A bipartisan group of senators condemned the International Criminal Court’s decision to pursue arrest warrants for two Israeli leaders on Monday.
The senators are the latest on Capitol Hill to denounce the ICC’s application for arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and they argue that the ICC’s decision threatens the global efforts to secure lasting peace in the Middle East.
“These actions by the ICC jeopardize efforts to bring about sustainable peace in the Middle East. It puts at risk sensitive negotiations to bring home hostages, including Americans, and surge humanitarian assistance,” Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), John Fetterman (D-PA), Jim Risch (R-ID), Katie Britt (R-AL), and John Thune (R-SD) said in a statement released on Tuesday.
Cardin is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Risch is the ranking member.
Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan announced on Monday he is pursuing arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant because he believed they were responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the starvation of civilians as a weapon of war and “intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population.”
The ICC also submitted arrest warrant applications for three senior Hamas leaders — Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s leader in Gaza; Mohammed Deif, Hamas’s military chief; and Ismail Haniyeh, the movement’s Qatar-based top political official — who it said bear responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity conducted during the Oct. 7 terrorist attack.
Several U.S. lawmakers, President Joe Biden, and the State Department have denounced an implied equivalence between the Hamas and Israeli leaders, given Hamas is a widely recognized terrorist group and Netanyahu is a democratically elected leader.
“The application for arrest warrants also draws a false equivalence between Israel with its longstanding commitment to the rule of law, and Hamas’ theocratic, autocratic, and unaccountable rule over Gaza. To state the obvious: Israel is a functioning democracy, while Hamas is a terrorist organization,” the senators continued.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken revealed on Monday following the ICC’s announcement that representatives from the court were expected to travel this week ahead of a trip for Khan to travel and meet with Israeli leaders.
“The ICC’s precipitous action in applying for arrest warrants in this instance runs contrary to the promotion of rule of law globally; Israel has a long history as a functioning democracy, with an independent judiciary and military justice system. We have great confidence in the Israeli judicial system’s ability to administer justice,” the senators added. “The principle of complementarity should be honored, allowing a nation’s legal system to act first.”
Blinken told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday that he believes the United States has “to look at the appropriate steps to take to deal with, again, what is a profoundly wrongheaded decision.”
The Biden administration is pursuing a wide-ranging agreement between itself, Israel, and Saudi Arabia that would include a pathway for Palestinian statehood, though Israeli leaders have repeatedly said it was unwilling to pursue a two-state solution in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attack.
“Israel will have to decide whether it wants to proceed and take advantage of the opportunity to achieve something that it has sought from its founding, which is normal relations with the countries and its region,” Blinken said at the hearing. “The Saudis have been very clear that would require calm in Gaza, and it would require a credible pathway to a Palestinian state.”
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The Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the draft agreement as “nearly final” over the weekend.
U.S. officials have speculated that Hamas carried out the Oct. 7 attack to prevent an Israeli-Saudi normalization effort that wouldn’t have prioritized Palestinians.