Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement last night that the International Criminal Court prosecutor’s “absurd” move “undermines every democracy’s right to defend itself.” It remains unclear what actions Netanyahu would exclude from his very broad definition of “a right to defend.”
Netanyahu added that the ICC has “no jurisdiction over Israel.” Then he hit his stride, lying that ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan’s “abuse of this authority will turn the ICC into nothing more than a farce. He’s doing something else. He is callously pouring gasoline on the fires of anti-Semitism that are raging across the world. Through this incendiary decision, Mr. Khan takes his place among the great anti-Semites in modern times.”
Netanyahu did not fail in lunging for the moral high ground, claiming that Israel’s army was the most moral military force in the world, and rejecting “with disgust” Karim Khan’s attempt to create a “twisted and false moral equivalence” between the Israeli government and the “genocidal terrorist organization” Hamas by issuing arrest warrants against him, his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders.
