A major shakeup at the International Criminal Court (ICC) has triggered sharp reactions across global politics, after member states voted Friday to remove top prosecutor Karim Khan from his post amid ongoing misconduct allegations.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quickly issued a public statement celebrating the decision on Sunday, framing the ousting of Khan as a long-overdue reckoning for an institution he claims is riddled with bias and corruption.
“I welcome the decision, supported by an overwhelming majority of countries, to remove Karim Khan, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court,” Netanyahu posted on the social platform X. Calling the move “a very positive development”, the Israeli leader argued that Khan’s removal strips away a protective layer for alleged institutional misconduct, and lays bare what he claims were the prosecutor’s hidden motives.
Netanyahu alleged that Khan’s 2023 attempt to secure arrest warrants for him and former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant, amid accusations of war crimes in Gaza, was a deliberate distraction from the misconduct claims facing Khan personally. “That shield has now been torn away,” Netanyahu said. “What has been exposed is not only Karim Khan’s true motivation, but also the profound injustice and corruption that have infected both the Office of the Prosecutor and the International Criminal Court itself.”
The Israeli prime minister also claimed he had spoken with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who he says reaffirmed Washington’s commitment to confronting the ICC aggressively. “He once again reaffirmed America’s determination to act forcefully against this institution,” Netanyahu wrote. He went on to condemn the ICC as a body that “undermines justice, attacks democratic and sovereign nations, and seeks to subordinate their security to the decisions of unaccountable and corrupt officials in The Hague.”
Hours after the vote on Khan, Venezuelan foreign minister Felix Plasencia announced his country would make good on an “irrevocable” decision to withdraw fully from the ICC, pointing to longstanding accusations of geographic bias against Global South nations. The withdrawal marks a striking shift in Venezuela’s alignment toward U.S. foreign policy, coming just one week after Rubio pledged a “whole-of-government response to systematically disable” the tribunal.
By Sunday, U.S. officials openly embraced both the removal of Khan and Venezuela’s exit from the court. In a post on X, the U.S. State Department celebrated Venezuela’s move as a milestone in collaborative, American-led efforts to “dismantle the corrupt and worthless ICC.”
Hostility toward the ICC has been a consistent policy priority for U.S. conservative administrations for years. The Trump administration repeatedly pushed to undermine the international court, imposing harsh sanctions on ICC prosecutors who launched investigations into alleged war crimes committed by U.S. and Israeli military personnel. In an executive order signed last year, Trump argued the ICC “has engaged in illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel”, referencing the November 2023 arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant.