The International Criminal Court’s decision to issue arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant is “the wrong decision that should be totally rejected by any decent nations and people,” Ambassador of Israel in Nicosia Oren Anolik told CNA on Friday.
According to the Israeli Ambassador, the decision to issue these arrest warrants “represents a dark moment for the ICC, undermining the credibility of the ICC and its legitimacy as an institution of justice.”
“Instead of upholding its mission, the Court has become a political tool. It is being used and it is serving now the most extreme elements, those that are working to destabilise peace and security in the Middle East,” he noted in that regard.
He added that there is no jurisdictional authority to those warrants because Israel is not a member of the ICC. “We view these warrants not just as a personal attack on the Prime Minister and the former Defence Minister, we view this as an assault on Israel’s fundamental right to defend itself,” he stressed.
Asked how he believes this decision will affect any negotiations taking place from now on regarding a ceasefire or the peace process in the Middle East, Anolik said that the Israeli side is concerned that this decision will have a negative effect on the situation regarding any kind of negotiation or trying to reach a deal with Hamas, expressing the view that “it is going to give support to the terrorists, that they will feel emboldened and then even less inclined to any kind of a deal.”
“We are afraid this will have a negative impact on negotiations, a negative impact on the chance to release hostages, and unfortunately, a negative impact on the situation in Gaza, because without finding a way to end this war, the humanitarian situation in Gaza is not improving,” he stressed in that regard.
Asked whether ICC’s decision will create problems for the Israeli Prime Minister personally, as some countries and organisations have called for adherence to the ICC warrants, which could mean arrest measures should he visit specific countries, the Israeli diplomat said that the Prime Minister has said very clearly that this will not stop him from continuing to doing his job for the security and defence of Israel.
“I am confident that the Prime Minister will not be put in a situation that there is a real threat for his arrest. Therefore, I believe that he will be able to continue doing whatever he needs to. How will this be translated eventually to visits abroad? We will have to wait and see exactly,” he added.
Asked if the Israeli MFA is taking any legal steps against this decision, Anolik said that although Israel does not recognise the jurisdiction of the ICC, as it is not a member of the court, the Israeli side has made some initial claims to the court stressing the fact that they have no jurisdiction over Israel and that they should have given a warning before starting the investigation.
“The court has rejected those claims very quickly without any kind of thorough looking into them and I think that one of the things that is being considered at the moment is whether we are going to make it an appeal on those decision and get the court to look again into those issues of the lack of jurisdiction and the lack of notice, because we feel it did not get the right attention in the initial decision. This is not yet decided in Israel, but it is one of the things being looked into by our experts,” he noted.
The Israeli Ambassador further noted that “the ICC is making a false comparison between a democratic nation fighting against terrorists and those terrorists, and we think this is morally wrong.”
“Israel is a democratic country with a strong, independent judicial system. Therefore, we are totally capable of showing that we can investigate ourselves any wrongdoing if it is done. There is the principle of complementarity in international law which we feel that the court has totally disregarded, therefore, for both the moral and the judicial aspect of it, the moral and the legal aspect of it, we find it to be the wrong decision that should be totally rejected by any decent nations and people,” he concluded.
Also read: Palestinian Ambassador to the UN: “No justification” for US veto
Source: CNA/KA/EPH
