Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says “the ICC has succeeded only in discrediting itself” by seeking an arrest warrant for Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Since the immediate aftermath of October 7, Israel and allies and Jewish people around the world have faced pernicious efforts to equate a sovereign nation’s self-defense with barbaric acts of terrorism,” he said in Monday’s floor remarks.
“But today, the most noxious attempt at moral equivalence comes from unelected international bureaucrats brandishing a contrived and perverted authority.”
“In the same breath, the self-aggrandizing prosecutor of the International Criminal Court applied for arrest warrants for both Hamas chief terrorists and Israel’s duly elected prime minister. It’s a damning development, but not for the supposed subjects of the applications.
“The ICC has succeeded only in discrediting itself even further as a rogue kangaroo court utterly untethered to morality or justice,” McConnell said.
McConnell also addressed the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash over the weekend.
“The untimely death of the president of Iran does not change the underlying threats this regime poses to its own citizens the region and to the free world,” he said.
“I’d also like to extend my condolences to Iran’s neighbors who still live under the constant threat of a regime that practices what it preaches. Death to Israel, death to America, war on international commerce, and chaos across the Middle East.
Meanwhile, other senior GOP senators running for leader also condemned the ICC’s move regarding an arrest warrant for Netanyahu.
Senate Minority Whip John Thune, who is running to replace McConnell as GOP leader next Congress, tweeted that the move was “as unjustifiable as it is shameful.”
Sen. John Cornyn, who is also running, condemned the ICC’s decision in his own post on X, calling it “illegitimate and unsubstantiated.”
Source link: https://www.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news-05-20-24/index.html