Scarinci: Anti-Semitism Has a Face

The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) very existence is currently in danger due to the widespread anti-Semitism that taints the UN and its affiliated institutions. The face of antisemitism in the twenty-first century is Karim Khan, an ICC prosecutor who has since been sanctioned by the United States.

Karim Khan needs to step down right away since his visage now stands for evil rather than justice.

The ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan filed arrest warrants for Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a move that shocked Israel and its friends around the world. By doing this, Mohammed Deif, Ismail Haniyeh Kahn, and Yahya Sinwar, three Hamas terrorist leaders, assert that democratically elected leaders protecting their nation are no different from terrorists who exploit their people as human shields.

The Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act, passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, was the first step in the United States’ retaliation to the ICC’s operations. It would punish any foreigner who looks into, detains, arrests, or prosecutes American or allied nationals. Forty-five Democrats and every Republican in the House supported the bill. President Trump imposed sanctions on Khan and others who encourage his blatant anti-Semitic behavior yesterday.

What is the ICC?

The Hague is home to the independent international court known as the International Criminal Court (ICC). It is not to be confused with the United Nations’ judicial branch, the International Criminal Court of Justice (ICJ).

The ICC looks into and, where necessary, prosecutes those accused of grave crimes that the world community finds concerning. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which established the court, gives it jurisdiction over four primary crimes: crimes against humanity, war crimes, crimes of aggression, and genocide. The Rome Statute also lays out the procedures and ways in which states might work with the ICC.

The goal of the ICC is to support national criminal justice systems, not to take their place. The ICC claims that it only steps in when a State is incapable or unwilling to conduct a thorough investigation and bring charges against the offenders. The United States and Israel are not State Parties to the Rome Statute, despite the fact that over 120 nations are.

The ICC Reacts Right Away to the Gaza War

When it came to the Jewish state, the ICC was unable to maintain objectivity, which stands in sharp contrast to other democratically elected officials throughout the world who have had to protect their countries from terrorism. Shortly after the horrific October 7 attacks by Hamas, they started looking into Israel for war crimes.

Prosecutor Karim Khan requested the arrest warrants for Gallant and Netanyahu by May 2024. Judges of the ICC affirmed by November 2024 that there are good reasons to suspect crimes under the Rome Statute.

The ICC judges concluded that there are good reasons to believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Gallant have both committed the war crime of using starvation as a weapon of mass destruction and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other cruel acts, either directly or in collusion with others. The judges also found that there were good reasons to think that each of them committed the war crime of purposefully leading assaults against civilians in their capacity as superiors.

What Are the Meanings of Arrest Warrants?

The arrest warrants are not enforced by the ICC’s police force or other resources. Rather, it depends on international cooperation, especially from nations that have ratified the Rome Convention. The U.S. and other non-member nations occasionally collaborate with the court on an as-needed basis.

The ICC’s credibility has been destroyed by its blatant anti-Semitism.

Israel has called the ICC’s activities a perversion of justice and antisemitic. The International Criminal Court is a biased and discriminating political body, and Israel rejects with disdain the ridiculous and fraudulent actions and charges against it, according to Netanyahu’s office. Nothing is more just than the war Israel has been conducting in Gaza since Hamas, a terrorist group, attacked it bloodily and carried out the largest atrocity against the Jewish people since the Holocaust.

The ICC’s decision to issue arrest warrants for top Israeli officials has also been sharply criticized by the Biden Administration and congressional legislators from both parties. Critics of the UN’s efforts contend that by combining elected world leaders and terrorists, the ICC is creating a risky precedent and lacks authority over the issue. In addition to attempting to arrest Israel’s leaders, the ICC is undermining Israel’s right to self-defense against ongoing terrorist attacks.

The ICC, like many other UN member states, has embraced the propaganda of Al-Jazeera and others, which substitutes the terms “genocide” and “captive” for “hostage.” They ignore the fact that Hamas’s unlawful tactics, including as utilizing civilians as human shields and setting up operations in hospitals, put the great majority of civilians who have been slain in danger.

The ICC will only end up being another pointless expense for its member countries unless it faces its own antisemitic bias and addresses the distinction between a terrorist group that rapes women, kills babies, takes hostages, and hides in tunnels and neighborhoods, putting civilians in danger.