ICC urged to investigate Biden's personal role in Gaza genocide

Blinken, Biden and Netanyahu seated amid US and Israeli flags — President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, pictured with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, October 2023, are two of the top former US officials that the International Criminal Court is being asked to investigate.
Miriam Alster UPI Photo

The International Criminal Court is being urged to investigate former US officials President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin for aiding and abetting Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

“There are solid grounds to investigate Joe Biden, Antony Blinken and Lloyd Austin for complicity in Israel’s crimes,” according to Reed Brody, a veteran war crimes lawyer and a board member of DAWN, the US-based human rights group that filed the request with the ICC.

“The bombs dropped on Palestinian hospitals, schools and homes are American bombs, the campaign of murder and persecution has been carried out with American support,” Brody added. “US officials have been aware of exactly what Israel is doing and yet their support never stopped.”

In a 172-page submission to the ICC in The Hague – made in response to a call for such interventions from chief prosecutor Karim Khan – DAWN lays out the legal and factual basis for investigating US officials.

It details how at every stage, US officials knew exactly what Israel was doing. For example, “On 16 November and 12 December 2023, President Biden publicly acknowledged that the IDF was conducting ‘indiscriminate bombing’ ” in Gaza.

Blinken “personally authorized the transfer of military aid and direct commercial arms sales to Israel, overriding objections from his own staff about how such transfers violate US law, despite his knowledge of how Israel was using these weapons to commit crimes,” according to DAWN.

“He thereby intentionally and substantially contributed to the commission of Israeli crimes in Gaza.”

Similarly, the group alleges that Austin’s “actions and decisions to continuously and purposefully provide Israel with military and political support satisfy the requirements for aiding and abetting, as well as facilitating, the crimes committed by Israeli military forces in the Gaza Strip.”

Other former US officials who should also face investigation include Jake Sullivan, who served as Biden’s national security adviser, and Gina Raimondo, who as commerce secretary oversaw the export of “dual-use” technologies that Israel used in the commission of crimes, DAWN said.

US support fuels “deaths and destruction”

Although the United States is not a member of the International Criminal Court, DAWN points out that the tribunal “has jurisdiction over perpetrators of crimes committed in Palestine, regardless of their nationality or whether the state of which they are a citizen is a party to the ICC.”

“The genocide in Gaza could not have happened without US support. The bombs destroying entire Palestinian neighborhoods are not just Israeli bombs, they are American bombs sent with approval of Biden, Blinken and Austin,” said Shawan Jabarin, director of the Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq, at an online media event hosted by DAWN on Monday.

“The starvation of Palestinians, the destruction of hospitals, the deliberate targeting of civilians – these are not just Israeli policies, they are US-enabled crimes,” Jabarin added.

In May, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and for Yoav Gallant, who was his defense minister throughout most of the genocide.

Jabarin underscored the importance of bringing not just Israeli officials but their American accomplices in the genocide to justice too, to stop and deter ongoing and future crimes.

“Every day American support fuels more deaths and destruction of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank,” Jabarin said.

He added: “We see Trump openly threatening to own Gaza, to take the land and expel its people. This is not a distant possibility. It is a real, looming danger if the ICC does not act now” to demonstrate that US officials too can and will be held accountable.

Trump continues Biden’s crimes

Notably, on Monday, Trump rescinded a Biden-era regulation supposedly meant to ensure that countries that receive US-made weapons do not use them in violation of international humanitarian law.

As DAWN’s submission to the ICC makes abundantly clear, such restrictions on Israel’s use of American weapons under the Biden administration existed only on paper. Trump’s move can be seen as merely bringing US policy openly into line with reality.

But Trump too could face jeopardy from the ICC – at least one that vigorously pursued its mission. Earlier this month, Trump imposed sanctions on Khan and other court officials.

“This order could subject President Trump to individual criminal liability for obstruction of justice under Article 70 of the Rome Statute,” according to DAWN, referring to the ICC’s founding treaty.

And Trump’s plan to expel Gaza’s residents, if implemented, would also subject him “to individual liability for war crimes and the crime of aggression.”

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, called DAWN’s effort to bring Biden and his top lieutenants to justice an “important development,” adding that, “Never has international justice been at such a critical and historical crossroad.”