OPINION:
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The flag of the United Nations was flown at half-staff last week to honor the late Ebrahim Raisi, the president of Iran who was killed May 19 in a helicopter crash.
Known at home as the “Butcher of Tehran,” he was responsible for torturing and executing thousands of Iranian political prisoners, minorities and women. The regime he served supports Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and the Houthis of Yemen.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed his “sincere condolences” for Raisi. The U.N. Security Council, at the request of Russia, China and Algeria, held a moment of silence for the neo-imperialist theocrat. America’s representative dutifully stood for the ceremony.
Also last week: Norway, Spain and Ireland announced they would recognize a Palestinian state.
Hamas expressed its gratitude for this “historic turning point” brought about by the “brave resistance.”
Coincidently, videos released last week showed Hamas’ “brave resisters” on Oct. 7 harassing bloodied female soldiers abducted moments earlier. They called them “sabaya,” meaning sex slaves.
In another video, a young Gaza man recounts how he, a cousin and his father raped a hostage. He nonchalantly recalled: “After we finished raping her, my father killed her.”
But wait, there’s more. On CNN last week, International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Asad Ahmad Khan announced that he will seek arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, and Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister.
Mr. Khan said he’d also like warrants for several Hamas leaders. Sen. Tom Cotton observed: “Equating Israel’s democratically elected leaders with the perpetrators of the worst attack on Jews since WWII shows what a farce the International Criminal Court is.”
The Oklahoma Republican added: “Mr. Khan’s kangaroo court has no jurisdiction in Israel to pursue these anti-Semitic and politically motivated ‘charges.’ My colleagues and I look forward to making sure neither Khan, his associates nor their families will ever set foot again in the United States.”
Mr. Cotton understands — as Mr. Khan apparently does not — that under international law, the International Criminal Court has jurisdiction only over signatories to a 1998 treaty known as the Rome Statute. Israel didn’t sign. Neither did the U.S.
Mr. Khan’s workaround is to declare that he is pursuing these warrants on behalf of “the State of Palestine.”
Who governs that state? In the Gaza Strip, it’s been Hamas since 2007 — two years after the Israelis withdrew every last Jew and Jewish grave from the territory.
In the West Bank, it’s the Palestinian Authority, which is so weak that it almost certainly would be overthrown by Hamas were it not for Israel’s quiet support. The only way for the Palestinian Authority to return to Gaza — from which it was expelled by Hamas in a civil war just after the Israeli departure — would be behind Israeli tanks.
There’s a second reason Mr. Khan lacks authority. Under the Rome Statute, the International Criminal Court was set up as a court of last resort, empowered only to investigate nations “unwilling or unable genuinely” to prosecute wrongdoing on their own. But Israel does that well. (The same can be said of no other nation in the Middle East.)
With all this in mind, Mr. Cotton and 11 other senators wrote to Mr. Khan warning that they “will not tolerate politicized attacks by the ICC on our allies. If you move forward with the measures indicated in the report, we will move to end all American support for the ICC, sanction your employees and associates, and bar you and your families from the United States.”
Mr. Khan fired back: “When individuals threaten to retaliate against the Court or Court personnel … such threats, even when not acted upon, may also constitute an offence against the administration of justice under Art. 70 of the Rome Statute.”
Were you under the impression that Americans are guaranteed freedom of speech? Mr. Khan begs to differ.
Among those paying Mr. Khan’s salary and funding the lavish budget of the International Criminal Court bureaucracy in The Hague: Germany, Japan, France, Britain, Italy and South Korea.
Do you suppose that President Biden and his ambassadors could have an influence on those countries if they tried?
Another important international organization came out in support of Hamas and its patrons in Tehran last week. Nawaf Salam, the presiding judge of the International Court of Justice, also based in The Hague, declared that “Israel must immediately halt its military offense” in Rafah, “which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”
Mr. Salam is from Lebanon, a state dominated by Hezbollah, Iran’s most formidable proxy, which since immediately following the Oct. 7 attack has been firing hundreds of missiles into northern Israel, killing and wounding Israelis, and causing tens of thousands to abandon their homes.
Hamas leaders welcomed Mr. Salam’s ruling. Israeli officials responded by saying, in effect: “Thanks for the guidance. We’ll continue fighting Hamas terrorists in such a way as to not bring about the physical destruction of the Palestinian group in Gaza, in whole or in part — even as Hamas uses Palestinian civilians as human shields guaranteeing that civilians will be killed.”
These developments should serve as a reminder — not that you needed one — of what the U.N. and many other international organizations have become: clubs for tyrants, the United States, and antisemites, their fellow travelers and assorted useful idiots, all of them emboldened by billions of dollars provided by America and its allies.
As for the current leaders of Norway, Spain and Ireland, they are demonstrating the truth of the adage that ideas can’t be destroyed militarily. During World War II, all three of these nations were neutral toward — or actively supportive of — the Nazis, whose big ideas included mass-murdering Jews.
• Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a columnist for The Washington Times.
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