Radical leftist Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated on Thursday that he would allow the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Canadian soil in observance of a recently issued International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant against him, outraging leaders in his country, including from his own party.
Trudeau noted that Canada was one of the founding countries of the ICC, which has no enforcement mechanism outside of the actions of members states, and declared that arresting Netanyahu was “just who we are as Canadians.”
On Thursday, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas terrorist Mohammed Deif, who is currently in charge of the genocidal jihadists’ “armed” wing. ICC prosecutor Karim Khan requested the warrants in May in response to Israel’s self-defense operations in Gaza against Hamas, which controls Gaza, to prevent a repeat of the atrocities of the October 7 terrorist attack on Israeli soil. Khan had initially also requested warrants for Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar, but both were killed this summer, one in an explosion in Tehran and the other in an exchange with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Gaza.
ICC leaders announced they were seeking Netanyahu and Gallant’s arrests on charges of “crimes against humanity” and “war crimes” in Gaza. They specifically claimed there were “reasonable grounds” to believe that Israeli leaders “intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, and medicine and medical supplies, as well as fuel and electricity.”
The ICC equated the military operation against Hamas with Hamas’s actions on October 7, 2023. On that day, Hamas jihadists invaded Israel and went on door-to-door raids massacring random families in multiple communities. Survivors detailed harrowing acts of torture and gang rape, as well as the mass killing of children as young as infants and the desecration of corpses. On several occasions, the terrorists published videos of their atrocities on social media, including uploading the videos to the social media accounts of their victims so their families and friends would see their dead and mutilated bodies. The attack killed an estimated 1,200 people; about 100 remain in Hamas captivity to this day.
Trudeau did not mention Hamas’s atrocities on October 7 in his remarks on Thursday, instead scolding Israel to following international law.
“It’s really important that everyone abide by international law. This is something we’ve been calling on from the beginning of the conflict,” Trudeau asserted. “We are one of the founding members of the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice; we stand up for international law.”
“We will abide by all the regulations and rulings of the international courts. This is just who we are as Canadians,” he emphasized in response to being asked if he would allow Canadian police to arrest Netanyahu if he visited the country:
Trudeau said later in the same remarks that the world should embrace the “two-state solution” – the creation of an independent state of “Palestine” – to end the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
“We need to see a ceasefire that protects civilians. We need to get back on track toward a two-state solution with a peaceful Israel living alongside a peaceful Palestinian state,” Trudeau demanded.
Trudeau’s announcement that he would support Netanyahu’s arrest prompted outrage nationwide. Some members of his own Liberal Party had condemned the ICC’s decision, giving the appearance that the party was divided on the issue.
“The ICC discredits itself by its actions today,” Liberal member of Parliament Anthony Housefather wrote in a statement on social media, noting that the ICC accused the Israeli leadership of committing crimes against humanity beginning on the day after the October 7 attack, “a day Israel was in shock, grief mourning.”
Conservative Party members were, naturally, more directly vocal against Trudeau.
“This ill-considered endorsement of the ICC’s politically motivated actions is a slap in the face to our ally and to every innocent Israeli still being held hostage,” Conservative Sen. Leo Housakos wrote, responding to the video of Trudeau’s comments. “We stand with the people of Israel and support their right to self-defense against terrorism. The actions taken by both the ICC and Justin Trudeau should be condemned as a dangerous precedent that threatens global stability and the principles of international law”:
The Conservatives’ foreign policy leader, Michael Chong, called the ICC warrants “outrageous” and defended Israel’s self-defense measures.
“The ICC arrest warrants for the former defence minister and the Prime Minister of Israel are outrageous. The ICC is drawing a false equivalency between a liberal democracy and a terrorist group that attacked that democracy last year,” he wrote:
Canada experienced a shocking surge of antisemitic activity between the initial Hamas attack and October 2024: a 670-percent increase in documented violence and other antisemitic acts against Canadian Jews, according to the Israeli Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism. Shortly before the attacks, Trudeau himself was involved in an antisemitic incident in which he gave a standing ovation, alongside an unknowing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, to Yaroslav Hunka, a veteran of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician) under Nazi Germany. Trudeau took no meaningful responsibility for that incident.
Netanyahu’s government responded with outrage to the ICC warrants on Thursday.
“The antisemitic decision of the International Criminal Court is a modern Dreyfus trial – and will end the same way,” a statement from the prime minister’s office read. “Israel utterly rejects the false and absurd charges of the International Criminal Court, a biased and discriminatory political body.”
“The decision to issue an arrest warrant against the Prime Minister was made by a corrupt chief prosecutor who is trying to save himself from sexual harassment accusations and biased judges who are motivated by antisemitic hatred of Israel,” the statement continued.
Reports surfaced in October that prosecutor Karim Khan was facing an internal investigation for sexually assaulting a colleague. Khan responded directly to the allegations, rejecting them and equating them to an alleged campaign of “attacks and threats” against himself and his family since he sought out the Israel arrest warrants.
The Guardian left-wing British newspaper reported in late October, citing anonymous sources, that a complaint on sexual assault grounds was filed against Khan contrary to the wishes of the alleged victim, who did no cooperate and thus prevented a full investigation.