{"id":38154,"date":"2025-02-06T18:55:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-07T00:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=38154"},"modified":"2025-02-06T20:29:44","modified_gmt":"2025-02-07T02:29:44","slug":"trump-executive-order-sanctions-international-court-over-israel-war-crimes-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=38154","title":{"rendered":"Trump executive order sanctions international court over Israel war crimes case"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

President Trump\u2002<\/u><\/a>on Thursday issued an executive order sanctioning the International Criminal Court (ICC) over its pursuit of war crimes cases against Israel\u2019s prime minister and its former defense minister. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the order, Trump accused the ICC of engaging in \u201cillegitimate and baseless actions\u201d against Israel and the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNeither country has ever recognized the ICC\u2019s jurisdiction, and both nations are thriving democracies with militaries that strictly adhere to the laws of war,\u201d Trump wrote in the order. The Biden administration said that it was \u201creasonable to assess\u201d Israel had violated international humanitarian law with U.S. weapons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump issued the order shortly after hosting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2002<\/u><\/a>in Washington, D.C. The move<\/u><\/a> also demonstrated one of Trump\u2019s first actions overriding Democrats\u2019 rare, successful action to block legislation in Congress. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last spring, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on allegations of using starvation as a weapon of war in the Gaza Strip, amid Israel\u2019s more than 15-month war against Hamas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ICC also issued an arrest warrant for Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif as one of the figures responsible for planning the group\u2019s Oct. 7, 2023, attack against Israel, which triggered the war in Gaza. Hamas killed an estimated 1,200 people and took 250 hostages during its October assault. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe United States will impose tangible and significant consequences on those responsible for the ICC\u2019s transgressions,\u201d the order read, saying that \u201cICC officials, employees, and agents, as well as their immediate family members,\u201d are at risk of blocking of property and assets and suspension of entry into the U.S. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lawmakers supportive of Israel criticized the ICC for overreach, saying the court lacks jurisdiction because Israel is not a party to the court\u2019s treaty, the Rome Statute. These lawmakers argue alongside Israel that its justice system is robust enough to investigate and prosecute allegations of war crimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They also blasted the court for equating Hamas, designated as a terrorist group by the U.S., Israel and European Union, with Israel, a democratic country responding in self-defense after the Oct. 7 attack. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Republican lawmakers pushed for Trump to unilaterally impose sanctions on the ICC after they failed to advance legislation in Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democrats refused to vote in favor of an ICC sanctions bill brought to the floor by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), accusing Republicans of failing to negotiate in good faith and reach a compromise. The bill failed to reach<\/u><\/a> the 60-vote threshold needed to pass, with a final tally of 54-45. Sen. John Fetterman (Pa.) was the only Democrat to vote in favor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer\u2002<\/u><\/a>(N.Y.) criticized the bill as \u201cpoorly drafted and deeply problematic,\u201d despite his anger at the ICC for the issuing of arrest warrants against Israeli officials. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democrats criticized the Republican-drafted bill for having dangerous repercussions on the court\u2019s functions \u2014 opening up leaders of other countries to sanctions, risking penalties on U.S. businesses that contract with the court on things like cybersecurity, and blocking coordination on other investigations, such as those centered on war crimes cases against Russian President Vladimir Putin, atrocities in Sudan and human rights abuses by the Taliban, among others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFive words divided us on the ICC,\u201d Sen. Jeanne Shaheen\u2002<\/u><\/a>(D-N.H.), the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on the Senate floor, following a meeting with Netanyahu. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat we saw was an unwillingness on the part of my Republican colleagues to come to a compromise, to actually provide the protections that we\u2019re hearing from American businesses that they need in order to continue to not be sanctioned for work that they have already done for the ICC,\u201d she said, adding that she is willing to reopen negotiations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s sanctioning of the court repeats an action he took in his first term, punishing the court for war crimes investigations against U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. He used \u201cnational emergency authorities\u201d in an executive order that criticized the court as overreaching in its investigations of U.S. \u201callies.\u201d That order did not name Israel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2021, the court said it would \u201cdeprioritize\u201d investigations into actions of U.S. service members in Afghanistan.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

thehill<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Trump\u2002on Thursday issued an executive order sanctioning the International Criminal Court (ICC) over its pursuit of war crimes cases against Israel\u2019s prime minister and its former defense minister.  In the order, Trump accused the ICC of engaging in \u201cillegitimate and baseless actions\u201d against Israel and the U.S. \u201cNeither country has ever recognized the ICC\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":38155,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4450,32284,2089,1230],"class_list":["post-38154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-icc","tag-israel-war-crimes","tag-sanctions","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38154"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38156,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38154\/revisions\/38156"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}