Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor for the ICC, announced Monday he is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh and Mohammed al-Masri.
The next step involves a panel of three pre-trial judges who will review evidence obtained by the ICC and determine whether warrants will be issued.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) says he saw this coming and put the wheels in motion months ago to try to fight back against the ICC.
Roy and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) have worked together on bills that each have introduced in their respective chambers.
Roy’s bill is called the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act. It seeks to impose sanctions on ICC officials who go after U.S. citizens or allies, including Israel.
“If you go back and saw what the United Nations did in calling for a one-sided ceasefire, effectively siding with Hamas and undermining Israel, and the United States sitting on our hands and abstaining, that was a clear signal where the international community was going,” Roy said on Washington Watch Tuesday.
ICC membership lacks U.S. and Israel
The ICC is an international organization that was created by treaty more than 20 years ago. It has power only over countries that have agreed to join it, which number about 120, and neither the United States nor Israel have signed on.
In fact, most countries of significant size and population have not, Eugene Kontorovich, director for the Center for Middle East and International Law at George Mason University, told show host Jody Hice.
“Most countries that are likely to participate in wars or hostilities have not joined the ICC. The United States has not joined the ICC, China has not joined the ICC. Most of the world population lives in countries that have not joined the ICC,” Kontorovich said.
Kontorovich said the ICC created a “fake” country called Palestine, referring to the Gaza Strip.
“Then they also said that country has all the territory that it claims, so now it’s claiming that it’s investigating Israeli crimes in the state of Palestine, namely Gaza,” he said.
If Roy and Cotton are successful in bringing about U.S. sanctions against the ICC, it won’t be the first time.
In 2020, former President Donald Trump signed an executive order sanctioning ICC officials, employees and associates who engaged in any effort to investigate, arrest, detain or prosecute U.S. citizens or allies.
That executive order was revoked by President Joe Biden.
Israel did not join the ICC over fear of its bias, Kontorovich said, so legally the ICC should have no authority over Israel.
"Israelis didn’t vote for these judges," he said. "Israel has no authority over them, and the court has shown its systematic bias against the Jewish state in pretty much every action it has taken."
With its lack of jurisdiction, the ICC can’t take any action against Israel, Kontorovich said. But the arrest warrants, if issued, create bad messaging for Israel that would likely be seized upon by its critics.
“The real point of these charges is to be a kind of banner in a further diplomatic campaign to delegitimize Israel and to pressure and deter Israel from defending itself against the Hamas genocide. Now you’re going to hear, when people want to delegitimize Israel, they’ll say, ‘whose leaders were indicted of war crimes,’” Kontorovich said.
Israel has tried to avoid civilian casualties
In the Washington Watch interview, Rep. Roy said the facts show not that Israel is guilty of war crimes but that Israel has taken extreme measures to care for Palestinian civilians even after more than 1,200 of its own people died in Hamas’ unprovoked attacks last Oct. 7.
The Hamas rampage is the third-deadliest terror attack on record since 1970 when data began to be collected and analyzed, according to The Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“Israel has sent text messages, they’ve sent like 15 million leaflets, they’ve sent voice mails, they’ve given them two weeks’ notice, they’ve specifically targeted areas to avoid civilian casualties, and they’re overall civilian casualty ratio is lower than even the United Nations suggests, and frankly better than America’s been in past conflicts many times,” Roy said.
Roy said the ICC’s actions are an attack on the sovereignty of Israel and the sovereignty of the U.S., and it’s important that Congress confirm this with strong legislation.
He compared the ICC to ongoing efforts by the World Health Organization, the health arm of the United Nations, to set itself up as the one-world authority on health emergencies.
The WHO, with Biden’s blessing, would be able to declare an emergency and then to dictate the response – such mask and vaccine mandates, lockdowns, travel restrictions and more. The U.S. would be legally bound to comply under the International Health Regulations.
The WHO’s pandemic preparedness agreement is far-reaching and is scheduled to be voted on next week in Geneva.
Review international ‘entanglements’
Roy called for a “wholesale review” of all U.S. “entanglements with all international organizations.”
He specifically called out the United Nations and its relief arm in Gaza, the United Nations Relief Works Agency. UNRWA has been known to be sympathetic to Hamas and was found to have employees who participated in the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7.
“We’ve got to disentangle ourselves, remind the world that we are sovereign, remind ourselves that we are sovereign, stand by our allies, have alliances that matter, not alliances that are just there for the sake of it, these global alliances which undermine our sovereignty,” Roy said.
Roy called for 100% support from Republicans for his legislation to sanction the ICC.
“This is an important step. Every Republican should be a part of this. We need to sanction them and then go further when Lord willing President Trump is elected, and we have the House and Senate in January,” he said.
