Will Palestinian Move To Exploit ICC Against Israel Ruin Another International Institution?

The State Department has condemned the move by Abbas to sign the Rome Statute and open the way for going to the International Criminal Court:

"We strongly oppose #Palestinian action at the #ICC," per @statedept. "Counter-productive" and does nothing for statehood aspirations.
— Matt Lee (@APDiploWriter) December 31, 2014

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#Palestinian move at #ICC "will badly damage atmosphere with the very people with whom they ultimately need to make peace," per @StateDept
— Matt Lee (@APDiploWriter) December 31, 2014

But there is more to this than just the Palestinian Arabs destroying the peace process.


There is also the fear of the results of another Palestinian exploitation of an international institution.

The pattern so far as been:

1. The Palestinian Arabs join an international institution -- over US objections
2. The Palestinian Arabs then politicize that institution, turning it into an anti-Israel forum
3. The delegitimization of the institutions then triggers a harsh response from Washington
4. The Palestinians move on to the next institution and repeat the process

UNESCO, The UN General Assembly and the UNHRC are all examples of this.

In America Must Safeguard Its Essential Interests At UNESCO, UNESCO’s Ambassador Samuel Pisar wrote:

...UNESCO suddenly finds itself, for totally extraneous reasons, in the throes of a financial crisis that threatens its very existence. This crisis exploded two years ago, when the Palestinian Authority decided to ignore the United Nations Charter, which requires a recommendation from the Security Council before the General Assembly can admit a new member, and persuaded a block of sympathizing countries to vote in Palestine as a member state of UNESCO. As required by law, the U.S. could not but freeze its annual 80 million dollar contributions to that agency, depriving it of almost a quarter of its annual budget.

After causing the crippling of UNESCO, Abbas went on to politicize UNESCO by getting the Church of the Nativity on the World Heritage in Danger list and orchestrating anti-Israel resolutions by UNESCO

This past September, the EU went so far as to walk out on the anti-Israel UN debate:




The fear now is that this new ICC bid by Abbas will follow this pattern of politicization, leaving the court torn between anti-Israel politics and actual issues of international law, thus bringing it into conflict with US laws and Congressional lawmakers as the US moves to reassert its interests.

The resultant fight could damage both the ICC and international law, as the US could block funding of the ICC as well.

The current headquarters of the ICC in The Hague

Hat tip: The Israel Project
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