The International Criminal Court arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant have already hampered the war against Hamas, attorney Yuval Sasson told Tamar Uriel-Beeri and Sarah Ben-Nun on The Jerusalem Post Podcast.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) is an independent legal entity, unlike the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which is part of the UN.
In addition, unlike the ICJ, which deals with disputes between states, the ICC deals with individual people.
"[The ICC] deals with not state's responsibility, but with individual's responsibility," Sasson explained. "Therefore, the request by their prosecutor [for arrest warrants] is not against the State of Israel, but rather against individuals in this situation. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant."
One immediate impact of the ICC arrest warrants will be limiting the ability of Netanyahu and Gallant to travel abroad.
"There are over 120 member states" of the ICC, Sasson noted, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and much of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. "Each and every state [that is part of the ICC] will have the obligation to arrest [Netanyahu and Gallant]. Already, Germany, the UK, France.... have said that if there will be arrest warrants, they will act accordingly."
However, Sasson further said that the ICC arrest warrants will also impact how Netanyahu and Gallant act in the future.
"I believe that once there are arrest warrants against them, they will think before taking any action," he said, noting that this isn't a good thing. "I believe that it already has had an effect today, a chilling effect on our capability of acting because we are taking it under consideration."
Sasson stressed that Israel is still acting in accordance with international humanitarian law under the rule of self-defense and the rules of proportionality. But sometimes the rhetoric from public officials run contrary to the facts on the ground.
"Israel is walking the walk, but not talking the talk," he said. "We take action according to humanitarian law, but then we have a minister saying 'I'm going to use an [atomic bomb] on Gaza.'"
Sasson explained that Israel isn't just facing setbacks in the PR war, but in the legal war too.
"We're doing a better job than we did in the past, but that's not enough," he said.
A big part of this is the level of confidence in Israel's own judiciary.
"The International Criminal Court has two thresholds that you need to go through [before it has jurisdiction]," Sasson explained. "One of them is a judicial vacuum. If there's a place where justice will not prevail in any other manner, rather than by the court. That's what we call the Rule of Complementarity. So the court only comes into action when there is no one else who will. And Israel's argument is that we have a solid legal system... with a Supreme Court that actually has overview on any action by the IDF and the government."
Is there more Israel can do?
"There is great bias against Israel in the international judicial system, no question about it," Sasson said. "But having said that, there's much more than we can do. We have taken over the years a position saying the world is against us, so we're not going to be playing their game. And I think we don't have that luxury any more, we never have."
He continued: "You need to go on the field and play it according to the rules of the gave. Even if they're not fair. Even if they're against us. We need to do what we can do. And we haven't been playing the game well enough. We're walking the walk, we're not talking the talk."