GNITN - Special Edition

Israel At War – Day 412

A Huge Distraction

ICC Warrants Issued

It’s hardly news after so many months of telling us they are coming, but the International Criminal Court makes it official with warrants of arrest for Prime Minister Netanyahu and others as we’re told in a report from The Jerusalem Post:

In a blockbuster ruling that shook the military, diplomatic, and legal worlds, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant on Thursday.

We are told that the charges are about the current war and how Israel is waging it:

The ICC cited reasonable grounds to believe that Netanyahu and Gallant committed the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare, and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.

Israel and the US chimed in and are against the warrants, but other countries will honor them:

While Israel and the US condemned the ruling – which is the first time the court has issued arrests for officials from a democratic state – as biased, or going beyond the ICC’s mandate, the EU, France, Ireland, and several other countries said they would honor the arrest warrants.

For now, it means they can’t travel as freely as before:

This means that Netanyahu and Gallant will likely be unable to travel to most European countries and a variety of other nations in the ICC’s 120-plus member states. They will still be able to travel to the US – which is not an ICC member – and various Middle Eastern and other states. There are also some states that have ignored ICC arrest warrants, given that there is no effective enforcement mechanism.

A defense for Israel has been mounted by groups who don’t agree that charges are right:

Regarding starvation, legal briefs on behalf of Israel found that the IDF’s humanitarian efforts were initially delayed by several days of fighting done to expel the Hamas invasion, which went on for the greater part of the week after October 7, 2023, as well as another week of initial massive deployment efforts of around 100,000 troops to the Gaza front, many of whom also lacked proper food and supplies.

However, from October 21, 2023, onwards, the briefs found that the IDF facilitated humanitarian aid convoys (initially via the Nitzana crossing).

These groups also contended that no starvation crimes were committed at all:

Further, the groups said there is no war crime for first providing aid to one’s troops at a minimal level before facilitating aid to a foreign civilian population, and that the delay was short-lived and did not lead to starvation, given the amount of food and supplies previously stocked up in Gaza.

The charges of closing crossings in Gaza are also disputed:

The groups called out ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan for implying that Israel closed the Erez and Rafah crossings. Hamas destroyed the Erez crossing, and the Rafah crossing has always been a mixed project between Israel and Egypt.

Netanyahu Responds

As you could also expect, the Prime Minister’s office issued a statement of their own and they strongly disagreed with the charges:

The Prime Minister’s Office called the decision antisemitic, “equivalent to a modern-day Dreyfus trial – and it will end the same way.”

It added, “Israel vehemently rejects the absurd and false actions and accusations against it by the International Criminal Court, a biased and discriminatory political body.”

The statement went on to note that the lead prosecutor should be investigated himself:

The PMO also said the decision was made by “a corrupt chief prosecutor attempting to save himself from severe allegations of sexual harassment, and by biased judges driven by antisemitic hatred toward Israel,” accusing Khan of lying to US senators when he said he would not “act against Israel before visiting” Israel.

The PMO then tells us that Netanyahu will not stop fighting the war until their goals are achieved:

“No anti-Israel decision will prevent the State of Israel from defending its citizens,” the PMO added, saying that the prime minister “will not succumb to pressure, will not be deterred, and will not retreat until all the war objectives set by Israel at the start of the campaign are achieved.”

Interestingly, the ICC also issued a warrant for a dead man:

Along with Netanyahu and Gallant, the court issued an arrest warrant for Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, also known as Mohammed Deif.

The court said there are reasonable grounds to believe Deif is responsible for crimes against humanity, including murder, extermination, torture, and rape. The court also said there are reasonable grounds to believe Deif is responsible for war crimes, including murder, cruel treatment, torture, taking hostages, and rape and other form of sexual violence.

They said he was guilty of crimes as well, something even Israel would agree on:

The court found reasonable grounds to believe that Deif’s alleged crimes against humanity were “part of a widespread and systematic attack directed by Hamas and other armed groups against the civilian population of Israel.” These attacks included instances of firing on people seeking shelter and throwing grenades at them. The killings qualify as “the crime against humanity and the war crime of murder,” the court said.

Charges against other dead men were withdrawn after they were killed:

The prosecution had initially filed applications for warrants of arrest for Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar. Following confirmation of their deaths, the chamber granted the withdrawal of the applications on August 9, 2024, and October 25, 2024, respectively.

Regardless, the ICC somehow doesn’t agree with both Israel and Hamas that Deif is dead and leveled the charges anyway:

The ICC expanded on the crimes Deif is accused of, saying it found probable cause to believe that on October 7, armed men entered communities in the South and the site of the Nova music festival, carrying out mass killings. The court also found that some hostages were subject to sexual and gender-based violence while in captivity. This included “forced penetration, forced nudity, and humiliating and degrading treatment,” the court said.

“Mr. Deif, in his role as the commander of the al-Qassam Brigades, and through his actions prior to, during, and after the October 7 operation, is responsible for the commission of these crimes,” the court said.

Smoke And Mirrors Defense

The ICC needed a scapegoat for Hamas to be included in the charges so they are basically taking a weekend at Bernies approach for a man everyone says is pushing up daises:

The prosecution indicated that it would continue to gather information with respect to his reported death. The court said that on November 15, the prosecution, referring to information from both the Israeli and Palestinian authorities, notified the chamber that it is not in a position to determine whether Deif has been killed or remains alive, leading the chamber to issue the present warrant of arrest.

They need to hold Hamas accountable to give them the air of being neutral when we all know that they are antisemitic and biased against Israel:

Israel has confirmed Deif’s death, and Hamas told Arabic newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat that Deif was killed earlier this month. This left the impression that the arrest warrant was issued to preserve a thin veil of even-handedness between the sides of the conflict.

Israel accused the ICC of breaking their own rules since there is no state of Palestine and never has been one:

Israel had filed an official objection to the ICC regarding the legality of the prosecutor’s request to issue arrest warrants in September, also objecting that the court had no jurisdiction because Palestine is not a state – a requirement for jurisdiction to be conveyed to the court.

Israel said the court has no authority to discuss the Palestinian complaint against it, which recently led to the prosecutor’s request to issue arrest warrants against the prime minister and the defense minister.

The ICC replied to those assertions by telling Israel they’ll make their own rules:

These claims were rejected in a major pre-trial 2021 decision, with the chamber noting that “the acceptance by Israel of the court’s jurisdiction is not required, as the court can exercise its jurisdiction on the basis of territorial jurisdiction of Palestine, as determined by Pre-Trial Chamber I in a previous composition.”

It’s good that the US is fighting for Israel because the ICC could come after them at some point as we discussed yesterday. Israel can and should continue to destroy the terrorists and deal with the ICC later if at all seeing as the court has no enforcement mechanism of its own. While the antisemitism spirit gets bigger and more pervasive, we must pray for the peace of Jerusalem in this situation specifically. It is a distraction that needs to be swatted away so the work of winning the war can conclude.