Israel to International Criminal Court: It is ‘a country with rule of law,’ does not recognize ICC’s authority

Israel has formally notified the International Criminal Court that it does not recognize its authority. “It will be made clear that Israel is a country with rule of law that knows how to investigate itself,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. “The response will also say Israel ‘completely rejects’ the assertion that it was carrying out any war crimes.”

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Fatouh Bensouda, has indicated since 2019 that she intended to launch an investigation of Israel for supposed war crimes, even though the ICC had absolutely no legal jurisdiction nor standing to do so. Bensouda lived up to her promise in mid February, with her ruling that the court has jurisdiction to open a war crimes investigation into Israel, a decision that Netanyahu called “pure anti-Semitism.”

A month later, Palestinian Media Watch exposed collusion between the Palestinian Authority and the International Criminal Court, which further demonstrated the political agenda behind the ICC’s decision.

“Israel to tell ICC it does not recognise court’s authority,” by Dan Williams, Reuters, April 8, 2021:

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israel will tell the International Criminal Court it does not recognise the authority of the tribunal, which is planning to investigate possible war crimes in the Palestinian territories, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday.

Netanyahu, after meeting with senior ministers and government officials ahead of a Friday deadline to respond to an ICC notification letter, said Israel would not cooperate with the inquiry, but it will send a response.

“It will be made clear that Israel is a country with rule of law that knows how to investigate itself,” he said in a statement. The response will also say Israel “completely rejects” the assertion that it was carrying out any war crimes.

Israel is not a party to the Rome Statute that established the ICC and therefore by definition not a party to the court.

ICC prosecutors, who named groups on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides as possible perpetrators, said letters had been sent on March 9 to all parties concerned, giving them a month to inform the court if they were conducting their own investigations of the alleged crimes and want an ICC inquiry deferred while that is ongoing.

The Palestinians said they would cooperate with the ICC, whose inquiry pertains to alleged war crimes in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and in the Gaza Strip, where Palestinian Islamists took control after Israel withdrew in 2005.

“We sent the response to the ICC,” said Omar Awadallah, a senior official in the Palestinian Foreign Ministry.

“Full cooperation with the ICC will continue from the State of Palestine, as a member state of the court, to achieve justice for the victims of the Palestinian people and hold Israel accountable for its crimes,” Awadallah said…..