JERUSALEM — The scandal-plagued Worldwide Legal Court docket’s determination to situation arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Jewish state’s former protection minister has introduced the court docket into the crosshairs of a potent American sanctions regime.
The ICC final week slapped arrest warrants on Netanyahu and ex-Israeli Protection Minister Yoav Gallant for his or her conflict plans concerned in rooting out Hamas terrorism within the Gaza Strip.
Hamas slaughtered practically 1,200 folks on Oct. 7, 2023, in southern Israel, together with over 40 Individuals.
Israeli information outlet Kan mentioned President-elect Trump’s administration plans to provoke sanctions towards the ICC judges who issued the warrants, together with the court docket’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan.
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Former President Trump shakes fingers with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Seashore, Fla., on July 26, 2024. (Amos Ben-Gershom (GPO)/Handout/Anadolu through Getty Pictures)
The British chief prosecutor, Khan, is at present the topic of a probe based mostly on allegations that he dedicated sexual misconduct, one thing that he has vigorously denied, noting that there was “no reality to solutions” of such conduct, in line with stories.
Avi Bell, a professor of legislation on the College of San Diego and Bar Ilan College in Israel and founding dean of the Israel Legislation and Liberty Discussion board’s annual program on legislation and democracy, instructed Fox Information Digital, “A number of years in the past, the ICC threatened to cost American troopers for alleged crimes in Afghanistan. The truth that the ICC lacked jurisdiction didn’t trigger the ICC to pause even for a second. It was solely President Trump’s sanctions towards the ICC (throughout his first time period) that compelled the ICC to obey the legislation and drop its menace to prosecute Individuals. Sanctions towards the ICC will work; persuasion is not going to.”
Trump’s nominee for nationwide safety adviser, Mike Waltz, introduced on X, “You’ll be able to anticipate a robust response to the antisemitic bias of the ICC and U.N. come January.”
Considered one of Trump’s key Senate companions, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., upped the ante in a latest Fox Information interview, saying, “To any ally, Canada, Britain, Germany, France, should you attempt to assist the ICC, we’re going to sanction you.”
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the affiliate dean for the L.A.-based Simon Wiesenthal Middle, warned democratic states that they might face persecution from the judicial activism of the world’s high conflict crimes court docket based mostly in The Hague, Netherlands.
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Karim Khan is the ICC’s chief prosecutor. (Getty Pictures/File)
He instructed Fox Information Digital, “The warrant from a kangaroo court docket makes a mockery of justice and is a victory for Iran and its terrorist lackeys. Israeli leaders are responsible of defending their residents from genocidal terrorists. France and the Netherlands have been the primary to substantiate they’d arrest PM Netanyahu and the listing might attain 124 nations. Democracies beware you possibly can be subsequent.”
Each the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations branded the ICC a faulty judicial system for Individuals and rejected becoming a member of the worldwide physique.
“The arrest warrants towards Netanyahu and Gallant are legally a joke, however they represent a really critical improvement,” Bell mentioned. “Below Karim Khan’s predecessors as ICC prosecutor, the ICC was merely ineffective. Khan has ushered in an period of political buffoonery during which the court docket devotes the majority of its sources to political grandstanding. With the brand new indictments, the court docket is grandstanding on behalf of terrorists and a number of the world’s worst criminals.”
When approached for a remark about Bell’s criticism, ICC spokesperson Fadi El Abdallah instructed Fox Information Digital, “We don’t touch upon such declarations.”
Israel opened up the Kisufim for the switch of humanitarian assist vans. The help contains the supply of meals, water, medical provides and shelter tools to central and southern Gaza. (IDF Spokesman’s Unit)
The authorized scholar urged nations to stroll away from the ICC, saying, “The ICC will solely desist from its course whether it is compelled to pay a heavy value. Nations ought to withdraw from the Rome Statute and stop paying dues. They need to impose sanctions on the ICC and forbid cooperation with the ICC. And as long as the ICC persists in issuing warrants for individuals over whom it has no jurisdiction on trumped-up fees, ICC personnel ought to face legal sanctions for tried kidnapping and help for terrorism.”
The ICC, which commenced operations in 2002, bases its authority on the signatories of the Rome Statute, which outlines 4 core worldwide crimes that the court docket will prosecute: genocide, crimes towards humanity, conflict crimes and crimes of aggression, all of that are “not topic to any statute of limitations” however restricted to solely crimes that occurred after the statute got here into pressure.
When requested if anti-Jewish sentiments animated the ICC warrants, Bell mentioned, “I don’t get the impression that the warrants are because of the ICC judges’ private antisemitism. The ICC has at all times preyed on the politically weak: previously African nations and now the Jewish state. It’s widespread antisemitism within the West, particularly amongst progressives, that makes Israel politically weak and weak. The ICC could also be bigoted, however the ICC’s try to prosecute Israelis regardless of their authorized innocence can be a signal of a a lot better institutional ethical depravity than mere bigotry.”
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A terrorist from Hamas takes half in a army parade. (Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/File)
Gabriel Noronha, a former U.S. Division State adviser on Iran who’s now a fellow on the Jewish Institute for Nationwide Safety of America, instructed Fox Information Digital the ICC has recognized that it might face penalties for its authorized motion towards the Mideast’s solely democracy, Israel, however the ICC “determined to disregard diplomacy and face the repercussions of america.”
He added that U.S. sanctions would imply that affected ICC personnel will be unable to safe visas to enter the U.S. and their property and financial institution accounts might be frozen in America.
“The sanctions might be fairly broad and embody relations,” Noronha famous.
Noronha echoed Graham’s remarks. A second Trump administration, he mentioned, might implement a “Diplomatic technique to impose penalties on nations that cooperate with these specific ICC warrants.”
Some European nations have already slammed the ICC determination. Austrian International Minister Alexander Schallenberg wrote on X, “The ICC determination to situation arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant is totally incomprehensible. Worldwide Legislation is non-negotiable and applies in every single place, always. However this determination is a disservice to the Court docket‘s credibility.”
He continued, “It’s absurd to create an equivalence between members of a democratically elected authorities and the chief of a terrorist group.”
The ICC additionally issued an arrest warrant for the already lifeless Hamas terror chief Muhammad Deif.
Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala flatly dismissed the Worldwide Legal Court docket’s determination to situation arrest warrants towards Israeli leaders.
“The ICC’s unlucky ruling undermines authority in different circumstances by equating the elected representatives of a democratic state with the leaders of an Islamist terrorist group,” he wrote on X.
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Conservative Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán accused the ICC of “interfering in an ongoing battle for political functions,” saying the choice to situation the warrant for Netanyahu over his conduct of the conflict in Gaza undermined worldwide legislation and escalated tensions.
The U.S. and the European Union have labeled Hamas as a overseas terrorist group.
The Related Press and Fox Information’ Peter Aitken contributed to this text.