Israel prepares legal and diplomatic push to fight off ICC threat
ISRAEL IS planning a diplomatic and a legal battle against the decision by the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor to examine allegations that its soldiers committed war crimes in Gaza last summer.
Last Friday, the office of the ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced that she had a opened “preliminary examination into the situation in Palestine”.
The procedure could take months — even years — and falls short of a fullblown investigation which could lead to indictments of Israeli officials. However, it constitutes a further breakdown in the relations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
The decision to open the procedure comes in the wake of the PA’s request to join the ICC, approved earlier this month by United Nations Secretary General Ban ki-Moon. Palestine will become an ICC member on April 1.
PrimeMinisterBenjamin Netanyahu lambasted the decision, saying that it was “absolutely scandalous that just Fatou Bensouda days after terrorists butchered Jews in France, the general prosecutor is beginning an inquiry against the state of the Jews, and this only because we defend our citizens from Hamas, a terrorist organisation that is allied with the Palestinian Authority.”
The government has asked Israel’s allies to threaten to withhold funds from the ICC if the investigation against Israel goes ahead.
The United States also opposes the move. In a statement, the State Department said it was “a tragic irony that Israel, which has withstood thousands of terrorist rockets fired at its civilians and its neighbourhoods, is now being scrutinised by the ICC.”
In a briefing to European diplomats, Mr Netanyahu’s adviser, Yitzhak Molcho, said that the war-crimes indictments could cause “strategic harm” to Israel but predicted that the “Palestinians will realise their mistake”. He add- ed that one of the legal responses being planned by Israel is to launch a series of terrorism lawsuits in US courts against senior Palestinian figures.
While Israel itself is not a member of the ICC, indictments of Israeli officials would be a significant blow to the country’s standing and one of the legal arguments being planned against such a move is the claim that Israel’s legal system is capable of investigating any allegations of wrongdoing by its army.
The IDF’s Military Attorney General Danny Efroni is currently considering opening at least three criminal investigations into the Gaza operation — under pressure from many senior officers within the army not to do so.
State Comptroller, Judge Yosef Shapira, is also investigating the government’s decision-making process during the Gaza operation and has set up a team of experts in international law to advise him on the issue.