US president Joe Biden has defended American imperialism’s Israeli ally and denounced the decision of the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, to seek arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defence minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes.
Speaking at a Jewish American Heritage Month event at the White House, Biden said: ‘Let me be clear, we reject the ICC’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders.’
He added: ‘There is no equivalence between Israel and Hamas.’
To warm applause from the audience, Biden denied that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza saying: ‘Contrary to allegations against Israel made by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), what’s happening in Gaza is not genocide. We reject that.’
In February, the ICJ confirmed it had opened a formal investigation into war crimes committed by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
When Biden says there is ‘no equivalence’ between Israel and Hamas what he means is that Israel has the perfect right to commit any act of genocide and murder with absolute impunity, while Palestinian lives count for nothing.
The depth of the depravity of Israeli forces, including medics, towards Palestinian detainees was revealed yesterday by a BBC investigation into allegations made by medical whistle-blowers.
They detailed how in one military hospital operations were ‘routinely’ carried out without painkillers or that painkillers were used ‘selectively’ and ‘in a very limited way’ during invasive procedures on Gaza detainees in public hospitals.
Critically ill patients in military facilities were denied proper treatment because public hospitals ‘were reluctant’ to take them, according to one whistle-blower.
Immediately after Hamas launched its action on 7th October, Israel set up the Side Teiman field hospital with the instructions that all injured Gazans should be treated in military or prison hospitals.
According to several medics responsible for treating people at this facility, patients are routinely kept blindfolded and permanently shackled to their beds by all four limbs and made to wear nappies rather than use a toilet.
One doctor with knowledge of the conditions in the hospitals said prolonged cuffing to beds caused ‘huge suffering, horrible suffering’ and described it as ‘torture’.
At least 35,647 Palestinians, mainly women and children, have been killed and 79,852 wounded in Israeli attacks in Gaza since October 7th and those wounded who end up in the hands of the Zionist forces are subjected to inhuman treatment amounting to torture.
None of this is of concern to Biden and his imperialist allies, who dismiss any accusation of genocide and put the blame squarely on the backs of Palestinians for exercising their absolute right to fight and take up the armed struggle against their Zionist oppressors.
In this they were aided by the decision of the ICC chief prosecutor to add the names of three Hamas leaders to those he seeks arrest warrants for over war crimes allegations – Netanyahu and Gallant.
Spreading the blame for genocide ‘equates the victim with the executioner’ in the eyes of Palestinians and the working class and youth across the world who support the Palestinian struggle and are rising up against their governments that are complicit in genocide.
While Biden dismisses any accusation of genocide against Israel, in Britain, Tory deputy foreign minister Andrew Mitchell told Parliament yesterday that the ICC decision would have no impact on the UK’s approval for companies to sell weapons to Israel.
The US and UK regard the Palestinian people as suitable cannon fodder for the Israeli murder machine and vow to carry on with their support for a genocidal war being waged to shore up imperialism’s declining domination in the region.
The working class and youth throughout the US, UK and Europe have demonstrated their mass support for Palestine and have not been intimidated by threats to use the police and law to stop them demonstrating and occupying university campuses.
Trade union leaders in the US, UK and Europe must now be forced to take action by calling general strikes to bring down their governments that are supporting and arming Israel and bring in workers’ governments and socialism.
This is the way to put an end to imperialist wars and genocide.
