Late last week, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. The ramifications for this are equally broad and non-existent. Nothing will change because these warrants were issued, yet everything has changed because they were issued. How the United States and the world reacts to this is what makes the warrants themselves so dangerous.
The political differences that we witness in the United States are, in essence, a macro view of what is witnessed in local communities or even at the dinner table. So too the differences of global politics are a macro view of the United States. The issues we have between the Left and the Right here are the same issues that Leftwing and Rightwing nations have with each other. Nothing expands the fissures in the world community (if there even is one) like Israel.
While the easy answer to why Western nations turn on Israel is “anti-Semitism,” the true answer is bigotry of another sort: the bigotry of low expectations. Western nations look at Israel as a country with choice and agency, which is not how they view the Palestinians. Left-thinking Western nations view the Palestinians as subhuman, creatures who cannot make their own choices or decisions and must be cared for by them, the Liberal saviors.
Look at how the international community has treated the Palestinians since 1949. After Israel’s War for Independence, the United Nations created UNRWA, a refugee organization solely dedicated to the Palestinian people. In 76 years, UNRWA has not “resettled” one Palestinian anywhere. They have taken billions of dollars in funding and done absolutely nothing with it. Of course, the Palestinian areas of Judea and Samaria’s “refugee camps” are indistinguishable from any town or city anywhere else in the world, yet the people who live there are still, technically, the 4th generation of refugees.
What happened to all the Jewish refugees from Arab nations? After 1948, over 800,000 Jews were expelled from their homes all over the Middle East. Did the UN create an agency to help them? Or did they give Israel money when they accepted these refugees? Not at all, because Jews and Israel both have agency and are treated as adults. The Palestinians need to be handheld by the world, given everything, and will never be treated as equals.
This is why when the ICC claims that Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, which is the most successful urban warfare with the best combatant-to-civilian ratio in history, is “criminal,” it’s because they are looking at Gazans as children that must be protected. They are not a people that had a de facto state for 18 years, elected Hamas to lead them, chose to use billions of dollars in funding to build a network of terror tunnels, shoot thousands of rockets indiscriminately into Israel, and attack civilians on October 7. They are the mentally deficient children of the international community.
The reactions from the world reflects how these nations view the Palestinians, and how they view their own constituency as well. So when Justin Trudeau of Canada says they will comply with the ICC warrant, it’s because Trudeau has the ideology of the oppressor-oppressed, and if Israel is more powerful than Hamas, that means they are the oppressor and he must protect the oppressed. Same for Italy, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, and many other nations.
Then there is Hungary, where Viktor Orban actively invited Bibi to visit his country. He sees, with moral clarity, that the Palestinians have made their own bed, and now they are sleeping in it. John Fetterman, Senator from Pennsylvania, says the same thing: “No standing, relevance, or path.”
The Republican House of Representatives passed a sanctions bill on the ICC in June, when news broke that they were considering these warrants. H.R.8282, the “Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act,” passed 247-155, with 42 Democrats joining 205 Republicans. It was then sent to the Democrat Senate, run by Chuck “Shomer Yishmael” Schumer, where it took three months to even be referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations, and has not moved since.
Senator John Thune, who was just elected by his Senate colleagues to be the Majority Leader when Republicans take over in January, called out Schumer for his failure. “If the ICC and its prosecutor do not reverse their outrageous and unlawful actions to pursue legislation, as the House has already done on a bipartisan basis, the Senate should immediately pass sanctions legislation, as the House has already done on a bipartisan basis,” Thune wrote. “If Majority Leader Schumer does not act, the Senate Republican majority will stand with our key ally Israel and make this – and other supportive legislation – a top priority in the next Congress.”
Schumer won’t do anything, because it’s against his interests to side with Israel. His interests are to shield Democrats from unpopular votes, so he refuses to bring up bipartisan issues that will pass the Senate because he does not want the headlines of half the Democratic caucus voting against popular pro-Israel proposals, even if they would pass 70-30.
The reality is that the ICC has no jurisdiction anywhere that Bibi needs to go, so the Jew-hater fantasy of him getting hauled away in handcuffs and put in front of the Hague is extremely remote. However, the notion that a weak America combined with a militant anti-Israel coalition could lead to a conflict between nations, where one side has two of the most well-equipped and well-trained armies in the world and the other has everyone else, is not something that should be taken lightly either. When the Republicans get back into power in January, a robust American defense of Israel will be back as well, and the ICC will rescind these warrants if they know what’s good for them.
Moshe Hill is a political analyst and columnist. His work can be found at www.aHillwithaView.com and on X at @HillWithView.
