WASHINGTON — President Biden on Monday ripped the “outrageous” arrest warrant application against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that was filed by Worldwide Legal Court docket chief prosecutor Karim Khan.
“The ICC prosecutor’s utility for arrest warrants in opposition to Israeli leaders is outrageous,” mentioned Biden, whom anti-Israel protesters have dubbed “Genocide Joe” for his forceful early assist of Netanyahu’s invasion of the Gaza Strip.
“And let me be clear: No matter this prosecutor may suggest, there isn’t a equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas,” added Biden, who traveled to Israel just 11 days after Hamas terrorists began the battle on Oct. 7 by murdering about 1,200 individuals — together with 33 Individuals — throughout southern Israel.
“We are going to all the time stand with Israel in opposition to threats to its safety,” the president concluded.
Though Biden slammed the arrest warrant utility, the 81-year-old has himself change into more and more essential of Netanyahu’s conduct of the Gaza battle, halting shipments of two,000-pound and 500-pound bombs to attempt to prevent an Israeli offensive against the city of Rafah.
Polls present that Biden’s assist for Netanyahu threatens his re-election by alienating key Democratic constituencies, corresponding to Arab American and Muslim American voters in swing states like Michigan.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken additionally condemned the arrest warrant utility in opposition to Netanyahu in a separate assertion.
“[T]he United States has been clear since effectively earlier than the present battle that that [sic] ICC has no jurisdiction over this matter. The ICC was established by its state events as a court docket of restricted jurisdiction,” Blinken said.
“These limits are rooted in precepts of complementarity, which don’t seem to have been utilized right here amid the Prosecutor’s rush to hunt these arrest warrants slightly than permitting the Israeli authorized system a full and well timed alternative to proceed,” Blinken added.
“In different conditions, the Prosecutor deferred to nationwide investigations and labored with states to permit them time to research,” the secretary went on. “The Prosecutor didn’t afford the identical alternative to Israel, which has ongoing investigations into allegations in opposition to its personnel.”
Khan said that Netanyahu is suspected of seven war crimes, including “hunger of civilians as a technique of warfare,” “deliberately directing assaults in opposition to a civilian inhabitants” and “extermination and/or homicide.”
The applying additionally names Israeli Protection Minister Yoav Gallant as a attainable defendant, whereas a separate utility was filed in opposition to Hamas army chief Yahya Sinwar, who’s suspected of orchestrating the Oct. 7 assaults, and two different prime terror brass.
Khan is a British citizen whose father was born in Pakistan. His brother, Imran Ahmad Khan, was a Conservative Get together member of the UK’s Parliament till 2022, when he was convicted of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy.
