The ICC considers “Palestine” a state–but Palestinian leaders explicitly say it isn’t one

The International Criminal Court decided that it had jurisdiction to charge Israel with crimes. As the NYT notes, one of the reasons was that Palestine was legally a state :

Dealing a severe diplomatic blow to Israel, the court ruled that for its purposes, Palestine qualified as the state on the territory where the events in question occurred and defined the territorial jurisdiction as extending to the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. The ruling was not unanimous, with one of the three judges, Péter Kovács, presenting a dissenting opinion, disputing the notion that the court has jurisdiction in this case.

Péter Kovács’ dissent includes an interesting annex that shows, quite clearly, that Palestinian leaders themselves do not consider Palestine to be an independent state.

The name of the annex is “Public Annex 1: Recent statements of leading Palestinian personalities on the ‘State of Palestine’ as an ‘aim to achieve’ but not as an existing, sovereign and independent State.”

Here are only a few of the quotes he brings – all within the past year.

 

Who	Date	Where	Quote
Mahmoud Abbas	11 February 2020	United Nations Security Council	‘Mr. Trump’s plan [...] will not lead to the implementation of the vision of two independent   sovereign States, Israel and Palestine.’
Mahmoud Abbas	19 May 2020	Ramallah	‘that the peace process will then be held under the auspices of the United Nations through holding an international conference [...] to end the occupation and establish an independent Palestinian state.’
Mahmoud Abbas	1 December 2020	United Nations with Secretary- General, General Assembly, Security Council	‘to convene an international conference [...] leading to an end of the occupation and the achievement by the Palestinian people of their freedom and independence within their State’
Mohammad Shtayyeh	10 December 2020	Meeting with Spanish Foreign Minister	‘For the Palestinian side, any political path must aim to end the [Israeli] occupation and establish a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders’
Foreign Minister Riad Malki	26 January 2021	United Nations Security Council	‘While we pursue our long journey to freedom and peace, we call for immediate protection for our people, who are equally entitled to security, until such time where we can ensure their protection as a sovereign State.’
Riad Malki	30 April 2020	Ramallah	‘if the annexation plan is implemented, the possibility of an independent, sovereign, viable and geographically contiguous Palestinian state will be undermined’

 

It is an interesting state where its own leaders don’t consider it as such. One would think they would know.

Which makes the ICC decision that Palestine is a state, contradicting its own leaders, most curious.

It calls into question the entire ICC methodology.

(h/t Irene)