George Clooney reached out to a top White House aide after U.S. President Joe Biden criticized the International Criminal Court, threatening warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders with the legal help of his wife, Amal Clooney, according to the Washington Post.
As a veteran British-Lebanese human rights lawyer, Amal Clooney was part of a group of U.K.-based legal advisers who helped ICC prosecutor Karim Khan request a warrant for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his minister of defense Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders — Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh — over suspected war crimes committed as part of Israel‘s war in Gaza that followed the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks on southern Israel.
Representatives for the Oscar-winning actor were not available for comment on the Washington Post report, which claimed George Clooney called Steve Ricchetti, counselor to the president, after Biden denounced the ICC arrest warrants against the Israeli leaders as “outrageous.”
Amal Clooney wrote at the time on the site for the Clooney Foundation for Justice that she had looked to uphold the rule of international law and protect lives with her ICC legal advice.
“As a human rights lawyer, I will never accept that one child’s life has less value than another’s. I do not accept that any conflict should be beyond the reach of the law, nor that any perpetrator should be above the law. So I support the historic step that the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has taken to bring justice to victims of atrocities in Israel and Palestine,” she stated.
Behind the scenes, George Clooney was apparently concerned his wife could be impacted by sanctions threatened against the ICC for recommending Israeli and Hamas leaders be held accountable for alleged war crimes, according to The Washington Post.
His call to the White House also came ahead of a key fundraiser for Biden’s U.S. presidential reelection campaign set for next weekend in Los Angeles, an event that George Clooney is still expected to attend. The Clooney Foundation for Justice has as a mission providing free legal support and advocacy to victims of genocide, unlawful imprisonment and other human rights abuses.
The Oct. 7 Hamas atrocities and Israel’s continuing military retaliation in Gaza — where the death toll has surpassed 35,000 people, many of them women and children — has touched off a war of words in Hollywood.