The first international court convened for the first time after World War II, when the Allies put Nazi leaders on trial for the heinous crimes they committed across Europe, including the Holocaust.
More than 50 years passed between the conclusion of the Nuremberg Trials and the establishment of the International Criminal Court at The Hague – and for good reason. The deep concern that the ICC would eventually turn into just another international body – despite the good intentions behind it, and that instead of promoting a humanistic view it would be appropriated by the distorted interests of certain pressure groups – has come to fruition.
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Indeed, this concern is materializing before our very eyes. If and when ICC judges rule it is within their jurisdiction to put Israelis on trial for "war crimes" allegedly committed in Judea and Samaria, east Jerusalem, and Gaza – the idea of an international court will have reached a point of historical, moral, and legal bankruptcy.
Because between the "war crimes" under investigation by chief ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and the request of a country that doesn't exist, "Palestine," are the Jewish communities beyond the Green Line and Israel's self-defense in Operation Protective Edge – versus the persistent attempts to invade Israel's sovereign territory from Gaza under the guise of "March of Return" border protests. In other words: Jewish settlement in all parts of the Land of Israel, which are not at all occupied territories according to actual international law, is a "war crime." Also a war crime, apparently, is preventing "Palestinian refugees" from invading Israel's sovereign territory from an area that Israel willingly transferred to Palestinian control.
This is not, therefore, a legal measure to bring any Israeli "war criminals" to justice, but the exploitation of the international judicial system to implement the diplomatic goal of destroying the State of Israel. According to the international definition of anti-Semitism, this amounts to pure anti-Semitism because it entails the denial of the Jewish people's right to self-determination and employs double standards against Israel.
Bensouda willingly ensnared herself in the web spun by the "Palestinians" around the international judicial system for the purpose of creating their own international law, to incriminate Israel and put it on the same footing with the Nazis. Thus, from their perspective, they can kill two birds with one stone: The Jews would no longer be perceived as victims of history, and another precedent will have been set in their war to delegitimize the existence of the Jewish state. It now remains to be seen whether the ICC's judges fall into this trap and further throw their own court's legitimacy into question by turning it into yet another absurd circus show – ala UNESCO, UNRWA, and the UN Human Rights Council.
Bensouda, who has struggled mightily to launch war crimes and crimes against humanity investigations in the most clear-cut of cases (such as Venezuela or Ukraine), has filed a request with judges to decide whether the ICC has jurisdiction in Judea and Samaria, east Jerusalem, and Gaza. Israel – similar to the United States and Russia – declared long ago that it has no intention of ratifying the tribunal's inaugural convention. Therefore the ICC has no authority to discuss Israel's affairs, unless crimes were committed against a country that is a signatory to the ICC convention (among its neighbors, only Jordan falls in this category), and unless it is proven that the Israeli justice system is incapable of properly trying suspected war criminals.
The judges at The Hague, therefore, must determine whether "Palestine" is a country at all, the status of the "territories," and whether the Israeli judicial system is functioning properly or not. Tackling these matters is akin to wading into a minefield, which could threaten the very viability of the International Criminal Court.
