The statement published by the French Foreign Ministry on Wednesday morning, just hours after a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah went into effect, was supposedly independent and detached from that earlier development.
It was a legalistic statement in which the words “Lebanon,” "cease-fire" or “war” were not mentioned once. Instead, its sole focus was on last week’s International Criminal Court decision to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
But, as is often the case in international diplomacy, timing is everything – and the timing of the French statement sent an unmistakable signal. On the same day Netanyahu agreed to end Israel’s war in Lebanon, the French government gave him a huge reward by saying it will not necessarily enforce the ICC’s arrest warrant against him.
This contradicted the initial French reaction to the ICC’s decision less than a week ago. Last Thursday, France emphasized its commitment to the court’s rulings as a proud member of the Rome Statute.
The French government has a very simple explanation for this, one that is very different to the media narrative but also somewhat difficult to accept. According to this semi-official version, France simply tried to reflect in the statement its internal deliberations about how to handle the ICC arrest warrants, and the language in the Foreign Ministry statement was similar to what President Emmanuel Macron told Netanyahu over the phone last week.
If Netanyahu, according to this analysis, were to travel to France, the decision about whether to arrest him would be in the hands of French judges, not politicians, and they would have to take into consideration the different, contradictory information included in the statement.
Still, it would take a great deal of naivete to believe it was merely a coincidence that once the Lebanon cease-fire was completed, the experts at Quai d’Orsay suddenly discovered that as the elected leader of a state that doesn’t recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction, Netanyahu potentially enjoys immunity and therefore will not be arrested if he chooses to spend a future weekend in Paris.
Officially, the French government did not admit to any quid pro quo in its decision. On the Israeli side, though, there was an attempt to spin the news as a victory for Netanyahu. The French government, according to the prime minister’s circle, agreed to publish this statement only in light of an Israeli ultimatum and a threat to otherwise leave France out of the cease-fire negotiations process and mechanism.
This spin, like everything else emanating from Netanyahu’s direction, should be taken with a huge grain of salt. A likelier explanation is that France offered this as a sweetener, knowing that Netanyahu often places his personal interests above those of the state. Furthermore, even if a majority of Israelis – especially those living along the Lebanese border – are unhappy with the terms of the cease-fire, the prime minister would find it impossible to turn down a deal that included a European “get out of jail free” card.
The French announcement will surely influence the next government in Germany, most likely led by the conservative Christian Democrats: There is no way Berlin will take a tougher line toward Israel than its western neighbor. The United Kingdom and Italy, two other countries that have expressed their commitment to the ICC arrest warrants, won’t stand alone against U.S. pressure on this issue once Donald Trump enters the White House.
The implications, as Haaretz wrote earlier this week, will be felt far beyond Israel. If Netanyahu enjoys immunity because he is the leader of a country that rejects the ICC’s mandate, the same logic applies to Vladimir Putin – who has been facing an arrest warrant since March 2023. Russia, it should be noted, was also involved in the Lebanon cease-fire negotiations, although in a less public and significant role than the United States or France.
Netanyahu told Israelis on Tuesday that Israel could renew the war in Lebanon at any moment if it found reason to do so. That notion was ridiculed even in media outlets considered loyal and supportive of him. The French announcement on Wednesday was the final nail in the coffin of that argument. This deal, Israelis realize, is about much more than the war against Hezbollah.
