Administrator Biden: The International Criminal Court is “unjustly” targeting Israel

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The Biden administration opposes and is disappointed by the International Criminal Court’s decision to continue an investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes in the Palestinian territories, State Department spokesman Ned Price said on Wednesday.

Affirming US support for Israel, Price said the ICC had “no jurisdiction over the matter,” which he said was “unfairly” targeting the Jewish state.

“Israel is not a party to the ICC and has not consented to the court’s jurisdiction, and we have serious concerns about the ICC’s attempts to exercise jurisdiction over Israeli personnel,” Price said, recalling the US view that the Palestinians do not meet the qualifications for a sovereign state necessary for the involvement of the ICC.

The Biden administration’s position is in line with the policy of the former Trump administration, which criticized the ICC for targeting Israel “unfairly.”

Price also said that the Biden administration is reviewing an executive order from the former President TrumpDonald Trump Senate in South Carolina adds enforcement team as alternative method of execution Former Trump aide, Pierson, will not run for the Dallas seat, the House Oversight panel reissues the citation for Trump’s accounting firm MORE which imposed sanctions on ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and his senior deputies for efforts to investigate alleged US war crimes in Afghanistan.

Sanctions, in which Bensouda has been added to the list of specially designated citizens and blocked people, are usually used for terrorists and drug traffickers.

“Because we do not agree with the ICC’s actions on the Palestinian situation and, of course, in Afghanistan … we are thoroughly reviewing sanctions under Executive Order 13928 as we take the next steps,” he said.

His comments came in response to an announcement in Bensouda on Wednesday that the ICC will open an investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes in the Palestinian territories starting in June 2014 – especially in connection with the summer war between Israel and Hamas in the Strip Gaza and also including war crimes allegations in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The decision to open an investigation was five years, while Palestinians advocated for Israeli responsibility on the international stage, and Israel, along with the United States, opposed the measures as biased and beyond the power of the court.

Bensouda said in a statement that the court is pursuing the investigation in accordance with a previous ruling that was “unanimous in its view that Palestine is a state party to the Rome Statute,” the agreement governing countries in which the ICC has jurisdiction.

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry welcomed the ICC’s decision, saying in a statement that “this is a long-awaited step that serves the tireless search for justice and responsibility for Palestine, which are indispensable pillars of the peace that the Palestinian people seek and deserve.”

But he was rejected by the Israeli prime minister Benjamin NetanyahuBenjamin (Bibi) NetanyahuMORE, calling the ad “absurd.”

“It is undiluted anti-Semitism and the height of hypocrisy,” he wrote on Twitter.

The Israeli ambassador to the United States and the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, said Israel would “continue to work with the US administration against this shameful decision.”

In May, Republican lawmakers and Democrats called on the former Trump administration to defend Israel from the investigation, saying the ICC has no jurisdiction in Israel or the Palestinian territories.

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