The U.S.’s concerted efforts at diplomacy in reviving the peace process in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict fell apart early this summer. Since then, matters have signicantly deteriorated, especially because of last week. Israel and the Palestinians are getting farther and farther apart.
This past week the Palestinian Authority (PA) applied for membership in the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is located in the Hague, Netherlands. It was the PA’s planned move after the UN Security Council a few weeks ago rejected a PA request that the Council require that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict be resolved within the next three years. If the ICC accepts this PA request, the PA will then brings criminal charges against individual Israeli politicians and more. But if it does, what about the possibility of bringing criminal charges against Palestinian terrorists living in the Gaza Strip and perhaps against Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip? Legal experts say the PA has no chance of succeeding with this plan. Why? They say Arab terrorists against Israel have been worse.
The PA will also bring charges against Israel for continually approving of Jewish settlements and increased construction in already existing settlements. And the PA will request that all of these allegations they make against Israel be retroactive to the time when the ICC came into existence, which was 1998.
But all members of the ICC are states, and the PA is not a state even though it now has full observor status in the UN. But an increasing number of nations have lately been declaring that they accept the Palestine as a state, with the PA as its governing authority, even though the PA governs Palestinians resideing in the West Bank yet it does not have sovereign possession of that territory.
The day after this PA request with the ICC, Israel began retaliation measures by withholding $127 million of tax revenue it raises and transfers to the PA each month in order for the PA to meet its $160 per month budget. This arrangement, in which Israel collects taxes from Palestians living in the West Bank, was the result of the Camp David Accords signed between Israel and Egypt in 1978 that resulted in the Israeli-Egyptian Peace Treaty orchestrated by U.S. President Jimmy Carter.
These actions by the PA could prove dangerous for it. The U.S. has opposed both of these PA requests to the UN Security Council and the ICC. In making them, the PA could risk losing its $400 million per year in aid it receives from the U.S. On the other hand, the PA could dramatically increase its international support from these moves.
Israel’s withholding of tax payments due the PA could prove dangerous for Israel. It could influence the ICC to both accept PA membership and begin prosecution of Israeli politicians for “crimes against humanity” in accordance with PA allegations. Also, if the PA gains membership in the ICC, the PA will bring charges against Israel for its 60-day war against the Gaza Strip last summer. Typical of the disparity of loss in past wars, Israel suffered about 70 casualities and the Palestinians in Gaza suffered almost 2,200 casualities. Then there are the monetary reparations necessary for the physical damage that the Gaza Strip sustained from that war. And if Israel continues to withhold these payment for some weeks, it could affect Israel’s elections to be held in March. The hawkish Likud party is still dominant in Israel’s coalition party, with Benjamin Netanyahu as Prime Minister. But withholding these payments could result in Likud and Netanyahu being outsted from office.
These moves by the PA could have an enormous affect on the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And if Israel continues to withhold tax revenues due the PA–something Israel has done about a dozen times in the past, but only temporarily–PA leaders now claim that it could prove the end of the PA because it would not be able to make its payroll and thus go bankrupt.
As the many years go by, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict just gets worse and worse and worse.
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