Editors at National Review Online issue a warning about the International Criminal Court’s latest potential targets.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) might be considering warrants for the arrests of top Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
If it goes through with this, it would be a massive, institutionally suicidal mistake.
The reporting is sketchy, but what’s clear is this: Israeli officials are concerned, for reasons they have yet to disclose, that top prosecutor Karim Khan could seek a warrant for the arrest of Netanyahu and others.
Perhaps something is getting lost in translation. Khan, a U.K. lawyer, is known for his caution. Unlike his predecessor, Fatou Bensouda, who investigated the U.S. and Israel, Khan does not seem to have a profoundly held bias against America and its allies.
But it’s also true that President Biden’s refusal to back Israel to the hilt in its war against Hamas, and his administration’s constant needling of Jerusalem’s conduct of the war, has sent a signal that’s been received by terrorists, rogue states, and multilateral institutions like the ICC beholden to anti-Israel constituencies.
Since October 7, the court has been subject to aggressive lobbying by international NGOs that are viscerally hostile to Israel. And Palestine is a state party to the assembly that oversees the court.
Ideally, the ICC wouldn’t exist. It threatens America’s sovereignty and that of its closest allies — which is why Washington does not regard it as legitimate.
The ICC is supposed to bring cases against individuals whose governments lack the capacity to bring perpetrators to justice. It issued, for instance, a warrant for Vladimir Putin’s arrest.
But unlike Russia, the U.S. and Israel are both rule-of-law-based societies with robust, independent judicial systems, and the two countries abide by exacting standards when it comes to adherence to international humanitarian law.
Bensouda showed what the ICC can do at its worst: The court investigated possible U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan and was also looking into Israeli conduct. These probes were an egregious abuse of power.
