By: Jeremy Havardi, director of B'nai B'rith
Last week, the International Criminal Court (ICC) made the extraordinary decision to issue arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and former defence minister Yoav Gallant. The absurd and reprehensible decision completely undermines the Court’s credibility by accusing the men of ‘the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare’ and ‘crimes against humanity of murder, persecution and other inhumane acts’.
Sir Keir Starmer’s government has already meekly conceded that it will acquiesce in the ICC’s decision, undermining the interests of a key Middle Eastern ally, as well as its own. But the British people have more sense than this. They should see that the ICC, like the EU, is just another example of a compromised, supranational institution that arbitrarily rides roughshod over sovereign nations and their legal systems. Moreover, it is one that British taxpayers are forced to fund. In 2017, the UK’s contribution cost taxpayers £8.9 million and in 2023, it paid £10.5 million to the ICC annual budget, as well as a £1 million special contribution
The ICC’s decision could potentially constrain the ability of the UK, or another western nation, to engage in lawful self-defence against a rogue terror group which embeds itself in a civilian environment. If the British army’s operations inadvertently killed civilians, caused damage and destruction and disrupted aid supplies, would British leaders or military commanders face arrest warrants like their Israeli counterparts? The ICC has certainly set a precedent suggesting that this would be so. Yet given the robustness of British courts, this would be a truly outrageous infringement of our nation’s sovereignty. The same is true for Israel today.
As it is, the ICC’s case rests on a series of fictions as well as an abuse of its own procedures. It is true that many thousands of Palestinian civilians have been killed during Israel’s war in Gaza. This is a tragedy, even if their deaths have come about in a legitimate war of Israeli self-defence following the barbaric attacks of 7th October.
But far from targeting or murdering Palestinian civilians, the IDF has given advanced warnings to them repeatedly, telling them to vacate areas in advance of military operations. The IDF has sent millions of text messages and pre-recorded voicemails telling Palestinians to leave combat areas and telling them where they should go. Israel has also implemented daily pauses of operations, including most recently for polio vaccination.
Far from using starvation as a tactic of war, Israel has facilitated the arrival of 1,142,000 tonnes of aid into Gaza, including food, water, medical supplies and tents, since 7th October. A study by respected academics and public health officials at the Hebrew University showed that the mean energy availability from January to April 2024 was just over 3,000 calories per person per day, far in excess of the minimum food aid required in a crisis.
It is true that aid has been in short supply at times, in large part because Hamas has stolen much of it and re-sold it at exorbitant prices. Indeed, it is these Islamist terrorists who are using ‘starvation as a weapon of war’ yet there is little reporting of this in the media. Yet the mere existence of food insecurity in a war zone is not evidence of a war crime.
Of course, Hamas is guilty of murdering, raping, torturing and burning civilians, among a host of unspeakable crimes. The ICC saw fit to issue an arrest warrant for Mohammed Deif (likely dead), effectively putting the leaders of a democracy fighting for its life on the same plain as the commanders of a genocidal death cult. To draw such equivalence is grotesque.
The ICC’s decision flies in the face of the principle of complementarity, the idea that the court has no jurisdiction except where national legal systems that have jurisdiction over their citizens fail to act. Yet Israel does have a robust and independent legal system, including a Supreme Court, an IDF Military Advocate General and an Attorney-General.
Its Supreme Court has a noted track record in holding Israeli officials to account, including ministers and a former President. Karim Khan, the ICC’s prosecutor, knew all this and was scheduled to engage with the relevant national authorities in Israel just before he cancelled his visit. Had he arrived in Israel, he would have seen that the IDF’s Military Advocate General had initiated dozens of criminal investigations of alleged wrongdoing within the army since 7 October.
The Court’s readiness to initiate this action stands in stark contrast to its lamentable failures elsewhere. Bashar al-Assad was responsible for countless thousands of deaths in the Syrian civil war, including through the use of chemical weapons, and the forced displacement of millions. For a decade, Xi Jinping’s China has committed appalling crimes against the Uighurs and other ethnic groups in Xinjiang, as well as against its own population. Ali Khamenei in Iran has overseen years of domestic repression, torture and murder.
Yet there is no arrest warrant against any of these dictators. Clearly, something is going profoundly wrong when such widespread abuses of human rights in autocratic states do not lead to punitive responses from an international court. It need hardly be added that these governments are hostile to UK interests, especially Iran with its history of overseas terrorism, cyber warfare and criminal plotting.
It is time for the UK government to speak out against the ICC’s wafer-thin credibility and urge a rethink of this egregious decision.