Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant attend a ceremony for the 70th cohort of military combat officers, at an army base near Mitzpe Ramon, Israel, on Oct. 31.Amir Cohen/Reuters
Michael Byers holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at the University of British Columbia.
Benjamin Netanyahu is a wanted man.
On Thursday, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for the Israeli Prime Minister, as well as his former defence minister Yoav Gallant, for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
The warrant was requested by ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan in May. Mr. Khan alleges that Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant willfully directed attacks against civilians in Gaza and caused great suffering and injury to them, including through the use of starvation as a method of war.
The ICC had little choice but to issue the warrant, given that it had “reasonable grounds to believe” that Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant committed war crimes and crimes against humanity within the court’s jurisdiction.
Mr. Khan provided evidence that the two Israeli ministers, through a common plan, “systematically deprived the civilian population of Gaza of objects indispensable to human survival.” They imposed a “total siege” by closing border crossing points for long periods of time and, when the points were reopened, by restricting the entry of medicine and food.
Mr. Netanyahu joins a notorious list of national leaders for whom arrest warrants have been issued by the international courts: Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir, Libya’s late leader Muammar Gaddafi, and Serbia’s Slobodan Milošević, who died in custody while on trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. The list also includes Liberia’s Charles Taylor, who is serving a 50-year sentence handed down by the Special Court for Sierra Leone, jointly created by the government of Sierra Leone and the United Nations.
On Thursday, an ICC arrest warrant was also issued for Muhammad Deif, Hamas’s military chief, for crimes against humanity, including murder, hostage-taking and sexual violence. Israel has said that it killed Mr. Deif in August. When requesting these warrants, Mr. Khan repeated his call for the immediate release of all hostages taken from Israel.
Neither Israel nor Hamas can reasonably question the rules applied by the ICC. They are based on the 1949 Geneva Conventions, which Israel has ratified, as well as customary international law applicable in all countries. The ICC is able to prosecute both Israeli and Hamas leaders because Palestine ratified the court’s statute in 2015.
Mr. Netanyahu has long feared the ICC and its ability to issue warrants. In May, The Guardian and two Israeli media organizations reported that from 2017 to 2021, the director of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, allegedly sought to pressure the ICC’s then-chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda into halting a war-crimes investigation in Palestine.
After the warrants were issued, the office of Mr. Netanyahu rejected the ICC’s claims, calling them “absurd and false accusations” and insisting that Israel will continue to pursue its war goals. When Mr. Khan first requested the warrants, Mr. Netanyahu called him one of the “great antisemites in modern times.”
Mr. Khan anticipated criticism in the request itself, writing that “No foot soldier, no commander, no civilian leader – no one – can act with impunity.” If the ICC were to be seen as applying the law selectively, “we will be creating conditions for its collapse.”
Diana Buttu: War in Gaza made me lose faith in international law
There’s a reason why justice is blind.
Mr. Netanyahu’s position as Prime Minister is protecting him from being convicted and sentenced in an Israeli court on charges of corruption. Now, an ICC arrest warrant gives him another reason to hold on to power.
For while national leaders do not have immunity from the International Criminal Court, Mr. Netanyahu, as long as he remains Prime Minister, will be protected by the physical capabilities of the Israeli state, including the Israel Defense Forces. Mr. Netanyahu will also take comfort in the fact that Donald Trump is returning to power in the U.S., with a crew of staunchly pro-Israel backers poised to steer his Middle East policy.
But leaders, governments and national societies all change over time, and one day a future Israeli government might decide to send Mr. Netanyahu to The Hague.
If this sounds implausible, it’s exactly what happened to Mr. Milošević. He was surrendered to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia by the Serbian government just one year after he lost power in Belgrade.
More likely, Mr. Netanyahu will risk a trip abroad, as Augusto Pinochet did in 1998. And if he enters the territory of any of the 124 parties to the ICC statute, including Canada, that country would be obligated to arrest and transfer him to the court.
Mr. Netanyahu can bluster and threaten as much as he likes. The spectre of a war-crimes trial will now hang over him for the rest of his life.