B’nai B’rith International deplores in the strongest terms the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) issuing of arrest warrants for civilian leaders of Israel.

Israel is the Middle East’s only pluralistic democracy; it is the most existentially beleaguered country in the world and it has repeatedly proven its yearning for peace and coexistence with every other country and people.

Most fundamentally, no country in history has done more during war to provide aid and to try to limit harm to lethal enemies’ surrounding noncombatant populations.

The ICC and its decisions—which follow the multi-front terrorist onslaught against Israelis on and since Oct. 7, 2023—are overtly a product of unparalleled discrimination by a United Nations-centered political system in which Arab and other authoritarian governments enjoy and exploit an automatic majority.

The ICC lacks jurisdiction to prosecute leaders of Israel, and the charges of Israeli “war crimes and crimes against humanity” are libelous and patently false. The implying, moreover, of any equivalence between a responsible democratically elected government and an explicitly genocidal jihadist group is a legal and moral affront.

One wonders why the ICC has not charged and issued arrest warrants for the genocide-seeking rulers of Iran engineering atrocities, conflict and human misery throughout the region and beyond.

Above all, the ICC has incentivized and offered cover for the most devastating terrorist crimes and tactics by threatening to practically prevent critical counterterrorism efforts and to persecute legitimate defense personnel and elected officials.

This is utterly unacceptable. The ICC has today addled its own standing and added fuel to the fire of conflict in the Middle East.