What is behind the accusation of anti-Semitism launched against Karim Khan?

Gilbert Achcar

The matter was so obvious that it was not worth betting on it. It was quite obvious and absolutely certain that the request by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Karim Ahmed Khan, to issue international arrest warrants against the Israeli prime minister and minister of "defense" would lead to the Zionist establishment to level the accusation of anti-Semitism against him and that of the court. Like the dogs of Russian scientist Ivan Pavlov, who confirmed his famous study of the conditioned reflex, Netanyahu and Gallant, as well as the entire Zionist power elite, including Gantz, the leader of the currently cooperating opposition bloc with Likud, the party of the two accused and Lapid, the leader of the main opposition bloc who refuses to join them, all immediately and violently condemned the position of the prosecutor while describing it as “anti-Semitic”.

It is in fact almost unanimously that the Zionist political class - 106 of the 120 members of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament (in addition to the ten members of the "Arab" lists, the four deputies of the Labor Party remained on the sidelines of the Zionist consensus due to their strong hostility toward Netanyahu) – approved a statement condemning the prosecutor and calling his indictment of the Zionist government and Hamas leaders for crimes against humanity an “outrageous comparison” that constitutes “ an indelible historical crime and a clear expression of anti-Semitism.” Netanyahu saw his condemnation by Karim Ahmad Khan as an opportunity to bolster his waning popularity by presenting himself as a symbol of the Zionist state. He said the Hague prosecutor's "absurd and spurious mandate is directed not only against the Israeli prime minister and defense minister, but against the entire State of Israel." He then added, directly addressing the prosecutor: “With what nerve do you dare to compare the monsters of Hamas to the soldiers of the IDF, the most moral army in the world? Netanyahu's position was joined by Gantz, his partner in the Israeli war cabinet, who said the Israeli military "fights with one of the strictest moral codes in history."

It is, of course, unprecedented boldness for anyone to describe the Zionist genocidal forces as “the most moral army in the world,” but this impudence has become commonplace. Repeating this by calling impudent a criticism of the actions of the Zionist army, which the International Court of Justice has deemed to fall within the category of genocide, takes the sass to a height unique to Netanyahu and very difficult to match. As usual, the Israeli Prime Minister resorted to what in English is called "dog whistle" insinuations by indirectly pointing to the descent of Karim Ahmed Khan from a family of Pakistani origin belonging to the community Ahmadiyya Muslim. The insinuation came in Netanyahu's statement that the "new anti-Semitism" — a phrase often used to describe hostility toward the State of Israel when expressed by Muslims — "has moved from campuses Westerners towards the court of The Hague”!

If Hamas had added to its parallel condemnation of the prosecutor for having put it in the dock alongside the Zionist government, the assertion that the latter's position reflected hatred of Islam (or Islamophobia), the world everyone would have laughed at the movement. But Hamas does not and cannot claim a monopoly on Muslim representation the way the Zionist state claims a monopoly on Jewish representation, with the approval of most Western leaders. So, although the US administration stopped short of calling Karim Khan's position "anti-Semitic", Biden was quick to call it scandalous and renew his commitment to "always stand with Israel against threats to its security.

For his part, his Secretary of State, Blinken, reiterated the description of Hamas' Operation al-Aqsa Flood as "the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust" - a description that has become a mantra whose The aim is to portray Palestinian hostility toward Israelis as hostility toward Jews inspired by “anti-Semitism” rather than hostility toward fierce Zionist persecution that insists on describing itself as Jewish (for more on this topic, see my article “Gaza: October 7 in historical perspective”).

If all this Zionist and pro-Israeli anger against Karim Khan's position indicates anything, it is its importance, which it is no exaggeration to call historic. Indeed, the ICC, since its creation until now, has only dealt with complaints against people from the countries of the Global South, from the African continent in particular, in addition to the Russian leaders recently indicted due to the invasion of Ukraine by their army. It had become customary to consider this court, created in 2002 at the height of Western hegemony, as one of the political tools of the West, to the point that the families of 34 Israelis who died or were kidnapped during Operation Flood of al-Aqsa filed a complaint against Hamas with it, a few days after the event. It is indeed very significant that the only indictments issued by the ICC regarding Iraq concern the Islamic State organization and not the American military and government.

This is therefore the first time that the court has indicted two leaders of a country considered to be part of the Western camp, which explains the resentment expressed towards the position of the prosecutor by the American government and the British government, its faithful partner (notably in the occupation of Iraq), as well as some other Western governments. This is why the position of the prosecutor is very worrying in the eyes of the Zionist government and its most loyal allies. It adds to the lawsuit filed by South Africa against Israel before the International Court of Justice to turn the page on Western hegemony on international judicial bodies, in general, and confirm the growing global condemnation of the criminal behavior of the The Zionist state in light of the genocidal war it is waging in Gaza, in particular.