The scandal-plagued International Criminal Court’s decision to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Jewish state’s former defense minister has put the court in the crosshairs of a powerful US sanctions system.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant last week for their involvement in the war against Hamas terrorism in the Gaza Strip.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas killed almost 1,200 people in southern Israel, including more than 40 Americans.
According to Israeli news site Kan, President-elect Donald Trump’s administration intends to impose penalties on the ICC judges who issued the warrants, including the court’s top prosecutor, Karim Khan.
Khan, the British chief prosecutor, is currently under investigation for alleged sexual misbehavior, which he has strongly rejected, stating that there was “no truth to suggestions” of such behavior, according to sources.
Avi Bell, a law professor at the University of San Diego and Bar Ilan University in Israel, and the founding dean of the Israel Law and Liberty Forum’s annual law and democracy program, told AWN Digital, “Several years ago, the ICC threatened to charge American soldiers for alleged crimes in Afghanistan.” The ICC’s lack of jurisdiction did not cause it to halt for a single second. Only President Trump’s penalties on the ICC (during his first term) compelled the organization to follow the law and abandon its threat to punish Americans. Sanctions against the ICC will work, but persuasion will not.”
Mike Waltz, Trump’s choice for national security advisor, stated on X, “You can expect a strong response to the antisemitic bias of the ICC and U.N. come January.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., one of Trump’s main Senate partners, raised the stakes in a recent AWN interview, stating, “To any ally, Canada, Britain, Germany, France, if you try to help the ICC, we’re going to sanction you.”
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, cautioned that democratic regimes could face persecution as a result of the judicial activity of the world’s top war crimes court, which is situated in The Hague.
He told AWN Digital that “the warrant from a kangaroo court makes a mockery of justice and is a victory for Iran and its terrorist allies.” Israeli officials are guilty of protecting their civilians from murderous terrorists. France and the Netherlands were the first to indicate they would arrest Prime Minister Netanyahu, and the list might grow to 124 countries. Democracies, beware: you could be next.
Both the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations criticized the International Criminal Court as a flawed judicial system for Americans and refused to join the organization.
“The arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant are legally a joke, but they constitute a very serious development,” Bell told reporters. “Under Karim Khan’s predecessors as ICC prosecutor, the institution was simply ineffective. Khan has ushered in a period of political buffoonery, with the court devoting the majority of its resources to political grandstanding. With the fresh indictments, the court is demonstrating its support for terrorists and some of the world’s worst criminals.
When asked to respond on Bell’s criticism, ICC spokesperson Fadi El Abdallah told AWN Digital, “We don’t comment on such declarations.”
The legal academic urged countries to withdraw from the ICC, stating, “The ICC will only stop its activities if it is compelled to pay a high price. Countries should withdraw from the Rome Statute and stop paying dues. They should apply penalties against the ICC and prohibit cooperation with it. And as long as the ICC continues to issue warrants for people over whom it has no authority on fabricated charges, ICC officials should face criminal charges for attempted kidnapping and support for terrorism.
The ICC, which began operations in 2002, is based on the signatories of the Rome Statute, which outlines four core international crimes that the court will prosecute: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes of aggression, all of which are “not subject to any statute of limitations” and only apply to crimes committed after the statute went into effect.
When questioned if anti-Jewish attitudes motivated the ICC warrants, Bell responded, “I don’t get the impression that the warrants are due to the ICC judges’ personal antisemitism.” The ICC has always targeted the politically vulnerable: formerly African countries, and now the Jewish state. Antisemitism is rampant in the West, particularly among progressives, making Israel politically weak and vulnerable. The International Criminal Court (ICC) may be prejudiced, but its attempt to prosecute Israelis despite their legal innocence demonstrates a considerably larger institutional moral depravity than mere bigotry.”
Gabriel Noronha, a former U.S. Department State adviser on Iran who is now a fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, told AWN Digital that the ICC was aware that it could face penalties for its legal action against Israel, the Mideast’s only democracy, but the ICC “decided to ignore diplomacy and face the repercussions of the United States.”
He noted that U.S. sanctions would prevent impacted ICC personnel from obtaining visas to enter the United States, and their property and bank accounts would be blocked in America.
“The sanctions could be pretty broad and include family members,” Noronha told me.
Noronha repeated Graham’s comments. He suggested that a second Trump administration may use a “diplomatic strategy to impose penalties on countries that cooperate with these particular ICC warrants.”
Several European governments have already condemned the ICC ruling. Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg tweeted on X, “The ICC’s decision to issue arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant is very incomprehensible. International law is non-negotiable and applies at all times. But this decision undermines the Court’s credibility.”
He went on: “It is absurd to create an equivalence between members of a democratically elected government and the leader of a terrorist organization.”
The ICC also issued an arrest warrant for the already-deceased Hamas terror leader Muhammad Deif.
Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala flatly rejected the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue arrest warrants for Israeli leaders.
“The ICC’s unfortunate ruling undermines authority in other cases by equating the elected representatives of a democratic state with the leaders of an Islamist terrorist organization,” he said regarding X.
Conservative Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán accused the ICC of “interfering in an ongoing conflict for political purposes,” claiming that the decision to issue the warrant for Netanyahu’s conduct during the Gaza war violated international law and heightened tensions.
The United States and the European Union have designated Hamas as a foreign terrorist organization.
