He worries the prospects of unseating Netanyahu will grow dimmer.
Jerusalem, May 29 – The chief political rival – and erstwhile political ally – of Israel’s embattled prime minister pleaded today to prosecutors in The Hague to amend their application to the International Criminal Court’s justices to add his name to the list of people they wish to apprehend for Crimes Against Humanity, now that news of the existing application has rallied Israelis to the prime minster’s side at the very moment when his government appeared vulnerable.
Benny Gantz, leader of the centrist Blue and White Party and the leading candidate to oust incumbent Binyamin Netanyahu from the premiership, wrote to Karim Khan, the Chief Prosecutor for the ICC, to request that Gantz, too, be subject to the requested arrest warrant that would call for the apprehension and detention of Netanyahu, Minister of Defense Yoav Galant, and Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar.
Khan announced he would seek the arrest warrants against the four men for various instances of Crimes Against Humanity, in the case of Netanyahu and Galant for the “starvation” of Gaza’s people. The charges relied on spurious evidence, false equivalencies, nonexistent jurisdiction, ignorance of the ICC’s own mandate terms, and outdated propaganda figures – a fact that has galvanized Israelis in opposition to an institution and international “community” that refuses to countenance Jewish self-defense and sovereignty, and rallied the Jewish State behind Netanyahu, who, until that moment, faced historic unpopularity, but now embodies the justified Israeli sense of persecution and double standards. As a result, Gantz worries, the prospects of unseating Netanyahu will grow dimmer.
Gantz had issued an ultimatum to Netanyahu that if, by the 8th of June, the government has not adopted a series of long-term measures regarding Gaza that Netanyahu’s base will not stomach, Gantz, a former IDF Chief of Staff, will bolt the wartime unity government, leaving the prime minister with a sliver of a majority susceptible to extortion from fringe factions in his coalition. That threat carried weight when Netanyahu faced his own political demise, but now that Israelis see him as representing their collective predicament, the power of the ultimatum has faded.
Gantz told reporters that he aim not to overtake Netanyahu in a sympathy competition, but to maintain his political relevance in this new period of uncertainty. “The ICC has no jurisdiction and everyone knows it’s a political farce, not a genuine legal problem,” he acknowledged. “What I need to do is to keep my name in the conversation for when the hubbub dies down. It won’t do to have Bibi out there having represented Israel, while I’m on the sidelines being forced to cheerlead a man I’ve wanted to remove from politics since forever.”
“That’s more [Yesh Atid Party Chairman] Yair Lapid’s thing.”
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