Posted on 01/04/2015 9:51:12 AM PST by celmak
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 on Saturday.
On Friday, the Palestinians delivered documents to U.N. 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, totaling some 500 million shekels ($125 million), an Israeli official said on Saturday.
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I am pretty sure Israel provides their water, electricity, gas, and most food too.
yes. and Israel has been supplying electricity all the while the so-called palis have NOT EVEN PAID their bills. Withholding funds now is not only a good idea, it is necessary if Israel Electric Corp. is to remain solvent. The better solution will, of course, be to relocate (as far away as possible) or dispatch the IslamoNazi murdering terrorists to their Satanic ‘god’ in Hell, all of them. Meanwhile, there’s zero reason why Israelis should have to pay for their killers’ electricity (so that the arabs can have nice light and heat in their invasion tunnels, etc...)
So Israel is pay the PA $125 million out of it’s own tax revenue as a form of welfare? Let Palestine fend for itself.
Using human shields to guard military targets (such as rocket launching sites) is a War Crime under international law. Therefore, the PA Authority government is 100% guilty of War Crimes against Israel committed just last summer. And the world thinks Israel can stand by as the very criminals are allowed to this body and to prosecute War Crimes against Israel? This is Satanic lunacy.
Apparently, Israel hasn’t gotten the word that the only way they’ll be allowed into the ICC is in handcuffs. The ICC is a creation of the UN, the world’s greatest anti-Semitic gang ever to worship secret swastikas.
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