The ICC Have Just Handed Netanyahu His BACKSIDE ON A PLATE!

Right, so yesterday it finally happened, after months of waiting, legal hold ups and even threats against the court itself, the International Criminal Court finally issued arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu, his former Defence Secretary Yoav Gallant, and the Hamas leader Mohammed Dief, for crimes against humanity, for committing war crimes. They are now wanted men, and where it is unknown right now if Dief is still even alive, the two other Hamas leaders originally named by the ICC in relation to potential arrest warrants certainly are not, Netanyahu and Gallant most certainly are and are furious in the least surprising manner they could be.
For some this news will be greeted with hope and optimism that these men will be arrested, for others they may be looking at this and shrugging their shoulders thinking as if that is ever going to happen, but in both cases will be missing the bigger issue that these warrants demonstrate, of the real damage to the Israeli government’s reputation and you only need look at some of the reactions around the world to this news as well, to realise that this does matter, just not necessarily in the way you might think it does.
Hell’s teeth folk, this story is too big to begin with a ‘right so’ and there is a lot to unpack in what has happened, but the big headline is that the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu, Yoav Gallant and Mohammed Dief, the last thought to be surviving Hamas leader originally named by the ICC, the other two now deceased being Yahya Sinwar, recently killed fighting in Rafah and Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated in Tehran and which elicited in part the second Iranian strike on Israel at the beginning of October, so I think it is worth remembering that the ICC actually named 3 Hamas leaders, to two Israeli ones in light of Israel’s response.
One of the final hurdles to these arrest warrants being issued was the legal challenge by Israel citing that the ICC did not have jurisdiction to issue arrest warrants to Israel because Israel is not a signature to the Rome Statute, it therefore does not recognise the ICC itself, however this got rejected which led to the issuing of the arrest warrants and it is worth drawing attention to the foolishness in their legal challenge, having challenge the court on Article 19(1) and 19(2) of the Rome statute, basically saying that the ICC had no jurisdiction to make rulings, only to be informed that not only is it for court itself to decide jurisdiction and with the State of Palestine being a signatory to the Rome Statute, they ruled that they did have jurisdiction, but also that any opposition to this can only actually be undertaken once arrest warrants were issued, so Israel in it’s indignation jumped the gun and went too early! Even more hilariously, under Article 19(4) it states that challenges to admissibility can only be done once, so by going too early, Israel may not now be able to challenge this!
As you can imagine, with the world having fallen out of his backside, Benjamin Netanyahu had something to say about this and he took to twitter to vent his spleen, saying:
‘The antisemitic decision of the International Criminal Court is a modern Dreyfus trial – and will end the same way. Israel utterly rejects the false and absurd charges of the International Criminal Court, a biased and discriminatory political body.
The decision to issue an arrest warrant against the Prime Minister was made by a corrupt chief prosecutor who is trying to save himself from sexual harassment accusations and biased judges who are motivated by antisemitic hatred of Israel.
The ICC prosecutor lied when he told American senators that he would take no action until he had visited Israel and heard its side.
Instead, he cancelled his arrival in Israel last May, several days after suspicions of sexual harassment were made against him, and announced his intention to issue arrest warrants against the Prime Minister and former Defense Minister.
No anti-Israel decision will prevent the State of Israel from defending its citizens. Prime Minister Netanyahu will not give in to pressure. He will continue to pursue all the objectives that Israel set out to achieve in its just war against Hamas and the Iranian axis of terror.’
Oh there is so much to unpack there. The International Court of Justice is now antisemitic, first point, most important point get the victimisation because of course it is, and this was always going to be Bibi’s first reaction. The fact three Hamas leaders were also named in the original filing and this wasn’t solely against Israeli leaders ought to be enough to detonate that, but if you look at ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan’s actions before he went to the Court to request these warrants, it undermines Netanyahu’s excuses here even more.
You see when Karim Khan first mooted this prosecution against the likes of Netanyahu and Gallant and those Hamas leaders, he consulted with 6 legal experts first and these experts even penned a joint statement which was published in the Financial Times back in May, titled ‘Why we support ICC prosecutions for crimes in Israel and Gaza’.
You might recall there was a small bit of legal fallout concerning the wife of Hollywood George Clooney, the renowned barrister Amal Clooney for not calling out what Israel was doing, but the truth was she was working with the ICC on building this case which resulted in the now successful issuing of arrest warrants, she was one of these six. The others were
Lord Justice Fulford, himself formerly an ICC judge, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the former deputy legal adviser to the UK Foreign Office, barristers Baroness Helena Kennedy and Danny Friedman, himself Jewish and one other, the visiting Professor to the University of Oxford, Judge Theodor Meron.
Meron I want to talk about briefly because this guy is a literal Holocaust survivor. 94 years old now, former advisor to the Israeli ambassador to the UN, so certainly not antisemitic or anti Israel and a former judge on the international criminal tribunal for Rwanda and Yugoslavia so definitely knows genocide when he sees it arguably better than anyone alive and he said there is a criminal case to be made against Netanyahu. So if Israel or anyone want to play that antisemite card, point them to Theodor Meron and silence them.
Netanyahu also mentioned the Dreyfus trial, this was a false accusation of a Jewish man in France in 1894, Alfred Dreyfus who was convicted of treason, accused of passing state secrets to Germany and when it came to light the real culprit was a Catholic, it became widely seen as persecution of a Jewish man, his case was used in no small part by Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism and the main architect for the creation of the state of Israel. Netanyahu comparing himself to Dreyfus is frankly a sick joke.
The Judge’s are antisemitic, Khan is just trying to get himself off sexual harassment allegations which weren’t even made until after these warrants were sought and although due process should take it’s course on that, cannot possibly be linked and are widely suspected to be politically motivated themselves and as for cancelling his visit to Israel in May, Khan had visited the previous December! Perhaps he saw enough!
As for dragging the US into his rantings, well that just goes to show how rattled the ICC have made him.
The US has already rejected the arrest warrants, they were always going to, like Israel, the US doesn’t recognise the Rome Statute either and are now therefore likely to move to sanction the ICC, Karim Khan, the judges and their families all showing what they think of international law and showing who the real terrorists in the world actually are and all for Israel’s sake. By rights thi should isolate the US from those nations who are signed up to the Rome Statute, but probably won’t. It’s what they’ve been threatening up until now, I see no reason for them to do what they’re best at and follow their own selfish likely bought and paid for interests.. These are of course the same politicians who welcomed Netanyahu to Congress to speak to them aren’t they? Snd shook his hand and took selfies with him, so the ICC in my view, by rights should be coming for them next, especially the likes of Joe Biden and Antony Blinken.
Imagine if Netanyahu goes to the US again though in light of these arrest warrants. Such a visit would surely trigger massive protests to reject his presence, but both sides of the House crying foul at the ICC goes to show how in hoc to the Israel Lobby far too many US politicians be they Democrats or Republicans are and how corrupt they are in turn, just look at the bill they recently passed declared anti-Zionism to equate to antisemitism? It does not, it’s a racist notion and it is just an excuse to clampdown on free speech, showing zero sign that the US will walk back on it’s support for a genocidal apartheid regime. Equally when the US does censure the ICC and those working there, where do they go from there should arrest warrants be applied to US figures?
Fundamentally though, Netanyahu, Gallant or indeed Mohammed Deif are unlikely to ever be arrested, because they can only be arrested should they set foot in a nation signed up to the Rome Statute and simply not going to any will avoid that possibility.
Netanyahu won’t be arrested, he won’t go to trial, because he will avoid any nation that says they will arrest him. That isn’t the point though. No nation signed up to the Rome statute has any excuse following this action to excuse Israel further, continue working with or aiding Israel knowing their leader is wanted accused of crimes against humanity and all of these countries have their own legal frameworks which will include and make allowance for ICC rulings and actions such as the issuing of warrants and it’s not like they’ve had to wait until the ICC even did this to take action themselves anyway, nations able to think for themselves, such as Spain or Ireland having already done so. Whist Keir Starmer and David Lammy are keeping their heads down still in relation to what they will do, widely expected I think to ignore any such request should Netanyahu come here, one Rome Statute signatory has already said they will not enforce it and that is Viktor Orban in Hungary, who has already invited Netanyahu to visit, so it’s worth considering the consequences of ignoring these arrest warrants.
The ICC could bring legal action against Hungary for one, for not fulfilling it’s duties and obligations as a Rome Statute signatory.
The ICC can also refer an offending state to the UN Security Council for censure. If this was done to Hungary, you can be assured the US would veto any sanction. But there can be political and economic ramifications too, the Rome Statute is tied to EU law so Hungary could find itself in legal trouble with other European nations off the back of this proclamation and the same goes for the UK if Starmer and Co keep avoiding saying they will abide by international law, but their response is for another video.
It's bad news for Netanyahu, it is the worst news for Israel, because for as much as public opinion has soured against them over the last 13 months, international law both at the ICJ with their investigation into a plausible case of genocide and now the ICC against both Netanyahu and Gallant back that up in law. We’re in the right to oppose what Israel is doing, international law says so and any rhetoric to the contrary from any politicians anywhere, is now even more unforgivable.
Meanwhile, where Israel are also making accusations against Iran over that matter of nuclear weapons, the Iranians have come back playing a rather clever political game, having flipped the script on such notions of nukes back on the blue and white state itself in yet another headache for Netanyahu and co. Check out the mess Israel have got themselves in there in this video recommendation here as your suggested next watch and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.