Colonel Richard Kemp, the former commander of the British military forces in Afghanistan, spoke to Israel National News - Arutz Sheva about the International Criminal Court's decision to issue arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
According to Col. Kemp, "Issuing an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu in 2024 is like issuing an arrest warrant for Winston Churchill in 1944. The Nazis branded Churchill a war criminal back then and of course the most enthusiastic supporters of the ICC accusations are the modern-day Nazis, Iran and Hamas."
He said that the impact on Israel's war against Hamas and Hezbollah would be minimal. "The ICC has launched an unprecedented legal assault on a Western democracy that has been defending itself from jihadist violence on seven battlefronts for more than a year. Israel did not start this war. Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran did. Israel had no choice but to fight to defend its citizens. It is Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran’s other proxies that are the war criminals, not Israel’s leaders. This political warfare will not stop Israel from continuing to pursue its legitimate military actions."
"However," he noted, "there are grave implications for Jewish communities around the world. The ICC’s unfounded accusations and their support by member governments incite greater violence and intimidation against Jews and supporters of Israel everywhere."
In addition, "It will also impact on countries who are forced to battle against global jihadists and other terrorists. Knowing that this despicable precedent has been set will certainly deter other democracies from effectively fighting terrorism, knowing that their leaders and soldiers could well be hounded through this international court."
When asked about how the ICC could justify these warrants, Col. Kemp responded, "The unaccountable ICC has contorted itself unbelievably into issuing these arrest warrants. It is acting on behalf of the State of Palestine which is not a state and cannot therefore be a party to the court. It is acting against Israel which is not a signatory to the Rome Statute which created the court. Furthermore, the court is in breach of an international treaty, the Oslo Accords, under which the Palestinian Authority undertook not to bring prosecutions against Israeli citizens. Thus the PA cannot delegate any such jurisdiction to the ICC. The court is operating in contravention of its founding principle of complementarity, which means it can only prosecute citizens of countries that do not have the legal system or the judicial will to act against their own people. This unequivocally does not apply to Israel which has an internationally respected legal structure that has repeatedly shown willing to deal with accusations of war crimes."
"Thus, even before we consider the substance of the allegations, the ICC has no lawful jurisdiction in this case. That point has been made by the US government, the previous British government and numerous legal scholars," he said.
"As to the charges themselves, the Chief Prosecutor of the ICC has brought forward no convincing evidence to support the issuance of arrest warrants. I was in Israel a few months ago with a delegation of former NATO generals. They concluded that the IDF was adhering to the laws of war both in trying to minimize harm to civilians in Gaza and trying to maximize the delivery of humanitarian aid to the population. The precise opposite of the two trumped-up charges being leveled against Israel by the ICC.
"What is the ICC doing about the real war criminals?" he asked. "Hamas launched an illegal war of aggression against Israel and virtually every action they have taken since then have amounted to war crimes in multiple levels including indiscriminate fire at civilians and using civilians as human shields. Yet the ICC has only issued a token and ludicrous arrest warrant against the former Hamas military commander, Muhammad Deif, widely believed to be long dead. Even this absurdity should be seen only as a feeble effort to show some kind of balance amidst their overwhelming bias."
Turning to the international response to the ICC's warrants, Col. Kemp stated that "those members of the ICC who have supported the warrants should be ashamed. They have a duty to satisfy themselves that the court has jurisdiction and the charges have substance before enforcing the warrants. Yet many countries, including the UK, France and Canada, have disgracefully said they would arrest Netanyahu if he came to their countries."
He added, "The US has condemned the ICC actions but that is not good enough. The Biden administration could have pressured the court not to issue these warrants but miserably failed to do so."
"The Trump administration should immediately sanction the ICC judges, chief prosecutor and other court officials who played a role here, acting against a major ally and US national security interests. Trump should also go further and take action against member states that support the ICC action, which could include revisiting trade deals and other preferential arrangements with the US," he said.
When asked if the ICC could be salvaged to fulfill its original mission following this decision, Col. Kemp said that it could not be saved. "With these warrants the ICC has passed the point of no return. It has shown that it cannot be reformed and therefore should be ended. Its original purpose was valid and necessary. But its political bias has betrayed that and it should be replaced with internationally agreed ad hoc tribunals to deal with real war criminals that cannot be brought to justice by the countries concerned."