Thune said he would make the sanction legislation ‘a top priority’ in the next Congress should the current Senate majority leader fail to act on it.
Incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) on Nov. 17 urged the Senate to impose sanctions against the International Criminal Court (ICC) if it continued to pursue arrest warrants for Israeli officials over the Israel–Hamas war in Gaza.
In June, the House of Representatives
passed a bill aimed at imposing sanctions on those involved in the ICC’s efforts “to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute a protected person.” Under this bill, those subject to sanctions would be ineligible to enter or remain in the United States.
Thune said the Senate Republican majority will make the bill, along with other supportive legislation, “a top priority in the next Congress” should there be no action taken by outgoing Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).
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If the ICC and its prosecutor do not reverse their outrageous and unlawful actions to pursue arrest warrants against Israeli officials, the Senate should immediately pass sanctions legislation, as the House has already done on a bipartisan basis,” Thune
stated on social media platform X.
In May, the ICC’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan requested arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister
Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes in Gaza sparked by Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel.
Khan also requested arrest warrants for three Hamas leaders over the killings and kidnappings that Hamas terrorists committed when they entered southern Israel during the attack.
In a June
statement, the White House warned that the legislation “could require sanctions against court staff, judges, witnesses, and U.S. allies and partners who provide even limited, targeted support to the court in a range of aspects of its work.”
“There are more effective ways to defend Israel, preserve U.S. positions on the ICC, and promote international justice and accountability, and the Administration stands ready to work with the Congress on those options,” the White House stated.
Some Republican senators said they agreed with Thune’s position of imposing sanctions against the ICC over its arrest warrants for Israeli officials.
“Well done Senator Thune,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)
wrote on X. “The ICC’s actions against Israel have been outrageous, and an independent review into the prosecutor’s actions is more than called for.”
Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the Senate should immediately pass the sanction legislation against the ICC.
“We waited for months for the majority to schedule the vote only to have them postpone it before the election. We will not fail to act when Republicans are in the majority,” Risch
stated on X.
Schumer did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thune’s statement.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller
said on May 20 that the ICC lacks jurisdiction to bring charges relating to the ongoing war between the Israeli military and the Hamas terror group in Gaza.
Khan said on Aug. 23 that the ICC had jurisdiction over the matter and asked the court to urgently decide on his request for arrest warrants.
“Any unjustified delay in these proceedings detrimentally affects the rights of victims,” the ICC prosecutor stated in an Aug. 23
court filing.
Jackson Richman contributed to this report.
