AIPAC on Wednesday commended a group of 69 Senators and 262 Representatives who signed letters to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo encouraging continued support for Israel against illegitimate attacks at the International Criminal Court (ICC).
“Israel’s enemies have long extended their war against the Jewish state beyond military and terrorist attacks to the diplomatic and economic arenas. These efforts are intended to weaken, isolate and delegitimize Israel,” AIPAC noted in a statement.
“Today, Israel’s detractors are trying to utilize one of the newest international institutions, the ICC, to vilify both Israel and the United States. The ICC is now considering an unjust, politicized case against Israel while ignoring cases that actually warrant its attention. The Court has also taken up a case accusing the United States of engaging in war crimes in Afghanistan,” it added.
The letters written by the lawmakers urge full US support of Israel against threats by the ICC. The Senate letter indicates, “We believe the Prosecutor's decision to investigate the Israeli-Palestinian situation and request to the Pre-Trial Chamber to determine the Court's jurisdiction over disputed territories constitutes a dangerous politicization of the Court and distorts the purposes for which the court was established.”
The letters also point out that Palestinians are making the promotion of peace more difficult by leveraging the ICC to meet their demands while bypassing direct negotiations with Israel. According to the House letter, “The ultimate sustainable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict lies in the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian direct negotiations in pursuit of a two-state solution—not in the pursuit of cases at the ICC.”
AIPAC expressed appreciation for the leadership of Sens. Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Rob Portman (R-OH) and Reps. Elaine Luria (D-VA) and Mike Gallagher (R-WI) for authoring these vital, bipartisan letters.
The letters follow the recent ruling by the ICC’s Chief Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, that “Palestine” is a state and the ICC has jurisdiction involving its cases.
Bensouda had announced that the preliminary examination into the situation in “Palestine” found “that all the statutory criteria under the Rome Statute for the opening of an investigation have been met."
The Chief Prosecutor announced this past December that she intends to open a full investigation into alleged Israeli “war crimes”, but before opening a full probe, asked the ICC to rule on the territory over which it has jurisdiction because of the "unique and highly contested legal and factual issues attaching to this situation."
The prosecutor added, however, that she did not require any authorization from judges to open a probe as there had been a referral from the PA, which joined the court in 2015 and has since filed a series of legal complaints with it against Israel.
Bensouda’s announcement was criticized in Israel and also by countries such as Australia and Hungary. Germany, meanwhile, backed Israel's argument that the court's jurisdiction does not extend to Palestinian Authority-assigned areas, as “Palestine” is not a state that fulfills all the criteria under general international law.
