‘Judicial antisemitism’ is what one might call the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague, and its chief prosecutor singling out the Jewish state for a full investigation into alleged “war crimes,” emanating from Mahmoud Abbas’ illegitimate Palestinian regime. The mere usage of the words “war crimes,” leveled at Israelis defending their people from Palestinian terrorists, should bring a shudder to the spine, since it is reminiscent of “Nazi war crimes” and the Nuremburg trials after WWII. In this case the alleged Israeli “war crimes” in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza are simply the exploitation of the international judicial system to implement the diplomatic goal of the Palestinians and their allies in undermining the Jewish state of Israel.
Last Sunday, at the Chanukah first candle lighting ceremony at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out against the ICC and its chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, for their absurd and malicious decision. Netanyahu pointed out that Israel exists today because of the Maccabi’s then (Second Century BCE), and the Maccabi’s of today who stand here now, and are in a struggle for survival that has not ended yet. “Last Friday, we found out that new decrees have been placed on the Jewish people, antisemitic decrees by the ICC, which is telling us – Israeli Jews, who stand here next to this Wall, this Mount, this City, and this Land – that we have no right to live here. That if we live here today, we are committing war crimes…” Netanyahu charged, this is the essence of antisemitism, and we shall not give in to this absurdity and evil. We will fight it with all the tools at our disposal.
According to France 24, the ICC chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda stated, “I am satisfied that there is a reasonable basis to proceed with an investigation into the situation in Palestine.” PM Netanyahu said the decision to investigate Israeli “war crimes,” made the Hague-based court, which Israel has refused to join since its creation in 2002, is simply a “political tool against the Jewish state.” He added, “The court has no jurisdiction in this case. The ICC only has jurisdiction over petitions submitted by sovereign states. But there has never been a Palestinian state.” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, “We firmly oppose this and any other action that seeks to target Israel unfairly.” Dani Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, in an interview with Israel’s Ynet, pointed out that, “We have here diplomatic terror. Instead of negotiating with Israel, the Palestinians are using all tools available to them to damage Israel internationally, this time it is the ICC.”
Chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda is a native of Gambia, West Africa. She was raised in a Muslim family, and it is not unreasonable to assume a degree of bias in her using the term “State of Palestine,” which is a curious[j1] reference since a Palestinian state does not exist nor has it ever existed. Furthermore, only fully recognized and legitimate states can submit claims to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. The ICC has no authority to deal with Israeli affairs unless a crime was committed against a country that is a signatory to the ICC convention, and it is proven that the Israeli justice system is incapable of properly adjudicating suspected war criminals. Thus, the ICC has no valid reason to consider the Palestinians politically motivated and outrageous charges.
Bensouda’s declaration that she was considering charging IDF officers with war crimes is based on two assumptions: that Israel is committing war crimes, and that Israel’s judicial system cannot be trusted. These two assumptions Bensouda has adopted are a result of a long-standing international campaign directed by anti-Israel Non-Governmental-Organizations. (NGO’s), led by (Israel-based) B’Tselem, and funded by European states. According to NGO Monitor, in 2018, B’Tselem received NIS 9.8 million. Its donors included the European Union, Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Secretariat (funded by Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, and the Netherlands), Dan Church Aid (Denmark), Trocaire (Ireland), Catholic Relief Services (U.S.), Catholic Aid Ireland, Diakonia (Sweden), Bread for the World (Germany), ZIVIK (Germany), the Ford Foundation, UNICEF, and the New Israel Fund (this reporter authored a pamphlet titled the New Israel Fund: A New Fund for Israel’s Enemies).
European funding of NGO’s such as the aforementioned B’Tselem is centered on the latter providing information on the shortcoming of Israeli justice. Arab-Palestinian NGO Addameer, which is affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and whose two of its employees were implicated in the murder of an Israeli teenage girl, is obligated to provide the ICC with monthly reports on Israeli “abuses” in exchange for its grants. Similarly, Al-Dameer, another Palestinian NGO based in Gaza, received 450,000 Euros from the EU and 3.9 million Swiss Francs from Switzerland for providing the ICC with regular reports on alleged “human rights violations by the Israeli occupation forces.” Yet, the ICC has ignored IDF soldiers written testimonies related to how Hamas (the Palestinian terrorist group based in Gaza) is using as human shields women and children, and placing explosives in infirmaries, kindergartens, and civilian homes. Nor has the ICC called for investigating Hamas’ use of attack tunnels to reach and murder Israeli civilians.
What makes the Palestinian charges particularly outrageous, and the ICC’s willingness to act upon them downright antisemitic, is that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is in the words of Colonel Richard Kemp, former Commander of the British Expeditionary Forces in Afghanistan, “the most moral army in the world.”
Testifying before the emergency session of the UN Human Rights Council on the deteriorating situation in Gaza (May 18, 2018), Col. Kemp stated that, “I’ve come straight from the Gaza front line to share my assessment. Based on what I observed, I can say that everything we just heard here is a complete distortion of the truth. The truth is that Hamas, a terrorist organization that seeks the destruction of Israel and murder of Jews everywhere, deliberately caused over 60 of its own people to get killed. They sent thousands of civilians to the front line — as human shields for terrorists trying to break through the border. Hamas’s goal, in their own words, was, quote, ‘blood… in the path of Jihad’. I ask every country in this Council: you have all been telling us that Israel should have reacted differently. But how would you respond if a Jihadist terror group sent thousands to flood your borders, and gunmen to massacre your communities? Your failure to admit that Hamas is responsible for every drop of blood spilt on the Gaza border encourages their violence and use of human shields. It makes you complicit in further bloodshed. If Israel had allowed these mobs to break through the fence, the IDF would then have been forced to defend their own civilians from slaughter and many more Palestinians would have been killed. Israel’s actions therefore saved lives of Gazans; and if this Council really cared about human rights, it should commend the Israel Defense Force for that, not condemn them on the basis of lies.”
According to the international definition of antisemitism, the ICC denial of the Jewish people’s right to self-determination, and the employment of a double-standard when it comes to Israel, is just that – antisemitism.
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