UK position on ICC arrest warrants ‘under review’ as new foreign secretary to visit Israel

The General Election in Britain has thrown up in the air the question of whether the United Kingdom will challenge Karim Khan KC’s application to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for arrest warrants for Israeli leaders.

On May 20, Khan, a British jurist and chief prosecutor at the ICC, applied to the court to issue arrest warrants against three Hamas terrorist leaders, but also against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, for alleged war crimes in Gaza.

The UK’s left-wing Guardian newspaper reported on Monday that the new Labour government was likely to drop the challenge posed to the ICC by the previous government.

Former British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives were overwhelmingly defeated on July 4 after 14 years at the helm. The ICC had accepted their legal challenge to Khan’s application, with the UK’s full report due by July 12, just eight days after the election.

However, the new Labour government has challenged the Guardian report, saying their position on the proposed arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant is “under review,” the Jewish Chronicle reported on Wednesday.

The ICC has now reportedly extended its deadline for the UK’s final decision until July 26.

David Lammy is due to embark on his first visit to the Jewish state as UK Foreign Secretary on Monday. Ahead of the visit, the preparatory diplomacy has included the need to address recent media reports, with officials saying the Guardian story was “not accurate.”

In the British Parliament on May 20, after the ICC prosecutor requested the warrants, the respective Conservative and Labour positions were made very clear.

“As we have said from the outset, we do not think that the ICC has jurisdiction in this case,” said Andrew Mitchell, then-deputy foreign secretary. “The UK has not recognized Palestine as a state, and Israel is not a state party to the Rome statute.”

Mitchell responded very sensitively, as the occasion closely followed the release of the “awful video” by Hamas, showing British Israeli hostage Nadav Popplewell, who was subsequently confirmed to have been killed.

Lammy, on the other hand, said his party’s position was to comply with the ICC.

“Labour believes that the UK and all parties to the Rome Statute have a legal obligation to comply with orders and warrants issued by the court,” he said. “Democracies who believe in the rule of law must submit themselves to it.”

The Guardian reported on Wednesday that the U.S. is putting pressure on the new UK government to maintain the position of the Sunak government, and continue to challenge the ICC.

“The ICC prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous,” U.S. President Joe Biden said in May, adding that there was “no equivalence – none – between Israel and Hamas.”

“The United States fundamentally rejects the announcement today from the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) that he is applying for arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials, together with warrants for Hamas terrorists,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also stated at the time.

“We reject the Prosecutor's equivalence of Israel with Hamas. It is shameful. Hamas is a brutal terrorist organization that carried out the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust and is still holding dozens of innocent people hostage, including Americans.”

Former US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley met with Netanyahu in Jerusalem on May 29, when the meeting readout covered gratitude to the U.S. for its proposed sanctions on the ICC.

Responding to Khan’s application, the Israeli prime minister gave a lengthy video statement on May 20.

“The outrageous decision by the ICC prosecutor, Karim Khan, to seek arrest warrants against the democratically elected leaders of Israel is a moral outrage of historic proportions. It will cast an everlasting mark of shame on the international court.

“Israel is waging a just war against Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organization that perpetrated the worst attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Hamas massacred 1,200 Jews, raped Jewish women, burned Jewish babies, took hundreds hostage.

“Now, in the face of these horrors, Mr. Khan creates a twisted and false moral equivalence between the leaders of Israel and the henchmen of Hamas. This is like creating a moral equivalence after September 11th between President Bush and Osama Bin Laden, or during World War II between FDR and Hitler."

“What a travesty of justice! What a disgrace!"

“The prosecutor’s absurd charges against me and Israel’s defense minister are merely an attempt to deny Israel the basic right of self-defense. And I assure you of one thing: This attempt will utterly fail."

“Eighty years ago, the Jewish people were totally defenseless against our enemies. Those days are over. Now the Jewish people have a state and we have an army to defend our state."

“Notwithstanding the blood libels Mr. Khan has leveled, Israel will continue to wage this war in full compliance with international law. We will continue to take unprecedented measures to get innocent civilians out of harm’s way and to ensure that humanitarian assistance reaches those in need in Gaza."

“Mr. Khan also sets a dangerous precedent that undermines every democracy’s right to defend itself against terror organizations and aggressors. The ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel and Mr. Khan’s actions will not stop us from waging our just war against Hamas."

“But Mr. Khan’s abuse of this authority will turn the ICC into nothing more than a farce.

“He’s doing something else. He is callously pouring gasoline on the fires of antisemitism that are raging across the world. Through this incendiary decision, Mr. Khan takes his place among the great antisemites in modern times. He now stands alongside those infamous German judges who donned their robes and upheld laws that denied the Jewish people their most basic rights and enabled the Nazis to perpetrate the worst crime in history."

“Two weeks ago, on Holocaust Memorial Day, I pledged this: No amount of pressure and no decision in any international forum will prevent Israel from defending itself against those who seek our destruction."

“To all the enemies of Israel, including their collaborators in The Hague, I renew that pledge today. Israel will wage our war against Hamas until that war is won. Because never again is now.”