US to sanction International Criminal Court

According to the Saudi Gazette, the US House of Representatives has voted to pass legislation that would sanction the International Criminal Court (ICC) after its prosecutor applied for arrest warrants against Israeli officials. The bill passed in the House, it is not expected to become law.

The move comes after The Hague-based court's prosecutor said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant should be arrested on charges relating to the war in Gaza.

The prosecutor is also seeking warrants for three leaders of Hamas.

The bill, proposed by pro-Israel Republicans, targets ICC officials involved in the case by blocking their entry to the United States.

On Tuesday, it passed with a majority of Republican support by a vote of 247-155. Two Republicans voted present and 42 pro-Israel Democrats crossed the aisle to back the legislation.

The legislation will likely be ignored by Democrats who control the US Senate, where it would have to pass before it could be signed into law by the president.

President Joe Biden has also indicated that he strongly opposes the bill and the administration has said it does not support the sanctions.

If it did become law, however, the legislation would also revoke any US visas held by ICC officials and restrict them from making property transactions in the US.

Some Senate Democrats, like John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, an outspoken supporter of Israel, have indicated they would support legislation sanctioning the court.

“I really would like to sanction the ICC for that. That was trash,” Fetterman said of the arrest warrants.

Congressman Chip Roy, a Texas Republican who introduced the legislation in the House, titled the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act, has called the ICC “a massive threat to US sovereignty”.

The Democrats who opposed the measure largely support Israel, but have criticized Netanyahu's conservative government. Some Democratic opponents said it risked forcing the US to sanction ally nations that support the ICC.

When the measure cleared the House Rules Committee on Monday, Jim McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat, said, “This bill makes a mockery of the rules-based international order that America helped build.”

The bill's passage comes shortly after Netanyahu was invited by US lawmakers to deliver a speech to Congress this summer, although the date of his speech has not been finalized.

Last month, ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan said he had "reasonable grounds" to believe that Netanyahu and Gallant, as well as Hamas’s Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar, military chief Mohammed Deif and political leader Ismail Haniyeh, bore "criminal responsibility" for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the war in Gaza.

It marked the first time the ICC has targeted the top leader of a close US ally.

"The ICC has to be punished for this action," Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said on Tuesday. "We cannot allow this to stand."

"If the ICC was allowed to do this and go after the leaders of countries whose actions they disagree with, why would they not come after America?"

Israel’s government and Hamas reacted with outrage to Khan's announcement last month.

Netanyahu denounced the warrant applications against him and Gallant as a “moral outrage of historic proportions”.

Gallant accused the prosecutor of drawing a “despicable” parallel between Israel and Hamas and attempting to deny his country’s right to self-defense.

Hamas — which is proscribed as a terrorist organization by Israel, the US and other countries — demanded the cancellation of the warrant applications for its leaders and denounced what it called Khan's attempts “to equate the victim with the executioner".

If the ICC’s judges decide to issue the arrest warrants, it will be up to its 124 member states — including the UK and many other US allies — to decide whether or not to enforce them.

The White House said in a statement on Monday that while the ICC prosecutor’s warrant applications for Israeli leaders were "outrageous", it did not support sanctioning the ICC.

"There are more effective ways to defend Israel, preserve US positions on the ICC, and promote international justice and accountability, and the administration stands ready to work with the Congress on those options,” it said.

Created by a UN treaty in 2002, the ICC investigates and brings to justice those responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, intervening when national authorities cannot or will not prosecute.

The US — like Israel — is not a member of the ICC and does not recognize its jurisdiction, but has backed its previous prosecutions and arrest warrants not related to Israel and the Palestinians.

In 2020 under the Trump administration, the US imposed sanctions on top ICC officials, including Khan’s predecessor, after the court began investigating alleged war crimes committed by the US and others in the Afghan conflict.

McCarthy elected speaker of US House of Representatives

Republican Kevin McCarthy was elected speaker of the US House of Representatives early on Saturday, after making extensive concessions to a group of right-wing hardliners that raised questions about the party's ability to govern.

The 57-year-old Californian suffered one final humiliation when Representative Matt Gaetz withheld his vote on the 14th ballot as midnight approached, prompting a scuffle in which fellow Republican Mike Rogers had to be physically pulled away.

McCarthy's victory in the 15th ballot brought an end to the deepest congressional dysfunction in over 160 years. But it sharply illustrated the difficulties that he will face in leading a narrow and deeply polarized majority.

He won at last on a margin of 216-212. He was able to be elected with the votes of fewer than half the House members only because six in his own party withheld their votes - not backing McCarthy as leader, but also not voting for another contender.

“I'm glad that it's over," McCarthy told reporters shortly after the vote.

McCarthy agreed to a demand by hardliners that any lawmaker be able call for his removal at any time. That will sharply cut the power he will hold when trying to pass legislation on critical issues including funding the government, addressing the nation's looming debt ceiling and other crises that may arise.

"We got the things that are transformational," said Republican Representative Ralph Norman, who voted to back McCarthy after opposing him for much of the week.

Republicans' weaker than expected performance in November's midterm elections left them with a narrow 222-212 majority, which has given outsized power to the right-wing hardliners who have opposed McCarthy's leadership.

Those concessions, including sharp spending cuts and other curbs on McCarthy's leadership, could point to further turbulence in the months ahead, especially when Congress will need to sign off on a further increase of the United States' US$31.4 trillion borrowing authority.

Over the past decade, Republicans have repeatedly shut down much of the government and pushed the world's largest borrower to the brink of default in efforts to extract steep spending cuts, usually without success.

Several of the hardliners have questioned McCarthy's willingness to engage in such brinksmanship when negotiating with President Joe Biden, whose Democrats control the Senate. They have raged in the past when Senate Republicans led by Mitch McConnell agreed to compromise deals.

The hardliners, also including Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry and Chip Roy of Texas, said concessions they extracted from McCarthy will make it easier to pursue such tactics this year - or force another vote on McCarthy's leadership if he does not live up to their expectations.

"You have changes in how we're going to spend and allocate money that are going to be historic," said Representative Scott Perry, the chairman of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus.

"We don't want clean debt ceilings to just go through and just keep paying the bill without some counteracting effort to control spending when the Democrats control the White House and control the Senate."

One of those Democrats, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, warned that the concessions McCarthy made to win the job may come back to haunt him.

"Kevin McCarthy’s concessions to the extremists in his party make it far more likely that the MAGA Republican controlled House will cause a government shutdown or a default with devastating consequences to our country," Schumer said in a statement.

In a sharp contrast to this week's battles among House Republicans, Biden and McConnell appeared together in Kentucky on Wednesday to highlight investments in infrastructure.

McCarthy's belated victory came the day after the two-year anniversary of a January 06, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, when a violent mob stormed Congress in an attempt to overturn then-President Donald Trump's election loss.

This week's 14 failed votes marked the highest number of ballots for the speakership since 1859, in the turbulent years before the Civil war.

McCarthy's last bid for speaker, in 2015, crumbled in the face of right-wing opposition. The two previous Republican speakers, John Boehner and Paul Ryan, left the job after conflict with right-wing colleagues.

Wielding the speaker's gavel will give McCarthy the authority to block Biden's legislative agenda, force votes for Republican priorities on the economy, energy and immigration and move forward with investigations of Biden, his administration and his family.

But McCarthy has agreed to concessions that mean he will hold considerably less power than his predecessor, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, according to sources involved in the talks. That will make it hard for him to agree to deals with Democrats in a divided Washington.

Allowing a single member to call for a vote to remove the speaker will give hardliners extraordinary leverage.

He has also offered influential committee posts to members of the group, lawmakers said, as well as spending restrictions that aim to reach a balanced budget within 10 years. The agreement would cap spending for the next fiscal year at last year's levels - amounting to a significant cut when inflation and population growth are taken into account.

That could meet resistance from more centrist Republicans or those who have pushed for greater military funding, particularly as the United States is spending money to help Ukraine fend off a Russian assault.

Moderate Republican Brian Fitzpatrick said he was not worried that the House would effectively be run by hardliners.

"It's aspirational," he told reporters. "We still have our voting cards."