ICC arrest warrants for Israeli leaders may be politically motivated - Expert

There are some quite serious suspicions regarding the possible political motivation of the International Criminal Court's plan to issue arrest warrants against senior Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.

In a video interview with News.Az, Jerusalem-based journalist and Mideast analyst Jonathan Spyer linked the suspicions to the fact that such cases have not been treated with a similar response in neighbouring countries.

"The suspicions derive from the fact, I would say, that very obvious cases of far more heinous activity by senior officials and indeed heads of state in neighbouring countries to Israel have not been treated with a similar response," he noted.

"The most obvious would be the actions of the dictator of Syria, Bashar Assad, who was responsible, according to most accepted figures, for the deaths of around half a million people in the course of that country's civil war in the period 2012 to 2019," he said, adding that Assad has not been singled out by the International Criminal Court for comparable attention. He suggested that this leads to some suspicion regarding the objectivity and the possible motivations of Prosecutor Karim Khan.

The journalist also noted that although clear proof regarding his intentions is still to be found, there are legitimate grounds for some scepticism and suspicion there.

"Regarding the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the ICJ ruling or statement needs to be read carefully. The ICJ does not in fact call for the immediate halting of the Israeli military operation into Rafah in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. Rather, it calls for Israel to avoid actions intended to deliberately hurt civilians or go in the direction of mass targeting of civilians," Spyer said.

"From Israel's point of view, it is clear that it does not intend to do that, and therefore, that operating within the parameters noted by the ICJ, the Israeli operation against the remaining four Hamas battalions inside Rafah is permissible and will continue to be pursued. So that would be my thought regarding ICJ," he concluded.

News.Az