ICC will target other democracies next, Netanyahu warns

Western democratic leaders will soon follow Israel in being hauled before the International Criminal Court unless a way is found to prevent the issuance of warrants against the leaders of the Jewish state, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told ABC on Tuesday.

“Every democracy will be pulled into the [ICC] dock. We’re first, and you’re next. People understand that,” Netanyahu said, as he appealed to Western powers to intervene in an attempt to halt such action.

He spoke one day after ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan announced that he sought arrest warrants for top Israeli and Hamas leaders, including Netanyahu, and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity due to IDF actions in the Gaza War.

“That has to be stopped. And that has to be resisted. And I can assure you, the vast majority of Israelis and all responsible leaders in the world understand that this should be resisted,” he said.

The ICC pre-trial chamber has yet to approve Khan’s request. If it does, the warrants would be the first issued against leaders of a democratic country.

Israel and the United States are not among the 124 countries that are parties to the Rome Statute which governs the ICC. If warrants were issued Netanyahu and Gallant would risk arrest if they traveled to any of those countries,The Norwegian news site Nettavisen reported that the country’s Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said that if the warrants were issued, his country would arrest Netanyahu and that he believed all the other signatories to the Rome Statute would do the same.

Netanyahu told ABC he was not worried about the threat of arrest.

“I'm not concerned at all about our status. I think that the prosecutor should be concerned about his status because he's really turning the ICC into a pariah institution.

“People are just not going to take it seriously. They see it as a politicized thing. I hope that the judges don't turn don't confirm what he says because that will make them into a kangaroo court,” he said.

Israeli has been particularly outraged over the equity Khan drew between Israel and the terror organization Hamas, particularly in light of the group’s October 7th invasion of Israel in which it raped, dismembered, and burned alive its victims.

Khan is “creating a false symmetry between the democratically elected leaders of Israel and the terrorist chieftains,” Netanyahu said.

It’s akin to an ICC Chief Prosecutor seeking arrest warrants for both US and Al-Qaeda leaders in the aftermath of the September 11 attack on the Twin Towers in New York in 2001, Netanyahu said.

It is also akin to the issuance of warrants against both former US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and former German Chancellor Adolf Hitler, he added.

This is “a hit job. It’s not serious,” Netanyahu said.

Fanning the flames of antisemitism

He accused Khan of “pouring gasoline on the fires of anti-Semitism that are spreading around the world because he is attacking the one and only Jewish state “ which is fighting an existential war against Hamas.

Norway was not the only country to back the court. The French Foreign Ministry said it supported the ICC’s “independence and the fight against impunity in all situations. ”As far as Israel is concerned, it will be up to the court's pre-trial chamber to decide whether to issue these warrants, after examining the evidence put forward by the prosecutor," the ministry said.

Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne, however, told the National Assembly on Tuesday that the "simultaneous" warrant requests must not establish an "equivalency" between Hamas and Israel.

"On one side you have a terrorist group that congratulated itself on the Oct. 7 attacks ... and on the other side you have a democracy, Israel, that must respect international law while conducting a war it did not start," Sejourne said.Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk stood behind Israel, stating, “An attempt to show that the prime minister of Israel and the leaders of terrorist organizations are the same, and the involvement of international institutions in this, is unacceptable," Tusk told a news conference.

The United States has been particularly vocal in its condemnation of the court, with US President Joe Biden calling Khan’s pursuit of warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant “outrageous.”

The United States Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew called it “shameful” and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called it “wrongheaded” and warned that it complicated efforts to reach a hostage deal.

He said he was happy to work with Congress on an appropriate response.

Some U.S. lawmakers called for the United States to impose sanctions on the court. In 2020, the United States imposed sanctions on an ICC prosecutor.

The Kremlin said on Tuesday it was very curious that the United States appeared ready to use sanctions against the ICC.

"In general, the situation is more than curious in terms of the U.S. attitude and willingness to use sanctions methods even against the ICC," Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

In March last year, the ICC issued warrants for the arrest of President Vladimir Putin on war crimes charges.

Russia says the warrant against Putin is a meaningless attempt by the West to soil Russia's reputation and denies war crimes in Ukraine. Ukraine says Russia committed war crimes. Russia says the West has ignored Ukraine's crimes, a charge denied by Kyiv.

Biden said last year that the ICC's decision to issue an arrest warrant for Putin was justified. The United States has shared details of alleged Russian war crimes in Ukraine with the ICC.

Russia is not a party to the Rome Statute, which established the ICC, so Moscow does not recognize the court's jurisdiction.

"We are not parties to the relevant statute, therefore, we do not recognize the jurisdiction of the court," Peskov said.

Reuters contributed to this report.