By opening an investigation into the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor has accepted that there is, in fact, a Palestinian state. Granting such recognition to “Palestine,” writes Eugene Kontorovich, flies in the face of international law and the ICC’s own founding documents:

[T]he prosecutor did not actually determine that Palestine qualifies as a “state” under the well-established legal definitions of the term. Rather, she said that the UN General Assembly’s vote in 2012 to call Palestine a “non-member state” is dispositive of the question. In short, she substituted the determination of the General Assembly for her own. The General Assembly is not a judicial body, but a political one. Its determinations are political, not legal. It also has no power under the UN Charter to create or recognize states. . . .

Unfortunately, this is not the first time the prosecutor has deferred to judgments of the General Assembly in lieu of legal analysis. Even more unhappily, the other recent occasion also involved Israel, and the prosecutor grabbed onto General Assembly resolutions to find an “occupation” where it could not be said to exist under normative international law, including International Court of Justice precedents. An Office of the Prosecutor that merely echoes the General Assembly is in danger of becoming simply another UN Human Rights Council.

In a statement released on social media on Monday, the president-elect declared that if the hostages held by Hamas are not released before his inauguration, “there will be all hell to pay” for those who “perpetrated these atrocities against humanity.” But will Hamas take such a threat seriously? And, even if Donald Trump decides to convert his words into actions after taking office, exactly what steps could he take? Ron Ben-Yishai writes:

While Trump lacks direct military options against Hamas—given Israel’s ongoing actions—he holds three powerful levers to pressure the group into showing some flexibility on the hostage deal or to punish it if it resists after his inauguration. The first lever targets Hamas’s finances, focusing on its ability to fund activities after the fighting ends. This extends beyond Gaza to Lebanon and other global hubs where Hamas derives strength. . . . Additionally, Trump could pressure Qatar to cut off its generous funding and donations to the Islamist organization.

The other levers are also financial rather than military: increasing sanctions on Iran to force it to pressure Hamas, and withholding aid for the reconstruction of Gaza until the hostages are released. In Ben-Yishai’s view, “Trump’s statement undoubtedly represents a positive development and could accelerate the process toward a hostage-release agreement.”