Republicans move to include ICC sanctions in procedural vote as they prepare to take control of Congress

Measure is aimed at protecting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

US House Speaker Mike Johnson faced opposition from within the Republican party as he stood for re-election. He won the contest on Friday January 3. Bloomberg

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As the all-Republican “trifecta” government prepares to take power in Washington, the party has included a significant challenge to the International Criminal Court inside a procedural package for the new congressional session.

Republicans in the House of Representatives on Wednesday unveiled their rules package proposal for the 119th congressional session, which begins on Friday. It includes a measure that would impose sanctions on the ICC over “any effort to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute any protected person of the United States and its allies” – a presumed reference to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The measure is seen as Republicans making good on their promises to target the court, which has accused Mr Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Israel-Gaza war.

Members of the Donald Trump-aligned wing of the party, the House Freedom Caucus, have been among the few voices to speak out against including ICC sanctions in the procedural rules package, over claims it gives the court too much credibility.

Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie declared in a post on X: “Where are our priorities?!” He said: “The United States is a sovereign country, so I don’t assign any credibility to decisions of the International Criminal Court. But how did a bill to protect Netanyahu make it into the House rules package to be voted on immediately after the Speaker vote?”

Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene agreed. “I will not support giving any credibility or power to the International Criminal Court in our House rules package. This clause needs to be removed,” she said in her own post.

House Republicans will need to adopt the rules package, which outlines general rules and order of operations for the chamber in the new Congress, before they move on to electing a Speaker of the House on Friday.

The court has accused Mr Netanyahu of using starvation as a method of warfare and of intentionally directing an attack against civilians, in addition to crimes against humanity in Gaza, where at least 45,500 Palestinians have been killed, according to local estimates. Israel has been accused of blocking aid, forcing parts of Gaza to the brink of famine, and the war has created the world's largest population of child amputees.

The package also makes it more difficult to remove a speaker – after a tumultuous 118th session that resulted in the removal of former speaker Kevin McCarthy and as current Speaker Mike Johnson faces significant opposition from the House Freedom Caucus, including Mr Massie, as he stood for re-election.

The party already has other motions under way to punish the ICC. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed a bill that would issue sanctions against the court, but the Democrat-majority Senate has failed to move the legislation to a final vote.

In the new government, Republicans have control of the Senate, too, and incoming Senate majority leader John Thune has promised the new Republican majority will make ICC sanctions “and other supportive legislation a top priority in the next Congress”.

EJ Kimball, a senior policy adviser with the US Israel Education Association (USIEA), told The National after the arrest warrants were issued that “it is very clear that there will be a response from Congress” once the new US government begins this month.

Elise Baker, a senior staff lawyer for the Strategic Litigation Project at the Atlantic Council's Rafik Hariri Centre and Middle East programmes, told The National at the time that such a reaction makes Washington an outlier on the world stage. “There aren't really other countries that are responding in this way,” she said.