Will Israeli leaders be the first to be tried before the International Criminal Court?

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The day after the United Nations ratified a world court to try war criminals, sympathizers of the Palestinian intifada demanded that Israeli leaders be the first defendants.

A Communist member of the Israeli parliament called for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Elieser to be tried as war criminals before the International Criminal Court (ICC). The crusading left-wing Spanish judge who sued to arrest former Chilean President Augusto Pinochet for human rights abuses has indicated his next target is the Israeli leadership.

President Bush says he opposes the ICC, for fear that Americas enemies will use it against the U.S. and its friends. However, Secretary of State Colin Powell, backed by Clinton holdovers inside the State Department bureaucracy, has done nothing substantive to support the presidents position on the matter.

The Bush Administration should withdraw former President Clinton’s signature from the ICC document and take all diplomatic and legal measures to exempt the U.S. and its allies from ICC jurisdiction. There can be no middle ground.

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