In an astonishing but sadly predictable display of moral myopia and spurious moral equivalence, the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor announced Monday that he was seeking arrest warrants not only for Hamas’ top leaders, but for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. No other state anywhere in the world, after suffering a vicious and bloody unprovoked attack such as Israel suffered on Oct. 7, 2023, would be expected not to defend itself. That expectation is reserved for the world’s lone Jewish state.
The Associated Press reported Monday that as the ICC’s prosecutorial top dog, Karim Khan, announced that he was seeking arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, the Israeli leaders “do not face imminent arrest,” but the announcement itself was “a symbolic blow that deepened Israel’s isolation over the war in Gaza.”
True enough. In this as in so many other instances these days, however, the age-old question returns: Who watches the watchmen? How can anyone be sure that Karim Khan is not acting upon his own biases against Israel, but is administering justice with a rigorously fair hand? Khan gave a hint of his bias when he referred in his statement Monday to “the territory of Israel and the State of Palestine,” when the reality is exactly the opposite: Israel is a state and the Palestinian Arabs have control of certain territories that belong to Israel due to the Oslo Accords, which the Palestinian Arabs have contravened repeatedly and have long ago outlived any minuscule usefulness they may once have had.
Khan wants Netanyahu and Gallant arrested for “war crimes and crimes against humanity.” Yet the only evidence that Israel has committed any such crimes comes from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, and that “ministry’s” claims have been so comprehensively proven to be fake that even the anti-Israel UN has walked back its uncritical acceptance of them. Khan is in the contradictory position of accusing Israel of war crimes based on evidence supplied by Hamas, while likewise accusing Hamas’ leaders of the same crimes. If Khan thinks Hamas can be guilty of war crimes, is it beyond him to grasp that it may be guilty also of deception on a massive scale when it comes to its charges about what Israel has done in Gaza?
In response to Khan’s statement, Netanyahu declared that Khan “creates a twisted and false moral equivalence between the leaders of Israel and the henchmen of Hamas. This is like creating a moral equivalence after September 11th between President Bush and Osama Bin Laden, or during World War II between FDR and Hitler. What a travesty of justice! What a disgrace! The prosecutor’s absurd charges against me and Israel’s defense minister are merely an attempt to deny Israel the basic right of self-defense.” Indeed.
Even the great betrayer of Israel, Old Joe Biden himself, chimed in: “We reject the ICC’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders. Whatever these warrants imply, there is no equivalence between Israel and Hamas. It’s clear Israel must do all it can to ensure civilian protect, but let me be clear: Contrary allegations against Israel made by the International Court of Justice, what is happening is not genocide.” This was maximum hypocrisy from Old Joe, since he may very well have approved of the application for arrest warrants. The Israeli news outlet Mako reported in late April that “very senior officials associated with the International Criminal Court in The Hague have spoken about Israel’s fear of arrest warrants for senior officials in the context of the war in Gaza. The officials told N12 [Mako’s broadcast channel] that the intention to issue such orders would not have been possible without American consent.” The targets for arrest, Mako specified, included Netanyahu himself.
Related: Did the Biden Regime Green-Light Arrest Warrants for Israeli Leaders, Including Netanyahu?
So did Old Joe Biden approve this ICC action and then turn around and condemn it when it happened? Would you really put it past the corrupt old serial liar? This way he gets to continue his charade of support for Israel, while signaling to his far-left, Israel-hating base that he is really on their side. It is a game he has been playing for months; the ICC request for arrest warrants could just be the latest round.
Whether or not Biden approved the action, however, it is absurd and unjustifiable. Israel is defending itself against a foe that attacked it and would destroy it if it could. Any other state in Israel’s position would have the world’s unqualified support. But as in so many other arenas, when it comes to Israel, the global elites have a different set of rules.
