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Is Abbas Serious about Going to the International Criminal Court?
(Jerusalem Report) Alan Baker - The latest ploy by PA President Mahmoud Abbas for frightening the Israelis, which is fixated on "internationalizing the conflict" by "going back to the UN," joining various international conventions and taking Israeli political and military leaders to the International Criminal Court (ICC), involves a large degree of self-delusion. Abbas' threat to go to the ICC and have Israeli leaders and military officers tried for war crimes appears almost certain to backfire. Even if the ICC prosecutor accepts a Palestinian request for standing in the Court, the Court's rule of "complementarity" prevents the Court's exercising its jurisdiction if the case in question is already subject to investigation and potential juridical process by the nation-state of the accused. Even more noteworthy is the likelihood that the Palestinian leadership, in giving the Court jurisdiction over the territories, including Gaza, would be placing itself - as well as senior Hamas commanders and tacticians - at the mercy of anyone who chooses to initiate claims against them for serious war crimes and terrorism. These crimes include willful and large-scale targeting of Israeli civilians, towns and villages, and the willful and systematic use of their own civilians and civilian structures, including homes, schools, hospitals, mosques, clinics and UN properties, as civilian and human shields - all serious war crimes. The International Criminal Court has hardly got off the ground as a viable international juridical body. The last thing it needs is to be labeled as one more UN-style "Israel-bashing" institution, manipulated by the Palestinians. The writer, a former Foreign Ministry legal advisor and Israeli ambassador to Canada, is director of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.