The Jerusalem Post reports:
The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague announced on Tuesday that the State of Palestine has joined it, becoming its 118th member state.
It is unclear how significant an achievement joining the PCA is with the Palestinians likely to brandish it as supporting their joining the International Criminal Court and Israel likely to underplay it.
At press time, the Palestinian Authority had not responded to inquiries and the Foreign Ministry responded, “this is a legal body which is not among the more important ones. What a waste that the Palestinians continue to invest efforts to be accepted into these kinds of bodies instead of returning to the negotiating table.”
Israel opposes any recognition of Palestine as a state outside of bilateral negotiations.
The ICC Prosecution in January 2015 accepted Palestine as a state for purposes of opening an examination of the 2014 Gaza war crimes allegations and of the settlements enterprise, but Israel has been trying to convince it to back away from this position.
Tuesday’s news only complicates Israel’s efforts, even as the PCA is much less prominent now than the ICC.
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