The Holocaust survivor judge who issued Netanyahu’s arrest warrant
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Jan 27, 2026, 4:40:36 PM (2 days ago) Jan 27
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The Sunday Times January 24 2026
The Holocaust survivor judge who issued Netanyahu’s arrest warrant
Theodor Meron, still going strong at 95, escaped the Nazis with his father and became a serious force in international law, helping to found the ICC
Theodor Meron in Oxford, where he is a visiting professor of law and honorary fellow at Trinity College
PHILIPPA JAMES FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
Josh Glancy
At this time of year, Theodor Meron often finds himself thinking about his brother. Mietek was five years ahead of Theodor, and their early childhood was an idyllic one: summers on the Vistula, Chopin tinkling in the background, cycling around the forests of Poland.
But that world was snatched from the two boys. Persecuted for their Jewishness, the family ended up living in the Czestochowa ghetto. Meron’s paternal grandparents were rounded up and sent to Treblinka. His mother was executed along with her own parents.
Mietek joined the resistance, and when the SS came for him he attacked a German officer. “That apparently was not the end of his story,” says Meron. Later they heard from a survivor that Mietek had led a prisoner uprising in Treblinka. But at some point, whether in the camp or later in the forests, Mietek was killed. “I miss him more than I can tell,” he adds. “For years, I hoped that one day he would return, that the door would open and he would walk in.”
Theodor Meron, aged five, with his big brother Mietek
Tuesday is Holocaust Memorial Day and, as he often does, Meron will speak of what happened to him and millions of others, Jews of course, but also Roma, Poles, Russians and gay and disabled people, all victims of the Nazi genocide.
He will remember his mother, shy, helpful, always baking rolls and cakes. He will remember the courage of his brother. And, being one of the most eminent international lawyers alive, he will also seek to remind the world just how important it is that we have laws and courts that seek to bring justice — however patchily — upon those who would commit such crimes.
Having survived the Nazis, along with his father, Meron’s life since has been a rebuke to their crimes. There is no one alive who better embodies the system of international justice, which was created in the hope that the horrors of Auschwitz and Treblinka would never be repeated. “There are no answers to what happened, because it was so horrendous,” says Meron. “But if you manage to be lucky enough to survive that, you have certain responsibilities, to try to contribute to the creation of a world in which those things would either become completely unknown, or they would be greatly reduced.”
Meron is still trying. At 95, recently widowed from his beloved Monique, he is still an active fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, where we meet for tea in the senior common room. He teaches a postgraduate law seminar and serves on the advisory board of the Red Cross.
He has just published a book of poetry and also a memoir, A Thousand Miracles: From Surviving the Holocaust to Judging Genocide. He has quite remarkable vigour, charging around the quads of Trinity, teaching, writing, speaking with the energy of a far younger man. “The alternative is to spend your life sitting on the sofa and watching television,” he says. “That’s not my cup of tea. I believe that God gave us capacities and we should use them.”
After the Holocaust, Meron found refuge in Palestine, which soon became Israel. He caught up on his missed education and became a legal adviser to the Israeli government, attempting (unsuccessfully) to persuade the prime minister, Levi Eshkol, not to establish the first settlements in the West Bank, territory that was taken in the Six-Day War of 1967.
Levi Eshkol, prime minister of Israel from 1963-69
BETTMANN ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES
Meron served as Israel’s ambassador to Canada, but then left his adopted home to become a professor of international law in Switzerland and New York. He became a judge, presiding over the appeal of Radislav Krstic, who was a commander involved in the Srebrenica massacre. In 2002 he helped found the International Criminal Court. In 2024, he accepted an appointment to serve on an ICC panel that issued arrest warrants for the leaders of Hamas and Israel, including Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, and Yoav Gallant, the defence minister.
Meron had previously recused himself from cases involving Israel, but this time he accepted. “I think we all have moral obligations,” he says, believing it would have been “hypocritical” to turn the case down.
The arrest warrants, which were issued simultaneously to Israel and Hamas, remain fiercely controversial in Israel, where Meron has been the subject of bitter criticism. Elsewhere he has been lauded, with Foreign Policy magazine describing him as “the man who tried to save Israel from itself”.
There is an idea prevalent in leftist circles that Israel, a country that was created from the wreckage of the Holocaust is, using its own history as a shield, taking the lead in dismantling the system of international justice that was built with the express purpose of preventing such atrocities.
Meron is desperately upset with his former country, but is also too subtle a jurist to adopt that narrative. “The fact is that horrible things are happening in other places too,” he says. “What is happening in Sudan might be even closer to the concept of genocide.
“I am terribly worried and disappointed about war crimes [in Gaza]. I find it all very disappointing, but at the same time, to be fair, I also find that the events of October 7 were totally barbaric and unacceptable.” He is appalled by Israel’s prosecution of the war, particularly the withholding of aid, but reminds me of “the fact that Hamas was embedded in not only civilian habitations, but also in schools and hospitals”.
Given all that has happened to him, despite the pain he still feels, Meron is remarkably free of anger. “I was so lucky to survive it all,” he says. “So I tried later to make international humanitarian law a central feature of my life.”
Across the world, from Trump to Putin to the Middle East and beyond, that system that Meron has worked so hard for appears to be in retreat. Yet he remains an optimist. “This is a bad period, but I’m not irrevocably pessimistic,” he says. “Looking at things historically, positive developments and reforms of international law often happen after the most terrible atrocities.” He points to the American civil war. “One of the most brutal and bloody in the history of mankind, but it led to the creation of the Lieber code, one of the first codifications of international humanitarian law.”
PHILIPPA JAMES FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
When he thinks back to the Holocaust, Meron often tries to focus on the thousands of good samaritans who risked their lives to rescue victims of the Nazis. But it’s difficult to get away from the mass complicity and ease with which millions were sent to their deaths. It’s difficult to forget his brother Mietek.
“That’s why we need law,” he says. “That’s why we do not, we cannot ignore what happened. Because if we ignore, and therefore if we forget, we open the door for more of the same.”
The Sunday Times January 24 2026
The Holocaust survivor judge who issued Netanyahu’s arrest warrant
Theodor Meron, still going strong at 95, escaped the Nazis with his father and became a serious force in international law, helping to found the ICC
Theodor Meron in Oxford, where he is a visiting professor of law and honorary fellow at Trinity College
PHILIPPA JAMES FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
Josh Glancy
At this time of year, Theodor Meron often finds himself thinking about his brother. Mietek was five years ahead of Theodor, and their early childhood was an idyllic one: summers on the Vistula, Chopin tinkling in the background, cycling around the forests of Poland.
But that world was snatched from the two boys. Persecuted for their Jewishness, the family ended up living in the Czestochowa ghetto. Meron’s paternal grandparents were rounded up and sent to Treblinka. His mother was executed along with her own parents.
Mietek joined the resistance, and when the SS came for him he attacked a German officer. “That apparently was not the end of his story,” says Meron. Later they heard from a survivor that Mietek had led a prisoner uprising in Treblinka. But at some point, whether in the camp or later in the forests, Mietek was killed. “I miss him more than I can tell,” he adds. “For years, I hoped that one day he would return, that the door would open and he would walk in.”
Theodor Meron, aged five, with his big brother Mietek
Tuesday is Holocaust Memorial Day and, as he often does, Meron will speak of what happened to him and millions of others, Jews of course, but also Roma, Poles, Russians and gay and disabled people, all victims of the Nazi genocide.
He will remember his mother, shy, helpful, always baking rolls and cakes. He will remember the courage of his brother. And, being one of the most eminent international lawyers alive, he will also seek to remind the world just how important it is that we have laws and courts that seek to bring justice — however patchily — upon those who would commit such crimes.
Having survived the Nazis, along with his father, Meron’s life since has been a rebuke to their crimes. There is no one alive who better embodies the system of international justice, which was created in the hope that the horrors of Auschwitz and Treblinka would never be repeated. “There are no answers to what happened, because it was so horrendous,” says Meron. “But if you manage to be lucky enough to survive that, you have certain responsibilities, to try to contribute to the creation of a world in which those things would either become completely unknown, or they would be greatly reduced.”
Meron is still trying. At 95, recently widowed from his beloved Monique, he is still an active fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, where we meet for tea in the senior common room. He teaches a postgraduate law seminar and serves on the advisory board of the Red Cross.
He has just published a book of poetry and also a memoir, A Thousand Miracles: From Surviving the Holocaust to Judging Genocide. He has quite remarkable vigour, charging around the quads of Trinity, teaching, writing, speaking with the energy of a far younger man. “The alternative is to spend your life sitting on the sofa and watching television,” he says. “That’s not my cup of tea. I believe that God gave us capacities and we should use them.”
After the Holocaust, Meron found refuge in Palestine, which soon became Israel. He caught up on his missed education and became a legal adviser to the Israeli government, attempting (unsuccessfully) to persuade the prime minister, Levi Eshkol, not to establish the first settlements in the West Bank, territory that was taken in the Six-Day War of 1967.
Levi Eshkol, prime minister of Israel from 1963-69
BETTMANN ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES
Meron served as Israel’s ambassador to Canada, but then left his adopted home to become a professor of international law in Switzerland and New York. He became a judge, presiding over the appeal of Radislav Krstic, who was a commander involved in the Srebrenica massacre. In 2002 he helped found the International Criminal Court. In 2024, he accepted an appointment to serve on an ICC panel that issued arrest warrants for the leaders of Hamas and Israel, including Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, and Yoav Gallant, the defence minister.
Meron had previously recused himself from cases involving Israel, but this time he accepted. “I think we all have moral obligations,” he says, believing it would have been “hypocritical” to turn the case down.
The arrest warrants, which were issued simultaneously to Israel and Hamas, remain fiercely controversial in Israel, where Meron has been the subject of bitter criticism. Elsewhere he has been lauded, with Foreign Policy magazine describing him as “the man who tried to save Israel from itself”.
There is an idea prevalent in leftist circles that Israel, a country that was created from the wreckage of the Holocaust is, using its own history as a shield, taking the lead in dismantling the system of international justice that was built with the express purpose of preventing such atrocities.
Meron is desperately upset with his former country, but is also too subtle a jurist to adopt that narrative. “The fact is that horrible things are happening in other places too,” he says. “What is happening in Sudan might be even closer to the concept of genocide.
“I am terribly worried and disappointed about war crimes [in Gaza]. I find it all very disappointing, but at the same time, to be fair, I also find that the events of October 7 were totally barbaric and unacceptable.” He is appalled by Israel’s prosecution of the war, particularly the withholding of aid, but reminds me of “the fact that Hamas was embedded in not only civilian habitations, but also in schools and hospitals”.
Given all that has happened to him, despite the pain he still feels, Meron is remarkably free of anger. “I was so lucky to survive it all,” he says. “So I tried later to make international humanitarian law a central feature of my life.”
Across the world, from Trump to Putin to the Middle East and beyond, that system that Meron has worked so hard for appears to be in retreat. Yet he remains an optimist. “This is a bad period, but I’m not irrevocably pessimistic,” he says. “Looking at things historically, positive developments and reforms of international law often happen after the most terrible atrocities.” He points to the American civil war. “One of the most brutal and bloody in the history of mankind, but it led to the creation of the Lieber code, one of the first codifications of international humanitarian law.”
PHILIPPA JAMES FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
When he thinks back to the Holocaust, Meron often tries to focus on the thousands of good samaritans who risked their lives to rescue victims of the Nazis. But it’s difficult to get away from the mass complicity and ease with which millions were sent to their deaths. It’s difficult to forget his brother Mietek.
“That’s why we need law,” he says. “That’s why we do not, we cannot ignore what happened. Because if we ignore, and therefore if we forget, we open the door for more of the same.”
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