ICC’s Warrant Request Appears to Shore Up Netanyahu’s Support in Israel

In a video statement that he issued in Hebrew for his domestic audience on Monday, Mr. Netanyahu said that the “absurd and mendacious warrant” sought by Mr. Khan in The Hague was “directed not only against the prime minister of Israel and the defense minister but against the entire state of Israel. It is directed against the I.D.F. soldiers, who are fighting with supreme heroism against the vile Hamas murderers.”

He said that Mr. Khan’s actions would not stop Israel from waging its “just war” against Hamas until it was won.

For Mr. Netanyahu, the I.C.C. is “the best opponent he could ask for in order to galvanize support,” said Mitchell Barak, an Israeli pollster and analyst who worked as an aide to Mr. Netanyahu in the 1990s. Many Israelis already viewed the I.C.C. as hostile toward Israel, Mr. Barak said, and the fact that it did not attempt to adjudicate the role of Hamas until now, he said, added to Israeli antipathy toward the court.

But in the longer term, Mr. Netanyahu’s attempt to tie his fate to that of all Israelis could backfire, some analysts said.

Israel is not a member of the I.C.C. and does not recognize its jurisdiction in Israel or Gaza, meaning that if the court’s judges did issue warrants, Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant would face no risk of arrest at home. They could, however, be arrested if they were to travel to one of the court’s 124 member nations, which include most European countries but not the United States.

In one troubling sign for Israel, France, an ally, did not condemn the chief prosecutor’s request for warrants against Israeli leaders, as the Biden administration did, or distance itself, like Britain.

Instead, the French government expressed support for the I.C.C. and its independence, saying in a statement that France had warned Israel for months about its obligation to respect international humanitarian law, particularly regarding the “unacceptable” loss of civilian lives in Gaza and insufficient humanitarian access.

Ultimately, argued Mr. Caspit, the Netanyahu critic and biographer, Israelis will see that Mr. Netanyahu’s leadership “does not help, but harms Israel.” The request for warrants reflects Israel’s gradual slide into becoming a “pariah state,” Mr. Caspit said, making it vulnerable to international embargoes and boycotts.

Mr. Khan also implicitly criticized Israel’s once-respected judicial system, saying that the I.C.C. was forced to act only when a country’s prosecutors failed to hold its own citizens to account.

“In short, Israel is slowly losing its standing as a liberal democracy whose judicial system can be relied on,” Mr. Caspit said. “That should worry all of us.”

Any renewed support for Mr. Netanyahu would soon wane, he added, if, for example, the legal process were expanded to include soldiers and “Israelis understand it will not only endanger Netanyahu’s trips to Europe, but also their own.”