The United States rejects the legitimacy of the ICC arrest warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant

More isolated than ever, the United States is the only major country to denounce the decision of the International Criminal Court (ICC), whose three judges issued, Thursday, November 21, arrest warrants for war crimes and crimes against humanity, against the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant, who was an important interlocutor of the American authorities. According to a spokesperson for the National Security Council, the White House “fundamentally rejects” double indictment. “We remain deeply concerned by the prosecutor's eagerness to obtain arrest warrants and by the troubling procedural errors that led to this decision”specified this source, according to which the ICC does not have jurisdiction to rule in this case.

Like Israel, the United States does not recognize the authority of the Court. The Biden administration persists in not admitting the reality of the war crimes committed by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip for more than thirteen months, the indiscriminate bombings, the systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure, the constant blockade of delivery of humanitarian aid.

In May, when ICC prosecutor Karim Khan requested the issuance of arrest warrants, Joe Biden described this approach as “scandalous” : “Whatever the prosecutor may suggest, there is no equivalence – none – between Israel and Hamas. » The American position does not only reflect classic solidarity with Israel and a rejection of the ICC. It also marks the denial of complicity on the part of the United States, while this subject has provoked unprecedented dissension since the Vietnam War within the State Department.

Exasperation of the progressive base

Republican Representative Mike Waltz (Florida), tipped to become Donald Trump's national security adviser, said on X that Israel “legally defended its people and its borders against genocidal terrorists. You can expect a strong response to anti-Semitic bias from the ICC and the UN starting in January. » His colleague Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator from South Carolina, called the ICC a “dangerous joke”. According to her, it is time for the Senate to adopt sanctions against her. A text to this effect was voted on in June in the House of Representatives. In March 2023, this same senator greeted the “giant step” accomplished by the ICC, which had just issued an arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin. He expressed the hope that “the international community will continue[it] to support » the Court in this effort to hold the Russian President accountable for crimes committed in Ukraine.

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