Foreign Minister Ashkenazi: ICC probe decision ‘an act of moral and legal bankruptcy’

Foreign Minister Gabi Askenazi calls the ICC decision to open an investigation into alleged war crimes in the West Bank and Gaza “an act of moral and legal bankruptcy,” and calls on Israeli allies to reject it.

He slams the move as a “political decision of a prosecutor at the end of her term, and an attempt to set priorities for her successor, to turn the tribunal into a tool in the hands of extremists and give backing to terrorist organizations and anti-Semitic bodies.”

He says the court has become “a biased institution that has lost all legitimacy, and operates as a political and non-judicial body.”

Ashkenazi says, “The fact that the murderous terrorist organization, Hamas, welcomes the decision, indicates more than anything that it has no moral validity.”

“The prosecutor’s decision will only contribute to the polarization between the sides, and alienates the dialogue necessary for the resolution of the dispute,” he says. “We call on countries that see the importance of protecting the international legal system from politicization to reject the prosecutor’s decision and not cooperate with it.”