Following an E.U. diplomat’s demand that Israel and its allies ‘not threaten’ International Criminal Court (ICC) judges, reports have emerged that the Israeli intelligence service Mossad has been menacing members of the ICC ‘for years.’
(LifeSiteNews) — Following the demand from European Union chief diplomat Josep Borrell that Israel and its allies “not threaten” International Criminal Court (ICC) judges, reports have emerged that the Israeli intelligence service Mossad has been menacing members of the ICC “for years.”
Yossi Cohen, a close associate of Benjamin Netanyahu, is alleged to have threatened the family of the ICC judge Fatou Bensouda, telling her “you should help us and let us take care of you. You don’t want to be getting into things that could compromise your security or that of your family.”
This disturbing attempt to subvert her criminal investigation into Israel’s actions is said to have began immediately after her appointment to direct the ICC’s Palestine case in 2015. The Guardian, breaking the story on May 29, continued:
Soon after Fatou Bensouda was appointed, two men turned up at her home in The Hague [Netherlands]. They declined to identify themselves, but left an envelope containing hundreds of dollars in cash and a note with an Israeli phone number…
The visit was intended to intimidate Bensouda, claims the ICC.
… An ICC review of the incident concluded Israel was likely to be signalling to the prosecutor that it knew where she lived.
First appeal ignored by Western media
Borrell’s initial remarks went unreported outside of Israel. The entire Western media declined to mention them, with only two Israeli outlets reporting his appeal on May 24.
In a brief note, the Jerusalem Post quoted Borrell, the high representative for E.U. foreign affairs, asking for Israel to halt its intimidation of judges.
‘I ask everyone – starting with the government of Israel and several European governments – not to threaten the judges. Do not threaten them, and do not try to influence their decision.’
France, Germany, Ireland, The Netherlands, Spain, and Norway have all supported the ICC and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in their respective moves to charge Israel with genocide and issue arrest warrants for its government for war crimes.
LifeSiteNews reported Borrell’s remarks in full.
READ: Top EU diplomat announces plan to enforce UN court ruling against Israeli operation in Rafah
Now the Guardian is leading an investigation into Mossad, including its nine-year campaign to undermine international efforts to aid the Palestinians and hold Israel to account for its actions.
The revelations about Cohen’s operation form part of a forthcoming investigation by the Guardian, the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine, and the Hebrew-language Israeli outlet Local Call (Sikha Mekhomit), revealing how multiple Israel intelligence agencies ran a covert “war” against the ICC for almost a decade.
In the report below, Local Call records how on filing arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his government, ICC prosecutor Karim Khan said on May 20:
I insist that all attempts to impede, intimidate or improperly influence the officials of this Court must cease immediately.
He spoke out previously, on May 3, as reported by Reuters – which it said came in response to U.S. and Israeli attacks on the court.
The statement, which named no specific cases, followed Israeli and American criticism of the ICC’s investigation into alleged war crimes committed… in the Gaza Strip.
On May 14 Scottish Legal News said simply: “U.S. and Israel criticized for threatening International Criminal Court.”
These remarks were not reported by major U.S. networks, mentioned mainly in Israel and by independent sources. Following these appeals, the U.K. Times on May 21 called the court’s move to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his regime “wickedly perverse,” saying the court’s attempt to uphold international law “should sink the ICC.”
This editorial was written by “Mad” Melanie Phillips, a lifelong Zionist, clearly echoing the aims of Mossad and the U.S. Zionist Israel lobby in seeking to destroy the ICC and undermine any efforts to restrain the Zionists.
READ: Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem visits war-torn Gaza, calls for ‘end’ to ‘nightmare’ conflict
“The arrest warrant for Israel’s PM subverts justice and finally destroys the court’s reputation,” said Phillips, chiming with the verdict of President Joe Biden that the seeking of arrest warrants for the US’s number one ally is “outrageous.”
Neither the U.S. nor Israel recognizes the ICC. In fact, the U.S. passed an act in 2002 which gives it the power to invade The Hague should the court detain U.S. citizens, or those of any “non-NATO allies” – such as Israel.
Termed the “Hague Invasion Act” by Human Rights Watch in 2002, Middle East Monitor says it “[authorizes the U.S. president] to use any means available to ‘release’ any detained or imprisoned person ‘by, on behalf of, or at the request” of the ICC.’”
The May 23 report concludes:
Israel, which never respected or observed any international jurisdiction, anyway, is not only empowered by this Act but also encouraged to threaten, smear and attempt to destroy the ICC and the UN itself which created it in the first place.
As long as The Hague Invasion Act is still in effect and the support of the US is widely available, Israel does not have any incentive to respect international law or institution it judges to be against its wider policy: Palestinian genocide.
Mossad’s Cohen, a friend of Netanyahu
Cohen, who was appointed as head of Mossad in 2016 by Netanyahu, was formerly his national security adviser. A close ally of Netanyahu for many years, the Guardianreports that “as the head of the national security council between 2013 and 2016, Cohen oversaw the body that, according to multiple sources, began to coordinate a multiagency effort against the ICC once Bensouda opened the preliminary inquiry in 2015.”
The investigation by the Guardian is ongoing, with updates promised daily.
A history of violence, to silence
Israel’s efforts to destroy any international agency having an interest in the treatment of the Palestinians is also well documented.
It has led a smear campaign against UNRWA, the main agency providing relief to the estimated 1.2 million people suffering a man-made famine as a result of Israel’s blockade of Gaza, which began in 2007.
To this day the U.S. and U.K. refuse to reinstate their funding of the main supplier of humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, which they suspended following unevidencedcharges by Netanyahu and his regime that UNRWA “is totally infiltrated by Hamas.”
U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen said that this was a “flat out lie” told by Netanyahu to “get rid of the primary food and aid organization” so that “more people starve.”
Hollen said “it has been Netanyahu’s goal since at least 2017 to get rid of UNRWA”:
Netanyahu said on December 16 that “in the new Gaza there will be no place for UNRWA”:
The agency saw its premises firebombed and its workers stoned on May 13:
As for the charge of working with Hamas, Hollen pointed out in February that Netanyahu himself has been doing so for years:
In this video Hollen refers repeatedly to sources such as the Haaretz article on “A Brief History of the Netanyahu-Hamas Alliance,” with each piece of evidence struck from the record due to repeated objections:
The remarks came in a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on February 28.
There is no full transcript of the hearing on the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee website.
Why? Hollen shows how Netanyahu has propped up Hamas, saying in March that Netanyahu “continues to give Biden the finger” over Gaza.
It is obvious that Netanyahu does as he pleases, and that obvious facts about him and Israel have no place in the official narrative.
Israel’s response to the ICJ order to halt its offensive in Rafah was to bomb the area 60 times in several days, resulting in children allegedly being burned alive on makeshift tents in the sand.
White House spokesman Jack Kirby said to “wait for the investigation” to be conducted by Israel on its own massacre of civilians, defending his administration’s decision to send billions of U.S. tax dollars and weapons to fund Israel’s assault.
The reason this evidence seldom reaches your eyes, and will be erased from the historical record of the meeting, is that the U.S. political class, including its president, is, as retired Colonel Douglas Macgregor has said, “bought and paid for by Israel.”
In 2024 alone, the Israel lobby has donated over $41 million dollars to buy influence, with President Biden being the number one recipient of all time.
Israel has bombed 32 of 36 Gaza hospitals, killed hundreds of aid workers, and is deliberately killing journalists and their families in an attempt to seal off its ongoing genocide from the eyes – and helping hands – of the world.
READ: Israel is censoring and killing journalists bravely covering their atrocities in Gaza
Even water purification systems are prohibited from entering Gaza, along with anaesthetics, tent poles, and solar panels – as Israel claims these may be used by Hamas.
In December, the U.N. special rapporteur on Palestine said that at least a thousand children had their limbs amputated without anaesthesia.
CNN said in January that “more than 10 children on average have lost one or both of their legs every day in Gaza since October 7,” due to Israel’s repeated bombing of refugee camps and U.N. “safe zones.”
This video, published on January 15, shows one Gaza doctor amputating his own daughter’s leg, at home, with no anaesthetic. Viewer discretion is advised; the video is extremely distressing.
A U.N. report on March 25 said that over 13,000 children had been killed in addition, saying the “threshold indicating Israel’s commission of genocide had been met.”
This is the reason the Zionists wish to destroy the U.N. and remove its agencies permanently from its “future Gaza.”
You probably do not know that Israel routinely halts every food truck coming into Gaza, insisting on manual inspections despite the presence of X-ray machines donated for this purpose.
This means deliveries of aid are held up for weeks, when they could pass through the Egyptian-Gaza border controlled by Israel in minutes. The New Yorker documented this in January.
The deliveries include bottled water. Why? Israel forbids the supply of water purification equipment into Gaza, and has, with the support of the U.S. and U.K. government and the opposition parties, cut off the water supply.
U.K. “opposition” leader Keir Starmer said Israel had the “right” to commit war crimes in October 2023.
The actions of Mossad are intended to intimidate the international community and its representatives into silence over Israel’s horrific crimes.
Jewish journalist Max Blumenthal recently denounced the “hostile foreign power” destroying democracy in the United States, which he says is “taking its cues from the Israeli security state.”
This power is international in its scope, seeks to destroy any measures preventing the commission of its well-funded crimes, and is now seeking to destroy any attempt to hold it to account for genocide.
This is the world that the war on terror made. It has given a free hand to a Zionist death machine, whose agents seek to silence any talk beyond the reach of their money.
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