ICC investigation of Israel is justified, says Meretz leader
Likud, Yamina, New Hope, Gantz denounce remarks
Meretz leader Nitzan Horowitz caused a stir Saturday night after he said that the International Criminal Court’s decision to investigate Israel for war crimes was justified.
Interviewed on Channel 13 News, Horowitz said that he was saddened by the situation but Israel’s ongoing construction in West Bank settlements and the harm it caused to civilians in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge in 2014 justify the ICC’s intervention.
Horowitz’s comments were swiftly condemned by all the right-wing parties, as well as by Blue and White.
Last week, ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced she was opening a full war crimes probe against Israel over its settlement building policy, the 2014 conflict with Hamas in Gaza, its conduct during the 2018 Gaza mass border provocations, and also the behavior of Hamas itself.
Asked during an interview on Channel 13 if the ICC investigation was a “red line” for Meretz, Horowitz said that a red line for his party was that “there are no negotiations with the Palestinians, and that settlements are being built like there’s no tomorrow,” saying that Israel should not be surprised when legal steps are taken against such policies.
“We don’t think the solution is to say the [ICC in the] Hague is antisemitic, but rather to advance negotiations with the Palestinians, to come to a solution. Then there won’t be the Hague or anything else,” said the leader of the left-wing party.
“We think we should cooperate with the court and not attack it, he continued, saying that the decision to open a full investigation was justified.
“I say this with great pain, this decision is correct. I don’t want Israel to be in this situation … but Israel needs to ask itself what it is doing to prevent it.”
Horowitz also backed the ICC’s investigation of Israel’s military operation in Gaza in 2014.
“In Operation Protective Edge we’ve said that things were done which should not have been done. There was such massive damage done to the civilian population that the court wants to check this out,” said the Meretz leader.
Right-wing parties quickly condemned Horowitz’s comments.
“Nitzan Horowitz is abandoning IDF soldiers who protect him and us all,” said the Likud in response to the Meretz leader’s comments. “The decision of the court in the Hague is antisemitic, and Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu will fight around the world to have it canceled.”
The Yamina party said that Horowitz was “hurting us from within” and that “IDF soldiers are heroes standing guard day and night to protect Israeli citizens, including Horowitz.”
Senior Yamina MK Ayelet Shaked even went so far as to say on Channel 13 that her party would not join a coalition with Meretz in light of its leader’s comments.
“The court in the Hague is antisemitic and political, it is persecuting IDF soldiers and our politicians, and we will not sit in any coalition with someone who speaks like that,” said Shaked.
Blue and White leader Benny Gantz, who as the IDF chief of staff during Operation Protective Edge is likely to be a subject of the ICC investigation, said on Twitter that Horowitz’s comments had angered him.
“As someone who served for 38 years in the IDF and served as chief of staff I know how the IDF and our soldiers make every effort to prevent harming innocent people,” said Gantz.
“Your comments are very severe and I call on you to retract them,” he said, adding that “no political campaign can justify legitimizing the ridiculous decision of the court in the Hague.”
Gideon Sa’ar’s New Hope party described Horowitz’s comments as “wretched” and said “no campaign justifies supporting an antisemitic decision and he should apologize for it.”
Separately, Sa’ar said in an interview on Channel 12 that Netanyahu is “extorted” by the ultra-Orthodox parties since the prime minister only cares about remaining in power.
“The ultra-Orthodox parties force silence,” said Sa’ar in regard to religion and state policies of the Netanyahu government.
Asked if Netanyahu is allowing the ultra-Orthodox parties in the Knesset to be extortionate, Sa’ar replied “without a doubt ... Since the most important thing to him is to stay in power, he has to give every thing [demanded of him].” Netanyahu, he said, had failed to make a decision on the issue of Jewish conversion which erupted last week with a landmark decision by the High Court of Justice.
Xiyue Wang, a Princeton graduate student who was wrongfully imprisoned by Iran’s regime between 2016 and 2019, told The Jerusalem Post he met an Iranian Jew in Tehran’s Evin prison who was incarcerated for living in Israel.
Wang said the Iranian Jew who “went to Israel” was “given a 10-year sentence” when he returned to the Islamic Republic. Iran proscribes travel to Israel a crime. Wang said the Iranian Jew lived for “5 or 6 years in Israel” and “did not like Israel.”
Wang added that “the problem they had with him was that he went to Israel” and described the Iranian Jew as a “big guy” who is still in prison, “I would think.” Wang, who is an Iran scholar, noted that the Iranian Jew did not reveal much about himself.
“Sometimes Iranian Jews go to Israel and the Iranian government pretends it did not know,” said Wang, who is the Jeane Kirkpatrick fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
The Post conducted a Persian-language Internet search about the Iranian Jewish prisoner. There was no open source material or media reports on his case.
Tehran frequently does not disclose the incarcerations or executions of sensitive political prisoner cases to avoid further damage to its judicial system’s reputation.
In December, this paper reported that Iran’s regime freed imprisoned Iranian Jew Mashallah Pesar Kohan, who was detained in 2017 for visiting his family members in Israel.
Kohan is not the same prisoner that Wang conversed with in Evin.
Wang said he shared the same cell with Mohammad Heydari Kahkesh, an Iranian bodybuilder, who was imprisoned because he wanted to travel to Israel for a sports competition.
Wang said Kahkesh “wanted to go to Israel for a tournament” and that “sports should have no boundaries.” He was “arrested in 2017, to my knowledge, and he was given three years” in prison.
He said the bodybuilder “put forward an official request” and “did not try to go illegally” to the Jewish state. Wang said Kahkesh was not “working with Israel in any way.”
According to the website of United Against a Nuclear Iran, Iran’s judiciary charged Kahkesh with “collaboration with foreign governments” and imposed a seven-year prison sentence on the athlete.
The formal Iranian regime charges listed on UANI’s website against Kahkesh are: Insulting the prophet, insulting Islamic sanctities, propaganda against the state and insulting the leader or the founder of the Islamic Republic.
Wang said Kahkesh appeared to be naïve about Iran’s opposition to normal diplomatic relations with Israel. For the bodybuilder, Wang said, it was about “why can’t I have a normal relationship with Israel. There should not be any hurdle for athletes to compete [anywhere], including Israel, and he wanted to do it openly.”
He continued that Kahkesh “loves his country but wants to compete in Israel.” The Iran expert said “that is what precisely makes it sad – he wanted to compete in Israel – the same for ordinary Iranians. Israelis do not mind competing against Iranians, why can’t Iranians do the same?”
Wang said that “he requested permission [to travel to Israel] and that was enough for him to end up in jail for three years and he was angry and called Manoto.”
Manoto TV is a privately-owned Persian-language station based in London. After Kahkesh gave an interview to Manoto, the Iranian “authorities found out and transferred” him to a harsher prison, Wang said. Prison officials prohibited him from making telephone calls.
The Post reported in January that Iran’s regime temporarily released Farahnaz Kohan, an Iranian Jewish woman who was arrested for her alleged visit to Israel.
There are less than 10,000 Jews in Iran. When the Islamic revolution engulfed the country in 1979, some 80,000–100,000 Jews were living in Iran, the vast majority of whom have since fled the country due to persecution.
In a Wall Street Journal article printed in February, Wang shared the lessons he learned from his imprisonment in Iran.
“Imagine my shock when the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence arrested me on false espionage charges in August 2016,” he wrote, “shortly after the implementation of the JCPOA – during what appeared to be a period of rapprochement between the US and Iran.”
“I was thrown into solitary confinement, forced to confess things my interrogator knew I had not done, and sentenced to 10 years in prison.”
He added “my interrogator made clear that my sole ‘crime’ was being an American. He told me I was to be used as a pawn in exchange for US-held Iranian prisoners and the release of frozen Iranian assets.”
Wang was eventually released in a prisoner swap two years ago.
ASUNCION (Reuters) – Protesters clashed with police in Paraguay’s capital, Asuncion, late on Friday as anger over the government´s handling of the coronavirus crisis boiled onto the streets and forced the resignation of the country´s top health official.
Security forces fired rubber bullets and tear gas on hundreds of rioters who gathered around the Congress building in downtown Asuncion, while protesters broke down security barriers, burned road barricades and threw stones at police.
The riots, which turned the capital’s historic center into a makeshift battlefield of fire, smoke and gunshots, broke out amid growing outrage as coronavirus infections hit record levels and hospitals verged on collapse throughout the South American nation.
“It is a pity that young people have taken this too far. They are people who seek only to destroy,” Interior Minister Arnaldo Giuzzio told the Telefuturo television channel. “This violence does not make sense.”
Earlier on Friday, the then health minister Julio Mazzoleni resigned, a day after lawmakers called for his ouster.
Mazzoleni is the latest of several top health officials across Latin America forced from their jobs in recent weeks amid increasing anger over the handling of the pandemic and slow rollout of vaccinations.
Mazzoleni initially rebuked the Senate’s non-binding declaration asking him to leave, but hours later conceded following a meeting with President Mario Abdo.
Abdo appointed Dr. Julio Borba, a vice minister, to take Mazzoleni’s place. Borba told reporters he would begin tracking down medicine and supplies immediately.
Paraguay is posting record numbers of cases daily, according to a Reuters tally, with 115 infections per 100,000 people reported in the last seven days.
The country has vaccinated less than 0.1% of its population, the data shows.