‘A modern Dreyfus trial’: Israel assails ICC arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office on Thursday lambasted the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue arrest warrants against him and former defense minister Yoav Gallant, amid furious denunciations of the Netherlands-based tribunal from across the political spectrum.

“The antisemitic decision of the International Criminal Court is a modern Dreyfus trial and will end the same way,” the PMO said in a statement referencing the infamous antisemitic incident from the 1890s in which a French Jewish officer was falsely accused and convicted of treason, before eventually being acquitted.

Pledging that the court’s decision would not deter Israel from protecting its citizens, the PMO stated that it rejected the “false” charges against Netanyahu and Gallant “with disgust.”

The three judges of the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber I issued the warrants unanimously on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes, which the court’s top prosecutor Karim Khan alleges were committed during Israel’s ongoing war against the Hamas terror group in Gaza.

The unprecedented decision marks the first time the ICC has ever issued arrest warrants against leaders of a democratic country, putting Netanyahu and Gallant at risk of being detained if they travel to any of the more than 120 countries that are party to the ICC.

“The decision to issue an arrest warrant against the prime minister was made by a corrupt chief prosecutor who is trying to save himself from sexual harassment accusations, and biased judges who are motivated by antisemitic hatred of Israel,” the PMO alleged in response to the court’s announcement.

“The ICC prosecutor lied when he told American senators that he would take no action until he had visited Israel and heard its side. Instead, he canceled his arrival in Israel in May, several days after suspicions of sexual harassment were made against him, and announced his intention to issue arrest warrants against the prime minister and former defense minister.”

Earlier this month, the ICC announced that it would launch an external probe into sexual misconduct accusations against Kahn. Khan has categorically denied the accusations that he tried to coerce a female aide into a sexual relationship. The decision to launch an external probe came with the court under pressure from US senators not to issue warrants over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza until the misconduct claims are investigated.

Netanyahu later released Hebrew and English video statements in which he called the issuing of the warrants marked “a black day,” saying the court’s decision “violates the natural right of democracies to defend themselves against murderous terrorism.”

“This is an antisemitic measure that has one goal,” he alleged, “to deter me, to deter us, from exercising our natural right to defend ourselves against our enemies who rise up against us to destroy us.”

The Hague court is doing nothing in the face of Hamas holding 101 hostages, he said, before correcting himself: “Sorry, today it issued an arrest warrant against the body of [top Hamas commander] Muhammad Deif.”

He rejected the charge that Israel is starving Gazans, pointing out the “hundreds of thousands of tons of food” that have been ushered into Gaza during the war. He blamed Hamas for looting aid and thus starving the population.

“Israel does not recognize and will not recognize this distorted decision,” he declared.

Netanyahu said he cherished “the heartwarming mobilization of many friends in the world, led by our friends in the United States. They made clear that this decision will have serious consequences for the court and those who will cooperate with it in this matter.”

However, a growing list of Western countries have declared that they plan to comply with the ruling.

Netanyahu also thanked Israeli politicians across the political spectrum who spoke out against the move.

“No outrageous anti-Israel decision will prevent us – and it will not prevent me – from continuing to defend our country in any way,” Netanyahu promised. “We will not give in to pressure.”

Gallant, who was fired by Netanyahu earlier this month, accused the court of creating a moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas and thus legitimizing  “the murder of babies, the rape of women and the abduction of the elderly from their beds.”

The court’s decision “sets a dangerous precedent against the right to self-defense and moral warfare and encourages murderous terrorism,” he tweeted — predicting that the court’s efforts to “deny Israel its right to achieve its goals in its just war will fail.”

“I am proud of the privilege I was given to lead the defense establishment in the difficult and heavy war that was forced upon us,” he declared.

According to Hebrew media reports Thursday, there are concerns in Israel that the court could move to issue arrest warrants against additional Israeli officials, including senior IDF officers and soldiers.

‘Always antisemitism’

The court’s decision to charge Netanyahu and Gallant marks “a dark day for justice and humanity,” said President Isaac Herzog, arguing that the “outrageous decision at the ICC has turned universal justice into a universal laughingstock” and that the international tribunal “chose the side of terror and evil over democracy and freedom.”

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara slammed the ICC decision as “baseless.”

“On this day, the obvious must be said — the International Criminal Court lacks any authority in the matter,” she said in a statement.

There was “no place” to issue arrest warrants against the leaders of a democratic country, Baharav-Miara added, saying the decision went against the principles of the court. She also said Israel will consider its next legal steps.

Israel’s opposition leaders were also quick to condemn the decision, with Opposition Leader Yair Lapid calling the warrants “a reward for terrorism”; National Unity chief Benny Gantz castigating the court for its “moral blindness”; and The Democrats head Yair Golan asserting that “Israel had and will always have the right to defend itself against our enemies.”

The ICC has “provided further proof of the double standards and hypocrisy of the international community and the UN institutions,” added Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman, who has previously served as defense minister under Netanyahu.

The ruling also prompted accusations of institutional antisemitism by members of Netanyahu’s cabinet and wider coalition.

“Simply antisemitism, always antisemitism,” said Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf, citing a verse from the Book of Numbers that describes the Jews as “a people that dwells alone, not reckoned among the nations.”

“This is modern antisemitism in the guise of justice,” tweeted Transportation Minister Miri Regev, calling the warrants “a legal absurdity.”

Justice Minister Yariv Levin declared that the International Criminal Court “has become a tool for terrorists and the axis of evil” as well as “an enemy of truth, justice and peace.” Meanwhile, Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi accused progressive organizations of contributing to the court’s ruling and claimed that if the court had existed during World War II, “it would have also issued arrest warrants against Churchill and Roosevelt.”

On a more practical level, Likud MK Yuli Edelstein, the chairman of the powerful Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, warned that the arrest warrants for Israeli leaders had set “a dangerous precedent that could next lead to arrest warrants against our excellent soldiers and officers.”

Punishing the Palestinians

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, representing the far-right flank of Netanyahu’s coalition, called on the prime minister to retaliate against the Palestinians over the court’s decision.

“The PA, which consistently works to undermine the existence of the State of Israel and harm us in the international arena, is not a partner for peace; it is a burden to which an end must be put,” Smotrich declared, demanding “painful sanctions on the PA and its leaders to the point of its collapse.”

For his part, Ben Gvir argued that the warrants should provide a new impetus for West Bank settlement expansion.

“The answer to the arrest warrants is applying sovereignty over all the territories of Judea and Samaria and settlement in all parts of the country and severing ties with the terrorist [Palestinian] Authority, along with sanctions,” the ultranationalist minister tweeted.

A warrant for a dead man

The court also issued a warrant for Deif, the Hamas military chief, who Israel says was killed by an IDF strike in Gaza in July. Khan had initially sought arrest warrants for Deif and slain Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar for the terror group’s October 7, 2023, massacre that sparked the ongoing war in Gaza.

Unlike Sinwar and Haniyeh, Hamas has not acknowledged Deif’s death.

Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana quipped that apparently the court “didn’t get the memo” about Deif, and argued that “targeting the democratically elected leaders of Israel, the Middle East’s only democracy and the world’s only Jewish state, is nothing short of an assault on justice, truth, and the universal right of self-defense.

“Rather than upholding the principles of justice, the ICC has chosen to politicize its mandate, turning itself into a tool of terrorists and those who seek to delegitimize Israel’s right to exist and defend its citizens from genocidal terror,” Ohana charged.

‘They have to pay a price for it’

While Jewish politicians on both right and left harshly condemned the ICC, the Arab-majority Hadash party welcomed the court’s decision, stating that “the ICC in The Hague decided based on clear evidence that the Gaza war is a war of serious war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

“Netanyahu and Gallant are responsible for the total destruction of Gaza and the mass murder of its residents. They have to pay a price for it,” the party said in a statement calling for an immediate end to the conflict.

Last week, the Knesset Ethics Committee voted unanimously to suspend Hadash-Ta’al lawmaker Ofer Cassif for six months over comments he made regarding the Israel Defense Forces and the war in Gaza, including his public support for the South African motion accusing Israel of genocide before the International Court of Justice, a Hague court separate from the ICC.

Jeremy Sharon and Agencies contributed to this report.