Prominent U.S. law professor Dershowitz to assemble legal team to defend Israel against ICC charges

The prominent Jewish American law professor Alan Dershowitz condemned the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) recently issued arrest warrants for Israeli leaders in an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal on Sunday.

Dershowitz, a longtime supporter of the Jewish state, accused the ICC of undermining international law by issuing arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes in Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict with the Iranian-backed terrorist militia Hamas.

“This case will be tried in a courtroom in The Hague. It will also be tried in the court of public opinion, both in the U.S. and throughout the world. For that reason, I am assembling a team of world class lawyers from around the globe to help defend Israeli leaders against the false charges,” Dershowitz wrote. 

The emerging legal team will reportedly include prominent lawyers such as former U.S. attorney generals Michael Mukasey and William Barr, former FBI Director Louis Freeh, and former Canadian Attorney General and Minister of Justice Irwin Cotler. 

Dershowitz emphasized that the emerging legal team would base its argue on lack of jurisdiction for the ICC.

“We will argue that the ICC has no jurisdiction against Israel, not only because it isn’t a member, but also because the treaty that established that court precludes it from considering cases against any country with a valid judicial system that is willing and able to investigate the alleged crimes,” he stated. 

Dershowitz further stressed that the significance of Israel's robust legal system, especially in contrast to Hamas. 

“Israel has one of the best and most independent legal systems in the world, one that is both willing and able to investigate its own leaders. The Israeli courts have convicted and imprisoned a former prime minister, a former president and several ministers. Hamas has no such judicial system,” Dershowitz wrote. 

“We will also demonstrate that Israel’s actions in Gaza don’t violate any international law or laws of war over which the ICC has jurisdiction,” the prominent law professor noted.

“Even if the inflated numbers of casualties provided by the Hamas Health Services were accurate, the proportion of civilians to combatants killed by the Israel Defense Forces would be lower than in any comparable war anywhere in the world. This certainly doesn’t qualify as genocide or any other war crime,” Dershowitz argued. 

He also blasted the international court for seeking to create a false symmetry between Israel's democratic system and the totalitarian terrorist militia Hamas, which openly calls for Israel’s destruction. 

“By issuing arrest warrants for Israeli leaders and one Hamas terrorist, the court is seeking to equate the terrorism of Hamas, which murdered, raped and kidnapped approximately 1,450 Israelis, mostly civilians, with the self-defense efforts of Israel to prevent a promised recurrence of Oct. 7,” Dershowitz wrote. 

In January, Dershowitz told the Israeli KAN News channel that he was prepared to represent and defend Israel in the South African war crimes lawsuit at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague.

"If the Palestinians' claim is proven to be correct, namely that more than 20,000 Palestinians were killed by the IDF bombings, and Israel's claim is also proven to be correct, which is that approximately 7,000 terrorists and terror operatives were killed, then the ratio will be about two to one. Such a ratio between the innocent civilians and those who are not, is much better than the ratio of deaths in other conflicts around the world," Dershowitz said in January.