The International Criminal Court will decide soon whether to issue arrest warrants against the Israeli leaders who led the campaign for the return of the hostages that were taken on October 7th and to bring the murderous Hamas leaders to justice.
Don’t be alarmed if it seems ironic to you that a court would convict these leaders. We are also still unable to focus. Donald Trump is presumably the only person who is not surprised by this outrage.
Trump has now warned the world twice about corrupt entities who have played an important role in igniting the flames during the Israel-Gaza Conflict that erupted following Oct. 7.
In June 2020, Trump announced economic sanctions against the ICC and sanctions against its personnel. He said,
“As far America is concerned, there is no jurisdiction, legitimacy, or authority for the ICC. The ICC claims to have jurisdiction over citizens in every country, violating principles of justice, fairness, and due process. “We will never give up America’s sovereignty in the hands of an unelected and uncountable global bureaucracy.”
This court is rogue and presumptuous. It has attacked the democratically-elected Prime Minister of Israel. The U.S. as well as Israel reject the jurisdiction of the court.
It’s not the first time Trump has been right. Trump cut off U.S. funding to UNWRA in 2018, calling it “irredeemably flawed”. Since the beginning of the war, the IDF claims that not one UNWRA hospital, school, mosque, or school is armed. Not to mention the Hamas Data Center located under UNWRA’s headquarters or the miles of tunnels funded by international aid. The worst part is that the actual staff of the U.N. agency were involved in the kidnapping and murder of innocent Israelis.
It’s a great embarrassment, in light of this development, that our president restored funding to UNWRA by 2021. The U.S. alone sent $422,000,000 to UNWRA in 2023. Some people think that the money has been sent directly to Hamas. It is difficult to tell the difference between them.
In 2021, Biden will also lift the sanctions Trump had imposed on the International Criminal Court. Secretary of State Blinken’s statement says:
We maintain our long-standing opposition to the Court’s attempts to assert jurisdiction over the personnel of non-state Parties, such as the United States or Israel. Our concerns would be better addressed by engaging with all parties involved in the ICC’s process, rather than through sanctions.
Biden is aware that they are not playing fair, yet he wants to remain friends. The current administration’s foreign policy failures are a result of this cowardice.
The removal of sanctions legitimized a court that has no legitimacy. They are now using their platform in crisis to criticize America’s most important ally. The UNWRA refund only fuelled our enemies’ ventures and funded them, which led to the war of October 7, which has caused so much pain, suffering, and international division.
We can and should take this as a lesson that Robert Gates, who famously stated that Biden “has been wrong on almost every major issue of foreign policy and national security over the last four decades” was correct. That was 2014. This election will add another decade to the list.
