Israelis (and others) worried that with Palestine recognized as a "state" within the UN (even a non-member observer state), the ICC would accept Palestine's consent to the Court's jurisdiction over actions taken inside Palestinian areas - meaning that Court would be willing to accept cases filed by the Palestinians against the Israeli government or even specific Israeli officials or soldiers for actions taken in the West Bank and Gaza.  These could include cases alleging war crimes against the Palestinians or other alleged breaches of international law related for example, to the occupation (i.e., land seizures, settlement construction, etc. - all of which would appear to be in clear violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention).

In the wake of the UN vote, the Netanyahu government has adopted a diplomatic and political equivalent of the "nuclear" option.   It has approved thousands of new units in settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem; it has approved the expediting of the plan for the two-state-killing settlement of E-1; it has appropriated tax funds that legally belong to the Palestinian Authority; and, in a step that perhaps few people (other than Israeli right-wingers) noticed, the Israeli Cabinet re-defined the West Bank as an area "in the Land of Israel" and to which "the State of Israel, as the state of the Jewish People, has a right and claim."

Some experts on the ICC have previously suggested that the Court would be very unlikely to agree to adjudicate cases related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, for its own reasons.  Prior to the UN vote, Palestinian officials indicated that there was no immediate intention to join the ICC, but that they were keeping the option open, especially if settlement expansion continued.

With its "nuclear" response to the UN vote, an objective observer might come to the conclusion that the Netanyahu government is deliberately trying to provoke the Palestinians to seek remedy at the ICC, and to provoke the ICC to take action against Israel.  The only other conclusion, it seems, is that this response to the UN vote is just the latest evidence that Netanyahu believes that he can act with utter impunity, without fear that anyone - not the EU, not the US, not the ICC - will call him to account.  A risky assumption, perhaps, now that ICC action could be in the mix.