From Sa’ar set for Czech visit to press case against ICC
Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel's diplomatic reporter
Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar will fly to the Czech Republic today to meet with his Czech counterpart and Prime Minister Petr Fiala, his office says.
According to the Foreign Ministry, Sa’ar will focus in his meetings on the International Criminal Court arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant, calling it a “dangerous precedent of attempting to harm the right of self-defense of a democratic country fighting terrorism.”
The Czech foreign ministry says it will heed the court’s ruling, but Fiala called the ICC decision “unfortunate” and said it “undermines authority in other cases by equating the elected representatives of a democratic state with the leaders of an Islamist terrorist organization.”
In a statement, Sa’ar compares the ICC arrest warrant to the Munich Agreement of 1938, which was meant to appease Nazi Germany by giving it Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland region. “I say to our Czech friends – do not allow us to be sacrificed as the Western countries sacrificed Czechoslovakia in 1938,” he says.
During the meetings, Sa’ar will also stress the need to stop Iran’s nuclear program and its support for terrorism across the region.
His meetings with Piala and Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky will take place on Thursday.
He is also convening all of Israel’s ambassadors in Europe to discuss Israel’s diplomatic response to the ICC arrest warrants and will brief them on the ceasefire in Lebanon, his office says.
Sa’ar will then meet with President of the Czech Senate Miloš Vyštarčil and with Jan Bartosek, who heads the Czech-Israel Parliamentary Friendship Association.
