The White House on Tuesday came out against legislation being pushed by House Republicans to sanction senior members of the International Criminal Court over its pursuit of arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
“We don’t believe the ICC has jurisdiction [in this case], so we don’t support these arrest warrants. However, we don’t believe that sanctioning the ICC is the answer,” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said during a press briefing.
Last week, the US came out against ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan’s request for arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant along with Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh, Yahya Sinwar and Muhammad Deif. Washington blasted the equivalency the court drew between the Israeli and Hamas leaders, said the ICC had no authority to weigh in on the matter since Israel is not a member, has its own credible legal systems to adjudicate such charges and was in the process of cooperating with Khan when he cut off contact and rushed to announce his decision.