Israel: Palestine has no right to join ICC

Spokesman of the Israeli Foreign Ministry Emmanuel Nachshon said that Palestine had no right to join the International Criminal Court (ICC) because there was no Palestinian state under international law, Israeli newspaper Jerusalem Post reported.

“Unilateral Palestinian steps – first and foremost, joining the ICC – blatantly violated the basic principles agreed upon between the sides to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through negotiations,” Nachshon said.

These steps, he said, highlighted the Palestinian refusal to conduct peaceful negotiations with Israel.

Nachshon called the Palestinian decision to join the court “political, cynical and hypocritical”. He added that Palestinian intentions at the ICC contradicted the goals of the court and would lead to a “destructive politicisation” that harms the body’s stature.

He added that there was no room for the court, which was established to punish the perpetrators responsible for some of the world’s worst atrocities, to cooperate with those who merely sought to abuse its limited resources.

“The Palestinian Authority government, which has established a partnership with the murderous Hamas terrorist organisation that carries out war crimes like those carried out by Islamic State, is the last one that can threaten to file claims in the international court in The Hague,” Nachshon stated.

ICC spokesman Fadi El Abdallah told Anadolu Agency on Wednesday that Palestine become the court’s 123rd member country.

Palestine officially joined the Rome Statute on Wednesday, an automatic procedure after the passage of two months since the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA) filed its membership request with the United Nations, El Abdallah said.

According to the spokesman, the PA can now ask to have Israeli leaders referred to the court on charges of war crimes committed on Palestinian territory.