Let The UN Declare A Palestinian State--And Abbas Might Never Be Able To Visit Europe

In Richard Goldstone & Palestinian statehood, Caroline Glick argues that the consequences of the UN recognizing a Palestinian state and welcoming it as a UN member are overblown:

...If “Palestine” is accepted as a UN member nation, we have been warned, it will join the International Criminal Court and file war crimes complaints against us. While this is probably true, the fact is that even without the prerequisite UN membership, the Palestinians have already filed war crimes complaints against us at the ICC. Although “Palestine” must already be a state for the ICC to entertain the complaints, it has not rejected them.

But two can play this game.
Say “Palestine” joins the ICC. Even if Israel remains outside the treaty, it can use its membership against it. Both Fatah and Hamas have committed innumerable war crimes. Every terrorist murder and attempted murder, every missile, mortar shell and rocket fired is a separate war crime. And every terror victim has the right to file war crimes complaints against “Palestine” with the ICC prosecutor.

If in fact it comes to that, and Israel does decide to pursue the prosecution of war crimes against Fatah and Hamas--the first target of such legal proceedings should be Abbas himself.

Abbas's active role in encouraging the incitement of hatred against Israel is well documented. During the first 3 months of this year alone, there have been at least 5 recorded cases of incitement of hatred against Israel by Abbas's Palestinian Authority:

On 9.3.11, Abu Mazen's advisor Sabri Saidam, delivered a speech in which he emphasized that Palestinian weapons must be turned towards Israel. He demanded that the Palestinian people be attentive to the living conditions of martyrs' families and said that the anniversary of the death of Dalal Mughrabi (one of the perpetrators of 1978 coastal highway massacre) should be marked by inaugurating a square in her name in the city of El-Bireh.

On 6.3.11, the PA's official newspaper, Al Hayat Al-Jadida, published an item to the effect that the management of a youth club in Ramallah planned to hold a soccer tournament in memory of Wafa Idris, a suicide bomber.

On 9.2.11, the official Palestinian television station broadcast a clip from a campaign entitled "Women as Exemplars", during which Dalal Mughrabi (see above) was extolled. In the summer of 2010, several children's summer camps were named after her.

On 24.1.11, the Governor of Jenin issued a Presidential Grant worth $2,000 to the family of Palestinian terrorist, Khaldoun Samoudi, who was killed while trying to detonate two bombs against IDF soldiers at the Beka'ot Crossing.

On 2.1.11, Al Hayat Al-Jadida reported that Azzam Al-Ahmed, a member of the Fatah Central Committee, attended a gathering on the 46th anniversary of the establishment of Fatah, held in the village of Turah, south-west of Jenin, during which models of settlement buildings were blown up. He reviewed terrorist attacks that had been perpetrated by Fatah and said that, "Fatah is a mass movement which believed in popular revolution and wrested its right to use all means of resistance in order to achieve its aim."

And incitement is a crime--it amounts to a crime of genocide.

In his article, Palestinian Incitement: The Real “Deal Breaker” (PDF), Dr. Joel Fishman, a historian and a fellow of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs details how Palestinian incitement is a violation of the Crime of Genocide as outlined in the 1948 Genocide Convention

As we know from experience, incitement that is diffused publicly for the purpose of encouraging others to commit an offense is a grave matter because it can well be criminal. It provides the means for translating hatred into an interpretive framework (to use Herf’s formulation) and, for example, was identified in the genocidal crimes that took place in Rwanda. Moreover, the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide has identified direct and public incitement as a crime,whether or not it results in genocide. Robert Cryer, in his entry on incitement in The Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes against Humanity, described the nature of this crime:

Direct and public incitement to commit genocide is criminalized in Article III( c ) of the 1948 Genocide Convention. A provision akin to Article III ( c ) can be found in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Article 25 (3) (e)). Incitement is one of a limited group of crimes related to genocide (the others are attempts at genocide and conspiracy to commit genocide) which do not require the commission of one of the genocidal acts set out in Article II of the 1948 Genocide Convention. Incitement, attempt, and conspiracy are crimes in themselves.As none of these offenses requires an act of genocide to be committed, they are referred to as inchoate (incomplete) crimes. Their incompleteness does not change the fact that they are criminal...(emphasis added)

Fishman quotes Gregory H. Stanton, president of Genocide Watch, who in a 1996 paper describes “The Eight Stages of Genocide”. One of those stages is dehumanization:

One denies the humanity of the other group, the members of which are equated with animals (such as apes and pigs) vermin, insects, or diseases. Dehumanization numbs the normal human revulsion against murder. At this stage, hate propaganda in print and on radio is used to vilify the victim group...Leaders who incite to genocide should be banned from international travel and have their foreign finances frozen. Hate radio stations should be shut down, and hate propaganda banned. Hate crimes and atrocities should be promptly punished.

Recognition of a second Palestinian state may very well be inevitable, but being recognized as a state comes with certain responsibilities and consequences.

Personally, I think it would be a nice change of pace to see Abbas canceling a trip to Europe for a change, out of fear of an arrest warrant.

Technorati Tag: Abbas and Genocide and War Crimes.