Israel May File War Crimes Suits Against Mahmoud Abbas Following Palestinian Authority’s ICC Bid
Following Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ failed U.N. bid last week, when he attempted to persuade the Security Council to force Israel to recognize a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, the authority filed paperwork to become a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC), with a view to pressuring the Jewish State with potential war crimes charges.
Legal proceedings are already underway in the United States and elsewhere against Mahmoud Abbas, according to the AFP, which reported that the P.A. Chairman has come under fire for cynically using international pressure against Israel, rather than opting for a negotiated peace settlement.
A source told reporters that the basis of the complaints would be that Abbas’s partnership with Hamas in a Palestinian consensus government makes him complicit in the Islamist terror group’s rocket attacks from Gaza against civilians inside Israel, which are clearly war crimes.
As the source, who wanted to stay anonymous, said, “In recent days officials in Israel stressed that those who should be wary of legal proceedings are the heads of the P.A. who cooperate within the unity government with Hamas, a declared terrorist organization which like the Islamic State (jihadist group) carries out war crimes – it fires at civilians from within population centers.”
The Independent reported that while the P.A. may want to put Israel into the dock for alleged war crimes, it may turn out that the P.A. itself can become charged with similar accusations, especially as Hamas used its own civilians as human shields, as well as schools and hospitals as storage places for rockets and munitions.
In a recent interview, the P.A.’s envoy to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) admitted the P.A. has no hope of pressing charges against Israel in international courts because Palestinian Arab terrorist groups are far worse violators of international law themselves.
By way of a punishment for Mahmoud Abbas, Israel recently announced that it was freezing the transfer of around $127 million to the Palestinian Authority, as ordered by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
An official told reporters, “The funds for the month of December were to be transferred Friday, but the government decided to freeze [the transfer] as part of the response to the Palestinian move.”
