Israel to appeal ICC decision to issue arrest warrants against Netanyahu, Gallant (Jerusalem Post)

France Got a Cease-fire in Lebanon – but Did It Give Netanyahu a 'Get Out of Jail Free' Card? (Haaretz)

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About the author

Ben Lynfield

Ben Lynfield

Ben Lynfield covered Israeli and Palestinian politics for The Independent and served as Middle Eastern affairs correspondent at The Jerusalem Post. He writes for publications in the region and has contributed to the Christian Science Monitor, Foreign Policy and the New Statesman.

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