Palestinian focus on isolating Israel, continuing ICC efforts
With Palestine joining the International Criminal Court and suspending the security cooperation with Israel, Palestinians hope to isolate the Israeli state internationally and make it pay for its occupation and war crimes.
Weeks before the results of the Israeli elections were known, the Palestine Central Council (PCC) met in Ramallah to decide on the Palestinian strategy. Somehow anticipating a continuation or a shift to the hard right, the council resolved on March 5 to give Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas the mandate to suspend security cooperation and to move ahead with the ongoing efforts at the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The United Nations declared that the nonmember state of Palestine will become a full legal member in the ICC on April 1. Palestine will reportedly sue Israel for war crimes in the Gaza Strip, as well as the perpetual war crimes in terms of the illegal settlements in the occupied territories.
The move toward a proactive strategy comes after years of futile negotiations with an Israeli protagonist that talks about peace, but acts with tanks and bulldozers. Now that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s anti-peace and racist ideology has become public, the rest of the world has seen what Palestinians have known for decades: that the Israelis are not serious about peace.
Despite this prophetic knowledge, however, Palestinian options are limited. Short of a violent uprising, which in the past has brought disastrous results, the Palestinians’ main option is to help further isolate Israel internationally and to make its occupation costly.
