Big news. The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has officially launched an investigation of war crimes in Israel and Palestine since June 2014. Fatou Bensouda’s decision to investigate the “Situation in Palestine” follows a five-year preliminary inquiry and a ruling by the Court in February that it has jurisdiction to prosecute crimes there.
The investigation would focus on attacks on civilians during the summer 2014 onslaught on Gaza as well as Israeli settlements in the West Bank including Jerusalem.
Palestinians welcomed the decision. Omar Awadallah of the Palestinian ministry of foreign affairs told Al Jazeera: “We understand that Netanyahu and his war criminals should be afraid now from this important body and this important stance by the International Criminal Court.”
Hamas also praised the decision and defended its own actions, which the ICC will be investigating, as “legitimate resistance.”
The Israel lobby group AIPAC is incensed.
The ICC’s investigation into Israel is a baseless and discriminatory attack on the Jewish state. The outrageous investigations into America & Israel represent significant overreaches of the ICC’s mandate and jurisdiction that must be condemned by the administration and Congress.
It calls on Joe Biden to maintain Trump-era sanctions on ICC officials, and it claims that Israel has a “robust” system of investigating alleged crimes. As for the illegal settlements, AIPAC says that the investigation is a “serious setback” to those seeking to negotiate a peace deal.
The Biden administration did denounce the investigation, out of concern for Israel. Secretary of State Blinken:
The United States firmly opposes an @IntlCrimCourt investigation into the Palestinian Situation. We will continue to uphold our strong commitment to Israel and its security, including by opposing actions that seek to target Israel unfairly.
Neither the U.S. nor Israel is a signatory to the Rome statute on which the ICC was established. Palestine is, and initiated this case.
“This is definitely a bad day for the state of Israel,” Daniel Reisner, a former Israeli army lawyer, said on i24 News. He said Israel should build political opposition to the decision. It has a “good chance of creating a coalition of likeminded European states” that would regard the decision as “incredibly divisive.” (Michael Sfard says European states that oppose settlements can’t be counted on to oppose the case.)
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu released an angry statement on twitter calling the decision “absurd” and “undiluted antisemitism and the height of hypocrisy” aimed at the “one and only” Jewish state– and what about Iran!
[The ICC] decided that our brave soldiers who take every precaution to avoid civilian casualties against the worst terrorists in the world… it’s our soldiers who are war criminals.
Netanyahu denied the settlements angle and played the Holocaust card.
They said when we build a house in our eternal capital of Jerusalem– it’s been our capital for 3000 years, that too is a war crime.
This court which was established to prevent the repetition of the Nazi horrific crimes committed against the Jewish people is now turning its guns against the one and only state of the Jewish people… Of course, it turns a blind eye against Iran, Syria and the other dictatorships that are committing real war crimes left and right..
Israelis are fearful about the decision’s effect on Israeli officials. Gabi Ashkenazi, foreign minister, characterizes the decision as “antisemitic” and tries to rally political support against the potential arrest of Israelis.
We call on countries that want to protect the international legal system from politicization, to reject this decision & to not cooperate with it.
Ashkenazi pipes the AIPAC line about negotiations. “This decision will lead to polarization between IL & Palestinians & distance the dialogue that is necessary to resolve the conflict.”
Reuters reported yesterday that Israel has anticipated the move by warning officials about international travel and saying it will provide legal assistance. That could be 100s of officials.
Asked by Reuters how many Israelis, including himself, might expect to be subject to arrest should the probe lead to criminal investigations, [Defense Minister Benny] Gantz said: “I guess several hundred, but we will take care of everybody.”
Here is a podcast done yesterday on the hopes of the ICC prosecution by Yousef Munayyer and Noura Erakat.
Hope the ICC will not be intimidated by the “enrage” shown by Bibi, the man who should be afraid of war crimes being revealed, and his servants who pretend they are Americans while putting Israel over their own country, looking after Israel’s interests, and try to find “anti-semitism, when sometimes there is none, just to shut criticism not of their own country, but of an occupier.
“Ashkenazi pipes the AIPAC line about negotiations. “This decision will lead to polarization between IL & Palestinians & distance the dialogue that is necessary to resolve the conflict.”
Let’s see, I’m pretty good at physics, but I’m not sure you can ‘distance the dialogue’ when you are already at infinity!
Bibi shows us why he is the bona fide King of the (Zionist) Kooks.
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