Netanyahu: ICC makes Jewish rights to biblical Israel a war crime
Israel plans to push back against the “absurd” decision by the International Criminal Court: to turn the right of Jews to live in biblical Israel into a war crime, while ignoring the human rights abuses of countries like Iran, Syria and Turkey, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the cabinet at the start of its weekly meeting on Sunday.
On Friday, the ICC “finally became a weapon in the political war against the State of Israel,” Netanyahu said.
He spoke just two days after ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said that she believed war crimes had occurred in Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem.
She plans to open an investigation into human rights abuses by Israelis and Palestinians in those territories.
But first, she has asked the pre-trial chamber to rule on the question of whether the ICC can consider Palestine a state for the purposes of adjudicating this issue – and if so, whether the court has jurisdiction over all the territory in question.
Netanyahu told his ministers that there were “three absurd things” with her decision.
