Last week the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant. They also issued one for Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif, who the Israeli military government claims it killed earlier this year.
The Israeli warrants were immediately condemned by U.S. lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. The White House condemned the ICC, and one Republican senator even implied the U.S. should take military action against the court. Only a small group of lawmakers applauded the ICC’s efforts at accountability, and raised the United States own culpability in the ongoing genocide.
White House reactions
“The ICC issuance of arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous. Let me be clear once again: whatever the ICC might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas,” said President Joe Biden. “We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security.”
Netanyahu was reportedly outraged when he learned that France would implement the court’s ruling if necessary. U.S. official told Axios that Biden called French President Emmanuel Macron to tell him that the Prime Minister was right to be angry and that the warrants deter the chances of a ceasefire.
White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre reiterated the sentiment during a press briefing. “We remain deeply concerned by the prosecutor’s rush to seek arrest warrants and the troubling process errors that led to this decision,” she told reporters.
“We have been clear that we – number one, do not believe that the ICC has jurisdiction in this matter. And two, that we have had real concerns about this proceeding on its own, grounded fundamentally in the rules of the court, that this is supposed to be a court of limited jurisdiction grounded in the rules of complementarity,” said State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller.
Miller was questioned about U.S. support for a warrant targeting Russian President Vladimir Putin and what made the two situations different.
“When you look at the difference between the two countries, Russia is not a democracy, does not have a functioning independent legal system, is not investigating violations of international humanitarian law by its soldiers,” he claimed. “Israel is the opposite in all of those cases: a democracy with an independent court system that has hundreds of open cases into allegations against its soldiers. It is important that that – those processes be allowed to proceed. That is the principle of complementarity under which the ICC was founded.”
Congressional reactions
Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) implied that the U.S. should take military action against the court.
“The ICC is a kangaroo court and [ICC prosecutor] Karim Khan is a deranged fanatic,” Cotton tweeted. “Woe to him and anyone who tries to enforce these outlaw warrants. Let me give them all a friendly reminder: the American law on the ICC is known as The Hague Invasion Act for a reason. Think about it.”
“I cannot emphasize enough my strong objection to what the ICC has done to the State of Israel,” tweeted Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC). “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 abuse of the Rome Statute. 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. Any nation or organization that aids or abets this outrage should expect to meet firm resistance from the United States, and I look forward to working with President Trump, his team, and my colleagues in Congress to come up with a powerful response,” he continued.
“The ICC’s decision to issue arrest warrants against the leadership of Israel represents the weaponization of international law at its most egregious,” said Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) “The ICC has set a precedent for criminalizing self-defense: any country daring to defend itself against an enemy that exploits civilians as human shields will face persecution posing as prosecution.”
“The ICC turned a blind eye to many atrocities, including Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons to kill hundreds of thousands of Syrians,” tweeted Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL). “But when it comes to Israel defending itself against Hamas, the ICC doesn’t hesitate to exercise this antisemitic double standard.”
Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), John Thune (R-SD), John Fetterman (D-PA), Katie Britt (R-AL), and Joni Ernst (R-IA) put out a joint statement condemning the warrants.
“We are disappointed in the ICC’s decision to move ahead with arrest warrants against Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Gallant given the Court’s lack of jurisdiction over Israel and its refusal to engage with Israel as required by law,” it reads. “We cannot abide the Court acting against a sovereign, independent, judicially independent democracy that is not a party to the Rome Statute. Now is an important time for America to speak with a single voice. Acquiescing to the Court’s jurisdiction over Israel is to agree, in theory, they have jurisdiction over the United States.”
A small number of lawmakers have expressed support for the move.
“If the world does not uphold international law, we will descend into further barbarism,” read a statement from Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT). “I agree with the decisions of the ICC.”
“Just as I have said for months, the ICC must continue to work independently without interference,” said Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN). “The ICC has always sought to bring real justice for the worst atrocities in the world. While the attempts to sanction ICC officials are shameful, the dedicated staff have continued to diligently push to uphold human rights, accountability, and the rule of law. I am hopeful today’s historic decision can help bring true justice and healing.”
“The International Criminal Court’s long overdue decision to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity signals that the days of the Israeli apartheid government operating with impunity are ending,” said Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). “Our government must urgently end our complicity in these violations of human rights and international law.”
I believe that what we are seeing here is just the opening salvo in a debate we’re going to be having for the next 20 years: until now, an integral part of Jewish consciousness and the way the world thinks about Judaism is 2,000 years of victimhood – the Holocaust, pogroms in Russia, the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 and on and on and on. But with Israel, and especially with Gaza, we will be questioning this.
In January 2025 Peter Beinart’s new book will be coming out, “Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning”. From Publishers Weekly:
Beinart (The Crisis of Zionism), editor-at-large of Jewish Currents, issues an impassioned critique of the American Jewish community’s reaction to the war in Gaza. According to the author, “even Jews who are genuinely pained by Gaza’s agony” have convinced themselves that Israel’s outsize military response is necessary “to keep us safe,” hijacking historical narratives that frame Jews as a perennially victimized people as a justification for Israel to wield “life and death power over millions of Palestinians who lack even a passport.” To rebut such narratives, he draws from Israeli government records that attribute most of the Palestinian Arab departures from their homes and lands during the late 1940s to “Zionist attacks,” pointing to a deliberate strategy of expulsion to create a Jewish-majority state. In denying legal equality to most of the country’s Palestinian residents, Israel is “not merely offering Jews the right to determine their own lives” but “dominance over another people,” Beinart writes. He draws especially intriguing links between the “moral evasion” of what’s happening in Gaza by some diasporic Jews and increasing Jewish secularization, which, he argues, is replacing a more overtly moralistic “rabbinic tradition” that demands Jews “look inward and reckon with their sins.” Urgent and thought-provoking, this is sure to spark debate.
https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780593803899
Of course there’s “…no equivalence between Israel and Hamas”. One is a terrorist group that killed a few hundred Israelis (the IDF killed the rest of the 1,200) and took over 200 hostages, while the other is a terrorist group that has killed between 50,000 and 200,000 Palestinians and holds tens of thousands as hostages. One was a terrorist attack the other a full blown genocide.
Of course if the likes of Cotton don’t like the idea of arrest warrants and a fair judicial proceeding, we could always take the Israeli route to justice – like they have with the three Hamas members who were also supposed to face arrest. Although I doubt Cotton would like that option either, as Israel’s preferred form of justice is that of extrajudicial killings.
Re: Senator Tom Cotton went as far as to imply the U.S. should take military action against the court over the warrants.
He’s forgetting Article 5 of the NATO Treaty would require the other member states to counterattack and the fact that most of them are also state parties to the Rome Statute.
How about ICC warrants targeting the US??? Millions have been killed because of US actions all over the world.