Netanyahu to TBN: Everyone should rise up against the ICC

"Iran is openly declaring every day that it wants to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth – and, by the way, Israel today has a population of more than six million Jews."

By RACHEL WOLF
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting, January 2020. (photo credit: ALEX KOLOMOISKY / POOL)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting, January 2020.
(photo credit: ALEX KOLOMOISKY / POOL)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has condemned the International Criminal Court, warned about Iran’s actions against both the Jewish people and the State of Israel and emphasized the Jewish people’s ability to defend themselves in a Tuesday interview with the Trinity Broadcasting Network.
Netanyahu told TBN that, “everyone should rise up against” the ICC’s decision against Israel, even going so far as to call on the world “to ask for concrete actions: sanctions against the international court, its officials, its prosecutors, everyone.”
ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda plans on launching an investigation into whether Israel and the Palestinians have committed war crimes, which she believes they have. Netanyahu has previously called on other countries to say the ICC has no jurisdiction in Israel. The US, Australia and Hungary have all opposed the ICC’s involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The prime minister praised the US government, saying under President Donald Trump’s leadership, it has “spoken forcefully against the ICC.”
Netanyahu also accused the court of launching “a full-frontal attack on democracies,” saying that it is blocking democracies’ rights to defend themselves and “Israel’s right – the Jewish people’s right – to live in its ancestral homeland, the Land of Israel.”
As world leaders arrive in Israel for the Fifth Annual World Holocaust Forum, Netanyahu reflected on Jewish history, Israel’s impact on the future of the Jewish people and the threat that Iran poses.
“A third of the Jewish people went up in flames, there was nothing we could do,” he said. “Now, after the Holocaust, the State of Israel has been established – and the attempts to destroy the Jewish people are not disappearing.”
Netanyahu continued: “Iran is openly declaring every day that it wants to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth – and, by the way, Israel today has a population of more than six million Jews.”
He added: “I think the lessons of Auschwitz are: First, stop bad things when they’re small – and Iran is a very bad thing. It’s not that small but it could get a lot bigger with nuclear weapons, and I think the first thing is to stop that.
“And second is to understand that the Jews will never, ever again be defenseless in the face of those who want to destroy them.”
Tovah Lazaroff and Lahav Harkov contributed to this report.