The warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu’s arrest is a stain on Israel – but he remains shameless

Editorial: Now wanted in The Hague for war crimes, the Israeli prime minister must not be permitted to have a hand in framing his country’s future when the fighting in Gaza finally ends

The decision by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue arrest warrants for the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his former defence minister, Yoav Gallant, will hardly come as a shock to either man.

The court has been considering their cases for many months, and, for reasons that are all too tragically played out on our televisions and tablets, it was also fairly obvious that the weight of evidence, however contested, would compel the court eventually to issue proceedings.

In a world so ideal that it is impossible to envisage it happening, Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant would by now be making the necessary arrangements to stand trial in The Hague. They’d be hiring defence lawyers, challenging the evidence, mounting a case based on concepts of human rights and Israel’s right to defend itself, and calmly readying themselves for cross-examination.

Their oft-quoted belief that the civilian deaths and injuries were due to Hamas’s tactic of using innocent people as human shields and hiding in hospitals and schools would be vindicated, in such a scenario. The Israeli leaders would have such confidence in their claims they would confidently place their confidence in international justice.

Equally obviously, that is not going to happen.

Mr Netanyahu has made no attempt to disguise his contempt for the international bodies, including the United Nations itself, and would happily withdraw his nation from them if they were actually more than a minor irritant to him.

Similarly, Mr Netanyahu has a case to answer about the treatment of civilians and the use of starvation as a weapon of war. The imposition of a medieval-style siege shortly after the atrocities on 7 October last year was always going to lead to such a denouement as this.

At most, the worst Mr Netanyahu and others will personally face is some embarrassing restrictions on their travel – and some other world leaders will also be faced with awkward choices. The ICC’s judgments shame Israel, but Bibi is shameless.

When Mr Netanyhu is next invited to visit, say, Paris or London, will that be for talks with President Macron and Sir Keir Starmer? Or because, law-abiding as they are, the pair want to arrest and detain him for crimes against humanity? If they try, he won’t show up – and it will merely feed his resentments.

The prime minister of Israel will be safe to travel to Washington, because the US is not a party to the ICC, and no president would set the cops on him. That fact points us to a much greater deterrent to Mr Netanyhu’s reckless and counterproductive wars, which is that the only language he understands is that of raw power, and not the injunctions of any court.

It is, in other words, America under Donald Trump that will now have to bring its leverage to bear on Mr Netanyahu to end his wars. President Biden was unable to stop the Israeli government from escalating and widening the conflict – only just restraining Israel from a significant direct attack on Iranian oil and nuclear assets, with unthinkable consequences.

Now that Kamala Harris won’t be able to try a more assertive line, it will be up to Mr Trump to end the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, as he has stated is his ambition. So far as can be gleaned, he has given Mr Netanyhu until 20 January, inauguration day, to do what he feels he needs to do, and then stop the fighting.

It is of little comfort for the Palestinian people – but it does seem that a ceasefire, of sorts, is within sight. What happens after that, not even Mr Trump knows, because there is no plan for “the day after” the fighting winds down. The rubblescape of Gaza and Lebanon has created not just unspeakable horrors and miseries, but a vast political vacuum.

In due course, the people of Israel will have to choose who it is that they want to take their nation forward and make it truly safe and secure. The man wanted in The Hague for war crimes, in a war that he failed to win, shouldn’t be in any position to frame their future.