The decision by the international criminal court (ICC) to issue arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, and Yoav Gallant, Israel’s former defence minister, for alleged war crimes committed in Gaza has huge implications for Israel and Palestine, for international justice and the rules-based global order that the UK and its allies are pledged to uphold. This unprecedented, necessary and impartial supranational attempt to prosecute democratically elected western politicians accused of grievous wrongdoing is a test the international community dare not fail.
Netanyahu’s reaction to the charges was to dismiss them as “absurd” and “antisemitic” and the ICC as a biased, politicised body. “No outrageous anti-Israel decision will prevent us – and it will not prevent me – from continuing to defend our country in every way,” he said. Netanyahu will have to do better than that. This case is not remotely about antisemitism. It’s not about Israel’s right to defend itself, which nobody disputes. It’s a matter of how it goes about it. It’s a question of impunity and justice. Netanyahu and Gallant should voluntarily surrender to the court and fight their case.
The two arrest warrants, plus another for the Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif, who Israel says is dead, do not come as a surprise. They were first requested by the ICC chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, in May after a long investigation with which Israel’s leaders did not cooperate. Netanyahu and Gallant have had plenty of time to challenge evidence that has led to the charges of crimes against humanity, including “murder, persecution and other inhumane acts” and “the war crime of starvation”. Netanyahu could have taken the initiative and accepted an independent state commission of inquiry – but he opposed the idea. That may be because any such inquiry would be bound to examine his role in the disastrous security failures preceding the 7 October 2023 atrocities.
Israel’s claim that the ICC lacks jurisdiction does not hold water. Like the US, China, India and Russia, Israel is not a party to the Rome treaty that established the court. But as the ICC’s pre-trial chamber has noted, Palestine was recognised as a member of the court in 2015 – and the relevant investigations centre on actions taken on Palestinian territory. Likewise, objections that ICC judges are creating “moral equivalence” between Israeli and Hamas leaders are themselves intrinsically immoral. A murderer is a murderer, regardless of status, politics or ideology.
All the sound and fury around the announcement of the warrants should not obscure the fundamental issue. It is whether, in response to the 7 October massacres, in which Hamas terrorists killed about 1,200 Israelis and took about 250 hostages, Israel’s leadership and armed forces embarked on a disproportionate military campaign in Gaza that resulted in the indiscriminate, illegal killing of an estimated 44,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and is still causing enormous suffering to hundreds of thousands more. For this campaign, Netanyahu and Gallant allegedly bear criminal responsibility as co-perpetrators. Is this true or not? This is the question to which the ICC and the world beyond Israel demand an answer. In the absence of a fair, credible and legally binding judgment, there will never be justice – and the killing may never stop.
Those who fear the truth, or find it politically inconvenient, are nevertheless accelerating attempts to discredit the ICC. Regrettably, Netanyahu’s attacks on the court and its prosecutor have been replicated by Israeli politicians of all stripes. “One might have hoped the ICC’s announcement would raise pointed questions in Israel about the morality of the ongoing war in Gaza. Unfortunately, both the government and public opinion, with the support of most of the media, are refusing to listen,” a Haaretz newspaper editorial said.
Wilful Israeli denialism and exceptionalism finds an echo in the US, the country’s close ally and main arms supplier. President Joe Biden called the warrants “outrageous”. Once again, the gulf between such skewed perceptions and the way most of the rest of the world views the Gaza war yawns wide. The US has never backed the ICC – except when it does things it approves of, such as levelling war crimes charges against Russian president Vladimir Putin and Sudan’s former leader, Omar al-Bashir. The Americans fear the court could step up investigations into their own actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their hypocrisy is stunning.
Donald Trump, once in office, can be expected to protect Netanyahu. He has frequently attacked the ICC and, in 2020, imposed ugly sanctions targeting court officials and their families. And even among the 124 signatories to the Rome treaty, there will be backsliders. Germany is prevaricating. Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, is promising a red carpet for Netanyahu, should he care to visit. That is unacceptable. In past years, the ICC was often criticised for seeming to focus its efforts on wayward African leaders. Now that western leaders are prospectively in the dock, there must be no hesitation. The future adherence of developing countries to a common set of global rules and laws may rest on this case. The world is watching.
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A special responsibility in this regard falls to Britain, which helped to create the ICC when Labour’s Robin Cook was foreign secretary. It was an important and valuable achievement that should not now be undermined. Keir Starmer must make it absolutely, unambiguously clear that if Netanyahu or Gallant take a single step on UK territory, they will be arrested and handed over to the court to face trial. It’s not politics. It’s not personal. It’s justice.
