The idea of creating an International Criminal Court to prosecute the world’s worst offenders, who committed the worst crimes, was a noble one. In the aftermath of the Holocaust, Israel and Jews were among the leading proponents of establishing such a court. In practice, however, the ICC has proven to be a colossal failure. Now, as a result of the actions of the ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, and his predecessor Fatou Bensouda, the court, as an establishment, is reaching ever-deepening lows.
Bensouda was distinctly hostile to Israel. She was the one who generated the ICC prosecution theory of a non-existent “State of Palestine.” She pushed the court into taking upon itself jurisdiction that it does not possess, to define the borders, de novo, of this non-existent state. She was also the one to officially adopt, lock, stock and barrel, the Palestinian narrative regarding Israel’s actions and to allege that Israeli officials had committed serious offenses.
As regards the Palestinians, Bensouda was quite forgiving and focused mainly on the actions of the acknowledged terrorists. She did however have one saving grace.
In her “Report on Preliminary Examination Activities” (2019)1 Bensouda noted, inter alia, that the Office of the Prosecutor had also received allegations that the “Palestinian Authority has encouraged and provided financial incentives for the commission of violence through their provision of payments to the families of Palestinians who were involved, in particular, in carrying out attacks against Israeli citizens, and under the circumstances, the payment of such stipends may give rise to Rome Statute crimes.”
Bensouda was of course referring to the P.A.’s terror-rewarding “pay-for-slay” policy. This decades-old policy consists of two elements: a) the payment of monthly allowances to injured terrorists and the families of dead terrorists; and b) the payment of monthly salaries to terrorists who have been arrested by Israel. Even though the two elements are technically separate, their common goal is to encourage and incentivize participation in terror.
While the payment of allowances to injured terrorists and the families of dead terrorists is mandated by internal policies of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the payment of the salaries to the imprisoned and released terrorists is fixed in a P.A. law—Law of Prisoners and Released Prisoners No. 19 of 2004—and accompanying P.A. government regulations. According to analysts and commentators, every year, the P.A. spends an estimated one billion shekels ($270 million) on these terror rewards.
The terror-rewarding payments are not concealed by the P.A. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has openly declared on the world stage and in the P.A. media that even if the P.A. is left with only one penny in its coffers, it would pay that penny to the terrorists.
Abbas, more than any other Palestinian, is directly responsible for these payments. It was Abbas who promoted the original P.A. law. In 2006, Abbas approved the regulations that codified the monthly payments to terrorists held in Israeli prisons. He also codified the practice of ensuring jobs in P.A. institutions for released terrorists. In 2010, he approved a salary hike for terrorist prisoners, including a 300% rise, from 4,000 to 12,000 shekels per month ($1,000 to $3,240) for prisoners serving sentences of over 30 years in prison, i.e., murderers.
In 2007 and again in 2009 and 2013, Abbas approved hikes in the monthly allowances the PLO pays to the wounded terrorists and families of dead terrorists.
Evidence to support and substantiate the allegation that the P.A.’s policy incites, incentivizes and rewards terrorism can be found in abundance. Nonetheless, instead of pursuing the real terrorists, like Abbas, the current ICC prosecutor, Khan, is too busy wasting the court’s time and resources by inventing unsubstantiated claims against Israeli leaders.
While reports at the time suggested that Bensouda was working in close cooperation with the Palestinian leadership and representatives of the other Palestinian terror groups, Khan has now dragged the ICC to a new low.
A post on the ICC’s X (formerly Twitter) account provided pictures of Khan meeting with the terror promoter Abbas.
Instead of referring to Abbas as the prime suspect in a multi-billion-dollar program to incentivize and reward terror and the murder of Jews, a program that not even the Nazis had, the court’s caption for the pictures declared: “At #UNGA79, #ICC Prosecutor @KarimKhanQC met w/ H.E. Mahmoud Abbas, President of the State of Palestine. Strengthening dialogue & cooperation central to supporting independent investigations of the Office of the Prosecutor.”
How can Khan and the court claim that they are “strengthening dialogue and cooperation central to supporting independent investigations” when Khan has actively abandoned the most important and clear-cut investigation and meets so cordially with a prime suspect?
Sadly, despite the high hopes and aspirations that the ICC would finally bring justice to the victims and punishment to the world’s most serious war criminals, with people like Khan in central positions, the ICC is plunging into ever-deepening decay and regrettably assisting in its own suicide.
Originally published by The Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs.
