By PETER YOUNG

The International Criminal Court in The Hague dropped a bombshell last week. The reaction of President Biden was as clear as it was predictable. “Outrageous,” he was reported to have said. He was referring to the court’s decision to issue arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and former defence minister, Yoav Gallant, as well as the military commander of Hamas who, the Israelis say, was killed in July.

In a published statement, the ICC said that there were “reasonable grounds” to determine that all three bore criminal responsibility for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. The ICC also announced that it rejected Israel’s challenge to the court’s jurisdiction and authority which it does not accept.

The ICC is a global court established in 2002 after world leaders had pushed for its creation, particularly in the wake of the wars in the former Yugoslavia and the Rwandan genocide in the 1990s. Under the terms of its founding treaty – the Rome Statute – the ICC has authority to prosecute those accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes and to hold to account rogue leaders responsible for committing atrocities. It has become the court of last resort when domestic courts have been unable or unwilling to act. It gained considerable publicity, of course, when it issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin in 2023 after his illegal invasion of Ukraine in 2022. But this was summarily dismissed by the Russians and nothing could come of it because the ICC has no powers to arrest suspects without the cooperation of a country’s government.

In the view of many, the ICC has developed a particular obsession against the Jewish state and it is unsurprising that Israel and Hamas have both rejected the court’s allegations, with Netanyahu condemning the ICC’s decision as anti-Semitic. He called it a “moral outrage of historic proportions when Israel was conducting a just war against Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organisation that had perpetrated the worst attack on the Jewish people since the holocaust”. Separately, Israel’s president has criticised the ICC for choosing “the side of terror over democracy and freedom”, while Israel has also labelled the ICC a “biased and discriminatory political body” that has lost its legitimacy.

Furthermore, what has caused particular anger across Israel’s political spectrum and beyond is the ICC’s decision to place the state of Israel and Hamas on the same footing in an attempt, it is claimed, to legitimise the latter’s terrible October 7 acts of violence. This implies that there is a moral equivalence between Islamist terrorists and representatives of a democratically elected government. In response to this, the US has said that there can be no equivalence between the democracy of Israel and the terrorist group of Hamas and to hold both sides’ conduct up to the template of international law is absurd. One commentator in the UK press described this as a disingenuous attempt on the part of the ICC to give an illusion of balance.

While the White House has rejected the ICC decision to issue these arrest warrants, several European countries have emphasised that they respect the decisions of the court. The formal technical position is that, if either set foot in any ICC member state, they would have to be arrested and handed over to the court. That said, the impact of these warrants will in part depend on whether the ICC’s 124 member states, which do not include Israel or its main ally the US, decide to enforce them or not.

In addition to the US – which had from the beginning voiced concern about the possibility of frivolous and politically motivated prosecutions against its military personnel serving overseas – notable absentees are China, India, Pakistan and Turkey. But 34 more countries have signed though not yet ratified the treaty.

A study of the UK press shows varied reactions in Britain to the ICC’s attitude towards Israel. In particular, many observers oppose the severity of Israel’s actions in Gaza and Lebanon despite agreeing that the country has the right to defend itself. There can surely be no reasonable objection to tough action in order to destroy Hamas and Hezbollah since Israeli forces are literally fighting for the existence of their country. However, the figures provided by Hamas of the dead, injured and displaced in Gaza are horrific by any measure and unacceptable in a civilized world. Many people believe the Israeli Defence Force should be much more careful about avoiding attacks on civilians, particularly after already carrying out action against Hamas for more than year during which by now they should have destroyed the core of this terrorist body. Involving civilians in so much of the violence must surely end.

Reportedly, Biden himself has expressed his concern to Israeli leaders about killing civilians in Gaza and destroying considerable infrastructure there. His government has also threatened to withdraw aid and support to Israel unless it improves levels of humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza. It is encouraging to learn that he has forcefully urged the Israelis to exercise greater restraint. But do they really listen any more to a lame duck president?

Meanwhile, according to reports, more generally and in addition to all this, many people are alarmed at the ICC’s action against a democratic state in this way. The court presents itself as an instrument of global justice. It exists mainly to go after individual tyrants when they have not been held to account under their own countries’ domestic law. But many commentators maintain the ICC should not have the authority to stigmatise in the way it has the elected leaders of a democracy which is taking action – albeit excessive – to protect its own citizens when their sovereignty and even existence is at severe risk. Resolution of the long running Arab-Israeli dispute is a political matter for the United Nations. The ICC is an independent judicial body distinct from the UN system.

This is a complex issue of the extent of jurisdiction and the supranational powers of non-elected bodies. In such circumstances, it was interesting to note that a spokesperson for No 10 Downing Street would not be drawn about Britain’s position on this specific issue involving the Israeli leaders beyond saying that the government would always fulfil its international obligations. But it has become clear that an internal judicial process would be required before any action to enforce the warrants in Britain – if, indeed, it should ever come to that.

ACTION AND REACTION IN UKRAINE

How long ago it seems that news of Russian troops massing on Ukraine’s border was inevitably leading to fearful speculation that Russia was about to launch an attack on its neighbour. This led, of course, to the invasion of February 24, 2022, and it is hard to believe that the ensuing war is now past its 1000th day.

After writing last week about the US and UK suddenly lifting the ban on the use inside Russia of the long-range missiles they have supplied to Ukraine, it might be useful to follow up today with Putin’s reaction.

In what appears to be a major change of policy, the US and UK have reportedly authorised the use by Ukraine on Russian territory of, respectively, ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles. These are long-range ballistic missiles capable of hitting targets as far away as 150 to 200 miles. The timing seems to have been dictated – in part, at least – by the imminent change of leadership in the White House and by the deployment of North Korean troops in the Kursk region of Russia. Biden has also agreed to give Ukraine anti-personnel mines.

Putin has responded by firing a new experimental hypersonic ballistic missile at Ukraine’s fourth-largest city, Dnipro. He has said in a public statement that this was in response to the first use by Ukraine inside Russia of US and UK long-range weapons.

At the time of writing, the extent of the damage is unclear. But it is being said that this marks another clear and severe escalation in the war – despite the Kremlin accusing the West of doing the escalating – against which President Zelensky has called for a tough and decisive response so that “Putin should feel the real consequences of his actions”. The details of this new weapon have not been made available publicly. But it is apparently causing serious concern in the West.

Putin has also said that use by Ukraine of NATO-supplied weapons means that Russia could legitimately hit back with nuclear missiles to bomb military bases of countries involved in such supply. He is quoted as saying that “we consider ourselves entitled to use our weapons against the military facilities of those countries that allow their weapons to be used against our facilities”.

All this is against the background of the Kremlin leader last week revising Russia’s nuclear doctrine by lowering the threshold for use of Russian nuclear weapons; a move presumably designed to intimidate the West. A spokesperson has added that Russia would interpret any attack against it carried out by a non-nuclear state using weapons supplied by a nuclear state as a joint assault.

It is also worth noting the recent warning by the new secretary general of NATO, former Dutch prime minister Mark Rutter, that the whole of Europe is under sustained assault from a Russian campaign of what he called hybrid attacks. This fits with the recent public warning by the head of MI5, the UK’s Security Service whose mission is to keep the country safe, that Russian military intelligence was engaged in a campaign to “generate mayhem on British and European streets”.

From all the evidence, it is clear that Putin has not ruled out any form of retaliation, however extreme – that is to say nuclear weapons, and it is a safe bet that Western governments are still assessing the threat level in light of his most recent warnings.

The US, UK and EU bankrolled Kyiv, provided weapons and other military support and applied punitive sanctions against Russia. But, from the start, the major concern of the West was that Russia’s invasion should not trigger a wider war. That surely remains the case and the fear of mutual destruction that kept the peace during the Cold War must still be uppermost in the minds of today’s leaders.

That was how the West reacted when a major world power, nuclear-armed state and permanent member of the UN Security Council went rogue and invaded a neighbouring state without provocation. Some say NATO’s earlier expansion eastwards precipitated the invasion but others point to Putin’s apparent dream of a renewed Russian sphere of influence similar to the Soviet era.

So, what comes next? President-elect Trump says he will sort it all out and end the war quickly. But he has not said how he will do that. Perhaps Western bets will be shelved and major decision-making deferred until he takes office in January.