US National security adviser John Bolton. Photo / AP
US National security adviser John Bolton. Photo / AP
The Trump Administration has attacked the legitimacy of the International Criminal Court (ICC) over its plans to investigate US troops for alleged war crimes in Afghanistan.
National security adviser John Bolton said the United States "will not co-operate with the ICC" and that "for all intents and purposes, the ICC is already dead to us".
The Trump Administration threatened to ban ICC judges and prosecutors from entering the US, sanction their funds in the US financial system and prosecute them in the US criminal system.
Bolton said the Washington office of the Palestinian Liberation organisation (PLO) would be closed for seeking to punish Israel through the court.
The Hague-based court was created in 2002 to prosecute war crimes and crimes of humanity and genocide in areas where perpetrators might not otherwise face justice. The US is not among the 123 state parties that recognise its jurisdiction.
Bolton's speech came as an ICC judge was expected to soon announce a decision on a request from prosecutors to formally open an investigation into allegations of war crimes committed by Afghan national security forces, Taliban and Haqqani network militants, and US forces and intelligence in Afghanistan since May 2003. The accusations against US personnel include torture and illegal imprisonment.
"The International Criminal Court unacceptably threatens American sovereignty and US national security interests," Bolton told the Federalist Society, a conservative Washington-based think-tank.
Bolton also took aim at Palestinian efforts to press war crime charges against Israel for its policies in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza.
The closure of the PLO office - the latest in a series of moves targeting the Palestinians - was centred on the fact that no "direct and meaningful negotiations with Israel" are under way despite previous warnings, the State Department said.
The Administration had told the Palestinians last year that closure was a distinct possibility unless they agreed to sit to down with the Israelis. It has yet to release its own much-vaunted but largely unknown peace plan although it said it still intends to do so.
Palestinians caught in row
Palestinian refugees took to the streets of Amman, Jordan, after the US said it would stop supporting UNRWA. Photo / AP
The gist
The Trump Administration's move to close the PLO office in Washington is not directly connected to its opposition to the International Criminal Court. The State Department announced the Administration was closing the PLO office because the Palestinians aren't directly negotiating any peace agreement with Israel. The Administration is trying to draw a connection between the two to pressure Palestinians into talking directly with Israel.
What it means
Closing the PLO mission in Washington almost certainly will stiffen the Palestinians' opposition to any Trump peace plan now being worked on by Trump's Middle East point men, son-in-law Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt. The Palestinian leadership has been openly hostile to any proposal from the Administration, citing what it says is a pro-Israel bias.
Yanking aid
The State Department announced this month that the US is ending its decades of funding for the UN agency that helps Palestinian refugees. A week earlier, the Administration slashed bilateral US aid for projects in the West Bank and Gaza. The US supplies nearly 30 per cent of the total budget of the UN Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, and had been demanding reforms in the way it is run. The decision cuts nearly US$300 million ($459.4m) of planned support. Those cuts came after the Trump Administration announced it was cutting more than US$200 million in bilateral aid to the Palestinians and spend the money for "high priority projects elsewhere". UNRWA was founded after the 1948 war surrounding Israel's creation to serve some 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were uprooted from their homes. Today, it provides education and social services to more than 5 million people across the region. Hamas militants control Gaza, and the US said the militants were endangering "lives of Gaza's citizens and degrades an already dire humanitarian and economic situation". One issue the US has had with support for the Palestinian Authority had been its stipends paid to the families of Palestinians killed, injured or jailed for attacks on Israel. Israel and the Trump Administration have repeatedly demanded that those payments from a so-called "martyrs' fund" be halted because they encourage terrorism. PLO President Mahmoud Abbas has refused to do so.
US Embassy
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump promised to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to contested Jerusalem. The consulate opened in May with a star-studded reception that included the President's daughter, Ivanka, and Kushner, as well as Israel's top leaders. Israel killed more than 60 Palestinians, including a 14-year-old girl, during protests that followed. It was the bloodiest day since a war between Hamas and Israel ended in 2014. Israel said it is defending its border and accuses Hamas of trying to carry out attacks under the cover of the protests.
PLO executive committee member Dr Hanan Ashrawi called the US policy "blackmail" that "once again seeks to punish the Palestinian people as a whole who are already victims of the ruthless Israeli military occupation".
