Chris Smith: “I wish to underscore my strong support of H.R. 23, the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act, and highlight the immediate…”

“I wish to underscore my strong support of H.R. 23, the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act, and highlight the immediate need to sanction the International Criminal Court (ICC) for its dangerous abuse of power and for the United States to repudiate these actions. The ICC's outrageous issuance of arrest warrants for Prime Minister Netanyahu and Minister Gallant is a grotesquely bad decision by a court that is corrupted by blatant antisemitism. Israel's right to defend itself from this brutal invasion is absolute. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said in the past that he would never allow a second holocaust--nor should we. Antisemitism is at the root of Hamas violence against Israel and every Jewish man woman, and child, and is explicitly expressed in Hamas' 1988 Charter which demands the absolute destruction of the state of Israel and proclaims: ``Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it.'' In its 2017 charter, Hamas reiterates its goal of wiping Israel off the face of the earth: ``There is no alternative to a fully sovereign Palestinian State on the entire national Palestinian soil, with Jerusalem as its capital.'' Mr. Speaker, the ICC's actions support Hamas' explicitly antisemitic and genocidal campaign of terror against Israel, and Congress must respond in the most forceful way possible.…”