Follow us on social

Awkward: Will George Clooney have to choose, Biden or Amal?

Awkward: Will George Clooney have to choose, Biden or Amal?

Top Hollywood star is expected to headline a mega-fundraiser for the president, but yesterday the administration attacked his wife's work.

Analysis | QiOSK

Monday’s decision by the International Criminal Court to apply for arrest warrants for Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh as well as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity was denounced by Secretary of State Antony Blinken as “shameful.”

Blinken, in a lengthy statement, went on to attack the legitimacy of the ICC, saying it “has no jurisdiction over this matter” and “this decision does nothing to help, and could jeopardize, ongoing efforts to reach a ceasefire agreement…”

Those attacks on the ICC’s legitimacy put A-list actor George Clooney in an awkward position. He is tentatively headlining a huge Biden fundraiser in Los Angeles on June 15 while Biden’s administration is actively attacking the work of the ICC’s panel of international legal and academic experts who evaluated the evidence leading up to the arrest warrant — experts who include Clooney’s wife, Amal Clooney.

It also stands in stark contrast with the administration’s March 2023 statements urging all members of the ICC to comply with its arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Amal and George Clooney are co-founders and co-chairs of the Clooney Foundation for Justice, a group dedicated to “a world where human rights are protected and no one is above the law,” according to its website.

The foundation published a statement by Amal Clooney on Monday, after the ICC arrest warrant applications were issued.

She said:

I served on this Panel because I believe in the rule of law and the need to protect civilian lives. The law that protects civilians in war was developed more than 100 years ago and it applies in every country in the world regardless of the reasons for a conflict. 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.

That view of the ICC’s work is clearly not shared by the Biden White House but George Clooney is currently advertised as a “special guest” for the major June 15 fundraiser for Biden’s reelection campaign in Los Angeles. The event, “An Evening for President Joe Biden with President Barack Obama,” also features Jimmy Kimmel, Julia Roberts, in addition to Clooney. Ticket packages range in cost from $250 to $500,000.

The last such fundraiser was held in March at Radio City Music Hall in New York City, raising $25 million, but several hundred protesters stood outside the venue while others disrupted the event from inside the venue, shouting “blood on your hands” at Biden, until they were escorted out by security, according to The New York Times.

Protesters will likely target the upcoming LA fundraiser as well, an event at which Clooney will be in the uncomfortable role of standing on stage alongside, and actively raising money for, a president who is undermining the Clooney Foundation for Justice’s mission and attacking Amal Clooney’s work with the ICC.

The Clooney Foundation for Justice did not respond to a request for comment.


Lebanese-British barrister Amal Alamuddin Clooney wearing an Alexander McQueen dress and husband/American actor and filmmaker George Clooney arrive at the Los Angeles Premiere Of Universal Pictures' 'Ticket To Paradise' held at Regency Village Theatre in Westwood, Los Angeles, California, United States in Oct. 2022.

Analysis | QiOSK
Nuclear missile
Top image credit: Zack Frank

Put this nuclear missile on the back of a truck — but we still don't need it

Military Industrial Complex

Last week, analysts from three think tanks penned a joint op-ed for Breaking Defense to make the case for mobilizing the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) program, a pivot from one exceedingly costly approach to nuclear modernization to another.

After Sentinel faced a 37 percent cost overrun in early 2024, the Pentagon was forced to inform Congress of the cost spike, assess the root causes, and either cancel the program or certify it to move forward under a restructured approach. The Pentagon chose to certify it, but not before noting that the restructured program would actually come in 81 percent over budget.

keep readingShow less
Maduro, Trump
Top photo credit: Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro (Shutterstock/stringerAL) ; President Donald Trump (Shutterstock/a katz)

Why we need to take Trump's Drug War very seriously

Latin America

Donald Trump has long been a fan of using the U.S. military to wage a more vigorous war against drug cartels in Latin America. He also shows signs of using that justification as a pretext to oust regimes considered hostile to other U.S. interests.

The most recent incident in the administration’s escalating antidrug campaign took place on October 3 when “Secretary of War” Mike Hegseth announced that U.S. naval forces had sunk yet another small boat off of the coast of Venezuela. It was one of four destroyed vessels and a total of 21 people killed since late September. The administration claims they were all trying to ship illegal drugs to the United States.

keep readingShow less
Israel Gaza deal
Top photo credit: United States and Israel flags are projected on the walls of the Old city of Jerusalem in celebration after Israel and Hamas agreed to the first phase of U.S. President Donald Trump's plan to end the war in Gaza, October 9, 2025. REUTERS/Sinan Abu Mayzer

Will this deal work? Netanyahu has gamed everything his way so far.

Middle East

Two years into the Gaza conflict and perhaps on the cusp of a successful phased ceasefire, what can we say?

On the basis of media reporting about Yahya Sinwar’s strategic rationale for attacking Israel on October 7, 2023, it seems that he believed Israel was on the brink of civil war and that the impact of a large-scale assault would severely erode its political stability. He believed that Hamas’s erstwhile allies, especially Hizballah and Iran, would open offensives against Israel, which, in combination with Hamas’s invasion, would stretch the nation’s military capabilities to the breaking point.

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.