Stuart Littlewood: Is Palestinian Leadership Still Asleep at the Wheel?

Empowered, emboldened, but what is the PLO doing with its new UN status? The Palestinian Embassy in London has just issued a press release under the heading: "Pressing need to halt Israel's illegal settlement colonization campaign via political, legal, and diplomatic means". It complains about Israel's "flagrant disrespect of international law" in announcing, the day after the UN upgraded Palestine's status, a further 3,000 illegal settlement units in Palestinian East Jerusalem. "It is time that political, economic and legal means are used so that Israel bears its responsibility for its violations and obstruction of peace efforts," says Ambassador Manuel Hassassian. He wants the British government and the EU to ban Israeli settlement products and bar Israeli extremist settlers. "This is the only way to halt Israel's illegal settlement campaign, salvage the two state solution, and revive the peace process." What's more, he urges the British public to write to their MP outlining Israel's illegal settlement expansion activities, which are a breach of article 49(6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention and constitute war crimes. Ask their MP to call for a ban on import of settlement products into the UK. Contact the Foreign Office. Inform the Embassy of any responses. There has been a "pressing need" to halt Israel's illegal settlement building, ever since the Allon Plan of 1967, but the PLO did remarkably little over the years to use the channels open to it, until last month, when it finally got around to applying for, and getting non Member observer status at the UN. Why is the newly empowered Palestine, fresh from its victory, still asking us to do the donkey work? One hoped that President Abbas would waste now time in signing up to the Rome Statute, and joining the International Court of Justice in order to lay long overdue charges against Israel for its illegal occupation, blockade, war crimes and crimes against humanity. First among the many legal options, surely, is to cut the endless whining, and apply for an injunction against further settlement construction. True, reports are circulating that Palestinian officials talk of filing war crime charges and encouraging the international community to impose sanctions, but there may be a long wait before this Zionist corrupted British government suspends trade with the thugs it repeatedly pledges to support, and persuades its EU partners to do the same.