Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Biden administration should back sanctions against the International Criminal Court (ICC) after the court said it would seek an arrest warrant for him and his defense minister as well as top Hamas leaders.
“I’m surprised and disappointed, because I think it’s to the detriment, not only of Israel’s interest,“ Mr. Netanyahu said in a clip of an interview on ”The Morgan Ortagus Show,” slated to air on Sunday. He was responding to a question about the White House’s move to not back congressional sanctions against the ICC.
He added that it’s also “to the detriment of America’s interest, because Israel may be attacked first by the ICC, but you’re next. America’s really the target.”
Earlier this week, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that an ICC sanctions proposal from Congress would not be effective or necessary. The Biden administration, she added, does “not believe” that sanctions are “an effective or an appropriate path forward.”
Meanwhile, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said during the same press briefing that the ICC lacks jurisdiction to issue the arrest warrants for Mr. Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
“However,” he added Tuesday, “we don’t believe that sanctioning the ICC is the answer.”
Those remarks drew a critical response from Mr. Netanyahu during the interview.
“The United States said that they would, in fact, back the sanctions bill. I thought that was still the American position because there was bipartisan consensus just a few days ago,” the Israeli prime minister said. “Now you say there’s a question mark and frankly I’m surprised and disappointed,” he added.
“The terrorists who are attacking us, and the mobs who support them in America, they chant, ‘Death to Israel, death to America,’” Mr. Netanyahu also said in the interview, adding that, ”it’s in America’s interest, for America’s security and for our common values, to sanction the ICC.”
Mr. Netanyahu made similar remarks in a Wednesday event that included former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley, criticizing what he described as Washington’s decision to “back off” support for sanctioning the ICC.
“I hope that doesn’t happen because it’s important to send a message to the ICC that free societies will retain the right and the ability to defend themselves,” he said Wednesday.
ICC prosecutor Karim Khan last week announced he requested arrest warrants for Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant, along with Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh. He said the Israeli leaders may have criminal responsibility for starvation as a weapon of war, targeting civilians, persecution, extermination, and other crimes.
In the statement, Mr. Khan also said that Hamas, designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, may be responsible for crimes against humanity, taking hostages as a war crime, torture, various inhumane acts, and more.
The White House and United Kingdom have rejected the ICC’s charges, although several European countries have said they would back an ICC arrest warrant for Mr. Netanyahu. A spokesperson for the German government last week said that Germany would “of course” serve a warrant and detain Mr. Netanyahu if possible, drawing criticism from the Israeli government.
In a statement issued on Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington rejects the ICC prosecutor’s announcement that he would seek arrest warrants, adding that “we reject the Prosecutor’s equivalence of Israel with Hamas. It is shameful.”
“Hamas is a brutal 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 in the statement.
Hamas, in a statement of its own, also denounced the ICC prosecutor’s actions, saying the request to arrest its leaders “equates the victim with the executioner.”
Last week, Mr. Netanyahu expressed concern with the charges in a CNN interview, saying that “they’re beyond outrageous” before warning that U.S. and Western leaders could be targeted by the court in the future.
“He’s equating the democratically elected leaders of Israel with the terrorist tyrants of Hamas. That’s like saying, well, I’m issuing arrest warrants for FDR and Churchill but also for Hitler. Or I’m going to issue arrest warrants for George W. Bush but also for [Osama] bin Laden. That’s absurd,” Mr. Netanyahu said last Tuesday.
The ICC was established in the year 2002 to prosecute individuals linked to war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity, and aggression.
The Epoch Times contacted the White House press office for comment on Thursday.
