Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday lambasted the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague for its decision to establish jurisdiction to open a war crimes investigation against Israel, calling such a probe “pure antisemitism.” In a forceful English-language video, Netanyahu said that “the court established to prevent atrocities like the Nazi Holocaust against the Jewish people is now targeting the one state of the Jewish people.”
In a majority ruling published on Friday, following a six-year review by the chief prosecutor, ICC judges said that, “The Court’s territorial jurisdiction in the Situation in Palestine… extends to the territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”
Israel’s foreign and justice ministries have vowed to defend all Israelis who come under legal attack from the ICC.
Meanwhile, the United States has expressed serious concerns about the ruling. A US State Department spokesman said: “We do not believe the Palestinians qualify as a sovereign state, and therefore are not qualified to obtain membership as a state or participate as a state in international organizations, entities, or conferences including the ICC…Israel is not a State Party to the Rome Statute. We will continue to uphold President Biden’s strong commitment to Israel and its security, including opposing actions that seek to target Israel unfairly.”
The Palestinian Authority, which joined the court in 2015 with the explicit purpose of pushing action against Israel, welcomed the ruling.
It now falls to the ICC’s chief prosecutor Fatouh Bensouda to decide whether to launch an investigation. She indicated in 2019 that she intends to do so.
The United States Senate voted 97-3 to support an amendment to the COVID-19 budget resolution that affirmed the country’s intention to keep its embassy in Jerusalem. It was put forward by Republican Senators Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma and Bill Hagerty of Tennessee.
Pleased the Senate overwhelmingly passed the amendment @SenatorHagerty and I introduced to make sure the U.S. Embassy to Israel remains located in Jerusalem, the capital of Israel. https://t.co/muXtApn8Gm
— Sen. Jim Inhofe (@JimInhofe) February 5, 2021
On the Senate floor, Inhofe said that the “amendment should not be controversial to anyone. It has been our position in the US for 25 years. Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and we should have our embassy in Jerusalem.” He referenced past Senate votes to place the US Embassy in Jerusalem: “In 1995 the same amendment was 93-5. In 2017 it was 90-0.”
Hagerty said that Jerusalem is “the eternal and indivisible capital of the Jewish state of Israel.” He added that “establishing this embassy is paving the way for peace across the region and should be preserved. Now our allies there know we will stand with them.”
The vote is largely viewed as symbolic, since the Biden Administration has already stated that it has no intention of relocating the embassy, which was moved to Jerusalem in 2018 by former President Donald Trump.
United Nations nuclear inspectors have found traces of radioactive material at Iranian nuclear sites that could indicate work on nuclear weapons, according to a report published on Saturday. Tehran had denied the International Atomic Energy Agency (IHEA) access to the locations last year, prompting the IAEA’s board of governors to pass a resolution in June urging Iran to comply with its requests.
One of the locations was reported to be in Abadeh, south of Isfahan, which had been flagged in September, 2019 by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as containing a secret nuclear facility.
The Islamic Republic recently informed the International Atomic Energy Agency of its plans to increase enrichment to 20 percent, a short technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90 percent. In 2015, Iran signed a 15-year ban on “producing or acquiring plutonium or uranium metals or their alloys” under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
President Joe Biden has indicated that he is open to having the US rejoin the Iran Deal by first addressing elements outside the accord that are of concern to Middle East nations, including Tehran’s ballistic missiles program and its support for terrorist activities across the region. Tehran has said this is a nonstarter. Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states are all expected to strongly oppose Washington’s return to the JCPOA in its original form.
Former President Donald Trump took the US out of the accord in 2018 and hit Iran with numerous sanctions.
Meanwhile, local media reported over the weekend that the Israeli embassy in Ethiopia was on high alert over the last two months due to fears of a potential Iranian attack. The report added that Ethiopian authorities had arrested 16 suspects who were planning an attack against the United Arab Emirates embassy in the African nation’s capital, Addis Ababa.
A Tel Aviv hospital may have found a cure for COVID-19. Ichilov Hospital’s Prof Nadir Arber on Friday presented his coronavirus drug. The medicine, dubbed EXO-CD24, is administered through inhalation, once a day for five days.
Prof Nadir Arber reported an impressive success rate. Of the 30 patients in moderate and severe conditions who were given the drug, 29 showed signs of improvement within two days. They were released from the hospital three to five days later. The remaining patient eventually also recovered, the hospital said.
Israel’s former coronavirus czar Prof Ronni Gamzu, who recently returned to his position as Ichilov’s CEO, applauded the “excellent” breakthrough and vowed to personally assist Prof Arber with the process of getting approval from the Health Ministry to test the medication on a larger sample of patients.
In more good news, after nearly 40 days, Israelis started to exit from a nationwide lockdown. On Sunday morning, several restrictions were lifted, including the 1-kilometer travel limitation. Schools, however, remain closed. On Friday, 6,273 people were diagnosed with the virus. As of Sunday morning, hospitals reported 1,110 severe cases.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) have almost completely slashed their funding of UNRWA, the controversial UN agency for Palestinian refugees and their descendants. The Emirates donated $51.8 million to UNRWA in 2018 and 2019, but contributed only $1 million to the organization in 2020.
The drastic funding cuts came after the UAE established diplomatic ties with Israel last year under the auspices of the Abraham Accords, the series of normalization agreements between Israel and Arab countries brokered by former President Donald Trump.
Critics have often accused UNWRA of perpetuating the Arab-Israeli conflict by inflating the number of Palestinian refugees. In January, following an HonestReporting petition, then-US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo revealed the actual number of Palestinian refugees. American research shows that less than 200,000 Palestinians displaced in the 1948 War of Independence are still alive.
The United States drastically reduced its funding to UNRWA in 2018. The Biden Administration, however, announced last month that it would ramp up American aid to the agency.
- ICC War Is Far From Over (Yonah Jeremy Bob, Jerusalem Post)
- In First, Saudi Paper Prints Op-Ed by Israelis — on Erdogan’s Private Militias (Lazar Berman, Times of Israel)
- Paris Adopts IHRA Definition of Antisemitism (Jewish News Syndicate)
- Israel’s Payoneer to Go Public on Nasdaq at $3.3 Billion Valuation (Meir Orbach/CTech, Algemeiner)
- The Envelope, Please: Israeli Startup Wins Oscar for Film Technology (Raz Israeli, Israel Hayom)
