Palestinian leaders help Israel evade ICC, again

Editor's note: 

 “A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.”
~~Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 – 43 B.C.E.)

Cicero’s words can be applied to all traitors, in this case to the people like Abbas and Maliki. Erekat had never any independent position; he is a ‘negotiator’ of Abbas and nothing more. Ashrawi has been the only person in PA who could speak rationally and coherently on the issues involved. But it is Abbas again who wields the stick and decides who says what and when and how. He is a trustworthy friend of Israel and US. After the present Israeli masscres in Gaza and incredible rampage, Netanyahu asked Abbas to choose between Hamas and Israel. He made a choice. This old man chose Israel! But that was not unexpected either, keeping in view the past record of Abbas. What more one can say about him, I hesitate to say.

 Nasir Khan, Editor

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Jessica Purkiss, MEM, 11 September 2014 

Riad Maliki during his visit to the ICC

In 2009, Palestinian leaders attempted to bring Israel’s actions during “Operation Cast Lead” to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Although the bid was refused by the then prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo on the grounds that only states could do so and Palestine was not recognized as a state, the move fuelled hopes that one day Israel could be held accountable.The United Nations General Assembly approved Palestine’s 2012 statehood bid, upgrading Palestine to a non-member observer state and therefore making it eligible to bring a case to the court. The chief prosecutor of the ICC, Fatou Bensouda, has stated that “the ball is now in the court of Palestine,” “Palestine has to come back” and “we are waiting for them.”

When Palestinian foreign minister Riad Maliki visited The Hague in early August, the seat of the ICC, hopes were once again raised- would Palestine’s leaders finally follow through with its ICC threats? Maliki told reporters that the visit was made in-order to discuss the implications of signing the Rome Statute. Signing the Rome Statute would make Palestine a member of the ICC with the authority to call for an investigation into possible war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Israel.

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