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Rome Statute: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas signs up, paving way for Israel war crimes probe by ICC Rome Statute: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas signs up, paving way for Israel war crimes probe by ICC
(about 4 hours later)
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas signed the Rome Statute today as part of a move to join the International Criminal Court (ICC), a day after a bid for independence by 2017 failed at the United Nations Security Council. The Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, has initiated a request to join the International Criminal Court (ICC), a long-pondered and risky step his aides say is aimed at holding Israel accountable for alleged war crimes in the occupied territories.
The move, certain to anger Israel and the US, is a step on the way to the court to take jurisdiction over crimes committed in Palestinian lands and investigate the conduct of Israeli and Palestinian leaders. “They attack us and our land every day, to whom are we to complain? The Security Council let us down – where are we to go?” Mr Abbas told a gathering of Palestinian leaders in remarks broadcast on official television. The move, taken a day after the failure of a Palestinian security council bid to end the occupation by 2017, raised tensions with Israel and was sharply condemned by the US, which had also opposed the security council effort for not taking into account, in Washington’s view, Israel’s security needs.
“We want to refer to international institutions, and this is one we are referring to, and we’ll complain to these people,” he added, before signing the Rome Statute and documents relating to 19 other international institutions. In a quick response to the setback, Mr Abbas signed the Rome Statute, the guiding document of the ICC, during a meeting with Palestinian leaders in which he also signed accession to 21 other treaties and international organisations. “They attack our land every day – to whom are we to complain? The security council let us down – where are we to go? To the international organisations.’’
In the months leading up to the failed UN bid on Tuesday, Sweden recognised Palestinian statehood and the parliaments of France, Britain and Ireland passed non-binding motions urging their governments to do the same. Saeb Erekat, a senior aide to Mr Abbas, said the President signed in order to ‘‘ensure the protection and advance the rights of our people. There must be accountability and those who are concerned about courts should stop committing crimes.’’
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the move would expose the Palestinians to prosecution over support for what he called the terrorist Hamas Islamist group. In a statement, Mr Netanyahu said the court could also target the Palestinians, citing Abbas’ unity deal with Hamas Islamists, which he called “an avowed terrorist organisation which, like Isis, carries out war crimes”. Shawan Jabarin, the director of the Ramallah-based al-Haq human-rights group, hailed Mr Abbas’s move as “groundbreaking’’ even though accession to the ICC is not automatic and it could take months for the application to be processed.
“We will take steps in response and defend Israel’s soldiers,” Mr Netanyahu said. “This makes it possible for the ICC to prosecute and punish those responsible for serious crimes. The court can erase the immunity Israel has afforded its soldiers and officers. There is no doubt this will fundamentally change the way Israel carries out its occupation. If the prosecutor’s office issues warrants, the Europeans will have to follow that up and arrest suspects. It is time that this was done.’’
Palestinian officials said that American opposition made inevitable the defeat on Tuesday night of a UN Security Council resolution calling for Israel to fully withdraw from all occupied Palestinian territories by the end of 2017 and for a comprehensive peace deal to be reached within a year. But the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said it is the Palestinians who should fear war-crimes prosecutions. “We will take steps in response and defend the soldiers of the Israel Defence Force, the most moral army in the world. The Palestinian Authority has more to fear having formed a government with Hamas, a known terrorist organisation and which like the Islamic State commits  war crimes.’’
The United States and Australia voted against the bid, while eight countries voted yes and another five abstained. Mr Netanyahu is scheduled to convene a meeting tomorrow to weigh the Israeli response to the move. Given that an election campaign is under way and that he is in competition with the far-right Jewish Home party for votes, he may feel the need to respond sharply to Mr Abbas’s move either with plans for new settlement construction or possibly the suspension of transfers of tax revenues Israel collects for the Palestinian Authority that are essential for its economic viability.
After two decades of failed, on-again, off-again peace talks, the Palestinians have grown disillusioned and decided to seek international recognition of their independence. The Palestinians believe the strong international support will put pressure on Israel to allow the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. Among the other treaties Mr Abbas signed were the Convention on the Political Rights of Women, the UN Convention on Transnational Organised Crime, and the UN Convention on the Law of  the Sea.
Israel, which captured the three areas in 1967, says Palestinian independence can only be reached through negotiations. Peace talks mediated by the United States collapsed in April in a dispute over Israeli settlement-building and a prisoner release deal, as well as Mr Abbas’s decision to sign on to over a dozen previous international texts Israel saw as a unilateral move the contravened the negotiations.
Momentum to recognise a Palestinian state has built up after Mr Abbas succeeded in a bid for de facto recognition of Palestinian statehood at the UN General Assembly in 2012, which made Palestinians eligible to join the ICC. 
Reuters; AP