Joining ICC — ‘threatening’ step?

The Palestinian Authority Friday applied for membership in the International Criminal Court, just after a resolution it submitted at the UN Security Council, setting a three-year deadline for the establishment of a Palestinian state on land occupied by Israel, was defeated.

This innocuous step, by which Palestinians will seek justice for the crimes committed by Israel in Gaza and for Israeli settlements on Palestinian territory, which constitute a war crime under the Rome statute that established the court, is absolutely justified.

Still, Israel vehemently opposed it and the US, the “impartial” broker of peace talks between Palestinians and Israelis, finds it an obstacle to reaching a peace deal.

Of course, it is difficult to see how seeking justice at one of the highest courts could hinder arriving at a peace agreement, but then the US, which is not a member of the ICC, may know something most of the world does not.

Creating the ICC in 1998, the culmination of years of hard work by the international community, was a dream come true for most nations eager to prevent the commission of crimes against humanity, war crimes or genocide.

“Palestine’s move to join the ICC means that individuals implicated in war crimes committed in or from Palestinian territory could be held to account,” said Balkees Jarrah, international justice counsel at Human Rights Watch.

This means that abuses and unlawful acts — be they settlement expansion, Israeli attacks on civilians or Hamas rocket strikes — can be tried by the court, so if Israel has nothing to fear, why the threats of retaliation?

US lawmakers, not to be undone by Israel, also issued threats.

A stop-gap funding bill passed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama last month contains language that stipulates that no State Department economic support funding may be given to the PA if “the Palestinians initiate an International Criminal Court judicially authorised investigation, or actively support such an investigation, that subjects Israeli nationals to an investigation for alleged crimes against Palestinians”.

A US State Department spokesman described the Palestinian move as “an escalatory step that will not  achieve any of the outcomes most Palestinians have long hoped to see for their people”.

And a US official said “it should come as no surprise that there will be implications for this step”, whatever those are.

Such statements defy logic and only show the amount of control the pro-Israel lobby has over American lawmakers.

If, as it claims, Israel did not commit any of the crimes that come under the purview of the ICC, what does it, and its crony US, fear from this latest Palestinian step?

The answer is clear.