One of the legal experts who advised a global court in bringing charges against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a human rights lawyer married to Hollywood star George Clooney.
Amal Clooney revealed that she was asked to be part of a panel advising the International Criminal Court (ICC) which issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar over alleged war crimes. The court’s move was denounced by the Biden administration with President Joe Biden calling it “outrageous” in a statement on Monday.
“More than four months ago, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court asked me to assist him with evaluating evidence of suspected war crimes and crimes against humanity in Israel and Gaza. I agreed and joined a panel of international legal experts to undertake this task. Together we have engaged in an extensive process of evidence review and legal analysis including at the International Criminal Court in The Hague,” Clooney said in a statement on the Clooney Foundation for Justice website.
“We have unanimously determined that the Court has jurisdiction over crimes committed in Palestine and by Palestinian nationals,” the statement continued, adding that “there are reasonable grounds to believe that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity including starvation as a method of warfare, murder, persecution and extermination.”
The 46-year-old Lebanese lawyer, whose husband is a staunch Biden supporter, praised the “historic step” by the ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, “to bring justice to victims of atrocities in Israel and Palestine.”
“As a human rights lawyer, I will never accept that one child’s life has less value than another’s. 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 stated.
But Biden declared there is “no equivalence” between Israel and Hamas in his statement Monday.
“The ICC prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous. And let me be clear: whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas. We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security,” he said.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken echoed the president’s outrage, calling out the “shameful” action of the ICC.
“We reject the prosecutor’s equivalence of Israel with Hamas. It is shameful,” Blinken said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu leveled a blistering rebuke of the ICC and the “moral outrage” of issuing arrest warrants.
“The outrageous decision by the ICC prosecutor to target the leaders of Israel will leave an indelible stain on the international court,” Netanyahu said in a video message released on Monday.
The prime minister said the “absurd and false warrant by the prosecutor in The Hague is directed not only against the prime minister of Israel and the defense minister but against the entire State of Israel.”
“It is directed against the IDF soldiers, who are fighting with supreme heroism against the vile Hamas murderers,” he continued.
“With what chutzpah do you dare compare the monsters of Hamas to the soldiers of the IDF, the most moral army in the world?” Netanyahu asked. “With what audacity do you compare between the Hamas that murdered, burned, butchered, raped and kidnapped our brothers and sisters, and the IDF soldiers who are fighting a just war that is unparalleled, with a morality that is unmatched?”
“Mr. Khan’s decision places him among the most notorious anti-Semites of modern times,” he added.
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Author: Frieda Powers
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