The International Criminal Court (ICC) building is pictured on November 21, 2024 in The Hague. [LAURENS VAN PUTTEN/ANP/AFP via Getty Images]
US officials have sparked controversy by invoking the so-called “Hague Invasion Act” in response to the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his former Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, Anadolu Agency reports.
Matthew Hoh, Associate Director of the Eisenhower Media Network – a group of former US military, intelligence and national security officials that provides analysis of Washington’s foreign policy — criticised the threats for Anadolu, highlighting their implications for international law.
Hoh reflected on the origins of the act and its renewed relevance following the decision by the ICC.
The 2002 law, officially titled the “American Service-Members’ Protection Act,” was enacted during President George W. Bush’s administration to shield the US and its allied nationals from ICC prosecution.
Known informally as the “Hague Invasion Act”, it authorises the US to use all means, including force, to protect its nationals from ICC jurisdiction.
Hoh explained that the legislation was originally designed to block ICC investigations into potential US war crimes.
The ICC’s past investigations into US personnel in Afghanistan drew similar threats, with the US imposing sanctions on the Court and its officials.
He said the law resurfaced in the American Congress after the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant.
‘Decision-makers within the US are doing to hasten the end of the US Empire’
Hoh criticised the US response as an overreach to protect Israel.
“The US has, within its own law, the authorisation to use military force against institutions like the ICC,” he said. “Certainly this action […] contravenes the US’ own stated desires, its own slogans [..]. that it believes in such things as international law.”
Hoh also noted the broader implications of the US’ confrontational approach toward the ICC.
“By doing this, by reacting this way to the International Criminal Court and by requiring its allies to do so, it is giving more credence, more validity, more reason for alternative institutions, alternative mechanisms, alternative alliances to grow and expand against the American Empire,” he said. “Decision-makers within the US are doing to hasten the end of the US Empire.”
Double standards in the US approach to the ICC have drawn further scrutiny. Hoh pointed out the stark contrast in US reactions to ICC warrants against Russian President, Vladimir Putin, and Netanyahu.
“When the ICC issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, the Americans across the board, political class, media class, military class, so on and so forth, were excited about that development and they were very pleased to see the arrest warrants,” he said.
When it comes to Israel, the response is different, he noted.
Hoh said the West sees international law as a tool not to be used against those in power. He argued it is there to be used against those in the “developing world, those who do not have power, those who are not within the upper levels in the imperial world order.”
He added that international law is meant to keep people other than “white people” in check, to keep nations out of power and under the subjugation of the existing world order.
Palestinians gather to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen in Khan Younis, Gaza on December 1, 2024. (Photo: Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
“The window of opportunity to deliver assistance is now, today, not tomorrow,” said the deputy director-general of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.
A top official at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said Monday that food availability across Gaza has reached “an all-time low” under Israel’s suffocating blockade, which has heavily restricted the entrance of lifesaving humanitarian assistance and plunged the enclave into famine.
“Food supply has sharply deteriorated,” FAO Deputy Director-General Beth Bechdol said at a conference in Cairo, Egypt. “The window of opportunity to deliver assistance is now, today, not tomorrow. Food, medicine, and fuel are self-evident priorities, but we must also prioritize the ability to grow food locally where it is needed most to ensure survival.”
Bechdol’s grim assessment came weeks after the Biden administration pressuredIsrael to improve conditions on the ground in Gaza, which has been utterly devastated by more than a year of bombing.
Aid organizations say that far from improving, Gaza’s humanitarian crisis has only gotten worse since the Biden administration threatened to cut off the supply of U.S. weapons to Israel. Last month, the U.S. effectively dropped its pressure campaign by concluding that Israel was not violating international law by blocking American humanitarian assistance.
Most of Gaza’s population is currently experiencing “high levels of food insecurity,” according to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) figures, and the “risk of Famine persists across the whole Gaza Strip.”
“The catastrophe in Gaza is nothing short of a complete breakdown of our common humanity. The nightmare must stop.”
In addition to obstructing aid deliveries, Israeli forces have decimated Gaza’s agricultural infrastructure and cropland, repeatedly attacked aid workers, and facilitated the looting of humanitarian supplies, fueling desperation among Gaza’s starving population. Last week, as The Associated Pressreported, “two children and a woman were crushed to death… as a crowd of Palestinians pushed to get bread at a bakery in the Gaza Strip amid a worsening food crisis in the war-ravaged territory.”
Amina Mohammed, the U.N.’s deputy secretary-general, said at the Cairo conference on Monday that “conditions for Palestinians in Gaza are appalling and apocalyptic,” with malnutrition running “rampant” and famine “imminent.”
“In the past four months alone, nearly 19,000 children were hospitalized due to acute malnutrition—nearly double the cases in the first half of the year,” Mohammed said. “In the face of the gigantic needs, humanitarian aid is—outrageously—being blocked. This flies in the face of the clear requirements under international humanitarian law to respect and to protect civilians and to ensure their essential needs are met.”
“It’s past time for an immediate cease-fire and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages,” she added. “The catastrophe in Gaza is nothing short of a complete breakdown of our common humanity. The nightmare must stop. We cannot continue to look away.”
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAGenocide denying UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy says that UK is suspending 30 of 350 arms licences to Israel. He also confirms the UK government’s support for Israel’s Gaza genocide and the UK government and military’s active participation in genocide.
A woman holding a girl reacts after Israeli airstrikes hit the Ridwan neighborhood of Gaza City, Gaza on October 23, 2023. (Photo: Ali Jadallah/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“Someone tell Trump that Israel already unleashed hell on Gaza, and hostages were not released.”
In an early signal of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s foreign policy plans for when he returns to office next month, the Republican said Monday “there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East” if Hamas does not release hostages taken from Israel, the occupying military force in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Trump demanded hostages seized during the October 7 attack of last year be released or his promised retribution would follow. Nearly 45,000 Palestinians have already been killed—mostly civilian men, women, and children—since Israel launched a full-scale invasion of Gaza in the wake of the Hamas-led operation.
Of the 251 people taken captive last year, 63 are believed to be still alive in Gaza, according toThe Washington Post‘s tracker, which was updated last week. So far, 117 others have been freed or rescued and 71 have been confirmed killed.
After dining with Sara Netanyahu, the wife of Israel’s prime minister, at the Trump International Golf Club in Florida Sunday night, the U.S. president-elect made his threat about the hostages on his Truth Social platform Monday afternoon.
“Everybody is talking about the hostages who are being held so violently, inhumanely, and against the will of the entire World, in the Middle East,” Trump wrote. “But it’s all talk, and no action! Please let this TRUTH serve to represent that if the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume Office as President of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against Humanity.”
“Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America,” Trump added. “RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW!”
Stephen Pollard, editor-at-large The Jewish Chronicle, responded that “this is the message the president of the USA should have sent on October 8, 2023.”
Noting Pollard’s comments, Rohan Talbot, director of advocacy and campaigns at the U.K.-based Medical Aid for Palestinians, said: “Genuinely interested to know what Stephen thinks the U.S. could have supported Israel to do in Gaza beyond what it currently has. Nukes?”
“This statement is unhinged—’there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East,’” Talbot added.
Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer in the School of Security Studies at King’s College London, said, “Someone tell Trump that Israel already unleashed hell on Gaza, and hostages were not released.”
Drop Site News highlighted that “Trump’s statement—which follows a video released over the weekend by Hamas’ armed wing featuring U.S.-Israeli captive Edan Alexander and explicitly addressing Trump—does not acknowledge that Netanyahu has repeatedly sabotaged cease-fire deals that could have freed Israeli hostages. It also appears timed to position himself to claim credit for any progress in cease-fire talks, as negotiations between Hamas and Egyptian mediators are already underway.”
As the American Jewish outlet Forward reported Monday:
The White House is attempting a final push to get… a deal done. President Joe Biden said last week that the cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon had created an opportunity to reignite stalled negotiations for a similar deal in Gaza. “We will use every day we have in office to try to generate as much progress towards that end as possible,” Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, said Sunday morning on ABC‘s “This Week.”
Given the failed efforts in the past, the families of the American hostages are hoping Trump could leverage his popularity in Israel and his relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take immediate action during the transition period. “Trump must not wait until he is inaugurated to help reach a deal that secures the freedom for Edan, six other Americans, and the rest of the hostages,” Adi and Yael Alexander, the parents of Edan, said on Saturday.
Despite an abundance of evidence showing how Israel is using U.S. weapons to slaughter civilians in Gaza and severely restricting the flow of humanitarian aid while claiming to target Hamas, Biden and Congress have refused to cut off arms to Netanyahu’s government. In fact, just hours after the cease-fire between the Israeli government and Hezbollah took effect—a deal that Israel has since violated approximately 100 times—the Financial Times reported last week that “Biden has provisionally approved a $680 million weapons sale to Israel.”
Zionist president Joe Biden. 27 July 2021 image by Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz. Original public domain image from Flickr
by Adam Johnson, The Real News Network December 2, 2024
In his final weeks as president of the United States, Joe Biden is using whatever remaining time and capital he has to continue his lockstep support for Israel as it continues violating the so-called ceasefire in Lebanon, as it further immiserates, starves, and destroys what remains in Gaza, and as it codifies the ethnic cleansing and permanent settlement of Northern Gaza. In a 24-hour period two weeks ago, The Times of Israelreported that the Biden White House aggressively lobbied “Democrats to reject [the] progressive push to block arms transfers to Israel” (which most ultimately did). And Biden’s UN ambassador, Robert Wood, vetoed yet another UN resolution calling for an immediate, lasting ceasefire in Gaza and a return of all Israeli hostages.
This fact is at odds with a broader excuse-making media regime that assured readers over the past few months that Biden was only backing Israel’s genocide in Gaza because he was compelled to by mysterious outside forces: a bearhug “change things from the inside” strategy, electoral considerations in the lead-up to Nov. 5, the Israel lobby, or a broader assumption he is simply too helpless to do anything. Once Biden was no longer constrained by these factors, it was assumed, the White House would finally make some effort to rein in Israel. But the election came and went and Biden’s support for Israel has only intensified, capping off with a scathing admonishment and delegitimization of the International Criminal Court, which finally issued an arrest warrant last month for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Israeli defense minister, Yoav Gallant, for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Recently in The Nation, I detailed how this elaborate excuse-making regime emerged over the last year, and how US media helped shape, promote, and disseminate this regime to the broader public. The three major media tropes are as follows:
Helpless Biden is any report, analysis, or opinion that describes Biden as unable to do anything to stop Israel from committing war crimes or end the war overall. This is typically framed as a “limit” to US power, often accompanied with a picture of Biden looking overwhelmed, sad, or doddering. These are sourced almost entirely by anonymous Biden aides and Biden allies in the think-tank world.
Fuming/Deeply Concerned Biden is any report, analysis, or opinion that paints Biden as secretly upset, outraged, or privately sad or anguished about civilian casualties. These articles are also sourced almost entirely by anonymous Biden aides and Biden allies in the think-tank world.
Third Partying is a variation of an anti-labor propaganda concept whereby corporations treat unions as somehow separate from workers and worker democracy in order to portray unions as an outside “third party.” Just the same, media reports consistently paint the United States as separate from the conflict, despite the United States being the major patron of one side, deploying troops and military hardware, assisting in military operations, providing intel, and protecting Israel at the United Nations. US media consistently frames the United States as a neutral party—even a humanitarian force—always looking (but, mysteriously, always failing) to end the conflict. This is typically done through coverage of largely fictitious cease-fire talks, whereby US media conflates efforts for a short-term pause for the purpose of hostage exchanges with “ending the war.”
To quote the late British theorist Stafford Beer,“The purpose of a system is what it does.”We can say that Biden supports genocide because, for almost 14 months, this is exactly what he has done. Everything else is window dressing, moral performance, unfalsifiable theory of mind assumptions, and collective partisan delusion. These media genres fed into a broader excuse-making regime that also includes popular assumptions about Biden being held back by electoral considerations and being subject to the undue influence of the Israel Lobby.
Biden supports genocide because, for almost 14 months, this is exactly what he has done. Everything else is window dressing, moral performance, unfalsifiable theory of mind assumptions, and collective partisan delusion.
On the issue of electoral considerations, this excuse, even if true, was never morally useful. If “winning elections” justified everything—and surely genocide would be the most extreme example of a policy that ought not be permitted simply because it could “win” an election—then every single bad thing Trump does could be defended along the same lines. Mass deportations are popular. Does this make Trump campaigning on them and carrying them out justified? Of course not.
But even accepting the logic of the excuse, it falls apart. Poll after poll shows support for an arms embargo would have helped Harris defeat Trump: The massive reduction in support from Arab and Muslim voters, young voters, and the fact that there were 6.2 million fewer votes overall compared to 2020, clearly indicates that Gaza helped depress turnout. It wasn’t the decisive factor—indeed, no single factor was—but it no doubt was a major contributor in alienating core constituencies and helped doom Harris’ campaign. And we know those running her campaign thought so because her superficial distance from Biden on Gaza was, according to a leaked internal memo prior to Biden dropping out, listed as a major factor in her favor. ”She’s broadly considered to be to Biden’s left on Israel-Palestine, an issue where he has major vulnerabilities,” it read. The day after the election (before the usual scapegoats were settled on), the New York Timesreported that campaign officials “conceded that Ms. Harris had paid a price for not breaking from Mr. Biden’s support of Israel in the war in Gaza.” The premise that the general voting public was crying out for more shredded Palestinian toddlers on their social media timeline was always a dubious one. Yes, the public supports Israel in the abstract. But when asked specifically about an arms embargo and ceasefire, the public was—even despite the overwhelming power of bipartisan polarization—opposed to the Biden/Harris policy of unqualified support for Israel’s “war in Gaza.”
Another popular excuse, which often veered into antisemitism, was that Biden only backed genocide in Gaza because the Israel lobby forced him to do so. While there is obviously an influential Israel lobby in Washington, its impact is largely relegated to the margins of Congress, having recently been decisive in pushing out Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman. Biden, a self-identified Zionist for decades, with nothing to lose in the 2024 election, early on supported the genocidal logic of Israel’s campaign in Gaza—and likely never thought much about it beyond that. While backing Israel was no doubt helpful to Biden’s rise in politics (and certainly essential to pro-Israel groups spending millions targeting Sen. Bernie Sanders in the 2020 primary), pro-Israel lobby groups had little influence over Biden in his final year in office. Even after he dropped out of his ill-fated re-election bid, even after his replacement lost the election itself, Biden continued and continues to this day to do nothing but arm, protect, and justify Israel’s countless war crimes. This is why there is a whiff of antisemitism to this popular line: If Biden had been Jewish, his ironclad commitment to Zionism would simply be seen as an earnest ideological commitment. But because he’s Catholic, there has to be dark and mysterious forces making him do bad things against his will.
But if the past 14 months have shown anything, it’s that Zionism is a colonial ideology that requires no religious or ethnic identity. It is as American as apple pie, and the simplest explanation—that Biden just agrees with Israel’s genocidal campaign and thinks it’s justified—is all there needs to be. No lobby pressure necessary.
Even after he dropped out of his ill-fated re-election bid, even after his replacement lost the election itself, Biden continued and continues to this day to do nothing but arm, protect, and justify Israel’s countless war crimes.
But these excuse-making regimes aren’t only about providing a moral cover for President Biden. They’re very much about creating—to use a vogue term of the day—a permission structure for liberals to go about the usual work of Professional Politics. They permit compartmentalization, however tenuous. This system, over the past 14 months, has allowed, above all, liberals to enjoy politics. From TikTok memes to MSNBC to the social settings of campaigns and government workers, people develop a parasocial relationship with those in power, especially those leading their own party. Uncle Joe, Joe of the Parks and Rec cameo, Obama’s lovable sidesick, Joe of the AOC selfie, Joe of the “a decent man who has done nothing wrong” fame—surely he can’t back the genocide of Palestinians. This reality is too difficult to face; it offends both our chauvinism and partisan identity which, in key ways, is more essential to people’s sense of self than religion or race. So the incentives to build these excuse-making regimes, to provide thin journalistic legitimacy for them, and to push out into our airwaves and Twitter timelines pat thought memes—“… Biden’s bear-hugging Netanyahu so he can influence him as a friend…,” “… he has to back Israel to win the 2024 election…,” “… It’s the Israel Lobby…,” “… he’s working for a ceasefire…,” “…even if he cut off Israel, it wouldn’t matter…”—is tremendous.
It is not only essential to ameliorating cognitive dissonance, it is essential to the basic functioning of civil society and our liberal body politic. So it developed, became a career-maker for many, and largely served its function. But this doesn’t make it any less of a lie. There was never any outside force compelling Biden to back the wholesale destruction of a people, and there was nothing compelling liberals to look the other way. There was nothing forcing progressives, nonprofits, labor unions to endorse Biden, or his equally pro-genocide replacement, without conditioning said endorsement on a change in Gaza policy. These were choices they made. And when it’s all said and done—when the legacy of the Biden administration is invariably written about and debated—the choices we make, more than any hand wringing or “change things from the inside” self-rationalization, are all we have and all we are.
