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antony blinken
Rights Group Urges ICC to Probe Biden for 'Aiding and Abetting' Israeli Crimes in Gaza
A veteran war crimes lawyer argues that "there are solid grounds to investigate Joe Biden, Antony Blinken, and Lloyd Austin for complicity in Israel's crimes."
Feb 24, 2025
A human rights group revealed Monday that on the last full day of U.S. President Joe Biden's term, it encouraged the International Criminal Court to investigate him and two of his Cabinet members for "aiding and abetting" Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip.
U.S.-based Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) announced that on January 19, it submitted to the ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan a 172-page communication detailing why the tribunal should probe Biden and his former secretaries of defense and state, Lloyd Austin and Anthony Blinken.
Although a fragile cease-fire took effect in Gaza last month, Israel—backed by the Biden administration and Congress—responded to the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack with a 15-month blockade and military assault that killed tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, of Palestinians and left the territory in ruins.
"There are solid grounds to investigate Joe Biden, Antony Blinken and Lloyd Austin for complicity in Israel's crimes," DAWN board member and veteran war crimes lawyer Reed Brody said in a Monday statement. "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. U.S. officials have been aware of exactly what Israel is doing, and yet their support never stopped."
"By investigating and prosecuting U.S. officials, the ICC can deter and discourage further international support for Israeli crimes in Gaza and demonstrate that no one is above the law."
DAWN's document lays out how the United States, under Biden, "provided unwavering direct military and political support to Israel, even after it became manifest that Israel continued to carry out severe violations of international humanitarian law and human rights." That includes at least $17.9 billion in taxpayer-funded military assistance since October 2023, a 381% increase from the around $3.8 billion a year before Hamas' attack.
"In addition to new arms transfers and sales authorizations, the U.S. used pre-existing contracts and additional emergency military aid measures to expedite the delivery of major arms," the submission continues, also noting "the deployment of U.S.-operated military intelligence and active military operations targeting groups posing threats to Israel on other fronts."
Israel—like the United States—is not a party to the Hague-based ICC, but Palestine is. The court in November issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, also known as Mohammed Deif, who is dead.
DAWN's submission makes the case that "by continuously and unconditionally providing political support and military
support to Israel while being fully aware of the specific crimes committed by Netanyahu, Gallant, and their subordinates, President Biden, Secretary Blinken, and Secretary Austin contributed intentionally to the commission of those crimes while at least knowing the intention of the group to commit the Israeli crimes, if not aiming of furthering such criminal activity."
The group's executive director, Sarah Leah Whitson, said Monday that "not only did Biden, Blinken, and Secretary Austin ignore and justify the overwhelming evidence of Israel's grotesque and deliberate crimes, overruling their own staff recommendations to halt weapons transfers to Israel, they doubled down by providing Israel with unconditional military and political support to ensure it could carry out its atrocities."
"They provided Israel with not only essential military support but equally essential political support by vetoing multiple cease-fire resolutions at the U.N. Security Council to ensure Israel could continue its crimes," Whitson highlighted. She argued that "by investigating and prosecuting U.S. officials, the ICC can deter and discourage further international support for Israeli crimes in Gaza and demonstrate that no one is above the law."
DAWN also recommended that the ICC consider looking into half a dozen other Biden officials including Jake Sullivan, national security adviser; Gina Raimondo, secretary of commerce; Bonnie Jenkins, under secretary of arms control and international security; Stanley L. Brown, acting assistant secretary for the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs; Amanda Dory, acting under secretary of defense for policy; and Mike Miller, acting director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency.
"It is important for the international community, and Palestinians in particular, to know that the American people do not support the crimes their elected officials committed in Palestine and that American organizations are doing their part to hold these officials accountable," said Whitson. "We have a duty, not just a right, as American civil society, to exercise our free speech to serve truth and seek justice."
So far, efforts to hold Biden and other U.S. leaders accountable for enabling what many experts around the world have called Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza via the U.S. court system have been unsuccessful. That includes a December lawsuit against Blinken backed by DAWN—which was founded by assassinated Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
"We have tried every available avenue within the U.S. to stop our government's complicity in the outrageous crimes we've witnessed since October 2023 in Gaza," said Raed Jarrar, DAWN's advocacy director. "When domestic institutions fail to uphold black-letter laws prohibiting military support to commit war crimes, we have a particular responsibility as Americans to hold American officials accountable for their roles in those crimes."
Since Biden left office last month, U.S. President Donald Trump has already welcomed Netanyahu to the White House, responded to the warrants by targeting the ICC with sanctions, and promoted a U.S. takeover of Gaza that would involve ethnically cleansing the territory of Palestinians.
"Trump isn't just obstructing justice; he's trying to burn down the courthouse to prevent anyone from holding Israeli criminals accountable," said Jarrar. "His plan to forcibly displace all Palestinians from Gaza should also merit ICC investigation—not just for aiding and abetting Israeli crimes but for ordering forcible transfer, a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute."
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Cease-Fire in Gaza: A Tale of Trump's Illusion and Biden's Failure
Biden and his team will not be remembered for brokering peace but for enabling and facilitating policies that allowed Israel’s genocide to continue unabated.
Jan 18, 2025
President Joe Biden, flanked by his Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Vice President Kamala Harris, announced the cease-fire in Gaza earlier this week with an air of accomplishment, framing it as a crowning achievement of his administration’s diplomatic efforts. However, this assertion is profoundly misleading. While the cease-fire was presented as a diplomatic victory, the truth reveals a far darker reality. For many, the Biden administration will not be remembered for brokering peace but for enabling and facilitating policies that allowed Israel’s genocide to continue unabated.
Far from a legacy of peace, the Biden administration, through its supply of the tool of genocide and to shield Israeli war crimes from international accountability, bears direct responsibility in the Israeli carnage. In announcing the cease-fire deal, President Biden claimed it was the result of eight months of diligent diplomatic efforts by his administration. In fact, it was eighth months of normalizing Israeli war crimes as self-defense. Under the leadership of America’s most Israel-first Secretary of State, the cease-fire is a symbolic gesture that conceals the deeper moral and political failings of an administration that has proven servile to Israel.
This failure is also an emblematic of a broader issue within U.S. foreign policy: prioritizing parochial or political expediency over moral and ethical imperatives. By allowing Benjamin Netanyahu to act with impunity, President Biden not only compromised America’s standing in the world but also perpetuated, unchecked, Israeli genocide in Gaza. In doing so, the administration became a complicit partner in war crimes, further undermining the United States supposed standing as a defender of human rights and international law.
Far from a legacy of peace, the Biden administration, through its supply of the tool of genocide and to shield Israeli war crimes from international accountability, bears direct responsibility in the Israeli carnage.
Biden and Blinken's legacy will be marked not by a cease-fire but by their role in providing and enabling Israel to drop 85,000 tons of bombs on Gaza—an amount that surpasses the combined bombings of Dresden, Hamburg, and London during World War II. Their tenure will be remembered for presiding over murdering or injuring 10% of Gaza’s population and the destruction of 86% of all building structures.
When students in Gaza eventually return to school after 15 months of devastation, they will face the grim effect of what the American-made bombs have wrought: 123 universities and schools reduced to rubble, murdering 750 academics, and the loss of 130 scholars and university professors who once inspired hope and knowledge.
As aid trucks will be allowed to slowly roll into Gaza, the people will not forget the 300 humanitarian workers deliberately killed by Israel, nor the 160 journalists and media workers who risked—and lost—their lives attempting to broadcast the cries of a besieged population, only to have their voices fall on deaf ears and a world of dead conscious.
Amid the ruins of over 654 healthcare facilities, the memory of 1,000 selfless healthcare workers and some of Palestine’s finest medical doctors who perished in their efforts to save lives will remain seared into the collective consciousness. For the people of Gaza, this is not just a story of destruction but a testament to the world’s indifference and complicity in the face of a humanitarian catastrophe of unimaginable scale.
The current cease-fire agreement could have been secured months earlier. In May, President Biden proposed a similar framework that the Palestinians accepted. However, Netanyahu rejected it as a “nonstarter,” prioritizing his political survival over ending genocide. Instead of holding Israel accountable or insisting on compliance with international humanitarian law, the Biden administration—led by the genocide facilitator, Secretary of State Blinken—chose to appease and embolden Netanyahu in his crimes.
Meanwhile, and not to be buoyed by false optimism, it’s not far-fetched to suspect that a future collapse or backtracking of the cease-fire deal could be part of a typical Netanyahu strategy. A last-minute attempt to exert pressure, either to undermine the agreement or 'wordsmith' language to change terms, such as the names of prisoners to be released, or to resume the war once he gets what he wants from the exchange. This would not be unprecedented for Netanyahu, as he counts on the docile support from Washington’s genocide enablers.
This was made all the more apparent when, on the same day Netanyahu agreed to the terms of the cease-fire, his army escalated air raids, murdering 81 civilians in eight separate massacres, capping its crimes under Biden’s granted “self-defense” genocide license
Nonetheless, ending Israel’s war of genocide offers a fleeting sense of relief after 15 months of suffering. This, however, is less of a triumph to American diplomacy and more an indictment of systemic failures in the Biden’s foreign policy. Nor should it be seen as the success Donald Trump wants to project, but a reality more rooted in the abject weakness and failure of Biden, the self-proclaimed Zionist.
In this context, Trump’s allies have opportunistically seized the moment to frame the cease-fire as a vindication of his so-called strength in foreign affairs. However, such a claim could not be farther from the truth. The cease-fire was not the result of decisive U.S. intervention or diplomatic maneuvers but rather an Israeli failure to subdue the steadfast resistance of the Palestinian people, despite giving Netanyahu a carte blanche for over 15 months to achieve his elusive "victory."
To this end, the ceasefire is a stark acknowledgment of Israel’s inability to impose its will, even with the unlimited U.S. military aid and diplomatic cover. Instead of securing the domination, the resistance from Gaza underscored the resilience and determination of the Palestinian people in the face of overwhelming odds. This outcome serves as a reminder that no amount of force or repression can extinguish the fight for justice and self-determination.
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'How Does It Feel to Have Your Legacy Be Genocide?' Asks Journalist Thrown Out of Blinken's Briefing
"Physically dragging out a reporter from the State Department briefing room while preaching press freedom to the rest of the world is the perfect example of the Biden administration's love affair with double standards and duplicity," said one foreign policy observer.
Jan 16, 2025
Two journalists were removed from Secretary of State Antony Blinken's final news conference on Thursday after interrupting Blinken's remarks to heckle him about the United States' policy toward Gaza, a day after a cease-fire deal between Hamas and Israel was announced. One of the reporters, independent journalist Sam Husseini, was physically carried out of the briefing room by security.
Less than two minutes into Blinken's remarks, as he was thanking the reporters in the attendance for "asking tough questions," Max Blumenthal, the editor in chief of The Grayzone—an independent news—addressed Blinken, saying loudly in reference to the cease-fire deal:"300 reporters in Gaza were on the receiving end of your bombs. Why did you keep the bombs flowing when we had a deal in May?" On Wednesday, President Biden announced the breakthrough, saying that “this is the ceasefire agreement I introduced last spring."
"Why did you sacrifice the rules-based order on the mantle of your commitment to Zionism," Blumenthal continued, before being led to the door. "How does it feel to have your legacy be genocide?" he yelled.
Blumenthal also called out State Department Spokesman Matt Miller, who is briefly visible in a video filmed by the journalist, who charged that Miller "smirked through a genocide."
Not long after, Husseini also interrupted Blinken.
"I am asking questions after being told by Matt Miller that he will not answer my questions," said Husseini, who also referenced the findings of Amnesty International, which concluded in December that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. "You pontificate about a free press... Criminal! Why aren't you in the Hague." The Hague is where the International Criminal Court is located.
Blinken can be heard saying "respect the process" in response to Husseini's outburst.
Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the non-interventionist "action tank" the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, remarked that "physically dragging out a reporter from the State Department briefing room while preaching press freedom to the rest of the world is the perfect example of the Biden administration's love affair with double standards and duplicity..."
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