President Joe Biden criticized the “outrageous” decision by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to file arrest warrant applications for senior Israeli officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday.
“The ICC prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous,” Biden said in a statement Monday. “And let me be clear: whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas. We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security.”
The ICC announced early Monday it was pursuing warrants for the arrests of Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as the following senior Hamas leaders: Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas in Gaza, Mohammed Deif, the head of the military, and Ismail Haniyeh, the head of its political bureau.
Many Republicans and Democrats are criticizing the ICC’s decision to seek arrest warrants for Israeli officials, decrying the assumption that the crimes committed by Hamas and Israel are similar.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a similar statement to the president on Monday, stating that the United States “fundamentally rejects” the ICC’s effort.
“We reject the Prosecutor’s equivalence of Israel with Hamas,” Blinken said. “It is shameful. Hamas is a brutal terrorist organization that carried out the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust and is still holding dozens of innocent people hostage, including Americans.”
The war between Israel and Hamas has driven a wedge into America’s political sphere, with several House Democrats joining most Republicans in siding with Israel in the conflict in the Middle East. More progressive Democrats have condemned Israel’s retaliation to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, arguing that Biden and U.S. leaders should demand an immediate ceasefire due to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), one of the most vocal pro-Israel members, described the ICC’s decision as “retribution against Israel for the original sin of existing as a Jewish State and the subsequent sin of defending itself amid the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust,” while Rep. Kathy Manning (D-NC) called it “extreme judicial overreach.”
House Republicans, including Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) and Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY), are calling on Congress to pass a bill that would sanction any foreign person engaged in an effort by the ICC to investigate or arrest a U.S. citizen or an official from an allied U.S. country.
“The ICC is an illegitimate court that equivocates a peaceful nation protecting its right to exist with radical terror groups that commit genocide,” Stefanik said in a statement to the Truth Voices. “Congress must pass my bill with Congressman Chip Roy, the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act, that will punish those in the ICC that made this baseless undemocratic decision.”
