The International Criminal Court’s issuance of arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has been repudiated by Republican lawmakers in the US, who have threatened to sanction the court and invoke US law to shield Israeli officials from prosecution.
Within hours of the ICC’s announcement, Congressman Mike Waltz, President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to be the next national security advisor, said the court has “no credibility” and that it can “expect a strong response” when the Trump administration comes into office in January 2025.
In response to the ICC, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham called the court “a rogue and politically motivated organization that is trampling on the very concept of the rule of law”.
“I am confident that President Trump understands that the Court’s actions against Israel sets the foundation for the ICC to come after the United States one day. We must respond forcefully to the Court for our own good,” he said.
Graham previously welcomed the ICC arrest warrant issued in March 2023 against Russian President Vladimir Putin, calling it “a step in the right direction for the international community”.
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The calls for sanctioning the ICC also came in quickly from Republican members of Congress.
Jim Risch, the ranking member of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, used the social media account of the Foreign Relations Committee to advocate sanctions against the ICC.
“The ICC’s issuance of arrest warrants for Netanyahu & Gallant is a complete disgrace,” Risch said.
“The US must move forward with sanctions against this corrupt organization.”
I cannot emphasize enough my strong objection to what the ICC has done to the State of Israel.
The ICC is a rogue and politically motivated organization that is trampling on the very concept of the rule of law. I made it abundantly clear that I believe this entire process is an…
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) November 21, 2024
On Thursday morning, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, six months after chief prosecutor Karim Khan requested them.
This is the first time in the court’s 22-year history that it has issued arrest warrants for western-allied senior officials.
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The Hague-based court also issued a warrant for Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, the Hamas military chief better known as Mohammed al-Deif, despite Israeli claims that he was killed in Gaza.
All individuals have been accused of a range of war crimes and crimes against humanity after 7 October 2023, when a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel led to a full-fledged Israeli war on Gaza that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians while recently expanding into an Israeli invasion of Lebanon.Â
Senator Bill Hagerty, who has been reported to be a candidate for the role of treasury secretary under the Trump administration, accused the court of antisemitism and issued a cryptic threat against the ICC.
“This sham of a body masquerading as a ‘court’ has no jurisdiction over Israel or the US. The consequences of this shameful act will be felt soon,” he said.
Tim Scott, a US senator who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the ICC ruling showed the court is “nothing more than an anti-Israel propaganda machine and a useful pawn for Iranian-backed terrorists”.
Rashida Tlaib: ICC move ‘long overdue’
As much as Republicans were furious at the ICC’s arrest warrants, Democrats largely remained quiet in the hours following the decision. At the time of publication, many Democrats had yet to publicly comment on the Thursday ruling by the international court.
Rashida Tlaib, the sole Palestinian-American member of the US Congress, issued a statement welcoming the ICC ruling, describing it as “long overdue”.
“Today’s historic arrest warrants cannot bring back the dead and displaced, but they are a major step towards holding war criminals accountable. Netanyahu and Gallant must be arrested and brought before the ICC,” Tlaib said in her statement, which was shared with Middle East Eye.
“Those American officials facilitating this genocide can no longer deny that their Israeli counterparts have used starvation as a weapon of war against a captive civilian population.”
Other Democrats, meanwhile, joined in the chorus of Republican anger at the ICC.
“No standing, relevance, or path. Fuck that,” Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman said on X, finishing his post with an emoji of the Israeli flag.
Congressman Brad Sherman, a Democrat from California, echoed the call for imposing sanctions against the ICC.
“Given this outrageous perversion of justice and abetting of Hamas’s tactics by the ICC, I believe the US must act swiftly to sanction the ICC,” Sherman said in a statement.
“We cannot allow the politicized distortion of international law and institutions go without consequence.”
