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The International Criminal Court Violates International Law
(Newsweek) Jonathan Tobin - The International Criminal Court decision that it has the right to investigate alleged war crimes in the 2014 fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, as well as the question of Jewish settlement in the West Bank, is a flagrant violation of the international law the Court is supposed to uphold. It has no jurisdiction over either matter and attempts to criminalize both the Jewish presence in parts of the country and Israel's legitimate right to self-defense against a terrorist organization are about politics, not law. Israel is not a member state of the ICC and though the Palestinian Authority joined it in 2015, its admission lacks legitimacy since it is not a sovereign state by any known legal definition and therefore had no right to invite the Court's interference. There is a basic absurdity in the ICC treating Israel and Hamas as morally equivalent, with Hamas firing rockets indiscriminately at Israeli civilian areas while Israel sought to suppress the rocket fire and repel the Islamist group's other blatant acts of terrorism. The attempt to portray Israeli settlement activity in Jerusalem and the West Bank as a war crime is equally outrageous, given that the previous U.S. administration rightly accepted Israel's arguments that international agreements dating back to the 1922 San Remo Conference guaranteed the right of Jews to settle throughout the territory of their ancient homeland. Israel is clearly being judged by a double standard not applied to any other nation - let alone a democracy defending itself against terrorist groups.