Reacting to the admission of the Palestinian Authority (PA) as the 123rd member of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Saeb Erekat, who chaired the Palestinian negotiation team with Israel, said April 1, with unabashed satisfaction: "This is a national historic day." Since the derailment of the peace talks with Israel, senior Palestinian leaders have used every opportunity to brandish the ICC weapon. Recently, following the results of Israel's March 17 elections, they have been much more vocal about it. Reacting to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's re-election, Erekat, Jibril Rajoub and other Palestinian seniors reacted by saying that the Palestinian response would be given at ''the ICC."
Having talked with some of the Palestinian leaders, I discerned delight in their voice in view of the fact that senior Israeli defense establishment officials are apprehensive (so they claim) of what might transpire, now that the PA has become a full-fledged member of the ICC. "Why are the Israelis afraid of the ICC?" asked Rajoub. "Who's afraid of going to court? Only the felon, only the criminal. Are you war criminals? If you are, you should be worried," Palestinian officials said.
This week, the talk and economic sanctions by Israel to dissuade the Palestinians from taking this step came to an end. In tandem with unfreezing Palestinian tax funds, which were originally held off because of the January appeal to the ICC, the PA was inducted into the UN legal organ. Now senior PA officials feel that they have made another step toward the establishment of a Palestinian state.
After a short ceremony in The Hague that was attended by Riyad al-Malki, the PA's foreign minister, the membership went into legal effect, giving senior PA officials an opportunity to move from threats to action. But before long, it turned out that senior PA officials prefer to hold the ICC sword as a sign of a diplomatic victory — impressive as it may be — instead of using it at this stage. In other words, PA President Mahmoud Abbas, Erekat and Rajoub are pleased with just relishing the fact that they are members of this exclusive club. Yet at the same time, they're making the cost-benefit analysis. Won't lawsuits for war crimes elicit similar suits from Israeli organizations that would lessen the sting of the Palestinians' constant threat?
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