US lobbying UK to block ICC’s move for Netanyahu arrest warrant

The US is lobbying the UK’s new Labour government not to drop a legal challenge against the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) authority seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defence minister, an intelligence official in the US told Middle East Eye.

The pressure comes as Keir Starmer’s newly-elected Labour government mulls whether or not to continue the legal challenge against the ICC, which the UK’s former Conservative government filed in May. The ICC has given the UK until 26 July to decide.

The UK’s amicus brief appeal rests on the assertation that the 1993 Oslo Accords that created the Palestinian National Authority prevents Palestine from prosecuting Israelis for war crimes.

The argument has been critiqued as flimsy by legal scholars. Palestine was accepted into the ICC in 2015, and in 2021 the court said it had the power to investigate war crimes in the occupied territories.

The Labour Party opposed the former Conservative government’s case when it was in opposition. According to the US intelligence official, Starmer’s government was on track to drop the legal challenge, but it has vacillated amid US pressure.

UK human rights barrister Geoffrey Robertson first claimed in an opinion article published in The Guardian that the US was exerting pressure on Starmer’s government.

The US is not a member of the ICC but has cooperated with it recently in its investigations of alleged Russian war crimes in Ukraine, and welcomed its decision to seek an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin.

The US lobbying comes as it hosts the UK and other allies for the 75 anniversary of the Nato alliance at the 2024 Nato summit in Washington DC.

The Biden administration has made no secret of its objection to the court’s decision to seek arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, alongside senior Hamas officials in the Gaza Strip.

“The ICC prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous. And let me be clear: whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence – none – between Israel and Hamas. We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security,” a White House statement said after the ICC announced it was seeking the warrants.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US “fundamentally rejects the announcement”, terming it a false equivalence between Israeli and Hamas officials and adding that “the United States has been clear since well before the current conflict that that ICC has no jurisdiction over this matter”.

US pressure amid Nato summit

The ICC case has put the Biden administration in a difficult diplomatic position because of the vocal support it gave the court in its investigation against Russia.

At a Senate hearing in May, Blinken told lawmakers he would “welcome working with you” on sanctioning the ICC.

Amid backlash from rights groups and members of the Democratic Party, the administration was forced to make a U-turn on sanctions. The decision appeared to leave Israel confused. Netanyahu said he was “disappointed” by the news.

Gallant and Netanyahu face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the starvation of civilians in Gaza as a method of war, wilfully causing great suffering, wilful killing, intentional attacks on a civilian population and extermination, among other charges.

No warrants have been issued yet. The ICC prosecution has submitted an application, which is currently under consideration by ICC judges in the pre-trial chamber.