Former National Security adviser John Bolton argued that the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) decision to seek arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, citing evidence of war crimes, shows it’s “not tethered to a rule of law” during Monday comments on CNN.
Bolton joined CNN’s Kaitlan Collins to discuss the ICC’s recent move to seek arrest warrants for Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh, along with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister.
Collins asked Bolton what it would mean for Israel’s allies, who are part of the ICC and would have to conduct arrests, if the judges sign off on the warrants.
“It should be a wakeup call to them that they’ve stepped into a very dangerous territory here,” he said, later adding that the ICC is “digging its grave.”
Bolton predicted that the U.S. would not join the ICC “within the lifespan of anybody watching this program” because the targets of the arrest warrants are “fundamentally irrational.”
“To proceed against a free, law-abiding democratic society in the way that it did shows it’s not tethered to a rule of law itself,” he argued.
President Biden already denounced the decision from the ICC prosecutor, Karim Khan, calling it “outrageous” to equate Israel and Hamas. He was joined by moderate Democrats and Republicans in Congress to criticize the ICC.
Laying on additional criticism of Khan, Bolton said people around the world should ask if his decision to move forward with legal action will make “settling the conflict in the Middle East easier or harder.”
“It won’t matter to the prosecutor because they’ll never be held responsible for his,” Bolton argued.