Informed Comment Homepage

Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion

Header Right

  • Featured
  • US politics
  • Middle East
  • Environment
  • US Foreign Policy
  • Energy
  • Economy
  • Politics
  • About
  • Archives
  • Submissions

© 2025 Informed Comment

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Israel
Israeli PM Netanyahu Campaigns to Discredit, Defund Int'l Criminal Court

Israeli PM Netanyahu Campaigns to Discredit, Defund Int’l Criminal Court

Juan Cole 01/20/2015

Tweet
Share
Reddit
Email

By Alexandra Halaby – (IMEMC & Agencies)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared that the ICC announcement by Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to initiate a preliminary investigation into Israel for possible war crimes committed in Gaza was “absurd” and a “perversion of justice.” Mr. Netanyahu went on to say that decision by the ICC was “the height of hypocrisy,” and the “opposite of justice.”

Netanyahu is said to have recently met with security officials and international law experts to sort out ways to discredit the ICC. Echoing remarks by the U.S. State Department that the Palestinian Authority is not a state, Israel is preparing to use the strategy of Palestinian statelessness to object to its accession to the ICC. The State of Palestine is recognized by more than 130 countries and holds non-Member Observer State status at the United Nations.

“The decision by the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court to begin an inquiry against the State of Israel is the height of hypocrisy and the opposite of justice,” Netanyahu said at the Cabinet meeting Sunday. “I have already encountered such phenomena during my years of public service representing the State of Israel both as ambassador to the UN and as prime minister, but this decision by the prosecutor is in a category of its own. It gives legitimacy to international terrorism.”

After invoking the Holocaust, Netanyahu went on to accuse the Palestinian Authority of “manipulating the ICC to deny the Jewish state the right to defend itself against the very war crimes and the very terror that the court was established to prevent.”

The Prime Minister has said he will use all methods available to interrupt the ICC investigation. There is already a full-scale propaganda campaign in place that is known as hasbara. This technique of information disruption and selling a favorable image of Israel in the international media has been used for a number of years when Israel has been viewed negatively.

During the meeting Netanyahu continued to discuss the easing of restrictions on “immigration of Jews from France, Europe and wherever they may be.” Many in the international community have seen Israel’s facilitation of Jewish immigration from France following the Charlie Hebdo attacks as an exploitation of the tragedy.

Also on Sunday, Fateh Central Committee member, Jamal Muheissen, told Palestinian news agencies that the Palestinian Authority plans to request an ICC probe into the death of the late Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat.

“This file will be presented to the International Criminal Court,” said Muheissen. “We want to bring the Israeli occupation to trial for every crime it committed against our people.”

Via IMEMC News

—-
Related video added by Juan Cole:

PressTV: “Israel to ask key members to stop funding ICC”

Filed Under: Israel, Israel/ Palestine, Palestine, United Nations

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

Primary Sidebar

Support Independent Journalism

Click here to donate via PayPal.

Personal checks should be made out to Juan Cole and sent to me at:

Juan Cole
P. O. Box 4218,
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-2548
USA
(Remember, make the checks out to “Juan Cole” or they can’t be cashed)

STAY INFORMED

Join our newsletter to have sharp analysis delivered to your inbox every day.
Warning! Social media will not reliably deliver Informed Comment to you. They are shadowbanning news sites, especially if "controversial."
To see new IC posts, please sign up for our email Newsletter.

Social Media

Bluesky | Instagram

Popular

  • Pope Leo XIV’s Link to Haiti is Part of a broader American Story of Race, Citizenship and Migration
  • Libyan Gov't Decries Fake News about Taking 1 mn. Palestinian Refugees: "Committed to the Palestinian Cause"
  • As Trump urges End to Gaza Fighting, Half a Million Face Starvation and Israel bombs more Hospitals
  • For all Trump's new Mideast Contracts, Two Big Deals Elude Him
  • That Sucking Sound you hear is Trump Flushing America down the Toilet

Gaza Yet Stands


Juan Cole's New Ebook at Amazon. Click Here to Buy
__________________________

Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires



Click here to Buy Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam


Click here to Buy The Rubaiyat.
Sign up for our newsletter

Informed Comment © 2025 All Rights Reserved