(Official Washington Examiner editorial, Jan. 13)
All credit to the Polish government for protecting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from the malicious dictates of the International Criminal Court.
The ICC is an illegitimate body, not recognized by the United States or Israel, that baselessly pretends to supersede national sovereignty while pursuing perverse notions of justice. On Nov. 30, the court issued a morally repugnant arrest warrant for Netanyahu, accusing him of war crimes and crimes against humanity during Israel’s defensive war against Hamas following its invasion of Israel and mass murders on Oct. 7, 2023.
The 139 signatory nations to the ICC agreed to execute its warrants. In late December, Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Wladyslaw Teofil Bartoszewski told the newspaper Rzeczpospolita that if Netanyahu goes to Poland in late January to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp, Poland would indeed arrest him.
However, greatly to his credit, Polish President Andrzej Duda on Jan. 8 wrote Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk for assurances that Netanyahu would be “unhindered” if he attended the Auschwitz event. The next day, the Polish government complied, adopting a resolution described as “a blanket guarantee of security to all senior Israeli officials to attend the Auschwitz memorial service.” It is not known whether Netanyahu plans to be there, as he has for several previous Auschwitz-liberation ceremonies, but now his safety is guaranteed if he does make the trip.
As Tusk noted, the Jan. 27 event is “part of paying tribute to the Jewish nation, millions of whose daughters and sons became victims of the Holocaust.” A million of those Jews were murdered at Auschwitz. It would be an outrage to arrest the elected leader of the nation to whose people Poland is paying its dignified and proper tribute…. [The rest of this editorial is right at this link.]