No twisting Israel’s arm

Most Arabs, particularly Palestinians, seemed ecstatic that the International Criminal Court (ICC) complied with their urgent request to investigate the Palestinian charges against Israeli war crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories.

This issue has troubled the Middle East since 1967 when Israel aggressively built illegal Jewish settlements in an area that is hardly 22 per cent of historic Palestine where Palestinians plan to establish their independent state.

About 500,000 Israelis have illegally settled in the occupied West Bank and more keep on moving there regularly, including as many as 7, 000 French Jews who are reportedly planning to emigrate to Israel after the recent horrific attack in Paris by jihadists.

The ICC prosecutor, Gambian Fatou Bensouda, an international criminal law prosecutor and legal adviser, opened on January 16 a “preliminary examination” of the situation in Palestine, much to the anguish of Israel and, disappointingly, the US.

The focus of the examination will be the alleged crimes since June 13, 2014; in other words during the 50-day Israeli assault on the besieged Gaza Strip that left over 2,200 Palestinians, including over 200 children, dead.

Amnesty International, among others, according to the United Press International, has already collected a large amount of evidence indicating that Israel committed crimes in Gaza last summer.

Agonising for many Arabs, especially Palestinians, has been the American reaction to preliminary steps taken by the ICC, which came on the heels of the rejection of Palestinian membership in the UN Security Council at the behest of the US and Israel.

US senators also threatened to cut off the $400 million aid to the Palestinian Authority. (For the record, the US continues to provide Israel $3 billion annually in military aid.) The ICC decision prompted an unprecedented level of anger in the US. 

Jeff Rathke, press office director at the US Department of State, declared that “Palestine is not a state and Israel should not be investigated because it has a right to defend itself from thousands of rockets,” a reference to what Hamas, the Palestinian group in Gaza, had fired during Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip.

He went on: “We strongly disagree with the ICC prosecutor’s action today. As we have said repeatedly, we do no believe that Palestine is a state and, therefore, we do not believe that it is eligible to join the ICC. It is a irony that Israel, which has withstood thousands of terrorist rockets fired at its civilians and its neighbourhoods, is now being scrutinised by the ICC; the place to resolve the differences between the parties is through direct negotiations, not unilateral actions by either side. We will continue to oppose actions against Israel at the ICC as counterproductive to the cause of peace.”

Obviously, the spokesman has shockingly not kept up with the recent developments.

Palestine has acceded to the Rome Statute, the treaty that created the court. This indicated that the preliminary examination was not taken at the discretion of Bensouda, but it is, rather, a matter of routine.

Rather than unfairly open fire on the Palestinian Authority, the State Department should pay attention to what Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told the press during the visit this week of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who donated $100 million to the authority to help reconstruct the Gaza Strip and create job opportunities for Palestinians.

Israel has been withholding tax money, estimated at $27 million, that it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, in retaliation for joining the ICC.

Underling the fact that Israel must chose between peace and Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian territories, Abbas stressed that he was committed to resuming peace talks with Israel “on the basis of the Arab peace initiatives and UN resolutions”.

Abbas continued: “Our hands remain extended for peace. [Israel] must choose between peace and settlement expansion at our expense. You can’t achieve peace through collective punishment by withholding our money, and not through racist measures on the ground and the continued incarceration of thousands of prisoners.”

In other words, it is high time for the Obama administration to squeeze Israel’s arm and the monied Israeli lobby which reigns supreme in the US.

Regrettably, President Barack Obama failed to make even a reference to Palestine in his “State of the Union” message Tuesday night, but assured Israel that it will be safe, assumedly from Iran.

This being the case, the Palestinians cannot be blamed for seeking help at the United Nations. After all, Secretary of State John Kerry had failed in his long-winded peace negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis.

The writer is a Washington-based columnist.