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Arresting Netanyahu: The ICC’s political farce and its backlash

There is no evidence to support any claims, no investigations—just testimonies from anti-Israeli NGOs whose job is to delegitimize and destroy Israel.

Netanyahu, Gallant
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant on Oct. 28, 2023. Photo by Dana Kopel/Flash90.
Fiamma Nirenstein is an Italian-Israeli journalist, author and senior research fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCFA). An adviser on antisemitism to Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, she served in the Italian Parliament (2008-2013) as vice president of the Foreign Affairs Committee. A founding member of the Friends of Israel Initiative, she has written 15 books, including October 7, Antisemitism and the War on the West, and is a leading voice on Israel, the Middle East, Europe and the fight against antisemitism.

In 2002, a Spanish judge and a French judge asked England where former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was as they wanted to arrest him on charges of complicity with Chilean Gen. Augusto Pinochet in the massacre of 4,000 people in that country. British leaders raised their eyebrows and suggested that the case should be addressed to American judges, as the United States is a democratic country.

But Israel is the country of the Jews. Not only that, but it is under the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government, which according to the international smear machine has the flaw of not being left-wing. It is labeled as far-right by many who, lying, rejoice that one of the greatest statesmen of our time has now been condemned to disgrace. They have reason to celebrate; this antisemitic and anti-moderate bomb is enormous. But for this very reason, it will backfire and explode in their hands.

The judgment of the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is political and masochistic. There is no evidence to support any claims, no investigations—just testimonies from anti-Israeli NGOs whose lifelong job is to provide gossip to various agencies run by the United Nations, including the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the ICC, to delegitimize and destroy Israel.

The United Nations, however, is a corrupt organization in which an automatic majority brings together failed states, Islamic states, as well as states that love to antagonize the United States and Israel.

Meanwhile, from north to south, Israel is burning from rockets as it continues to face armed aggression and a war whose consequences are felt nationwide in daily mourning, the economy, schools. It is Iran’s plan, but the ICC doesn’t want to know about that. It takes its cues from the path of the United Nations. This time, though, it is a step too far.

After the events of Oct. 7, ordinary people can only laugh at the thought of arresting Netanyahu. They know the truth and fear that the violence of lunatics and jihadists will be strengthened by the ICC’s ruling. They worry about the states that immediately promised to arrest Netanyahu—Canada, Belgium and Ireland. They worry, too, about common sense that distinguishes an assaulted person from an aggressor, a civilized person from an antisemitic fanatic, the verifiable figures of those killed in war from the invented ones—and that this will all be tossed aside.

Criminalizing Netanyahu and his government has ultimately led to the shame of the left and its ultimate decay. The theoretical enthusiasm with which many intellectuals, including Jewish ones, prophesy that the Jewish people should not have a land shows that they do not know or understand Israel—a nation so profoundly Jewish, full of children and soldiers who know how to live and die for their land, of people whose generosity does not know the limits of Western selfishness. One need only look around Israel to understand that.

After the ICC ruling, Israel lives on and so does Netanyahu. It is the West that risks its life and future. Only German Chancellor Olaf Scholtz on the left seems to notice this and has put a condition on the ICC verdict. It has been written several times that Winston Churchill would have been condemned by the ICC, and they are not wrong.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) warned America’s allies that if they follow the ICC’s ruling, they will face sanctions from the United States. “If you aid and abet the ICC after their action against the State of Israel, you can expect consequences from the United States. Any nation that joins with the ICC after this outrage is a partner in a reckless act that tramples the rule of law.”

Indeed, those who choose to celebrate the ICC’s verdict will find themselves alongside anti-Israel Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who claims that the ICC ruling has restored faith in justice.

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