US President Donald Trump speaks at the White House, in Washington, DC, Feb. 3, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz

US President Donald Trump has issued an executive order imposing travel and economic sanctions against those who assist with International Criminal Court (ICC) investigations of American citizens or allies such as Israel.

Trump announced the executive order on Thursday, coinciding with the visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — for whom the ICC issued an arrest warrant last year over his role in the Gaza war — to Washington, DC. Under the sanctions, ICC officials, employees, and agents, together with their immediate family members, will have their property and assets blocked and their access to the United States suspended.

“The ICC’s recent actions against Israel and the United States set a dangerous precedent, directly endangering current and former United States personnel, including active service members of the Armed Forces, by exposing them to harassment, abuse, and possible arrest,” the order reads. “This malign conduct in turn threatens to infringe upon the sovereignty of the United States and undermines the critical national security and foreign policy work of the United States Government and our allies, including Israel.”

In November, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu, his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, and now-deceased Hamas terror leader Ibrahim al-Masri (better known as Mohammed Deif) for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict. The ICC said there were reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and Gallant were criminally responsible for starvation in Gaza and the persecution of Palestinians — charges vehemently denied by Israel, which has provided significant humanitarian aid into the war-torn enclave throughout the war.

US and Israeli officials issued blistering condemnations of the ICC move, decrying the court for drawing a moral equivalence between Israel’s democratically elected leaders and the heads of Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group that launched the ongoing war in Gaza with its massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7.

The ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel as it is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, which established the court. Other countries including the US have similarly not signed the ICC charter. However, the ICC has asserted jurisdiction by accepting “Palestine” as a signatory in 2015, despite no such state being recognized under international law.

The ICC responded to Trump’s executive order with a forceful condemnation, stressing that the court produces “independent and impartial” work. 

“The court stands firmly by its personnel and pledges to continue providing justice and hope to millions of innocent victims of atrocities across the world,” the ICC said.

European Council President Antonio Costa blasted the US move, writing that “sanctioning the ICC threatens the court’s independence and undermines the international criminal justice system as a whole.”

However, not all reactions to the executive order were negative. Israel commended Trump for his sanctions against the ICC. 

“I strongly commend @POTUS President Trump’s executive order imposing sanctions on the so-called ‘international criminal court,’” wrote Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar on X.

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Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei listens to the national anthem as Air Force officers salute during their meeting in Tehran, Iran, Feb. 7, 2025. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS

Iran’s so-called “supreme leader,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Friday rejected the idea of negotiating with the United States, calling the idea “unwise” and “dishonorable” while rebuffing US President Donald Trump’s comments earlier this week calling for Washington to reach a “nuclear peace agreement” with Tehran.

“Negotiations with the US will have no impact on solving the country’s problems. We must understand this in the right way,” Khamenei was quoted by Iranian state media as saying to air force personnel in Tehran at an event marking the anniversary of Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution. “We should not think that if we sit at the negotiating table with that government, this or that problem will be solved. No, negotiations with America will not solve any problem.”

Khamenei cited the “experience” of the 2015 agreement negotiated between Iran, the US under the Obama administration, and several world powers — which placed temporary restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for lifting sanctions — to argue that talks with Washington would be fruitless.

“The same person who is in office now tore up the treaty,” he said, referring to Trump’s decision during his first presidential term in 2018 to withdraw the US from the accord and reimpose crippling sanctions on Iran. “We made lots of concessions, but Americans failed to hold up their end of the bargain.”

“The agreement was meant for America’s sanctions to be removed. They were not removed,” said Khamenei, the top decision-maker in Iran’s Islamist regime. “Negotiating with such a government is unwise, unintelligent, and dishonorable, and there should be no negotiation with it.”

The Iranian leader also threatened Washington about “violating” Iran’s security, saying, “We will retaliate with no hesitation.”

Khamenei’s comments came after Trump on Wednesday denied that the United States and Israel are planning to carry out a military strike on Iran, saying he instead wants to reach a “nuclear peace agreement” with Tehran as Iranian officials suggested differences over the Islamist regime’s nuclear program could be resolved.

“I want Iran to be a great and successful Country, but one that cannot have a Nuclear Weapon. Reports that the United States, working in conjunction with Israel, is going to blow Iran into smithereens, ARE GREATLY EXAGGERATED,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

It was unclear to which reports Trump was referring. In recent weeks, many analysts have raised questions over whether Trump would support an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, which both Washington and Jerusalem fear are meant to ultimately develop nuclear weapons.

“I would much prefer a Verified Nuclear Peace Agreement, which will let Iran peacefully grow and prosper,” he continued. “We should start working on it immediately, and have a big Middle East Celebration when it is signed and completed. God Bless the Middle East!”

Trump’s social media post came one day after he signed a presidential memorandum restoring his “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran that includes efforts to drive its oil exports down to zero in order to stop Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

As he signed the memo, Trump expressed a willingness to talk to the Iranian leader but added Tehran was “too close” to a nuclear weapon and “cannot” have one.

Later on Tuesday, Trump said that he would “love” to make a deal with Iran to improve bilateral relations — but added that the regime should not develop a nuclear bomb.

Iran has claimed that its nuclear program is for civilian purposes rather than building weapons. However, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), reported in December that Iran had greatly accelerated uranium enrichment to up to 60 percent purity, close to the roughly 90 percent weapons-grade level, at its Fordow site dug into a mountain.

The UK, France, and Germany said in a statement at the time that there is no “credible civilian justification” for Iran’s recent nuclear activity, arguing it “gives Iran the capability to rapidly produce sufficient fissile material for multiple nuclear weapons.”

While it’s unclear whether Trump will be able to renegotiate a new nuclear deal, at least some Iranian officials have expressed a willingness to engage in diplomacy — before Khamenei’s latest comments.

“The clerical establishment’s will is to give diplomacy with Trump another chance, but Tehran is deeply concerned about Israel’s sabotage,” a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Wednesday. The official added that Iran wanted the US to “rein in Israel if Washington is seeking a deal” with the Islamic Republic.

Iranian officials, including top leaders, routinely declare their intention to destroy Israel.

During Friday’s meeting, Khamenei emphasized that Iran is open to negotiations with other countries except the United States and Israel.

“Of course, we don’t count the Israeli regime as an exception — because that regime is not a government to begin with and is rather a criminal and land-usurping gang,” he said.

Iran is the chief international backer of Hamas, providing the terrorist group with weapons, funding, and training. According to media reports based on documents seized by the Israeli military in Gaza last year, Iran had been informed about Hamas’s plan to launch its Oct. 7, 2023 invasion of and massacre across southern Israel months in advance.

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US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hold a joint press conference in the East Room at the White House in Washington, US, Feb/ 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Leah Millis

President Trump’s proposal to take over Gaza is being greeted by the New York Times with the same mixture of unremitting contempt, historical ignorance, alarmism, and disregard for factual accuracy that has characterized the newspaper’s reaction to every other pro-Israel Trump policy initiative.

A professor at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, Eugene Kontorovich, who is also a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said the New York Times is “boldly lying about President Trump’s Middle East plans.”

Kontorovich pointed to a Times news analysis that included a passage stating, “Never mind that he could name no legal authority that would permit the United States to unilaterally assert control over someone else’s territory or that the forcible removal of an entire population would be a violation of international law.”

“​Gaza, unlike most places in the world, is not part of any sovereign state and thus not ‘someone else’s’ in the usual sense. Nor has Trump favored forcible removal of anyone, though the Grey Lady apparently favors forcible incarceration of the entire population of Gaza,” Kontorovich said in a post on X.

The next two sentences of the Times article were also error-ridden. “Never mind that resettling two million Palestinians would be a gargantuan logistical and financial challenge, not to mention politically explosive. Never mind that it would surely require many thousands of US troops and possibly trigger more violent conflict,” the article said.

However, such an operation would not “surely require many thousands of US troops.” Trump posted to social media Thursday morning that “the Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting … No soldiers by the US would be needed!”

That news analysis is not the only Times article that misleads readers about Trump’s Gaza plan or the historical context in which it is made.

As is often the case, the more named Times reporters that are involved with a story, the less reliable it is. A page-one Times article with three bylines — Michael Shear, Peter Baker, and Isabel Kershner — and with reporting and research contributed by another three journalists — Edward Wong, Adam Rasgon, and Ephrat Livni — claims “Egypt captured Gaza during the 1948 war and controlled it until Israel seized it, along with other Palestinian territory, in a 1967 war against a coalition of Arab nations seeking to destroy the Jewish state.”

Yet that ignores a period in 1956 and 1957 during which Israel, not Egypt, controlled Gaza. A headline on the New York Times front page of Sunday, Nov. 11, 1956 said, “Israel Terms Gaza Strip Integral Part of Nation.” The Nov. 3, 1956, front page Times headline included the phrase “Israelis Capture Gaza.”

The Times journalists of 2025 appear to have forgotten the 1956 to 1957 period. Or maybe they just never learned the history of the Suez crisis. The alternative — that the Times journalists themselves are aware of it, but are trying to prevent Times readers from learning about it — requires assuming an almost unthinkable level of arrogance of the Times journalists. Do they think today’s readers have no other sources of information or are incapable of checking a history book or the Times online archives?

One reason the Times might prefer to avoid mentioning the 1956 to 1957 period is that it is further evidence for the proposition that the Arabs will use Gaza as a base to launch attacks against Israel. It is also further evidence for the related proposition that when Israel withdraws from Gaza and the Arabs remain there, the Arabs will then revert to the practice of using Gaza as a base to launch attacks against Israel. That is the long pattern that Trump’s proposal for a US takeover of Gaza, and for voluntary resettlement of Gaza Arabs in other destinations, is designed to disrupt. The chance that it could succeed might explain the vehemence of some of the opposition, at the New York Times and elsewhere.

It is reminiscent of the panics during the first Trump term surrounding American withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, recognition of Israel sovereignty in the Golan Heights, and moving of the embassy to Jerusalem. Each of those steps was accompanied by endless Times warnings of “experts” and local governments predicting dire consequences and explaining the impossibility of whatever was about to happen. They made the Times look ridiculous.

Ira Stoll was managing editor of The Forward and North American editor of The Jerusalem Post. His media critique, a regular Algemeiner feature, can be found here.

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