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ICC Prosecutor Wants to Rob Israel of Its Legitimate Right to Self Dense
On Monday, International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan KC sought arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
Members of Congress from both parties have quickly condemned this action from ICC. Democratic Representative Ritchie Torres (NY) said:
The decision to seek arrest warrants is not law but politics. It is not justice but rather retribution against Israel for the original sin of existing as a Jewish State and the subsequent sin of defending itself amid the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
Today’s decision in effect makes it criminal for a state like Israel to defend itself against an enemy shrewd enough to embed itself in a civilian population, as Hamas has done to an extent never seen before in the history of warfare.
Republican Representative Elise Stefanik (NY) said, “The ICC is an illegitimate court that [equates] a peaceful nation protecting its right to exist with radical terror groups that commit genocide.” International legal expert Eugene Kontorovich explained that, “Diplomatically, it is an attempt to create moral equivalence between Hamas and Israel.”
As will be discussed below, the ICC prosecutor’s factual allegations have no basis. Indeed, Israel’s enemies have sought to use the ICC against it long before the October 7 war began. The recent actions of the ICC prosecutor merely highlight that Court’s illegitimacy and the way that the Jewish State is persecuted in international forums that are functionally controlled by Israel’s enemies.
Like most intergovernmental institutions, the ICC is the subject of the political whims of the undemocratic majority of states. Its very founding document, the Rome Statute, was even altered at the demand of Arab and Islamic states in order to invent a new “war crime” aimed at criminalizing Israeli settlements.
This weaponization of the ICC against the Jewish state is now on full display. Just in order to claim jurisdiction over Israel — which is not a party to the Rome Statute –the ICC had to invent two legal fantasies: (1) it had to pretend that the Palestine Liberation Organization is actually a “state,” and (2) it had to pretend that a treaty can bind actual states that never signed onto the treaty.
To justify these fictions, the ICC relied in large part on the meaningless, non-binding, and political recommendations of the same body that once declared “Zionism is a form of racism.” It did so all while ignoring actual international law that clearly articulates the criteria for statehood, of which the PLO undeniably falls short.
Monday’s actions by the Prosecutor threaten not only Israel. They amounts to a power grab, in which Prosecutor Karim Khan has decided his judgment supersedes that of democratic governments.
The ICC, according to its own rules, is meant to act only as a court of last resort; that is, the ICC is only supposed to get involved when a state is unable or unwilling to investigate allegations itself. This is a high bar for a prosecutor. Israel has one of the most robust and independent judicial systems in the world, including its highly respected Supreme Court. The IDF itself maintains arguably the most professional and independent system of legal advisors and reviewers, who regularly take on incidents for investigation and prosecution.
If Israel’s independent and professional legal system isn’t sufficient for Khan, then no legal system is. This would open all democracies engaged in self-defense to lawfare waged by bad actors and second guessing by a rogue prosecutor, including, potentially, the US.
The allegations against Netanyahu and Gallant are factually baseless. The first is “Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare as a war crime contrary to article 8(2)(b)(xxv) of the [Rome] Statute.”
As international law expert Eugene Kontorovich explained early in the war, “siege is a ‘legitimate’ and ordinary part of lawful war … An army need not help its enemy obtain provisions during a conflict. When military objectives and civilians are intermingled, siege aimed at the former also will affect the latter. As with other situations of collateral damage to civilians, international law permits a siege as long as it isn’t ‘for the purpose of denying sustenance to the civilian population.’ There is no indication that Israel has any strategy of starving out civilians.”
Despite the legality of such a siege, beginning on October 18 — only 11 days after Hamas’ barbaric attack, as the full reality of how many people had been killed and how many taken hostage was still being absorbed — Israel agreed to allow aid into Gaza and has allowed sufficient aid in ever since. Israel also restarted supplying Gaza with water on October 15.
While there may have been isolated cases of individuals with underlying medical problems being malnourished, and certainly Hamas obstructs distribution of food aid, there is no wide-scale starvation occurring.
The Gaza Ministry of Health claims that since the start of the war, 32 individuals have died of malnutrition and dehydration, or .0015 percent of the population. Of course no one wants anyone, in Gaza or elsewhere, to die of starvation, but to put this in perspective, this does not come close to comparing with places in which actual famines have occurred, and rather is at about the same level as France.
A senior Israeli defense official told The Jerusalem Post, “most of the food that Israel has been sending into the Strip has ‘immediately been taken by Hamas terrorists, who then sell some of the supplies for ten times more than what it’s worth,’” and a former senior Israeli defense official told the Post, “there is no food shortage in Gaza; there are those who are hungry since Hamas has taken all of the food and they don’t have enough money to pay Hamas on the black market.” This tactic serves a dual purpose for Hamas: it enriches the terror group while providing the fodder exactly for ICC allegations like this one.
In particular, in light of last week’s discovery of 50 cross-border tunnels from Rafah into Egypt, which certainly could have been used to bring in food as easily as any other materials had that been necessary, blaming Israel for any difficulty in food distribution simply doesn’t hold up to the facts. If in fact the population was starving, why didn’t they bring in food through those cross-border tunnels?
The ICC Prosecutor has also made allegations of “Willfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health contrary to article 8(2)(a)(iii), or cruel treatment as a war crime contrary to article 8(2)(c)(i); Wilful killing contrary to article 8(2)(a)(i), or Murder as a war crime contrary to article 8(2)(c)(i); Intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population as a war crime contrary to articles 8(2)(b)(i), or 8(2)(e)(i); Extermination and/or murder contrary to articles 7(1)(b) and 7(1)(a), including in the context of deaths caused by starvation, as a crime against humanity.”
Multiple legal experts have attested to the fact that Israel uses all means possible to avoid harm to civilians. Just last week, John Spencer, the chair of urban warfare studies with the Modern War Institute at West Point, told CNN, “I can say with very strong confidence that Israel has done everything the US military has ever done in the history of urban combat and things that we’ve never done, implementing every civilian harm mitigation technique that has been developed in the last 30 years despite Hamas’ tactics.”
And Brigadier General (Ret) Mark Kimmitt, former Assistant Secretary of State for political-military affairs and deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, has detailed the “extensive procedures the IDF uses to enforce tough standards aimed at minimizing civilian deaths and protecting infrastructure.”
The remaining allegations, “Persecution as a crime against humanity contrary to article 7(1)(h); Other inhumane acts as crimes against humanity contrary to article 7(1)(k),” are too vague to be meaningful.
Hamas is still holding about 129 hostages, including a one-year old baby, and its unknown how many are dead and how many are living. Yet, the ICC prosecutor seeks to tie Israel’s hands to prevent it from taking the necessary actions to recover them.
On October 7, Israel was attacked with a barbarity not seen since medieval times. It is fighting this war, not by choice, but out of necessity for its survival. To have its defensive war characterized in this manner, as “extermination” or “murder” and used to justify international legal action against its leaders, is to twist morality on its head in the cruelest possible way.
In any war, there will be civilian casualties. But extrapolating from the existence of civilian casualties that Israel has “willfully” caused more suffering or death than necessary to achieve its lawful military aims, or that it has intentionally directed attacks against civilians, is to characterize any war that Israel fights as a genocide or a war crime and to effectively rob it of its legitimate right to self-defense.
Karen Bekker is the Assistant Director in the Media Response Team at CAMERA, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis. David Litman is a Research Analyst at CAMERA. A version of this article appeared on the CAMERA website.
The post ICC Prosecutor Wants to Rob Israel of Its Legitimate Right to Self Dense first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Police Officers Injured as Violent Clashes Erupt at Anti-Israel Nakba Day Rally in Berlin
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator speaks to a police officer during a protest against Israel to mark the 77th anniversary of the “Nakba,” or catastrophe, in Berlin, Germany, May 15, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Axel Schmidt
Anti-Israel demonstrators clashed violently with Berlin police officers during a march on Thursday, resulting in injuries and heightened tensions throughout the German capital city.
More than 600 police officers were dispatched to contain the “Nakba Day” protest in Berlin’s central Kreuzberg district, where over 50 arrests were made. The demonstrators were recognizing the 77th anniversary of the “nakba,” the Arabic term for “catastrophe” used by Palestinians and anti-Israel activists to refer to the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948.
According to local law enforcement, approximately 1,100 people took part in the pro-Hamas rally, which also protested against Israel’s military campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group in the Gaza Strip.
Demonstrators initially intended to march from Südstern Square in the southern part of the capital to the adjacent Neukölln district, but local authorities only allowed the protest to remain stationary.
Even though a local court had ruled that the anti-Israel protest couldn’t move through the city, demonstrators repeatedly attempted to march through the neighborhood. When police intervened to stop them, they were met with insults and violent attacks from the crowd.
Police officers stand guard in front of Pro-Palestinian demonstrators during a protest against Israel to mark the 77th anniversary of the “Nakba” or catastrophe, in Berlin, Germany, May 15, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Axel Schmidt
During the protest, one of the organizers addressed the crowd, declaring, “The nakba is a continuing campaign of ethnic cleansing that has never stopped.”
The demonstration was also marked by antisemitic rhetoric and inflammatory chants, including accusations that the Israeli government and military are “child murderers, women murderers, baby murderers,” as well as the use of the banned slogan, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” The slogan is popular among anti-Israel activists and has been widely interpreted as a call for the destruction of the Jewish state, which is located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
When police intervened to stop the inflammatory rhetoric, they were met with significant violence from the crowd, who reportedly threw bottles, stones, and other objects, and sprayed officers with red paint.
After the incidents, police reported that one officer was pulled into the crowd, forced to the ground, and trampled until he lost consciousness. The 36-year-old officer sustained severe upper body injuries, including a broken arm, and remains hospitalized.
“The attack on a police officer at the demonstration in Kreuzberg is nothing but a cowardly, brutal act of violence,” Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner said in a statement. “Attacks against officers are attacks on law and order and therefore against all of us.”
“Those who misuse the right to demonstrate to spread hate, antisemitic incitement, or violence will face the full force of the law,” the German leader added.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators during a protest against Israel to mark the 77th anniversary of the “Nakba” or catastrophe, in Berlin, Germany, May 15, 2025. Photo: Screenshot
Local authorities reported that 11 officers and an unspecified number of protesters were injured during the incidents, with the injured demonstrators receiving treatment from the Berlin fire department.
The German-Israeli Society (DIG) condemned the violence and hateful rhetoric, urging authorities to reconsider granting permission for such demonstrations.
“Often, these events are not demonstrations for the rights and the legitimate concerns of Palestinians but merely express outright hatred of Israel,” the group said in a statement.
Germany has experienced a sharp spike in antisemitism amid the war in Gaza. In just the first six months of 2024 alone, the number of antisemitic incidents in Berlin surpassed the total for all of the prior year and reached the highest annual count on record, according to Germany’s Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism (RIAS).
The figures compiled by RIAS were the highest count for a single year since the federally-funded body began monitoring antisemitic incidents in 2015, showing the German capital averaged nearly eight anti-Jewish outrages a day from January to June last year.
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), police registered 5,154 antisemitic incidents in Germany in 2023, a 95 percent increase compared to the previous year.
The post Police Officers Injured as Violent Clashes Erupt at Anti-Israel Nakba Day Rally in Berlin first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Trump Signals Support for Future Iran Trade Deal if Regime Dismantles Nuclear Program
US President Donald speaking in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, DC on March 3, 2025. Photo: Leah Millis via Reuters Connect
US President Donald Trump on Thursday seemed to signal openness to striking a trade deal with Iran if the Islamist theocracy agrees to dismantle its entire nuclear program.
“Iran wants to trade with us. Okay? If you can believe that. And I’m okay with it. I’m using trade to settle scores and to make peace,” Trump said while speaking to Fox News anchor Bret Baier. “But I’ve told Iran, ‘We make a deal, you’re gonna be really happy.”
However, Trump underscored the urgency in finalizing a nuclear deal with Iran, saying there’s “not plenty of time” to secure an agreement which would dismantle Tehran’s nuclear capabilities.
“There’s not plenty of time. You feel urgency? Well, they’re not gonna have a nuclear weapon. And eventually, they’ll have a nuclear weapon, and then the discussion becomes a much different one,” Trump said.
The US and other Western countries say Iran’s nuclear program is ultimately meant to build nuclear weapons — a claim denied by Tehran, which asserts the program is only geared for peaceful nuclear energy.
Trump on Friday said Iran had a US proposal about its nuclear program and knows it needs to move quickly to resolve the dispute.
“They have a proposal. More importantly, they know they have to move quickly or something bad — something bad’s going to happen,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, according to an audio recording of the remarks.
However, Tehran denied receiving a US proposal yet. According to some reports, Oman, which has been mediating US-Iran nuclear talks in recent weeks, has the proposal and will soon give to the Iranians.
US lawmakers and some Trump administration officials have repeatedly stressed the importance of dismantling Iran’s nuclear program, arguing that Tehran could use a nuclear bomb to permanently entrench its regime and potentially launch a strike at Israel. Some experts also fear Iran could eventually use its expanding ballistic missile program to launch a nuclear warhead at the US.
However, the administration has sent conflicting messages regarding its ongoing nuclear talks with Iran, oscillating between demands for “complete dismantlement” of Tehran’s nuclear program and signaling support for allowing a limited degree of uranium enrichment for “civilian purposes.” Many Republicans and hawkish foreign policy analysts have lamented what they described as similarities between the framework of the Trump administration’s negotiations with Iran and the controversial Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a 2015 deal negotiated by the former Obama administration which placed temporary restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of major international sanctions. Trump withdrew the US from the deal during his first term, arguing its terms were bad for American national security.
Trump indicated last Wednesday during a radio interview that he is seeking to “blow up” Iran’s nuclear centrifuges “nicely” through an agreement with Tehran but is also prepared to do so “viciously” in an attack if necessary. That same day, however, when asked by a reporter in the White House whether his administration would allow Iran to maintain an enrichment program as long as it doesn’t enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels, Trump said his team had not decided.
Furthermore, US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff drew backlash last month when, during a Fox News interview, he suggested that Iran would be allowed to pursue a nuclear program for so-called civilian purposes, saying that Iran “does not need to enrich past 3.67 percent.” The next day, Witkoff backtracked on these remarks, writing on X/Twitter that Tehran must “stop and eliminate its nuclear enrichment and weaponization program.”
Iran has claimed that its nuclear program is for civilian purposes rather than building weapons. However, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog, reported last year that Iran had greatly accelerated uranium enrichment to close to weapons grade at its Fordow site dug into a mountain.
The UK, France, and Germany said in a statement at the time that there is no “credible civilian justification” for Iran’s recent nuclear activity, arguing it “gives Iran the capability to rapidly produce sufficient fissile material for multiple nuclear weapons.”
While speaking to Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim al-Thani on Wednesday, Trump reportedly said that he would like to avoid war with Iran, “because things like that get started and they get out of control. I’ve seen it over and over again … we’re not going to let that happen.”
Trump has threatened Iran with military action and more sanctions if the regime does not agree to a nuclear deal with Washington.
The post Trump Signals Support for Future Iran Trade Deal if Regime Dismantles Nuclear Program first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Harvard, Jewish Activist ‘Shabbos’ Kestenbaum Settle Antisemitism Lawsuit
Alexander “Shabbos” Kestenbaum makes remarks during the fourth annual Countering Antisemitism Summit at the Four Seasons, Feb. 26, 2025. Photo: USA Today Network via Reuters Connect.
Harvard University and Alexander “Shabbos” Kestenbaum have settled a lawsuit in which the former student turned widely known pro-Israel activist accused the institution of violating the US Civil Rights Act of 1964 by permitting antisemitic discrimination and harassment.
The confidential agreement ends what Kestenbaum, an Orthodox Jews, had promised would be a protracted, scorched-earth legal battle revealing alleged malfeasance at the highest levels of Harvard’s administration. So determined was Kestenbaum to discomfit the storied institution and force it to enact long overdue reforms that he declined to participate in an earlier settlement it reached last year with a group of Jewish plaintiffs, of which he was a member, who sued the university in 2024.
Charging ahead, Kestenbaum vowed never to settle and proclaimed that the discovery phase of the case would be so damning to Harvard’s defense that no judge or jury would render a verdict in its favor. Harvard turned that logic against him, requesting a trove of documents containing his communications with advocacy groups, politicians, and US President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign staff during a period of time which saw Kestenbaum’s star rise to meteoric heights as he became a national poster-child for pro-Israel activism.
Harvard argued that the materials are “relevant to his allegations that he experienced harassment and discrimination to which Harvard was deliberately indifferent in violation of Title VI.” Additionally, it sought information related to other groups which have raised awareness of the antisemitism crisis since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, demanding to know, the Harvard Crimson reported, “the ownership, funding, financial backing, management, and structure” of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, Students Against Antisemitism (SAA), and Jewish Americans for Fairness in Education (JAFE).
Without the materials, Harvard claimed, it would be unable to depose witnesses.
According to the Crimson, the university and Kestenbaum failed to agree on a timeframe for producing the requested documents, prompting it to file in May a motion that would have extracted them via court order. Meanwhile, two anonymous plaintiffs who also declined to be a party to 2024’s settlement came forward to join Kestenbaum’s complaint, which necessitated its being amended at the approval of the judge presiding over the case, Richard Stearns. In filing the motion to modify the suit, the Crimson reported, Kestenbaum’s attorneys asked Stearns to “extend the discovery deadline by at least six months” in the event that he “rejects the motion.”
On April 2, Stearns — who was appointed to the bench in 1993 by former US President Bill Clinton (D) and served as a political operative for and special assistant to Israel critic and former Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern — spurned the amended complaint and granted Harvard its discovery motion, which Kestenbaum’s attorneys had opposed in part by arguing that Harvard too had withheld key documents. Kestenbaum was given five days to submit the contents of correspondence.
On Wednesday, both parties lauded the settlement — which, according to the Crimson, included dismissing Kestenbaum’s case with prejudice — as a step toward eradicating antisemitism at Harvard University, an issue that has cost it billions of dollars in federal funding and undermined its reputation for being a beacon of enlightenment and the standard against which all other higher education institutions are judged.
“Harvard and Mr. Kestenbaum acknowledge each other’s steadfast and important efforts to combat antisemitism at Harvard and elsewhere,” Harvard University spokesman Jason Newton said in a statement.
In a lengthy statement of his own, Kestenbaum expressed gratitude for having helped “lead the student effort combating antisemitism” while accusing Harvard of resorting to duplicitous and intrusive tactics to fend off his allegations.
“Harvard opposed the anonymity of two of its current Jewish students who sought to vindicate their legal rights, and the Harvard Crimson outed them, even before the court could rule on their motion for anonymity. Harvard also issued a 999-page subpoena against Aish Hatorah, my Yeshiva in Israel that has been deeply critical of the university,” he said. “Remarkably, while Harvard sought personal and non-relevant documents between me and my friends, family, and others in the Jewish community, they simultaneously refused to produce virtually any relevant, internal communication that we had asked for during discovery.”
He continued, “I am comforted knowing that as we have now resoled our lawsuit, the Trump administration will carry the baton forward.”
Harvard’s legal troubles continue.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, the university sued the Trump administration in April to request an injunction that would halt the government’s impounding of $2.26 billion of its federal grants and contracts and an additional $450 billion that was confiscated earlier this week.
In the complaint, shared by interim university president Alan Garber, Harvard says the Trump administration bypassed key procedural steps it must, by law, take before sequestering any federal funds. It also charges that the Trump administration does not aim, as it has publicly pledged, to combat campus antisemitism at Harvard but to impose “viewpoint-based conditions on Harvard’s funding.”
The administration has proposed that Harvard reform in ways that conservatives have long argued will make higher education more meritocratic and less welcoming to anti-Zionists and far-left extremists. Its “demands,” contained in a letter the administration sent to Garber — who subsequently released it to the public — called for “viewpoint diversity in hiring and admissions,” the “discontinuation of [diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives],” and “reducing forms of governance bloat.” They also implore Harvard to begin “reforming programs with egregious records of antisemitism” and to recalibrate its approach to “student discipline.”
Harvard rejects the Trump administration’s coupling of campus antisemitism with longstanding grievances regarding elite higher education’s alleged “wokeness,” elitism, and overwhelming bias against conservative ideas. Republican lawmakers, for their part, have maintained that it is futile to address campus antisemitism while ignoring the context in which it emerged.
On April 28, a Massachusetts district court judge, appointed to the bench by former US President Barack Obama, granted Harvard its request for the speedy processing of its case and a summary judgement in lieu of a trial, scheduling a hearing for July 21.
The following day, Harvard released its long anticipated report on campus antisemitism and along with it an apology from Garber which acknowledged that school officials failed in key ways to address the hatred to which Jewish students were subjected following the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre
The over 300-page document provided a complete account of antisemitic incidents which transpired on Harvard’s campus in recent years — from the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee’s (PSC) endorsement of the Oct. 7 terrorist atrocities to an anti-Zionist faculty group’s sharing an antisemitic cartoon which depicted Jews as murderers of people of color — and said that one source of the problem is the institution’s past refusal to afford Jews the same protections against discrimination enjoyed by other minority groups. It also issued recommendations for improving Jewish life on campus going forward.
“I am sorry for the moments when we failed to meet the high expectations we rightfully set for our community. The grave, extensive impact of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas assault on Israel and its aftermath had serious repercussions on campus,” Garber said in a statement accompanying the report. “Harvard cannot — and will not — abide bigotry. We will continue to provide for the safety and security of all members of our community and safeguard their freedom from harassment. We will redouble our efforts to ensure that the university is a place where ideas are welcomed, entertained, and contested in the spirt of seeking truth; where argument proceeds without sacrificing dignity; and where mutual respect is the norm.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Harvard, Jewish Activist ‘Shabbos’ Kestenbaum Settle Antisemitism Lawsuit first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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