No seasonal good cheer in Palestine

Palestine is just gearing up to celebrate its second Christmas. The first one was on the 25th December marking the Roman Catholic date. The next comes on the 7th January when the Eastern Orthodox church likes to celebrate it, while the third, marked by the Armenian Christians does not come until the 17th of this month. But you can be sure their festivities will be run on a shoestring after Israel withheld $127 million in tax revenues as a direct punishment for the Palestinians having the temerity to apply to be a member of the ICC, the International Criminal Court. This money is desperately important to such impoverished regions as the West Bank and Gaza.


If allowed to be a member, the ICC would in theory be allowed to pursue war crimes by either side of the ethnic divide in Israel/Palestine. But there are one or two small problems. First, by its constitution the ICC is only permitted to pursue individuals and not governments, second, that the Israeli leadership has already made it clear that it will protect its citizens and members of its army from any prosecution. So don't expect any Israeli soldiers or indeed settlers appearing before the ICC any time soon.


Last week the Palestinians appealed to the UN for protection from continual attacks launched against them from the illegal settlements. This came after 5000 olive tree saplings recently planted on Arab lands were systematically uprooted by settlers. When two UN SUVs went to investigate the claims they were attacked with rocks from the settlements and forced to withdraw.


The ICC, as I said, has strictly limited powers: they were unable to make any charge stick against the deputy Kenyan Leader Uhuru Kenyatta, even though there was compelling evidence that he and others had orchestrated horrifying post-election violence in 2007. Nonetheless it would be a minor breakthrough if Palestine were to be taken into its fold, even if only politically. Watch this space...