NEW YORK – The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) strongly supports the Bush administration’s opposition to the International Criminal Court.

Recognizing the dangers that the ICC could pose to American forces overseas, the Bush administration recently insisted on guarantees that U.S. military personnel taking part in international peace-keeping missions in the Balkans be exempt from prosecution by the ICC for alleged “crimes” arising out of their peace-keeping activities.

Howard Schaerf, Esq., the ZOA’s Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) representative to the United Nations, pointed out that “the danger to Israel from the ICC is even more acute than to the U.S.,” in view of the fact that the ICC’s founding principles (in the Rome Treaty of 1998) state that among the actions defined as a war crime is “the transfer, directly or indirectly, by the occupying power of parts of its own population in the territory it occupies.”

Thus, the ICC could attempt to bring “war crimes” charges against any Israeli soldier, any Israeli government official, and even any Israeli who resides beyond the 1967 borders (i.e. residents of Judea, Samaria, Gaza, the Golan Heights, and large parts of Jerusalem).

“Ironically,” Schaerf notes, “the International Criminal Court, which was created ostensibly to combat genocide and other international war crimes, could be manipulated by anti-Israel forces and used against Israel. This would be the ultimate miscarriage of justice, for it is Israel which is the victim of ongoing Palestinian Arab war crimes in the form of massacres sponsored, directed, and financed by the Palestinian Authority regime.”