Amal Clooney, the ICC’s shame and the real threat to Israel

Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, whose husband is George Clooney, supported the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.

When the International Criminal Court needed a top adviser to justify an appalling arrest warrant for Bibi Netanyahu, its members turned to Amal Clooney.

The ultra-liberal British human rights lawyer – and the wife of George Clooney – was happy to comply. In a statement referring to "Palestine," she said both Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar are guilty of war crimes. 

Think about that for a moment.

Hamas murders civilians deliberately, as we saw with the Oct. 7 massacre that started this war, the largest one-day death toll since the Holocaust. Israel at least tries to minimize civilian casualties with warnings and leaflets.

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Now critics can argue that Israel has used excessive force, that it’s created a humanitarian crisis and famine in Gaza, but to compare it to a terrorist organization is a "travesty of justice" and "disgrace," as Bibi Netanyahu says. "This is like creating a moral equivalence after September 11th between President Bush and Osama bin Laden, or during World War II between FDR and Hitler." 

It’s truly shocking that Amal Clooney would advise the ICC that Hamas and Israel are on the same moral ground.

Ironically, George Clooney is a prime celebrity face of President Biden’s campaign. He’ll co-host a Biden-Obama fundraiser next month and appear in digital ads for the campaign. Yet his wife says in effect that Biden is supporting a war criminal.

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The absurd ruling by the ICC has given Biden a chance to mend fences with Israel. He immediately called the move "outrageous" and said there is no genocide by Israel. And he did it on camera. After that, the only televised comment from Biden was a response to a shouted question so terse that reporters couldn’t agree on what he said.

Still, the president’s stance might ease some of the tension created by his decision to withhold 2,000-pound bombs from Israel out of concern they’d be used in an invasion of heavily populated Rafah. That didn’t stop Biden from approving $1 billion in military funding for the Israelis.

The far left, including in Biden’s party, despises Israel. That animus also fueled the often violent campus protests, which Biden took far too long to address. 

Those calling themselves pro-Palestinian demonstrators, who occupied buildings and harassed Jewish students, are essentially supporting Hamas, which wants to wipe Israel off the map. Israel voluntarily withdraw from Gaza nearly two decades ago and basically wants to defend itself, though Netanyahu has strongly resisted a two-state solution.

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All this has put Biden in a box. The hard-left liberals are disgusted by his support of Israel, and he’s often greeted by protesters waving "Genocide Joe" signs. But any expression of sympathy for the massive death toll in Gaza and need for humanitarian aid draws flak for being insufficiently pro-Israel.

Republicans, led by House Speaker Mike Johnson, are pushing for sanctions against the ICC.

This absurd ruling – lumping the head of the Hamas dictatorship, which kidnaps the youngest and oldest civilians and uses its own people as human shields, with the elected leader of the world’s only Jewish state – is why the court’s reputation may now be damaged beyond repair.

Meanwhile, Israel sparked a backlash by raiding an AP bureau in Gaza and hauling away its camera equipment. A top official at the wire service said, "The Associated Press decries in the strongest terms the actions of the Israeli government to shut down our longstanding live feed showing a view into Gaza and seize AP equipment."

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The reason was that one of the feeds being distributed belongs to al-Jazeera, which the Israelis recently banned as a front for Hamas. The government later returned the AP’s equipment, saying it needs to study the matter further.

And in an orchestrated move, Norway, Spain and Ireland agreed to recognize a Palestinian state, which for now remains a fiction. That would seem to reward Hamas for its barbaric attack, but is also a sign of Israel’s dwindling international support.

And that, more than any crazy move by the ICC, is a threat to Israel and its American partner.