Another country challenges the International Criminal Court by violating the arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the massacre in Palestine. The Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, from the family of the European People’s Party, the one who is willing to break it so that he can attend the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, where the Nazis murdered more than one million people, most of them Jewish.
Tusk has guaranteed Netanyahu’s safety should he attend the event, despite the International Criminal Court issuing an arrest warrant in November against Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, for war crimes against Palestine. “It cannot be conceived that Israeli political leaders cannot safely participate in the commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz,” said the leader of the Polish center-right, who assured that this possibility is “completely unacceptable.”
“They will not be detained,” Tusk said in statements to journalists about the event that will be held at the end of the month in the town of Oświęcim. “The Polish Government considers that the safe participation of Israel’s leaders in the commemorations of January 27, 2025 is part of the tribute to the Jewish nation, millions of whose daughters and sons were victims of the Holocaust carried out by the Third Reich” Warsaw explained in a statement, according to Political. The request came from the country’s president, Andrzej Duda, of the far-right nationalist Law and Justice party that governed until last year.
The international arrest warrant against Netanyahu and Gallant is based on the reasonable grounds that the judges found regarding the commission of war crimes such as starvation as a method of war; against humanity of murder, persecution and other inhuman acts, and the attacks on the civilian population in the Gaza massacre. “They knowingly and intentionally denied the civilian population of Gaza essential elements for their survival, including food, water and medical supplies,” the International Criminal Court said in a statement.
The arrest warrant against Netanyahu for the massacre in Gaza, where more than 46,000 people have already been murdered, once again demonstrated the equidistance with Israel of the majority of international leaders. The president of the United States, Joe Biden, considered that decision of the international court “scandalous” and the Hungarian far-right, Viktor Orbán, invited him directly to Budapest.
Despite the seriousness of the crimes to which the court pointed out, France also changed its initial position of compliance with the resolution by guaranteeing immunity. The change occurred after the acceptance of the ceasefire in Lebanon promoted by Paris and Washington. By then, Germany had already suggested that it would not arrest Netanyahu if he set foot on its territory.
The then high representative of the EU, Josep Borrell, then recalled that the arrest order is “binding” for all EU countries while the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has remained silent on this matter. After Tusk’s announcement, Borrell’s successor at the head of European diplomacy, Kaja Kallas, has not spoken either, although the foreign spokesperson of the community government has recalled that the member states are part of the Rome Statute and, as such , they have to “comply” with the decisions of the International Criminal Court, although ensuring this is not a responsibility of Brussels. The spokesperson has called for “cooperation” with the court.
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