Flags of European Union member nations near Europa Square in Vilnius, Lithuania.
JNS, Caroline Glick: The Europeans had the power to prevent or end the ICC’s bigoted treatment of the Jewish state at every point, and instead took active steps to ensure it would continue.
Last Saturday, the justices of the International Criminal Court (ICC) took a major swipe at the Jewish state. They ruled that the ICC prosecutor is permitted to open a formal investigation of Israel for fake war crimes. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blasted the decision, referring to it as “pure anti-Semitism.”
Netanyahu added, “This court was founded to prevent atrocities like the Nazi Holocaust against the Jewish people, and now it is attacking the Jewish people’s only state.”
Netanyahu is absolutely right. The court’s decision is bigoted at its core. To reach their decision, the judges had to ignore the 1998 Rome Statute on which the court is founded. The Rome Statute makes clear that only states or the United Nations Security Council can petition the court for redress. And having ignored its own legal writ, the judges proceeded to take a knife to the very concept of international law. They applied a standard of behavior to Israel that is applied to no other state in order to single out Israel for legal proceedings that have no basis either in the court’s specific mandate or in the law of nations.
The fact that Hamas—a terrorist group formally committed to the genocide of the Jewish people—published a statement applauding the court’s ruling shows just how prejudicial the decision was. Read More
