The oversight body of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has shunned US demands for the court to drop its investigation into Israeli war crimes and to amend its founding treaty to prevent the prosecution of nationals from countries that do not recognise the court’s jurisdiction, Middle East Eye can reveal.
In a statement issued on Wednesday after its annual meeting in The Hague earlier this week, the Assembly of States Parties (ASP) vowed to uphold the integrity of the Rome Statute and said it was “gravely concerned” by threats and coercive measures targeting the court.
Diplomats speaking on the sidelines of the event told MEE that the Trump administration had tried to exert further pressure on the ICC in the leadup to the ASP meeting by calling on the court to drop its investigations into war crimes in Palestine and Afghanistan as a condition for lifting sanctions.
The US also called on member states to amend the Rome Statute to prohibit prosecutions of citizens of non-signatory states, a move that would have effectively granted immunity to American and Israeli nationals. An amendment of that nature would also end the Ukraine investigation into alleged war crimes by Russia, a non-member of the ICC.
It’s wild to me how much work the US puts in to help Israel. I just don’t understand what the US gets out of it.
Isreal is America’s knife in the flesh of the middle east: it keeps the blood money flowing and helps prevent the formation of a stable anti-imperialist government that could threaten their supply of combat data, cheap resources and cheap labor. Like how a leech has anticoagulant in it’s saliva: Israel’s job is to keep the region in a state of highly profitable volatility.
America and Israel are both non signatory states.
If Israel is held accountable for war crimes and genocide then the USA, as the supplier of the weapons that Israel is using to commit genocide, could be held accountable for the same genocide. As they should.
It also means the US could be held to account for what we’ve done internationally (and internally) too, or what we may do. Maybe that isn’t being discussed yet, but it could be in the future.
