The House of Representatives voted to ratify the International Criminal Court

In a speech initiative to the Republican majority in the House, Tuesday, June 4, the vote shows that “America stands firmly with Israel.”

The US House of Representatives voted this Tuesday in favor of a bill to establish sanctions against members of the International Criminal Court (ICC), whose lawyer wants to obtain an arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The proposal is unlikely to pass in the Democratic-majority Senate, and President Joe Biden has expressed opposition.

Critics of the White House

But for the Republican majority in the House, on the initiative of the speech, this vote on Tuesday, “the United States stands firmly with Israel and refuses the order of arrest of the international bureaucrats, against the Israeli leaders, without reason. Existing crimes,” according to the words of their leader, House Speaker Mike Johnson.

On May 20, ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan sought arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity and crimes committed in the Gaza Strip and Israel.

If approved by the panel of judges, 124 member states (not the United States or Israel) would eventually make the arrest.

President Joe Biden later slammed Kareem Khan’s “disgraceful” approach in late May, but the White House criticized the Republican initiative last week, saying sanctioning the ICC was not the “right approach.”

The text, voted by a majority of Republican elected officials and a fifth of Democratic elected officials on Tuesday, would specifically bar ICC officials involved in the case from entering US territory.