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Mar. 6, 2021
Only a state can grant the International Criminal Court jurisdiction on its territory. The United Nations made possible the ICC prosecutor’s decision to investigate alleged war crimes in the Palestinian territory Israel occupied in 1967 when it granted the PLO’s request to recognize this occupied area and its people as a state called Palestine.
The public received this UN resolution, from November 29, 2012, with a yawn. In contrast, the ICC prosecutor’s statement Wednesday was received like a fresh breeze. The Fatah movement will presumably take advantage of this necessary but forgotten link in its election campaign, though when Mahmoud Abbas chose the diplomatic route of achieving state status, he wasn’t thinking about the ICC.