Israel is pressuring its “good friend” India to oppose an International Criminal Court ruling last week claiming jurisdiction over the Palestinian territories, but Delhi still making its way through the big changes in Asia. Westerner, is reluctant to be attracted. official sources said.
The Indian Express learned that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whom he recently described as a “great friend”, asking India to speak out against the decision and send a message. clear to the ICC “to stop this assault on justice and common sense.”
Delhi has not responded to Netanyahu’s February 7 communication, which came two days after the ICC ruling. Instead, sources said, it has been relayed through diplomatic channels that since India is not a member of the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the ICC, it would not want to comment or take a position on any of the decisions or rulings of court. .
Israel, which is also not a member of the Rome Statute, has condemned the ICC ruling as “outrageous” and said the decision had exposed the court as “a political body.” Israel said the ICC “has no authority to make such a decision” as Israel does not recognize the jurisdiction of the court and the Palestinian Authority is not a sovereign state. Netanyahu called the ruler “anti-Semitism.”
The 2-1 majority decision of the ICC on February 5 was made on the basis of Palestine’s accession to the Rome Statute in 2015 after its acceptance as a “non-member observer state” of the UN General Assembly in 2012. The court made clear that ruling was not a determination of Palestinian statehood.
The ruling came 14 months after ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said there was “reasonable evidence” that war crimes were being committed in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. She named both the Israel Defense Forces and Hamas as possible perpetrators.
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Israel, which views India as a “like-minded” nation, expected a positive response from Delhi, especially as the ruling could set a precedent and could re-attack Kashmir or other hot spots, the sources said, noting that “Close the eyes of the court does not mean that the court does not exist.
India, which had actively participated in the Preparatory Committee for the establishment of the ICC, nevertheless abstained from the motion to approve the Rome Statute, for various reasons, including jurisdictional issues, for fear that the ICC might exercise its jurisdiction in areas like Kashmir. and the Northeast, which considers “internal issues” that remain out of the hands of international actors.
The Foreign Ministry spokesman did not offer comment to The Indian Express’s questions about Netanyahu’s appeal to Prime Minister Modi and the reasons why India said nothing on the matter.
A diplomatic source said “it was not a break or problem” in bilateral relations, however a positive response from Delhi would have been “important”.
Modi had previously called Netanyahu on February 1, three days after an explosion outside the Israeli embassy in Delhi, assuring him of full cooperation in the investigation of the low-intensity blast, which Israel said it was treating as a terrorist incident. . On January 26, Netanyahu tweeted greetings to “great friend” Modi on the 72nd Republic Day of India.
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