International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced on Wednesday that she is opening a full war crimes probe against Israel and the Hamas terrorist group in the Gaza Strip.
“The decision to open an investigation followed a painstaking preliminary examination undertaken by my office that lasted close to five years,” Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said in a statement.
“In the end, our central concern must be for the victims of crimes, both Palestinian and Israeli, arising from the long cycle of violence and insecurity that has caused deep suffering and despair on all sides,” she added. “My office will take the same principled, non-partisan, approach that it has adopted in all situations over which its jurisdiction is seized.”
Netanyahu called the decision to investigate Israel “undiluted antisemitism and the height of hypocrisy.”
“Without any jurisdiction,” Netanyahu lamented, “it decided that our brave soldiers, who take every precaution to avoid civilian casualties against the worst terrorists in the world who deliberately target civilians, it’s our soldiers who are war criminals. They said that when we build a house in our eternal capital of Jerusalem, it’s been our capital for 3,000 years, that too is a war crime.”
Netanyahu pointed out that the ICC was established to prevent atrocities like the Holocaust from happening again, and is now coming after the Jewish state.
“Of course, it turns a blind eye to Iran, Syria and the other dictatorships that are committing real war crimes left and right,” he stated.
The prime minister said he has discussed the matter with many leaders and governments around the world, but the court is “biased in advance against Israel.”
The probe is expected to cover the 2014 Gaza War, the 2018 Gaza border crisis and the Israeli settlement enterprise as well as Hamas’ rocket attacks against Israeli civilians.
War crimes suits could be leveled at Netanyahu, defense ministers and any other high-level officials involved in such activity since June 13, 2014. Soldiers and commanders could also be targeted, though usually the ICC is only interested in a small number of top officials.
1 comment:
Israel's enemies have a hangup with 1967 therefore the 6 day war will come up in a war crimes trial. The greatest of ironies came about on 11/29/1947 when the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 181 that called for the partition of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states. Today Israel's most intractable foe.
Post a Comment