The House voted to approve a bill that would institute sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) for its proposed arrest warrants against Israeli officials.
The bill would prevent ICC officials involved in the warrants from entering the US, revoke any visas they hold and restrict them from dealing in US property.
The measure, authored by Representative Chip Roy, was approved by 247 votes in favor and 155 against. A significant number of Democrats supported the legislation President Biden opposes: 42.
Last week, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, and Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., were working together on a bipartisan ICC response.
A breakdown occurred in talks between pro-Israel Republicans and Democrats when the White House told Democrats in Congress to drop sanctions, a source familiar told DailyMail.com.
The House voted to approve a bill that would institute sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) for its proposed arrest warrants against Israeli officials, including Netanyahu.
“We fundamentally reject the ICC prosecutor’s request for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said last week. “However, we do not believe that ICC sanctions are an effective or appropriate path forward.”
Last month, ICC prosecutor Karim Khan said there were “reasonable grounds” to believe that Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as two Hamas leaders, bore “criminal responsibility” for alleged crimes of war during the war in Gaza.
It is the first time that the ICC attacks a leader of a US ally.
Last month, ICC prosecutor Karim Khan said there were “reasonable grounds” to believe that Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as two Hamas leaders, bore “criminal responsibility” for alleged crimes of war during the war in Gaza.
The United States is not a state party to the Rome Statute of the ICC, founded in 2002. It does not directly fund the criminal court.
Khan said he formally requested the orders last month and a three-judge panel must now approve them and allow the case to proceed, which could take months.
Israel is also not part of the ICC, so even if arrest warrants are issued, Netanyahu and Gallant face no immediate risk of prosecution. But it could limit your travel within any of the 124 ICC signatory countries.
It comes after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was invited by House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to address a session joint meeting of Congress, a measure that sparked progressive protests.
Roy called the ICC “a huge threat to the sovereignty of the United States.”
Top House Democrats did not oppose the bill.
“This bill makes a mockery of the rules-based international order that the United States helped build,” Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said when the bill passed the Rules Committee.
Some pro-Israel Democrats backed the measure.
The White House opposed the measure in a policy statement on Monday, but did not issue an explicit veto threat.
“There are more effective ways to defend Israel, preserve US positions on the ICC, and promote international justice and accountability, and the Administration stands ready to work with Congress on those options,” the statement read. .
However, the White House has not defined those other options and the House moved forward with partisan sanctions.
The measure gives the president unilateral authority to lift sanctions if the ICC stops trying to arrest individuals or allies of the United States.
Netanyahu called the arrest warrants “a moral outrage of historic proportions.” Israel, he said, is “fighting a just war against Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organization that carried out the worst attack against the Jewish people since the Holocaust.”
He called chief prosecutor Khan one of the “great anti-Semites of modern times.”
Biden called the arrest warrants “outrageous” and said there was “no equivalence – none – between Israel and Hamas.”
Hamas, in turn, also demanded the ICC rescind its arrest warrants and accused Khan of “equating the victim with the executioner.”
In a recent interview with Time magazine, Biden was asked if Netanyahu is “prolonging the war for his own survival.”
“There are many reasons for people to come to that conclusion,” Biden said.