Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor “rogue” in response to his Monday requests for arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and three Hamas officials.
In an interview Tuesday with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle, Netanyahu invoked President Biden’s response when asked about the warrants.
“Well, I think my response is no different from what President Biden said: This is outrageous, and many people across the political spectrum in the United States and leaders of the democratic countries around the world have called it exactly that,” Netanyahu said in the interview, which will air in full Tuesday night.
“It’s a rogue prosecutor who’s out to demonize the one and only Jewish state,” he added.
Netanyahu said the prosecutor, Karim Khan, is “applying a false symmetry,” echoing criticism levied by democratic leaders including Biden.
“He’s equating Israel’s democratically elected leaders with the terrorist tyrants of Hamas,” Netanyahu continued. “That’s like saying, ‘Well, I’m going to issue arrest warrants for — after 9/11 — I’m issuing arrest warrants for George Bush, but also for Osama bin Laden.’”
“And in World War II, ‘I’m issuing arrest warrants for FDR but also for Hitler,’ thanks a lot,” he added. “That’s a false symmetry and it’s totally absurd. It’s a travesty of justice.”
Netanyahu also refuted some of Khan’s “false accusations,” including that Israel is “drying out Gaza” and has a “deliberate policy of starvation.”
“Drying out Gaza? We’re supplying … before the war, 7 percent of Gaza’s water. Now, 45 percent of the water — nearly half, to make sure they have water,” he said.
On the allegations of starvation as a “deliberate policy,” Netanyahu said, “We supplied half a million tons of food and drug, 20,000 trucks … so those trucks can go in.”
Biden has tried to walk a careful line with his approach to Israel, defending Israel’s right to respond to Hamas and repeatedly condemning antisemitism in the wake of the attack. At the same time, he has called for Israel to allow more aid into Gaza and has urged the country to do more to protect civilians — even as his administration acknowledges the challenge of fighting an enemy that notoriously uses its own civilians as human shields.
On Monday, Biden harshly criticized the ICC’s request for arrest warrants as “outrageous.”
“Let me be clear: Whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas,” Biden said in his statement. “We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security.”