Budapest did best

Hungary gave the middle finger to the intrusive International Criminal Court (ICC) when it flatly rejected the tribunal’s request to arrest and surrender visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — an honorable step for an independent nation.

According to a report from Budapest, the ICC sought Netanyahu's surrender and transfer to its detention center in The Hague due to the arrest warrant issued against him by the court last year.

The surrender request was sent several hours after Netanyahu landed in the country two weeks ago. Still, the Hungarian government refused to comply and promptly announced it would quit the ICC.

Hungary won plaudits from its citizens for standing up against a meddling foreign institution. Instead, it protected a trusted friend, who is the Israeli leader.

In contrast, the incumbent Philippine administration resorted to several shortcuts to whisk away a Filipino citizen, former president Rodrigo Duterte, and hand him over to ICC jurisdiction.

The speed at which Duterte was flown to The Hague was calculated to prevent a local court order from frustrating the removal of an opposition heavyweight.

A close look at Hungary's moves indicates that there is no such thing as a backlash from international commitments when it comes to protecting sovereign interests.

In May 2024, ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan requested the court to approve arrest warrants against Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The ICC approved the request in November 2024 and rejected Israeli appeals against it.

The Philippine government also sent several appeals to respect the local judiciary’s independence in urging the ICC to drop its investigations. However, the noise from rabid anti-Duterte forces was hard to drown out, as they supported the ICC’s full-blown investigation.

Allegations of abuse against the Israeli officials were seen as out of place, as the nation was at war with Hamas, the ruling authority in Gaza. The terror group attacked the civilian population during the infamous 7 October 2023 assault.

Netanyahu and the Israeli government firmly rejected the ICC allegations, pointing to efforts to facilitate the passage of large amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza during the war and insisting that the Israeli Defense Forces do not deliberately target civilians.

Supporters of radical Palestinians, allied with liberal democrats in Western nations, were able to reverse the narrative against Israel, which became the villain in the war that started with the terrorists' incursion.

Juxtapose the terrorists with the well-connected narcotics syndicates and drug lords, and the situation mirrors the case of Duterte.

Proof of manipulation through ICC intervention was seen in Israel’s Supreme Court ruling last month, which stated that organizations petitioning the court to increase aid supply to Gaza had “not even come close” to showing that Israel violated legal prohibitions on starving a civilian population as a tool of war or as a form of collective punishment.

Like the arrest warrant issued for Duterte, the ICC sent a document to the Hungarian government stating that its surrender request was “confidential” to enable the arrest to be executed.

“The Registrar requests the cooperation of Hungary to: provisionally arrest the following person [Netanyahu] when the opportunity arises if he is present on their territory,” the arrest and surrender order stated.

The Hungarian government announced its decision to withdraw from the ICC hours after Netanyahu's arrival, thereby asserting its independence as a sovereign state.

Woe to Duterte's surrender, which reeks of political maneuvering.