‘Anti-Semitic decision’: Israeli politicians unite to condemn ICC arrest warrant for Netanyahu, Gallant

Jerusalem:  As the International Criminal Court on Thursday issued arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, Israeli leaders from across the political spectrum united to condemn the decision pronounced by a three-judge panel of the United Nations court.  Netanyahu’s office described the warrants as “an antisemitic decision… equivalent to the modern Dreyfus trial,” referring to the 1894 trial of a French artillery captain of Jewish descent that has become one of the most prominent examples of anti-Semitism. Netanyahu added: “Israel rejects with disgust the absurd and false actions and charges against it by the International Criminal Court, which is a biased and discriminatory political body.”

Under the Rome statute that established the ICC, the court was set up to be an independent body that stands apart from international politics. The Israeli statement said: “There is nothing more just than the war that Israel has been waging in Gaza since October 7, 2023, after the terrorist organisation Hamas launched a murderous attack against it, and carried out the greatest massacre committed against the Jewish people since the Holocaust. “The decision was made by a corrupt chief prosecutor trying to save his own skin from the serious charges against him for sexual harassment, and by biased judges motivated by antisemitic hatred of Israel,” it said, referring to claims made against the Netherlands-based court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, which Khan has denied.

Benny Gantz, a former member of Netanyahu’s war cabinet, in a post on X, described the ICC move as “moral blindness and (a) shameful stain of historic proportion that will never be forgotten”. (IANS)

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