In response to the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant, the US Defense Department was quick to express its opposition. Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh stated on Thursday that “the United States fundamentally rejects the court’s decision to issue these arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials.”
While this condemnation is welcome, a strong case can be made that the ICC warrants never would have been issued if not for a series of decisions made by the Biden administration itself.
In March of 2020, the court announced the opening of an investigation into possible war crimes committed by US forces in Afghanistan. Then-president Donald Trump responded by issuing Executive Order 13928, threatening harsh sanctions on members of the ICC and their immediate family members, should they target the personnel of the US or its allies.
While the primary factor in the threat of sanctions was the court’s investigation of alleged US war crimes in Afghanistan, both the White House and secretary of state Mike Pompeo stressed in their statements at the time that the ICC’s “political persecution” of Israel was a contributing factor.
On February 17, 2021, just a few weeks after President Joe Biden assumed office, some 80 left-wing NGOs signed a letter to Biden calling on him to rescind the executive order. Notably, the list of signatories included a number of virulently anti-Israel groups such as J Street, whose sole raison d’etre is the demonization of Israel, and George Soros’ Open Society Foundation, which has reportedly been funding many of the anti-Israel, pro-Hamas demonstrations we have been seeing across the US since October 7.
In April 2021, Biden complied with the request and rescinded Trump’s executive order. A few months later, the lead prosecutor of the ICC, Karim Khan, announced that he would be reopening the investigation into war crimes in Afghanistan but would not be including US personnel as a target of the investigation.
The obvious implication was that dropping the US from the investigation was a quid pro quo for the rescinding of the Trump executive order. Had US personnel been targeted by the ICC in the wake of Biden’s move, there would have been significant pressure to reinstate the sanctions. In short, Biden left Israel exposed.
MORE TO the point of last Thursday’s arrest warrants, consider the alleged crimes listed. The warrants assert that Netanyahu and Gallant are responsible “for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”
These claims are spurious, to say the least. Israel has allowed more than enough humanitarian aid into Gaza. According to the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the agency responsible for the transfer of aid into Gaza, more than 3,000 calories per day per civilian have been provided.
Combatant to civilian casualty ratio lowest in the history of urban warfare
As for the claim that Israel is responsible for crimes against humanity and murder, it has been well-documented that the combatant to civilian casualty ratio in Gaza has been the lowest in the history of urban warfare. In the words of Col. John Spencer, head of Urban Warfare Studies at West Point, “No army has ever done more than Israel to protect civilians.”
And yet, in every statement about the war in Gaza, Biden administration officials affirm and even promote these false narratives. State Department officials continue to repeat the false claim that there is a scarcity of food and that Israel is not doing enough to ensure that humanitarian aid is making it to Gazan civilians.
As for the ICC claim that Israel is guilty of “crimes against humanity,” consider the statement by Deputy Press Secretary Singh quoted above. Immediately after stating that the US rejects the ICC decision to issue the warrants, she added the following:
“But in terms of our support for Israel, we’re continuing to support Israel with the assistance it needs in its fight against Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t continue to make clear our concerns on the conduct and how they are conducting those operations, whether it be in Gaza or on the northern border.”
“Concerns” about how Israel is conducting the war in Gaza? Instead of pushing back on the libelous claims, instead of praising Israel for going beyond what is required or expected to protect civilians in Gaza, Singh said that the administration is “concerned by the prosecutor’s rush to seek arrest warrants and some of the processes that this has played out in.” In other words, the disagreement with the ICC is about process, not the substance of the false claims against Israel.
The Biden administration publicly decries the court’s warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, but in all likelihood, without the rescinding of Executive Order 13928 and the administration’s continued perpetuation of libelous narratives about Israel, the ICC warrants never would have been issued.
The writer is the director of Israel365action.com and a co-host of the Shoulder to Shoulder podcast.