The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, dramatically moved to join the international criminal court on Wednesday, setting Palestinians on a diplomatic collision course with Israel and Washington, and risking imposition of US sanctions.
Abbas signed the Rome statute governing the court and 19 other international agreements, potentially opening the way to Palestinians to pursue Israel for war crimes in the court of last resort based in The Hague.
It followed the rejection by the UN security council of a Jordanian-backed resolution on behalf of Palestine calling for the end to the Israeli occupation by 2017 and the establishment of a Palestinian state based on pre-1967 borders.
Abbas’s move came at the end of 24 hours of diplomatic tension when – under pressure from other members of the Palestinian leadership – he followed through on his long-threatened plan to join the ICC.
In response to Abbas’s signing of the treaty Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, warned that it was Palestinians, not Israel, that should be concerned about the ICC.
“It is the Palestinian Authority – which is in a unity government with Hamas, an avowed terrorist organisation that, like Isis, perpetrates war crimes – that needs to be concerned about the international criminal court in the Hague,” Netanyahu said, adding that Israel would take unspecified “retaliatory steps”.
The US also condemned the move which it described as “deeply troubling” with State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke saying it was “an escalatory step that will not achieve any of the outcomes most Palestinians have long hoped to see for their people”.
He added: “Today’s action is entirely counter-productive and does nothing to further the aspirations of the Palestinian people for a sovereign and independent state. It badly damages the atmosphere with the very people with whom they ultimately need to make peace. As we’ve said before, the United States continues to strongly oppose actions – by both parties – that undermine trust and create doubts about their commitment to a negotiated peace. Our position has not changed. Such actions only push the parties further apart.”
Acceding to the Rome treaty – the first step in joining the court – had been seen by many as the nuclear option in the recent Palestinian efforts to advance their case for statehood in international forums… see more
source: Guardian UK
Tags: International Criminal Court, Palestinian President, Politics
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