A respected human rights lawyer submitted a request to the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Tuesday calling for an investigation of US and Israeli officials citing allegations of war crimes committed against the Palestinian people.
William Schabas, a professor of international law at Middlesex University in London, “filed a lengthy Article 15 communication with the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) .. asking for an investigation of the architects of the so-called ‘Deal of the Century’,” Commondreams news portal reported on Friday.
The ‘deal’ allows Israel to seize parts of the occupied Palestinian territories, and grants Palestinians a ‘state’ on the disjointed parts of whatever remains of the West Bank.
The ICC complaint was filed on behalf of four Palestinians who directly suffered as a result of the US plan and continued support to Israel at the expense of Palestinians. The four Palestinians are Ahmad al-Khaldi, Gassan Khaled, Hasan M. Masan, and Abderrahman F. Zaidan.
The request submitted by Schabas names three top American officials and one Israeli. They are US President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, and senior advisor on the Middle East.
OPINION: What you need to know about the ICC investigation of war crimes in occupied Palestine @Ramzy Baroud and Romana Rubeo https://t.co/2W9hmolgDf
— Middle East Monitor (@MiddleEastMnt) May 11, 2020
“By now, it is perfectly clear that the deal of the century is not a peace plan, nor was it ever intended to be, despite what its chief architect and White House adviser Jared Kushner has been claiming,” wrote Palestinian journalist and editor of The Palestine Chronicle, Ramzy Baroud, in a recent article.
“It is yet another American imperial undertaking that is driven by the misguided notion that it is in the best interest of the American people that Israel remains the regional hegemon and is enabled to swallow the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories,” Baroud added.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
