(CP) Politicians and faith leaders are raising concerns after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant Thursday over its military offensive in Gaza.
The International Criminal Court, a supranational organization tasked with “trying individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and aggression,” released a statement Thursday announcing that it issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu over “crimes against humanity and war crimes” that purportedly took place between Oct. 8, 2023, and May 20, 2024.
The time period covered by the warrant overlaps with the conflicts which have erupted within the Middle East after the terrorist organization Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, launched a deadly invasion in Southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says that over 44,000 people have died in Gaza since Israel’s military offensive began, a tally that does not differentiate between civilians and combatants. The Israeli government has long accused Hamas of using residents as human shields.
The warrant, which extends to Israel’s Minister of Defence Gallant, alleges that each men engaged in “the war crime of starvation as a way of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”
According to the Pre-Trial Chamber of the ICC that issued the warrant, there are “reasonable grounds” to consider that Netanyahu and Gallant “each bear criminal responsibility as civilian superiors for the war crime of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population.”
“The Chamber considered that there are reasonable grounds to consider that each individuals intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, and medicine and medical supplies, in addition to fuel and electricity, from at the very least 8 October 2023 to twenty May 2024,” the warrant stated.
“The finding relies on the role of Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant in impeding humanitarian aid in violation of international humanitarian law and their failure to facilitate relief by all means at its disposal.”
The warrant maintains that the actions of Netanyahu and Gallant caused the “disruption of the flexibility of humanitarian organisations to supply food and other essential goods to the population in need in Gaza.”
“The aforementioned restrictions along with cutting off electricity and reducing fuel supply also had a severe impact on the supply of water in Gaza and the flexibility of hospitals to supply medical care,” the document states.
The warrant characterizes Israel’s military motion as “calculated to bring in regards to the destruction of a part of the civilian population in Gaza.” While the chamber stopped in need of charging Netanyahu and Gallant for “the crime against humanity of extermination,” the warrant alleges that they committed “the crime against humanity of murder.”
The arrest warrant drew intense reactions from politicians on each side of the aisle, faith leaders and advocacy organizations.
The following pages highlight reactions to the event.
US Evangelical leaders
The Rev. Johnnie Moore, founding father of the Congress of Christian Leaders established to unify Christian movements worldwide, issued a statement on X Thursday calling on the U.S. Congress to “take motion against the corrupt ICC.”
“This actually has little to do w/ @Netanyahu or Gallant,” wrote Moore, an Evangelical public relations executive who had strong ties to the primary Donald Trump administration and was a former commissioner on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
“It is in regards to the profound corruption of our international institutions (some mustn’t exist in any respect),” he added.
Prominent Christian conservative activist Tony Perkins, a former USCIRF vice chair who’s president of the advocacy group Family Research Council, suggested that the ICC’s decision is antisemitic.
“Antisemitism? This decision by the ICC to go after Israel’s leader for defending his country must be a death knell for the court,” Perkins wrote in an X post.
“Pray for Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu because the ICC has issued arrest warrants. Also, pray that Bible-believing Christians will stand with Israel and their God-given right to exist.”
Congressional Republicans
Leaders on Capitol Hill telegraphed disappointment with the event.
In a Thursday X post, Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., slated to turn into the senate majority leader within the upcoming 119th Congress, forcefully condemned the ICC’s warrants.
“If the ICC and its prosecutor don’t reverse their outrageous and illegal actions to pursue arrest warrants against Israeli officials, the Senate should immediately pass sanctions laws, because the House has already done on a bipartisan basis. If Majority Leader Schumer doesn’t act, the Senate Republican majority will stand with our key ally Israel.”
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, considered one of the crucial moderate Senate Republicans, published an X post Thursday urging the ICC to “abandon its illegal pursuit of arrest warrants against Israeli officials.”
She stressed that the “U.S. stands with Israel,” agreeing with Thune that if the ICC fails to rescind its warrant against Netanyahu, “the Senate should immediately consider the bipartisan laws passed by the House to sanction the ICC.”
The laws each Collins and Thune referred to, the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act, passed the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives in a 247-155 vote in June. The measure received no opposition from Republicans, while 42 Democrats joined their GOP colleagues in supporting it. The bill has not come up for a vote within the Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate.
Congressional Democrats
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., offered a blunt response to the warrants in an X post Thursday. He maintained that the ICC had “no standing, relevance, or path” to bring the fees before declaring “F— that,” accompanied by a picture of the Israeli flag.
Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., who has emerged as an outspoken supporter of Israel, issued a lengthy rebuttal of the ICC warrants on X Thursday.
“The ICC’s decision to issue arrest warrants against the leadership of Israel represents the weaponization of international law at its most egregious. The ICC has set a precedent for criminalizing self-defense: any country daring to defend itself against an enemy that exploits civilians as human shields will face persecution posing as prosecution.”
“The ICC ignores the cause and context of the war. Israel didn’t initiate the war. The war was imposed upon Israel by the unabridged barbarism of Hamas on October seventh,” he noted. “Not only did Hamas wage war on Israel, causing the deadliest day for Jews because the Holocaust, it fastidiously constructed a battlefield designed to maximise the lack of civilian life. None of that context seems to matter to the kangaroo court of the ICC, which cannot let facts get in the best way of its ideological crusade against the Jewish State.”
Torres concluded by asserting that “The ICC must be sanctioned not for enforcing the law but for distorting it beyond recognition.”
Incoming national security advisor
Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., slated to turn into national security advisor to President-elect Donald Trump after he takes office on Jan. 20, shared his thoughts in an X post Thursday.
“The ICC has no credibility and these allegations have been refuted by the U.S. government,” he wrote.
“Israel has lawfully defended its people & border from genocidal terrorists. You can expect a powerful response to the antisemitic bias of the ICC and [United Nations] come January,” Waltz vowed, referring to the forthcoming Trump administration.
