UN confirms Palestine will become ICC member starting April 1

© Reuters/Enrique Castro-Mendivil

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

Palestine will join the International Criminal Court on April 1, announced UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday. The Palestinians will be able to sue Israel for war crimes, a move the Israeli administration has consistently opposed for decades.

The UN treaty website says that due to the court's procedures "the statute will enter into force for the State of Palestine on April 1, 2015."

Along with the ICC application, the UN chief approved other sets of documents, enabling Palestine to join 16 international agreements, conventions and treaties.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas signed the ICC application documents on the last day of 2014, following the UN Security Council's resolution on December 30, which rejected Palestine's official bid for statehood, a document vetoed by the US in support of Israel.

The Palestinian delegation submitted its ICC application on January 2.

Israel's immediate reaction was negative.

"We will not let Israel Defence Forces (IDF) soldiers and officers be dragged to the International Criminal Court in The Hague," Netanyahu said at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting, AFP reported.

The Israeli administration immediately applied financial pressure on the Palestinian Authority, freezing the transfer of half a billion shekels (over $127 million) in monthly tax revenues it collected on behalf of the Palestinians.

The US joined the financial pressure on the Palestinian Authority on Monday, when the Obama administration announced a review of America's annual $440 million aid package to the Palestinians. As AP pointed out, once the Palestinian Authority apply any case against Israel to the International Criminal Court, US financial help to Palestine will cease immediately under American law.

Joining the ICC will give the Palestinian Authority new and powerful leverage to make Israel more compliant regarding withdrawal from the occupied territories.

In anticipation of the ICC bid last week, Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour announced the Palestinians will prosecute Israel for crimes committed during the war in Gaza last summer. According to Mansour, Palestinians will also sue Israel for constructing settlements on the occupied Palestinian territory.

In late 2014, the Palestine stepped up its efforts to gain international recognition as a sovereign state. It came following the failure of the latest round of US-brokered peace talks with Israel, which was initiated after the bloody 50-day armed conflict in Gaza that left some 2,120 Palestinians and 68 Israelis dead.

Unlike before, this time around the aspirations of the Palestinians have found much wider international support, as many countries have openly spoken in favor of creating a sovereign Palestinian state.

Comment: For the sake of Palestinians, let's hope the ICC will actually hold Israel accountable for their war crimes and the genocide will end.

"This (ICC) is the same organization who very recently had flatly rejected a bid by the Palestinian government to try the Israelis for their conduct during Operation which led to the murder of 1400 civilians including 300 children. Targeting civilians with F-16s and Apache helicopters, the Israelis had gone on a shooting spree. The three-week long campaign that the Israelis began towards the end of 2008 aimed primarily at civilian enclaves in Gaza was to 'break the back of resistance' as was boasted by generals if the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).

Following the conflict, a UN sponsored tribunal charged the IDF with complicity in war crimes. The Palestinians wanted justice and went to the ICC for that very purpose. But guess what? The ICC rejected the request under the ridiculous excuse that while 130 countries and some U.N. bodies recognize Palestine as a state, it still holds an observer status in the U.N., and so the ICC 'cannot at this time investigate allegations of war crimes committed on Palestinian territory,' according to Moreno-Ocampo the ICC prosecutor.

By claiming that 'the court's reach was not based on a principle of universal jurisdiction and it could open investigations only if asked to do so by either the UN Security Council or by a recognized state,' the ICC brought the Palestinian Authority's bid for war crimes tribunal to investigate an Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip among other incidents of war crimes to a full stop.

There have been immediate reactions that accused the ICC of political bias. Amnesty International's International Justice campaign group charged that 'For the past three years, the prosecutor has been considering the question of whether the Palestinian Authority is a state that comes under the jurisdiction of the ICC and whether the ICC can investigate crimes committed during the 2008-9 conflict in Gaza and southern Israel. Now, despite Amnesty International's calls and a very clear requirement in the ICC's statute that the judges should decide on such matters, the Prosecutor has erroneously dodged the question, passing it to other political bodies. This dangerous decision opens the ICC to accusations of political bias and is inconsistent with the independence of the ICC.'

And yet Moreno-Ocampo and his prosecution office at the ICC chooses to ignore the human toll and suffering of the Gaza conflict of over three and a half years ago, and instead focuses on the single-handed objective of bringing another Arab dictator to justice.

By their hypocrisy and evasion in not confronting the Israelis with their mammoth list of war crimes and prosecuting them to the full extent of the law, the ICC has lost its relevance on the international stage to mete true justice."

Hypocrisy of the International Criminal Court