n ICC panel will consider chief prosecutor Karim Khan’s application for the arrest warrants, which also include Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as two other top Hamas leaders—Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, better known as Mohammed Deif, as well as Ismail Haniyeh.
The charges against Netanyahu and Gallant were laid out as “causing extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, including the denial of humanitarian relief supplies, deliberately targeting civilians in conflict.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a ceremony marking Memorial Day for fallen soldiers of Israel’s wars and victims of attacks, at Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl military cemetery on May 13. AFP/GETTY IMAGES
On October 7, 2023, Hamas led the deadliest Palestinian militant attack on Israel in history, killing some 1,200 people and taking roughly 250 hostages. Israel then launched its heaviest airstrikes against Gaza. About half of the hostages were freed during a temporary ceasefire in November. More than 35,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in the conflict, according to local health officials.
If the panel grants Khan’s application and issues arrest warrants, 124 countries that have signed the ICC’s Rome Statute would be obligated to arrest the men and extradite them to The Hague, Netherlands, if they traveled internationally.
There are key exceptions to the treaty, including the countries of Israel, the United States and Russia. However, some of Israel’s closest allies, including Germany and the United Kingdom, have signed the Rome Statute, which was adopted by the ICC in 1998 and entered into force in 2002.
When asked about German officials potentially arresting a Jewish leader, especially behind the backdrop of the Holocaust atrocities and World War II, Dr. Iva Vukušić, assistant professor in international history at Universiteit Utrecht in The Netherlands, told Newsweek that it, likely, “would never come to that.”
Vukušić pointed to the example of Russian President Vladimir Putin being asked to “dial in” to a BRICS economic bloc meeting between Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa in Johannesburg last year.
“It’s clear that this is politically very fraught in Germany,” she said. “I think Germany would do what South Africa did when [Vladimir] Putin was supposed to visit a BRICS summit last year, which is to kindly tell him ‘not to come.'”
Putin was indicted by the ICC in March 2023 and charged with war crimes over the removal of children from Ukraine, which left South Africa, a signee of the Rome Statute, with a diplomatic quandary.
“It’s almost like you invite your friend to your house, and then arrest them,” South African Deputy President Paul Mashatile told the Associated Press last year. “That’s why for us his not coming is the best solution. The Russians are not happy, though. They want him to come.”
Countries Forced to Arrest Netanyahu if ICC issues warrant
Washington’s relationship with the ICC is complicated and has undergone several phases.
The U.S. was one of only seven countries—with China, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Qatar and Yemen—to vote against the United Nations Security Council resolution to establish an international criminal court in 1998. Then-President Bill Clinton signed on to the Rome Statute that would serve as the basis for the ICC mandate in 2000, but the signature was never ratified and, his successor, former President George W. Bush, informed the U.N. that the U.S. had no intentions of joining the court.
Ties improved later in the Bush administration and throughout the tenure of former President Barack Obama, who sought active engagement with the ICC, even as he officially opposed the Palestinian National Authority’s decision to join the Rome Statute given that the U.S. does not recognize Palestinian statehood in its current form.
The White House’s wrath was on full display under the former President Donald Trump, whose administration pursued punitive measures against ICC personnel, including visa withdrawals and sanctions, after a case was opened over potential U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan. The case was eventually dropped in 2021 and sanctions were lifted by President Joe Biden.
Though the Biden administration remained openly opposed to any efforts to prosecute Israel, the current U.S. leader ultimately supported the ICC investigation into Putin after attempting to set up a separate domestic court to oversee the proceedings in Ukraine. The Biden administration later made the historic decision last year to collaborate actively in providing evidence to the ICC on the issue.
Now, however, the U.S. policy toward the ICC has once again been put to the test as Netanyahu faces potential prosecution over the war in Gaza.
Vukušić told Newsweek that countries that signed the treaty should feel a legal obligation to arrest individuals under ICC warrants, if it has access to the individuals.
“I think it’s important for those states which purport to be supporters of international justice, and enthusiastic when it comes to prosecuting, say, Putin, to be principled and support the court in doing its work,” she said. “This is even more so when the court appears to be investigating allies.”
Source: Gabe Whisnant
