Netanyahu says ICC arrest warrant over Gaza War is result of ‘new antisemitism’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the International Criminal Court’s intention to seek warrants against him and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, blasting the move as a form of “new antisemitism” that has migrated from US college campuses to The Hague.
“What chutzpah do you dare compare the monsters of Hamas to the soldiers of the IDF, the most moral army in the world?” Netanyahu asked in a video statement Monday, taking vehement exception with the perceived comparison between Israeli forces and the Islamic terror group, Times of Israel reports.
“With what audacity do you compare between the Hamas that murdered, burned, butchered, raped and kidnapped our brothers and sisters, and the IDF soldiers who are fighting a just war that is unparalleled, with a morality that is unmatched?”
Netanyahu continued his blistering rebuke of Khan’s “distortion of reality” in equating Israeli troops with Hamas. He cited it as an example of “new antisemitism” that took hold on US college campuses and spread to the ICC.
Indeed, antisemitic sentiment has become rampant on American universities in recent months as some student demonstrators have directly aligned themselves with Hamas or called for the destruction of Israel.
In a bombshell announcement hours earlier, the ICC said it was pursuing arrest warrants for alleged war crimes committed by Netanyahu and Gallant, along with three top Hamas officials, over the war in Gaza.
The charges against the Hamas terror chiefs include extermination, murder, torture, rape and taking hostages — all war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Israel, meanwhile, is accused of “willful killing,” “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare” and “willfully causing great suffering” in its administration of the Jewish state’s war against Hamas.
“My office submits that the war crimes alleged in these applications were committed in the context of an international armed conflict between Israel and Palestine, and a non-international armed conflict between Israel and Hamas (together with other Palestinian Armed Groups) running in parallel,” said ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan.
Khan said he saw for himself the “devastating scenes of these attacks and the profound impact of the unconscionable crimes” committed on Oct. 7.
“Speaking with survivors, I heard how the love within a family, the deepest bonds between a parent and a child, were contorted to inflict unfathomable pain through calculated cruelty and extreme callousness. These acts demand accountability,” he said.
No warrants have been issued yet, but Khan’s announcement made it clear he intends to seek them from the ICC.
As the intergovernmental organization was establishing its case, it tapped Lebanese-British human rights lawyer Amal Clooney to be part of a panel tasked with exploring legal grounds to pursue charges against the architects of the war.
The panel, which in addition to Clooney included a wide range of international legal experts, unanimously agreed that the ICC had jurisdiction over any alleged crimes committed and agreed that charges were warranted.
“As a human rights lawyer, I will never accept that one child’s life has less value than another’s. I do not accept that any conflict should be beyond the reach of the law, nor that any perpetrator should be above the law,” she wrote.
The announcement by ICC prosecutors drew swift condemnation from Israel’s allies including the US.
President Biden ripped the “outrageous” arrest warrant application filed against Netanyahu.
“The ICC prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous,” said Biden, whom anti-Israel protesters have dubbed “Genocide Joe” for his forceful early support of Netanyahu’s invasion of the Gaza Strip.
“And let me be clear: Whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas,” added Biden, who traveled to Israel just 11 days after Hamas terrorists started the war on Oct. 7 by murdering about 1,200 people — including 33 Americans — across southern Israel.
The ICC, which is based in The Hague in the Netherlands, can charge individuals with war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
Israel isn’t a member of the ICC and disputes its jurisdiction.
A panel of ICC judges will weigh the prosecutors’ applications for the warrants.
