W W W . J P O S T . C O M

THEJERUSALEM POSTVolume LXXXIX, Number 26921 NIS 13.00 (EILAT NIS 11.00)FOUNDED IN 1932

M O N D A Y , F E B R U A R Y 8 , 2 0 2 1 2 6 S H V A T , 5 7 8 1

Cabinet says int’l court aligned with antisemites in decision to probe Israel

• By LAHAV HARKOV

The International Criminal Court is in line with antise-mitic organizations in its rul-ing that Israel may be inves-tigated for war crimes, the security cabinet said Sunday.

In a rare public statement, the security cabinet rejected the ICC’s “outrageous” deci-sion. Israel is not a member of the court, and the Palestinian Authority, which joined the Rome Statute establishing it,

does not meet the interna-tional standard for statehood, the security cabinet said. As such, the ICC does not have the jurisdiction to investigate

Israel, it said.The ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber

on Friday ruled it has juris-diction to probe war-crimes allegations in Gaza, the West

Bank and east Jerusalem com-mitted since June 13, 2014, including possible lawsuits against Prime Minister Ben-jamin Netanyahu, defense ministers and other high-lev-el officials, as well as soldiers and commanders. The inves-tigation includes Operation Protective Edge and settle-ment activity.

The ICC decision “exposes the court as a political body aligned with international organizations that are moti-vated by antisemitism,” the security cabinet said.

“The international court was established to prevent horrors such as those that

Do religious Zionists still need a sectarian party?

ANALYSIS• By JEREMY SHARON

Last Thursday night at mid-night, a key political entity in the State of Israel that has in one form or another played a role in every Knesset since 1956 was eliminated from the national political map.

The Bayit Yehudi Party, the successor to the National Reli-gious Party, failed to unite with another political faction and, due to disastrous polling num-bers, decided not to run in the upcoming elections.

The political heir of the NRP

– whose leaders, such as Haim-Moshe Shapira, Yosef Burg and Zvulun Hammer, made lasting contributions to the Jewish state and which has represented the religious-Zionist communi-ty for decades – will now not be represented in the next Knesset.

How did this venerable and fixture of Israeli politics fall so low?

In truth, developments lead-

ing to this outcome have been long in the making.

The old National Religious Party always faithfully served its constituents by focusing on religious issues; preserving the status quo on religion and state, including personal-status issues; and guaranteeing the viability of the religious-Zionist school system and yeshivas.

In the last two decades it also focused heavily on advancing the cause of the settlements, which religious Zionists pioneered. But its

Biden: I will not lift sanctions to get Iran back to negotiations

We have fulfilled all our obligations under the deal, supreme leader says

• By OMRI NAHMIAS Jerusalem Post Correspondent

WASHINGTON – US President Joe Biden said on Sunday that the US would not lift sanc-tions on Iran to get the Islam-ic Republic back to the negoti-ations table.

During an interview with CBS’ Face the Nation ahead of the 55th Super Bowl, he was also asked if Iran must stop enriching uranium first, and nodded his head in affirma-tion. It was not clear exactly what he meant, since Iran was allowed to enrich uranium to 3.67% under the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

A senior US official later said Biden meant Iran had to stop enriching beyond the deal’s limits, not that it had to stop enriching entirely before the two sides might talk.

“They have to stop enrich-ing beyond the limits of the JCPOA,” said the official, who spoke on condition of ano-nymity. “There is nothing changed in the US position. The United States wants Iran to come back into [compliance with] its JCPOA commitments – and if it does, the United States will do the same.”

State Department spokes-man Ned Price said on Friday that the US approach would

be “to ensure that we are con-sulting and coordinating very closely with first and foremost our allies, but also our partners – and of course, with members of Congress” about Iran.

“We want to make sure that we are working in lockstep with our European partners and to ensure that they know exactly where we are and we know exactly where they are, and we will move forward together,” he added.

Earlier on Sunday, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Tehran’s “final and irreversible” decision was

to return to compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal only if Washington lifts sanctions on the Islamic Republic, Iranian state TV reported. The deal was signed during the admin-istration of former president Barack Obama.

“Iran has fulfilled all its obli-gations under the deal, not the US and the three European countries... If they want Iran to return to its commitments, the US must in practice... lift all sanctions,” state TV quot-ed Khamenei as saying in a

Cabinet going for huge US-Israel aircraft deal• By UDI SHAHAM

An arms deal worth billions of dollars between the Defense Ministry and the United States for new fighter jets, tankers and helicopters received prelim-inary approval on Sunday by the security cabinet.

This decision ends a three-year-long dispute between the Defense Ministry and the Finance Ministry over the pay-ment method of the deal.

The security cabinet chose

the outline proposed by the Defense Ministry over the one suggested by the Finance Ministry. The defense minister asked to receive a foreign loan for the procurement.

In October, Finance Ministry legal adviser Avi Mesing – who opposed this outline – wrote to Deputy Attorney-General Meir Levin, citing legal issues with the advancement of the deal.

According to a Walla News report, Mesing blamed the Defense Ministry for trying to establish a “parallel mecha-nism” that would have allowed it to receive a loan and bypass the spending limit that was set for it by law.

The deal includes the pro-

curement of four Boeing KC-46a aerial refueling tank-ers, that are intended to replace Israel’s ageing Re’em fleet, con-verted Boeing 707s.

Last March, the US State Department approved a possi-ble sale of up to eight KC-46

Down to LapidThe polls show there is an anti-Netanyahu majority in the countryPage 9

Breaking the rulesDozens of malls open in defiance of restrictions

Page 5

Standing togetherMore than 170 US celebrities join Black-Jewish alliance Page 16

Netanyahu pretrial hearing today

• By YONAH JEREMY BOB

The final pretrial hearing for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opens on Mon-day. He will be in attendance for only the second time since the court process began and will formally deny the indict-ment against him.

The Jerusalem District Court is expected to set a schedule for calling witnesses.

Typically, the court could start calling witnesses as early as late February. But it is unknown if the judges might postpone the first witness until after Election Day on March 23.

Throughout the pretrial process, which started in January 2020 and with a first hearing in May, the court said it would move forward blind to politics.

However, the court delayed the first 2020 pretrial hearing for months, seemingly to avoid starting in the middle of the March 2020 election season.

The three judges are Rivkah Friedman-Feldman, Moshe Bar-Am and Oded Shoham.

Netanyahu on Sunday asked supporters not to come to the courthouse on Monday because of COVID-19 con-cerns.

“Anyway, everyone sees that the witch hunt against me is crumbling,” he said. “Every-body understands it is anoth-er transparent attempt to top-ple a strong prime minister from the Right and bring in a

Educators, gov’t fight over plan to return to school

Exit from lockdown doesn’t mean increase in morbidity is behind us, PM says

• By MAAYAN HOFFMAN

Parents and children once again went to sleep late Sunday night unsure of what the rest of their week would hold, as the govern-ment debated late into the night about a new strategy for allowing some children to return to school on Tuesday.

The plan, which was determined in a late-night meeting Saturday by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Health Minister Yuli Edelstein, Education Minister Yoav Gallant and Finance Minister Israel Katz, was met by opposition from parents, teachers and local authority leaders alike.

According to their outline, preschoolers, kin-dergarteners, students in first through fourth grades and those in 11th and 12th grades who live in yellow and green areas would go back to school on Tuesday. They would learn accord-

ing to pre-lockdown restrictions – wearing masks and in capsules for grades three and up.

However, the recommendation for orange and red areas was different. These same stu-dents would return to school, but in smaller capsules beginning even in preschools, hence requiring them to learn in-person only every other day. In addition, they will be asked to study in the open air, meaning outside.

“We are concerned about opening education in orange and red areas with high morbidity,” said Head of Public Health Services Sharon Alroy-Preis. “Before the closure there were out-breaks in schools, one child was ill and dozens got ill with him.

“We do not want to leave the children at home, but the risk in the orange and red cities is significant.”

PEOPLE WALK along Jerusalem’s Jaffa Road and Strauss Street as the country exited the lockdown yesterday. (Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post)

US PRESIDENT Joe Biden departs from St. Joseph on the Brandywine Catholic church with his granddaughter Natalie Biden after mass in Wilmington, Delaware yesterday. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters)

8 points on ICC’s war crimes suits, Page 3

Holocaust group: Likud disgraced survivors, Page 4

Who will be the next ICC prosecutor to decide Israel’s fate?

ANALYSIS• By YONAH JEREMY BOB

Following the Internation-al Criminal Court Pre-Trial Chamber’s Friday decision pushing closer to a full crim-inal war-crimes probe of Israe-lis, the punch line is that they will not ultimately decide whether to issue arrest war-rants or indictments for Israe-lis some years down the line.

Rather, it will be someone whose identity we still do not know: the next chief prosecu-tor of the ICC.

Current ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda steps down from her nine-year term on June 15, but her successor has not yet been selected.

It is that successor who will be in power when the key decisions are made about Isra-el’s future in the six-year-long war-crimes controversy with the ICC.

There may be an answer about the successor as soon as Monday, with key court offi-cials meeting about the issue in New York.

But then again, it could drag out until much closer to June 15 since the whole process to date has been messy.

Bensouda’s successor was supposed to be selected in December by a special com-mittee and the ICC’s polit-ical-legislative body, the Assembly of State Parties.

But despite around a year

of vetting and selection pro-cesses, including narrowing the candidates to four final-ists who all gave major public interviews last July, there was no consensus.

It turns out that the ICC’s member states are having trouble deciding what they want most.

The first ICC prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, was a major figure and prosecu-tor in Argentina. He was also selected as being both accept-able to countries like the US, but not actually a citizen of those dominant world pow-ers.

Bensouda, his successor and

SMOKE RISES following what witnesses said were Israeli air strikes in the east of Gaza City in 2014. (Suhaib Salem/Reuters)

See PRETRIAL, Page 7 See SANCTIONS, Page 7See SCHOOL, Page 7

See ICC, Page 7

See AIRCRAFT, Page 7 See ZIONISTS, Page 3

See ANTISEMITES, Page 7

ISRAEL WILL receive another F-35I squadron as part of the procurement deal. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)