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Twelve Republican senators signed a letter threatening participants of the International Felony Courtroom with “severe sanctions” and a ban from the United States after it was once suggested that the ICC used to be making ready an arrest warrant for Israeli Top Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The letter – which was once signed by using Senate Minority Chief Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), and Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), amongst others – warned ICC prosecutor Karim Ahmad Khan that any makes an attempt to issue an arrest warrant for Netanyahu or different Israeli officers would “result in extreme sanctions” in opposition to each Khan and the ICC as a whole.

“By means of issuing warrants, you might be calling into query the legitimacy of Israel’s regulations, criminal machine, and democratic type of executive,” the letter claimed, ahead of protesting that the ICC had no longer issued similar arrest warrants for Chinese language President Xi Jinping, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, or Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The senators persisted:

Neither Israel nor the US are individuals of the ICC and are therefore out of doors of your organization’s supposed jurisdiction. Should you difficulty a warrant for the arrest of the Israeli management, we are able to interpret this now not best as a danger to Israel’s sovereignty but to the sovereignty of the United States. Our united states proven in the American Service-Contributors’ Safety Act the lengths to which we will go to give protection to that sovereignty.

The USA will not tolerate politicized assaults via the ICC on our allies. Target Israel and we can target you. Should you move ahead with the measures indicated in the report, we are able to move to finish all American reinforce for the ICC, sanction your staff and associates, and bar you and your households from america. You may have been warned.

As mentioned by means of Zeteo founder Mehdi Hasan, who published the letter in full on Monday, the American Carrier-Members’ Safety Act threateningly mentioned by means of the senators used to be signed into legislation via former President George W. Bush in 2002 and “has considering grow to be extensively known as ‘The Hague Invasion Act’ as a result of it authorizes the U.S. president ‘to make use of all approach essential and applicable’ to bring in regards to the release not simply of U.S. individuals but additionally allies who are imprisoned or detained by means of the ICC.”

The letter used to be signed by means of McConnell, Rubio, and Scott, together with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL), Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC), Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE), Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND), and Sen. Invoice Hagerty (R-TN).

On Friday, the ICC demanded an finish to “intimidation” in opposition to the courtroom, reputedly in keeping with the senators’ letter, which used to be dated April 24.

“The Place of work insists that each one attempts to hinder, intimidate or improperly influence its officers cease immediately,” the Court declared in a commentary.

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