George Clooney contacted a top White House aide after US President Joe Biden criticized the International Criminal Court, threatening to issue arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders with legal help from his wife, Amal Clooney. according to Washington Post.
As a veteran British-Lebanese human rights lawyer, Amal Clooney was part of a group of UK-based legal advisers who helped ICC prosecutor Karim Khan seek a court order. judgment against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and three Hamas leaders – Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh – for alleged war crimes committed in connection with the ensuing Israeli war in Gaza the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks against southern Israel.
Representatives for the Oscar winner were not immediately available for comment. Washington Post report, which claimed that George Clooney called Steve Ricchetti, advisor to the president, after Biden denounced the ICC arrest warrants against Israeli leaders as “scandalous.”
Amal Clooney wrote at the time on the Clooney Foundation for Justice website that she had sought to uphold the international rule of law and protect lives through her legal advice to the ICC.
“As a human rights lawyer, I will never accept that the life of one child has less value than that of another. I do not accept that a conflict is beyond the reach of the law, nor that its author is above the law. I therefore support the historic step taken by the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to bring justice to the victims of atrocities in Israel and Palestine,” she said.
Behind the scenes, George Clooney apparently feared his wife would be affected by threatened sanctions against the ICC for recommending that Israeli and Hamas leaders be held accountable for alleged war crimes, according to The Washington Post.
His call to the White House also comes ahead of a major fundraiser for Biden’s US presidential re-election campaign scheduled for next weekend in Los Angeles, an event George Clooney is still expected to attend. The Clooney Foundation for Justice’s mission is to provide free legal support and advocacy to victims of genocide, unlawful imprisonment and other human rights violations.
The Hamas atrocities of October 7 and Israel’s continued military retaliation in Gaza – where the death toll has exceeded 35,000 people, many of them women and children – have sparked a war of words in Hollywood.
