On November 21, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu (Netan-nazi), and (until recently) Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant “for crimes against humanity and war crimes” starting on October 8, 2023. (Also see If Netan-Nazi and Gallant Are War Criminals—and They ARE!—What Does That Make Those Who Fund, Arm, and Defend Those Crimes?!?)

The ICC also issued arrest warrants for war crimes and crimes against humanity against Hamas leader Mohammed Deif. The fact that the ICC would bring charges against Israel’s top officials, and dare to even refer to Israel and Hamas in the same breath, provoked a furious response from Biden. He declared “there is no equivalence—none—between Israel and Hamas.” 

Biden was right about “no equivalence,” but he twisted that upside down. The crimes against humanity carried out by Hamas in its October 7, 2023 attack on people in Israel (which were real)—can in no way be compared to Israel’s monstrous crimes against the Palestinian people in Gaza. 

The ICC Charges Against Netan-nazi and Gallant

The ICC arrest warrants are based on “reasonable grounds to believe” that Netanyahu and Gallant:

• Blocked “humanitarian aid in violation of international humanitarian law.” 
• Cut off electricity and fuel going into Gaza with “a severe impact on the availability of water in Gaza and the ability of hospitals to provide medical care.”

• Bear criminal responsibility for "the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare.” 
• Created conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of part of the civilian population in Gaza, which resulted in the death of civilians, including children due to malnutrition and dehydration. 

• Prevented “medical supplies and medicine from getting into Gaza … inflicting great suffering by means of inhumane acts on persons in need of treatment” including forcing doctors to “operate on wounded persons and carry out amputations, including on children, without anesthetics.”

• Targeted the Palestinian people “based on political and/or national grounds.”
• And “bear criminal responsibility as civilian superiors for the war crime of intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population of Gaza.”

Biden’s “No Equivalence” Flips Reality Upside Down

Biden lashed out in outrage at the issuance of arrest warrants:

The ICC issuance of arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous. Let me be clear once again: whatever the ICC might imply, there is no equivalence—none—between Israel and Hamas. We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security. 

It’s true, there is no equivalence between Israel and Hamas. But Biden twisted reality upside down.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas attacked Israel, carried out war crimes including murdering civilians, kidnapping hostages, and committing other crimes against humanity. Israel reported that 1,195 people were killed in that one-day raid.

Since October 7, Israel has done all the things listed in the ICC arrest warrant and more. The official death toll, as calculated by Gazan health authorities with very limited resources, is more than 44,000. But an October 22 letter to Biden and Harris from American medical professionals who served in Gaza, which takes into account the impact of disease, undocumented deaths, and fatal injuries, presents “probative [provable] evidence that the human toll in Gaza since October is far higher than is understood in the United States. It is likely that the death toll from this conflict is already greater than 118,908, an astonishing 5.4 percent of Gaza’s population.”

Pause here and try to absorb this. Israel is responsible for the deaths of nearly one hundred times as many people in Gaza as were killed by Hamas in Israel on October 7. A majority of victims in Gaza are children and other non-combatants.

The real “non-equivalence” goes even deeper. Israel exists on the blood, bones, homes, land, and oppression of the Palestinian people. The history of Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people goes back over 75 years. Between 750,000 and 900,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homeland and made refugees by the Israeli army and aligned terrorist militias during Israel’s establishment (1947-49), amounting to approximately 75 percent of all Palestinians. 

The decades since have been ones of continuing, escalating terrorist ethnic cleansing, apartheid oppression, and now in Gaza, literal extermination of the Palestinian people. And Israel is armed with an almost unlimited U.S. supply of aircraft, tanks, bombs, and missiles.

The Fundamental Source of the Conflict

Only a couple weeks after October 7, revcom.us posted a piece from revolutionary leader Bob Avakian (BA) titled “Yes, There Can Be No ‘Equivalence’ Between Israel and the Palestinians—But the Reality Is the Reverse of What Supporters of Israel Insist.” Even as Israel was in the beginning stages of what has rapidly become a holocaust, this piece cut to the essence of the conflict. BA wrote:

Yes, it is the case, as supporters of Israel continually insist, that there can be no “equivalence” between Israel and the Palestinians—but the reality is the reverse of what these supporters of Israel insist: There is no equivalence between the oppressor nation Israel, and the oppressed nation, Palestine; and the actions of the Israelis are far worse, in a whole different category, than even the atrocities committed by Hamas, because Israel is in a much more powerful position to carry out, and does carry out, such atrocities on a far greater scale and much more frequent basis! 

The essential reality in all this is that the Israeli state (again, with the full backing of the U.S.) has created, and forcefully/viciously/murderously maintains, the apartheid and overall oppressive conditions in which the Palestinian people are effectively enslaved and forced to suffer terribly, on an ongoing basis. This is the fundamental source of the conflict—and no just resolution of this conflict can be achieved without a recognition of, and acting to overcome and uproot, this essential oppressive reality.