Netanyahu response to ICC investigation: ‘Pure anti-Semitism’

With Democrats holding all the levers of power — Jew hatred is now unleashed and institutionalized.

Yet the ICC refuses to investigate brutal dictatorships like Iran and Syria, who commit horrific atrocities almost daily.

As Prime Minister of Israel, I can assure you this:
We will fight this perversion of justice with all our might!

— PM of Israel (@IsraeliPM) February 6, 2021

Well that didn’t take long. Now that President Trump is out of office, attacks against Israel by corrupt and anti-Semitic international organizations will intensify. Israel will fight this anti-Semitic decision by the ICC with everything that they have. And they will win. Watch PM Netanyahu’s remarks below. Read about the ICC’s lead prosecutor here.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:
“When the ICC investigates Israel for fake war crimes – this is pure antisemitism. The court established to prevent atrocities like the Nazi Holocaust against the Jewish people is now targeting the one state of the Jewish people. ” pic.twitter.com/EKfk8cqJwr

— PM of Israel (@IsraeliPM) February 6, 2021

Netanyahu response to ICC investigation: An ICC investigation of Israel would be ‘pure anti-Semitism’

After court says it has jurisdiction for war crimes probe, PM fumes: ‘Court set up to prevent atrocities like Nazi Holocaust against the Jews now targets the one state of the Jews’

By Times of Israel, February 6, 2021

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday assailed the International Criminal Court for ruling it has jurisdiction to open a war crimes investigation against Israel, calling such a probe “pure anti-Semitism” and vowing to fight it.

“When the ICC investigates Israel for fake war crimes, this is pure anti-Semitism,” Netanyahu said in a forceful English-language video sent out by his office.

In a major decision Friday, a pretrial chamber of the ICC determined that The Hague has jurisdiction to open a criminal investigation against Israel and the Palestinians for war crimes alleged to have taken place in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.

It now falls to the ICC’s chief prosecutor Fatouh Bensouda to decide whether to launch an investigation, and she indicated in 2019 that she intends to do so.

Netanyahu lamented that “the court established to prevent atrocities like the Nazi Holocaust against the Jewish people is now targeting the one state of the Jewish people.”

He further asserted that the ICC is “outrageously” claiming “that when Jews live in our homeland, this is a war crime” — a reference to the court potentially probing Israeli settlement policy in the West Bank.

And, he added, “it claims that when democratic Israel defends itself against terrorists who murder our children, rocket our cities, we’re committing another war crime.”

At the same time, the prime minister complained that the ICC “refuses to investigate brutal dictatorships like Iran and Syria who commit horrific atrocities almost daily.”

The Israeli leader vowed to “fight this perversion of justice with all our might!”

ICC chief prosecutor Bensouda indicated in 2019 that a criminal investigation, if approved, would focus on the 2014 Israel-Hamas conflict (Operation Protective Edge), on Israeli settlement policy and on the Israeli response to protests at the Gaza border.

On Friday Netanyahu had said of the ruling: “Today the ICC proved once again that it is a political body and not a judicial institution. The ICC ignores the real war crimes and instead pursues the State of Israel, a state with a strong democratic government that sanctifies the rule of law, and is not a member of the ICC.”

“In this decision,” Netanyahu added, “the ICC violated the right of democracies to defend themselves against terrorism, and played into the hands of those who undermine efforts to expand the circle of peace. We will continue to protect our citizens and soldiers in every way from legal persecution.”

Israel is not a member of the ICC and neither is the US. The Palestinians joined the court in 2015.

The ICC is meant to serve as a court of last resort when countries’ own judicial systems are unable or unwilling to investigate and prosecute war crimes. Israel’s military has mechanisms to investigate alleged wrongdoing by its troops, and despite criticism that the system is insufficient, experts say it has a good chance of fending off an ICC investigation into its wartime practices.