The International Criminal Court’s recently issued an arrest warrant for the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant and the Hamas leader Mohamed Deif. Following the ICC’s ruling, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau said there is no moral equivalency between Netanyahu and Hamas. If he means there is no moral equivalency between the oppressor and the oppressed, he is quite right: justice is on the side of the oppressed, and history clearly shows that for the past decades, Israel is the oppressor, not the oppressed.
Hamas targeted civilians in October 2023, and of course that is a red line that should not be crossed. It should be noted that such violence does not come out of a vacuum. 76 years of oppression under an Israeli apartheid regime and 17 years of an illegal and immoral blockade of Gaza with the miserable living conditions that blockade has subjected the gazans to, murderous Israeli attacks on Palestinian civilians and infrastructure in 2008 and 2014 in Gaza are at the core of the violence, not the other way around. While the deaths of those Israeli citizens killed on October 7, 2023 cannot be condoned, 76 years of ethnic cleansing and illegal colonization explain the violence. What is taking place in Gaza today is a classic genocide which you, Mr. Trudeau and your government continue to refuse to recognize.
Mohammed Deif could go to the Hague and plead for mitigating circumstances. For Netanyahu, however, there are no grounds to plead for the court’s mercy. He stands as the most notorious war criminal of the 21st century to date. In the mid 1970s, the Palestinians under Yasser Arafat agreed to build an independent state on only 22% of historical Palestine, thereby presenting an historical if painful compromise in exchange for a national collective life in a viable Palestinian state. They did so on the basis of international law. Hamas long ago joined this Palestinian consensus (let’s call it The 78%/22% Compromise), even if Western media paint a different narrative. Netanyahu’s entire political career (he is the longest serving PM in Israeli history) has been centered on rejecting the principle of an independent and viable Palestinian state.
According to Netanyahu, 100% of Palestine belongs to Israel. Due to legal and public relations constraints, Netanyahu cannot immediately claim 100% of the territory. Palestinians are thus permitted to live in a state-provided iron cage on less than half of the 22% with which they were willing to form a state, but they are “free” to leave their cage at any time, provided they agree to go to Jordan (for example) and never come back. Over time, as per the plan set out by Netanyahu and his predecessors, Palestinians would wither away, and the iron cage would no longer be needed. 100% of the territory would thus be cleansed of “ethnic undesirables” (like Canada has done by placing the First Nations on reservations which were models for the apartheid regimes of South Africa and Israel), allowing for the exclusive possession of Palestinian territory by the “desirable” ethnic group.
Justin Trudeau has a choice: siding with the morally bankrupt oppressor or with the morally upright oppressed. Between the oppression spearheaded by Netanyahu and the resistance to oppression spearheaded by Palestinian resistance groups (the PLO in the past; today by Hamas), there is no moral equivalency indeed. To claim differently is morally untenable, the stuff of hypocrites and cowards. You, Mr. Trudeau are on the wrong side of history. Not much of a legacy, is it?
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