While US President Biden takes a hard stance against the International Criminal Court decision to issue an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Secretary Yoav Gallant, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he will “abide” the decision and allow the officials to be arrested if they visited Canada.
The ICC has issued arrest warrants for the democratically elected Israeli prime minister and his former defence secretary. The court claims to have found “reasonable grounds to believe” the two played a part in allegedly restricting aid, starving Gazans and deliberately targeting civilians in the Israel-Hamas war.
Trudeau said he would respect and abide by the international court’s decision to issue arrest warrants against Israel. According to a press conference on Thursday, Israel is not a part of the ICC’s jurisdiction.
“As Canada has always said, it’s really important that everyone abide by international law. We are one of the founding members of the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice,” he said. “We stand up for international law, and we will abide by all the regulations and rulings of the international courts. This is just who we are as Canadians.”
In an official statement, Biden said the arrest warrants were “outrageous.”
“Whatever the ICC might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas,” the statement said. “We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security.”
Canada’s foreign affairs minister, Mélanie Joly, echoed Trudeau’s statements in a press conference Thursday and added that the civilian death toll in Gaza is “absolutely catastrophic” and reaffirmed calls for Hamas to release its hostages.
“I’ll let the US take its own decisions,” Joly said. “International law needs to apply to all parties at all times. And at the same time, in order to do so, we need accountability in our world, and so based on that, Canada will abide by its obligation under the ICC treaty.”
US Senator Lindsay Graham vowed to pass a bill which would impose sanctions on any country that “aids or abets” the ICC against Israel. He said on X that any nation that supports the ICC decision is a partner to the “reckless act that tramples the rule of law.” The US also is not a member of the ICC.
Notably, Graham supported the ICC, which he recently called “a dangerous joke” when it issued arrest warrants against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Netanyahu denied the allegations, saying the Israeli Defence Force does everything in its power to avoid civilian casualties, such as sending warnings to civilians of imminent attacks and sending aid into Gaza, including “700,000 tons of food,” that is often looted by Hamas. He added that in recent weeks, Israel has facilitated the vaccination of 87% of Gazans against polio, citing this isn’t the action of a state intent on killing a population.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said if he were Prime Minister, he would not abide by the ICC’s “ridiculous’ arrest warrants. In an interview with City News Friday, he said Trudeau should be calling for the arrest of the Ayatollah of Iran, who funds terrorist groups and has called for the annihilation of both Israel and the US.
“The prime minister of Israel is a democratically elected leader whose country is responding to an unprovoked invasion by thousands of well-armed Iranian funded terrorists who put babies, living babies in ovens, carried out mass rape and other atrocities deliberately targeted at civilians,” Poilievre said. “(Trudeau’s) calling for the arrest of the country that has been the victim of all of these attacks.”
In another interview on Friday with AM640 radio, he echoed the point, saying the Islamic regime in Iran has carried out “a real genocide against Sunni Muslims.” He said that Trudeau’s decision to support arrest warrants for Netanyahu and not the Ayatollah is “another example” of how Trudeau’s “extreme woke agenda” permeates everything he does.
Canadian-Jewish advocacy groups, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and B’nai Brith Canada, both released statements condemning the Liberal government for supporting the ICC’s decision. However, the National Council of Canadian Muslims applauded Trudeau for his support.
“(The decision) confirms that the ICC has become an instrument of a very cynical abuse of the ICC and its politicization to advance an anti-Israel posture,” Shimon Koffler Fogel, the Chief Executive of CIJA, told True North in an interview.
“By endorsing and respecting the ruling, Canada effectively is undermining the legitimacy and the credibility of the institution, and to be very frank, is becoming complicit in its abuse…it renders those institutions as irrelevant to the pursuit of justice.”
The NCCM and the ICC did not respond to True North’s requests to comment.