Wow, this took a long time to come after the application for the warrants. 185 days compared to 23 days for Putin's arrest warrant — but then again, one was against the wishes of the USA and the west while the other was at their behest.
I wouldn't say "and the west" without more qualifications. The USA and Germany are solidly behind whatever the Israeli government does. England a bit less so and the rest of "the west" (however you want to define it) is more ambivalent. My point is that if only two countries (the USA and Germany) would make their support more conditional (conditional on the israeli government not commiting war crimes for example), then things could change a lot
You’re right, there are notable exceptions in the form of western nations that have backed the enforcement of international law to put an end to the mass killings and starvation taking place in Gaza. Ireland, Spain, Norway, France, Switzerland, Slovenia, Denmark, and Belgium come to mind, ranging from “supporting the independence of the ICC and not commenting on proceedings” to “welcoming the investigation and the end of the killings.”
But while the US (not an ICC member) simply insulted the court and the notion of holding an Israeli leader accountable, it was the UK that demanded hearings on the legality of pursuing arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant. Aside from Germany’s staunch and unconditional support for Israel, other Western countries that heavily criticized the decision included Hungary, Austria, Czechia, Canada, Australia, and Italy - important to note that some of which also mentioned that despite their long list of misgivings and outrages they nevertheless respected the independence of the court.
The difference is that "America" has no other meaning (in English, that is. In some other languages it means the landmass we call "the Americas"). Whereas "England" means something different from the UK.
If you make a court under the UN and you trail US' adversaries' (Serbia) leaders (Milosovic), WHILE the US (who we know --thanks Snowden and Assange-- commits plenty of war crimes) does not recognize it: that is the definition of a kangaroo court.
Just for show. Just to provide some veil of legitimacy for the US actions to evil does without the US itself being held to the same standards.
My guess is that it's simply a matter of how difficult it is to prove the issue. The Putin case was very simply because there is an official state program to do things that are considered genocide. Israel is at least pretending they are letting aid in.
Israel is not pretending. They've let in tons of aid, that is stolen by Hamans constantly. I want to remind you that an American soldier has died during the built of a humanitarian port by the US navy.
But that's what the court itself is for! You get plausibly charged with a crime, you go to court, and the case is determined one way or the other.
What happened in this case is that Israel beseeched its allies to lobby the court not to look into what was happening [0]. And the UK demanded hearings to impede the ICC warrants from being issued (purely politically, as this was done under Sunak and then Starmer/Lammy dropped the objection, but the delays were already underway).
