Initial ON FOX – Three Residence Republicans from New York wrote a letter Tuesday imploring the Biden administration to reduce the “sham prosecution” of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli federal government officers by the Intercontinental Felony Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes.
Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, R-N.Y., spearheaded the letter co-signed by Household GOP Chair Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., and Rep. Marcus Molinaro, R-N.Y. to President Biden and Secretary of Point out Antony Blinken citing “unbelievable relating to stories” that the ICC options to situation arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and a number of senior officials in just the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).
“As the Israeli federal government continues its military services functions in the Gaza Strip with the goal of wiping out the terrorist group Hamas, the United States ought to remain steadfast in its assist of our greatest ally,” D’Esposito, Stefanik and Molinaro wrote. “You each should guarantee that any error, like your abandonment of Israel at the United Nations Security Council in March 2024, is not repeated when dealing with these accusations.”
Critics charged Biden with abandoning Israel and the hostages taken by Hamas amid the administration’s failure late final thirty day period to veto a United Nations Stability Council (UNSC) resolution calling for a cease-fire, placing more strain on the administration’s marriage with America’s closest ally in the Center East.
“Any misguided endeavor by the ICC to prosecute leaders of the Israeli federal government in the midst of that nation’s justified defensive war towards Hamas terrorists would be extraordinarily troubling, and I am calling on President Biden and the whole administration to do every little thing achievable to protect our Israeli allies and need the ICC look into the proponents of the Oct. 7 terror assault,” D’Esposito mentioned in a statement to Fox Information Digital.
Tuesday’s letter notes that the ICC has by no means been identified by any presidential administration and neither the United States nor Israel have at any time been a component of the courtroom empaneled in The Hague, Netherlands.
“If the Court does determine to transfer forward with these sham prosecutions, primarily based on accusations leveled by terrorist corporations and corrupt foreign governments,” the 3 Republicans from New York warned “there should be implications” and termed on the Biden administration to “take into consideration the harshest punishments for these associated with this prosecution if they do go ahead.”
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“The leadership of our greatest ally stands falsely accused of war crimes, ranging from disproportionate power to deliberately starving the Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip,” the letter suggests. “These accusations can not be more from the truth. The civilian casualty ratio described during these ongoing functions in the Gaza Strip is 1 of the lowest in any instance of city warfare. That remains genuine even if you imagine the figures coming from the Gaza Well being Ministry.”
The lawmakers explained Israel has tried to let “as considerably perfectly-vetted humanitarian assist in as possible below the latest stability problem, accompanied by direct aid deliveries from the United States and our allies” and asserted “with assaults by terrorist groups within Gaza on the humanitarian support pier being created by United States military services personnel, the ICC should really look at who definitely does not want support reaching the civilian inhabitants.”
“There will have to not be any false equivalencies manufactured between Israel and the barbaric terrorist businesses like Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the other users of the Palestinian Joint Operations Space who immediately specific and massacred Israeli civilians on October 7th, 2023,” the letter states. “In its operations in the Gaza Strip, Israel has attempted to reduce civilian casualties. In their terrorist attacks in Israel, users of the Palestinian Joint Operations Area did all the things doable to increase civilian harm.”
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Esposito, Stefanik and Molinaro explained to the Biden administration that the United States “ought to keep on to strain the ICC to prevent any of these warrants staying issued for associates of the Israeli governing administration.”
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“The ICC’s time and assets would be a great deal greater put in prosecuting the leadership of terrorist teams in the Gaza Strip, who sit in lavish apartment blocks in Qatar, much absent from the conflict, whose associates have been very well documented engaging in war crimes on Oct 7th,” the letter states. “If they do come to a decision to shift forward with these arrest warrants, it is our hope that the administration will stand with our ally Israel, reject any makes an attempt to execute these warrants, and implement extreme effects on individuals engaged in this sham prosecution. We appear forward to a prompt reply and quick action.”
The letter will come as Israeli officers expand increasingly worried that the ICC could challenge arrest warrants from them as the Jewish state proceeds its much more than 6-month-prolonged war towards Hamas.
The ICC was proven in 2002 as the long term court docket of very last vacation resort to prosecute people accountable for the world’s most heinous atrocities — war crimes, crimes in opposition to humanity, genocide and the crime of aggression. The U.N. Common Assembly endorsed the ICC, but the courtroom is independent.
Without the need of a law enforcement drive, the ICC depends on member states to arrest suspects, which has tested to be a important impediment to prosecutions, in accordance to The Linked Press.
Netanyahu claimed Friday on the social platform X that Israel “will never ever take any try by the ICC to undermine its inherent suitable of self-defense.”
“While the ICC will not impact Israel’s actions, it would established a harmful precedent,” he wrote.
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Israel’s Overseas Ministry claimed late Sunday that it had educated missions overseas of “rumors” that the court could buy the arrest of senior Israeli political and military services officers.
Fox News’ Benjamin Weinthal and The Affiliated Push contributed to this report.