JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel will withhold critical tax revenue and seek ways to bring war crimes prosecutions against Palestinian leaders in retaliation for Palestinian moves to join the International Criminal Court (ICC), Israeli officials said yesterday.
On Friday, the Palestinians delivered documents to UN headquarters in New York on joining the Rome Statute of the ICC in The Hague and other global treaties with the aim of prosecuting Israelis for what they consider war crimes committed on their territory.
In a first punitive response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided in consultation with senior ministers on Thursday to withhold the next monthly transfer of tax revenue, totalling some 500 million shekels ($125 million), an Israeli official said yesterday.
The ICC was set up to try war crimes and crimes against humanity such as genocide. Israel and the United States object to unilateral approaches by the Palestinians to world bodies, saying they undermine prospects for negotiating a peaceful settlement of the decades-old Middle East conflict.
The tax revenues are critical to running the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule, and paying public sector salaries. Israel took a similar step in December 2012, freezing revenue transfers for three months in anger at the Palestinians’ launch of a campaign for recognition of statehood at the United Nations.
“This is highway robbery. Not only is this illegal, they are adding money theft to land theft. The revenues belong to the Palestinian people, they go to pay salaries and support our economy. Israel has no business deciding to steal our funds,” senior Palestinian negotiator Hanan Ashrawi told Reuters.
Under interim peace deals from the 1990s, Israel collects at least $100 million a month in duties on behalf of the Palestinian Authority.
In addition to the revenue freeze, an Israeli official said Israel was “weighing the possibilities for large-scale prosecution in the United States and elsewhere” of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and other senior Palestinian officials.
Israel would probably press these cases via non-governmental groups and pro-Israel legal organisations capable of filing lawsuits abroad, a second Israeli official said.
