Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Florida, the chairman, for his support on this legislation. I thank him for his statesmanship on this particular issue, which is critically important for not just our friendship with our ally, Israel, but also our own national security, the protection of our own men and women in uniform.

Let's be clear about what is happening at the so-called International Criminal Court right now. It has taken unprecedented action of issuing arrest warrants for the sitting Prime Minister and former Minister of Defense of our friend and ally, Israel. Let that sink in for a minute.

The International Criminal Court is an entity that has no jurisdiction over the people of the United States and should have no authority over our people, no authority over the Prime Minister of Israel, yet it is extending into the people of Israel's business in defending their interests against a violent attack by Hamas, which we define as a terrorist entity. As the chairman just pointed out, Hamas has killed American citizens and holds American citizens hostage as we sit here today.

Somehow, it is not a priority for the people of our country that we represent for us to be here on the floor of the House defending our men and women in uniform, defending our citizens, defending our ally, Israel, and the Prime Minister of Israel from a politicized witch hunt by the International Criminal Court which, again, should have and doesn't have any jurisdiction over our people or the people of Israel.

I would remind the gentleman from Massachusetts that 42 Democrats voted for this legislation last year. If this is such a crazy piece of legislation, perhaps the gentleman would like to have an inward-facing conference on his side of the aisle. It is very clearly a bipartisan interest to protect our people and the people of our friends in Israel.

I would note that our problems aren't just the dangerous terrorist organizations like Hamas, but these international organizations given power over our citizens and our way of life; not just the International Criminal Court, but, for example, UNRWA and other international organizations without which Hamas wouldn't have many of the resources it needs to conduct these violent attacks on Israel and our own people.

When the gentleman from Massachusetts talks about the plight of the people in Gaza, we should be reminded of the massive piles of pallets of food and relief that are stacked up because the United Nations is too incompetent to move those pallets and remind our friends of the extent to which Hamas has been taking those resources and not distributing them to the people in Gaza.

The fact of the matter here is, this legislation is inherently America first. We have had situations where we have had American soldiers and our people targeted by the ICC. It will happen again if the House of Representatives and the Senate and the President don't take action to sanction the ICC to prevent this from happening again in the future.

I appreciate the support of the chairman. I appreciate the support of virtually every Member on the Republican side of the aisle. I appreciate the support of the 42 Democrats last summer. I look forward to a larger amount of support from Democrats when we vote on this today.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source