STORY: International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan's request for an arrest warrant against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu creates a quandary for Israel's allies:

How can they support Israel and the ICC?

ANTONY BLINKEN: "Extremely wrongheaded."

RISHI SUNAK: "This is a deeply unhelpful development."

Khan's move was the first attempt to go after a sitting, Western-backed head of state.

He requested arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, as well as three Hamas leaders for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza war.

ICC judges must still sign off on it.

:: A difficult balance

Many European countries support the ICC and also send military support to Israel.

Germany has already had to defend its policy of supplying arms to Israel at another international court in The Hague.

Tom Buitelaar of the Netherlands' Leiden University says that balance could become hard to maintain.

"It's going to be very difficult to say 'we are supporting Israel unconditionally, and we feel that this is the party that we should be supporting in this war' because now the ICC has made a certain declaration, and a certain attack against the legitimacy of the Israeli war effort in Gaza."

If warrants are issued, member states would be obliged to detain Netanyahu or Gallant if they got the chance.

Buitelaar said governments failing to obey could face legal challenges in their own courts.

"It might be challenged though from the domestic level, because many states have implemented the Rome Statute, the important founding treaty of the International Criminal Court, into their domestic laws, which means that parties here could also be challenging, for example the Dutch state, the Dutch government, for a breach of international law if it doesn't arrest the prime minister of Israel in this case."

:: Upholding other rulings

And then there's the difficulty of upholding some ICC rulings but not others.

The United States, like Israel itself, is not a member of the court.

But it has supported past prosecutions, for example last year's arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin over the war in Ukraine.

This time though, U.S. President Joe Biden called the request "outrageous."

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the administration is willing to work with Congress to potentially impose sanctions on ICC officials.

:: European divisions

The ICC step has exposed divisions among European ICC members.

France, Ireland and Spain were among supporters of the decision.

The French Foreign Ministry backed quote, "the fight against impunity in all situations."

While Spain's Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Díaz said: "International law must apply to everyone."

Anthony Dworkin, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations:

"I think the most important principle at this point is that European countries should not do anything to try and undermine, attack or block, or politically influence the operations of the Court, and I hope that they would consider ultimately that the actions of the Court could be helpful in terms of trying to bring an end to any crimes that are being committed there..."

The exposed divisions reflect a deeper international schism over the Palestinians' longtime quest for statehood.

This moved to the forefront on Wednesday (May 21) when Ireland, Norway and Spain said they would recognize a Palestinian state.