The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Thursday, following a months-long campaign by the ICC Chief Prosecutor against the Israeli leaders.
The warrants were issued on the basis of accusations that Israel has committed “crimes against humanity and war crimes” during the battle with Hamas terrorists in Gaza. This claim is contradicted by numerous reports, expert military analysis, and investigations of the IDF’s actions, which found that the Jewish State does more to protect civilian lives than any other military in world history.
One of the allegations mentioned surrounded “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare.” This charge blames Israel for humanitarian aid failing to reach civilians in Gaza despite the large-scale theft by Hamas terrorists, who steal the aid and sell it back to civilians at exorbitant prices. Israel has reportedly sent 700,000 tons of food into the strip. Officials from the UN admitted only a few days ago that its own aid trucks have been looted by Hamas on an enormous scale.
The move by the ICC to issue the arrest warrants was met with outrage from Israeli officials, Republicans in the United States, and Christian leaders who called the action “the pinnacle of diplomatic terrorism.”
Franklin Graham, President of BGEA and Samaritan’s Purse, responded on FaceBook, writing, “The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing him of genocide for defending his people and his country. More than 1,200 of Israel’s residents were brutally murdered and 251 people were taken hostage and they’re accusing Prime Minister Netanyahu of war crimes?? It seems their hypocrisy knows no bounds.”
Graham further noted his agreement with a quote from the Jerusalem Post, which read: “The International Criminal Court in The Hague, instead of standing as a bastion of justice, has devolved into a stage for hypocrisy and cowardice.”
Rep. Chris Smith, a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the co-chair of the Israeli Allies Caucus, in an interview with Tony Perkins, expressed his outrage at the decision, urging the US congress to repudiate the indictments.
“Netanyahu is a tremendous head of state,” he told Perkins. “As Prime Minister of Israel, he is defending his people against an existential threat posed by Hamas, Iran, Hezbollah, and others who are committed to the complete elimination of Israel and the killing of Jews.”
The European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, applauded the ICC ruling and stated that members of the EU are bound to implement the warrants. Smith, in response, highlighted Borrell’s stance as another historic failure of Europe to protect Jews.
“European Union has been notorious for its siding with the PLO, then the PLA, and now Hamas,” Smith described. “They’ve always had their finger on the scale against Israel, and of course, much of that goes back to the very problems of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. You would have thought that they would have learned by now that the killing of Jews, the extermination, the genocide of Jews, will never again happenโand Netanyahu has said it will never happen, especially on his watch. The European Union has failed again, and I find that outrageous.”
The ICC ruling is blatantly anti-semitic, Smith asserted, adding that “it is one of the worst marks on them imaginable to indict a sitting prime minister who is defending his country against aggression.”
“It’s demonic, and we need to call it out,” he concluded.
Israeli leaders were rightfully enraged by the targeting of their Prime Minister and the open bias of the international court. Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, wrote: “The ICC’s decision is the pinnacle of diplomatic terrorism. It targets the only democracy in the Middle East and rewards the barbarity and violence of extremist terrorist organizations. The State of Israel fights for the moral values โโof the Western world, but today these values have been trampled on. We will never give up our basic right to self-defense and no institution or resolution of the UN will change this.”
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz called the ICC ruling a “moral disgrace, entirely tainted by antisemitism,” adding that it “drags the international judicial system to an unprecedented low.”
“This shameful decision serves Iran, the head of the snake, and its proxies,” he warned. “The ICC has chosen to lend support to a biased and corrupt prosecutor rather than confront those who openly seek the destruction of the State of Israel. We will not allow a hostile, hypocritical, and illegitimate body to harm our leaders or our soldiers.”
Israeli President Isaac Herzog, lamented the ICC decision, writing, “This is a dark day for justice. A dark day for humanity.”
“Taken in bad faith, the outrageous decision at the ICC has turned universal justice into a universal laughing stock,” he exclaimed. “It makes a mockery of the sacrifice of all those who fight for justice – from the Allied victory over the Nazis till today. It ignores the plight of the 101 Israeli hostages held in brutal captivity by Hamas in Gaza. It ignores Hamas’ cynical use of its own people as human shields. It ignores the basic fact that Israel was barbarically attacked and has the duty and right to defend its people. It ignores the fact that Israel is a vibrant democracy, acting under international humanitarian law, and going to great lengths to provide for the humanitarian needs of the civilian population.”
“Indeed, the decision has chosen the side of terror and evil over democracy and freedom, and turned the very system of justice into a human shield for Hamas’ crimes against humanity,” Herzog cautioned. “This cynical exploitation of the international legal institutions reminds us once again of the need for true moral clarity in the face of an Iranian empire of evil that seeks to destabilize our region and the world, and destroy the very institutions of the free world.”
Erick Stakelbeck, the host of the Watchman Newscast, called the ICC a “kangaroo court” and its decision a “legal Jihad” against Israel.
“We have all talked a lot about the Jihad against Israel through the Iranian regime and its ‘Ring of Fire’โHamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, etc,” Stakelbeck described. “But there is also what could be called a legal Jihad against the state of Israel, and we saw a particularly despicable display of it today.”
“This is a historical first in all the wrong ways,” he stated. “The international criminal court is usually in the purview of terror groups, rogue regimes, and nefarious individuals with notorious reputations. Now, the ICC is going after a democratically elected leader of a democratic free state, the state of Israel.”
Stakelbeck called into question the timing of the ruling, noting that it occurred only a few short months before Donald Trump is set to take office. It could be that the court wanted to pre-empt the change of administration, Stakelbeck stressed, when “anti-semitic scoundrels like we see at the ICC are set to be put on notice.”
More than simply having global ramifications, Stakelbeck emphasized the prophetic implications of the arrest warrants issued by the ICC.
“I think it’s Zachariah 12. A day is coming, God says through Zechariah, where all nations will come against Jerusalem. It will be like a cup of trembling, a burdensome Stone, and any nation that comes against Jerusalem will be cut to pieces,” he explained, adding that, in the days ahead, the world’s obsession with Israel will only grow in intensity.
