A group of influential Republican senators have sent a letter to International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor Karim Khan, warning him against issuing international arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials, and threatening him with “severe sanctions” if he does the.
By Team Zeteo and Mehdi Hasan.
In a terse one-page letter obtained exclusively by Zeteo and signed by 12 Republican senators, including Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Florida’s Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz of Texas, Khan is informed that any attempt by the ICC to hold Netanyahu and his colleagues accountable for their actions in Gaza will be interpreted “not only as a threat to Israel’s sovereignty, but to the sovereignty of the United States”.
“Attack Israel and we will attack you,” the senators wrote to Khan, adding that they would “sanction your staff and associates, and ban you and your families from the United States.”
And the letter has the ominous conclusion: “You have been warned”.
In a statement to Zeteo said Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland: “It’s fine to express opposition to a potential lawsuit, but it’s absolutely wrong to interfere in a lawsuit by threatening judges, their family members, and their staff with retaliation. Such thuggish behavior is something that suits the mafia, not US senators”.
While neither Israel nor the United States are members of the ICC, the Palestinian territories were admitted to member state status in April 2015. Khan, who is a British lawyer, was appointed as the ICC’s chief prosecutor in February 2021, a week after the court already had a majority determined that its territorial jurisdiction was extended to “Gaza and the West Bank”.
In the wake of the attacks on 7 October 2023, Khan announced that the court had jurisdiction over all potential war crimes committed both by Hamas militants in Israel and by Israeli forces in Gaza. The ICC, under the 2002 Rome Statute, can charge individuals with war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide – and recent reports suggest that Israeli officials increasingly believe the ICC is preparing arrest warrants for Netanyahu and other senior state and military officials.
On Friday, the Hague-based office of the chief prosecutor published an unprecedented https://twitter.com/IntlCrimCourt/status/1786316229688414518/photo/1 on Twitter, calling for an end to threats of retaliation against the ICC and attempts to “obstruct” and “intimidate” its officials. The statement added that such threats could “constitute an offense against the administration of justice” under the Rome Statute.
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