The International Criminal Court has been on the brink of irrelevancy. After all, you can't have justice without occasionally angering the powerful. Until this week the powerful didn't care about the ICC.

Then this happened.



The head prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague announced that after assessing the situation, she says the criteria is there to pursue a case of alleged war crimes committed by Israel against the Palestinian Territories under the Rome Statute. “I am satisfied that there is a reasonable basis to proceed with an investigation into the situation in Palestine,” said ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda in a statement. “In brief, I am satisfied that war crimes have been or are being committed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip … potential cases arising from the situation would be admissible; and there are no substantial reasons to believe that an investigation would not serve the interests of justice,” she added.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed Sunday that efforts by the ICC to investigate were rooted in anti-Semitism. Of course.

Meanwhile, the decision by the ICC to not investigate U.S. war crimes is being appealed.