{"id":12638,"date":"2011-11-02T09:37:07","date_gmt":"2011-11-02T17:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=12638"},"modified":"2011-11-03T19:23:05","modified_gmt":"2011-11-04T03:23:05","slug":"is-pas-unesco-victory-the-first-step-in-prosecuting-israeli-war-crimes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2011\/11\/02\/is-pas-unesco-victory-the-first-step-in-prosecuting-israeli-war-crimes\/","title":{"rendered":"Is PA’s UNESCO Victory the First Step in Prosecuting Israeli War Crimes?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in September I wrote about a State Department cable released by WikiLeaks<\/a> in which a meeting with Israeli officials revealed that one of the primary reasons the Israeli government wants to block Palestinian statehood is to keep the occupied territories outside the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.\u00a0Israeli Defense Forces Head of the International Law Department Col. Liron Libman \u201cnoted that the ICC was the most dangerous issue for Israel,\u201d reads the cable. And\u00a0Military Advocate General for the IDF, Avichai Mandelblit, in talking with US Ambassador James Cunningham seemed to\u00a0deflect allegations of war crimes, not by denying they took place, but by dismissing them via a legal technicality. They put forth “several legal opinions had been delivered to [Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno] Ocampo noting that the ICC had no legal jurisdiction due to the PA\u2019s lack of statehood\u2026\u201d My article and the corresponding cable are worth reading in full.<\/p>\n

Well, according to former British Ambassador and Murder in Samarkand<\/em> author Craig Murray, Palestine’s overwhelming UNESCO victory – derided almost exclusively by the US and Israel – is the first step in the PA’s ability to pursue Israel for war crimes at the ICC<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So the UNESCO membership is crucial recognition of Palestine\u2019s statehood, not an empty gesture. With this evidence of international acceptance, there is now absolutely no reason why Palestine cannot, instantly and without a vote, join the International Criminal Court. Palestine can now become a member of the International Criminal Court simply by submitting an instrument of accession to the Statute of Rome, and joining\u00a0the list of states parties.<\/a><\/p>\n

…There is an extremely crucial point here:\u00a0if Palestine accedes to the Statute of Rome, under\u00a0Article 12 of the Statute of Rome<\/a>, the International Criminal Court would have jurisdiction over Israelis committing war crimes on Palestinian soil<\/em>. Other states parties \u2013 including the UK \u2013 would be obliged by law to hand over indicted Israeli war criminals to the court at the Hague. This would be a massive blow to the Israeli propaganda and lobbying machine.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Interesting. And this comes just in time, according to Amnesty International<\/a>:<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Israel did not even try to hide the fact that their plans to\u00a0accelerate the construction<\/a>\u00a0of 2,000 housing units in East Jerusalem \u2013 an area considered as \u2018occupied\u2019 by the international community thus making the construction illegal \u2013 was in\u00a0response to<\/a>\u00a0and part of a series of punishments to be meted out against the Palestinian Authority for their successful pursuit for\u00a0full membership<\/a>\u00a0to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and pursuit for\u00a0full recognition<\/a>for the State of Palestine by the United Nations body itself.<\/p>\n

What is significant as well, but I\u2019m afraid being over-looked, is that the announcement also came just two days after the well-respected organization, the\u00a0Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions<\/a>\u00a0(ICAHD), submitted a major and precedent-setting report to three of the UN\u2019s Special Rapporteurs claiming that Israel\u2019s actions in East Jerusalem violate international law and may constitute a war crime and asking for an investigation into these practices<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read that ICAHD report here<\/a>. It discusses\u00a0\u201cforcing the migration process on the basis of ethnicity \u2013 which violates international law, and is possibly a war crime.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in September I wrote about a State Department cable released by WikiLeaks in which a meeting with Israeli officials revealed that one of the primary reasons the Israeli government wants to block Palestinian statehood is to keep the occupied territories outside the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.\u00a0Israeli Defense Forces Head of the International […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-12638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/86"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12638"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12673,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12638\/revisions\/12673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12638"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=12638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}