The Trump administration announced Monday that it is closing the Palestine Liberation Organization’s office in Washington, DC, amid concerns that it is trying to trigger an International Criminal Court probe of Israel.
The State Department claims the PLO “has not taken steps to advance the start of direct and meaningful negotiations with Israel,” and accuses Palestinian leaders of condemning a yet-to-be-released Trump administration plan to forge peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Palestinian leaders have called for Israeli officials to be prosecuted at the ICC for alleged human-rights violations.
“The United States will always stand with our friend and ally, Israel,” said National Security Adviser John Bolton. “We will not allow the ICC, or any other organization, to constrain Israel’s right to self-defense.”
Bolton also said the US is prepared to slap financial sanctions and criminal charges on judges and officials of the court if they proceed against any Americans.
“We will ban its judges and prosecutors from entering the United States,” he said. “We will sanction their funds in the US financial system, and we will prosecute them in the US criminal system.
“We will do the same for any company or state that assists an ICC investigation of Americans,” Bolton added.
Israel welcomed the move and accused the Palestinians of seeing the court as a way of sidestepping US-sponsored bilateral talks. Those contacts stalled in 2014.
“The Palestinians’ resort to the ICC and refusal to negotiate with Israel and the United States is not the way to advance peace, and it is good that the United States is taking a clear stand on this matter,” an Israeli official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Palestinian officials called the closure of the PLO mission a new pressure tactic by a Trump administration that has cut $25 million in funding to a UN agency for Palestinian refugees and to hospitals in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians want as capital of a future state.
“We reiterate that the rights of the Palestinian people are not for sale, that we will not succumb to US threats and bullying,” Palestinian official Saeb Erekat said. “Accordingly, we continue to call upon the International Criminal Court to open its immediate investigation into Israeli crimes.”
Husam Zomlot, head of the PLO mission in Washington, told reporters in Ramallah that the closure was “to protect Israel from war crimes, crimes against humanity that Israel is committing in the occupied Palestinian territories.”
Trump has promised to pursue the “ultimate deal” between the Palestinians and Israel, but a law passed by Congress says the mission must close if peace negotiations aren’t ongoing.
The Palestinians rejected the United States as peace broker following Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and his moving the US embassy there.
The ICC was formed in 2002 to prosecute war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity, but it has been mired in controversy from the outset.
President Bill Clinton signed the Rome Statute establishing the ICC, but his successor, George W. Bush, renounced the deal, citing fears that Americans would be unfairly prosecuted for political reasons.
With Wires