Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s travel options will be much narrower after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for him and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, but there are unlikely to be other practical ramifications, experts said shortly after the issuance of the warrants was announced on Thursday.

Still, an Israeli official dealing with the implications to Israel in international courts called the warrants “unprecedented challenges.”

The immediate implication of the warrants is that the 124 countries that are party to the ICC, including much of Europe, are able to arrest Netanyahu and Gallant if they visit. 

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s office said earlier this year that, should Netanyahu visit and the ICC issue an arrest warrant, Berlin would arrest and deport him. Soon after this year’s election in the U.K., the new Labour-led government dropped London’s objection to the ICC prosecutor’s request for warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant.

Netanyahu could, however, travel to the U.S., India, Russia and China, among other countries that are not party to the Rome Statute establishing the ICC.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s situation after an arrest warrant was issued for him in March 2023 could be indicative of the future that awaits Netanyahu. The full details of his warrant, like Netanyahu and Gallant’s, have been kept confidential, and it has not been referred to the U.N. Security Council.

Later in 2023, Putin planned to visit South Africa for the BRICS summit, and Pretoria announced that it would give the Russian president diplomatic immunity for the duration of his stay in the country. The ICC requested that South Africa cooperate and arrest Putin, and Pretoria entered negotiations with the court. Meanwhile, Russia said that arresting Putin would be a declaration of war. The negotiations concluded with the ICC saying South Africa would still have to arrest Putin, and therefore, his visit was canceled. 

Putin also declined to attend this year’s BRICS summit and G20 meeting in Brazil at the invitation of President Lula da Silva, who said that Brazil’s courts could still decide to arrest Putin.

Putin did, however, visit Mongolia in September for a memorial, even though the country is a party to the Rome Statute, and the authorities did not arrest him. Mongolia, which is surrounded on all sides by Russia and China, may be prosecuted for complicity in war crimes as a result.

Prof. Yuval Shany, a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute and chair of international law at the Hebrew University, told Jewish Insider that in addition to mostly grounding Netanyahu, the arrest warrant may mean that leaders will no longer visit Israel to meet with him.

“It’s not a great honor to go around the world or for the world to come to you, and you have this shadow on you that you’re a fugitive from the law,” Shany said. “It will create a great embarrassment for Israel’s allies to be in contact with Netanyahu, just as many leaders try not to take pictures or be in the same place as Putin.” 

Anne Herzberg, legal advisor at NGO Monitor, who authored an amicus brief to the ICC for this case, said the warrants have “national security implications for the Western world,” in that they will hinder security cooperation between Israel and other countries by preventing face-to-face meetings. 

“Western governments cut off their nose to spite their face. They invested so much in this court, propped it up, and now the court is actively hampering security cooperation to go after terrorism,” she said.

Beyond that, experts agreed, there is no practical significance.

“The process is the punishment,” said Eugene Kontorovich, law professor and director of the Center for the Middle East & International Law at George Mason University. “Netanyahu is not going to trial and there never will be a trial. It’ll limit his travel and it will be another anti-Israel talking point that the prime minister is under indictment…It’s another diplomatic tool against Israel.”

In 23 years of existence, he added, the ICC has only convicted four people.

Shany said “there is no trial if [Netanyahu and Gallant are] not arrested or if the warrant is not canceled, which can happen if they commit to appearing before the court.” 

In addition, he noted that the ICC pre-trial chamber left an opening to make arguments that the court does not have jurisdiction over Israel or to accept that Israel’s domestic legal proceedings are sufficient.

Shany also pointed out that the worst of ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan’s requests was denied.

“The most severe article in the request, the crime of extermination, which means intentional mass killing, one step below genocide, was not accepted in the court,” Shany said. “It may influence Israel’s case in [the International Court of Justice] and the way it relates to the more severe accusation of genocide.” 

Kontorovich said that the U.S. has “the tools to destroy the ICC,” namely, sanctions.

The first Trump administration issued an executive order to freeze bank accounts and issue travel bans against ICC officials if the court “threatens to subject current and former United States Government and allied officials to harassment, abuse, and possible arrest.” The Biden administration revoked that order.

Earlier this year, the House approved legislation that would have a similar effect, but the Senate has yet to vote on it and the Biden administration opposes the bill.

Kontorovich said that an executive order from the new Trump administration, or its codification by the Senate, would likely lead to the ICC being closed down. “I don’t think the ICC can function with its bank account frozen and its staff not being paid for four years,” he said. 

The sanctions “need to be vigorously applied up and down the ICC,” he added.

Shany noted that this is the first time that the ICC has charged anyone with the crime of starvation, something that Western armies will note when waging future wars.

Herzberg, however, argued that Western states probably will not see the case as having implications for them. “There is a double standard when it comes to Israel,” she said. “I think a lot of these countries are thinking that the court won’t come for them, because they foot the bill for the court. When you look at who the court is active against, it’s African countries and non-member countries. Even though European countries — the U.K., France, the Netherlands — have committed similar acts to what Israel is accused of, they foot the bill for the court. Europeans are banking on this never happening to them.” 

Herzberg also expressed concern that the arrest warrants further endanger the lives of the 101 hostages remaining in Gaza.

“This move by the court places all the international pressure on Israel and no pressure on Iran, Qatar or Hamas to release the hostages,” he said. “Why should they give anything up when they’re getting everything they want? The court condemned the hostages even more than before and made it likely that we are only going to see dead hostages because of what they’ve done.”  

Because the ICC makes its determinations mostly in secret, Herzberg said, “there could be other [warrants] pending that we don’t know about. This is not just an issue for Netanyahu and Gallant. There could be other senior officials that we don’t know about that could also be at risk, should they travel.”

Kontorovich said he is mostly concerned about how the Israeli public will react. He argued that in only going after Netanyahu and Gallant, ministers from the Likud, and not IDF generals, the ICC is “trying to co-opt Israeli society” and tap into existing political tensions.

The arrest warrants are meant to have a chilling effect on the IDF, deterring its generals and officers from acting to defend Israel, he posited.

However, Kontorovich said, “the ICC won’t tip the scales so much. Whatever the ICC has in mind, what Hamas has in mind is much worse. [Israel has] no choice but to defend itself…They don’t understand that Israelis broadly see this as a war of survival.”