The application for the issuing of an arrest warrant against Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant is, to put it in Joe Biden’s words, outrageous. The singling out of Israel and the application of double standards by United Nations organisations is sufficiently well known. Evidently the International Criminal Court (ICC) is now joining this anti-Israel front as well.
The implied equation of the government representatives of a democratic State of Israel defending itself with the leadership cadre of the terrorist organisation Hamas already reveals the tendentious frame of reference underlying the application to bring charges. On top of this, it is by no means settled whether the ICC has jurisdiction in this case at all. The approach taken by the ICC’s chief prosecutor points to a political motivation, since the ICC is in fact intended as a last resort when national judiciaries fail. Israel’s robust and independent legal system, vehemently defended last year by many hundreds of thousands of Israelis against a judicial reform, gives no cause for any such assumption.
Whereas in the case of Russia’s war against Ukraine more than a year elapsed between the beginning of the investigations and the charges against Vladimir Putin – and there the matter concerned individual aspects of the conduct of the war, not the war as such – the far graver accusation of “crimes against humanity” is to be brought against the Israeli government representatives, and evidently as quickly as possible. This is happening while Israel still has to defend itself after the unprecedented Hamas massacre of 7 October 2023 and is trying to bring home the hostages held to this day.
Not least, Israel makes every effort to keep civilian casualties as low as possible – this is left entirely out of account in the indictment. The advisory panel that recommended the application for an arrest warrant was composed in an entirely one-sided way in this respect. There were, for example, no military experts who could have placed the Israeli approach in the Gaza Strip in a more professional light. The defensive measures there are indeed complicated to carry out, but they are fundamentally justified.
What remains is an application that treats legitimate representatives of a democratic state defending itself as though they were the leadership of a criminal regime. Just as in the case of the accusations before the International Court of Justice, these disproportionate allegations are apt to inflame antisemitism further, worldwide and in Germany. Experience shows that Jews are regularly held responsible for Israel’s supposed misdeeds. However the proceedings continue after the application has been examined, for antisemites and enemies of Israel it will presumably be further proof that Israel is a criminal state – the damage done is incalculable. German government representatives who officially commit themselves to the fight against antisemitism must not lend any support to such a prejudgement, not least in the interest of the safety of Jews in this country!
