Breathe
By Cristina Gutiérrez
On Thursday, November 21, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, becoming the first leaders of a Western-backed democratic country to have warrants issued for their arrest by this court. This decision is based on the existence of reasonable evidence to believe that both are responsible for committing war crimes and crimes against humanity against the Palestinian population since the conflict unleashed by Hamas on October 7, 2023. The crimes charged against the Israeli leaders include the starvation of the civilian population as a method of warfare and the systematic and widespread murder and persecution of the population of the Gaza Strip. To date, the Israeli army's indiscriminate attacks have left more than 43,000 Palestinians dead, mostly women and children.
The arrest warrant for Netanyahu has divided the opinion of world leaders. The United States, Israel's main ally, has strongly rejected the ICC's decision, as have Hungary, Paraguay and Argentina. For their part, the European Union, Turkey and South Africa, among other governments and human rights groups, have come out publicly in favor of the measure. The European Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, has stated that the arrest warrant issued by the ICC must be "respected and implemented" and the governments of Italy and the Netherlands have expressed their intention to arrest the Israeli Prime Minister should he set foot on their respective territories. The International Criminal Court does not have its own police force, so the arrest warrant would require the assistance of the authorities of one of the 124 member countries of the ICC, of which neither Israel nor the United States is a member.
Beyond the fact that Netanyahu will not be able to travel to any of the ICC member countries due to the risk of arrest, the Court's order has a strong social and moral impact on the President's image and represents a diplomatic disaster for Israel. In recent months, Israel's isolation as a state within the international community has been increasingly evident, and the protests and demonstrations taking place every week in hundreds of cities around the world calling for a ceasefire in Gaza are proof of this. On November 20, one day before the ICC issued its arrest warrant, the United States vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, being the only one of the 15 members of the Security Council to vote against the resolution.
Predictably, the Israeli prime minister called the ICC decision anti-Semitic, saying that the judges are "motivated by anti-Semitic sentiments against the only Jewish state". And while this victim narrative that the Israeli state has used to justify its atrocities in the Palestinian territories has worked on many occasions, the arrest warrant for Netanyahu contributes to the crumbling of a discourse that has been losing its credibility for months. The facts go beyond propaganda; Israel has been systematically murdering the civilian population in Gaza for almost 14 months, denouncing and criticizing this has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. One cannot perpetuate a narrative of perennial victimhood while committing genocide against the Palestinian people. This time the victim has become the victimizer, the world knows it and someone has to stop them.
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of the company. Opinion 51.
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