America has finally found effective leverage on Israel – and Netanyahu

A demonstrator holding a sign protesting against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, April 2023

Anshel Pfeffer writes in Haaretz on 1 May 2024:

How serious is the threat of the International Criminal Court issuing arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials? “Very serious,” according to sources on the National Security Council – which, after all, is there to assess the seriousness of threats to Israel’s security.

It is serious enough for the normally cool and calm diplomats at the Foreign Ministry to talk of an “atmosphere of panic.” But nowhere is the threat being taken more seriously than in the Prime Minister’s Office, where for the past week it has become the overriding concern and more urgent than anything else. More than the ever-present plans for an operation in Rafah. More than the possibility of a hostage release agreement and the return of Hamas to areas in Gaza that the Israel Defense Forces left. So serious that on Tuesday, Netanyahu published a video warning about any potential arrest warrants.

But does any of this actually mean ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan is planning to issue arrest warrants against senior Israelis? In the relevant government departments, they talk darkly of “indications” that warrants are being prepared. But as of now, there has been no such word from Khan’s office at the UN tribunal in The Hague.

Not everyone in the Israeli legal and security establishment is entirely convinced that warrants are imminent. Some remember a similar panic around a previous war in Gaza back in the summer of 2014, when Netanyahu was again fearful of an ICC arrest warrant being issued against him. There is also talk of how just the threat of such a warrant can be manipulated to influence Israeli decision-making, and how the prosecutor could be swayed either way. Justice may be blind, but the process of international justice is also highly politicized.

Whether or not the arrest warrants materialize, they have already had an effect. It is impossible to detach them from the postponement of any move to start the evacuation of Palestinian civilians as a prelude to the Rafah operation, and the sudden willingness of Netanyahu to accept an Egyptian proposal for a hostage agreement that will include the restoration of freedom of movement in Gaza and, more than anything else, the increasingly open actions by Israel to restore supply lines into Gaza after long months of obstruction.

Israeli officials admit that these are now directly connected to the government’s urgent efforts to fend off arrest warrants.

It’s part of a wider trend of belated realization that the costs of this war on the international front could become intolerable, whether for Israel as a country or for certain Israeli individuals. And while many, perhaps even a majority, of Israelis don’t particularly care if Netanyahu (and Mrs. Netanyahu) might have to give up his penchant for state-funded travel overseas, this isn’t just about him.

Other senior figures, including Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzl Halevi, are also being mentioned as possible targets for arrest warrants. And ultimately, the impact will be felt by hundreds of thousands of Israelis, who can expect to be asked difficult questions when landing over coming years in various countries where the authorities will want to know whether they fought in Gaza.

The penny dropped a month ago after the killing of seven people from the World Central Kitchen food organization in a drone strike in Gaza. The anger and direct condemnations from Israel’s closest allies at what looked like a targeted assassination of international aid workers (according to the IDF, it was the result of a breakdown in coordination within the chain of command and unauthorized fire by a brigade headquarters), and especially the angry phone call between Netanyahu and U.S. President Joe Biden, brought home just how tenuous the support for Israel might become if it didn’t start to rein itself in.

In the subsequent month, we’ve seen the government finally start to take the U.S. urgings and warnings much more seriously – not just on the humanitarian front, but in much more intensive consultations on the Rafah operation, which is beginning to look like a near-American veto, and of course on a much more limited response to the Iranian missile and drone strike. Another significant change is Netanyahu finally giving Israel’s negotiating team a wider mandate in the talks on a hostage release deal.

Meanwhile, there have been other threats hanging over the government’s head. The U.S. administration has yet to announce whether it will sanction any IDF or Israel Police unit under the Leahy Law due to their responsibility for human rights violations. But the fact that State Department sources have repeatedly leaked that they are considering such sanctions indicates that the administration feels it has found the government’s more sensitive points and is applying pressure.

So far, it seems to be the most effective way to achieve results

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