These are exactly the headlines that the German government was desperate to avoid. "Scholz spokesman hints: Germany would arrest Netanyahu," ran the headline of the country's highest-circulation broadsheet, Bild, on Wednesday evening.

Die Welt newspaper chimed in: "Germany would extradite Netanyahu, government spokesman hints."

Is it really conceivable that Germany would arrest or even extradite the leader of Israel if the International Criminal Court issues an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu? For the leader of the biggest opposition party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Friedrich Merz, the mere thought of this is absurd. "The silence of the German government, right up to the suggestion by the government spokesman that Netanyahu could be arrested on German soil, is now really becoming a scandal," Merz told Bild.

On Monday, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, British lawyer Karim Khan, applied for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant because of the great suffering of the people in the Gaza Strip since Israel responded militarily after the October 7 Hamas attack. Khan also applied for arrest warrants for........

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