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Will IDF Reservists Traveling Abroad be Arrested for War Crimes?

(San Francisco Chronicle) Danielle Haas - The recent establishment of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, is raising fears that Israel will be one of the first countries to be targeted. The Court has jurisdiction over individuals charged by other individuals, laying Israeli officials, soldiers, and citizens open to prosecution. Israeli political and security officials insist that the military is abiding by legal and ethical rules of combat, and Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer has ordered the army to allow passage of medical and humanitarian traffic into Palestinian areas with the minimum delay possible. Soldiers charged with committing offenses in the Palestinian territories are brought to justice in Israeli military courts. Military sources say 26 soldiers have been indicted since the current intifada began in September 2000. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon followed the example of the United States in saying Israel would not ratify the 1998 Treaty of Rome, which set up the International Criminal Court. Legal experts in Israel say the most objectionable clause in the Court's charter, insisted upon by Arab countries, defines an occupying country's transfer of its citizens to the areas it has occupied as a "war crime." Some 220,000 Israeli Jews live in approximately 145 settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on land Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war. Israeli officials say the clause is specifically aimed at the settlements, and they note pointedly that terrorism is excluded from the same list of offenses. "In an ideal world, nothing would be more welcome than the idea of enforcing the law against war crimes in international institutions," said Israeli Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein. "But in our world, there is reason to fear that the motivations of the Court will be political rather than objective."
2002-08-22 00:00:00
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