The International Criminal Court (ICC) is a court with no jurisdiction, investigating crimes in a state (Palestine) that does not exist—crimes that never happened, according to Israeli legal expert Eugene Kontorovich.
Speaking to ILTV News on Sunday, Kohelet Policy Forum's Kontorovich said the ICC’s decision to issue arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is worse than the infamous Dreyfus Affair. In 1894, Alfred Dreyfus was falsely accused and arrested for passing military secrets to the Germans.
“In the affair of Dreyfus, there was, in fact, spying for the Germans, but it was not done by Dreyfus,” Kontorovich explained. “In this case, the crime they are accusing Israel of—starvation—simply hasn’t happened at all.”
ICC IMPLICATIONS
Will there be consequences for Netanyahu and Gallant? According to Kontorovich, that depends entirely on how other countries choose to act. However, he expressed little concern about this aspect. Rather, he views the ICC’s decision as “another talking point in a diplomatic war against Israel to justify boycotts and create an increasingly diplomatically hostile climate."
“Whether that succeeds or not is really going to depend on how countries react, in particular, how the United States and Israel react,” he said.