Israel will ask Baidan: Defend us in front of the court in The Hague Israel today

Chief Prosecutor Pato Bensuda is expected to end her tenure in the coming weeks • Jerusalem intends to seek American backing to select a suitable replacement

• International Criminal Court in The Hague, in 2019

  Photography: 

  Reuters

Israel will ask the Biden administration to continue cooperating in an effort to prevent the dangerous moves taken against it by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

"Israel Today" has learned that the first move that Jerusalem will seek to take jointly with the new administration is to coordinate the election of the next attorney general of the tribunal, already in the coming weeks.

The chief prosecutor for the past nine years, Pato Bensuda, who also serves as the court's director, is expected to leave her post in the coming weeks.

In recent years, she herself and the institution she heads have been subject to very harsh sanctions by the Trump administration, following its decision to interrogate American and Israeli soldiers.

Former President Donald Trump has even issued a presidential decree that places the same level of threats against Israeli and US security forces.

Biden did not take a stand

President Biden and his men have not taken a public stance on the question of the approach they are expected to take towards the tribunal.

As you may recall, former President Barack Obama also refrained from including the United States in court, due to the danger posed by him in an American view of its security forces.

Unlike the previous directors of the tribunal, who mainly investigated war crimes in the Third World, Basuda argued that crimes against humanity should be investigated, even by the superpowers.

She examined charges attributed to British and American soldiers.

In the case of Israel, it instructed the Palestinians on how to be admitted to the tribunal, promoted Palestinian complaints and rejected all the arguments that Israel forwarded to it in an informal way.

For an unknown reason, the judges of the Hague Tribunal have long refrained from publishing their decision on whether to authorize the foundation to open an investigation against Israelis allegedly suspected of war crimes.

The foundation itself supports the move, but many major countries around the world have appealed to the court to avoid it, and this may be the reason for the delay.

Another possibility is that the tribunal has been waiting for a change of government in the US, and now that Trump is not in the picture the judges will not be afraid to advance moves against Israel and the US.

Meanwhile, the head of the National Security Council and National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat had a first conversation with US National Security Adviser Jack Sullivan and congratulated him on his occasion.

The two soon agreed to discuss the many issues on the agenda, including the issue of Iran, regional issues and the advancement of the Abrahamic Agreements.