ICC warrants 'obscene' say pro-Israel and Jewish groups

Jewish and pro-Israel interest groups made scathing statements condemning International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Karim Khan's issuance of arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Monday for alleged crimes against humanity during the war in Gaza.

The Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA), which represents 400 Jewish communities across the continent, said on social media that Khan's decision was "appalling" and "misguided," and that the move undermined the legal forum's legitimacy.

"The prosecutor’s decision to single out the Jewish state, which goes above and beyond the requirements of international law to protect civilians, while the court has turned a blind eye to the world’s real human rights violators, is antisemitism, pure and simple," said JFNA. "If the court has any interest in maintaining a shred of legitimacy, it will reject these unfounded warrants against Israel."

B'nai B'rith

JFNA said that the announcements of Netanyahu and Gallant's warrants, which were issued at the same time as those Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh, and Mohammed Deif, created the an equivalence between Israel's defense against the October 7 Massacre to the "genocidal terrorist organization that perpetrated that attack."

B'nai B'rith International, American Jewish Committee, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee also condemned the "equivalence" between the two leaderships.

"That Khan is pursuing simultaneous warrants against Hamas leaders, thereby creating a false equivalence between leaders of a democratic country and leaders of a genocidal terror organization, is abhorrent, deeply offensive, and further points to the hypocrisy of this pursuit," said AJC.

AJC called the charges against Netanyahu and Gallant slanderous and factually unsupported, and would be used to demonize the Israeli state and people. Israel had acted with the intent to defend it citizens while striving to protect Gazan civilians, while Khan assumed that the consequences of the war have been intentional The ICC's actions would further serve to "embolden enemies of democracies around the world." B'nai B'rith explained that the decision would reward the Hamas strategy of using civilians as human shields.

AJC and B'nai B'rith argued that the ICC had no jurisdiction to pursue the warrants. The legal forum doesn't have jurisdiction over Israel, just like the US and other states that are not a party to it. AJC also argued that the Palestinian territories are not a state, and no other mechanisms in the Rome Statute had been triggered to allow the court to consider the case. AJC also noted that Israel has an independent judiciary capable of addressing any alleged illegal acts.

"Requesting arrest warrants targeting Israelis ignores the principle of complementarity underpinning the Rome Statute, which dictates that the ICC should act only when the states with the primary responsibility to do so are unable or unwilling to exercise it," said AJC.

B'nai B'rith said the pre-trial chamber should reject the prosecutor’s request, and world leaders should denounce misuse of the court. AIPAC called for the sanctions against the ICC and called for other countries not to comply with ICC warrants.