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Palestinians Shift Focus in Strategy for Statehood

(New York Times/AP) Ethan Bronner - The Palestinian leadership is increasingly focusing on how to get international bodies and courts to declare a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem. Israeli officials reject the moves as unacceptable and a violation of the 1993 Oslo accords that govern Israeli-Palestinian relations. The Israelis say that what is really going on is a Palestinian effort to secure a state without having to make the difficult decisions on the borders and settlements that negotiations would entail. One effort under way is at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, which on Wednesday heard arguments on whether the Palestinian Authority could be recognized by the court in its charges against Israel's conduct in the 2008-9 Gaza war. The court only permits states to bring cases. Dore Gold, a former Israeli UN ambassador, said in a telephone interview from The Hague that granting the Palestinians statehood by the ICC violated their treaties with Israel, "which state that the sides will not initiate one-sided steps that will change the status quo until the final status agreements." "If they win here, the big story that will come out of this is that one of the main legal bodies in the international community, the International Criminal Court, acknowledges that the Palestinian Authority already constitutes a state," he said.
2010-10-21 09:07:52
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