The International Criminal Court disgraced itself with its indictments of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. The indictment is legally without grounds: Hamas is both a terrorist organization and the aggressor, breaking a long-standing ceasefire to strike into Israel and lead the slaughter of Jews.
The International Criminal Court disgraced itself with its indictments of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
Israel responded militarily, uprooting Hamas infrastructure that the United Nations itself was complicit in building, if not directly, then by its own negligence. Israel’s urban warfare is notable not for the destruction it wrought but rather for its precision and avoidance of civilian casualties. Hamas appears both to inflate its casualties and blur the lines between civilian and military.
It also lumps in natural deaths so that when an 85-year-old with terminal cancer dies in hospice or a 12-year-old gets run over by a Hamas terrorist speeding in his pickup truck, their deaths get attributed to Israel. In reality, the 1-to-1 terrorist-to-collateral-civilian death ratio is the lowest ever in sustained urban combat, far lower than those inflicted by the United States in its Obama-era drive to liberate western Iraq and eastern Syria from the Islamic State group.
Prosecutor Karim Khan’s antisemitism might win him praise among his British peers and international human rights organizations that have long since abandoned their core missions in favor of political agendas, but he single-handedly set back international law and scuttled diplomatic efforts for peace.
By prolonging the war for his own grandstanding, Khan may single-handedly have more Lebanese lives on his hands than any other man outside Lebanon.
When Khan announced his indictment, Netanyahu and regional leaders had already hashed out a broad ceasefire for Lebanon, but with the ICC’s action, that is out the window. Israeli leaders cannot fly even the 100 miles to Cyprus or the 1,300 miles to Abu Dhabi without risking the opprobrium of anti-Israel rejectionists, nor does any world leader want to be the first to travel to Jerusalem. By prolonging the war for his own grandstanding, Khan may single-handedly have more Lebanese lives on his hands than any other man outside Lebanon.
President Joe Biden rightly called the ICC warrant “outrageous.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken likewise condemned it. But their rhetoric is meaningless. If the Biden administration truly believes the ICC has acted outside its mandate and international law and wants to preserve any hope for peace, Biden will invite Netanyahu immediately to the White House. It would shatter the stigma the ICC wishes to attach to Netanyahu and encourage smaller countries to follow suit.
Biden has less than two months left in office. He may not like Netanyahu personally, but he can do perhaps more for international law and peace with a simple invitation and lunch in the Oval Office than he has done with his entire presidential record to date.
