U.S. Senator Jim Risch (R-Idaho), a ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, issued a statement regarding the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) decision to apply for arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Chief Yoav Gallant.
Risch stated, “Today’s ICC decision is absurd. The ICC, like the rest of the international community, continues to be obsessed with targeting Israel during its time of need. There is no cause for why the court should be investigating Israel as it is not a party to the Rome Statute and Israel has a fully functional judiciary.”
He further criticized the court’s simultaneous application for warrants against Hamas and Israeli officials, stating that this action creates “a false moral equivalency between their actions.” He continued, “Israel has responded to reckless Hamas aggression with extreme caution for civilians while Hamas raped and murdered Israeli and American civilians. Today’s actions have hurt the credibility of the court and seriously harmed legitimate accountability efforts where true war crimes are occurring, like Ukraine, Syria, and across Africa.”
