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Floor Speech
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Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, criminals in the world today have an international friend. That friend is called the International Criminal Court. The ICC is headquartered in Europe. It claims unchecked power and power to enforce very loosely defined so-called international law, and they are unaccountable. The ICC is a kangaroo court.
The U.S. has never ratified this treaty, neither has Israel. We are not members with this group. This so-called court seems to me to just do the bidding of the country of Iran. It never issued arrest warrants for leaders of Iran. It never tried to prosecute Assad, the former dictator of Syria.
The ICC embraces a legal fiction and a moral fraud. It is the fraud and the fiction that Israel violates human rights and that sovereignty doesn't matter. They also believe that Israel doesn't have a right to defend themselves.
Last year, we saw the ICC issue an unjust and unlawful arrest warrant for the Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Israel's former defense minister was also targeted. The charges that the ICC brought were baseless; they were biased. And, basically, the ICC tends to continue to go after the Jewish State.
Many descriptions of President Netanyahu are absurd; they are inaccurate. Let's get to the facts. The facts are there was a brutal attack on October 7 of 2023 by Hamas. It was the deadliest single day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Israel has a fundamental right to defend itself, and America stands with the people of Israel. Israel went to extraordinary lengths to limit civilian casualties.
Hamas deliberately hid behind civilians. Hamas uses innocent individuals as human shields. Israel has allowed hundreds of thousands of tons of food and supplies to go in to help the people of Gaza. When the food doesn't meet the actual needs of the civilians there, it is not because they haven't sent enough, it is because Hamas steals it first. Israel isn't a member of the ICC. The court has no jurisdiction over it.
Israel is a democracy. Israel's judiciary is robust, and it is independent. The ICC is deaf to these important facts. It lives in an anti-Israel echo chamber.
Because of this prejudice against Israel, the ICC has also attacked Israel's allies. In 2020, the ICC started to investigate American servicemembers who served in Afghanistan for alleged war crimes. President Trump responded swiftly and strongly. He froze the assets of the ICC officials who were involved in the corrupt investigation. President Trump also imposed visa restrictions on ICC officials and on their families.
So then what happens? Then Joe Biden gets into the White House, and former President Biden--I love saying ``former''--former President Biden wrongly and weakly overturned these effective sanctions. President Trump restored the sanctions on his first day back in office last week.
So today the Senate will hold a critical vote on a bipartisan bill to hold the International Criminal Court accountable. Senator Jim Risch of Idaho and Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas have been leaders on this issue here in the Senate. Under the bill we are going to be voting on today, any ICC official, employee, or associate who works to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute American citizens or our allies will face immediate sanctions.
This bill also blocks U.S. funding from the ICC--every penny. Critically, it ensures American taxpayers are not in any way contributing their hard-earned money to foreign institutions that attack our servicemembers.
Passing this bill sends a strong message--an important message--that we in America will not tolerate the ICC's lawfare against Israel. If the ICC attacks America or its allies, the consequences will be swift, will be serious, and will be severe. This is about much more than Israel.
The ICC also threatens America's safety, our security, and our sovereignty. Like Israel, America is not a member of the ICC. Well, Israel is the target today. The ICC could turn around and target American servicemembers, and even our leaders, in the future. The House of Representatives has passed legislation to sanction the ICC. They have done it several times. Its bipartisan support continues to grow and grows stronger in the most recent passage. And a majority of Americans support congressional efforts to sanction the ICC. The most recent vote in the House was 243 in favor and only 140 against; 45 House Democrats voted for it.
Well, the Senate could have passed ICC sanctions last Congress, but the Democrat leader chose to drag his feet instead. He blocked it from coming here to the Senate floor. He refused to even allow debate.
This Congress, Senate Republicans have made strengthening our alliance with Israel a top priority. Republicans can't sit back and allow a kangaroo court to wage lawfare against American citizens or our allies. The Senate will not bend to the pro-Hamas crowd. We will stand with Israel in the face of anti-Semitism and in the face of evil, period. Will Senate Democrats join us? We will find out today.
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