Trump's aide urges sanction on ICC officials who sought arrest warrant for Netanyahu

Tel Aviv, May 22 (IANS) Robert O'Brien, former national security adviser and top aide of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, has said that the US should slap sanctions on officials of International Criminal Court (ICC) officials who sought an arrest warrant for Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Robert O'Brien is in Israel along with John Rakolta, former US ambassador to the UAE, and Ed Mc Mullen, former ambassador of the US to Switzerland to seek a ground report.

He said that they had met Israeli President Issac Herzog, Prime Minister Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and War Cabinet Minister Benny Gantz.

Robert O'Brien, in the statement, said that the US could sanction the bank accounts and travel and can put visa restrictions on the "corrupt" prosecutors and judges of the ICC.

During 2017 and 2021, when Donald Trump was the US President, the capital of Israel was shifted from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem -- a long-pending demand of the Israelis.

With Trump being the Republican candidate for the US presidential post, he is trying to pitch himself as a much more reliable ally to Israel than Biden.

Sources in Israel's Prime Minister's office said that the three policy advisers of Trump have communicated to the Israeli leadership the wholehearted support of the Republican presidential candidate for the Israeli cause.