Rivlin made the plea via op-ed in the Le Figaro French daily, hours before his planned meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris.

“The decision by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to investigate Israel for possible war crimes is a dreadful misapplication of international law. A court established to deal with the gravest crimes of concern to the international community is being used a political weapon. It is a morally and legally bankrupt decision,” Rivlin wrote.

The president insisted that Israel is “deeply committed to the theory and the practice of ensuring that war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity are never allowed to go unpunished because domestic legal systems are unwilling or unable to prosecute individuals responsible for them.”

“The soldiers and civilians that ICC is threatening to investigate are our children and grandchildren, our neighbors and friends. We will do everything we can to protect them, just as they protected us when asked to do so,” Rivlin wrote.

Lamenting the “asymmetric armed conflict” Israel has found itself engaged in, Rivlin said enforcers of international law should say “not only what is not allowed, but also about what a state that wants to protect the lives of its civilians is allowed to do.”

Rivlin also argued that “one of the most egregious consequences of the ICC’s decision is that it will make it even harder for Israelis and Palestinians to find common ground.”

“Until the Court concludes its investigation, which could take several years, it is hard to see the two sides engaging in serious negotiations,” he said. “At a time when the recent agreements between Israel and Arab countries make the prospect for such progress better than any time in the recent past, this is an act of perverse logic.”

“I call on friends of Israel and the Palestinians, in France and beyond, to state clearly, once and for all, that the road to peace runs directly between Jerusalem and Ramallah. Detours via the ICC in the Hague and the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva are counterproductive to the cause of peace and undermine the chances of an agreement between us,” he concluded.

On Wednesday, Channel 13 reported that Israel received a letter from the ICC formally detailing the scope of its war crimes investigation against Israel and Palestinian terror groups. According to the report, the letter arrived over the weekend and the National Security Council has already met to begin formulating Israel’s response.

The report said the one-and-a-half page letter briefly laid out the three main areas the probe intends to cover: the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas; Israeli settlement policy; and the 2018 Great March of Return protests, a series of violent demonstrations along Gaza’s border with Israel that left dozens of Palestinians dead.

Neither Israel nor the ICC published the letter or acknowledged it had been sent.