U.S. President Joe Biden called it “outrageous” for the International Criminal Court to pursue arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Washington “fundamentally rejects” the decision of the court in The Hague.
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) saw things differently, and the so-called “Squad” member cited the aftermath of the Holocaust and a Jewish lawyer to explain why she supported the court’s pursuit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
“Since Nuremberg, the United States has been a global leader in the pursuit of international justice. It is one of the foundational philosophies underpinning the post-war rules-based international order,” she stated, referring to the trials of Nazi leaders.
“The International Criminal Court must be allowed to conduct its work independently and without interference,” Omar added. “The application for arrest warrants is merely the beginning of a judicial process. The ICC has been a functioning court—it has seen convictions, acquittals, and dismissals, as we would expect from an impartial and non-political judicial body.”
Omar also invoked Benjamin Ferencz, a Nuremberg prosecutor who was Jewish and who died at 103 last year, and said that “it has long been my belief that the absence of credible processes for justice are a key reason the conflict between Israel and Palestinians continues to escalate.”
The congresswoman has long been accused of Jew-hatred. Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said recently that he intended to introduce a censure measure against her.
