The arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant prompted heated rebuke from Yair Golan in the deep left to the right-wing outlier Itamar Ben Gvir.

By JNS

Politicians from across the political spectrum in Israel condemned the International Criminal Court’s decision Thursday to issue arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant.

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said the arrest warrants mean that the ICC has “lost all legitimacy for its existence and activity,” as “it acted as a political instrument by the most radical forces working to undermine peace, security and stability in the Middle East.”

The warrants are “in fact an attack on Israel’s right to defend itself,” he wrote, and called on “all decent countries and people” to reject them.

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, who is a harsh critic of Netanyahu, wrote on X: “I condemned the decision of the court in Hague. Israel is defending its existence from terrorist groups that attacked, murdered and raped out citizens. These arrest warrants are a prize for terrorism.”

The Court in the Hague announced on Thursday it would act on the recommendation of prosecutor Karim Khan to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant, and Hamas leader Mohammed Deif, who is dead.

Amir Ohana, speaker of the Knesset and a top member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, wrote that, “Targeting the democratically elected leaders of Israel, the Middle East’s only democracy and the world’s only Jewish state, is nothing short of an assault on justice, truth, and the universal right of self-defense.”

Education Minister Yoav Kisch wrote that the decision “will deter neither us nor the State of Israel from striking its enemies without hesitation until a total victory.”

Benny Gantz, another prominent opposition leader, wrote that the ICC’s decision was “moral blindness and a shameful stain of historic proportion that will never be forgotten.”

Yair Golan, the leader of The Democrats party—perhaps the most left-of-center of the Zionist political parties in Israel—wrote that the decision was “shameful,” adding: “Israel has always had and will always have the right to defend itself from our enemies.”

Former prime minister Naftali Bennett, a right-wing critic of Netanyahu, wrote: “Israel is fighting back the most just of wars against pure evil. All Israelis, left and right, stand behind the war whose goals are to release the kidnapped Israelis, demolish Hamas and restore security to Israel. Shame on ICC.”

Avigdor Liberman, another right-wing critic of Netanyahu who had served under him as foreign minister, said the decision “reflects the double morals and hypocrisy of the international community and the United Nations.”

The ICC is not part of the U.N., but its tribunal, the International Court of Justice, which like the ICC is also based in the Hague, is similarly reviewing criminal charges brought against Israel in connection with its war on Hamas in Gaza.

Transportation Minister Miri Regev called Thursday’s decision “modern antisemitism disguised as justice.”

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir wrote that the response to the arrest warrants should be annexing “all the territories of Judea and Samaria; establishing settlements in all parts of the country and severing all ties with the terrorist authority, as well as applying sanctions [against it.]”

The United States and Israel are among the dozens of countries that have not signed the charter of the ICC, and are therefore not subject to its rulings. However, countries that are, including E.U. members states, are bound by the charter to act on its decisions, including the arrest warrants.