Tag: ICC

Israel

Palestinian Parties, Organizations Greet Abbas’s Pledge to take Israel to Int’l Criminal Court as “Historic” and Roadmap

Imagine Israel the newly formed and self-declared Jewish State being brought before the ICC

President Mahmoud Abbas’s UN speech, in which he pledged to take Israel to the International Criminal Court if its squatter-settlements weren’t withdrawn within a year, with widespread acclaim. The International Criminal Court decided in March of this year that it has jurisdiction over the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza because the Palestine Authority has invited it to consider rights abuses there. Palestine is a signatory to the Statute of Rome, which established the ICC at the Hague in the late 1990s, and member states can ask the court to take up cases. Palestine was able to become a signatory because it was granted the status of non-member observer state at the UN by the General Assembly in 2012. This is the same status enjoyed by the Vatican.

Source: Palestinian Parties, Organizations Greet Abbas’s Pledge to take Israel to Int’l Criminal Court as “Historic” and Roadmap

WAR, war crimes

Ilhan Omar Has Absolutely Nothing to Apologize For

Yet again, both Republican and Democratic party leaders are attacking Rep. Ilhan Omar for telling the truth about American and Israeli war crimes. And yet again, Omar has nothing to apologize for.

On Monday, Omar posted on Twitter her exchange with Secretary of State Antony Blinken. There she raised what should be a fairly tame question: What mechanisms exist to investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity in Palestine and Afghanistan?

The United States government opposes the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) jurisdiction to hear alleged cases of human rights abuses by both Israel and Hamas, the United States and the Taliban. If domestic courts won’t investigate war crimes, and if the United States opposes the ICC’s ability to do so, where can victims of war crimes go for justice?

Source: Ilhan Omar Has Absolutely Nothing to Apologize For

war crimes

Why is accountability for alleged war crimes so hard to achieve in the Israel-Palestinian conflict?

Israel is also not a member of the ICC and rejects the court’s jurisdiction over its territory and nationals. The long war persists. International law — hamstrung by its own institutions, entrenched power relations and politicisation — offers no clear or quick solution.

Source: Why is accountability for alleged war crimes so hard to achieve in the Israel-Palestinian conflict?

Israel, Uncategorized

EU backs ICC after Netanyahu’s “anti-Semitism” smear | The Electronic Intifada
Two men sitting together

The European Union appears to be rejecting Benjamin Netanyahu’s smears against the International Criminal Court after Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda confirmed on Wednesday that she would be launching a formal investigation into war crimes in Palestine.

EU backs ICC after Netanyahu’s “anti-Semitism” smear | The Electronic Intifada
Israel

In Game Changer, Int’l Criminal Court will take up Israeli War Crimes and Apartheid in Palestine

In Game Changer, Int’l Criminal Court will take up Israeli War Crimes and Apartheid in Palestine

International Criminal Court found that it had jurisdiction to consider war crimes and crimes against humanity and the crime of Apartheid in the Palestinian territories. Israeli politician Abba Eban once quipped that Palestinians never lost the opportunity to lose an opportunity. But Palestinians have carefully, methodically created this opportunity to be heard in an international tribunal. It is the ruling Israeli right wing about which one can now quip about missing opportunities. Israel has egregiously violated the 1949 Geneva Convention on the treatment of people in Occupied territories by flooding its own citizens into the Palestinian Territories, by stealing Palestinian land from its owners and building squatter settlements on it, and by using disproportional force against Palestinian demonstrators at the Gaza border. The court will also look into war crimes by Hamas, which was elected in 2006 and retains control of the Gaza Strip.

In Game Changer, Int’l Criminal Court will take up Israeli War Crimes and Apartheid in Palestine
Trump, Uncategorized

Reverse Logic: Trump Sanctions the International Criminal Court – » The Australian Independent Media Network

This executive order is more an act of strident protest and petulance rather than anything effectual. ICC officials are concerned but undeterred. Magnitsky remains the spectre at the feast; but he would surely find this latest chapter both comical and slightly absurd. “Asset freezes and travel bans are for human rights violators, not those seeking to bring human violators to justice,” insisted an alarmed Richard Dicker, international justice director at Human Rights Watch. The human rights defenders have become the sanctioned ones.

via Reverse Logic: Trump Sanctions the International Criminal Court – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Trump, Trumpland, Uncategorized

Trump targets ICC with sanctions after court opens war crimes investigation | US foreign policy | The Guardian

Mike Pompeo and William Barr at a press conference Thursday.

Trump has attacked the UN, WHO now the ICC insistin America is a law unto it’s ow with no International responsibilities. He Trule is modeling America on Nth Korea (ODT)

The Trump administration is launching an economic and legal offensive on the international criminal court in response to the court’s decision to open an investigation into war crimes in Afghanistan carried out by all sides, including the US.

via Trump targets ICC with sanctions after court opens war crimes investigation | US foreign policy | The Guardian

Filed under:
Israel, Uncategorized

Operating Outside the Rule of Law: Washington Pressures International Criminal Court, by Philip Giraldi – The Unz Review

There is apparently no limit to what the United States and Israel can get away with without any consequences. The United States has been waging devastating economic warfare against Iran and Venezuela while also blaming China for a global health crisis that it is unwilling to help address due to its withdrawal from the World Health Organization. Israel meanwhile is planning on illegally annexing significant parts of the Palestinian West Bank in July, with a green light from the Trump Administration, and no one in Europe or elsewhere is even interested in initiating serious sanctions that might lead to the postponing of that decision. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has even stated flatly that the remaining Palestinians who would be annexed will not become Israeli citizens – they will instead be “subjects” of the Jewish state with no guaranteed rights or privileges.

via Operating Outside the Rule of Law: Washington Pressures International Criminal Court, by Philip Giraldi – The Unz Review

Israel

Israel’s High Court just made an ICC investigation more likely | +972 Magazine

Palestinian protesters evacuate a fellow demonstrator who was shot by an Israeli sniper during the Great Return March protest, east of Jabaliya, Gaza Strip, April 6, 2018. (Mohammed Zaanoun/Activestills.org)

Greg Sheridan of News Corp argued on Q&A that Israel was “highly capable” of investigating itself in any investigation of the massacre of unarmed protesters in Gaza (ODT)

The court’s rejection of a lawsuit challenging the shooting of protesters in Gaza is a reminder that the Israeli legal system simply isn’t set up to investigate the policy makers and policies that result in alleged war crimes.

via Israel’s High Court just made an ICC investigation more likely | +972 Magazine

Israel

Palestine takes Israel to Int’l Criminal Court at Hague over Gaza Massacre

 

Palestine has submitted a formal referral to the International Criminal Court in the Hague over Israeli sniping with live fire at peaceful Gaza protesters this spring, which killed some 60 persons and literally wounded thousands.

Palestine, which is a cautious and timid government, had earlier declined to go to the ICC, in hopes instead of reaching a negotiated settlement. The Trump decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, however, forestalled a negotiated settlement on that issue. Israel’s illegal flooding of its citizens onto Palestinian property in the West Bank and refusal to negotiate any freeze in squatter settlements has also convinced Palestine that the US-Israeli “peace process” is a cover for slow genocide. Ironically, it was Trump’s lack of diplomatic grace that in large part impelled this step.

via Palestine takes Israel to Int’l Criminal Court at Hague over Gaza Massacre

Israel

Middle East Israel PM slams impending war crimes probe Netanyahu calls decision by Hague-based ICC to launch investigation into possible war crimes in Palestine “absurd”.

Netanyahu said Israel is defending itself against what he called Palestinian terrorists

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has slammed the decision by the International Criminal Court to launch a preliminary investigation into possible war crimes in the Palestinian territories, saying it is “absurd”.

Speaking in West Jerusalem on Saturday a day after the decision was made, Netanyahu said: “It’s absurd of the ICC to ignore international law and agreements under which the Palestinians don’t have a state and can only get one through direct negotiations with Israel. The rules of the ICC are clear: No state, no standing, no case.”

The preliminary probe does not mean war crimes were committed but will seek to determine whether preliminary findings merit a full investigation into alleged atrocities, which could result in charges being brought against individuals in either Israeli or Palestinian territories.

Palestine applied to join the ICC in December and has since signed the Rome treaty, the charter that led to the formation of the ICC in 2002. It is due to join the court in April but its membership will be backdated to June 2014, meaning that the court will have jurisdiction to look into last summer’s offensive between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas.

The conflict, which left the Gaza Strip run by Hamas devastated, killed more than 2,100 Palestinians, mostly women and children. Israel says it lost 73 people, most of them soldiers.

Netanyahu said Israel upholds “high standards of international law” and that the country’s “actions are subjected to careful and constant review of … world-renowned and utterly independent legal system”.

“But this decision is even more preposterous given that Israel is legitimately defending itself against Palestinian terrorists who routinely commit multiple war crimes,” said Netanyahu.

“They deliberately fire thousands of rockets at our civilians while hiding behind Palestinian civilians whom they as human shields.”

Hamas hails decision

The comments were a veiled reference to Hamas, which said on Saturday it welcomed the ICC’s decision.

Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesman for Hamas, said the group would provide the ICC with “thousands of reports” suggesting “horrible crimes” were committed.

“What is needed now is to quickly take practical steps in this direction and we are ready to provide [the court] with thousands of reports and documents that confirm the Zionist enemy has committed horrible crimes against Gaza and against our people.”

Israel rejected the court’s Friday decision as hypocrisy and the US State Department said it was “a tragic irony that Israel, which has withstood thousands of terrorist rockets fired at its civilians and its neighborhoods, is now being scrutinized by the ICC”.

Israel in 2005 pulled its settlers and troops out of Gaza, which remains under an Israeli and Egyptian blockade.

Palestinians seek statehood in Gaza and the West Bank.

Palestinian foreign minstry officials said on Friday that “everything is going according to plan” and that “no state and nobody can now stop this action we requested”.