Given that the ICC will need to investigate not just the crimes of individuals responsible for firing at civilians in hospitals, the demolition of homes, or the shooting of demonstrators, but also the long-term structural basis of the occupation as manifested in the settlement and apartheid projects, Palestine will represent an unprecedented challenge for the court.
The political pressure against the Office of the Prosecutor is likely to be immense and the task of asserting and retaining prosecutorial independence is something to be monitored very closely.
Unlike other situations where the prosecutor has investigated, Israel has in effect a public policy of occupation openly built upon the perpetration of repeated war crimes around settlements and around apartheid. Evidence of criminality, from the public statements and practices of individual Israeli military and political leaders, as well as the multitude of UN, state, nongovernmental, solidarity and other organizations which have monitored and reported on individual war crimes such as torture, deportation, murder, unlawful detention, incitement and so on will provide a further mass of evidence.
<snip>
