OPINION:
The International Criminal Court signed arrest warrants for the leaders of Hamas for atrocities against the Jewish people, and then, in what should be seen as a sick joke but is not, issued the same for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister, Yoav Gallant.
Take a warning, ICC.
Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, also known as the “Butcher of Tehran,” and several of his fellow political leaders were killed in a helicopter crash over the weekend — over a month after launching drone and missile strikes against the Jewish nation; over a few months after funding and supporting and enabling terror groups Hamas and Hezbollah as they attacked the Jewish nation.
Call it faulty piloting. Call it faulty equipment. Call it a suspicious circumstance; call it bad luck; call it bad weather.
Call it an act of God.
God will not be mocked.
God states clearly in the Bible that those who bless Israel will be blessed; those who curse Israel will be cursed. And now Iran’s president and several in his political circle are dead — and the persecution of God’s chosen continues.
How is it possible that any sane individual could possibly draw a moral or legal equivalency between the brutal actions of Hamas on Oct. 7 and the defensive counterattack of the Israel Defense Forces in the days and weeks and months that followed?
ICC’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, said in a statement that Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh and Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri (also known as Mohammed Deif) — the terror group’s leader, political strategist and military commander, respectively — committed these war crimes against Israel: murder and the intent to exterminate a people; the taking of hostages; rape and other acts of sexual violence; torture; cruel treatment and outrages upon the dignity of persons and other miscellaneous inhumane acts.
Sounds about right.
The reports, first-person accounts, photographs and videos of the Hamas attack showed acts of savagery and brutality that were beyond evil.
Khan then goes on to accuse Netanyahu and Gallant of this: starvation of civilians; willfully causing great suffering — say what?? — and willfully killing as a war crime; intentionally targeting civilians for attack; intent to exterminate and murder by starvation and other manners; persecution to the point of committing inhumane crimes; and other inhumane crimes against humanity.
The international community has long played Hamas as the victim and Israel as the aggressor, even though it was the innocent Jewish people who were attending a music concert when the terrorists sneaked across the border from Gaza and attacked, killing, raping, torturing and abducting with abandon. The terrorists still hold hostages and refuse to free them unless they win concessions from Israel that would basically lead to another terror attack on Israel.
But adding to ICC’s disingenuous defense of Hamas — because that’s what it was; by pretending Israel is just as guilty as Hamas only gives the terrorists a head-pat and emboldens their terror — but adding to ICC’s pro-terror slant is this: Hamas came out and criticized ICC for — get this — suggesting that the terror group was anything but the victim.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said in a statement to Reuters that Khan’s issuance of warrants against Sinwar, Haniyeh and Deif “equates the victim with the executioner” and allows the Jewish state the public relations key to continue its “war of extermination” against Hamas.
How quickly it’s forgotten — or how convenient it’s ignored — that Hamas brought this counterattack from Israel on itself, and on its Gaza land, by terrorizing Israel in the first place.
Had Hamas not attacked Israel on Oct. 7, Israel would not be sending its IDF into Gaza, into Rafah, against Hamas terrorists right now.
That the ICC can’t recognize that bare bottom fact only shows the utter incompetency and corruption and antisemitism of the organization and its leaders.
Israel never ratified the Rome Statute that created the ICC and therefore, does not recognize its rulings and findings as applicable to the Jewish state. Same for America; the United States doesn’t consider the ICC a valid arbiter of justice, either.
But much of this Hamas-Israel war is being waged in the media, on the public relations field. As such, truths often stick with the side of the largest social media following. That the ICC has just decided to announce to the world that Hamas and Israel are equally at fault in the deaths that have come from this Oct. 7 assault only heightens pressures on the Jewish nation, as well as on all supporters of the Jewish people, to stand down, lower arms, make concessions with terrorists, and basically, hand the win to those who want to eradicate them from the face of the earth.
God will not long stand for this evil.
God, having created the nation of Israel as prophesied in the Bible, will not long stand for the persecution of the Jewish people or for the attempt to seize the lands of the Jewish state.
Don’t believe that? Just ask Iran.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Lockdown: The Socialist Plan To Take Away Your Freedom,” is available by clicking HERE or clicking HERE or CLICKING HERE.
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