‘It Invented a Work-Around to Target Israel’

Responding to: Down Goes International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan — The Editorial Board · 2026-06-09

What the Piece Argues

The Wall Street Journal editorial board argues that the International Criminal Court is a rogue institution that has no jurisdiction over Israel, that the arrest warrants for Israeli leaders are fatally tainted by the prosecutor’s sexual-misconduct scandal, and that the entire court should be dismantled. It claims the ICC “invented a work-around to target Israel” and warns that the same invented authority could be used against the United States. The piece demands the Trump administration sanction the ICC now, or risk seeing a future president in the dock.

Receipts

The framing demands that you accept one man’s personal legal jeopardy as a reason to dismantle global war-crimes jurisprudence, shielding state power from accountability.

• The framing wants you to believe:
  • Karim Khan’s suspension automatically invalidates the ICC arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, making them “tainted.”
  • The ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel because Israel is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, making the court a “rogue” apparatus targeting U.S. allies.
  • The court’s pursuit of Israeli officials is an ideological vendetta (“lawfare”) rather than a response to documented atrocities.
• What’s really going on:
  • The arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant were independently reviewed and issued by a three-judge Pre-Trial Chamber in November 2024 based on extensive evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity, not merely by Khan’s unilateral decree.
  • The court’s jurisdiction derives from Palestine’s 2015 accession to the Rome Statute, which grants the ICC territorial jurisdiction over crimes committed within Palestinian territories.
  • Demanding the destruction of a permanent international judicial institution over a single prosecutor’s alleged misconduct is a textbook mechanism for ensuring concentrated state power remains shielded from international law.
  • Anchor citation: Palestine formally acceded to the Rome Statute in 2015; under Article 12(2) of the Statute, the ICC exercises territorial jurisdiction over crimes committed on the territory of a State Party.

The DEFCON Ladder

DEFCON 5 — Polite Reframe

When to use: when discussing with a persuadable moderate who genuinely believes the ICC is overreaching but is open to the facts.

Imagine a family in Gaza whose home was destroyed by an airstrike. They file a complaint with the International Criminal Court, trusting that Palestine’s membership in the Rome Statute gives the court authority to investigate. Now they read a Wall Street Journal editorial telling them the court has no jurisdiction because Israel, the alleged perpetrator, didn’t join. That is not legal reasoning; it’s an attempt to make victims invisible. The truth is simple: Palestine joined the Rome Statute in 2015, and the ICC’s judges explicitly ruled in 2021 that the court has jurisdiction over crimes committed on Palestinian territory. That isn’t some “work‑around”; that is how international law works. If we truly care about the rule of law, we want courts that can examine credible allegations against all parties, not just the ones convenient to powerful governments. You say you want a court that follows the rules — fine. So do we. So let’s start by not pretending a formal legal ruling doesn’t exist.

DEFCON 4 — Firm Moral Superiority

When to use: for a reader who respects institutions but needs to see the double standard.

When a Ukrainian mother hears that the ICC issued arrest warrants for Russian commanders, she knows that law can be a source of hope. The Wall Street Journal editorial board wants you to believe that same hope is illegitimate when it reaches Palestinians. They say the court “invented a work‑around to target Israel.” The facts: Palestine is a state party; the court determined jurisdiction in a 2021 ruling. The editorial board knows this — it is a mainstream legal fact — and chose to omit it. That is not an oversight; it is an editorial decision to shield Israel from accountability. The board’s argument reduces to: international law applies to Moscow but not to Jerusalem, because Israel’s refusal to join a treaty outweighs Palestine’s decision to join. That is not how treaties work; it’s how impunity works. If you demand that a court respect the rules, then you must respect the court’s actual rulings, not invent reasons to dismiss them when they inconvenience your allies.

DEFCON 3 — Mockery and Ridicule

When to use: when you’re dealing with someone who knows the facts but keeps repeating the editorial’s talking points anyway.

Oh, the Wall Street Journal has discovered that the ICC issued a ruling on jurisdiction! What’s next, an editorial‑board investigation into gravity? The “invented a work‑around” line is pure performance: Palestine is a state party, the judges ruled. That is not a work‑around; that’s called “reading the Rome Statute.” But the Journal would rather you believe the court is rogue than admit that the same legal principles that would put a Congolese warlord in the dock might also apply to the guys who drop bombs from F‑35s. They are not defending the rule of law; they are defending the right of the powerful to bomb with impunity, wrapped in a concern‑troll about jurisdiction. Next time someone tells you the ICC is biased, ask them: which part of “Palestine is a state party” do they not understand?

DEFCON 2 — Aggressive Villainization

When to use: when the audience needs to see that the editorial board is doing the work of war criminals, dressed up as journalism.

So the editorial board, with its usual fastidiousness, claims the ICC is a rogue court that invented a “work‑around” to target Israel. Let’s translate: they are laundering the argument that war crimes are only real when committed by America’s enemies. The ICC’s jurisdiction is grounded in law — Palestine’s accession, the court’s ruling — but the Journal treats this as a scandal because it threatens to hold the powerful to account. The same board that cheered on the Iraq invasion now suddenly cares about legal niceties. Their real objection is that the ICC is doing its job: looking at evidence that may implicate Israeli officials in the deaths of thousands. The editorial is not about jurisdiction; it is about making sure the only war criminals who face a courtroom are the ones Washington dislikes. The rest of us can smell the moral rot underneath the legalese.

DEFCON 1 — Nuclear Satire

When to use: for bad‑faith actors and as catharsis for those who have been gaslit about the ICC for years.

Picture this: A court with a clear legal mandate starts investigating possible war crimes. The defense lawyer screams, “Objection! My client never signed up for this court, and his victims can’t possibly give you jurisdiction!” The judge calmly replies, “The victims are from a state party, and the alleged crimes occurred on their territory.” The lawyer, now apoplectic, hurls the Wall Street Journal at the bench and shrieks, “Rogue court! Work‑around! Anti‑Israel lawfare!” That is the intellectual depth of this editorial. The ICC is not a cabal of Jew‑hating bureaucrats; it is a court exercising jurisdiction exactly as it was designed. The Journal’s real terror is that the same system that indicted Charles Taylor might someday indict someone with a U.S.‑supplied arsenal. The “work‑around” they’ve invented is called international law — and they hate it because it might actually work.

DEFCON 1+ — Prophetic Indictment

When to use: when the audience needs moral authority, not just anger, to grasp the spiritual bankruptcy of the argument.

Jeremiah wrote of those who “did not know how to blush.” The Wall Street Journal editorial board, in its zeal to shield Israel from the reach of law, has achieved that diagnosis. They ignore the 2021 ruling of the ICC judges, pretend Palestine’s membership in the Rome Statute is irrelevant, and demand the entire court be brought down — all so that the powerful may bomb with a clear conscience. This is not legal commentary; it is the damnable work of those who would sacrifice the very idea of international justice on the altar of nationalism. The prophets cried for justice to roll down like waters, but the Journal would rather you believe the waters are a flood to be dammed. The “work‑around” they decry is the court’s fidelity to its founding treaty. To call that a scandal is to call the rule of law itself a scandal, and that is pure horseshit. May they learn to blush.

DEFCON 1++ — Profane Scorched‑Earth

When to use: for the cathartic release, when you’ve had enough of the lies.

Fuck the Wall Street Journal’s legal analysis. They know goddamn well that Palestine is a state party to the Rome Statute. They know the ICC’s judges ruled that the court has jurisdiction. They ran this steaming pile of an editorial anyway because telling the truth — that Israeli officials might actually have to answer for war crimes — would offend their donor class and their ideological commitments. So they threw in a sex scandal for distraction, dusted off the old “rogue court” bullshit, and declared the whole institution illegitimate. The same editorial board that cheered on torture and illegal wars now clutches its pearls about “rule of law.” They don’t give a single fuck about law. They want a world where the powerful can bomb hospitals, shoot children, and bulldoze homes, and then sue the doctors who report it. The ICC is the least of their worries. What’s coming for these apologists of slaughter is a reckoning no editorial can spin away.

The Deeper Breakdown

The WSJ editorial’s core move is to erase Palestine’s legal standing and replace it with a fairy tale about a court that invented authority out of political bias. Who benefits from this erasure? Israel and its most committed allies — principally the United States — because an ICC that can investigate Israeli conduct can, by the same logic, investigate any state whose nationals commit crimes on the territory of an ICC member. The editorial is an insurance policy for impunity.

The truth is straightforward and well‑documented. On 5 February 2021, Pre‑Trial Chamber I of the ICC ruled that “the Court’s territorial jurisdiction in the Situation in the State of Palestine … extends to the territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.” The ruling was grounded in Palestine’s accession to the Rome Statute (deposited 2 January 2015, United Nations Treaty Series) and the customary process of treaty interpretation. It was not a “work‑around”; it was the court applying its own foundational document.

The editorial conflates the personal misconduct allegations against Prosecutor Khan with the legal basis of the investigation. Even if Khan were removed tomorrow, the jurisdiction found by the judges would remain — because the jurisdiction derives from the Statute and the state party, not from the prosecutor’s virtue. The scandal is being deployed as a pretext to discredit the entire institution, a tactic familiar from the corporate‑accountability playbook: find a flaw, magnify it, and demand the whole system be scrapped.

Finally, the article’s threat that the ICC could “find [President Trump] in the dock” is not an argument about law; it is an appeal to American nationalism, designed to make U.S. readers fear a world in which their own officials might be held to the same standards the U.S. routinely demands for others. The omission of Palestine’s state‑party status and the Pre‑Trial Chamber ruling is what makes the whole editorial cohere: the case the WSJ wants you to believe cannot survive the admission of those two facts. That is the suppressed variable, and it is all you need to know.