European leaders divided on ICC arrest warrant bid for Netanyahu

23 comments

1. Flip flopping on human rights and international law makes a mockery of the West. We do not always need to follow the US in their clown geopolitics.

2. There might be some divisions but I doubt any EU country will seriously consider challenging ICC legitimacy and impartiality let alone threating to leave.

   EU members have always, since ICC’s inception, supported the organization, being their biggest financial and political backers in order to promote international justice and accountability. You literally can’t join EU without ratifying the Rome statute.

   Israel is certainly not a country for which EU will throw ICC and the goal of universal international accountability to the gutters.

3. Of course, now the International Criminal Court (ICC) has decided to tackle truly important matters – like unfairly issuing an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu! How else can one divert attention from real global issues than by spending time and resources on political shows? Clearly, the ICC is staffed by people who believe that justice works best when it’s engaged in politics. What a wonderful way to waste international trust and budgetary funds – a circus, nothing more!

4. Just listen to how ridiculous these arguments are… They disagree, because Israeli leaders are democratically elected. That has nothing to do with their guilt or lack thereof. Pathetic…

5. Same kind of ICC warrant Putin’s got ? So a symbolic gesture, nothing else …

6. I think all the legal circumstances on this matter are way above reddits paygrade. Although I am surprised that the statements by germany and the US are more revolving around the fact that these bids were issued simultaneously.

7. > “The ICC Chief Prosecutor’s proposal to issue an arrest warrant for the representatives of a democratically elected government together with the leaders of an Islamist terrorist organisation is appalling and completely unacceptable,”

   The democratically elected part is an irrelevant detail from the Czech PM. Democracy does not mean immunity, and previous indictees have been representatives of democratically elected governments. I’m sure the ICC could issue two separate documents if the warrants being “together” is the big issue.

   > “The fact however that the leader of the terrorist organisation Hamas whose declared goal is the extinction of the State of Israel is being mentioned at the same time as the democratically elected representatives of that very State is non comprehensible”

   So no issue with the merits of the separate and distinct charges laid against the various parties, just being offended that they didn’t charge Hamas first?

   > “This action does nothing to help reach a pause in the fighting, get hostages out or get humanitarian aid in and make progress towards a sustainable ceasefire that we want to see,” a spokesperson for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said.

   It’s incredibly inappropriate to suggest that the ICC should be making decisions based on what they *guess* the political ramifications/outcomes will be. 

   > “The simultaneous application for arrest warrants against the Hamas leaders on the one hand and the two Israeli officials on the other gave the false impression of an equation.”

   Once again, not disputing the merits of the charges, just offended that they came at the same time.

8. While at the same time crying for Raisi’s death what a shame

9. Netanyahu and his cabinet do deserve prison for their war crimes in Gaza. You don’t dehumanise a whole people as terrorists and destroy all their infrastructure and cause a famine and think everything will be fine internationally. There are consequences for such a disproportionate response.

10. yknow what? I love this drama. It questions both ICC jurisdiction/Legitimacy, EU full support to Israel (goverment (!)) and US recognition of the court at the same time 3 birds with one stone!

11. Every arguments against it basically comes down to “Hamas started it, so Israel is free to do whatever they want”, which is obvious bullshit.

12. Arrest him, Putin, Hamas, Biden, Obama, Clinton, Blair, Washington, Assad, Kim, and send them to the gulag

13. I love the EU trying to take moral stances on issues and once again revealing just how little ICC matters when everybody just ignores them with some shit excuse the instant it’s in any way inconvenient.

    The ‘laws’ on war are already pathetic, a fig leaf of moral superiority on exactly how you can kill people just as dead as the other way, and you can’t even hold onto *that*.

    How about if you don’t want any awkwardness around arrest warrants, maybe don’t enable doing war crime?

14. Double standards?
    I really hope not and that any european country who recognized the ICC will act accordingly.

15. Now this is getting interesting.

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17. The West has allowed institutions like the UN and the ICC to be dominated by very illiberal countries.

18. Little did they know hamas came into power through a democratic election, hitler idem dito. Being elected in a democratic way says nothing about the values of that leader.

19. They were legitimate and has full authority to issue arrest warrant for Putin. So why not Bibi?
    It is because Putin is the one started the war? No it’s not about who started. It’s about the action they’re doing.

    Hypocrisy at its best again.

20. On one side are normal people and on the other people funded by Israel

21. Good we have an independent judiciary system.

22. Just to indicate a close precedent here:

    Omar Al Bashir (the president of Sudan – a non-signatory of the Rome Statute – before the recent coup) has had an ICC warrant for Darfour since late 2000s. He visited Turkey (also a non-signatory of the Rome Statute) for the Islamic Conference foe a number of occasions (under diplomatic immunity) since then and EU leaders were condemning the non-arrest of him by Turkey.

    Now we will see how EU leaders who *are* signatories of the Rome Statute will act when it means inconvenient arrests for them.

23. Let him be charged and decided by a court. If he’s clean, that’s it. I don’t know why he gets special treatment