 "Why ICC's arrest warrant for Israel's leaders has pitted President Joe Biden against US allies")
Joe Biden has been in an uncomfortable position for months.
The US president has been trapped between those throwing their full support behind Israel after the 7 October attack and youth and Muslim voters who want him to use his influence to restrain Jerusalem from making things worse for the Palestinian people.
Now, a new development is only adding to his discomfort.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) seeking an arrest warrant against the leaders of Israel has driven a wedge between Biden and his European allies.
Let’s take a closer look:
What happened?
Karim Khan, chief prosecutor of the world’s top war crimes court, has sought an arrest warrant against Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, defence minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas leaders Yehya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh.
Khan has accused them of crimes against humanity in Israel and Gaza.
Though Netanyahu and Gallant are in no danger of being arrested, the development still comes as a setback that only further illustrates Israel’s isolation on the world stage.
Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders condemned the move as disgraceful and antisemitic.
Biden, meanwhile, has also slammed the prosecutor and reasserted Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsBiden said the effort to arrest Netanyahu and Gallant over the war in Gaza was “outrageous,” adding “whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas.”
A panel of three judges will decide whether to issue the arrest warrants and allow a case to proceed. The judges typically take two months to make such decisions.
Israel is not a member of the court, so even if the arrest warrants are issued, Netanyahu and Gallant do not face any immediate risk of prosecution.
But the threat of arrest could make it difficult for the Israeli leaders to travel abroad.
Key allies break with Biden
According to NBC, key US allies such as France and Belgium have defended the independence of the ICC.
“Crimes committed in Gaza must be prosecuted at the highest level, regardless of the perpetrators,” Belgium foreign affairs minister Hadja Lahbib wrote on X.
Politico quoted Slovenia’s foreign ministry as saying that war crimes “must be prosecuted independently and impartially regardless of the perpetrators.”
“Accountability is crucial to prevent atrocities and to guarantee peace,” the ministry wrote.
The French foreign ministry said it had been “warning for many months about the imperative of strict compliance with international humanitarian law and in particular about the unacceptable nature of civilian losses in the Gaza Strip and insufficient humanitarian access.”
It added, “France supports the International Criminal Court, its independence, and the fight against impunity in all situations.”
Germany said it respected the court’s independence, but said it was worried that seeking warrants for leaders of Israel and Hamas suggested “the false impression of equivalence.”
But other US allies stood by Israel.
NBC quoted UK’s prime minister Rishi Sunak said the move was “not helpful to reaching a pause in the fighting, getting hostages out or humanitarian aid in.”
“The ICC Chief Prosecutor’s proposal to issue an arrest warrant for the representatives of a democratically elected government together with the leaders of an Islamist terrorist organisation is appalling and completely unacceptable,” Czech prime minister Petr Fiala wrote.
Meanwhile, Austria’s Chancellor Karl Nehammer said, “We fully respect the independence of the ICC.”
“The fact however that the leader of the terrorist organisation Hamas whose declared goal is the extinction of the State of Israel is being mentioned at the same time as the democratically elected representatives of that very State is non comprehensible.”
What do experts say?
Some have criticised Biden for supporting Israel.
“Biden’s response was deeply disappointing,” Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, told NBC. “There was nothing ‘outrageous,’” he said, about Khan’s decision to apply for arrest warrants “at all.”
Roth said Khan made no equivalence between Israel and Hamas.
“…He simply charged both sides for their separate crimes. And to use Biden’s term, it would have been ‘outrageous’ had he ignored one side’s crime."
“These charges are not about Israel’s right to defend itself, which no one questions. They’re about how Israel has chosen to defend itself, and no cause, no matter how just, can be used as an excuse to commit war crimes,” Roth added.
Roth also pointed out the difference between the US’ reaction to an arrest warrant being issued for Netanyahu as compared to Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
Roth said the “different response speaks more to the lack of principle in the US government’s purported respect for the rule of law.”
“It’s not the rule of law when it applies only to one’s adversaries and not to one’s friends,” he added.
Meanwhile, Shibley Telhami, a Middle East scholar at the University of Maryland, wrote on X that Biden’s “defense of Israeli leaders” was unsurprising “given his posture on Israel and the Gaza war.”
Telhami added that Biden’s “furious attack on ICC and disregard for other (international organisations) has been shocking, out of touch with his own core constituency, and undermines the global order."
Professor Zinaida Miller, an international law expert at Northeastern University, told Politico the ICC’s move hints that they think the arrest warrants will be approved.
“The prosecutor would not apply for warrants at this stage unless he was confident in what he has determined thus far,” Miller said.
She added that zeroing in on just a few individuals would result in a “limited capacity to address the larger context of these crimes other than in ways that directly bear on the criminal process.”
“[But] it’s worth keeping on an eye on the limited nature of the process even as we see the historic significance of the applications, particularly regarding Israeli officials,” Miller added.
‘Is unacceptable’’
Among the prosecutor’s allegations against Israel was using “starvation as a method of warfare."
The UN says some 1.1 million people in Gaza — nearly half the population — face catastrophic levels of hunger and that the territory is on the brink of famine.
Throughout the war, Rafah has been filled with scenes of hungry children holding out pots and plastic containers at makeshift soup kitchens, with many families reduced to eating only one meal a day.
Israel’s foreign minister Israel Katz headed to France on Tuesday in response, urging it to “declare loud and clear” that the request for warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant “is unacceptable to you and to the French government.”
His meetings there could set the tone for how countries navigate the warrants — if they are eventually issued — and whether they could pose a threat to Israeli leaders.
If the warrants are issued, they could complicate international travel for Netanyahu and his defense minister, even if they do not face any immediate risk of prosecution because Israel itself is not a member of the court.
The war between began on 7 October, when Hamas-led militants crossed into Israel and killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 250 hostage.
ICC prosecutor Karim Khan accused Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh of crimes against humanity, including extermination, murder and sexual violence.
Israel responded to the 7 October with an offensive that has laid waste to Gaza and killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between noncombatants and fighters in its count.
With inputs from agencies
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