Blinken Blasts ICC Request for Netanyahu’s Arrest, Says He’ll Work With Congress on Response to ‘Shameful’ Move
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Photo: Screenshot
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday lambasted the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor’s office for demanding arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense chief, saying he would work with lawmakers “to find an appropriate response” to the move.
The ICC’s chief prosecutor on Monday officially requested arrest warrants for the Israeli premier, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas terrorist leaders — Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Al-Masri, and Ismail Haniyeh — accusing all five men of “bearing criminal responsibility” for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Israel or the Gaza Strip.
US and Israeli officials issued blistering condemnations of the ICC move, decrying the court for drawing a moral equivalence between Israel’s democratically elected leaders and the heads of Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group that launched the ongoing war in Gaza with its Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel.
Appearing before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee the next day, Blinken was pressed on whether he would support imposing sanctions on the ICC in response to its decision.
“As you know, within the last administration, the Trump people did an executive order to do sanctions on certain members of the ICC who are investigating us for things that happened in Afghanistan,” Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID), the ranking member of the committee, said to Blinken. “President Biden’s administration came in and dissolved that executive order, as you know.”
Risch then grilled Blinken on whether he would back a “legislative approach” to prevent the ICC from “sticking its nose in the business of countries that have an independent, legitimate, democratic judicial system.”
“Can you support this?” Risch continued. “Obviously, the devil’s in the details in the legislation. But, do you think you could support a legislative approach to this?”
Blinken stated that he would be willing to work with both Republicans and Democrats on a “bipartisan basis to find an appropriate response” to the ICC targeting Israeli leaders.
Blinken added that the Biden administration originally lifted sanctions and visa restrictions on the ICC shortly after US President Joe Biden took office in 2021 with the goal of protecting American military personnel who served in Afghanistan. The top US diplomat claimed that the administration succeeded in its original goal but suggested that Monday’s actions by the ICC could lead policymakers in Washington to reverse course.
“Given the events of yesterday, I think we have to look at the appropriate steps to take to deal with, again, what is a profoundly wrong-headed decision,” Blinken said.
Republican leaders in the US Congress have threatened to push legislation that would impose sanctions on the ICC in response to its decision to seek arrest warrants for Israeli leaders.
On Monday, Blinken released a statement condemning the ICC for its decision to target Israel over its handling of the war against Hamas in Gaza.
Blinken said the US “fundamentally rejects” the ICC’s announcement.
“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,” he added. “We reject the prosecutor’s equivalence of Israel with Hamas. It is shameful.”
Blinken said that the ICC had “no jurisdiction over this matter,” noting that both Israel and the US are not parties of the Rome Statute, the international treaty that established the court.
The ICC claims it has jurisdiction over Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank since Palestinian leaders agreed in 2015 to be bound by the court’s founding principles.
Regardless, Blinken said, the court’s treatment of Israel had undermined its “legitimacy and credibility.”
A panel of ICC judges will now consider the prosecutor’s application for the arrest warrants and whether there is sufficient evidence to issue them.
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