The world's largest bloc of Islamic countries has been lobbying the Palestinians to join the International Criminal Court so it can prosecute Israeli political and military leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity, the bloc's leader said.
Iyad Madani yesterday said in an interview with The Associated Press that the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation strongly supports Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' plan to ask the UN Security Council to impose a deadline for an Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian lands.
The thrust now should be "to bring the Israelis to the peace camp" with the United States as a moderator, "not a party to the conflict," he said. The United States, Israel's most important ally, has to choose, because "you are either a moderator or a party to the conflict," he said.
Madani also called for a revival of the stagnant Quartet of Mideast mediators - the US, UN, European Union and Russia - with new leadership. Former British prime minister Tony Blair has been the official envoy of the Quartet since June 2007.
In the wide-ranging interview, the OIC secretary-general described the Islamic State extremist group, which has captured a wide swath of Syria and Iraq, as "criminal" and its actions as "madness."
Madani said he fully supports US airstrikes in Syria and Iraq targeting the Islamic State group, also known by its acronyms ISIS and ISIL, but only if they are part of a wider effort to dismantle the group's presence and deal with the causes that gave rise to extremism.
"Drones and airstrikes will not do the job alone," he said.
He derided extremist groups like the Islamic State and Boko Haram in Nigeria who claim to represent true Islam. "These people cannot be voices of Islam. They don't understand Islam, and just claiming the caliphate is simply a way of creating false legitimacy of their purpose," he said.
"We think that ISIS should be called CSIS the Criminal State in Iraq," he added.
