Congress Alert

House Passes Bill To Sanction Cooperation With The ICC Following Netanyahu Arrest Warrant

by | Jan 10, 2025

When newly re-elected Speaker Of The House Mike Johnson was first elected to the chair in 2023, his first act of business was to advance a bill providing an additional $14.3 billion in aid to Israel to fund its war in Gaza. This came after the House Of Representatives entered into a period of stasis following the historic success of the Motion To Vacate filed against Kevin McCarthy that would depose him as Speaker Of The House and replace him with Johnson. Despite the backlog of work Congress faced, Johnson’s decision to prioritize aid to Israel over the interests of the American people served as an ominous portent of things to come under his leadership.

Given the legacy that Johnson forged immediately after ascending to the role of Speaker Of The House, it comes as no surprise that the House Of Representatives would pass a bill sanctioning the International Criminal Court following his re-election. The impetus of the bill was to serve as a response to the ICC’s issuance of arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Although neither the United States nor Israel are party to the Rome Statute that gives the ICC jurisdiction over them, other nations who are party to it can enforce those arrest warrants. The mere possibility of any of those countries doing so was enough for Congress to go DEFCON 1 in order to protect the Netanyahu regime.

The name of the bill, The Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act (H.R. 23) reads as if were the title of a polemic, leaving little doubt about the political motives behind it. Under its parameters, any foreign party that investigates, arrests, detains, or prosecutes citizens of the United States or its allies (namely Israel) who are not signatory to the Rome Statute under the directive of the ICC will face severe sanctions. The bill passed the House as one of the first acts of the 119th Congress by a vote of 243-140 without any Republicans voting against it. Sanctions under the present text of H.R. 23 include prohibiting the transaction of any property in the US by those seemed to be assisting the ICC and revocation of their US visas with immediate effect. Additionally, the bill rescinds any existing funds appropriated for the ICC and bars any future appropriations for them.

While the bill has yet to pass the Senate, newly appointed Republican Majority Leader John Thune, the senior senator from South Dakota, has pledged to bring it to a vote in expedited fashion. Given the unconditional support of House republicans for the bill and the majority they hold in the Senate, its passage appears to be an inevitability as does incoming president Donald Trump’s decision to subsequently sign it into law. Given that Trump will not be inaugurated until January 20th and lame duck/brained president Joe Biden has voiced his opposition to the act, a Senate vote will likely coincide with the new administration taking office.

Earlier in the year, the House also passed an act to sanction the ICC directly. However, the Democratic Party maintained a Senate majority in the 118th Congress which ultimately rendered the bill passed in June dead on arrival. The Senate never introduced the bill targeting the ICC for sanctions specifically for a vote. However, the majority that the Republican Party now holds in the House and Senate as well as leading the White House may see that bill revisited as the United States continues its all-out assault on critics of Israel.

Since Johnson became Speaker Of The House, Congress has considered multiple proposed pieces of legislation targeting critics of Israel. On the campaign trail and during the interregnum before being sworn into office for his second term, President-Elect Donald Trump has echoed the same fervent opposition to opponents of Israel, going as far as to promise to “remove the Jew haters” from the country.

Although Trump’s pledge may serve as nothing more than an empty campaign promise, Congress’ recent decisions to introduce legislation aimed at deporting demonstrators against Israel, criminalizing speech deemed to be antisemitic, and even seeking to sentence people to community service in Gaza highlights the lengths the second Trump administration may go to in order to serve Israel’s interests — even if that means subjugating America’s.

H.R. 23 was reintroduced in the House by its Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast on January 6th before being passed just 3 days later. Mast, the Representative of Florida’s 21st district since 2023 and previous its 18th district going back to 2017 is as staunch of a supporter of Israel as there is in the Republican Party, which is no easy feat to achieve. Before being elected to Congress in 2015 Mast volunteered for the IDF, a move that catapulted his political career forward onto being elected to Congress for the first time the following year. Following the events of October 7th, 2023,  Mast even wore his IDF uniform in Congress.

Ahead of the vote on H.R. 23, Mast framed the proposed legislation as being in the best interest of the America, inextricably tying US interests to those of Israel. “We have to pass this bill today to prevent this travesty from moving any further and to deter any more illegitimate actions by this kangaroo court to halt or stall the military success of our allies trying to bring hostages home, both American and Israeli and others.” he said. The bill’s co-sponsor, Representative Chip Roy of Texas’ 21st district, joined Mast in espousing that rationale by stating “This is an entity, the International Criminal Court, that has no jurisdiction over the people of the United States. [The ICC] should have no authority over our people, no authority over the prime minister of Israel.”

Contrary to Mast and Roy’s claims that passing H.R. 23 was putting America first, Democratic Representative Jim McGovern of Massachusetts’ 2nd distrcit and ranking member of the House Committee On Rules, characterized the bill’s proponents of having their priorities backward. “We have a natural disaster unfolding in California right this second as 100,000 people are fleeing a climate change-driven fire that’s burning up entire neighborhoods. We have a gun violence epidemic, as we see massacres in our school nearly every single day, and families are unable to make ends meet because they’re being ripped off by billionaire corporations who don’t care about anything….All those challenges, and this is what the out-of-touch, elitist, billionaire Republican Party wants to waste time on, sanctioning the ICC.” McGovern stated before condemning the scope of Israel’s war in Gaza which served as the basis for the ICC’s issuance of  its arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant.

In addition to not adopting the Rome Statute, Congress has a long track record of passing legislation against the ICC. Notably, it passed of the “American Service Members’ Protection Act during the Bush administration in 2002. That law has become to be known informally as The Hague Invasion Act because of the unilateral power it vests in the presidency, allowing it to use “all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any U.S. or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court.” This language has led legal analysts to speculate that the law would allow the president to launch an invasion of the Netherlands where the ICC is headquartered in The Hague, the capital of the province of South Holland, its third-largest city, and de facto capital as the country’s seat of government. The bellicosity of that language was echoed by Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, who tacitly threatened that the US would not hesitate to invade The Hague in the wake of the ICC’s issuance of the arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant in November.

As the inauguration of President Donald Trump looms, his second oath of offices parallels the United States repledging its commitment to its supposed “greatest ally” in Israel. While the Biden administration has rightfully been chastised for its reckless spending on foreign aid that has funded multiple wars across the globe to the point of putting the world on the brink of World War III, that criticism is null and void as long as those billions upon billions of dollars are being sent to Israel. When it comes to the subject of aid for Israel, reckless spending on foreign interests has paradoxically become part of the “America First” platform. The Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act serves as a reminder of the lengths that the ruling establishment of the United States will go to in order to support Israel. With an incoming Republican administration having the benefit of control of both chambers of Congress, it seems that those lengths will be even more far-reaching than ever before.

Reprinted with author’s permission from ZeroHedge.

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