The International Criminal Court in The Hague is seeking the arrest of more Israeli leaders for alleged crimes against Palestinians. The court’s specious claims against Israel never made sense. Now, however, those claims are beginning to unravel because of the ICC’s own problems. New evidence suggests that the ICC has ulterior motives that go far beyond mere anti-Israel bias—and that its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, is likely acting as a pawn of even more sinister actors.
It now seems that the ICC’s actions form part of a Muslim Brotherhood-led lawfare campaign, with Qatar pulling the strings. A shocking exposé published last month seemingly blew the lid off the ICC’s true motives. According to the report, which cites individuals who worked on behalf of Qatar, the Qatari government promised to “look after” Khan if he issued the arrest warrants against Israeli leaders. Khan, for his part, has not denied the allegation. The report also claims that Qatar hired investigators to discredit Khan’s critics, including a U.S. senator and a woman who accused Khan of sexual misconduct.
The ICC has pursued an intense anti-Israel campaign, possibly at Qatar’s behest. In November 2024, it issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over the war in Gaza—a result of the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023—even though Israel’s operations produced one of the lowest civilian-to-combatant casualty ratios of any modern urban conflict.
These ICC measures were not just symbolic, as some claim. Instead, they produced immediate real-world consequences.
Fearing arrest, Netanyahu canceled several diplomatic trips to Europe. He continues to risk detention in any of the roughly 125 countries that recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction—a court that the United States, for good reason, has refused to join. Beyond the practical impact, ICC actions have also tarnished Israel’s image on the world stage and will likely stain its reputation in future history books.
Now the ICC has reportedly issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, with perhaps more to come. Smotrich is certainly a controversial figure. However, the ICC was created to prosecute “the most serious crimes of concern,” not government ministers like Smotrich for approving housing permits in disputed territories.
Sometimes, it is more convenient to accept a dysfunctional status quo than to challenge it. Yet new allegations against the ICC’s top judge should catalyze scrutiny of the entire court.
That Qatar was working behind the scenes with Khan to prosecute Israeli leaders is a major revelation, and it may explain the ICC’s rush to prosecute Israeli officials, an alacrity that is unusual for the court. As one legal expert observed, the ICC, which was only established on July 1, 2002, is “the most inactive and procrastinating court in the world—it dealt with a dozen cases only, over a period of more than 20 years.”
Qatar’s alleged meddling in the ICC case carries major ramifications. Most obviously, it represents a clear conflict of interest. In Western legal systems, any case in which a prosecutor was allegedly bribed by an interested party, especially one as deeply invested as Qatar—a longtime ally and financial backer of Hamas—would almost certainly be thrown out.
If the allegations are true (and the evidence strongly suggests they are), then the ICC is effectively being directed by an international criminal country. This would help explain why Khan issued arrest warrants for Israeli leaders while largely sparing top Hamas officials.
After all, Hamas’s top leaders live openly in Qatar, a leading state sponsor of terrorism that has funneled billions to Hamas and enabled the group’s operations for years. Nonetheless, none of these puppet masters has been prosecuted. Instead, if the allegations are true, they appear to have been manipulating the very prosecutor overseeing the case.
Yet the implications are more significant than meets the eye. The truth is that Qatar’s lawfare against Israel goes well beyond the ICC situation.
The case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, also in The Hague, follows a similar pattern. When South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, whose country is a close partner of Qatar, first revealed that his country would bring a war-crimes case against Israel before the ICJ, he did so while visiting Qatar. Around the same time, senior Qatari official Mutlaq al-Qahtani met directly with Khan and a senior ICC judge, potentially working on dual tracks to indict Israel at both the ICC and the ICJ.
Qatar’s deep ties to the Muslim Brotherhood are highly relevant. Robert Gates, a former CIA director and U.S. secretary of defense, once described the relationship bluntly: “Qatar has long had the welcome mat out for the Muslim Brotherhood.” It is an expensive welcome mat, with Qatar shelling out billions for Muslim Brotherhood actors over the years, including Hamas, whose leaders it also hosts.
Anti-Israel lawfare against Israel is straight out of the Muslim Brotherhood’s playbook. The group’s own internal documents expose how it deliberately uses legal tactics to advance its doctrine of tamkeen—the strategy of employing seemingly legitimate tools to empower Islamist goals in the West. Chief on that agenda for the Muslim Brotherhood, of course, is demonization of Israel.
Khan presents himself as a follower of the Ahmadiyya variant of Islam, a movement known for peace, interfaith dialogue and education. Yet he is actively targeting Israel, a democratic country that stands for peace and stability in the Middle East.
In addition, Khan has made several bizarre statements that amount to apologetics for the radical ideology that both Qatar and Hamas adhere to. In a 2018 interview, he asked: “Why do we have certain language that we do not see elsewhere? … Why ‘Islamic terror’? Why not ‘Buddhist terror’?” While most Muslims do not share the jihadist ideology, Khan feigned ignorance on this matter, suggesting either willful blindness or outright dishonesty.
Whatever Khan’s true motivations may be, this much is clear: The agenda that he, and the court he oversees, is pursuing is not entirely his own. The ICC is a farce—and a dangerous one at that.
