Incoming Senate majority leader threatens ICC with sanctions over case against Israelis
Senator John Thune warns US will impose restrictions on International Criminal Court if it moves ahead with arrest warrant requests against Netanyahu or other Israeli officials
Senator John Thune said Sunday that the US must pass legislation threatening the International Criminal Court with sanctions if it seeks arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or other Israeli officials.
“If the ICC and its prosecutor do not reverse their outrageous and unlawful actions to pursue arrest warrants against Israeli officials, the Senate should immediately pass sanctions legislation, as the House has already done on a bipartisan basis,” Thune wrote on social media platform X.
Thune will become the majority leader of the Senate in early January when Republicans officially take over Congress. He was referring to a bill calling for sanctions on ICC officials that the House passed earlier this year.
ICC prosecutor Karim Khan has asked a pre-trial panel at the Hague to approve his request for arrest warrants against Netanyahu, former defense minister Yoav Gallant and three Hamas officials who have since been killed. Khan alleges that war crimes may have been committed during fighting in Gaza amid the ongoing war there with Hamas, sparked by the terror group’s October 7 onslaught.
Israel has steadfastly rejected the charges and portrayed the request as antisemitic, with some comparing it to a blood libel.
Thune indicated he is happy for current majority leader Chuck Schumer to pursue such legislation sanctioning the ICC, but said if he does not “the Senate Republican majority will stand with our key ally Israel and make this – and other supportive legislation – a top priority in the next Congress.”
In June, the House passed a bill that, if it became law, would cancel the US visas of ICC officials, restrict entry of, and place financial restrictions on any of the court’s officials who are seeking to detain or prosecute allies of the United States.
US President Joe Biden said at the time he was “strongly opposed” to the legislation which passed with a majority of 247-155, including with the support of 42 Democrats.
Filing the request for arrest warrants in May, the ICC’s chief prosecutor said there were reasonable grounds to believe that Netanyahu, Gallant, and Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh and Mohammed Deif had committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.
All three Hamas leaders were killed in recent months, and earlier this month, Netanyahu fired Gallant as defense minister.
Further complicating the case have been allegations that surfaced in recent weeks accusing Khan of sexual misconduct. The ICC has ordered an external investigation into the claims after an internal probe was closed within days. Khan has categorically denied all accusations, and said the sexual misconduct allegations align with a misinformation campaign against his office.
Some US senators have urged the court to wait on the arrest warrant decision until the sexual misconduct charges are clarified.
And last week Israel filed a request for the ICC to probe whether a judge recently appointed to the panel considering the arrest requests is impartial.
The court has no set deadlines for its final decision in the case but has generally taken about three months to rule on requests for arrest warrants in previous cases.
The Gaza war erupted on October 7, 2023, when Hamas led a massive cross-border attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people. The terror group also took 251 hostages.
