George Clooney exercised his clout as an A-list actor who supported President Biden in 2020 to call the White House and voice his displeasure over the president’s criticism of the International Criminal Court for requesting an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
That’s according to the Washington Post, which reported the Academy Award-winning actor called Steve Ricchetti, counselor to the president, to complain about Biden’s response to the legal maneuver that Clooney’s wife was involved in.
Amal Clooney, whose mother is a Sunni Muslim from Lebanon, is a British-Lebanese human rights lawyer who was part of a group of U.K.-based legal advisers to help ICC prosecutor Karim Khan request a warrant for the arrest of Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes committed in the fight to eradicate the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. The ICC also requested arrest warrants for Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, and Ismail Haniyeh.
Biden condemned ICC’s actions against Netanyahu as “outrageous.”
“And let me be clear: Whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence – none – between Israel and Hamas,” the U.S. president said. “We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security.”
Mrs. Clooney was defiant in her response.
“I do not accept that any conflict should be beyond the reach of the law, nor that any perpetrator should be above the law,” she said in a statement, according to the Post.
Clooney is a big supporter of Biden, having reportedly donated more than $500,000 to his 2020 election campaign and cohosting a 2020 online fundraiser that raised $7 million for the Biden campaign.
However, the Daily Mail questioned whether Clooney will be participating in an upcoming star-studded fundraising effort.
“[T]he row has cast doubt over whether he will take part in one of Biden’s biggest fundraising efforts of 2024 next Saturday when he was due to be the star attraction at an LA gala alongside former president Barack Obama, TV host Jimmy Kimmel and actress Julia Roberts,” the British newspaper reported.
Earlier this week, the GOP-led U.S. House of Representatives voted to sanction the ICC for requesting the arrest warrants for Netanyahu and other Israeli officials.
The White House opposed the sanctions legislation.
“We have made clear that while we oppose the decision taken by the prosecutor of the ICC, we don’t think it is appropriate, especially while there are ongoing investigations inside Israel looking at somebody’s very same questions, and we were willing to work with Congress on what a response might look like but we don’t support sanctions,” State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said.
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Author: Tom Tillison
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