Poilievre blasts PM as ‘extreme’ for backing arrest of Israeli prime minister

Article content

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau defended his assertion that he would support the arrest in Canada of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu on an International Criminal Court warrant, after a Liberal MP said it “discredits” the court. The Opposition leader Pierre Poilievre called the prime minister’s comments “ridiculous.”

“Canada supports international law,” Trudeau told Toronto radio host John Moore Friday morning. “We have to trust that the institutions we’ve built to protect international law are actually going to do their job.

Article content

“Everyone wants to support decisions on the international stage that they agree with, but that’s not the way a justice system works.”

Trudeau said on Thursday that he would “abide by” the international court’s arrest warrant were Netanyahu to visit Canada.

The ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and ex-Israeli defence minister Yaov Gallant Thursday, stating that there was “reasonable grounds” to believe that the two intentionally targeted civilians in Gaza during its ongoing retaliatory war against Hamas.

But Montreal MP Anthony Housefather registered his disapproval with the ICC’s decision Thursday morning on X.

“Israel was attacked by terrorists on Oct 7. The warrant issued by the ICC today against Netanyahu and Gallant claims their crimes started as early as October 8. A day Israel was in shock, grief and mourning. The ICC discredits itself by its actions today,” he wrote.

Poilievre blasted Trudeau over his defence of the ICC warrants on Friday, calling the prime minister’s position “ridiculous” in a radio interview.

Article content

Article content

“It just shows once again how extreme Justin Trudeau has become,” Poilievre told AM640’s Greg Brady.

In a separate interview with Rogers Radio, he added, “The prime minister of Israel is a democratically elected leader whose country is responding to an unprovoked invasion, by thousands of well-armed, Iranian-funded terrorists who … carried out mass rape and other atrocities deliberately targeted at civilians.”

He said the prime minister should instead be calling for the arrest of the leaders of Iran, who fund and promote terrorism, including the Hamas attacks.

“But instead, he’s calling for the arrest of the country that has been the victim of all of these attacks,” Poilievre said.

Israel never signed on to the Rome Statute establishing the ICC in 1998, and has repeatedly maintained that the court has no jurisdiction over its affairs.

On Friday, the German government said it would be carefully going over the ICC warrants before making any judgments about arresting Netanyahu.

“I find it hard to imagine that we would make arrests on this basis,” Reuters reported German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said on Friday,. He said there was a need to clarify legal questions regarding the warrant.

Article content

On Thursday, the White House called the warrants “outrageous.”

“Let me be clear once again: whatever the ICC might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas,” said President Joe Biden in a statement.

National Post
rmohamed@postmedia.com

Get more deep-dive National Post political coverage and analysis in your inbox with the Political Hack newsletter, where Ottawa bureau chief Stuart Thomson and political analyst Tasha Kheiriddin get at what’s really going on behind the scenes on Parliament Hill every Wednesday and Friday, exclusively for subscribers. Sign up here.