Israel Under Attack from Turtle Bay and The Hague
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I want to talk today about two attacks on Israel, neither of them in the Middle East. The first was in Turtle Bay, which is where the United Nations has its New York headquarters. The second was in The Hague, which is where the International Criminal Court is located. I'll remind you that The Hague is about 40 miles from Amsterdam, where Israeli soccer fans were violently assaulted.

Karim Ahmad Khan is the prosecutor for the ICC. He issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Galant. Now, to be fair, Khan also issued a warrant for Mohamed Diouf, who was the head of the military wing of Hamas in Gaza. As he and you may be aware, Diouf is dead. The Israelis eliminated him. I'm going to guess that means his lawyers won't put him on the stand.

The ICC's actions this week come as Israel continues to fight a war on seven other fronts against enemies, Iran's rulers and their proxies, intent on killing as many Israelis as they can and replacing the state of Israel with an Islamic emirate. As someone who's followed the Middle East...

For a rather long time, I can tell you that anything and everything Israelis have ever done to defend themselves from genocidal terrorists, security barriers, precise targeting, targeted killings of terrorist leaders, whatever, is feverishly criticized, angrily denounced, and if possible, cleverly criminalized by Israel's enemies. Many of whom have jobs at the UN, at misleadingly named human rights organizations, and in the media.

To help us understand the lawfare offensive now being waged against Israel, we have with us Orit Kittrey and Richard Goldberg. Orit is a senior fellow at FDD and a law professor at Arizona State University's Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law. He's the author of Law Fit, Law as a Weapon of War from Oxford University Press. He served for 11 years at the Department of State,

where he received the department's Superior Honor Award and its Meritorious Honor Award. Rich, a senior advisor to FDD, has served on the White House National Security Council as deputy chief of staff and foreign policy advisor to U.S. Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois, as chief of staff and head of legislative affairs to Governor Bruce Rauner of Illinois, and as Navy Reserve intelligence officer with experience in the joint staff in Afghanistan.

He was sanctioned by Iran in August 2020. I'm Cliff May, and I'm glad you're with us too here on Foreign Odyssey. Good to see you guys. Thanks for coming in. Look, start with the, I want to start with this UN Security Council resolution. Rich, I know you were watching, reading, writing, tweeting. Tell us quickly what happened at the UN Security Council.

Yeah, we saw not unexpectedly another push for one of these pro-Hamas, my words, my characterization, anti-Israel Security Council resolutions, where in the litany of findings of horrible starvation supposedly going on by the Israelis and catastrophes going on in Gaza implicitly due to the Israelis, when you read the text,

we should have an unconditional ceasefire in Gaza immediately, disconnected from the release of hostages, the surrender of Hamas, end of terrorism, all the things that you would think should actually be part of an end of conflict in that area. Particularly, of course, the hostages being released is the number one issue people point to. That had been a sticking point for not just the Israelis, but

The Biden administration as well, saying that they did not believe in an immediate ceasefire without it being connected to the release of hostages as part of a ceasefire. And they held their ground in the end. They did veto the resolution. 14 countries, including close U.S. allies, voted for this resolution calling for an immediate unconditional ceasefire act.

in Gaza. The U.S. used its veto to stop that, to block it. So they're the only opposition vote, which is a bit shocking to me that Britain and France and other key European allies, Asian allies can't go along with us. That's a little disappointing to me. In a certain way, if I had to write a headline, wouldn't it be France and Britain, two hostages drop dead?

Well, it's also just, did we even lobby for it? Did we use diplomatic pressure on it? Did we ask them to stand with us? Do they care that the Biden administration asked them to? Is there any penalty for not standing with us in the Security Council on a fundamental issue? But they also should care about the hostages enough to say, release the hostages and we'll work for it and then we'll push for a ceasefire.

because really they're only saying the Israelis have to cease firing. They don't really expect Hamas to cease firing as long as they have guns and bullets to fire. And they're saying maybe the hostages will be released, maybe not. In a sense, they're saying it's not our concern. Am I going too far? No, but you have a new government in Great Britain. You have Macron, who's been pretty forward-leaning in his criticism of Israel of late. So I'm not surprised that

In the absence of U.S. pressure, the moral bankruptcy, the loss of a moral compass in Europe prevails here. You mentioned what's going on in the Netherlands, really with the enablement of the Dutch government and law enforcement each time we see these pogroms play out. So the politics inside their country is absent their own leadership trying to guide the moral compass of European nations.

is where we see this resolution reflected in the text, very tilted towards Hamas and against Israel and certainly no care for the hostages, even if they have their own citizens remaining hostages, obviously seven Americans remaining hostage. I'll just note one other piece of the resolution that I found absurd. It didn't get any attention and that had to do with UNRWA. There was an operative provision in the resolution draft

that tried to counter what Israel has already done in declaring UNRWA persona non grata within Israeli-controlled territory and declaring their policy of they're not going to work with UNRWA, also noting that an incoming Trump administration is likely to continue a funding ban on UNRWA if not

move into a diplomatic initiative to replace, remove, dismantle UNRWA entirely. The resolution sought to declare it the backbone of humanitarian relief in Gaza. Irreplaceable, as you've heard some diplomats use those terms. So a lot of good reasons to veto this resolution. I'm glad it was vetoed. And I just want to make sure people understand UNRWA, UN Relief and Works Agency, is

is the main agency in Gaza that has been providing all the social services, but it has done so in a way that it's become essentially an arm of Hamas. You can be a member of Hamas, you can get a UN salary,

We know this. And there are various UNRWA workers who actually participated in the massacre and pogrom of October 7th, 2023. Just so we understand all that. And before we get to the International Criminal Court, I just want to mention one more attack on Israel. I didn't mention this in my introduction, but

But in the U.S. Congress, here's a headline in The Nation, which I'd call a very far-left journal. Bernie Sanders is leading a bold new effort to block arms sales to Israel.

By the way, this story was written by John Nichols, who co-authored a New York Times bestseller with Bernie Sanders, which was titled It's Okay to be Angry About Capitalism. I like that title. I can hear Bernie saying it, can't you? It's okay to be angry about capitalism. I am angry about capitalism. You should be angry about capitalism. Anyway, how do you like my imitation of Bernie? Isn't that pretty good?

You got to say, leave us a five star review if you like that. Anyway, so Bernie's bills to block the weapons to Israel to defend itself. And they even said it was defeated. But 19 senators voted with Bernie. All of them, I have to say, were Democrats or independents. Anything else we should we should mention about this attack? A couple of things just to note. There are some people who are saying, oh, if you know, if if.

Chuck Schumer had done something differently. Chuck Schumer being the majority leader right now. The vote would never have happened. That's actually not true. Now, the timing of the vote might have been negotiated differently. But when you have a joint resolution of disapproval, which is the formal designation of this

kind of resolution, this vote that was taking place on arms sales. That's a privileged resolution in the Senate under the rules. And so there has to be a vote on what Senator Sanders filed there. But the question is how much work it took to get only 19 senators to vote against. My understanding is there was a large, large push grassroots. A lot of people talking to their senators.

this vote could have been higher had it not been for the White House intervening at times and grassroots efforts to just people in their hometowns hearing about this and calling their senators saying, what are you doing here? But you have leaders of the

Of the Democratic caucus on here, like Senator Durbin, you have up and coming leaders. Obviously, some of those who have been most vocal in criticism of Israel, Senator Van Hollen from Maryland, Senator Murphy from Connecticut. Senator Ampkow from Georgia, no? Yes. Yes. Georgia delegation. So there were some surprising names, I think, on here to be sure.

They failed. All right. So 81 senators went the other way on this and stood with Israel. So that's a vast super majority of the United States Senate saying this is a bad idea. We stand with our ally. We're not going to allow something like this to happen. But 19 senators, it's a big number. And the future of the caucus is reflected potentially in some of those that took those positions.

Okay. All right. Let's go on to the third attack, and that's at the International Criminal Court. Or really briefly, just so people know, what is the ICC, the International Criminal Court? And maybe because people get confused, how does it differ from the International Court of Justice, which is also in The Hague?

Sure. Thanks, Cliff. The International Criminal Court was established in 2002 to investigate, prosecute, and try individuals accused of committing a handful of particularly heinous international crimes, the crime of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The International Court of Justice, in contrast, is a forum for resolving disputes between UN member states.

Uh, the ICC, uh, back to the international criminal court. Uh, they currently have 124 member States, including most of Europe. Uh,

The U.S. and Israel chose not to join the ICC, nor did China, Russia or Iran. It's the view of the United States and Israel that because they did not join the ICC, the ICC should have no jurisdiction over them. Let me ask you, when you say it's the view, is it not more as an international lawyer? It's more than that, is it not? This is it was established by the Rome Statute, which is essentially a treaty between

You can join a treaty or you cannot join a treaty. A treaty is a contract. But if you don't join a treaty, if you don't make a contract, you are not obligated under that contract. There is nobody that I can think of, certainly not the UN Secretary General, who can say, you know what?

You didn't sign this contract, but we're going to enforce it against you because we have the power and you don't. How can you make somebody abide by a treaty they don't sign? I mean, isn't that more than a few? Isn't it a fundamental tenet of international law that you can't be bound by a treaty you don't sign?

Well, it's a fundamental tenet of international law, and certainly the U.S. and Israel feel that way. But the ICC obviously disagrees. The ICC believes that when the victim is in a territory that is a member of the ICC, then the ICC has jurisdiction. The victim is not in such a territory.

If the victim is the, is, is the, are Gazans or Hamas or wherever it is, they are not in a territory under that. They're not. And if that territory is either disputed or is controlled by Israel, which it probably is at this point, Israel's not a member. Therefore that territory is not there. So there's no basis in international law for what they're arguing. Well, I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just saying that the ICC, uh,

Wrongly, from my perspective, the ICC view is they treat Palestine as a state, which shouldn't be treated as a state. And their view is because the victims are in Palestine, then the ICC has jurisdiction over Israel. And they do the same thing to the United States.

where Afghanistan is a party and therefore they go after the U.S. for war crimes, individuals for war crimes committed in Afghanistan. And they're also issued arrest warrants for Putin based on war crimes committed in Ukraine. So, right, this is the politicization of international law. It's not the way I read the treaty, but it's it's

It's the way the ICC reads the treaty. And this is part of the problem with the ICC is they take a much more expansive view of their own treaty than the U.S. or Israel or many others, including myself.

Yeah, I think it's not just a politicization. I think it's the weaponization of international law. I want to just say one thing before we keep going down, because this is going to be important. Process is very important. The legality, international law is essential here in understanding the legitimacy of what the ICC has done. But I do think it's a mistake that I make, and I'll admit to, I don't admit to mistakes often, but I will admit to this mistake that I even made this week, and I often make.

And that is we should always start in this discussion by reminding people that the allegations themselves are baseless. The allegations themselves are unfounded. They are corrupted, fictitious. They're basically Hamas giving testimony and saying this is what you should do in an indictment. And it's not like they're going after some unit of the IDF that stands accused of doing something that could be considered a war crime.

which is, or it can correct me, but what has been done against the United States in Afghanistan. This is saying at a leadership level, the state, right? The prime minister and the defense minister, the state has perpetrated war crimes with great intentionality from the top, ordering it on down to the entire army, to the entire state apparatus to conduct war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza. It

It is a blood libel. It is a blood libel fundamentally. It's not like they found some unit and there's some commander and we think they did this to Palestinians and we have this documentation. And then you could get into were those people prosecuted? Did they do something wrong? Were they prosecuted by the Israeli military's court of justice, which has a process?

Is Israel a democracy that takes care of those things? We do in the United States when we find soldiers that do bad things. We hold them accountable. That's what democracies do. That's, by the way, fundamentally why this is out of the jurisdiction of the ICC, because Israel has the capability to investigate itself as a democracy and does. But before we get there, understand this is baseless. Now let's talk about why it's also illegitimate.

Right, right, right. So in terms of the baseless, yeah, I mean, I'd say, look, if you look at the core argument that they're making, right, the core charges against Netanyahu and Gallant are that the war crime of intentionally using starvation as a method of warfare.

And that's factually wrong. Israel has facilitated the transfer of more than 57,000 aid trucks and 1.1 million tons of aid, even though Hamas's rampant theft means Israel is provisioning its battlefield enemy. The International Famine Review Committee found this summer that famine isn't occurring in Gaza. And even Hamas is

attributes only 41 deaths in the entire war to malnutrition. So this is wrong. They're arguing starvation as a method of warfare. They're not arguing shooting crimes that some Israeli sergeant went crazy and shot civilians. They're arguing a state policy of using starvation as a method of warfare, and it's wrong. I also want to point out that it

It is damaging not only to Israel, and that's the intention, but also to Gazans. If the International Criminal Court and Kareem Khan says that, well, the Israelis are starving Palestinians, it's in Hamas's interest

They get more pictures of starving Palestinians. Now, they don't necessarily need them. People like Bernie Sanders has used pictures of young people who have diseases and said, see, this is a starving child when we know what the picture is. And it wasn't. It's purposeful disinformation. They can do that. But to the extent that they can...

but they are encouraging Hamas to use the Gazans as human shields to you, to sacrifice them as pawns because Hamas can rest assured that Hamas won't be blamed. Israel will be blamed. So they are bringing more pain and suffering on the Gazans by doing this. But who, okay. The prosecution won't happen because obviously I, I can't imagine Netanyahu or Galat, uh,

surrendering and being frog marched into the court. But if there were, but who's the jury for this? If we know who the prosecutor is, who's the jury?

Well, there's no jury per se. What there is is there are judges, and the judges are from a variety of countries, including countries that are not democracies. There's one U.S. judge. There's, if I recall correctly, a Russian judge.

that's who decides on this. I'd say it's correct that Netanyahu is not going to surrender himself to the ICC, but it's important to note that there are consequences of the warrant, which are the 124 ICC member states are required to arrest anyone for whom the ICC has issued a warrant. And

Even the UK and France have indicated they would comply. As a result, under Trudeau, Justin Trudeau has said, oh yeah, he's not coming here to Banff on vacation because I'll arrest him, essentially. And as a result, Netanyahu and Gallant likely cannot travel outside of Israel. Even if they flew to the US, they wouldn't want to risk an airplane malfunction, forcing them to touch down in the way in a country that would arrest them.

So this makes it a lot harder to serve as prime minister. And of course, it's a big talking point for the BDS movement here. There's an arrest warrant for Israel's leader. And by the way, that's another thing, Rich, where...

Here are our allies. This is a court we object to, a court we have said we're not a member of, Israel's not a member of, they shouldn't be judging us. You're also right that the accusations are based on absolute falsehoods.

But, you know, shouldn't our diplomats be saying to people like Trudeau, we find this very offensive, what you're doing here. If you would do this against Israelis, how do we know you wouldn't do it against us in Afghanistan? This is going to harm U.S.-Canadian relations. This is going to harm U.S.-French relations. This is going to harm U.S. relations with Britain, if Britain is on this as well, and

And you should think about this because there are plenty of people in the U.S. who think we should be distancing ourselves from these countries because you're all riding the wagon, not pushing the wagon when it comes to collective security. And I think this is going to give them a lot of ammunition to use against NATO and against our relations with allies who don't support us. We only support them. I think it's important to note that, in fact, the ICC is largely funded by

by key American allies whose security depends on U.S. troops.

Two-thirds of the ICC's budget is provided by close U.S. allies, led by Japan, then Germany, France, the U.K., Italy, and South Korea. So here they are funding the ICC's legally and factually baseless attacks on Israel, which basically create a very dangerous precedent that puts at risk the very U.S. troops that defend those key allies.

So this is something where the president needs to be talking to these countries and say, look, I mean, you are literally undercutting our defense of you. By the way, so the court, since there won't be an actual trial, will the court run the trial in absentia and then come and will the judges come to a verdict and a sentencing? How does that work?

My understanding is that they can't do that. They won't have it in the absence of the accused. So it'll just hang out there as an accusation for blood libel forever. And no matter how wrong it is, it won't be disproved. It won't be proved. It'll just hang out there. So essentially what they're doing is libeling Israel and then going home for a cup of tea. But I agree with Ord. There does need to be a diplomatic consequence.

If you're a U.S. ally and your policy is that you will honor the arrest warrants and if Netanyahu or Golan come to your country, you're going to arrest them.

That is a threat to the United States. It's a threat to a democratic nation's sovereignty. And that means that our security commitments are potentially upended. If we are providing a security blanket of deterrence for Europe vis-a-vis Russia, for our Indo-Pacific allies like Japan vis-a-vis China and North Korea,

uh canada in north america and our airspace from japan that's right from from russia and other actors in the future why would we be so happy about you deciding yeah okay the icc went outside jurisdiction on baseless charges and issued arrest warrants for a democracy who's a close ally of the united states uh and we're going to honor those arrest warrants illegitimately and arrest them

Why wouldn't we expect that would happen to our secretary of defense, our president, other leaders of our government in the future if this kangaroo court is allowed to continue down this pathway? So if you are a close Democratic ally of the United States that does rely on security commitments from the United States, you should not be honoring this. You should be saying very clearly this is illegitimate and we will not honor this. Otherwise, we need to consider our options.

I want to give at least a shout out to the Czech Republic, because its parliament has initiated a process of suspension of their country in the International Court of Justice. The statement noted, we're witnessing an absolutely unprecedented decision that de facto legalizes anti-Semitism on a global level. That's what the Czechs are saying. And

That sounds like a rational thing to say. And Orban, I think, has also issued a formal invitation for Netanyahu to visit. The Hungarian leader. That's fascinating. Go ahead, Orban. I can see you. Yeah, I'd like to go back to the consequences issue because I think it's really important.

A similar issue actually arose years ago during the Iraq war, where several of our allies in Europe, including particularly Belgium, were entertaining sort of war crimes trials for U.S. officials. And if I recall correctly, one of the U.S. officials, I think it may have been Rumsfeld, said, you know, Belgium,

either you change your law or we're going to move NATO out of Belgium. And indeed, the Belgians changed their law. Now, in terms of options like this, there's another precedent also.

The U.S. could indeed pressure its allies to promise not to arrest Netanyahu and Gallant. The precedent for this is that after the ICC was established, the U.S. pressured over 100 countries to sign agreements committing not to surrender Americans to the ICC. Now, I looked at that list the other day. It doesn't include most of the European countries. The leverage the U.S. used in that case was, we won't give you aid unless

if you don't sign this agreement. So 100 countries that receive aid from the U.S. basically signed these agreements.

There are some other options also, it seems to me. One is that the most obvious option is for the U.S. to impose financial sanctions and visa bans on ICC prosecutor Kareem Khan and other ICC officials responsible for the warrants. Here again, there's precedent.

Khan's predecessor, Fatou Bensouda, began these investigations. The Trump administration responded by imposing sanctions on Bensouda and one of her aides. According to Reuters, Bensouda, who lived in the Netherlands, abruptly found her bank accounts frozen and credit cards canceled.

Now, the Biden administration lifted those sanctions, but the president has authority to impose them. Congress can also force the president to impose them. The House passed a bill to do so. The Senate has not. I would imagine that legislation will pass in the next Congress if President Trump does not reimpose the sanctions first. On that one, Rich-

Shouldn't is it is Schumer, Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic and majority leader? Is he preventing that House bill from getting to the Senate so it could be passed? Is he is he is he doing that? And is he doing that at the behest of people like Bernie Sanders?

No, he's doing it at the behest of the White House, as far as I can tell. The White House doesn't want that bill to get cleared. Over the last several months. This is interesting because you're kind of bringing us full circle to the initial conversation on the Sanders resolution. Yeah. And my initial reaction to that was, you know, sort of a positive spin of the White House lobbied against it. You know, most senators still voted against it, et cetera. It's good that it failed. Only 19 voted in favor of it.

But the flip side is, why would the United States Senate be playing defense on a core issue of defense and support for Israel? Why would detractors of Israel be on offense with the upper hand in a forum like the United States Senate, of all places, like we are on defense at the U.N. Security Council, like we're on defense in the rest of the international arena at the moment? And so to your question, yes, the majority leader has...

stop several key pieces of legislation from moving forward over the last year on Iran. There is Iran sanctions legislation to close down bank accounts that were made available under sanctions waivers by the Biden administration. By the way, waivers that were renewed right after the election on November 7th for the $10 billion account in Iraq. There was a bill passed a year ago, almost exactly a year ago when this podcast will be released, end of November,

Sent to the Senate to say, lock down these funds, never move. The No Funds for Iranian Terrorism Act. There are the ICC sanctions we're talking about now, well in advance of this action. Could have been used as leverage, could have been used as deterrent effect, could have shown we're serious about consequences. Blocked in the U.S. Senate.

We've had other supportive Israel legislation, BDS countering legislation, things like the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, which is more domestically focused, but ensuring that we codify the old 2019 Trump executive order making the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism the sort of the guidebook for what is anti-Semitism under Title VI.

blocked in the United States Senate even today now, haggling over whether they'll give it a standalone vote or try to force it into the defense authorization bill. So the answer to your question is yes, there is a bill sitting to basically revive the Trump era executive order via legislation, and it has not been allowed to vote in the United States Senate.

There's something called, and I'm not sure if you were referring to this so you can explain. It's not called formally, but it's called informally the Hague Invasion Act. Maybe explain what, is that one of the bills you guys are talking about or is that separate? Or what are the laws rather? So this is a law that has actually been in force since the ICC came about.

The American Service Members Protection Act, colloquially known as the Hague Invasion Act, provides that the president is authorized to use, quote, all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any official of the U.S. or of allies, including Israel, which is specified by name in the statute, and

quote, who's being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the ICC. So if a foreign government arrests Netanyahu or Gallant, U.S. law authorized the president to shut the ICC down and even take military action to liberate them.

Now, you can't imagine a President Joe Biden doing that, but who knows? Trump may seize the opportunity. So that is another option that the U.S. has for responding to this, although it kicks in only when an arrest has occurred.

It's interesting, Ort brings that body of law up. Oftentimes in the Congress, especially when something hasn't happened for many, many years, members of Congress are always sort of interested in legislating for legislating sake. I mean, you want to like solve the problem, you run to the ball, you introduce a bill, things start taking off. And oftentimes people don't do the legwork of really looking through legislation.

what is a vast number of pages, endless pages of U.S. code to see if something's already been done before. Or it gives you one example here that he's dug up and is available. Another one in a different context is, you know, there's a push at the U.N. right now

to strip Israel of its UN credentials, basically kick it out of the General Assembly, which itself would be a violation of the UN Charter. They can't do that. The UN Security Council has to do that. You can't bypass the UN Security Council. But you can try via the credentialing committee of the UN and the UN General Assembly and basically try to bypass the Security Council and just...

through effect, in practice, strip them of their ability to conduct work and represent themselves at the U.N. And people have introduced legislation in this last Congress, this ongoing Congress, to try to solve that issue, threaten to defund the U.N. if we got out. Ord and I have had this conversation. I think we both came to this research and also credit a good friend,

David Milstein, who worked for Ambassador Friedman in the embassy in Jerusalem in the first Trump administration, he actually flagged this to my attention and Ord separately came to it as well and flagged it. You go all the way back to the early 1980s. We've seen this movie before. By the way, not surprising. So much of what we're seeing today in the anti-Israel space is a resuscitation of

of the old Soviet warfare, the Cold War warfare against Israel, of Zionism is racism, right? This is just all coming back. And it turns out in 1982...

There was an attempt, a pretty close attempt, it came close, to do this, to bypass the UN Security Council and strip Israel of its credentials, of its representation in the General Assembly. And the Reagan administration, with Jean Kirkpatrick as the ambassador to the UN, Jean Kirkpatrick, Cliff, your old friend, one of the visionary founders of FDD, wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post saying,

summarizing everything that had happened back in 1983. It was a 1989 op-ed. She looks back in the early 1980s, and she talks about how the Arab bloc was moving to deny Israel participation in the General Assembly because it had declared Israel as not a peace-loving state, and that's the requirement for membership in the UN. Well, Congress, with the administration's support, the Reagan administration, came back and passed a law

And it said if Israel is illegally expelled or suspended or denied its credentials, in this being this context of violating the UN Charter, making it illegal,

then the U.S. can reduce its annual assessed contribution to the United Nations. So we have a lot of these ideas on the books. We don't need to re-legislate. It's funny to me that, it's not funny, it's sad, history repeating itself. But we should understand that in this context, it's not because of October 7th. It's not because of this or that that Israel does. This is...

It's institutionalized inside the UN system, this antisemitism, this venom, and they're just reviving old blood libel mantras against Israel in a new context. And we're in a situation, you know, you study international organizations among the other things that you do.

The UN, it seems to me, increasingly is controlled by what we call the FDD, the Axis of Aggressors, by which I mean People's Republic of China, I mean Putin's Russia, I mean the Islamic Republic of Tehran, and their allies, which include, of course, North Korea and increasingly Venezuela, Cuba. We see Xi Jinping now in Brazil, buddy-buddy with Lula there.

Nikki Haley, when she was ambassador to the UN, at least spoke the truth about the institution. I think Elsie Stefanik, and I hope we'll be giving her papers and ideas and policy options, will go further than that because the UN has been on a very bad trajectory for more than 20 years now.

At some point, the U.S. has to stop paying the salaries of people who are anti-American, who are anti-Semitic, and who are very much in the pocket of the axis of aggressors. If the Trump administration doesn't do it, nobody will. I think there's at least a chance that the Trump administration will push back against these globalists gone wild.

I want to underscore, Cliff, just how important that point is that you made. The U.S. is the largest donor to the U.N. Its contributions reportedly account for one third of the organization's total budget. You know, let's break it down, right? And what are we talking about? Well, the U.S. contributes 22 percent, which is 1.54 billion of the U.N.'s core administrative budget.

It contributes 25% of UN peacekeeping funds. That's $1.37 billion in 2024. And the U.S. contributes some $10.8 billion per year in voluntary contributions to various UN-related humanitarian relief agencies. So we really are paying. And we, other than some 20 years ago, we generally have not used our contribution aggressively as leverage to get change.

Richard, I just want to mention why it's been so hard to get agreement from Congress, from the State Department, from the White House. It would take all of them together to say, okay, we have to make some changes. We have to make them understand that we're not going to just simply –

continue to sign checks and pay the bills while they are doing things that we think are criminal, are blood libel, are weaponization of international law, perversion of international law. If we don't stand up to them, nobody else will. We know, in fact, our allies are all accessories to these crimes, which disturbs me greatly. So here's my reflection on this. And I think this is sort of the big picture of the evolution in U.S.

approach, view of the UN and the still evolving strategy that I think that we need to find that is successful vis-a-vis the UN. We are still, many of us, living in the 1990s.

in the early two thousands. That's really what I think is happening. Uh, I first came to Capitol Hill as a young staffer in the early two thousands into mid two thousands. My boss at the time, then Congressman Mark Kirk was on the state foreign operations subcommittee of appropriations that handles all the foreign aid. Uh,

I was able to have the debates and be in the mix of UN reform ideas at the time. John Bolton's at the UN. They're pushing various UN reforms at the time. A lot of UN reform talk at the time because of corruption that had been found within the UN system. Oil for food had broken. I think FDD scholars had played a role in that back in the day. And so...

I think that we had conversations at the time about defunding the UN, and it was such a crazy idea to people. I mean, the concept, the motto, defund the UN, it was really extremist talk.

No serious policymakers were in a room saying, should we defund the United Nations? Should we cut our entire regular budget to the U.N.? Should we not be 22 percent of the regular budget? It just wasn't an idea there because in the end, we had spent so much capital building up these organizations. The collapse of the Soviet Union.

China's rise and sort of sucking up to the United States as it wanted to have permanent normal trade relations first, then accession to the WTO. They had this position of neutrality in the Security Council. If anything, they would abstain or they would go along with the United States. We had a lot of diplomatic leverage with

with the Chinese to get what we wanted. And the Russians were weak in the Security Council and also went along with what we wanted and or abstained if they were actually in opposition. And this started evolving into the 2000s. And it's really taken a long time for us, A, to say,

This is not the same U.N. Security Council that many of the sort of I don't want to say adults because I don't like that term adults in the room that the Biden folks use when they came into office. But, you know, the grownups now of foreign policy who were younger in an age where the U.S. really had its its heyday in the U.N. system and to just sort of

say to an organization, it's our money. It's what we want to do. Let's go. UN Security Council resolution, let's go. France objecting to the Iraq war was sort of the big like, whoa, somebody can stop us in the UN Security Council from doing something. But then we kept sort of going along with Russia and China as we were able into the 2000s until Russia grew obstinate. And then a few years later, China joined as a partner in being obstinate as well and vetoing things. So

We have fallen asleep at the switch outside of the UN Security Council through this process, sort of just believing we're there. We got representation. We got State Department bureaucrats. We send checks. We have good work. And we have not really thought about, hey,

These two great powers that are competing with us that have grown very obstinate in the U.N. Security Council and appear to have a strategy to undermine the United States and attack our allies. Is it possible they've also had a strategy in all the other U.N. organizations as well to undermine us? Should we have a strategy to push back and fight back where possible?

So I think that started midway through the Trump administration. You started to see ideas of countering China and the UN system. You started to see Nikki Haley having these big, grandiose displays in the Security Council, a la Jean Kirkpatrick back in the day and sort of the height of the Cold War theatrics we think about in the Security Council. I think we're back to that dynamic now.

And I think we're back in a Cold War mentality that there are other powers in the system. They've gained control in many areas. They're using their power and influence, including their permanent member veto status at the Security Council. And we need a strategy to fight back. It's not a cocktail party anymore. It's political warfare. Look, Neil Ferguson, the historian, I think, began to talk about this

As early as 2018, H.R. McMaster, who chairs our military center, talks about this. We are in Cold War 2.0. And what you just described is a reality that a lot of people simply don't recognize. And if you don't recognize reality, you can't have policies to address that reality and change that reality. And that has to happen. Cold War 2.0 is not exactly the same as Cold War 1.0.

but neither was World War I and World War II exactly identical. If we understand we're in a Cold War, then we can develop a strategy to fight it and understand that it's more than what people... I hate the way it's often described. Well, we're in a great power competition. That sounds like it's the Olympics. May the best country win. We don't really care. Ha ha, we're going to shake hands at the end. Now, we're talking about whether or not the strongest communist regime in all of world history

will dominate the world order in conjunction, in partnership with the imperialists of Moscow and with the jihadist imperialists of Tehran and with the crazy Kim Jong-un dynasty in North Korea. That's what we're talking about. That's not a ranking. A lot of people at high positions in government currently don't understand that that is the reality. Um,

In terms of the blood libel and the weaponization of international law now going on, and this is my last thought, I'll let you have your last thoughts. It just seems to me that this administration, hopefully in the next administration, needs to come down very hard on the heads of the ICC. Are we legitimizing it?

Funding it and really pressing on our allies. If you're on our side, stop giving into these people. Stop supporting them. Stop giving them money. Stop giving them legitimacy. Stop going along with that because it's easier.

Show that you are our allies and you're contributing to the collective security of what I'd still like to think of as a free world. Your last thoughts from you, Ward, and then a few more thoughts from Rich, and we'll go. Yeah, I agree with you. They say push has come to shove, and it's time to push back further.

I'd note, as Rich mentioned, that the U.S. law provides that if any U.N. body, including the General Assembly, rejects Israel's credentials or otherwise curtails Israel's participation, U.S. defunding is required. The U.S. must. There is no waiver required.

The U.S. must suspend its own participation in the U.N. and also suspend its contribution. So the Palestinians may do us a favor by trying to suspend Israel from the General Assembly in December. I think Donald Trump is going to see this as an opportunity to take a hard stance. Final thoughts, Rich?

Yeah, listen, just to go back to the ICC issue at hand where we started and where I'd want to end, I actually am one who believes we need to go farther than what already exists in the proposals, the past executive order, the idea of just seizing assets, canceling credit cards for Kareem Khan and maybe other officials at the ICC. I don't think that's good enough at this point. I think this is a very dangerous organization

that if you allow this action to stand and its members to recognize its legitimacy, despite its obvious illegitimacy, our national security is in danger. And so I believe it's time for us to bring an end to this organization in ways that we have the power to do. Uh, and if not force massive reforms in, in the organization from our closest allies who continue to fund it, as Ord said. Uh,

I would like to know where the ICC banks. I bet it's a pretty prominent Netherlands bank where it actually keeps its money and pays its salaries out of and pays its vendors. Because if we had a sanctions policy that said we would impose secondary sanctions on

on any bank or service provider of the ICC because it itself as an organization goes on our sanctions list under a new executive order, not just its individuals. I'm not sure exactly how Japan wires the money or how Germany wires the money or how its employees get paid

when payday comes along without a major bank being subject to U.S. sanctions. And that bank ain't going to process those transactions immediately, let me tell you, having been experienced in using some of these authorities in other jurisdictions and contexts. So

I'd say buckle up if you're a member of the ICC, buckle up if you're an employee of the ICC. I think you should probably look for other forms of financial assistance at this point for your family, because you might run into a situation where you can't get paid on payday. And if that's not going to change some thinking along the way from senior members, then the organization itself will simply grind to a halt. And I'm okay with that. By the way,

we should be looking at other opportunities to do that elsewhere. Obviously within the construct of the UN, uh,

and our treaty obligations to the UN, especially in its immunities within our treaty obligations. It is difficult to imagine some situations for truly UN organs for us to impose sanctions on. ICC is different. That's why we're able to do this. We're not a treaty member, as we've talked about. We don't have any recognition of immunities being provided to the ICC. We do have that in a UN context.

However, we know there's a controversy over whether or not we should consider UNRWA to be independent of the UN or not. There's civil litigation going on right now of victims of October 7th trying to sue UNRWA and UNRWA employees.

The current Justice Department has intervened in the case and said, you can't do that. UNRWA is immune to civil litigation in the United States because they are an organ of the UN. They're not an independent agency that would need to be covered by separate bodies of laws and executive orders to provide them immunities.

Well, I think if Pam Bondi becomes attorney general, one of my suggestions would be for the DOJ to withdraw that position and state a new position that actually we believe UNRWA has evolved into becoming something independent because of how it operates.

Well, that should have implications into immunities. That could have implications into saying, hey, you know what? We also now have a body of evidence that UNRWA is fully complicit in providing material support to terrorism. Hmm, wonder if we have any terrorism sanctions authorities on the books that we could use. I know this is all controversial. It'll be litigated. There'll be debated. But this is the direction we need to take for organizations that have been institutionalized and weaponized to hurt the United States and our closest allies.

I, of course, I agree. The ICC, UNRWA and the UN, they're all doing tremendous damage. I think we want to push in the next in this administration what's left and in the next administration forward.

for doing damage to these organizations that are not friends of ours or friends of our allies and that are very much in the pocket of those who are waging a Cold War against us. All right, we'll talk more soon, I'm sure. Rich, thanks very much. Or thanks very much. Thanks to all of you who have been with us for this conversation here today on Foreign Policy. Thank you.

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