On December 20, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague announced that Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda was “satisfied that there is a reasonable basis to initiate an investigation into the situation in Palestine . . .  There is a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes have been or are being committed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.”

Of course, this should be a no-brainer — and yet it took the ICC almost five years (a “preliminary examination” of the situation was opened in January 2015) to determine that “there are no substantial reasons to believe that an investigation would not serve the interests of justice.” Then again, Palestinians have been waiting more than seventy years for justice, so five is perhaps a drop in the bucket.

Not that “justice” is a guaranteed outcome in international legal endeavors that often amount to torturously bureaucratic charades. Nor, it bears underscoring, has the Palestine investigation been officially given the green light — Bensouda is first seeking confirmation that the court’s jurisdiction applies to the territory in question. While Palestine is a signatory to the ICC, Israel — like its BFF, the United States — is not.