{"id":120520,"date":"2021-04-14T06:01:55","date_gmt":"2021-04-14T06:01:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=185948"},"modified":"2021-04-14T06:01:55","modified_gmt":"2021-04-14T06:01:55","slug":"israel-rejects-icc-investigation-what-are-the-possible-future-scenarios","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/04\/14\/israel-rejects-icc-investigation-what-are-the-possible-future-scenarios\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel Rejects ICC Investigation: What Are the Possible Future Scenarios?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>The Israeli government\u2019s position regarding an impending investigation by the International Criminal Court of alleged war crimes committed in occupied Palestine has been finally declared by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.<\/p>\n \u201cIt will be made clear that Israel is a country with rule of law that knows how to investigate itself,\u201d Netanyahu said<\/a> in a statement on April 8. Subsequently, Israel \u201ccompletely rejects\u201d any accusations that it has committed war crimes.<\/p>\n But it won\u2019t be so easy for Tel Aviv this time around. True, Israel is not a party to the Rome Statute, according to which the ICC was established, but it can still be held accountable, because the State of Palestine is a member of the ICC.<\/p>\n Palestine joined<\/a> the ICC in 2015, and the alleged war crimes, which are under investigation, have taken place on Palestinian soil. This grants the ICC direct jurisdiction, even if war crimes were committed by a non-ICC party. Still, accountability for these war crimes is not guaranteed. So, what are the possible future scenarios?<\/p>\n But first, some context \u2026<\/p>\n \u2018Blatant Impunity\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n On March 22, the Palestinian Ambassador to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, declared that \u201cthe time has come to stop Israel\u2019s blatant impunity\u201d. His remarks were included in a letter sent<\/a> to the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, and other top officials at the international body.<\/p>\n There is modest \u2013 albeit cautious \u2013 optimism among Palestinians that Israeli officials could potentially be held accountable for war crimes and other human rights violations in Palestine. The reason behind this optimism is a recent decision by ICC to pursue its investigation of alleged war crimes committed in the occupied Palestinian territories.<\/p>\n Mansour\u2019s letter was written with this context in mind. Other Palestinian officials, such as Foreign Minister, Riyad al-Maliki, are also pushing in this direction. He, too, wants to see an end to Israel\u2019s lack of accountability.<\/p>\n Till Netanyahu\u2019s official position, the Israeli response has been most predictable. On March 20, Israeli authorities decided<\/a> to revoke Al-Maliki\u2019s special travel permit in order to prevent him from pursuing Palestinian diplomacy that aims at ensuring the continuation of the ICC investigation. Al-Maliki had, in fact, just returned from a trip to The Hague, where the ICC is headquartered.<\/p>\n Furthermore, Israel is openly attempting to intimidate the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah to discontinue its cooperation with the ICC, as can be easily gleaned from the official Israeli discourse. \u201cThe Palestinian leadership has to understand there are consequences for their actions,\u201d an Israeli official told<\/a> The Jerusalem Post on March 21.<\/p>\n Despite years of legal haggling and intense pressure on the ICC\u2019s outgoing Chief Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, to scrap the investigation altogether, the legal proceedings have carried on, unhindered. The pressure was displayed in various forms: direct defamation<\/a> by Israel, as in accusing the ICC of anti-Semitism; unprecedented American sanctions<\/a> on ICC officials and constant meddling<\/a> and intervention, on Israel\u2019s behalf, by member states that are part of the ICC, and who are described as amici curiae.<\/p>\n They did not succeed. On April 30, 2020, Bensouda consulted<\/a> with the Court\u2019s Pre-trial Chamber regarding whether the ICC had jurisdiction over the matter. Ten months later, the Chamber answered<\/a> in the affirmative. Subsequently, the Prosecutor decided to formally open the investigation.<\/p>\n On March 9, a spokesman for the Court revealed that, in accordance with Article 18 in the Rome Statute, notification letters were sent<\/a> by the Prosecutor\u2019s office to \u2018all parties concerned\u2019, including the Israeli Government and the Palestinian leadership, notifying them of the war crimes probe and allowing them only one month to seek deferral of the investigation.<\/p>\n Expectedly, Israel remains defiant. However, unlike its obstinacy in response to previous international attempts at investigating war crimes allegations in Palestine, the Israeli response, this time, appears confused and uncertain. On the one hand, Israeli media revealed last July that Netanyahu\u2019s government has prepared<\/a> a long list of likely Israeli suspects, whose conduct can potentially be investigated by the ICC. Still, the official Israeli response can only be described as dismissive of the matter as being superfluous, insisting that Israel will not, in any way, cooperate with ICC investigators.<\/p>\n