Actor George Clooney contacted White House officials last month to complain after President Biden criticized the International Criminal Court's decision to seek arrest warrants for Israeli officials over the Gaza war, which his wife was in charge of, according to two people familiar with the matter.
His wife, Amal Clooney, a prominent human rights lawyer, served on the advisory committee assisting the court's investigation, which resulted in arrest warrants being sought against Israel's prime minister and defense minister, as well as three senior Hamas officials, for alleged unlawful acts that led to the deaths of thousands of civilians.
Clooney lodged a complaint with Steve Ricchetti, a Biden adviser who played a key role in Biden's fundraising efforts four years ago.The complaint did not affect U.S. policy, said a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
Still, Clooney's decision to contact the White House – by text message, according to one of the people – highlights the problems Israel's actions pose for Biden as he tries to reconcile support for a loyal ally with his own doubts and growing pressure from a disillusioned American left.
Illustrating that dilemma, Clooney is scheduled to appear at a big-ticket fundraiser for Biden in Los Angeles on June 15 that will also be attended by former President Barack Obama. “Joe and Kamala's message of hope and belief in a better future for all is one I believe in,” Clooney said in a fundraising email sent Saturday on behalf of the Biden-Harris campaign.
Clooney's spokesman, Simon Halls, declined to comment on Clooney's interactions with Ricchetti but said his client “intends to attend the fundraiser.”
A White House spokesman declined to comment on Clooney's complaint, which was earlier reported by The Washington Post.
Neither the United States nor Israel are members of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, and after the court's chief prosecutor announced he would seek a warrant on May 20, Biden sharply criticized the decision, saying “there is no equivalence between Israel and Hamas.”
In a statement posted on his family's foundation's website, Clooney said he had worked with Supreme Court prosecutors for four months to “assess the evidence of alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity” in Israel and Gaza.
Clooney, a Lebanese-born lawyer, worked as an investigator for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, where he prosecuted Hezbollah members accused of assassinating Lebanon's prime minister in 2005.
Last month, she signed a position paper along with other members of the International Criminal Court's advisory panel, arguing that the investigation found “provided sufficient grounds to believe” that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Galant “committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
The report found sufficient evidence to charge Israeli leaders with war crimes for “deliberately using civilian starvation as a weapon of war and for murdering and persecuting Palestinians as crimes against humanity.”
The House of Representatives passed a bill on Tuesday, largely along party lines, that would impose wide-ranging sanctions on the ICC, forcing President Biden to impose US entry restrictions, visa cancellations, and financial restrictions on all ICC actors who seek to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute “protected persons” or US allies. It would also sanction those who provide “financial, material, or technical support” to such efforts.
Biden's advisers said he was “strongly opposed” to the measure because it would impose sanctions on a very broad range of officials, including court officials and witnesses involved in the litigation.
But it reflected rifts in the Democratic coalition and widespread bipartisan anger over the ICC, with 42 Democrats crossing party lines to support the Republican-backed bill.
