Why US is Furious Over Netanyahu Arrest Warrant

It was a long time coming, but six months and a day after a formal request, three judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) have issued warrants for arrest of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and its recently dismissed Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant.

The three ICC judges, technically called a pre-trial chamber, also issued a warrant for the arrest of Mohammad Deif, leader of the armed Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas.

Little is known of Deif, except that he is believed dead by the Israelis, a claim Hamas is yet to confirm or deny. The other two Hamas leaders indicted by the ICC have been at the receiving end of summary justice. Hamas political bureau head Ismail Haniyeh, a former Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, was killed end-July in an Israeli intelligence operation in Tehran, where he was an official guest to the inauguration of the Iranian president. And Yahya Sinwar, who succeeded as Hamas leader in Palestine after Haniyeh was exiled by Israel in 2007, fell fighting the Israeli army in the southern Gaza neighbourhood of Rafah, mid-October.

Both Haniyeh and Sinwar were born in Gaza in the early-1960s, to families uprooted and exiled from their homes in the Majdahl area of Palestine. Under the UN General Assembly Resolution 194 of 1948, all Palestinians driven out by Israel’s ethnic cleansing, are entitled to return or to claim appropriate compensation. Though prerequisites for its admission into the UN, Israel has granted neither of these rights.

This context, erased by Israeli propaganda and its western accessories, imparts a rather different complexion to the Hamas armed incursion into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which Ashkelon, as Majdahl is now known, was one of the principal targets. International laws of war are the issue that the ICC’s recent actions raise, as also the fact that Israel’s frequent recourse to extra-judicial execution, has never been put to any manner of test of legitimacy.

Among the three arrest warrants the ICC has issued, the strongest and most elaborate indictment is reserved for the Palestinian militant: Deif is held responsible “for the crimes against humanity of murder; extermination; torture; and rape and other form of sexual violence; as well as the war crimes of murder, cruel treatment, torture; taking hostages; outrages upon personal dignity; and rape and other form of sexual violence”.

When it comes to Netanyahu and Gallant, the grounds for arrest and prosecution are briefly stated: “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts”.

Israeli propaganda, which has enjoyed significant diffusion through western media platforms and officials, has accused Hamas of large-scale sexual violence on October 7, as also inhuman acts such as beheading scores of babies. Both have acquired a life of their own, despite being debunked conclusively on multiple occasions.

The ICC was created under the Rome Statute, which was signed in 1998 and entered into force in 2002. No fewer than 124 countries worldwide have signed on to the statute. After initially signing, the US changed its mind at the ratification stage, worried that submission to ICC jurisdiction might expose its global military interventions and its operatives, to war crimes charges. The US has since entered into “bilateral immunity agreements” with a number of countries, committing them to non-cooperation with the ICC in any matter involving US nationals.

For all this, the US has been an enthusiastic cheerleader for the ICC when it has prosecuted African leaders, and even more so when it issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin in March 2023, after a mere 23 days of deliberation. In contrast, it has reacted in unbridled fury to recent events. The warrants issued against Netanyahu and Gallant were “outrageous”, said a statement from President Joe Biden: “Let me be clear once again: whatever the ICC might imply, there is no equivalence -- none -- between Israel and Hamas”.

Biden was undoubtedly right on the moral equivalence question, though not as he intended. Other prominent figures in the U.S. were more unrestrained. Lindsay Graham, a long-serving right-wing Senator, had welcomed the ICC warrant against Putin in 2023, as the “action of an international evidence-based body that will stand the test of history”. The warrant against the two Israelis magically transformed the ICC, in his perception, into “a dangerous joke”.

As the US continued to vent from across the political spectrum, the leaders of France, Germany, Canada, and Italy committed themselves to executing the ICC warrant, while the U.K. kept an enigmatic silence. Belgium and Spain went further, calling for sanctions against Israel. Countries that have been materially assisting Israel’s war effort since October 2023, will now have to negotiate tricky questions of national law prohibiting the abetment of war crimes.

The ICC decision came a day after the US chose, not for the first time in its history, to stand alone in ignominy, vetoing a resolution demanding an “immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in Gaza”. Jointly put forward by the 10 elected members of the UN Security Council, it gained the support of all other permanent members. By 14 votes against one veto, the UN Security Council chose to retreat on two earlier calls for a ceasefire, in June this year, and earlier in March.

In a barely coherent explanation, the US representative to the UN spoke of how his country was opposed to an “unconditional ceasefire that failed to release the hostages”: a strange and twisted rationale, since the resolution did call explicitly for the release of all captives taken on October 7. With logic failing to explain US contortions, it seemed a reasonable conjecture that the Biden administration in its last weeks had chosen to be brazen about displaying its duplicity before the whole world.

Prior to March this year, the US vetoed three Security Council resolutions demanding a Gaza ceasefire, ostensibly because it did not want to pre-empt the outcome of negotiations it was concurrently sponsoring. The March resolution, passed during Ramzan, the Islamic month of fasting and penance, demanded “an immediate ceasefire .. leading to a sustainable ceasefire, and also .. the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages”. Israel was required to ensure “humanitarian access” to address the “medical and other humanitarian needs” of the Gaza population. Both sides were urged to “comply with their obligations under international law in relation to all persons they detain”.

The US abstained on that resolution, which every other member of the Security Council endorsed. With Israel showing its fury and cancelling the visit of a parliamentary delegation to the US, the Biden administration beat a retreat. The Security Council resolution, it declared, was “non-binding”, creating a new place in international law for the exclusive habitation of Israel, since Security Council resolutions, by definition, are binding on all UN member states.

Behind the scenes, and in complete opacity, the US continued with its negotiations. Egypt and Qatar were believed to be lending a hand as Hamas and Israel went through the hard bargaining. On May 31, the US announced the first glimmers of agreement, codified in a June 10 resolution of the Security Council.

A ceasefire seemed possible, except that it wasn’t. Israel had new demands to make which Hamas firmly rejected. The US again covered up for Israel, blaming Hamas for altering the terms of the agreement.

By early-October, Israel was seen to have tightened its siege of northern Gaza, with intensified military action clearly suggesting an ethnic cleansing intent. Public opinion in Israel had been vociferous since the very beginning of the war, on clearing out the north of Gaza of its Palestinian population, and taking absolute military control over Gaza’s border with Egypt.

With the magnitude of the human catastrophe evident and strong signs of disquiet within US public opinion, Biden authorised two of his top cabinet officials to extend a placatory offering. The US Secretary of State was joined by the Secretary of Defence in addressing an ultimatum to Israel: if it did not allow full and unfettered humanitarian access to all of Gaza, the US would cut off military assistance. With typical forbearance, the US gave Israel a whole month, tacitly calculating that its own presidential election would be concluded in that time.

Expectedly, once the election was concluded, Biden lost little time walking back his threat to cut off military assistance. Despite assessments from no fewer than eight humanitarian agencies, that Israel fell far short of permitting the access required, the U.S. decided to continue its arms transfers.

US fury at the arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant is perfectly comprehensible, given the scale of its complicity in Israel’s crimes. With the International Court of Justice (ICJ), a world court with advisory jurisdiction and considerable moral authority, likely to soon rule on a South African petition holding Israel guilty of genocide, the US’s moral discomfiture is intense.

Law stripped of power is a very poor safeguard for international order and justice. In this vacuum, the US has set itself up as the arbiter and enforcer of international law. For it to be held guilty of complicity in genocide, the most egregious of crimes against humanity, is ignominy beyond imagination. It is also sign of a terminal moral crisis of the US imperium.

Sukumar Muralidharan is an independent writer and researcher based in the Delhi region. The views are personal.