Arab League chief calls for a special criminal court to try Israel

Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi has called for a special criminal court to be set up for Israel, at a meeting to condemn an announcement that it will never return the Golan Heights.

Delegates to the 22-member Arab bloc based in Cairo are expected to pass a resolution denouncing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pledge Sunday that the occupied Golan Heights would remain Israeli “forever.”

Israel occupied the Golan during the 1967 Middle East war with Syria, Egypt and Jordan, and annexed it in 1981, in a move never recognized by the international community.

Israeli media have reported that Netanyahu organized a cabinet meeting in the Golan — where he made the pledge — amid fears Israel could come under pressure to return the area as part of a future peace deal for its war-torn neighbor.

Israel was acting like “a country that is above the law and accountability.’ Al-Arabi was quoted as saying.

PO