WASHINGTON — The International Criminal Court is so anti-American and anti-Israel that I cheered when Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced sanctions against four of its judges Thursday for “transgressions against the United States and Israel.”
The sanctions, which could block the judges’ property interests and require that they report transactions, were authorized under an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in February. The document also maintained that the ICC has no jurisdiction over the United States or Israel.
Neither the United States nor Israel is among the ICC’s 125 member nations.
“The United States will take whatever actions we deem necessary to protect our sovereignty, that of Israel, and any other U.S. ally from illegitimate actions by the ICC,” Rubio explained in a statement. (RELATED: Putin the War Criminal)
“We do not take this step lightly. It reflects the seriousness of the threat we face from the ICC’s politicization and abuse of power,” read a statement from the State Department spokesperson.
The State Department imposed sanctions against judges Reine Alapini Gansou and Beti Hohler for issuing arrest warrants in November against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, whom Netanyahu had fired, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Trump is treating the ICC judges for who they are, UC Berkeley law professor John Yoo told me. “They’re not a court. They’re a political body.”
The other two judges, Solomy Balungi Bossa and Luz del Carmen Ibanez Carranza, authorized an ICC probe of U.S. personnel in Afghanistan. The ICC Afghanistan probe was dropped. (RELATED: ICC Fails Afghan Women. Filmmakers Step In.)
“They really think they can end war,” said Yoo.
End war? But how?
As the New York Times wrote after the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, “The court has no police force to make arrests and neither Israel nor its chief ally, the United States, is among its member nations. But the order carries significant moral weight, it is likely to restrict the leaders’ travel around the world, and it further isolates Israel as it prosecutes wars in Gaza and Lebanon.”
For Yoo, who served in President George W. Bush’s administration during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, the judges’ arrest warrants were not about enforcing international law, but isolating Israel.
Which is why then-President Joe Biden called the ICC arrest warrants against the Israeli leaders “outrageous” last year.
“Let me be clear once again: whatever the ICC might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas,” Biden added in the statement. “We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security.”
In what appears to be a nod toward balance, the ICC judges did issue an arrest warrant against Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, whose warrant was canceled after he was killed in an airstrike.
“It’s politics, not law,” Yoo offered. It makes them look even-handed when Hamas leaders are unlikely to ever see a courtroom.
The court wants to look balanced because the judges don’t see that Israel is right and Hamas is wrong, said Yoo. “I’m sure they’ll indict Ukrainians along with Russians.”
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