Head of main Israeli party says ICC probe against ‘Israel’ legitimate
Nitzan Horowitz said that 'Israel' shouldn’t be surprised after it kept building in settlements ‘like there was no tomorrow’
Occupied Palestine (QNN)- The chairman of the Israeli Meretz party said Saturday that while he was sad by the International Criminal Court’s opening of a war crimes probe against the occupation state, “there were grounds for the decision,” sparking outrage among Israelis.
“People tell us, ‘You want Israel to be brought before the Hague.’ I don’t want Israel to be brought before the Hague… But Israel also has responsibility,” Nitzan Horowitz said in an interview on the Israeli Channel 13.
“I say this with great sadness, there were grounds for the decision. I don’t want Israel to face these situations… but Israel needs to ask itself what it needs to do to prevent that,” he added.
Horowitz also stressed that the occupation state had brought the decision upon itself by “continuing to build in the settlements as if there is no tomorrow.”
When asked if he also thought the Israeli occupation army had acted inappropriately in Gaza, Horowitz said, “Even in Operation Protective Edge (the 2014 war), there were things that should not have been done. There was massive damage done to the civilian population that the court wants to check.”
“The solution for us is not to say that The Hague is anti-Semitic, but rather to advance negotiations with the Palestinians that bring about a solution. Then there will be no reason for the Hague,” he added.
Horowitz’s remarks faced backlash by Israeli politicians. Netanyahu’s Likud said Horowitz “is abandoning IDF soldiers who guard him and all of us” stressing that it will fight the decision, which it described as “anti-Semitic”.
Gideon Sa’ar’s New Hope party called the remark “miserable” and urged Horowitz to apologize for “supporting an anti-Semitic decision.”
Yamina MK Ayelet Shaked said her party won’t sit with Meretz in the same coalition, claiming Horowitz had justified the ICC’s “political and anti-Semitic activity persecuting IDF soldiers” and calling him an “embarrassment for the Knesset.”
Blue and White leader Benny Gantz, speaking to Channel 13, also criticized Horowitz for his “unacceptable” remark.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, an extreme-right candidate who leads the Otzma Yehudit faction under the Religious Zionism party slate, said he had urged Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit to open an investigation against Horowitz on suspicion of “treason.”
The ICC’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, said in 2019 that there was a reasonable basis to open a war crimes probe into Israeli war crimes against native Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as well as Israeli settlement activity in the occupied West Bank.
Palestine has asked the court to look into Israeli war crimes during its 2014 war against the Gaza Strip, when the Israelis killed 2147 Palestinians including women and children, and wounded 10870 others, as well as Israel’s construction of settlements in the occupied West Bank and annexed east Jerusalem. Israeli settlements are illegal under international law.
