Jonathan S. Tobin
JNS, Jan. 29, 2025
“What worries Democrats about sanctioning the ICC is the prospect that American action could really cripple the court. . . . the issue on the left is their unwillingness to do anything about multilateral institutions, like the ICC or the United Nations, even if they become cesspools of antisemitism.”
According to Senate Democrats, it wasn’t their fault. As far as they were concerned, the failure of Congress to pass sanctions this week against the International Criminal Court in The Hague for targeting Israel was the fault of the bill’s Republican sponsors. They say that if the GOP adapts the bill to be more “reasonable,” then they’ll be happy to vote for it. As far as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is concerned, the GOP bill was “poorly drafted and deeply problematic.”
The more “reasonable” bill Democrats want would include protections against the sanctions for American companies that do business with the court and for foreign countries that are, in theory, allied with the United States but members of the ICC and prepared to execute its warrants.
There is nothing reasonable about efforts to water down the ICC sanctions bill. Nor should anyone be deceived into thinking that Congress will have achieved anything on this issue if Republicans cave in and allow the version the Democrats want to pass.
Understanding the dance that the parties are doing on this issue requires reading between the lines and understanding the priorities of Republicans and Democrats on this issue. It’s equally important to realize that this seemingly arcane argument about how broad the sanctions against the ICC should be is really about how they can be rendered toothless and remain purely symbolic measures that do nothing at all.
The reason why Congress is debating sanctions on the ICC was its decision earlier this year to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on bogus charges of war crimes committed by the Jewish state during its current war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. ...SOURCE