ICC's False Equivalence between Hamas and Israel: Shameful!

The International Criminal Court did the cause of justice no favor this week when ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan simultaneously requested arrest warrants for Hamas and Israeli leaders.

The terrorist organization Hamas, on October 7, 2023, engaged in the carefully planned massacre of over 1200 Israeli men, boys, women, and girls, including the torture and rape of Israeli women and girls and even the brutalization of fetuses of those Israeli female victims who were pregnant. The terrorists even used the victims' cell phones to record the atrocities and then sent the recorded horror, murder, rape, and desecration to the victims' friends and relatives. Hamas took hundreds of Israeli men, women, and children hostage as the terrorists retreated into Gaza.

It was pure barbarism carried out by barbarians designed to shock the civilized world. And it did. That it was a crime of grotesque proportions is not subject to debate. It was the greatest mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust, and the terrorists pledged to repeat the massacre over and over again. Israel has responded with an unrelenting and continuing attack on Gaza, from where the Hamas terrorists came, and to where the Hamas terrorists withdrew, and where those who are still alive remain.

Israel's campaign against Hamas continues in Gaza with the stated objective of destroying the terrorist organization once and for all. Because Hamas lives and hides among the people of Gaza who have no ability nor any apparent desire to expel them, the toll of the war on innocent civilians in Gaza has been horrendous. Nonetheless, for the International Criminal Court to deal with Hamas and Israel as co-equal offenders of international law is ludicrous. Had there been no attack on October 7, there would be no retaliation and no continuing campaign to hunt down the Hamas terrorists.  

Israel, of course, must be held to the same rules of war as any other nation. Israel, however, is the victim of the precipitating October 7, 2023 massacre. To adjudicate an equivalency between Israel's response to the gruesome murder of over 1200 of her citizens and the crimes of the Hamas murderers who began this war is simply wrong and sends an awful message.

To the extent that any aspect of Israel's war against Hamas violates the rules of war, Israel is subject to the same adjudication of international law as any other nation. But let's get serious. Hamas is a recognized terrorist organization. Murder is its raison d’etre. It is an organization of murderers and is officially recognized as such by most of the civilized world. That it masquerades as a legitimate government is of no consequence given its actions, and it is deserving of no quarter given the terror it visited upon Israelis on October 7^.  

Hamas's gruesome behavior is almost without parallel in modern history and certainly since the Nazi horrors, which they emulate so enthusiastically. While Israel may have to answer for any excesses in its campaign to destroy Hamas, the ICC's suggestion of equivalence between Hamas and Israel in the adjudication of Hamas crimes and Israel's response to those crimes is shameful.

To whatever extent it suggests that Israel's retaliation somehow cancels the ignobility of Hamas's attack is wrongheaded and dangerous. Everything that has happened and is happening in Gaza is a direct result of Hamas's crimes against Israel in particular and humanity in general.

To whatever extent Israel is called upon to answer for her response to the Hamas massacre is a separate issue, and any notion of parallelism between the perpetrator and the victim is a slander that decent men and women must reject.

The United States and Israel are among a small handful of nations that are not members of the International Criminal Court. Membership in the ICC requires member nations to arrest and turn over to the ICC anyone who enters their country who has been charged with a crime by the ICC. President Biden called the ICC prosecutor's application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders "outrageous," and Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States rejected the prosecutor's equivalence of Israel with Hamas and considered the ICC prosecutor's decision shameful.

If a case is to be made that Israel has overreacted to Hamas's brutal and barbaric atrocities against Israeli men, women, and children, then let the accuser advance that case. But calling for the simultaneous arrest of Israeli and Hamas leaders implies an equivalency between the leaders of a State that has been attacked and the leaders of a universally recognized terrorist enterprise that did the attack.

I have been monitoring international reaction to the ICC prosecutor's request for arrest warrants for Israel's leaders and the request for arrest warrants for the leaders of Hamas. While opinions vary widely, with some pro and some con, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala eloquently framed the absurdity of the ICC's targeting of both Hamas and Israel.

"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 organization is appalling and completely unacceptable.

"We must not forget that it was Hamas that attacked Israel in October and killed, injured, and kidnapped thousands of innocent people. It was this completely unprovoked terrorist attack that led to the current war in Gaza and the suffering of civilians in Gaza, Israel, and Lebanon."

Hats off to Czech Prime Minister Fiala. When terrorists deliberately target civilian men, women, and children, there should be no inference of criminal duality when the nation that has been attacked strikes back. Shame on the ICC Prosecutor.

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