{"id":52122,"date":"2015-01-05T12:39:35","date_gmt":"2015-01-05T12:39:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=52122"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:27:05","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:27:05","slug":"when-will-palestinians-learn-turning-to-international-law-isnt-the-answer-just-ask-america-and-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/01\/when-will-palestinians-learn-turning-to-international-law-isnt-the-answer-just-ask-america-and-israel\/","title":{"rendered":"When Will Palestinians Learn? Turning to International Law Isn’t the Answer \u2014 Just Ask America and Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"

If Palestine\u2019s request is \u2018entirely counterproductive\u2019, what does that make Israel\u2019s slaughtering of civilians last summer?<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Israel<\/a>

Israel and its accomplices must not be allowed to get away with the extermination of a people. [AFP]<\/p><\/div>Throw an old dog a bone and sure enough, he\u2019ll go chasing after it. So it is with \u201cPalestine\u2019s\u201d request to join the International Criminal Court. An obvious attempt by Mahmoud Abbas to try Israel for war crimes in Gaza this year<\/a>, we are told.<\/p>\n

Or maybe a \u201ctwo-edged sword\u201d \u2013 yawns are permitted for such clich\u00e9s \u2013 which could also put Hamas \u201cin the dock\u201d. Israel was outraged. The US was \u201cstrongly opposed\u201d to such a dastardly request by the elderly potentate who thinks he rules a state which doesn\u2019t even exist.<\/p>\n

But hold on a moment. That isn\u2019t the story, is it? Surely the real narrative is totally different. The BBC didn\u2019t get this. Nor CNN. Nor even Al Jazeera. But surely the most significant event of all is that the descendants of the PLO \u2013 excoriated only a quarter of a century ago as the most dangerous \u201cterrorist\u201d organisation in the world, its mendacious leader Yasser Arafat branded \u201cour Bin Laden\u201d by Israel\u2019s mendacious leader Ariel Sharon \u2013 actually wants TO ABIDE BY INTERNATIONAL LAW!<\/p>\n

Heavens preserve us from such a thought, but these chappies \u2013 after all their past calls for Israel\u2019s extinction, after all the suicide bombings and intifadas \u2013 are asking to join one of the most prestigious judicial bodies on earth. For years, the Palestinians have demanded justice. They went to the international court in The Hague to have Israel\u2019s apartheid wall dismantled \u2013 they even won, and Israel didn\u2019t give a hoot. Any sane Palestinian, you might think, would long ago have turned his or her back on such peaceful initiatives.<\/p>\n

Yet still these wretched Palestinians persist, after this most humiliating of insults, in resorting to international law to resolve their conflict with Israel. Here they go again, dutifully seeking membership of the International Criminal Court. Will these Arabs never learn?<\/p>\n

And of course, the Americans are threatening to punish such effrontery. Stop those millions of dollars in aid to the Palestinians. Stand by Israel\u2019s refusal to accept any such approach to the International Criminal Court by \u201cPalestine\u201d. The EU \u2013 especially Britain and France \u2013 have gone along with this tosh. Israel has already decided to stop more than \u00a380m in tax owed to the Palestinian authority.<\/p>\n

The US State Department\u2019s spokesman told us that his government is \u201cdeeply troubled\u201d by the Palestinian application. It is \u201centirely counterproductive\u201d, he informed the world. It does \u201cnothing to further the aspirations of the Palestinian people for a sovereign state\u201d \u2013 though one might have thought that membership of so august a judicial body would have done a lot to persuade the world that Palestinians were ready to shoulder all the burdens of statehood.<\/p>\n

After all, the Palestinians would indeed have to abide by international law and \u2013 if the law applied retrospectively \u2013 they would have to carry the burden of opprobrium themselves for both Hamas crimes and past PLO murders. The United States, of course \u2013 and this fact oddly did not feature in the flurry of news reports on \u201cPalestine\u2019s\u201d request to join \u2013 has itself refused to join the International Criminal Court. And with good reason; because, like the Israelis \u2013 although this is not quite how the whole fandango was explained to us \u2013 Washington is also worried that its soldiers and government officials will be arraigned for war crimes. Think waterboarding, Abu Ghraib, the report on CIA torture\u2026<\/p>\n

No wonder Jeffrey Rathke, the windbag who speaks for the State Department, says that the Palestinian request \u201cbadly damages the atmosphere\u201d with Israel, \u201cundermines trust\u201d and \u201ccreates doubts about their (Palestinian) commitment to a negotiated peace\u201d. And remember, Abbas only made his request after America had voted against \u2013 it has previously used its veto more than 40 times on Israel\u2019s behalf to reject Palestine\u2019s self-determination since 1975 \u2013 a UN Security Council resolution to end Israel\u2019s occupation of Palestinian land by 2017.<\/p>\n

But of course, what this whole kerfuffle is really about is quite simple. The world is tired of witnessing the suffering of Palestinians. Those with an ounce of human sympathy are sickened at being slandered as anti-Semitic or anti-Zionist (whatever that is) every time they express their outrage at Israel\u2019s cruelty towards the Palestinians.<\/p>\n

Killing more than 2,000 Palestinians last summer, hundreds of them children, was a mass slaughter. We\u2019ve watched this grotesquerie so many times now \u2013 in Gaza, for the most part \u2013 that even our statistics have become spattered with blood.<\/p>\n

Who now recalls the fatalities of the 2008-9 Gaza war? One thousand four hundred and seventeen Palestinians dead, 313 of them children, more than 5,500 wounded. That was the conflict upon which President-elect Obama had no comment to make.<\/p>\n

And who knows what other gory Pandora\u2019s box ICC membership would open? That bomber pilot who in 2002 killed 15 civilians, 11 of them children, in a Gaza apartment block to assassinate a Hamas official, for example? Wouldn\u2019t that constitute a war crime? Don\u2019t these outrages \u201cdamage the atmosphere\u201d and \u201cundermine trust\u201d. Were these bloodbaths not \u201centirely counterproductive\u201d? And the Jewish colonisation of the occupied West Bank?<\/p>\n

Sure, bang up those behind Hamas and Islamic Jihad suicide attacks for war crimes. Get the Palestinian Authority thugs who torture and murder their own prisoners. But that\u2019s not what Israel and the US are worried about. They are concerned that, after months of arguing and rowing and delving through thousands of documents, jurists may decide that Israel \u2013 horror of horror \u2013 may have to answer for itself before international justice, something which no routine US veto could prevent.<\/p>\n

Now just imagine if Israel and America wanted the Palestinians to sign the Rome document. Conjure the thought \u2013 for a split-second only \u2013 that Israel and America insisted that the Palestinians must abide by an international treaty and become members of the International Criminal Court to qualify for statehood. Abbas\u2019s refusal to do so would be further proof of his \u201cterrorist\u201d intentions. Yet when Abbas does sign the Rome document, when the Palestinians want to abide by an international treaty, they must be punished \u2013 surely a \u201cfirst\u201d in modern history.<\/p>\n

I can only think of two phrases that fit the bill for this scandal of the West\u2019s politicians. Confound their politics. Frustrate their knavish tricks.<\/p>\n

The impasse in the Middle East in a nutshell<\/strong><\/p>\n

Apropos of which\u2026 Avi Shlaim, among the finest of Israeli historians, has just brought out a new edition of his great work The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World. \u201cThe prospect of a real change in American foreign policy looks slim to non-existent,\u201d he writes. \u201cNor is there at present any evidence to suggest that Israel\u2019s leaders are remotely interested in a genuine two-state solution\u2026 They seem oblivious to the damage that the occupation is doing to their society and to the reputation of their country abroad.\u201d That\u2019s it in a nutshell, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

______________________________<\/p>\n

READ MORE<\/strong><\/h5>\n
Palestine applies for membership of ICC to try Israel for Gaza destruction as alleged war crimes<\/a><\/h5>\n

Robert Fisk, based in Beirut, is a multiple award-winning journalist on the Middle East and a <\/em>correspondent for <\/em>The Independent, a UK newspaper.\u00a0 He is the author of many books on the region, including <\/em>The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 independent.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If Palestine\u2019s request is \u2018entirely counterproductive\u2019, what does that make Israel\u2019s slaughtering of civilians last summer?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-palestine-israel-gaza-genocide"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52122\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}