Netanyahu’s “Dreyfus Gambit.”The Epitome of Chutzpah

What better definition of Chutzpah than the outrageous claim by Bibi Netanyahu’s office comparing the Israeli Prime Minister to the disgraced French artillery officer Alfred Dreyfus, who had his life destroyed by anti-Semitism?

That indignant reaction from Israel came after the Prosecutor for the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, Israel’s former Defense Minister, as well as the leaders of Hamas, who launched the deadly attack on October 7 last year. They are all charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity.  The Court’s three-judge panel unanimously ruled that Netanyahu and Gallant are “co-perpetrators for committing the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare and the crime against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”

The judge also “found reasonable grounds to believe that they bear criminal responsibility…for the war crime of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population.” The charges are also backed by the work of the International Court of Justice, which has found it “plausible” that Israel has committed crimes in Gaza that violate the Geneva Convention.”

The charges were “absurd,” said a furious Netanyahu. He and Israel were victims of the most blatant anti-Semitism, chorused his supporters around the globe.

You have to admit Netanyahu’s breathtaking gall: to cast the Israeli leader and his former Defense Minister not as the perpetrators of a horrific slaughter that is still going on—but as the victims—two-time victims, in fact, the first of the heinous October 7 attack. Then, victims of the absurd ruling of the International Court of Justice, so outrageous it could only be explained by anti-Semitism--as—Netanyahu’s office pointed out--was the terrible injustice meted out to French captain Alfred Dreyfus.

The two cases couldn’t be more different. Dreyfus, born in Alsace of Jewish descent, was wrongfully accused of treason in 1894 and sentenced to life in the infamous penal colony of Devil’s Island. He was kept there even after evidence came to light proving that the real culprit was a French army major, Ferdinand Esterhazy.

As the public uproar grew, led by writer Emile Zola, French society became bitterly divided--between pro-Army, devout Catholic, virulently anti-Semitic anti-Dreyfusards, and pro-republican anticlerical Dreyfusards.

It was only in 1906 that Dreyfus was ultimately exonerated, and bitter memories of the case still reverberate in France today.

However, the bottom line is that the evidence against Dreyfus was completely trumped up and flimsy from the beginning. The court proceedings were patently scandalous.

Netanyahu’s case is totally different. It deals with the deaths of more than 50,000 Gazans, most of them women and children, and another 100,000 injured. The death and devastation –the ongoing crimes--are there for all to see. The ICC and its staff spent almost a year studying the charges, examining thousands of documents, photographs, testimony, first-person accounts, etc.

As for the charge that the ICC is anti-Semitic--for years, African leaders who the ICC most often cited for human rights violations and war crimes claimed that the ICC represented a continuation of white man’s colonial justice.

With warrants issued for them, Netanyahu and Gallant could theoretically be arrested if they went to any of the 124 countries that recognize the ICC. Western leaders immediately split on what they would do if the situation arose. Raising a middle finger to the ICC, Hungarian Prime Minister Orban said he would invite Netanyahu to Hungary. Canada’s Justin Trudeau said he would support the Court.

The ICC ruling confirming the very real possibility of Israel’s genocidal war crimes in Gaza raises tough questions. For instance, on what grounds can American university administrators now be punished for not cracking down on “anti-Semitic” protests against Israel on their campuses?  Or the obverse, how can universities justify firing professors who criticize Israel—if they’re only repeating the ICC?

For constitutional reasons, the U.S. refused to participate in the ICC. Still, over the years, Washington has been more than pleased to cooperate in the Court’s orders-- when it suits them— such as the prosecution of Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, Libya’s Mohamar Khadaffi, Vladimir Putin for the invasion of Ukraine, or investigating the regime of Maduro in Venezuela.

However, as the U.S. sees it, accusing Bibi Netanyahu and Israel is a non-starter. According to the White House statement, President Biden’s reaction was almost as livid as Israel’s. “The ICC issuance of arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous. Let me be clear once again: whatever the ICC might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas.  We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security.” 

Interestingly, if Israel is indeed guilty of crimes against humanity, where does that leave Biden and the United States, who knowingly provided him with the arms and international cover to carry out his various crimes?

So—Israel’s got to be the victim.

We could label this maneuver the “Dreyfus gambit.” It’s defined as the reflexive sleight of hand that Israel and its supporters employ, no matter how outrageous their justification. And why not? It works. They’ve been doing it successfully for years.

 For instance, just a couple of weeks ago, on November 7 in Amsterdam, there was an outbreak of street violence before and after a football game between the visiting Maccabee football team from Israel and Ajax, a local Dutch team. News reports in the major media created the indelible impression that innocent Israeli football fans had been brutally attacked by violent members of Amsterdam’s sizeable Muslim population.

In other words, once again, the Jews were the victims of anti-Semites. As I wrote in an earlier substack, that’s the way it was treated by Israeli officials, such as Netanyahu, as well as by shocked and “outraged” political figures around the world, including Joe Biden. The political right in Europe had a field day.

It turns out the story was just the opposite. It was hundreds of Jewish “hooligans” –many of them who had served in the Israeli army--who had roamed through central Amsterdam screaming violent racist insults before the game, then went on a rampage after, looking for Arabs or pro-Palestinians to beat up.

How can we be so sure who those rioters were? Because two young local reporters who witnessed and took videos of what was happening said so—and have repeatedly said so.  Despite their protests, some major media used the shadowy images shot by those local reporters to illustrate Israeli supporters being beaten up, though they showed just the opposite.  

 Recently, the mayor of Amsterdam, Femka Halsema, dared to publicly state that no “pogrom” occurred in her city—as she had earlier charged. By immediately leaping on the issue, Israel’s Netanyahu had put words into her mouth before she’d had the chance to gather the facts.

What other political leaders or media executives have had the courage to recant their earlier claims? We’re talking about the BBC, Sky News, the New York Times and Reuters. Here’s a link to Double Down News and an excellent, detailed account of this shocking story. (It should be a required reading for anyone claiming to be a reporter.)

As for the ICC’s supposedly unjustified targeting of Israel, Netanyahu is probably hopeful that Donald Trump will go even further than Biden and wield America’s immense global power to force the ICC to back down.

If the ICC does retreat, it would be a major—perhaps fatal—blow to humanity’s first attempt to construct a viable international system of justice governing the most severe crimes of concern to the global community-- like ethnic cleansing and genocide.

What a terrible irony, then, if that effort should be destroyed by the refusal of the world’s great powers to support the ICC’s effort to put on trial leaders of the Jewish state—born out of the most horrific case of ethnic cleansing, for perpetrating a genocide of their own.

In a lighter, Swiftian vein, the author of one of my favorite substacks, Normal Island News, suggested how Israel might deal with the ICC problem:

“Fortunately, Mossad has located a tunnel network under the Hague, and I’m told a tactical nuclear strike is not off the table. Other courses of action include banning the whole internet and introducing the death penalty for anyone who waves a Palestinian flag.”