The ICC court can suck a sand dune…
International Kangaroo Court to Investigate Israel for War Crimes
by Lawrence A. Franklin • May 13, 2020 at 5:00 am
- According to the ICC’s charter, the Court cannot investigate the conduct of non-signatory states of the 1998 Rome Statute that established the Court. Israel, like the U.S., is not a signatory of the statute.
- Bensouda, by accepting the Palestinian Authority (PA) as plaintiff, further violates the Rome Statute: the ICC is only permitted to investigate allegations brought by a sovereign state. There is no State of Palestine. There are no established boundaries of any possible future Palestinian state. There is no population of a sovereign state to act as a plaintiff….
- Bensouda’s decision appears to undercut the ICC’s already damaged reputation that it is neither independent nor impartial. The ICC’s budget is limited and increasingly hostage to the UNGA. The UN also appoints the ICC’s panel of judges, an intrinsically political process, subject to bloc voting in the UNGA.
- The spokesman for the 45-member PA Executive Committee that briefed the ICC is Dr. Ghazi Hamad, deputy foreign minister of the terrorist group Hamas, which is unquestionably dedicated to destroying Israel. The committee also includes representatives of two other terrorist organizations besides Hamas, namely, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF).
- A recent Jordanian newspaper article reinforces the claim that Bensouda secretly colluded with the PA to target Israel. This collusion between Bensouda and the PA may explain the optimism of longtime Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat that the ICC’s investigation will ultimately be successful.
- Bensouda has already proved her bias by her conduct in a previous investigation of baseless charges of systemic human rights abuses by British military personnel in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) appears ready to begin an investigation of alleged war crimes committed by Israeli soldiers against Arab civilian citizens of Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. Fatou Bensouda, the ICC’s Chief Prosecutor, announced on April 30 that she would proceed with the investigation if the ICC’s pre-trial judges instruct her that she is on solid ground to launch the inquiry.
Even if the judges give Bensouda the go-ahead, it still appears that jurisdictional prohibitions exist, as enumerated in the Hague-based court’s founding document. According to the ICC’s charter, the Court cannot investigate the conduct of non-signatory states of the 1998 Rome Statute that established the Court. Israel, like the U.S., is not a signatory of the statute.
