On Monday, a federal court ordered the Palestinian Authority and the PLO to pay $655.5 million to ten American families whose relatives were killed in terror attacks in Israel during the second intifada. Grant Rumley writes that the landmark ruling will have a major impact on the PA, and not only because it is already facing financial problems:

[T]his ruling . . . threatens the Palestinians’ convictions that their best weapon against Israel is the international community and specifically the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The PA is itching to get in the court and respond to this early loss by filing suits against Israeli leaders. The recent rhetoric out of Ramallah has focused heavily on blaming Israeli officials for possible war crimes committed this past summer in the Gaza war.

But now that the PA has been found culpable for the actions of even its most loosely-affiliated foot soldiers, questions may arise over whether the PA has the stomach for its ICC strategy. PA President Mahmoud Abbas signed a political agreement with Hamas in April, and a few weeks later the two sides formed a consensus government that was ostensibly charged with governing Gaza shortly before the outbreak of the war. Can Abbas and other PA officials now be held responsible at the ICC for rockets fired by Hamas?

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.