A day after US national security adviser John Bolton slammed the International Criminal Court as “illegitimate,” the Palestinians on Tuesday filed a war crimes claim against Israel with the body over the expected demolition of a West Bank village.
Saeb Erekat, secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said the Palestinians have asked the Hague-based ICC to investigate the Israeli army’s planned razing of Khan al-Ahmar near Jerusalem.
The dossier “included a focus on the war crimes facing Khan al-Ahmar, specifically the crimes of forcible displacement, ethnic cleansing and the destruction of civilian property,” Erekat told reporters in Ramallah.
The Khan al-Ahmar encampment has focused attention on what critics say is the continued displacement of Palestinians by Israel.
Israel says the village was illegally built and has offered to resettle its residents 7 miles away, while critics say its removal is meant to make room for an Israeli settlement.
The Israeli Supreme Court rejected an appeal last week, paving the way for the demolition.
On Monday, Bolton said the US would resort to any means to protect its citizens and its allies against actions before the international war crimes body, including arresting its judges if they sought to charge Americans who served in Afghanistan with war crimes.
“We will provide no assistance to the ICC. And we certainly will not join the ICC. We will let the ICC die on its own. After all, for all intents and purposes, the ICC is already dead to us,” Bolton told a gathering of the conservative Federalist Society in DC.
The ICC said Tuesday that it would “continue to do its work undeterred, in accordance with those principles and the overarching idea of the rule of law,” the Israeli daily Haaretz reported.
The US on Monday also closed the Palestinian de facto embassy in Washington because of its leaders’ refusal to engage in peace talks with the Jewish state.
Husam Zomlot, until recently posted to DC as the Palestinian envoy, said the closure would not deter Palestinians from seeking a state with East Jerusalem as the capital.
“We lost the US administration but we gained our national rights,” said Zomlot, who was recalled back to Ramallah in the spring amid tensions between Washington and the Palestinian leadership.
On Tuesday, Erekat said the Palestinians have asked the ICC’s chief prosecutor to meet with village representatives and include Israel’s actions as part of the probe into possible war crimes by Israel.
“The US threats against the ICC are a coup against the rules in the international system,” he said. “The Trump administration wants to dismantle the international order to ensure that it can stay above the laws and escape accountability.”
Jerusalem says the ICC lacks jurisdiction because Israel is not a member of the court.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu applauded the White House’s stance.
“The United States has made the right decision regarding the PLO mission in Washington,” Netanyahu said in a written statement on Tuesday.
“Israel supports the American actions that are meant to clarify to the Palestinians that their refusal to negotiate and attempts to attack Israel in international forums will not promote peace,” he added.
In other developments Tuesday, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki slammed President Trump’s decision to halt US funding to a UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
“The US administration has begun to attack the rights of the Palestinian people and international law,” Maliki said at a meeting of the Arab League in Cairo, convened to discuss the issue, according to Reuters.
Last week, Trump also ordered that $25 million earmarked for the care of Palestinians in East Jerusalem hospitals be directed elsewhere as part of a review of aid.
With Post wires