Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday welcomed the decision by US President Donald Trump to sanction any International Criminal Court officials who investigate US troops, amid reports that Washington coordinated the move with Jerusalem in advance.
The executive order signed by the president marks his administration's latest attack against international organizations, treaties, and agreements that do not hew to its policies.
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Israel has been a long-time critic of The Hague, accusing its officials of being prejudice and even driven by anti-Semitism, and has castigated it for becoming a "political tool" in the hands of the Jewish state's enemies.
Israel is not signatory to the Rome Statute from which the ICC draws its power, raising the question of whether The Hague has jurisdiction to bring a case against Israel. The Palestinian Authority joined it in 2015 with the explicit aim of trying to take ICC action against Israeli officials for alleged war crimes including the 2014 Gaza war, the settlement enterprise, and the 2018-2019 Gaza border conflicts.
Earlier this week, International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda reportedly told the ICC's Pretrial Chamber that a war crimes investigation against Israel over its policies regarding the Palestinians can proceed despite the continued application of the 1993 Oslo Accords.
The US, which is also not a signatory to The Hague charter, has warned that a war crimes investigation against Israel "will have consequences" for the ICC.
Commenting on Trump's decision, Netanyahu said that ICC "is politicized and obsessed with carrying out a headhunt against Israel and the United States as well as other democratic countries that respect human rights, but turns a blind eye to the world's worst human rights offenders, including the terrorist regime in Iran."
Meanwhile, Haaretz daily cited an unnamed source as saying that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo discussed the move at length with Netanyahu during his trip to Jerusalem last month.
Ratcheting up the pressure on the Hague-based court to stop its investigation of alleged war crimes in Afghanistan, Trump issued an executive order to sanction all US property and assets of anyone involved in investigating or prosecuting American forces.
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