Jerusalem – A spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s administration on Wednesday for saying his country would arrest the Jewish state leader if the International Criminal Court enforces a warrant for Netanyahu’s detention and extradition. And will exile.
“I’m old enough to remember a few days after October 7, German leaders came here and said Hamas are the new Nazis. They want to commit genocide against the Jews. Many people in the world need to check their moral conscience and be on the right side of history.” Avi Hyman, spokesman benjamin netanyahuhe told Fox News Digital on Thursday.
Scholz spokesman Stefan Habestrait was asked on Wednesday whether the German government would execute an ICC arrest order against Netanyahu for alleged war crimes during Israel’s efforts to defeat the Hamas terrorist movement in the Gaza Strip. Habestreit responded, “Of course. Yes, we follow the law.”
ICC requests arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Hamas leaders for ‘war crimes’
March 17, 2024, Israel, Jerusalem: Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) give a press statement. (Kay Nietfeld/Picture Alliance via Getty Images)
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, told Fox News Digital, “It is inconceivable that any German government would arrest the democratically elected prime minister of the Jewish state over a blood libel lie. It should arrest all anti-Semites who attack Jews on the streets of its country. Never, never again.”
The targeting of Netanyahu by the Scholz administration has triggered comments about Germany’s failure to absorb the lessons of the Holocaust, in which the Nazis arrested, deported and murdered six million European Jews.
A day earlier, Scholz’s spokesman had said Germany would implement it ICC arrest orderRon Prosor, Israel’s ambassador to Germany, wrote on X, “The chief prosecutor (of the ICC) compares a democratic government to Hamas, thereby demonizing and delegitimizing Israel and the Jewish people. He has completely lost his moral compass. Germany has a responsibility to readjust that compass. This shameful political campaign could be the nail in the coffin for the West and its institutions. Don’t let it get to that point!”
Prosor, who was Israel’s former ambassador to the United Nations, said, “This is outrageous! The German ‘Staatsrässen’ is now being put to the test – no ifs and buts. This is in stark contrast to the weak statements we make about some institutions. And we hear public statements from political actors that Israel has a right to self-defense if our hands are tied when we defend ourselves.”
A general view of the International Criminal Court (ICC) building in The Hague, Netherlands on April 30, 2024. ((Photo by Selman Aksungar/Anadolu via Getty Images))
Former Chancellor Angela Merkel said in 2008 to the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, that her country’s reason for existence – in German Staatsrassen – is its security pledge to Israel’s survival and to ensure that Iran’s government does not develop a nuclear weapons device. called from germanyIn his post-X, he tried to fill Merkel’s perception of the reason for her existence towards the Jewish state with meaning and content.
Scholz is a member of the leftist Social Democratic Party. Merkel comes from the conservative Christian Democratic Union party.
Biden slams ICC’s ‘outrageous’ request for Netanyahu arrest warrant
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, left, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz during a news conference in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2022. Scholz and Abbas were speaking after their bilateral meeting in the German capital. Photographer: Krisztian Boksi/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Germany is an avid supporter of the ICC and one of its top donors. Netanyahu said the ICC chief prosecutor’s actions in issuing arrest warrants for him and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant were the latest examples of “what the new anti-Semitism looks like.”
A spokesman for the federal German government said on Tuesday that “the chief prosecutor’s allegations are serious and must be substantiated.”
The ICC’s founding was inspired by Nazi Germany’s extermination of European Jews and as a way to prevent totalitarian crimes against humanity. Critics argue that the ICC’s mission has been subverted by its attack on the Middle East’s only democracy, Israel, which is fighting an existential war against the Iranian regime-backed Hamas movement.
Scholz faced intense criticism in 2022 for failing to counter anti-Semitic rhetoric from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas, the Palestinian leader at the time, launched a shocking attack against Israel in Berlin, claiming the Jewish state staged a genocide there. “50 massacres” were committed.
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When Abbas distorted the genocide and downplayed its significance, Scholz remained silent.
Fox News’ press queries to Chancellor Scholz’s spokesperson and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock were not immediately answered.
