Western democratic leaders will also be hauled before the International Criminal Court unless a way is found to prevent Israelis from standing trial there, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told ABC on Tuesday.
“Every democracy will be pulled into the [ICC] dock. We’re first, and you’re next. People understand that,” Netanyahu said.
He spoke one day after ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan announced that he sought arrest warrants for top Israeli and Hamas leaders, including Netanyahu, and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity due to IDF actions in the Gaza war.
“That has to be stopped. And that has to be resisted. And I can assure you, the vast majority of Israelis and all responsible leaders in the world understand that this should be resisted,” he said.
The ICC pre-trial chamber has yet to approve Khan’s request. If it does, the warrants would be the first issued against leaders of a democratic country.
Israeli has been particularly outraged over the equity Khan drew between Israel and the terror organization Hamas, particularly in light of the group’s October 7 invasion of Israel in which it raped, dismembered, and burned alive its victims.
Khan is “creating a false symmetry between the democratically elected leaders of Israel and the terrorist chieftains,” Netanyahu said.
It’s akin to an ICC chief prosecutor seeking arrest warrants for both US and al-Qaeda leaders in the aftermath of the September 11 attack on the Twin Towers in New York in 2001, Netanyahu said.
It is also akin to the issuance of warrants against both former US president Franklin Delano Roosevelt and former German chancellor Adolf Hitler, he added. This is “a hit job. It’s not serious,” Netanyahu said.
Fanning the flames of antisemitism
He accused Khan of “pouring gasoline on the fires of antisemitism that are spreading around the world because he is attacking the one and only Jewish state “ which is fighting an existential war against Hamas.
Khan is “really turning the ICC into a pariah institution” and a “Kangaroo court,” Netanyahu said, “People are just not going to take it seriously.”
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