From the Liveblog of
Monday, May 20, 2024
Knesset speaker: ICC prosecutor ‘denying Israel its right to self-defense’ by seeking arrest warrants
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Opening the first plenum session of the Knesset’s summer legislative session, Speaker Amir Ohana declares that “the International Criminal Court in The Hague has proven to the world that it is not legitimate.”
“I cannot open the meeting without referring to the scandalous decision of the prosecutor at the ICC which put the State of Israel, whatever its leadership, together with the murderous terrorist organization Hamas, which kidnapped, tortured, burned, butchered and murdered Jews for their Jewishness and Israelis for their Israeliness,” he says.
On Monday, International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Karim Khan announced his decision to seek arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant — as well as Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh.
“An institution that is unable to distinguish between the aggressor and the defender, between a democracy that respects human rights and a terrorist organization dedicated to its destruction in the name of the values of extreme Islam and murderous fanaticism constitutes a danger to humanity,” he continues.
“Prosecutor Khan’s decision” denies Israel its right to self-defense and “will be infamously remembered as the turning point where international legal institutions lost their moral compass.”
