A group of influential Republican senators has sent a letter to International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor Karim Khan, warning him not to issue international arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials, and threatening him with “severe sanctions” if he does so.

In a terse, one-page letter obtained exclusively by Zeteo, and signed by 12 GOP senators, including Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Florida’s Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz of Texas, Khan is informed that any attempt by the ICC to hold Netanyahu and his colleagues to account for their actions in Gaza will be interpreted “not only as a threat to Israel’s sovereignty but to the sovereignty of the United States.”

“Target Israel and we will target you,” the senators tell Khan, adding that they will “sanction your employees and associates, and bar you and your families from the United States.”

In their letter, the dozen Republican senators remind Khan that the U.S. “demonstrated in the American Service-Members’ Protection Act the lengths to which we will go to protect [its] sovereignty.”

The ASPA, signed into law by George W. Bush in 2002, has since become widely known as “The Hague Invasion Act” because it authorizes the U.S. president “to use all means necessary and appropriate” to bring about the release not just of U.S. persons but also allies who are imprisoned or detained by the ICC.

  • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    The American Republican party has been trying to break the UN for decades under the theory that our sovereignty allows us to take unilateral action globally and the UN is a threat to that. They sell it domestically as any law we pass because of the UN is an impingement on our freedoms and sovereignty. But it’s pretty blatantly about their foreign policy goals. And when I mean sell it, I mean literally. There are books you can buy where the UN has “invaded” the US after the Democrats let immigration get so bad we lost all civil order and of course it’s 300 pages of militiamen using painstakingly described weapons to fight the UN forces.

    We really do have some crazy people and they got organized after we elected our first black president.