Friday on FNC’s “Hannity,” Sen. Lindsey Graham had a stern warning for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and anyone else willing to help a “rogue” International Criminal Court (ICC) as a nation enforce an arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
The South Carolina Republican threatened sanctions that would impact economies in those countries.
Partial transcript as follows:
HANNITY: Let me ask you about the ICC and what they’re trying to do to Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Now as a predicate here, I — the U.N., for example, all of these globalist groups that we often fund, they have historically been antisemitic and anti-American. U.N. is a good case in point. The WHO, they were the propaganda wing for the communist Chinese during COVID. The WEF, they don’t have our best interest at hearts, all these globalist agreements, the Paris accords, yeah, okay, India, China, developing nations we pay the freight.
So my question is, they don’t have jurisdiction. What part of terrorism does this court not understand? What part of murder, rape and kidnapping and torture and beheading do they not understand? Because that’s what happened on October 7.
GRAHAM: Yes, it did. And you know, Israel’s in a fight for his very life. The Jewish state is under siege from Hamas and Gaza, Hezbollah and Lebanon. Iran has directly attacked Israel. And we live in an upside down world where the prime minister of Israel and the defense minister of Israel are being prosecuted by a court in Belgium. Now, let me say this, the court ruled that Gaza is a state.
No, there is no Palestinian state under international law. So that’s the first saying they got wrong. And Israel is not a member of the International Criminal Court, nor are we. In 1998, I fought the idea that we would join the International Criminal Court. Why? Sovereignty.
I do not want a court in The Hague trying American soldiers or American politicians defending our country. This is a direct threat to the state of Israel.
There have been more resolutions condemning Israel in the U.N. than every other nation, all the nations combined. It’s the antisemitic body and this court is trying to literally put in jail the prime minister of Israel, the defense minister for defending itself against multiple terrorist organizations.
What will I do? If you are going to help the ICC as a nation enforce their arrest warrant against Bibi and Gallant, the former defense minister, I will put sanctions on you as a nation. You’re going to have to pick the rogue ICC versus America.
I’m working with Tom Cotton to have legislation passed as soon as we can to sanction any country that aids and abets the arrest of any politician in Israel. What they’re doing in Israel is trying to prevent a second Holocaust.
So to any ally, Canada, Britain, Germany, France, if you try to help the ICC, we’re going to sanction you.
HANNITY: Well, that means I want every ally and you saw little Justin in Canada and his position. What should the penalty be?
GRAHAM: We should crush your economy because we’re next. Why can’t they go after Trump or any other American president under this theory? We’re not a member of the ICC.
In 2002, they threatened to prosecute our soldiers in Afghanistan. We came down hard on them. In 2017, one of the first things that President Trump did was put sanctions against the International Criminal Court to make sure they would protect our own troops.
Biden took those sanctions and did away with them literally in the first month of his presidency. Now, what do you have? You have the International Criminal Court coming after the prime minister of Israel, the defense minister of Israel for trying to defend the Jewish state.
If you help the ICC, we’re going to crush your economy.
Follow Jeff Poor on X @jeff_poor
