“Are you Benjamin Netanyahu?”
“Maaaaybe. Who wants to know?”
It’s not funny. But on the off chance you haven’t noticed, pretty much everything in the simulation we’re calling reality in the 2020s feels like gallows humor. The prospect of arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant is no exception.
On Monday, International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan suggested that if it were up to him, Netanyahu and Gallant would be apprehended along with Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh, and the whole lot of them tried for a laundry list of heinous crimes. Khan’s not wrong.
Specifically, he accused Sinwar, Deif and Haniyeh of “extermination,” murder, hostage-taking, rape, torture and “outrages upon personal dignity.” He cited his own visits to the kibbutzim as well as an in-person inspection of Re’im, the site of the music festival massacre, in charging Hamas with a bevy of “unconscionable crimes” foisted upon Israelis.
As for Netanyahu and Gallant, Khan assessed that they’re likely culpable for the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, intentionally targeting a civilian population, extermination and “other inhumane acts.”
Khan was careful to assert Israel’s right to self-defense, but reiterated that the depravity on display during the October 7 attacks doesn’t mean anything goes in Gaza. Notably, he accused Israel of targeting Gazans “queuing for food,” and obstructing the delivery of humanitarian aid “as part of a common plan to use starvation” in the execution of a collective punishment campaign, the effects of which Khan said are “acute, visible and widely known.”
This was expected. In fact, it was a foregone conclusion. Khan’s intention to seek arrest warrants for Sinwar and Netanyahu was telegraphed ahead of time, but the official statement certainly merits mention, particularly his assessment of Israel’s refusal to heed international calls for the protection of civilians and allegations that the Israeli military is engaged in an effort to subject two million people to a famine.
Although the US will surely downplay Khan’s decision to seek warrants for Israeli officials, the ICC’s symbolic gesture highlights what looks, to many observers, like hypocrisy and a double standard vis-à-vis Russia’s conduct in Ukraine. America’s adversaries are subject to international law, but its allies aren’t. And neither is America itself for that matter. (Vladimir Putin’s also subject to an ICC arrest warrant. The US isn’t a state party to the Rome Statute. Neither is Israel. Putin withdrew Russia’s signature in 2016.)
“Notwithstanding any military goals they may have, the means Israel chose to achieve them in Gaza — namely, intentionally causing death, starvation, great suffering and serious injury to body or health of the civilian population — are criminal,” Khan said.
Needless to say, Israeli politicians — including Benny Gantz, who threatened to quit the war cabinet over the weekend — were indignant and urged the international community to ignore Khan.
Gantz described the ICC’s position as “an ineffaceable, historic crime.” Yair Lapid called it a “moral and diplomatic disaster.” Itamar Ben-Gvir, not to be outdone, called Khan (and the ICC) antisemitic and said Netanyahu should “order an escalation” of hostilities in Gaza.
Anticipating the vitriol, Khan cited multiple instances of Israel being warned that the obstruction of humanitarian aid and the perpetuation of a famine constitute war crimes. “I could not have been clearer,” he said, adding that “those who do not comply with the law should not complain later when my office takes action.”
