ICC arrest warrants: Iran’s hidden hand in targeting Israel – opinion

Commentators affiliated with the Iranian regime describe the decision of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue arrest warrants against the prime minister and former defense minister of Israel as a “legal storm” that will severely affect global public opinion toward Israel.

Israel, they say, has cultivated an image as “a developed Western democracy—the only one in the dictatorial and Eastern Middle East” while portraying itself, particularly in the Western world, as a victim of antisemitism. The prolonged Iron Swords War, however, has indeed led to a dramatic decline in support for Israel, causing irreversible damage to its image, while support for the Palestinian narrative, especially in Western societies, is on the rise.

As a result, the arrest warrants pose a difficult dilemma for Israel’s allies regarding implementing the decision, possible extraditions, suspending arms supplies, or even supporting Israel. According to the Iranian commentators, the damage has been done, and “Netanyahu will no longer be able to move freely around the world, while they wait to see how many of the 120 member states will comply with the ruling.”

Netanyahu and Gallant, they say, have only two real options: surrendering to the ICC to defend themselves against the accusations, or doing so in Israel’s Supreme Court. However, these analysts consider both scenarios unlikely.

Iran’s satisfaction with this development stems from the fact that it orchestrated it. Even if it will be hard to find a smoking gun or prove a direct legal connection to the regime—known for its expertise in concealment and proxy operations—the narratives Iran has constructed over the years reveal its intentions.

Untrue, harmful rhetoric

For years, Khamenei has referred to Israel as “the occupying regime,” used the term “racism” in connection to the killing of innocents, and now labels the Iron Swords War in Gaza as “genocide,” declaring that Israel must be put on trial.

Iranians draw a connection between the historical anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa and the Palestinian struggle. Iranian leaders and officials label Israel as an “apartheid state” in speeches and statements, asserting that “Iran views Hamas as a liberation movement against occupation and apartheid.”

On the legal front, already on October 7, 2023, Iranian officials declared the need for an international body of jurists from the Islamic world and the international arena to advocate for Palestinian children, and called for a comprehensive, multistage media effort to highlight alleged Israeli crimes.

About two months before South Africa filed its complaint with the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Iran’s foreign minister, standing alongside South Africa’s foreign minister in Tehran, stated that Nelson Mandela was “a symbol of the fight against apartheid, especially today when the world witnesses the genocide of the Israeli apartheid regime.” 

Iran and South Africa, in other words, were in sync on that issue. The South African foreign minister confirmed the two countries’ shared goals and said her country wanted to boost economic cooperation with Iran.

Indeed, according to the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP), South Africa’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), was on the verge of bankruptcy, but its debts were mysteriously covered shortly after it announced its intention to file the complaint. 

“Given the high costs of pursuing a case in the International Court of Justice in The Hague, not to mention the expenses of a prolonged trial, legitimate questions remain about how South Africa could finance such actions,” ISGAP said. “This leads many to conclude that it received significant financial support from external sources.”

Discernible here are the fingerprints of Iran, an expert in proxy methods, putting South Africa in an economic chokehold to set the international legal system against Israel by leveraging “the Palestinian issue.” That would dovetail with the Palestinian strategy of exploiting the ICJ’s and ICC’s authority as a weapon against Israel.

As Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas stated, “Palestine’s acceptance into the UN will pave the way to internationalize the conflict as a legal, not merely political, matter. It will also pave the way for us to file complaints against Israel at the UN, with human rights bodies, and at the International Court of Justice.”

This is not only a strategy for the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank but also for Hamas in Gaza. Hamas has expressed its support for the PA’s efforts to join the ICC. 

The implementation of this strategy became evident after the massacre of October 7, 2023, when Hamas—a terror organization, it should be noted—called on the ICC “to fulfill its responsibility and prosecute senior Israeli officials for the killings and atrocities in the Gaza Strip.”

This Iranian strategy to make use of the international legal system is not, of course, investigated by international institutions, and international media outlets do not cover it. Not only do Iran and its leaders – accused by human rights organizations of arbitrary arrests, torture, executions, severe violations of women’s rights, persecution of ethnic and religious minorities, forced disappearances, and more – go uninvestigated by the ICC, but in November 2023, Iran was elected to chair the Social Forum of the UN Human Rights Council. Iran has indeed had much success in channeling the system in its favor.

ISRAEL’S ABILITY to contend with ostensibly international organizations that act against it politically depends crucially on the incoming Trump administration. 

It is worth recalling that in November 2017, the previous ICC prosecutor announced her intention to launch an investigation of alleged US war crimes in Afghanistan, requesting approval from the panel of three judges to proceed. The same prosecutor enabled the Palestinian Authority’s accession to the ICC with UN backing, arguing that the 2012 General Assembly resolution granting the PA non-member observer state status validated its accession to the Rome Statute.

The administration further warned that if the ICC dared to detain any American citizen, the United States would use force to secure their release. Trump, Pompeo, and other administration officials declared that the ICC was political, corrupt, irresponsible, lacking in transparency, and hence illegitimate.

This understanding of the ICC’s bias and politicization was not adopted by the Biden administration, which did not act to prevent current prosecutor Karim Khan from issuing the warrants. Khan’s timing most likely reflects his awareness that the United States would not stop him. 

A Wall Street Journal report also suggested a link between his efforts to promote the arrest warrants and his desire to divert attention from the severe sexual-harassment allegations against him.

John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, stated that “the ICC cannot continue to survive long without American support, and America must stop giving it oxygen.” Israel, in its struggle against Iran’s manipulation of the international legal system and the global danger inherent in exploiting the court’s politicization and bias against Israel, must await the second Trump administration. 

The writer is vice president for strategy, security, and communications at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs.