Arrest warrants for Israeli leaders reinforce the democratic rupture

On November 25, 2024By Littum

The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) decision this week to indict Israeli leaders on charges of war crimes in Gaza has reignited the clash among Democrats over Israel’s handling of the war with Hamas.

On the one hand, Israel’s staunchest democratic allies quickly lashed out at the court, accusing it of pro-Palestinian bias and undermining Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorist threats.

On the other hand, liberal critics of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed the ICC’s move, saying the humanitarian crisis in Gaza created by Israel’s military operations warrants the court’s investigation.

And Democratic leaders in the White House and Congress — while sticking to Israel in the short term — will face the longer-term challenge of easing tensions between the party’s feuding factions on a thorny issue that has torn them apart for years.

The internal clash has intensified since Hamas’ attack on October 7, 2023, in which they killed nearly 1,200 people in Israel and kidnapped around 250 more. While Democrats of all stripes have asserted their support for Israel’s right to self-defense, Netanyahu’s forceful response — which has killed more than 44,000 Palestinians in Gaza — has splintered that united front and alienated more liberal lawmakers, who now accuse Netanyahu of human rights abuses while calling on President Biden to cut off arms shipments to Tel Aviv.

It is the liberal group that is cheering the ICC for its decision on Thursday to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, accusing the pair of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

“This is a matter of human rights violations of genocidal proportions,” said Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.).

“The International Criminal Court has sought to exercise jurisdiction and we will see what happens,” he continued. “I do not disagree with their decision, which is supported by definite, probable cause to believe that human rights violations have occurred.”

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, portrayed the ICC’s move as “a very important step” in the pursuit of wartime accountability.

“We see collective punishment in the killing of a despicable amount of Palestinians,” she said.

Across the divide, Israel’s closest democratic allies take a very different view. These voices maintain that Israel is merely defending its borders from Hamas, Iran and other hostile forces in the region. They were unsatisfied by the ICC’s move to indict a Hamas leader, Mohammed Deif, along with Netanyahu and Gallant, saying it only highlighted one of their core concerns: that the court promotes false equivalence between the elected leaders of Israel , America’s Nearest Middle Eastern. allies and Hamas terrorist leaders.

“Israel is fighting an existential war, and I believe the charges issued by the ICC are misleading and wrong,” said Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.).

Neither the United States nor Israel have ratified the ICC’s charter, meaning the court has little ability to prosecute alleged crimes committed by citizens of those countries. Still, the court’s critics say the charges against Israeli leaders send a dangerous message to the world about which side holds morality high.

“The goal must be peace for all people in the region,” Schneider said. “And I think actions like this certainly make that climb steeper.”

Democratic leaders have sided with Schneider’s camp. Biden issued a brief statement Thursday hammering out arrest warrants as “outrageous”. And House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (DN.Y.) delivered a similar rebuke a short time later, calling the ICC’s move “disgraceful.”

“I stand with the Biden administration in fundamentally rejecting this frivolous decision,” Jeffries said in a statement.

Netanyahu went a step further. When he denied the charges, he accused the ICC of anti-Semitism.

But a number of Democrats on Capitol Hill rejected those accusations, arguing that not every condemnation of specific actions by the Israeli government constitutes bigotry.

“There are plenty of examples of increased anti-Semitism in the world that we need to address,” said Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.). “But just because there is anti-Semitism does not necessarily mean that Benjamin Netanyahu is unable to break the law.”

Kildee stopped short of endorsing the idea that Israeli leaders have committed war crimes – “I never anticipate any criminal charges,” he said – but he also criticized the prime minister’s handling of the conflict, which has included severe restrictions on the delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza and a ban on foreign journalists entering the territory freely.

“I think Netanyahu is to blame,” Kildee said.

The charged debate is already showing up in internal discussions among House Democrats as they analyze why they failed to flip control of the lower chamber in this month’s elections.

During one of these formal “listening sessions” organized by Democratic leaders, argued Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) that one of the reasons they did not fare better was that the party was not vocal enough to defend Palestinian civilians as the humanitarian crisis grew more severe in the months after the first attack on Oct. 7 — a criticism that also dogged Vice President Harris throughout her failed run for the presidency.

That argument — and the sure pushback from Israel’s Democratic allies — will surely challenge Jeffries and his leadership team heading into the next Congress, when President-elect Trump will be in the White House, Republicans will control both houses of Congress and the GOP -leaders will almost certainly seek to exploit Democratic divisions by bringing controversial Israel-related bills up for a vote.

Jayapal, the chairman of the Progressive Caucus, seems ready for that debate. She is already pushing congressional leaders to respect the Leahy Act — which prevents the State and Defense departments from providing aid to foreign countries known to violate human rights — while cheering the ICC for putting teeth into international law.

If America’s enemies waged a war like Netanyahu has in Gaza, she argued, Washington would not blink if the international community accused them of human rights crimes.

“If the ICC were to do this for (Russian President Vladimir Putin), we would not reject it or say the ICC is not a good organization,” she said.

“The reality is that there is serious evidence here that collective punishment was used against the Palestinian people and that international humanitarian law has been violated.”

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