ICC arrest warrants: moral equivalence?

Photo source: justflix – CC BY-SA 4.0

One thing that reasonable people can agree on about the indignant and outrageous reaction of Israel and America to the arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court against two Israeli leaders and one (presumably dead) Palestinian leader is that there can be no moral equivalence between the Israeli government and Hamas.

Indeed, there can be no moral equivalence between those who carry out an illegal occupation, since Israel’s 57-year occupation of the State of Palestine has been definitively declared by the International Court of Justice, and those who resist this occupation as their legitimate rights. rights, including through armed action, in accordance with international law.

Of course, from the perspective of international law, both oppressors and oppressed may be guilty of war crimes by coercing or resisting occupation, but there can be no conceivable moral equivalence between those who enforce injustice and illegality and those who resist injustice and illegality. .

Applying the typically subjective epithet “terrorist” to those who resist injustice does not change this clear moral distinction.

As I wrote in 2002, “the poor, the weak and the oppressed rarely complain about “terrorism.” The rich, the powerful, and the oppressors do this all the time. While most of humanity has more reason to fear high-tech violence from the powerful than low-tech violence from the weak, the fundamental mind trick used by those who abuse the epithet “terrorism” (no doubt in some cases unconsciously) is essentially this: low-tech violence by the weak is such an abomination that there is no limit to the high-tech violence of the strong that can be used against it.”

This fundamental trick of the mind continues to be used and exploited by the fighters for injustice and lawlessness.