A prosecutor from the International Criminal Court has opened a probe into possible war crimes in the Palestinian territories. Israel wasted no time lashing out, threatening to dismantle the ICC.
Potential cases [prosecutor Fatou] Bensouda could take on include allegations of war crimes by Israel during last summer's Gaza war where the Palestinians suffered heavy civilian casualties. Israel's settlement construction on occupied Palestinian lands could also be examined.
The cases could also include alleged war crimes by Hamas, which controls Gaza, including the firing of thousands of rockets at Israeli residential areas from crowded neighborhoods.
[Israeli prime minister, Benjamin] Netanyahu also said that, "unfortunately, the move turns the court into part of the problem, rather than part of the solution," Netanyahu concluded. "It's a scandalous that only days after terrorists slaughtered Jews in Paris ... the ICC opens an inquiry against the Jewish state, and only because it defends its citizens against Hamas, a terrorist organization that is partnered with the Palestinian Authority."
Describing the court's statement as hypocritical and supportive of terror, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman the decision was "scandalous," stemmed political and anti-Israel motives and was an attempt to "harm Israel's right to defend itself against terror." He added that Israel would take international action to have the ICC dismantled.
Lieberman said that it was impossible to compare the Israel Defense Forces, which "does everything possible to avoid harming innocents," with "terror organizations which fire from areas populated by civilians against areas populated by other civilians."
Lieberman, true to form, is talking out of his ass. The assault on Gaza last summer was a textbook case of the Israeli tactic, Dahiyeh, the deliberate and massive targeting of civilians and the essential infrastructure upon which civilians depend. It begins with airstrikes to take out sewer and water plants, indispensible to urban living. Next up are hospitals and schools. Finally residential areas are targeted and attacked. Dahiyeh takes its name from the Lebanese suburb of Beirut where Israel introduced the atrocity. That this is a deliberate. calculated policy authorized by the highest Israeli authority was revealed by documents released by Wikileaks.
