(Communicated by the Prime Minister's Media Adviser)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, this evening (Saturday, 17 January 2015) has issued the following statement in response to the
decision of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to open a preliminary examination of the situation in Palestine :
Israel rejects the absurd decision of the ICC prosecutor. It's absurd for the ICC to ignore international law and agreements, under which the Palestinians don't have a state and can only get one through direct negotiations with Israel.
The rules of the ICC are clear:
No state
No standing
No case.
It's absurd for the ICC to go after Israel, which upholds the highest standards of international law. Our actions are subject to the constant and careful review of Israel's world-renowned and utterly independent legal system.
But this decision is even more preposterous given that Israel is legitimately defending itself against Palestinian terrorists who routinely commit multiple war crimes. They deliberately fire thousands of rockets at our civilians, while hiding behind Palestinian civilians whom they use a human shield.
And here's the ultimate folly of this decision - It is the democracy of Israel, a world leader in fighting terrorism, which is to be hauled to the dock in The Hague, while the terrorist war criminals of Hamas are the ones who are going to be pressing the charges. I won't be surprised if ISIS, al-Qaida and Hezbollah follow suit. See, Hamas has already announced that they will join their Palestinian partner, President Abbas, in filing complaints against Israel as a result of this decision.
So we see here something truly tragic. The lofty goals of the ICC are being turned upside-down.
The court was founded to prevent a repeat of history's worst crimes, foremost among them the genocide of six million Jews.
Now the Palestinians are cynically manipulating the ICC to deny the Jewish state the right to defend itself against the very war crimes and the very terror that the court was established to prevent.