Another week of attacks on Israel

But these were in New York, Washington, and The Hague

Clifford D. May | November 27, 2024

For more than a year, Israel has been fighting a brutal multifront war against Iran’s rulers and their terrorist proxies: Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Shia militias in Syria and Iraq.

Last week, Israel also was attacked by enemies in New York, Washington, and The Hague. Although these were not kinetic battles, they did damage.

First attack: On Nov. 20, 14 members of the UN Security Council voted in favor of a resolution that did not call on Hamas to release its hostages – Americans among them – as a precondition for a ceasefire in Gaza.

President Biden, credit where it’s due, instructed his envoy at the U.N. to veto the resolution. Allowing the resolution to pass, said Ambassador Robert Wood, would have “sent a dangerous message to Hamas.”

Which raises this question: Do the leaders of France, Britain, Japan, and South Korea who voted with Beijing and Moscow not understand the message they just sent to Americans – at a time of rising isolationism?

And if American diplomats tried but were unable to persuade America’s allies to stand with the U.S., how likely is it that they will prevail when negotiating with the envoys of Beijing, Moscow, and their buddies in Tehran and Pyongyang?

Second attack: Also on Nov. 20: Sen. Bernie Sanders led what The Nation, a far-left journal, called a “Bold New Effort to Block Arms Sales to Israel.”

He and 18 other senators, all Democrats or self-styled independents, apparently would prefer that Hamas survive the war it launched against Israel with its invasion and barbaric pogrom on Oct. 7, 2023. And they clearly don’t regard liberating the hostages as an urgent concern.

Mr. Sanders’ resolutions to limit munitions sales to an ally defending itself from genocidal enemies failed. But Mother Jones, another far-left journal, noted that the vote, “shows Dems are shifting.” Hard to disagree.

The third attack: On Nov. 21, Karim Ahmad Khan, prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

Mr. Khan also issued a warrant for Mohammed Deif, the head of the military wing of Hamas in Gaza. However, since Mr. Deif was “martyred” in July, I doubt his lawyers will put him on the stand.

Mr. Khan has not just politicized international law, he’s weaponized it to defame and blood libel the only surviving and thriving Jewish community remaining in the Middle East.

To achieve that, he violated both international law and the rules of his court.

The ICC has jurisdiction only over states that choose to become members. Israel, like the U.S., has declined to join. Mr. Khan is asserting that Israel – and by implication the U.S. – is bound by a treaty it hasn’t signed. Globalism on steroids.

Also: Because Gaza is neither a state nor a member of the ICC, there is no entity that has standing to file a complaint with the ICC. How does Mr. Khan get around those inconvenient facts?

In 2015, the ICC granted membership to the Palestinian Authority which also is not a state and, what’s more, hasn’t governed Gaza since 2007 when, two years after Israelis withdrew from the territory, it was ousted by Hamas in a brief but bloody civil war.

Leaving aside Mr. Khan’s unlawful usurpation of power, the charges he has leveled are bogus, based on disinformation from groups hostile to Israel.

Take, for example, his primary allegation of “starvation as a method of warfare.” In fact, never in history has a state done more to assist the population of an enemy during hostilities.

Israel has transferred to Gazans more than a million tons of aid carried by 57,000 trucks. The International Famine Review Committee has confirmed that there is no famine in Gaza.

Yes, there are individuals who have likely starved to death in Gaza. But the ICC said nothing about those Hamas-held hostages.

What’s next for Mr. Khan? He’ll probably meet with his own lawyers. The ICC announced earlier this month that he’s facing an external investigation into accusations of sexual misconduct.

Despite all this, many of the ICC’s 124 member states have said they will be only too pleased to arrest Messrs. Netanyahu and Gallant should they get the chance.

“That’s just who we are as Canadians,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said last week. How sad if that’s true.

Among the nations that fund the ICC are France, Britain, Germany, Italy, Japan, and South Korea. American diplomats ought to be making clear why their money would be better directed toward helping Ukraine and Taiwan, democracies threatened by Moscow and Beijing.

President Biden accurately called Mr. Khan’s lawfare against Israel “outrageous,” adding that “whatever the ICC might imply, there is no equivalence – none – between Israel and Hamas.”

But he also could do something. In 2020, President Trump sanctioned ICC officials for investigating American troops. President Biden revoked those sanctions in 2021.

In June, the House, on a bipartisan basis, passed a bill to sanction the ICC. But Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has prevented a vote in the Senate, reportedly on instructions from the White House.

Rep. Michael Waltz, Mr. Trump’s nominee for national security advisor, predicted a “strong response to the antisemitic bias of the ICC and the UN come January.”

The incoming administration should use sanctions not just to punish the ICC but to shutter an institution that, since its founding in the early years of this century, has achieved little at enormous cost.

The ICC’s 900 employees would then need to find more useful ways to earn a living. The court’s elaborate headquarters, six towers connected on the ground and first floors, could perhaps be converted into condominiums.

Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a columnist for the Washington Times.