The International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant Monday against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant cites a so-called “State of Palestine” that has never existed and does not presently exist.
Three Hamas terrorist leaders are also cited in the ICC warrant. The official “Statement of ICC Prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan” is titled: “Applications for arrest warrants in the situation in the State of Palestine [sic]”.
The statement says it seeks to assign “criminal responsibility for … war crimes and crimes against humanity committed on the territory of Israel and the State of Palestine (in the Gaza strip).”
There is no “State of Palestine,”and the boundaries of what may be a future state, including the Gaza Strip, have yet to be determined be negotiations.
Israel, which — like the United States — is not a party to the Rome Statute that established the ICC, says that the ICC has no jurisdiction to investigate it or charge its officials. The official U.S. position is the same, but the Biden administration has been relatively quiet about the ICC warrants.
Biden, in fact, revoked an executive order by President Donald Trump that sanctioned the ICC for attempting to investigate the U.S., Israel, and other allies for supposed violations of international law in battling terrorists who brazenly and deliberately violate international law.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.