FOREIGN Secretary David Cameron has claimed that “no one has been tougher on the Israelis than me” – as he rejected calls to back international arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leaders.
Cameron criticised the International Criminal Court (ICC) for drawing a “moral equivalence” between the actions of Hamas and those of the Israeli government.
On Monday the ICC chief prosecutor requested arrest warrants for prime minister Netanyahu (below) and his defence minister Yoav Gallant, as well as Hamas’s Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, the commander of its military wing, and Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of its political bureau.
But the warrant was rejected by Israel’s western allies, including US president Joe Biden, who called it “outrageous”.
The UK Government has argued the warrant is invalid because Palestine is not recognised as a state and the ICC has no jurisdiction in Israel.
Israel is not party to the Rome Statue which created the ICC, having withdrawn from the treaty in 2002.
However, a ruling in 2021 said that the court does have the power to investigate and prosecute crimes in Palestine.
Speaking in the upper chamber on Tuesday, Cameron was challenged by Labour’s shadow deputy Lords leader Ray Collins.
Collins confronted Cameron over his opposition to the arrest warrant, noting he had previously said Israel did not have a “clean bill of health”.
🗣️'No one has been tougher on the Israelis than me' Foreign Secretary David Cameron defends the UK's response as the ICC seeks an arrest warrant for Israeli and Hamas leaders ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/6JcF1deyh8
— The National (@ScotNational) May 21, 2024
He also pointed to a UN resolution which Britain had supported that accused Israel of an “unlawful denial of humanitarian access” to Gaza.
Collins asked: “Does he accept Israel is in breach of that resolution and if he does, does not he think that is a breach of international humanitarian law?”
Cameron (below) replied: “We’ve far from given Israel a clean bill of health on this issue, not enough has been done to get aid in.”
He added that some recent promises were “encouraging”, including commitments to allow 500 aid trucks in a day, the creation of a new pier for humanitarian access, and that “some of those promises are being fulfilled”.
But the Foreign Secretary said that “some of the promises are not being kept”.
He added: “No one, I think has been tougher on the Israelis than me, in direct call after call and message after message about having to meet their obligations.
“So we haven’t given them a clean bill of health but that is a world of difference between that and actually issuing arrest warrants at the same time as you are for Hamas and drawing this moral equivalence. And it’s not just the UK that takes this view.”
Cameron pointed to statements from America, Germany, Italy and the Czech Republic condemning the ICC warrants, which he said was evidence it was “not just the UK that takes this view”.
He added: “I don’t want to get too political in their lordships’ house but the odd-man-out in many ways is the party opposite, that seems to be saying that it supports the ICC in every way.”
