(Headline USA) President Donald Trump signed an executive order imposing sanctions on the International Criminal Court, an activist organization with no legal authority that previously threatened to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for “war crimes.”
Neither the U.S. nor Israel is a member of or recognizes the court, which has doggedly harassed Netanyahu for his military response in Gaza after the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas massacre in Israel that killed some 2,000 innocent victims.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians, including children, have been killed during Israel’s military’s response due to Hamas using them as human shields by operating its terrorist syndicate through a network of underground tunnels using schools, hospitals and other high-density locations likely to maximize collateral damage.
Surveys show that the vast majority of Palestinians living in Gaza—and elsewhere—are sympathetic with Hamas and are complicit in abetting its activities, including the ongoing rape, torture and slaughter of Israeli hostages.
The order Trump signed Thursday charges the ICC with engaging in “illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel” and of abusing its power by issuing “baseless arrest warrants” against Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant.
“The ICC has no jurisdiction over the United States or Israel,” the order states, adding that the court had set a “dangerous precedent” with its actions against both countries.
During the presidency of Democrat Bill Clinton, the United States participated in negotiations that led to the adoption of the Rome Statute, which established the court as a tribunal of last resort to prosecute the world’s worst atrocities—war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide—if individual governments did not take action.
The U.S. voted against the Rome Statute in 1998. Clinton signed the statute in 2000 but did not send the treaty to the U.S. Senate to be ratified.
When George W. Bush became president in 2001, he effectively canceled the U.S. signature and led a campaign to pressure countries to enter bilateral agreements not to hand over Americans to the ICC.
Trump’s latest round of sanctions came as Netanyahu was visiting Washington. He and Trump held talks Tuesday at the White House, and Netanyahu spent some of Thursday meeting with lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
The new executive order says the U.S. will impose “tangible and significant consequences” on those responsible for the ICC’s “transgressions.” Actions may include blocking property and assets and not allowing ICC officials, employees and relatives to enter the United States.
Any sanctions could cripple the court by making it harder for its investigators to travel and by compromising U.S.-developed technology to safeguard evidence. The court last year suffered a major cyberattack that left employees unable to access files for weeks.
Activists complained that targeting the court in the same way that it tried to intimidate the leaders of foreign nations was unfair since it was unaware that there might be consequences for its actions.
“You can disagree with the court and the way it operates, but this is beyond the pale,” Sarah Yager, Washington director of Human Rights Watch, said in an interview prior to the announcement.
Nonetheless, they also doubled down by insinuating they would wage futher lawfare to undermine the new administration’s efforts to rebalance the scales of justice.
“The order also raises serious First Amendment concerns because it puts people in the United States at risk of harsh penalties for helping the court identify and investigate atrocities committed anywhere, by anyone,” claimed Charlie Hogle, staff attorney with American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project.
Like Israel, the U.S. is not among the court’s 124 members and has long harbored suspicions that a global court could arbitrarily prosecute U.S. officials.
A 2002 law authorizes the Pentagon to liberate any American or U.S. ally held by the court.
In 2020, Trump sanctioned chief prosecutor Karim Khan’s predecessor, Fatou Bensouda, over her decision to open an inquiry into “war crimes” committed by all sides, including the U.S., in Afghanistan.
However, those sanctions were lifted under President Joe Biden, and the U.S. began to tepidly cooperate with the tribunal—especially after Khan in 2023 charged Russian President Vladimir Putin with war crimes in Ukraine, a move that aligned with the Biden adminsitration’s strategic interests in Ukrainian nation-building.
It is unclear why Khan did not condemn “all sides” in the Ukraine war, for which the Biden administration funneled hundreds of billions of U.S. tax dollars, much of it still unaccounted for.
In support of the Ukraine measures, neocon warhawk Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., organized meetings in Washington, New York and Europe between Khan and GOP lawmakers who have been among the court’s fiercest critics.
But the ICC’s selective outrage over Israel’s actions left Graham feeling betrayed by Khan.
“This is a rogue court. This is a kangaroo court,” Graham said in an interview in December.
“There are places where the court makes perfect sense,” he continued. “Russia is a failed state. People fall out of windows. But I never in my wildest dreams imagined they would go after Israel, which has one of the most independent legal systems on the planet.”
U.S. authorities—especially those on the Right—who supported the ICC’s partisan agenda when the tradewinds were blowing their way, while assuming it offered neutral and impartial justice, did so at their own peril.
“The legal theory they’re using against Israel has no limits and we’re next,” Graham said.
Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, further accused the court of having an anti-Semitic bias.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
