Officials in Tel Aviv may need to think twice before planning to travel in Europe. In addition to Germany, both Norway and Spain have also announced they will cooperate with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in its investigation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his accomplices, for “crimes against humanity” committed during Israel’s 7 month onslaught against the native Palestinian population in Gaza.
Leader of Spain’s Sumar, Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Díaz, said she would join Norway and Ireland in recognising Palestinian statehood, and stressed that the government will continue to work to “clarify” and “investigate Mr Netanyahu as a criminal”, adding that “it is a step that we have to encourage and accompany together with other countries so that, at last, the barbarity ceases”, reported Euractiv.
Meanwhile, western politicians and media allied with Israel are focusing their argument on the fact that three Hamas officials appear on the ICC docket next to Netanyahu and Gallant, outraged over what they call a ‘false equivalence’ by bracketing Hamas in same frame as Israel.
Meanwhile, an uncomfortable reckoning for Berlin has begun…
Jack Phillips from Epoch Times reports…
A spokesman for the German government said on May 23 that Germany would “of course” arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant if the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for the two officials.
Earlier this week, the ICC’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, accused Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Gallant, and three Hamas leaders—Yehya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, and Ismail Haniyeh—of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip and Israel after the conflict erupted between the two in October 2023.
When asked on May 23 by reporters whether the German government would execute an ICC warrant for Mr. Netanyahu’s and Mr. Gallant’s arrests, Steffen Hebestreit, a spokesperson for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, responded that it would.
“Of course. Yes, we adhere to the law,“ he said, according to a translation. ”The way you put it so beautifully, this is a hypothetical question, so I’ll take half a step back and say: In principle, we are supporters of the ICC and it will stay that way.”
However, he suggested the German government believes the ICC warrant appears to be problematic and that it doesn’t believe Israel and the leaders of Hamas should be seen with “equivalence.”
After a journalist repeated the question to Mr. Hebestreit about the ICC’s possibly issuing warrants, he said, “I thought I had answered the question through my normative statement … of course, we abide by the law.”
Following Mr. Hebestreit ’s comments on May 23, an Israeli government spokesman, Avi Hyman, criticized the German government in a Fox News interview.
“I am old enough to remember the German leader coming here days after October 7, and stating the Hamas are the new Nazis,” he said. “They seek a genocide against the Jews. Many in the world need to check their moral compass and be on the right side of history.”
On May 20, Germany’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement that did not repeat the strong condemnations from the U.S. and Israeli governments regarding the potential arrest warrants. It instead noted that the ICC will now have to “decide on the chief prosecutor’s applications for the issuance of arrest warrants,” adding that there is a “false impression of an equation” between Israel and Hamas, a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization.
“If they or any Hamas leaders arrive in Norway, according to international law, we are obligated to arrest them. The same principle applies to all European countries, except Turkey,” the foreign minister told TV 2 in Norway…
Continue this story at Epoch Times
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