Blinken blinks on Palestinian and Saudi rights

On March 3, the US State Department put on its website a hilarious statement titled The United States Opposes the ICC Investigation into the Palestinian Investigation. 

In a nutshell, the statement exposes that President Joe Biden’s administration has blinked for a second time on the human rights situation in West Asia by refusing even to acknowledge that the International Criminal Court’s investigation into the “Palestinian situation” is about human rights first and foremost. 

The State Department’s argument in essence narrows down to a bureaucratic point questioning the ICC’s jurisdiction to investigate the human rights issues that involve the State of Israel and, secondly, that “Palestinians do not qualify as a sovereign state and therefore, are not qualified to obtain membership as a state in, participate as a state in, or delegate jurisdiction to the ICC.” 

The human rights issue ought to be felt in the blood and heart. It is not the stuff of cold reasoning from legal angles or of political expediency. The State Department statement on the hapless Palestinians brings to mind what Pablo Picasso once said, “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” 

Such sophistry to quibble over the tragic plight of the Palestinians will reduce the American diplomats to con artists on the global stage. The fact of the matter is that the State of Palestine is recognized by 138 UN members, and since 2012 it has had the status of a non-member observer state in the United Nations.