Israel slams German government's vow to arrest Prime Minister Netanyahu over ICC warrant

JERUSALEM — A spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blasted German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s administration for stating on Wednesday that his country would arrest and deport the leader of the Jewish state if the International Criminal Court (ICC) implements a warrant for Netanyahu’s detainment and extradition.

"I am old enough to remember the German leader coming here days after Oct. 7, and stating the Hamas are the new Nazis. They seek a genocide against the Jews. Many in the world need to check their moral compass and be on the right side of history." Avi Hyman, a spokesman for Benjamin Netanyahu, told Fox News Digital on Thursday.

Scholz’s spokesman, Steffen Hebestreit, 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. Hebestreit responded, "Of course. Yes, we abide by the law."

ICC REQUESTS ARREST WARRANTS FOR NETANYAHU, HAMAS LEADERS OVER ‘WAR CRIMES’ 

Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz, right, and Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, give a press statement in Jerusalem on March 17. (Kay Nietfeld/picture alliance via Getty Images)

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, told Fox News Digital, "It is beyond comprehension that any German government would arrest the democratically elected PM of the Jewish state on blood libel lies. It should be arresting all the antisemites attacking Jews on the streets of its nation. Never, never again."

Scholz’s administration's targeting of Netanyahu has sparked comments about Germany’s failure to have internalized the lessons of the Holocaust, in which the Nazis arrested, deported and murdered six million European Jews.

A day before Scholz’s spokesman said Germany would implement the ICC arrest order, Israel’s Ambassador to Germany, Ron Prosor, wrote on X, "The Chief Prosecutor [of the ICC] equates a democratic government with Hamas, thereby demonizing and delegitimizing Israel and the Jewish people. He has completely lost his moral compass. Germany has a responsibility to readjust this compass. This disgraceful political campaign could become a nail in the coffin for the West and its institutions. Do not let it come to that!"

Prosor, who was Israel’s former Ambassador to the U.N., said, "This is outrageous! The German 'Staatsräson' is now being put to the test — no ifs or buts. This contrasts with the weak statements we hear from some institutions and political actors. The public statement that Israel has the right to self-defense loses credibility if our hands are tied as soon as we defend ourselves."

A general view of the International Criminal Court building in The Hague, Netherlands, on April 30. (Selman Aksunger/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Former Chancellor Angela Merkel famously said to Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, in 2008 that her country’s reason for being — in German, Staatsräson — is its security pledge to the existence of Israel and to ensure that Iran’s regime does not build a nuclear weapons device. Prosor called on Germany, in his X post, to fill Merkel’s notion of raison d'etre toward the Jewish state with meaning and content.

Scholz is a member of the left-of-center 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 Olaf Scholz, Germany's chancellor, appear during a news conference in Berlin on Aug. 16, 2022. (Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Germany is a passionate supporter of the ICC and is one of its top donors. Netanyahu said the ICC chief prosecutor’s act to issue arrest warrants for him and Israeli defense minister, Yoav Gallant, are the latest examples of "what the new antisemitism looks like."  

A spokesman for the German federal government said on Tuesday, "The accusations of the chief prosecutor are serious and must be substantiated."

The founding of the ICC was animated by Nazi Germany’s destruction of European Jewry and as a way to stop totalitarian crimes against humanity. Critics argue that the ICC mission has been perverted by its attack on the Middle East’s only democracy, Israel, which is waging an existential war against the Iranian regime-backed Hamas movement.

Scholz faced intense criticism in 2022 for failing to counter the antisemitic statement of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. The Palestinian leader delivered at the time a shocking tirade against Israel in Berlin, where the Holocaust was organized, claiming the Jewish state carried out "50 Holocausts."

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Scholz went silent as Abbas distorted and played down the Holocaust.  

Fox News press queries to Chancellor Scholz’s spokesman and to German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock were not immediately returned.