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Matthew Xiao-Free Beacon
Democratic representatives Jamaal Bowman (N.Y.), Cori Bush (Mo.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), and Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) praised the International Criminal Court chief prosecutor’s call for the court to issue an arrest warrant against Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The far-left “Squad” members commended the prosecutor, Karim Khan, for seeking to charge Netanyahu, Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders with war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Netanyahu on Monday called the ICC’s move a “moral outrage of historic proportions” and described Khan as one of the “great antisemites in modern times.”
Israel is “waging a just war against Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organization that perpetrated the worst attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust,” Netanyahu said.
The “Squad” members, meanwhile, used Khan’s request as justification for their anti-Israel views.
“The ICC has their process of determining what’s a war crime and what isn’t,” Bowman, who is trailing his pro-Israel opponent in a tough primary race, said on Thursday. “Obviously, the warrants for the Hamas fighters who did what they did on October 7 are warranted, and it seems like they are warranted for Netanyahu as well.”
Bush in a video released Friday said the arrest warrants are an “important” step and slammed her congressional colleagues and the Biden administration for “sending billions of dollars to enable Netanyahu’s war crimes.”
Omar, meanwhile, described Khan’s allegations against Netanyahu as “significant” and said the ICC “must be allowed to conduct its work independently and without interference.” The Minnesota congresswoman has faced widespread criticism from both Republicans and Democrats for her long history of anti-Semitic comments.
Tlaib earlier this month called for the ICC to issue an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, accusing the leader and senior Israeli officials of committing a “genocide” against Palestinians. Like Omar, Tlaib has faced extensive backlash from her Democratic colleagues, notably after she last year defended the phrase “from the river to the sea.”
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D., Fla.) noted that the phrase “means eradicating Israel and Jews,” NBC reported in November.
