It has been revealed that the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, added 400km to his route to avoid passing through Irish, Dutch, and Icelandic airspace recently.
The world leader was travelling to the USA for his latest meeting with President Trump and aviation aficionados tracking the flight online were quick to notice the unusual route.
But why did the delegation opt for this journey and avoid Irish airspace?
Essentially, the reason those three countries were avoided in particular is because their leaders had each signed the Rome Statute, and could act upon an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The Rome Statute is a treaty that is comprised of 13 parts, but mostly sets out the Court’s jurisdiction over genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes of agression.
In November 2024, following an investigation of war crimes and crimes against humanity, the ICC issued arrest warrants for two senior Israeli officials, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, the former Minister of Defense of Israel.
The Prime Minister and his delegation had made their way to Budapest in Hungary to fly to the USA from there, and the ICC had asked Hungarian officials to detain him on the grounds of the warrant, but they refused and instead announced they were leaving the ICC.
In fact, Hungary is one of the founding members of the department and is now the first European Union country to pull out of the ICC which includes 125 member states.
While he couldn’t be arrested for simply being in the airspace, if something had happened to the plane, or someone on board, and they needed to make an emergency landing, if he had set foot in Ireland, The Netherlands, or Iceland, then the ICC warrant could have been acted upon.
Instead, they travelled 400km out of their way and flew over Greece, the Alps in northern Italy, through France, and then across the Atlantic Ocean to Washington DC, landing on Sunday night, April 6.
This marks the Prime Minister’s second meeting with President Trump since he took office for his second term, and while the war with Palestine will likely be on the agenda, so will the new tariffs the US President is introducing.
Israeli exports are being hit with a 17% mark-up in the USA, with EU imports being hit with 20% mark-ups.
*This article was originally published on Extra.ie.
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