According to the Times of Israel and other media reports, in recent days, the International Criminal Court may issue "arrest warrants" for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, Defense Minister Gallant, and IDF Chief of Staff Al-Harlewi because of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Israel, which has always been fearless from heaven and earth, seems to have been frightened by this incident and has begun to call the United States again and again, hoping that the United States will intervene to prevent the International Criminal Court from issuing an "arrest warrant."
Why, then, does Israel care so much about the ICC's arrest warrant, and will the United States come to the aid to prevent the ICC from making a ruling?
U.S. President Joe Biden, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
It starts with the powers and responsibilities of the International Criminal Court. In simple terms, it is an international court established under the Rome Statute with the primary mandate to prosecute and try individuals who have committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and aggression.
Such prosecutions and trials have two priorities, the first being that they can only be applied to members who are party to the Rome Statute, and the second is that they are directed against individuals, not States and organizations.
Israel, although not a member of the International Criminal Court and not a signatory to the Rome Statute, is Palestine. Therefore, the Israeli media believe that if the International Criminal Court does decide to arrest the Israeli leader, it will be a ruling against Israel in the name of the Palestinians.
Objectively, such a ruling, of course, will not have substantive effect, and the ICC has also issued an arrest warrant to Russian President Vladimir Putin, but there has been no response.
International Criminal Court
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself has stated that even if the ICC issues a so-called "arrest warrant", it will not affect the actions of the Israeli army in Gaza.
Why, then, does Israel care so much about it? It's actually quite simple, because it will affect Israel's international image and limit the diplomatic activities of the Israeli prime minister and high-level officials.
That's why Netanyahu threatened that "if the ICC does this, it will set a dangerous precedent that will disappoint all democracies fighting terrorism."
Here, Netanyahu glorified the actions of the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip as "fighting terrorism", but the data does not lie, so far, the conflict in the Gaza Strip has killed more than 34,000 people, who is actually responsible for the humanitarian catastrophe? The international community is clear about this, and Israel does not need to rush to absolve itself of responsibility.
The Gaza Strip is in ruins
Back to the arrest warrant itself, when the conflict between Russia and Ukraine broke out, Europe and the United States vigorously pushed the International Criminal Court to issue a so-called "arrest warrant" against Russian President Putin, which even made Putin unable to attend in person when the BRICS summit was held in South Africa last year.
And now Israel is facing widespread condemnation from the international community because of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and the only thing it can count on is the support of the United States and Western countries.
The United States is not a member of the International Criminal Court, which has little impact, but most countries in the European Union are members of the International Criminal Court, and once the court issues an "arrest warrant" against the top level of Israel, then according to the rules, as soon as Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu sets foot on the territory of these countries, he should be arrested immediately.
This is a big blow to Israel, which is currently being diplomatically isolated. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand that Israel is fiercely opposed to this, and even asks the United States to help put pressure on it.
Israeli army
So, will the United States help Israel? Can it help it? This has to be viewed from two aspects: On the one hand, the issue of the International Criminal Court itself.
To put it bluntly, as a relatively global public organization, if the ICC wants to exert influence, then impartiality and authority are its foundation.
But now, they have issued an "arrest warrant" to Russian President Putin in response to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which is tantamount to setting a benchmark for their own behavior, and then, after the investigation and trial of the International Criminal Court against Israel's atrocities in the Gaza Strip, if it fails to issue an "arrest warrant" to the Israeli Prime Minister, including the Israeli Defense Minister and other senior members, it will inevitably greatly shake the authority it is trying to establish.
The rest of the world will immediately realize that the so-called International Criminal Court is only a pawn in the hands of the United States. By that time, the organization had existed in name only.
Russian President Vladimir Putin
So, from the ICC's own point of view, they are of course more inclined to issue this "arrest warrant". But on the other hand, from the perspective of the United States, the United States is of course unwilling to issue an "arrest warrant" against the Israeli leadership of the International Criminal Court. Now the U.S. political and media circles are already agitating for the Biden administration to intervene.
For example, Johnson, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, publicly asked Biden to stop this, and the Wall Street Journal and others also advocated that Britain and the United States should intervene to prevent the International Criminal Court from making a ruling unfavorable to Israel.
But the problem is that the United States blocked this "arrest warrant" against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and it has become a false proposition to support the "arrest warrant" against Putin.
At the same time, the ICC reflects the will of the European Union to a certain extent, after all, the United States has not signed the Rome Statute at all, and is not actually a member of the ICC, while France and Germany, including most of the EU countries, are the leaders of the ICC.
EU countries
Based on this, once the International Criminal Court issues an "arrest warrant" against Netanyahu, it will reflect the will of the EU to a certain extent, and the Biden administration will come forward to openly stop it, isn't it a blatant slap in the face of the EU?
Historically, the United States has indeed done this, when Trump was president of the United States, the International Criminal Court conducted an investigation into the atrocities of the US military in Afghanistan and wanted to sanction the relevant personnel, but Trump directly threatened that if the ICC dared to sanction the US military, then the United States would sanction the ICC, which forced the ICC to abandon the relevant trial.
From this point of view, if the Biden administration is completely unreasonable, and does not care about the attitude of its European allies like Trump, it can certainly press the ICC to prevent the issuance of an "arrest warrant" against Netanyahu.
As long as the United States dares to do this, those signatories to the Rome Statute will naturally have reason to treat the "arrest warrant" of the International Criminal Court as waste paper, and this organization will almost be useless.
Member of the International Criminal Court
Therefore, how this matter develops next depends on how the Biden administration weighs the pros and cons, and whether it will once again put pressure on international organizations for Israel's sake.