Democrats in Senate block bill on sanctions against ICC
Democrats refused to support the imposition of sanctions against the ICC (Illustrative photo: Getty Images)
Democratic senators have supported blocking a Republican bill that aimed to impose sanctions on officials of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The bill was intended to punish the Court for issuing arrest warrants against senior Israeli officials, reports CNN.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune criticized the court's decision before the vote, stating that establishing a moral equivalence between Israeli leaders and Hamas goes beyond the acceptable.
Democrats, aware that Republicans would view their votes against the bill as anti-Israeli, spent several days grappling with how to handle the situation.
Ultimately, the only Democrat who supported the bill was Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania. As a result, the bill fell short of the 60 votes required for further approval. The final vote count was 54-45.
"I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t want to vote for this and support Israel," said Fetterman, who firmly holds pro-Israel positions.
Two freshman Democratic senators, Elissa Slotkin from Michigan and Ruben Gallego from Arizona, who had supported the bill last year while serving in the House of Representatives, also voted against the measure.
Democrat John Ossoff, who is running for re-election in Georgia, did not vote.
Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a re-election candidate in New Hampshire, had been negotiating with Republicans in an attempt to find a compromise on the bill. However, just before the vote, the negotiations broke down, and Shaheen, along with other Democrats involved in the talks, announced they would vote against the bill.
Minority Leader Chuck Schumer spoke in the Senate just before the vote, stating that the bill was badly crafted and highly problematic. He complained that Republicans refused to make minor changes to the document to secure Democratic support.
The International Criminal Court's focus on Netanyahu provoked backlash from both Republicans and Democrats in Congress. A similar bill had already passed the House of Representatives earlier in January with a 243-140 vote, with 45 Democrats voting alongside Republicans.
In the last Congress, the House passed the ICC sanctions bill by a vote of 247 to 55, with 42 Democrats joining Republicans. However, the bill was not brought to a vote in the Senate, which was then controlled by Democrats.
Now that Republicans control both the House and the Senate, they have returned to the issue.
ICC's decision and the risk of sanctions from the US
In November 2024, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and a senior Hamas official.
The ICC judges accused the individuals of war crimes in the Gaza Strip during and after the October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel.
The office of the Israeli Prime Minister rejected the warrants as absurd and antisemitic.
The White House fundamentally dismissed the ICC's issuance of arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant.
