tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69635080929964693982024-03-18T14:27:56.476+01:00Nasir Khan blogI was born in Poonch (Kashmir) and now I live in Norway. I oppose war and violence and am a firm believer in the peaceful co-existence of all nations and peoples. In my academic work I have tried to espouse the cause of the weak and the oppressed in a world dominated by power politics, misleading propaganda and violations of basic human rights. I also believe that all conscious members of society have a moral duty to stand for and further the cause of peace and human rights throughout the world.Nasir Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16981781828241865509noreply@blogger.comBlogger8229125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963508092996469398.post-41169600097422646252024-03-18T14:27:00.001+01:002024-03-18T14:27:15.624+01:00šššššš
ššš²š¬ šš¬š«ššš„ ššš¬ šš¢š„š„šš ššÆšš« šš,ššš šš”š¢š„šš«šš§ š¢š§ ššš³š<h2></h2>
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<p><b>The agency says many are suffering from malnutrition and do not āeven have the energy to cryā</b></p>
<p>by Dave DeCamp, Antiwar. com, March 17, 2024</p>
<p>The UNās child relief agency said on Sunday that over 13,000 children
have been killed in the Gaza Strip and that many more could be dead
under the rubble.</p>
<p>āThousands more have been injured, or we canāt even determine where
they are. They may be stuck under rubble,ā said UNICEF Executive
Director Catherine Russell, according to Reuters. āWe havenāt seen that
rate of death among children in almost any other conflict in the world.ā</p>
<p>Gazaās Health Ministry has said over 31,000 Palestinians have been
killed in Gaza and has consistently stated that around 70% of the
casualties are women and children.</p>
<p>Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin previously said over 25,000 women
and children had been killed in Gaza, but the Pentagon walked his
comment back, claiming he was talking about all Palestinians killed.</p>
<p>Russel said that she visited a hospital ward where children were
suffering from severe malnutrition and said the place was quiet because
āthe children, the babies ā¦ donāt even have the energy to cry.ā</p>
<p>Separately, the UNās Palestinian relief agency, UNRWA, said one in
three children under the age of two in Gaza is now acutely malnourished.
āChildrenās malnutrition is spreading fast and reaching unprecedented
levels in Gaza,ā UNRWA said. Children have already started to starve to
death in Gaza, with dozens of malnutrition deaths already reported.</p>
<p>Despite the horrific situation and Israelās continued restrictions on
aid, the US is still providing unconditional military aid to support
the slaughter and starvation campaign against the Palestinians in Gaza.</p>
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<p><a href="https://www.juancole.com/author/middle-east-monitor">Middle East Monitor</a> 03/18/2024</p>
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<p>By Caroline Lund and Brendan CiarĆ”n Browne | ā</p><p> The ongoing genocide in Gaza has starkly exposed Western governmentsā
unequal and wholly selective application of international law whilst
also managing to draw much-needed attention to the dysfunctional role
that foreign donors and their development agendas play in the region.</p>
<p>Following Israelās hitherto unproven allegations, suggesting that members of the <em>United Nations Relief and Works Agency</em> for
Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) played an active role on 7
October, over fifteen Western governments took the draconian decision to
<a href="https://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/official-statements/joint-ngo-statement-eu-and-member-states-must-sustain-funding-unrwa">cease funding</a>
of the organisationās life-saving programmes in Gaza. Erroneous food
package airdrops have subsequently been the order of the day, with
Western states <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/08/gaza-aid-airdrop-kills-civilians-when-parachute-fails-to-open-witness-says">dropping aid</a>
whilst simultaneously supplying the weaponry to the Israeli state that
has been erasing the presence of a starving Palestinian people in the
besieged Gaza Strip.</p>
<p>As the US military prepares to build <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/03/08/gaza-floating-pier/">a pier off the shore of Gaza</a>,
with the alleged purpose of facilitating aid delivery, the
weaponisation of humanitarian intervention has never been laid so bare.
This is at the same time as thousands of trucks laden with aid for the
people of Gaza, ready to deliver essentials amidst this ongoing man-made
catastrophe, remain prohibited from entry by the Israeli authorities.
With more than 1.1 million Palestinians facing emergency levels of <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/03/1147112">food insecurity</a>, the situation is growing beyond desperate by the day.</p>
<p>However, it must be remembered that this is not due to Western
governmentsā inability to act or intervene, but rather is due to an
unwillingness to address the root causes of Palestinian suffering and
oppression ā a tendency that stems from decades-long application of a
de-contextualised ābusiness-as-usualā approach to humanitarian
intervention. Since the emergence of an oxymoronically named the āpeace
processā and the decision to pursue a liberal āpeace-buildingā agenda in
the 1990s, one that centres Western intervention around the proclaimed
goal of achieving a mythical two-state solution, <a href="https://www.unescwa.org/sites/default/files/pubs/pdf/palestine-economic-dependency-development-english_0.pdf">development intervention</a> in the region has been profoundly ineffective, despite high levels of fiscal support.</p>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/ufvUQ3X_Ee0?si=HlREcobiraRvXMAv"><em>Democracy Now! Video: āAid Workers Say Israel Must End Attack on Gaza, Open Aid Routesā</em></a></p>
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<p>According to the UN, donors have consistently placed Israelās
territorial interests and purported security demands, as well as their
own political goals, above the implementation of international law.
Development aid in Palestine has, for decades, failed to be applied on
an equal footing or on a perceived rights-based platform.</p>
<p>In order to try and achieve tangible ādevelopment resultsā despite
the chronic and steadily deepening economic and democratic deficit in
Palestine, organisations like the UN have started to apply a so-called ā<a href="https://www.undp.org/papp/publications/palestinian-programme-framework">resilience framework</a>ā, a process that a number of scholars and practitioners have shown to be deeply flawed.</p>
<p>The recent decision to engage in tokenistic aid drops from the sky,
despite the outcry from international humanitarian organisations arguing
against their efficacy, is yet further evidence of a deeply problematic
Western intervention strategy in Gaza. Many of these aid drops have
ended up landing in the sea or, in fact, in parts of Israel, whilst
others have failed to deploy their parachutes, killing Palestinian
children on impact. This flawed and impotent intervention serves nothing
more than a photo-op for the sponsors of this ongoing genocide, further
dehumanising Palestinians living in Gaza.</p>
<p>The Westās sponsorship of the genocide in Gaza, in supplying weapons
and political cover for Israelās actions, alongside its engagement in
ineffective humanitarian interventions that put Palestinian lives at
further risk, is the perfect example of how it has treated the lives and
livelihoods of Palestinians ever since the formation of the Israeli
state in 1948.</p>
<p>In addition to extending the humanitarian crisis by months, building a
ātemporaryā pier off the coast of Gaza for the purported delivery of
aid could, in effect, work to facilitate āvoluntary migrationā out of
the Strip. As both the US and Israel have failed to exert pressure on
neighbouring Egypt to open its borders to Palestinians fleeing
starvation and indiscriminate bombing, the pier will conveniently create
an entry point into Gaza that does not border Israel. It is thus far
from cynical to argue that these purported humanitarian interventions
are anything other than a stalling tactic designed to allow the US and
Israel time needed to achieve their ultimate political aims and
objectives ā an ethnically cleansed Gaza.</p>
<p>Using aid as a weapon against a besieged population amidst a genocide
shames those in the international donor community and reveals their
deep complicity in crimes against humanity. Development and humanitarian
intervention in Palestine have long been a smokescreen, allowing for
the ongoing oppression and dispossession of Palestinians whilst
simultaneously presenting a sense of feigned concern to onlookers in the
West. Foreign humanitarian intervention in Palestine has been
catastrophic, and the time for a fulsome re-evaluation of the root
causes of humanitarian need has long since passed.</p>
<p>The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not
necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor or
Informed Comment.</p>
<p>Via <a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240316-genocide-in-gaza-has-laid-bare-the-weaponisation-of-donor-aid/">Middle East Monitor</a></p>
<p><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">This work</a> by <a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com">Middle East Monitor</a> is licensed under a <em>Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License</em>.</p><p> </p>Nasir Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16981781828241865509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963508092996469398.post-39819620333642880342024-03-17T11:13:00.001+01:002024-03-17T11:13:23.381+01:00Unlocking the āMysteryā ā Ilan PappĆ© Writes In Memory of Aaron Bushnell<p><br />
</p><header class="entry-header clearfix">
</header>
<figure class="entry-thumbnail">
<img alt="" src="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/BUSHNELL_PAPPE_PC.png" title="BUSHNELL_PAPPE_PC" />
<figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Aaron Bushnell set himself on fire
outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC, in protest against
Israelās genocidal war. (Image: Palestine Chronicle, via social media)</figcaption>
</figure>
<div class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"></div><p><strong>By <a href="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/writers/ilan-pappe" title="Display all articles for Ilan Pappe - The Palestine Chronicle">Ilan Pappe ā The Palestine Chronicle</a></strong>, March 14, 2024 <a href="https://twitter.com/pappe54" target="_blank" title="Visit Ilan Pappe - The Palestine Chronicle's X page"><img src="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Twitter-X-Logo.png" style="border: 0px; height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 32px; padding: 0px;" /></a></p>
<blockquote>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">Hopefully, one day, in a liberated
Palestine, there will be a street to commemorate these brave young men
and women, who taught the world that what is taking place in Palestine
is an injustice that cannot be tolerated.</span></h3>
</blockquote>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Senior Airman Aaron Bushnellās sacrifice for the sake of Gaza and Palestine became yesterdayās news too quickly. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Aaron was a cyber defense operation
specialist in the US Airforce and he died at the age of 25 from injuries
sustained when he set himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy
in Washington.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The official US army and police conveyed their sympathy</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">to the family</span><b>,</b><span style="font-weight: 400;"> but nothing was mentioned about the background and the cause Aaron was willing to die for. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">At best, the incident was described
as a ātragic eventā. The Pentagon explained that Aaronās protest was
against the war in Gaza and ignored his main message, blaming the United
States for being complicit in the genocide.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">I hope most of us will not be content
with the official response. If we are, it means we disrespect the brave
outcry of this young man and, in that case, his sacrifice will be in
vain.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">It was no accident that Aaron
Bushnell donned his military uniform and broadcast live his heroic act
of sacrifice over the internet.</span></p>
<h4><span style="font-weight: 400;">As āan active duty memberā, he wrote, āI will no longer be complicit in genocideā.</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</span><b>āFree Palestineā</b></h4>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">This was his main message before dousing himself in a clear liquid and setting himself on fire, crying āFree Palestineā. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">In the pre-action message, he wrote:</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;"> āI am about to engage in an extreme
act of protest, but compared to what people have been experiencing in
Palestine, at the hands of their colonizers, itās not extreme at all.ā </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">I write this piece with trepidation, making sure it does not</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">sound
like encouragement for others to go to that extreme ā but find it
difficult not to admire Aaronās bravery acknowledged by the resistance
movement in Gaza that praised the American pilot who:</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">āImmortalized his name as a defender
of human values and the plight of the Palestinian people, who are
oppressed by the American administration and its unjust policies.ā</span></p>
<h4><b>An Important Message</b></h4>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Aaronās message is simple and clear:
the US is complicit in the first-ever televised genocide in modern
times. And if you serve in the American administration or army, then</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">you, too, are complicit.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The physical venue where the
complicity is translated into actual collaboration is, indeed, the
Israeli embassy in Washington, and this is why Aaron decided to protest
there.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Other parts of Aaronās message need to be repeated and echoed by many of us. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">He asked whether decent people should
have been quiet during slavery in America, or during Apartheid in South
Africa. Or everywhere in the world throughout history, when people
sacrificed their lives in the struggle for justice? </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Aaron was unable to stop the American complicity in the genocide, but he hoped that it would not go unnoticed.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">But it is not only the message of Aaronās self-sacrifice that is so important. His persona was equally crucial.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Everyone who knew him remembered him for </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">āhis
kindness, gentleness, thoughtfulnessā. A friend told reporters that he
was āthe kindest, gentlest, silliest little kid in the Air Forceā and
āone of the most principled comradesā.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The day before his self-immolation,
he sent a will to his friend, gave his cat to a neighbor and mentioned
to his friend that his fridge was full for them to enjoy.</span></p>
<h4><b>We Need You</b></h4>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">It is important to know who Aaron was, as the tendency is to describe young men like him as insane, fanatics or zealots. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The truth is Aaron was a healthy
person who felt so helpless as to be part of an institution that is
complicit in the suffering of the Palestinians. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">He was a sensitive person who sacrificed his life, hoping this would send a message.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">We shall beseech people not to take these extreme measures. We need them on the streets, at the protests. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">We need them to quit positions
and jobs to demonstrate their humanity in the face of a genocide that is
televised to us on an hourly basis, one that is still ongoing.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Aaron was ready to face future challenges in life. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">He was actively pursuing a bachelorās degree in software engineering from</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">the
Western Governors University. Also, he had earlier engaged in
coursework related to software development at the Southern New Hampshire
University and computer science at the University of Maryland Global
Campus, according to the information on his LinkedIn profile.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The mainstream media in the US asked
how come a young man who loved the Lord of the Rings and karaoke would
do something so extreme. They defined it as a mystery. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The answer for them was not
Palestine, but Aaronās association with the religious group, a cult he
belonged to as a child and that allegedly mistreated its members.</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">The explanation US media provided
was that when you leave a tight-knit group, you find it hard to belong
elsewhere. Maybe this is true, but still, it does not explain Aaronās
act of self-sacrifice.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">He did not do this because he was a lost soul. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">To the contrary, the fact that he had
experienced injustice, pushed him ā in the words of his close friends
ā to try and ādefend those who donāt care or canāt defend themselvesā. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">This is why he looked for ways of being a social activist for just causes.</span></p>
<h4><b>Aaron is Not Alone</b></h4>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mainstream media in the US refuses to accept Aaronās, and many other young Americansā perception</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">of
the injustice in Palestine as equal to that experienced by slaves in
America, or the victims of American imperialism in Vietnam. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">But more and more young Americans
realize that the US policy is one of the major reasons for the ongoing
suffering of the Palestinians. Many more will be aware of it now.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Aaron was not a superficial observer. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">He felt uneasy being in the army
and began, in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, to research the
history of violence inflicted by the US, both domestically ā against its
own citizens ā and across the world, against others. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">His soul-searching led him to consider leaving the army. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">His dream of a career was strongly associated with a wish to earn enough money to help the just causes he believed in.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">It is not only Aaron that we should not forget. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">We still do not know the name and
identity of the brave woman who set herself on fire in front of the
Israeli consulate in Atlanta last December. Even in that case, a
Palestinian flag was found at the scene.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Aaron reminds us of </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Norman
Morrison who did the same in front of the offices of Robert McNamara,
the most senior American politician responsible for the devastation of
Vietnam in the mid-1960s. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">And there were others in the US, such
as Wyne Alan Bruce, who set himself on fire in April 2022 in
Washington, on Earth Day, as a form of protest against international
inaction in the face of environmental catastrophes, including climate
change. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">And beyond the US, we all remember
Thich Quang Duc, the Buddhist monk who set himself on fire in 1963, in
protest against the pro-American South Vietnamese persecution of
Buddhist monks.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">And we also remember Mohamed Bouaziz,
the Tunisian food trader who, in his act of sacrifice, triggered what
became known as the Arab Spring.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Inquiring a bit deeper, I was
surprised to learn that hardly anyone in the US military voiced concern,
let alone criticism, about the American involvement in the Israeli
genocide in Gaza. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br />
</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Therefore, one can understand how lonely Aaron must have felt.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">I wish we could all have talked to Aaron and told him that we could have used his expertise for the cause we all believe in. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">But the least we could do now is to remember him. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">And hopefully, one day, in a
liberated Palestine, there will be a street to commemorate these brave
young men and women, who taught the world that what is taking place in
Palestine is an injustice that cannot be tolerated.</span></p>
<div style="float: left; margin: 0 15px 0 0; width: 170px;"><img height="180" src="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Pappe.png" style="border-radius: 50%;" width="180" /></div>
<p><span style="font-size: +1.2em;"></span></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><em>ā Ilan PappĆ© is a professor at the
University of Exeter. He was formerly a senior lecturer in political
science at the University of Haifa. He is the author of The Ethnic
Cleansing of Palestine, The Modern Middle East, A History of Modern
Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples, and Ten Myths about Israel. He is the
co-editor, with Ramzy Baroud of ā<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Our-Vision-Liberation-Palestinian-Intellectuals/dp/1949762440">Our Vision</a>
for Liberation.ā PappĆ© is described as one of Israelās āNew Historiansā
who, since the release of pertinent British and Israeli government
documents in the early 1980s, have been rewriting the history of
Israelās creation in 1948. He contributed this article to The Palestine
Chronicle. </em></p>Nasir Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16981781828241865509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963508092996469398.post-75069265052478381032024-03-14T11:12:00.001+01:002024-03-14T11:12:08.826+01:00President Joe Biden Is Shipping Weapons to Israel Every 36 Hours<p> By <a href="https://jacobin.com/author/stephen-semler">Stephen Semler</a>, Jacobin, March 13, 2024</p><p> </p>
<p>The Biden administration has been able to maintain a low profile by spreading arms provision to Israel across more than 100 smaller munitions sales ā allowing the president to posture as a peacekeeper while US weapons wipe Gaza off the map.</p><p> </p>
<figure class="wp-block-image"><img alt="" src="https://images.jacobinmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/13084132/GettyImages-2079109521.jpg" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">President Joe Biden speaks during a meeting in the East Room of the White House on March 12, 2024, in Washington, DC. (Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images)</figcaption></figure>
<p></p>
<p>In the one hundred fifty days after October 7, Israel killed thirty-one thousand Palestinians, injured seventy-two thousand, displaced 1.7 million, and razed or damaged <a href="https://x.com/JamonVDH/status/1763689262804095200?s=20">more than half</a> of Gazaās buildings. Joe Biden sent over one hundred weapons shipments to Israel during the same stretch. In a recent classified briefing, US officials told members of Congress that the Biden administration approved and delivered more than one hundred separate weapons sales to Israel in the one hundred fifty days after October 7, āamounting to thousands of precision-guided munitions, small diameter bombs, bunker busters, small arms and other lethal aid,ā the <em>Washington Post</em> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/03/06/us-weapons-israel-gaza/">reported</a> on Wednesday. That works out to one new arms deal every thirty-six hours, on average.</p>
<p>These transfers are classified as sales, but very few of them meet that definition in the conventional sense. The vast majority are funded through State Department grants. Biden made just two of these publicly funded sales to Israel public, and the only reason he did is because he had to. Section 36 of the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) requires the president to notify Congress when a proposed arms sale exceeds a certain value. The notification threshold depends on the type of matĆ©riel (for ā<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/uscode.php?width=840&height=800&iframe=true&def_id=10-USC-1736421448-802786821&term_occur=999&term_src=title:10:subtitle:A:part:IV:chapter:165:section:2790">significant military equipment</a>ā itās $14 million; for other military articles and services, $50 million; for military construction services, $200 million), but also the recipient. For NATO countries and South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Israel, the notification thresholds for these three categories are considerably higher ($25 million, $100 million, and $300 million, respectively).</p>
<p>While Biden is loud and proud about arming Ukraine, he prefers to arm Israel in secret. The quantity of sales since October 7 is case in point. By spreading his military support for Israel across more than one hundred sales, Biden kept pretty much all of them ā<a href="https://www.forumarmstrade.org/underthreshold.html">under threshold</a>ā per the AECA, thereby avoiding congressional and public scrutiny. Biden might have picked up this trick from his predecessor. Donald Trump exploited the same loophole to dodge oversight on <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/06/israel-weapons-sales-loophole">arms deals</a> with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, whose intense and indiscriminate <a href="https://stephensemler.substack.com/p/biden-bombs-yemen-so-israel-can-bomb">bombing of Yemen</a> at the time had created a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/03/middleeast/yemen-worlds-worst-humanitarian-crisis-un-intl/index.html">dire</a> humanitarian crisis.</p>
<p>Keeping these transfers out of public view makes it easier for Biden to cast himself as Humanitarian of the Year in Gaza while going great lengths to help Israel destroy it. Bidenās series of food airdrops suggests heās bravely trying to fix a catastrophe beyond his control. Administration officials perpetuate this narrative by insisting the president has no leverage over Israel. āThere is a mistaken belief that the United States is able to dictate to other countriesā sovereign decisions,ā State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller recently <a href="https://www.state.gov/briefings/department-press-briefing-february-28-2024/">said</a>.</p>
<p>This is wrong. The catastrophe in Gaza is the result of a deliberate policy choice Biden made. Israelās military offensive would not be possible without him <a href="https://jacobin.com/2023/11/us-weapons-shipments-biden-administration-war-crimes-civilian-deaths-gaza">fast-tracking</a> such vast quantities of weapons to its arsenal over the last several months. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has admitted that Israelās assault on Gaza relies on a steady stream (a torrent, in fact) of US weapons, once <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/7b407c2e-8149-4d83-be01-72dcae8aee7b">telling</a> a group of local government officials, āWe need three things from the US: munitions, munitions, and munitions.ā From October 7 to mid-February, Biden had delivered twenty-one thousand bombs to Israel, and Israel had already dropped half of them.</p>
<p>Netanyahu structured an urgent plea to US lawmakers in November in a similar way: āI need ammo, ammo, and ammo ā yesterday,ā he <a href="https://punchbowl.news/article/michael-mccaul-israel-benjamin-netanyahu-request/">said</a> and specifically requested 155 mm artillery shells. More than thirty aid and advocacy groups had <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/joint-open-letter-transfer-155mm-artillery-shells-israel">urged</a> the Biden administration not to supply this ammunition because the shells are unguided, highly explosive (with a casualty radius of 100 to 300 meters) and have been used by Israel in the past to hit hospitals, schools, shelters, and safe zones. Biden <a href="https://www.dsca.mil/press-media/major-arms-sales/israel-155mm-artillery-ammunition">transferred</a> 57,021 of them to Israel a few weeks later. The Israeli army <a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231205-israel-army-strikes-gaza-with-more-than-100000-artillery-shells-since-27-october/">announced</a> in early December that it had fired more than one hundred thousand shells since its ground invasion of Gaza began on October 27, adding that artillery plays a ācentral roleā by providing āintense fire coverā for its troops.</p>
<p>Israel <a href="https://jinsa.org/jinsa_report/anchoring-the-u-s-israel-alliance-rebuilding-americas-arms-stockpile-in-israel/">lacks</a> the production capacity to prosecute one of the deadliest, most intense <a href="https://jacobin.com/2024/01/biden-hostages-gaza-war-crimes">bombing campaigns</a> in history relying only on its own munitions. Israelās assault on Gaza continues because Biden thinks it should continue. If he thought otherwise, he would shut down the weapons pipeline he constructed to enable it.</p>
<p>In a recent <a href="https://cepr.net/press-release/poll-majority-of-americans-say-biden-should-halt-weapons-shipments-to-israel/">poll</a>, 52 percent of Americans said the United States should halt weapons transfers to Israel, while only 27 percent said they should continue. Among 2020 Biden voters, the margin was 62 to 14 percent.</p>
<h4 class="wp-block-heading">Share this article</h4>
<p><a>Facebook</a><a>Twitter</a><a href="mailto:?subject=Joe Biden Is Shipping Weapons to Israel Every 36 Hours&body=https://jacobin.com/2024/03/biden-weapons-israel-gaza-palestine">Email</a></p><br />Nasir Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16981781828241865509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963508092996469398.post-88657845779917912112024-03-13T19:41:00.001+01:002024-03-13T19:41:11.290+01:00 UNRWA staffers tortured by Israeli troops to falsely admit 'Hamas links'<div class="inner-article-top"><p class=""><b>Israel has sought for years to dismantle the UN agency to destroy Palestinian refugees' right of return</b></p><div class="another-name"><p><a href="https://thecradle.co/authors/news-desk-9" style="color: #a40404;">News Desk</a>, The Cradle, <br /></p></div><div class="another-name" style="margin-top: 16px;"><p><span>MAR 9, 2024</span></p></div></div><div class="inner-article-img"><img alt="" src="http://thecradle-main.oss-eu-central-1.aliyuncs.com/public/articles/6ef9fd36-ddf9-11ee-a68c-00163e02c055.jpeg" /><span>(Photo credit: Reuters)</span></div><div class="article-content"><span><p><span style="color: #0e101a;">An
unpublished report from UNRWA said some of its employees released from
Israeli detention were tortured into falsely stating that the agency has
Hamas links and that staff took part in the 7 October attacks, <i>Reuters</i> </span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/unrwa-report-says-israel-coerced-some-agency-employees-falsely-admit-hamas-links-2024-03-08/"><span style="color: #4a6ee0;">reported</span></a><span style="color: #0e101a;"> on 9 March.</span></p><p><span style="color: #0e101a;">The testimonies are contained in a report by the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) reviewed by <i>Reuters </i>and dated February 2024.</span></p><p><span style="color: #0e101a;">"Agency
staff members have been subject to threats and coercion by the Israeli
authorities while in detention and pressured to make false statements
against the Agency, including that the Agency has affiliations with
Hamas and that UNRWA staff members took part in the 7 October 2023
atrocities," the report says.</span></p><p><span style="color: #0e101a;">The
report included allegations of abuse and torture in Israeli detention,
including severe physical beatings, waterboarding, and threats of harm
to family members.</span></p><p><span style="color: #0e101a;">Though waterboarding is widely viewed as torture by human rights groups, the <i>Reuters</i> report described Israeli actions only as "coercion" and "pressure" to force detained Palestinians to make false statements.</span></p><p><span style="color: #0e101a;">In
addition to describing the torture of UNRWA employees, the report
stated that Israel has subjected Palestinian detainees more broadly to
beatings, humiliation, threats, dog attacks, and sexual violence. Some
detainees have also died after Israel denied them medical treatment, the
report added.</span></p><p><span style="color: #0e101a;">UNRWA
communications director Juliette Touma said the agency planned to hand
the information in the 11-page, unpublished report to human rights
investigators at UN agencies and outside rights groups.</span></p><p><span style="color: #0e101a;">"When the war comes to an end there needs to be a series of inquiries to look into all violations of human rights," she said.</span></p><p><span style="color: #0e101a;">Amid the torture and medical neglect, 27 Palestinians have </span><a href="https://www.newarab.com/news/27-palestinians-died-israeli-jails-7-october"><span style="color: #4a6ee0;">died</span></a><span style="color: #0e101a;"> in Israeli prisons since the start of the war on 7 October.</span></p><p><span style="color: #0e101a;">Israel
has accused UNRWA employees of participation in the 7 October Hamas
attack on Israeli settlements and military bases. Israel provided no
evidence for the claim, but 16 countries, including the US, paused $450
million in UNRWA funding in response, throwing its aid operations into
crisis just as starvation was beginning to grip Gaza.</span></p><p><span style="color: #0e101a;">Israel's campaign against UNRWA is part of a broader </span><a href="https://thecradle.co/articles-id/23350"><span style="color: #4a6ee0;">campaign</span></a><span style="color: #0e101a;"> started
years ago to dismantle the agency, which helps keep the hope of
Palestinian refugees returning to their stolen lands and homes in what
is now Israel alive.</span></p></span></div>Nasir Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16981781828241865509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963508092996469398.post-29559262626559441552024-03-09T19:01:00.001+01:002024-03-09T19:01:11.950+01:00Biden Aid Port Plan Rebuked as āPatheticā PR Effort as Israel Starves Gazans<h2></h2>
<small class="single-by"></small>
<p></p>
<figure class="wp-block-image"><img alt="Displaced Palestinians gather to receive food in Rafah" src="https://www.commondreams.org/media-library/displaced-palestinians-gather-to-receive-food-in-rafah.jpg?id=51681085&width=1200&height=400&quality=90&coordinates=0%2C1103%2C0%2C866" /></figure>
<p>Displaced Palestinian children gather to receive food at a donation point in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on March 7, 2024.</p>
<p>(Photo: Yasser Qudihe/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)</p>
<h1 class="wp-block-heading"></h1>
<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: medium;">āWe need accountability, not more harebrained headline-chasing schemes,ā said a campaigner with Medical Aid for Palestinians.</span></span></h2>
<p>By <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/author/jake-johnson">Jake Johnson</a>, Common Dreams, Mar 07, 2024</p>
<p></p>
<p>President Joe Biden is expected to announce during his State of the
Union address Thursday night that the U.S. military will construct a
temporary port on Gazaās coastline to facilitate the delivery of
humanitarian assistance, a plan that critics said is a far cry from
whatās needed to end Israelās forced starvation of the enclaveās
population.</p>
<p>Itās expected to take up to two months for large aid packages to
begin flowing through the seaport, which a White House official <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2024/03/07/background-press-call-on-humanitarian-aid-for-gaza-ahead-of-the-state-of-the-union/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">said</a> would be able to āreceive large ships carrying food, water, medicine, and temporary shelters.ā</p>
<p>āWouldnāt it be easier to demand Israel let in aid right now while Palestinian children are literally being starved to death?ā <a href="https://twitter.com/joshruebner/status/1765813808180637708" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">asked</a>
Josh Ruebner, an adjunct lecturer at Georgetown University and former
policy director of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights. āWaiting
45-60 days to build a temporary pier doesnāt help Palestinians starving
to death today.ā</p>
<p>āBesides, how are you going to offload the aid from the pier to the
land given that Israel shoots at Palestinian boats all the time?ā
Ruebner continued. āAnd even if you get the aid to land, how does it get
distributed to those most in need? Maybe you should have thought about
that before you cut off aid to UNRWA, the only agency able to distribute
aid throughout the <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/tag/gaza">Gaza</a> Strip.ā</p>
<p>The White House said Thursday that in addition to the aid port, it
will ācontinue to work to increase the amount of aid flowing through
existing border crossings at Rafah and Kerem Shalom.ā The administration
also said the Israeli government, at the request of the U.S., has
āprepared a new land crossing directly into northern Gaza,ā which Israel
has mostly cut off from aid for monthsācausing children to <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/gaza-child-deaths-unicef" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">starve to death</a>.</p>
<p>āAll of these efforts in order to avoid what actually matters: Stopping the war,ā <a href="https://twitter.com/tparsi/status/1765793721038127166" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">responded</a> Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. āPathetic.ā</p>
<p>Bidenās port announcement will come days after the U.S. began
airdropping aid into Gaza as Israel continued obstructing ground
deliveries and <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/in-likely-illegal-attack-israeli-navy-fired-on-un-food-convoy-in-gaza" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">attacking aid convoys</a>. According to the United Nations, <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/03/1147342?_gl=1*l0vc8q*_ga*MTM4NTQ1MTM0My4xNjY2Nzc0ODE2*_ga_TK9BQL5X7Z*MTcwOTgzOTkwNC4xNjQuMS4xNzA5ODM5OTEyLjAuMC4w" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">150 aid trucks</a> at most are reaching Gaza dailyāhalf of the bare minimum needed.</p>
<p>āIsrael has mounted a starvation campaign against the Palestinian
people in Gaza,ā Michael Fakhri, the U.N. special rapporteur on the
right to food, <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/03/1147342" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">said</a> Thursday.</p>
<p>āThe aid that his administration is trying to get into Gaza canāt get
through Israelās blockade. Instead of announcing a total arms
embargoāor at least until Israel allows aid to get in!āhe is building a
port.ā</p>
<p>Aid that arrives at the temporary U.S. port will be routed through Cyprus and āwill undergo prior inspection by Israel,ā <em>The Washington Post</em><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/03/07/israel-hamas-war-news-gaza-palestine/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">reported</a>, raising concerns that Israel will impede the maritime shipments just as it has done with ground shipments.</p>
<p>U.S. officials claimed the port operation would not require any
American troops on the ground but ādid not provide details about how the
pier would be built,ā <em>The Associated Press</em><a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-news-03-07-24-5657eedc005040694a9ab935ce3e39e5" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">reported</a>. āOne noted that the U.S. military has āunique capabilitiesā and can do things from ājust offshore.'ā</p>
<p>Human rights groups and aid workers have implored the U.S. to exert
pressure on the Israeli governmentāincluding by cutting off arms
salesāto end its suffocating blockade, allow aid to flow freely through
land crossings, and support a lasting cease-fire.</p>
<p>āBiden is sending Israel a new shipment of weapons every 36 hours,ā <a href="https://twitter.com/YonahLieberman/status/1765789110751445144" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">said</a>
Yonah Lieberman, co-founder of the progressive Jewish advocacy group
IfNotNow. āThe aid that his administration is trying to get into Gaza
canāt get through Israelās blockade. Instead of announcing a total arms
embargoāor at least until Israel allows aid to get in!āhe is building a
port.ā</p>
<p>Rohan Talbot, director of advocacy and campaigns at Medical Aid for Palestinians, <a href="https://twitter.com/rohantalbot/status/1765792782893924424" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">wrote</a>
on social media that āthe infrastructure required to get aid to those
who need it in Gaza already exists, the problem is just that Israel
keeps attacking and obstructing it.ā</p>
<p>āWe need accountability, not more harebrained headline-chasing
schemes,ā Talbot added. āLiterally nobody on the ground is advocating
for this. They want you to stop providing the bombs doing the damage.ā</p>
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<h3 class="sd-title">Share this:</h3><ul data-sharing-events-added="true"><li class="share-facebook"><a class="share-facebook sd-button share-icon" data-shared="sharing-facebook-35902" href="https://sudhan.wordpress.com/2024/03/09/biden-aid-port-plan-rebuked-as-pathetic-pr-effort-as-israel-starves-gazans/?share=facebook&nb=1" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="Click to share on Facebook"><span>Facebook</span></a></li><li class="share-twitter"><a class="share-twitter sd-button share-icon" data-shared="sharing-twitter-35902" href="https://sudhan.wordpress.com/2024/03/09/biden-aid-port-plan-rebuked-as-pathetic-pr-effort-as-israel-starves-gazans/?share=twitter&nb=1" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="Click to share on Twitter"><span></span></a><br /></li></ul><p> </p>Nasir Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16981781828241865509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963508092996469398.post-2446930484609662902024-03-08T21:53:00.000+01:002024-03-08T21:53:13.966+01:00No Oneās Rights Should Depend on Where Their Ancestors Lived<p>By <a href="https://jacobin.com/author/ben-burgis">Ben Burgis</a>, Jacobin, March 7, 2024</p>
<p><b>Arguments over whether Israelis or Palestinians count as āreally
indigenousā are beside the point. No oneās human rights should depend on
their ethnicity or religion or where their ancestors come from.</b></p>
<figure class="wp-block-image"><img alt="" src="https://images.jacobinmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/07123328/GettyImages-1233041064.jpg" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">People
who insist that either Palestinians or Israelis are āindigenousā to the
land are embracing the logic of reactionaries. (Morteza Nikoubazl /
NurPhoto via Getty Images)</figcaption></figure>
<p></p>
<h1 class="wp-block-heading"></h1>
<p></p>
<p>Claudia Tenney is a congresswoman from upstate New York. Much of her
district (NY-24) was, for centuries before āNew York stateā came into
existence, the territory of the <a href="https://www.iroquoismuseum.org/">Iroquois Confederacy</a>.
A right-wing Republican, Tenney presumably doesnāt think much of land
acknowledgments or hand-wringing about the idea that NY-24 sits on
āstolen land.ā</p>
<p>And yet, Tenney is in the news this week for introducing something called the <a href="https://tenney.house.gov/media/press-releases/congresswoman-tenney-introduces-legislation-recognize-rightful-name-judea-and">RECOGNIZING Judea and Samaria Act</a>.
She wants to require that US government documents stop referring to the
Israeli-occupied West Bank as the āWest Bankā and start calling it
āJudea and Samaria.ā She claims that āthe term āWest Bankāā is āused to
delegitimize Israelās historical claim to this land.ā</p>
<p>The idea seems to be that, because ancient Jewish kingdoms were
located there thousands of years ago, and Israeli Jews are descendants
of the people who lived in those kingdoms, Palestinian rights are
irrelevant. Itās a bit like an extremely high-stakes diplomatic land
acknowledgment.</p>
<p>Tenney is far from the only one on the Right thinking this way as
Israel rains death and destruction on the civilian population of Gaza
and pogroms by Israeli settlers terrorize Palestinians in the West Bank.
At a recent appearance at the Cambridge Union in the UK, conservative
pundit Ben Shapiro <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wyw7VpGcaHs">argued</a>
that Israel is āthe ultimate case of decolonization in human history
after return of a native population to its homeland and battle to throw
off the shackles of the British Empire.ā</p>
<p>Thereās surely an element of trolling in Shapiroās use of this
language. Since when does he care about ādecolonizationā anywhere else?
But heās deadly serious about his support for the status quo in
Israel/Palestine. He recently <a href="https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/1735671427573952704?lang=en">claimed</a>,
for example, that a Palestinian state would be an unacceptable
āterrorist entity on Israelās borders.ā And I seriously doubt that
Shapiro wants the five million or so Palestinians in the West Bank and
Gaza to be granted Israeli citizenship, which would make Israel no
longer a specifically āJewish stateā but a multiethnic democracy with
roughly equal numbers of Jewish and Palestinian citizens.</p>
<p>So presumably he wants those millions of people to continue to be
denied basic rights ā to continue to be tried in military courts instead
of real courts when theyāre accused of crimes, for example, and to
continue to be unable to vote their rulers out of office. And the
justification for that would have to be the one cited by Congresswoman
Tenney: Israelās āhistorical claimā to the land.</p>
<p>Thereās also a misguided ā and, I hope, relatively small ā segment of
Palestine solidarity activists who take the mirror image of this
position. Theyāre rightly horrified by the denial of democratic rights
to the Palestinians, and especially by the mass starvation and
indiscriminate bombing in Gaza, where the Israeli military has displaced
<a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/12/israel-working-expel-civilian-population-gaza-un-expert-warns">at least 85 percent</a>
of the population from their homes since October. This anger leads them
to indulge in ugly rhetoric about how the entire population of seven
million or so Israeli Jews, the great majority of whom were born in the
country, are āsettlersā and ācolonizers.ā Iāve seen social media posts,
for example, where pictures of stereotypically āwhiteā-looking Israeli
Jews with European-sounding surnames are used to mock the idea that
Israelis are āindigenous to the Middle East.ā</p>
<p>The implication happens to be wrong. On at least some estimates,
Ashkenazi Jews, whose ancestors once lived in Northern or Eastern
Europe, make up <a href="https://people.socsci.tau.ac.il/mu/noah/files/2018/07/Ethnic-origin-and-identity-in-Israel-JEMS-2018.pdf">less than a third</a>
of Israelās Jewish population. Theyāre greatly outnumbered by Israeli
Jews whose ancestors lived in various Middle Eastern countries during
the same time period and who often had to flee from those countries in
the twentieth century. But this kind of rhetoric isnāt just wrong
because itās based on a shaky understanding of the facts. Itās deeply
wrong in principle.</p>
<p>The great German socialist thinker August Bebel famously said that
antisemitism is āthe socialism of fools,ā since antisemites tend to
scapegoat cabals of āJewish bankersā for the problems of an entire
economic system. To tweak Bebelās observation a bit, this kind of
rhetoric about all Israelis being āsettlersā whose presence in their
country is illegitimate represents the <em>anti-Zionism of fools</em>. <a href="https://jacobin.com/2023/12/congress-anti-zionism-antisemitism-jewish-state">Zionism</a>
should be rejected because ethnostates are wrong in principle. No
nation-state should be a state āofā a specific ethnic or religious
subset of its residents, and the <a href="https://benburgis.substack.com/p/full-automated-palestinian-luxury">most just solution</a> would be a single secular democratic state with equal rights for everyone.</p>
<p>People who insist that Palestinians are āindigenousā and Israelis are
not, and who think this is what makes the struggle for Palestinian
rights legitimate, are embracing the logic of reactionaries like Tenney
and Shapiro while reversing the implication. The problem with the
Rightās claim that Israel is justified in denying basic rights to
millions of people because of historical Jewish claims to āJudea and
Samariaā is <em>not</em> that the right-wingers are misidentifying who
counts as ātrulyā indigenous. The wildly reactionary premise is that
this is even a relevant question.</p>
<p>The Iroquois Confederacy probably came together somewhere between five hundred and nine hundred years ago, depending on <a href="https://www.history.com/news/iroquois-confederacy-hiawatha-peacemaker-great-law-of-peace">which estimates</a> you believe. The tribes that made it up were already there before that, and presumably before <em>they</em>
were there, other groups lived in the same area. Humans have lived
there for about ten thousand years. It was wrong to displace the
Iroquois, and if their ancestors displaced some earlier group, that was
wrong too. Whatever injustices fill the history books, though, everyone
except for outright racists and fascists takes it for granted that
everyone who lives there now should have equal rights now, regardless of
any ethnic groupās āhistorical claims.ā The exact same principle should
apply to Israel/Palestine.</p>
<p>Even someone as rabidly right-wing as Tenney would presumably grant
that everyone in her district should have democratic rights, regardless
of whether their ancestors lived in the Iroquois Confederacy or their
great-great-grandparents came to New York from Ireland in the 1800s or
theyāre first-generation immigrants who take their citizenship test last
week. And anyone who can acknowledge <em>that</em> should also
recognize that no one in Israel/Palestine should be denied rights based
on their ancestors having lived in the wrong place ā whether āwrongā
ancestry means not being descended from ancient Judeans and Samarians or
not having great-great-grandparents who lived in Palestine before the
formation of the state of Israel.</p>
<p>The problem with Zionism is that itās obscene for anyoneās status or
rights in the area where they live to depend on their ethnicity or
religion or where their ancestors lived. Zionism should be rejected not
because we think Palestinians have a better claim than Israeli Jews to a
blood-and-soil connection to the land, but on the basis of the
universalist principles that have always formed the rock-solid normative
basis of the socialist movement and, before that, were proclaimed by
the French Revolutionaries in 1789.</p>
<p>Those principles say that everyone is entitled to the same package of
rights, just for being a human being. Socialists think that package
includes the right to have your material needs met and the right to have
a say in the economic decisions that touch your life. But even liberals
believe in a set of universal rights that are clearly inconsistent with
displacing anyone from their homes or denying anyone a democratic say
in the political institutions that govern them because they come from
the āwrongā ethnic background.</p>
<p>Many actually existing liberals are woefully inconsistent in their
application of these principles, especially when it comes to
Israel/Palestine. But the principles themselves are correct, and
sticking to them is the only way out of interminable and deadly land
feuds.</p>
<h4 class="wp-block-heading">Share this article</h4>
<h4 class="wp-block-heading">Contributor</h4>
<p>Ben Burgis is a Jacobin columnist, an adjunct philosophy professor at
Rutgers University, and the host of the YouTube show and podcast Give
Them An Argument. Heās the author of several books, most recently
Christopher Hitchens: What He Got Right, How He Went Wrong, and Why He
Still Matters.</p>
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<h3 class="sd-title">Share this:</h3><ul data-sharing-events-added="true"><li class="share-facebook"><a class="share-facebook sd-button share-icon" data-shared="sharing-facebook-35891" href="https://sudhan.wordpress.com/2024/03/08/no-ones-rights-should-depend-on-where-their-ancestors-lived/?share=facebook&nb=1" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="Click to share on Facebook"><span>Facebook</span></a></li><li class="share-twitter"><a class="share-twitter sd-button share-icon" data-shared="sharing-twitter-35891" href="https://sudhan.wordpress.com/2024/03/08/no-ones-rights-should-depend-on-where-their-ancestors-lived/?share=twitter&nb=1" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="Click to share on Twitter"><span>Twitter</span></a></li><li class="share-pinterest"><a class="share-pinterest sd-button share-icon" data-shared="sharing-pinterest-35891" href="https://sudhan.wordpress.com/2024/03/08/no-ones-rights-should-depend-on-where-their-ancestors-lived/?share=pinterest&nb=1" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="Click to share on Pinterest"><span>Pinterest</span></a></li><li class="share-linkedin"><a class="share-linkedin sd-button share-icon" data-shared="sharing-linkedin-35891" href="https://sudhan.wordpress.com/2024/03/08/no-ones-rights-should-depend-on-where-their-ancestors-lived/?share=linkedin&nb=1" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="Click to share on LinkedIn"><span>LinkedIn</span></a></li><li><a class="sharing-anchor sd-button share-more" href="https://sudhan.wordpress.com/2024/03/08/no-ones-rights-should-depend-on-where-their-ancestors-lived/#"><span>More</span></a></li></ul><p></p>Nasir Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16981781828241865509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963508092996469398.post-77170436973484465632024-03-07T20:53:00.004+01:002024-03-07T20:53:49.704+01:00 šš«š®š¦š© šØš§ šš¬š«ššš„āš¬ ššš³š šš„šš®š š”ššš«: āššØš®āšÆš ššØš ššØ š
š¢š§š¢š¬š” šš”š šš«šØšš„šš¦ā
<p><b>He didnāt elaborate on his position and focused on claiming the
October 7 attack wouldnāt have happened if he was still president</b></p>
<p>by Dave DeCamp, Antiwar. com, March 6, 2024</p>
<p>Former President Trump, the likely GOP candidate for the 2024
presidential election, said he supported Israelās brutal military
operations in Gaza in an interview with āFox & Friends on Tuesday.ā</p>
<p>Trump agreed when a host described him as being āfirmly in Israelās
camp.ā He was then asked if he was āon boardā with the way the Israeli
military was carrying out its campaign.</p>
<p>āYouāve got to finish the problem. You had a horrible invasion that
took place, that would have never happened if I was president, by the
way,ā Trump replied.</p>
<p>Trump did not elaborate on his position and only claimed the October 7
Hamas attack wouldnāt have happened if he was still president. When
asked whether or not he would support a ceasefire in Gaza, Trump said,
āLook, I hate seeing whatās happening. Again, it would have never
happened. This attack on Israel and, likewise, Israelās counter-attack,
which is what it is, would never have happened if I was president.ā</p>
<p>During his time in office, Trump was extremely pro-Israel and carried
out several policies to support Israeli claims to occupied land. His
administration recognized the Golan Heights as Israeli territory and
declared that illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank do not
violate international law.</p>
<p>Trumpās administration moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to
Jerusalem and unveiled a so-called āpeace planā that would have seen
Israel annex large swathes of the West Bank. Trump also brokered the
Abraham Accords, deals that resulted in Israel normalizing ties with the
UAE and Bahrain.</p>
<p>Trump has been relatively quiet on the campaign trail about the
Israeli slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza, but he is expected to
continue unconditional military support for Israel if he wins in
November. So far, nearly 31,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza
since October 7, and about two-thirds of the casualties are women and
children.<br />Author: Dave DeCamp</p>
<p>Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com</p>Nasir Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16981781828241865509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963508092996469398.post-38402135909239554622024-03-03T16:23:00.000+01:002024-03-03T16:23:15.715+01:00President Biden, why do you support genocide in Gaza?<p> <i>Since I last wrote to you, Mr President, I have lost another 184 members of my extended family in Gaza.</i></p><div class="article-info-block opinion-info-block css-ti04u9"><div class="article-b-l" style="border-color: rgb(250, 144, 0);"><ul class="article-author"><li class="article-author__item"><a class="article-author__link" href="https://www.aljazeera.com/author/ghada-ageel"><img alt="Ghada Ageel" class="article-author__image" height="60" src="https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Ghada-1699102185.jpg?resize=96%2C96&quality=80" width="60" /></a><div class="article-author__info"><div class="article-author__name"><a class="author-link" href="https://www.aljazeera.com/author/ghada-ageel">Ghada Ageel</a></div><div class="article-author__title">Professor of political science</div></div></li></ul><div class="article-dates" style="border-color: rgb(250, 144, 0);"><div class="date-simple css-1yjq2zp"><span class="screen-reader-text">Aljazeera, Published On 3 Mar 2024</span></div></div></div><div class="social-share-buttons"><a aria-label="Share on Facebook" class="social-share-button" href="https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Faje.io%2Fyeu988" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><svg aria-hidden="true" class="icon icon--facebook icon--social icon--24" viewbox="0 0 20 20"></svg></a></div></div><a aria-label="Share on Twitter" class="social-share-button" href="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=President%20Biden%2C%20why%20do%20you%20support%20genocide%20in%20Gaza%3F&source=sharethiscom&related=sharethis&via=AJEnglish&url=https%3A%2F%2Faje.io%2Fyeu988" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><svg aria-hidden="true" class="icon icon--twitter icon--social icon--24" viewbox="0 0 26 24"></svg></a><a aria-label="Share on Whatsapp" class="social-share-button u-hidden--desktop" href="whatsapp://send?text=https%3A%2F%2Faje.io%2Fyeu988" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><svg aria-hidden="true" class="icon icon--whatsapp icon--whatsapp-green icon--24" viewbox="0 0 20 20"></svg></a><a aria-label="Copy link" class="social-share-button copylink" href="https://aje.io/yeu988" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><span class="copylink__tooltip copylink__tooltip-hidden"></span><svg aria-hidden="true" class="icon icon--copylink icon--social icon--24" viewbox="0 0 27 24"><g fill-rule="evenodd" fill="none" id="icon/copy-link" stroke-width="1" stroke="none"><g fill-rule="nonzero" id="Group" transform="translate(-0, -0)"><g id="Group-2"></g></g></g></svg></a><svg aria-hidden="false" aria-label="Save to Reading list" class="icon icon--save icon--primary icon--24 update-reading-list__button" viewbox="0 0 18.5 24.5"></svg><div class="article-info-block opinion-info-block css-ti04u9"><div class="social-share-buttons"><div class="update-reading-list"><span aria-live="polite" class="update-reading-list__tooltip" role="tooltip"></span></div></div></div><figure class="article-featured-image"><div class="responsive-image"><img alt="A collage of photos of members of a family who have been killed by the Israeli army in Gaza" src="https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/family-1709454099.jpg?resize=770%2C513&quality=80" /></div><figcaption>A
collage of photos of Khaled, his wife Majdoleen, his brother, Mohammed,
daughter Sarah, son Anas, mother Fathiya, daughters Aya, Rafeef and
Malak, and son Osama - all killed by an Israeli attack on January 31,
2024 in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip [Courtesy of Ghada Ageel]</figcaption></figure><div aria-atomic="true" aria-live="polite" class="wysiwyg wysiwyg--all-content css-ibbk12"><p>Dear President Biden,</p>
<p>I am writing to you for the second time. I first wrote to you on
November 4 after 47 members of my community, including 36 from my own
family, were murdered in a single attack by the Israeli Occupation
Forces (IOF). The massacre occurred in Khan Younis refugee camp, located
in the southern region of the Gaza Strip, where people were supposed to
be safe, as claimed by your ally, Israel.</p>
<p>I am uncertain if my first <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/11/4/a-letter-to-president-biden-from-a-grieving-palestinian">letter</a> reached
you or if your media team made you aware of its contents. Either way,
you have not changed your position. Your unequivocal support for Israel,
including through large weapons transfers, means that many more such
massacres have been committed with your help since then.</p>
<p>Since writing that letter, I have lost another 220 members of my own family.</p>
<p>Just a month ago, on January 31, my fatherās cousin, Khaled Ammar,
40, who was displaced in Khan Younis, was killed alongside his entire
family when the place they were staying in was shelled by an Israeli
tank. Khaledās wife, Majdoleen, 38, their four daughters, Malak, 17,
Sarah, 16, Aya, 9, and Rafeef, 7, and their two sons, Osama, 14, and
Anas, 2, all perished in the attack.</p>
<p>Among the victims were also Khaledās disabled brother Mohammed, 42,
and their mother Fathiya, 60. Their bodies remained unburied for over a
week. Khaledās surviving brother, Bilal, 35, made repeated calls for
assistance to the Palestinian Red Cross Society, but they could not
dispatch a rescue team to look for survivors because the IOF did not
grant them permission.</p>
<p>Majdoleen and her two young daughters, Rafeef and Aya, came to see me
last summer when I visited Gaza. I still remember Rafeef trying to ride
the bike of my youngest niece, Rasha. I still remember them racing down
the street, eating the candy they had bought from the shop of my
cousin, Asaad. Their laughter still echoes in my ears.</p>
<p>But today, Mr President, there is no Aya, no Rafeef, no Asaad, who <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/11/4/a-letter-to-president-biden-from-a-grieving-palestinian">was also killed</a>
by the IOF along with his wife, children, mom, two sisters,
sister-in-law and their children. There are no roads, no homes, no
shops, no laughter. Only echoes of devastation and the deafening silence
of loss.</p>
<p>Today, the residential area of Khan Younis refugee camp I grew up in
is reduced to rubble. Tens of thousands of refugees, including all
surviving members of my extended family, are now displaced to al Mawasi
and Rafah. They are living in tents. They are not faring well, Mr
President.</p>
<p>I have not heard from them in a while, as Israel has cut off
communication. On February 10, my nephew, Aziz, 23, walked three
kilometres despite the danger to reach the edge of Rafah to use the
internet. He told me that death has passed by them many times but spared
them for now. They are hungry, thirsty, and cold.</p></div><main aria-label="Main content area" id="main-content-area" tabindex="-1"><div aria-atomic="true" aria-live="polite" class="wysiwyg wysiwyg--all-content css-ibbk12">
<p>There is no power, no sanitation, no medications, no communications,
or any services available to them, despite the International Court of
Justice ruling that Israel has to ensure the delivery of aid to Gaza.</p>
<p>If people do survive the Israeli bombs, they may not survive wounds
sustained in the Israeli bombardment and the explosion of communicable
and non-communicable diseases. The health care system has collapsed
under the Israeli onslaught.</p>
<p>In February, the IOF laid a siege on Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis,
the second-largest in the Gaza Strip. There were 300 medical staff
trapped in the hospital alongside 450 patients and about 10,000
internally displaced persons seeking refuge within or in the hospitalās
vicinity.</p>
<p>For days, the IOF would not let a rescue team from the World Health
Organization (WHO) evacuate patients and staff or deliver much-needed
food, medical supplies and fuel. Throughout this time, the medical staff
demonstrated remarkable courage and dedication to their patients,
trying to keep them alive in the face of the Israeli attacks. Dr Amira
Al Assouli, who rushed under Israeli fire to aid one of the wounded in
the hospital courtyard is one bright example.</p>
<p>Countless people who sought shelter in the hospital premises were
killed or wounded; some of these murders were recorded on camera.</p>
<p>On February 13, the IOF sent a young man named Jamal Abu Al Ola, whom
Israeli soldiers had detained and tortured, to the hospital to tell the
Palestinians sheltering there to leave. Wearing a white PPE garment and
with his hands bound, he delivered the message and then ā as instructed
ā headed towards the gate of the hospital, but was shot dead. His
execution was documented by a journalist at the hospital and released to
the public.</p>
<p>Will you order an investigation, Mr President? Will you demand that
those responsible for the killing of Jamal and the many others at Nasser
Hospital be punished or will you accept the IOFās version of events
again?</p>
<p>On February 15, the IOF raided the hospital, expelling thousands of
people amid heavy bombardment and forcibly disappearing hundreds ā at
least 70 of them medical workers. This continues a pattern started in
Gaza City. When the IOF raided Al Shifa Hospital, it detained some of
its staff, among them, Dr Mohammed Abu Salmiya, the hospital director,
who remains in Israeli jail. The excuse then, as now, is that they were
hunting for a Hamas command centre ā a false narrative, you, Mr
President, readily embraced.</p>
<p>During the raid of Nasser Hospital, the cutting off of electricity and oxygen resulted <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/22/israeli-siege-turns-gazas-nasser-hospital-into-a-place-of-death">in the deaths</a> of at least eight patients. When a WHO team was finally allowed to enter the hospital, its staffers <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/22/israeli-siege-turns-gazas-nasser-hospital-into-a-place-of-death" target="_blank">described it</a>
as āa place of deathā. After the evacuation of hundreds of patients,
some 25 medical staffers stayed behind to care for the remaining 120
patients in the hospital without a secured supply of food, water or
medications.</p>
<p>Among the regular patients of Nasser Hospital was my relative,
Inshirah, who suffered from kidney failure and required dialysis every
week. She lived in the Al Qararah area, east of Khan Younis.</p>
<p>When the IOF bombed her area, she moved to a camp for displaced
people. When the IOF attacked the camp, she moved to Hay al Amal. When
the latter was bombed, her children decided to move her to the vicinity
of Nasser Hospital.</p>
<p>As the conditions at the hospital deteriorated, the frequency of her
dialysis sessions was reduced to once every 2 weeks and then to once
every 3 weeks, causing her significant suffering. When the IOF besieged
the hospital, Inshirah was forced to leave. Then we lost contact with
her and her children. We do not know if she has survived.</p>
<p>The vast majority of chronically ill people like Inshirah cannot
access proper health care after Israelās systematic destruction of
Gazaās health care system. This is a death sentence for them. Destroying
a health care system is a war crime, did you know that, Mr President?</p>
<p>Mr President, 2.3 million people in Gaza are living in a
concentration camp. They are starved and killed relentlessly. They are
bombed in their homes, on the streets, while collecting water, while
sleeping in their tents, while receiving aid, and even while cooking. In
Gaza, people tell me that drinking water costs blood, a loaf of bread
is dipped in blood, and moving from place to place means bleeding.</p>
<p>Even the act of seeking food to feed your children can kill you ā as
happened to many parents on February 28. Some 112 Palestinians <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/1/flour-massacre-how-gaza-food-killings-unfolded-and-israels-story-changed">were murdered</a> by the IOF as they tried to get flour to feed themselves and their families.</p>
<p>Their deaths are painfully real. As were the deaths of small babies
like Anas, children like Aya, mothers like Majdoleen, and the elderly
like Fathiya. There are among the more than 30,000 that have been
recorded in the official death toll; many more thousands have perished
but are recorded as āmissingā.</p>
<p>Some 13,000 of the murdered are children. Many are now dying of
starvation. Israel is killing 6 children an hour. Each of these children
had a name, a story, and a dream that is never to be fulfilled. Do the
children of Gaza not deserve life, Mr President?</p>
<p>The Palestinians are among the most educated nations in the entire
Middle East. They are a very curious people. Their most burning question
they all have today is, āwhyā? Why do the Palestinian people have to
endure genocide at the hands of your ally, carried out with your weapons
and money, while you refuse to call for a ceasefire? Can you tell us
why, Mr President?</p>
<p class="p2"></p>
</div></main><hr /><ul class="article-author"><li class="article-author__item"><a class="article-author__link" href="https://www.aljazeera.com/author/ghada-ageel"><img alt="Ghada Ageel" class="article-author__image" height="60" src="https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Ghada-1699102185.jpg?resize=96%2C96&quality=80" width="60" /></a><div class="article-author__info"><div class="article-author__name"><a class="author-link" href="https://www.aljazeera.com/author/ghada-ageel">Ghada Ageel</a></div><div class="article-author__name"> </div><div class="article-author__title">Professor of political science</div><div class="article-author__title"> </div><div class="article-author__desc css-1wt8oh6">Dr
Ghada Ageel is a third-generation Palestinian refugee and is currently a
visiting professor at the department of political science at the
University of Alberta situated at amiskwaciwĆ¢skahikan (Edmonton), Treaty
6 territory in Canada</div></div></li></ul>Nasir Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16981781828241865509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963508092996469398.post-49964040956894831542024-03-02T21:53:00.000+01:002024-03-02T21:53:26.094+01:00Just Two US Lawmakers Sign International Statement Demanding Arms Embargo on Israel<p> <img alt="Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Cori Bush" src="https://www.commondreams.org/media-library/reps-rashida-tlaib-and-cori-bush.jpg?id=51620293&width=1200&height=400&quality=90&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C530" /></p>
<p>U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) speaks alongside Rep. Cori Bush
(D-Mo.) at a press conference on December 7, 2023 in Washington, D.C.</p>
<p>(Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)</p>
<h1 class="wp-block-heading"></h1>
<h2 class="wp-block-heading">āWe will not be complicit in Israelās grave
violation of international law,ā reads a statement backed by more than
200 legislators from 13 countries.</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.commondreams.org/author/jake-johnson">Jake Johnson</a>, Common Dreams, Mar 02, 2024</p>
<p></p>
<p>More than 200 lawmakers from 13 countries issued a <a href="https://progressive.international/wire/2024-03-01-we-will-not-be-complicit-in-israels-grave-violation-of-international-law/en" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">joint statement</a>
Friday expressing opposition to their nationsā weapons exports to
Israel and pledging to do everything in their power to halt the flow of
arms that are being used to massacre Palestinians in <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/tag/gaza">Gaza.</a></p>
<p>āWe, the undersigned parliamentarians, declare our commitment to end
our nationsā arms sales to the state of Israel,ā reads the statement,
which was coordinated by Progressive International. āOur bombs and
bullets must not be used to kill, maim, and dispossess Palestinians. But
they are: We know that lethal weapons and their parts, made or shipped
through our countries, currently aid the Israeli assault on <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/tag/palestine">Palestine</a> that has claimed over 30,000 lives across Gaza and the West Bank.ā</p>
<p>The statementās signatories include legislators from Israelās top
allies and weapons suppliers, including the United States, Germany, the
United Kingdom, France, and Canada. Just two U.S. lawmakersāReps. <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/tag/rashida-tlaib">Rashida Tlaib</a> (D-Mich.) and <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/tag/cori-bush">Cori Bush</a> (D-Mo.)ābacked the statement.</p>
<p>The statement includes six signatories from Germany, which is facing an International Court of Justice (ICJ) <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/icj-israel" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">case</a> alleging complicity in genocide against Palestinians.</p>
<p>The lawmakers argued that an arms embargo on Israel is both āa moral necessityā and āa legal requirement,ā given the ICJās <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/watch-live-international-court-of-justice-delivers-ruling-in-israel-genocide-case" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">interim ruling</a> in late January.</p>
<p>āWe will not be complicit in Israelās grave violation of
international law,ā the statement reads. āThe ICJ ordered Israel not to
kill, harm or ādeliberately [inflict] on the [Palestinians] conditions
of life calculated to bring aboutā¦ physical destruction.ā They have
refused. Instead, they press on with a planned assault on Rafah that the
secretary-general of the United Nations has warned will āexponentially
increase what is already a humanitarian nightmare.'ā</p>
<p>āToday, we take a stand,ā the statement continues. āWe will take
immediate and coordinated action in our respective legislatures to stop
our countries from arming Israel.ā</p>
<p>Niki Ashton, a member of Canadaās Parliament and a statement
signatory, noted on social media that the Canadian government has
approved $28 million worth of weapons exports to Israel since its latest
assault on Gaza began in October.</p>
<p>āThat is horrifying,ā Ashton wrote. āWhich is why I along with Jeremy
Corbyn and 200+ parliamentarians across the world are backing
[Progressive Internationalās] call for a ban on arms exports to Israel.ā</p>
<p>āMake no mistake. These weapons are directly used to kill and maim
starving Palestinians,ā she added. āAs Canadians, we can no longer claim
to respect international law while sending arms to a country involved
in genocidal acts. Enough is enough.ā</p>
<p>2</p>
<p>The statement was released amid global outrage over whatās been
dubbed the āflour massacre.ā On early Thursday morning, Israeli forces
opened fire on a crowd of Gazans that surrounded an aid convoy in the
northern part of the territory, which has been largely cut off from
humanitarian assistance.</p>
<p>Israelās military <a href="https://twitter.com/IDF/status/1763192520790458664" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">claimed</a>
dozens were killed and injured in a stampede, but witness accounts and
video footage show that Israeli forces fired on Gazans as they
desperately tried to get their hands on sacks of flour. One Gaza doctor <a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-news-03-01-2024-86ab114fc0036d0b4fa5a69ed21964c6" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">said</a> that 80% of the patients treated at his hospital in the wake of the attack had gunshot wounds, an account <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/mar/02/middle-east-crisis-israel-gaza-latest-news-updates-live?page=with:block-65e2c57c8f083e1fa9bce15a#block-65e2c57c8f083e1fa9bce15a" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">corroborated</a> by United Nations teams and rights groups on the ground.</p>
<p>āWitness testimonies obtained by our field researchers and videos <a href="https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1501266807398556" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">shared</a>
on social media documenting the events, clearly and unequivocally
demonstrate that the crowd was hit by bullets coming from Israeli tanks
and snipers,ā Palestinian human rights organizations said in a <a href="https://www.mezan.org/en/post/46391/%E2%80%98Flour-Massacre%E2%80%99:-Impunity-Persists-as-Israeli-Forces-Open-Fire-On-Starving-Palestinians-Seeking-Vital-Aid%27" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">statement</a> Thursday.</p>
<p>A day after the deadly attack, U.S. President Joe Biden <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/bernie-sanders-israel-2667410239" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">announced plans</a> to airdrop humanitarian aid into Gaza as ground deliveries <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/02/1146947" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">plummet</a>.</p>
<p>The U.S. president said he would āinsist that Israel facilitate more
trucks and more routesā for ground shipments, but he didnāt promise to
impose consequences if the Israeli government continues <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/israel-violating-icj-order" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">obstructing humanitarian assistance</a>.</p>
<p>āUnbelievable,ā Agnes Callamard, secretary-general of <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/tag/amnesty-international">Amnesty International</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/AgnesCallamard/status/1763716225962508473" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">wrote</a>
following Bidenās announcement. āThere is a serious risk of genocide
and in response the U.S. is proposing to airdrop supplies, while
continuing to arm the perpetrator.ā</p>
<p>Late last month, dozens of U.N. experts <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/un-arms-exports-israel" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">called for an immediate arms embargo</a>
on Israel, warning that āany transfer of weapons or ammunition to
Israel that would be used in Gaza is likely to violate international
humanitarian law and must cease immediately.ā</p>
<p>āState officials involved in arms exports may be individually
criminally liable for aiding and abetting any war crimes, crimes against
humanity, or acts of genocide,ā the experts said.</p>Nasir Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16981781828241865509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963508092996469398.post-84976457189343781552024-02-21T12:57:00.000+01:002024-02-21T12:57:08.628+01:00US Vetoes Another Gaza Ceasefire Resolution at the UN Security Council<p><b> <em>The US was the only member of the Council to vote against the call for a humanitarian ceasefire</em></b></p>
<p> <a href="https://news.antiwar.com/author/dave_decamp/">by Dave DeCamp</a> , Antiwar, com, February 20, 2024 </p>
<p>The US on Tuesday<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/20/politics/un-gaza-ceasefire-algeria-resolution-vote-intl/index.html"> vetoed a resolution at the UN Security Council</a> that called for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. It marked the third time the US used its veto power on the Council to block a call for an end to the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians.</p>
<p>The US was the only member to vote against the resolution, which was introduced by Algeria. The UK abstained, and all 13 other members voted in favor of the measure.</p>
<p>US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield slammed the Algerian effort after the vote.</p>
<p>āProceeding with a vote today was wishful and irresponsible, and so while we cannot support a resolution that would put sensitive negotiations in jeopardy, we look forward to engaging on a text that we believe will address so many of the concerns we all share,ā Thomas-Greenfield said.</p>
<p>Thomas-Greenfield claims the resolution would disrupt US efforts to push for a hostage deal, but thereās no sign any progress is being made. Qatarās prime minister, who is mediating, said over the weekend that the negotiations<a href="https://news.antiwar.com/2024/02/18/qatari-pm-says-israel-hamas-hostage-talks-not-very-promising/"> are ānot very promising,ā</a> and Israel declined to attend the last round of in-person talks with US, Qatari, and Egyptian officials.</p>
<p>The US is <a href="https://news.antiwar.com/2024/02/19/us-drafts-its-own-gaza-un-resolution-after-threatening-to-veto-ceasefire/">drafting its own resolution</a> that calls for a ātemporary ceasefireā if Hamas releases the hostages, which is essentially Israelās position. The US resolution leaves open the possibility of Israel restarting military operations after the truce.</p>
<p>So far, the Israeli slaughter has killed <a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-news-02-19-2024-81c2d362340b611a98e4b929b4b5d0a4">more than 29,000 Palestinians</a> and wounded over 69,000. About two-thirds of the casualties are women and children. Despite the massive civilian casualty rate, the US continues to provide unconditional support and is <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/war-gaza-us-send-weapons-israel-while-pushing-ceasefire">preparing to send more bombs.</a></p>
Nasir Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16981781828241865509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963508092996469398.post-68016981966900280692024-02-18T14:21:00.000+01:002024-02-18T14:21:03.147+01:00šš„š„ šš¬š«ššš„š¢ š«š®š„šš«š¬ š”ššÆš ššØš„š„šØš°šš šš”š š¬šš¦š š šØšš„<p><i> </i><span class="x193iq5w xeuugli x13faqbe x1vvkbs x1xmvt09 x1lliihq x1s928wv xhkezso x1gmr53x x1cpjm7i x1fgarty x1943h6x xudqn12 x3x7a5m x6prxxf xvq8zen xo1l8bm xzsf02u" dir="auto"><i>This brief piece is from last year, Feb. 18, 2023</i></span></p><p><span class="x193iq5w xeuugli x13faqbe x1vvkbs x1xmvt09 x1lliihq x1s928wv xhkezso x1gmr53x x1cpjm7i x1fgarty x1943h6x xudqn12 x3x7a5m x6prxxf xvq8zen xo1l8bm xzsf02u" dir="auto"><i> </i></span><img alt="May be an image of 7 people and street" class="x85a59c x193iq5w x4fas0m x19kjcj4" data-visualcompletion="media-vc-image" src="https://scontent.fosl1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/428633563_7191614410926503_9198167666056425185_n.jpg?_nc_cat=103&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=3635dc&_nc_ohc=O0GIoEswuMgAX8AZZS2&_nc_ht=scontent.fosl1-1.fna&oh=00_AfAASoKyB1U4FG92aS-87i3Z1zv1SaeBZ_tmFtR-K7cLNQ&oe=65D72DA2" /><span class="x193iq5w xeuugli x13faqbe x1vvkbs x1xmvt09 x1lliihq x1s928wv xhkezso x1gmr53x x1cpjm7i x1fgarty x1943h6x xudqn12 x3x7a5m x6prxxf xvq8zen xo1l8bm xzsf02u" dir="auto"><i></i> <br /><br />--Nasir Khan<br /><br />What
one can say with certainty about the Zionist rulers of Israel is that
they have followed a systematic and consistent policy that was aimed at
ethnically cleansing and marginalizing the Palestinians. That was their
way to establish a colonial power in the Middle East that would expand
its power and influence to other parts of the world. Their biggest prize
was to control the political establishment of the United States. Other
Western powers bowed to them and have dutifully followed their lead.</span></p><p><span class="x193iq5w xeuugli x13faqbe x1vvkbs x1xmvt09 x1lliihq x1s928wv xhkezso x1gmr53x x1cpjm7i x1fgarty x1943h6x xudqn12 x3x7a5m x6prxxf xvq8zen xo1l8bm xzsf02u" dir="auto"> <br />Have
they failed or succeeded in their goals? If the success of a policy is
to be judged from what it achieved, then the Zionist rulers of Israel
have succeeded superbly well. No Zionist ruler of Israel has deviated
from the original goals. Internal political struggles between the
parties have been only for gaining power; otherwise, they all have
followed the same course of gradual colonization, expansion and
consolidation of their power. </span></p>Nasir Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16981781828241865509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963508092996469398.post-57926373703919044982024-02-10T12:17:00.001+01:002024-02-10T12:17:20.198+01:00šš”š ššš”š§š¢š šš„ššš§š¬š¢š§š šØš ššš„šš¬šš¢š§š<p> This short piece I wrote in 2019. Some people may find it useful to
understand the background to the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza and
killings and terror against the Palestinians of the occupied West Bank.</p>
<p></p>
<p>ā Nasir Khan</p>
<p>What do we mean by the ethnic cleansing of Palestine? What do we mean
by the ethnic cleansing of Palestine? In my understanding, the notion
of ethnic cleansing of Palestine covers all those major historic events
and the policies that were used to take possession of the land of other
people. What happened and how it happened at the hands of Zionists is
part of the story historians call the ethnic cleansing of Palestine
(e.g. Ilan Pappe, Richard Falk, etc.).</p>
<p>The Palestinians who opted to become the citizens of Israel had no
choice but to accept that a foreign power had taken over their land. If
they didnāt like it, then they could follow others who were forcibly
driven out of historic Palestine and had become refugees in the
neighbouring countries.</p>
<p>However, ethnic cleansing here does not imply that all Palestinians
were physically eliminated. Some were killed. This is still going on in
the occupied territories, as we saw in Gaza in the summer of 2014 and
many times after. But this is part of the Israeli strategy to suppress
any voice that stands for the restitution of the political rights of
these people to their land, by expropriating and confiscating more land
that is still in the hands of Palestinians. This is an incremental
Israeli expansion in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and keeping Gaza
under siege. All this has been happening because of the Western rulersā
support of Israel and its expansionist policy, chiefly by the United
States, Britain and their global allies.</p>Nasir Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16981781828241865509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963508092996469398.post-31713365724629435562024-02-06T16:43:00.001+01:002024-02-06T16:43:42.302+01:00āāš š„ šš¦š¤š„ āšš¤š¤šššā: šø āš šš ššŖ āššš šøšš¦ āššš<p> </p><figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><a href="https://sudhan.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/417413178_7145099018911376_2628883467627847_n.jpg"><img alt="" class="wp-image-35847" data-attachment-id="35847" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-caption="" data-image-description="" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="417413178_7145099018911376_2628883467627847_n" data-large-file="https://sudhan.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/417413178_7145099018911376_2628883467627847_n.jpg?w=450" data-medium-file="https://sudhan.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/417413178_7145099018911376_2628883467627847_n.jpg?w=300" data-orig-file="https://sudhan.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/417413178_7145099018911376_2628883467627847_n.jpg" data-orig-size="1920,1080" data-permalink="https://sudhan.wordpress.com/2024/02/06/%e2%84%95%f0%9d%95%a0%f0%9d%95%a5-%f0%9d%95%81%f0%9d%95%a6%f0%9d%95%a4%f0%9d%95%a5-%e2%84%99%f0%9d%95%92%f0%9d%95%a4%f0%9d%95%a4%f0%9d%95%9a%f0%9d%95%9f%f0%9d%95%98-%f0%9d%94%b8/417413178_7145099018911376_2628883467627847_n/" height="576" src="https://sudhan.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/417413178_7145099018911376_2628883467627847_n.jpg?w=1024" width="1024" /></a></figure>
<p>Hiba Abu Nada was a Palestinian poet, novelist, and educator. Her
novel Ų§ŁŲ£ŁŲ³Ų¬ŁŁ ŁŁŲ³ ŁŁŁ
ŁŲŖŁ (Oxygen is Not for the Dead) won second place
in the Sharjah Award for Arab Creativity in 2017. She was killed in her
home in the Gaza Strip by an Israeli airstrike on October 20, 2023. She
was 32.</p>
<p>ā</p>
<h5 class="wp-block-heading">š”š¼š šššš š£š®ššš¶š»š“</h5>
<p><strong>Hiba Abu Nada</strong></p>
<p>Translated by Huda Fakhreddine</p>
<p>Yesterday, a star said</p>
<p>to the little light in my heart,</p>
<p>We are not just transients</p>
<p>passing.</p>
<p>Do not die. Beneath this glow</p>
<p>some wanderers go on</p>
<p>walking.</p>
<p>You were first created out of love,</p>
<p>so carry nothing but love</p>
<p>to those who are trembling.</p>
<p>One day, all gardens sprouted</p>
<p>from our names, from what remained</p>
<p>of hearts yearning.</p>
<p>And since it came of age, this ancient language</p>
<p>has taught us how to heal others</p>
<p>with our longing,</p>
<p>how to be a heavenly scent</p>
<p>to relax their tightening lungs: a welcome sigh,</p>
<p>a gasp of oxygen.</p>
<p>Softly, we pass over wounds,</p>
<p>like purposeful gauze, a hint of relief,</p>
<p>an aspirin.</p>
<p>O little light in me, donāt die,</p>
<p>even if all the galaxies of the world</p>
<p>close in.</p>
<p>O little light in me, say:</p>
<p>Enter my heart in peace.</p>
<p>All of you, come in!</p>
<p>ā</p>
<p>Hiba Abu Nada was a poet, novelist, and educator. You can also read
her poem āRefugeā at Protean in Huda Fakhreddineās translation.</p>
<p>Huda Fakhreddine is Associate Professor of Arabic literature at the
University of Pennsylvania. She is a writer, a translator, and the
author of several scholarly books.</p>Nasir Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16981781828241865509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963508092996469398.post-51450877291295266712024-02-06T11:14:00.002+01:002024-02-06T13:04:51.071+01:00Many Jews and Jewish Organizations Recognized the Dangers of Zionism. They Were Right <p> <img alt="Chaim Weizmann and Lord Montagu of the Zionist Commission, 1917." aria-label="Chaim Weizmann and Lord Montagu of the Zionist Commission, 1917." class="rm-lazyloadable-image rm-hero-media" height="400" role="img" src="https://www.commondreams.org/media-library/chaim-weizmann-and-lord-montagu-of-the-zionist-commission-1917.jpg?id=51351581&width=1200&height=400&quality=90&coordinates=0%2C205%2C0%2C214" style="object-fit: cover;" width="1200" /></p><p>The
American Jewish Committee, going back to 1917 in the United States,
expressed grave warnings that a Jewish state could oppress non-Jews in
Palestine.</p><div class="wrap" id="sPost_Layout_Default_0_0_4_0_0_11_0_1"><div class="mb-2 lead_post_share_social singleAuthorPost" id="sPost_Layout_Default_0_0_4_0_0_11_0_1_0"><div class="posts-custom posts-custom-section section-holder clearfix" 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data-category="Opinion" data-frozen-sections="[]"><div class="row px10"><div class="rm-col-center col sm-mb-1" style="width: 100%;"><div class="widget__head"></div><div class="widget__body clearfix sm-mt-1"><div class="snark-line"><div class="singleAuthor"><div class="social-author clearfix"><div class="social-author__avatar image"><div class="cover-all image" style="background-image: url(https://www.commondreams.org/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8zMTk4NTQwMS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTczMDM5NDIyN30.jt0CQhhWCQgUKlRi-bN_BYP7rdkHbORRC9GOcvh20nQ/image.jpg?width=210);"></div></div><a class="social-author__name rm-stats-tracked" data-type="text" href="https://www.commondreams.org/author/abba-solomon">Abba Solomon, Common Dreams, Feb 5, 2024<br /></a><div class="social-date"><a class="rm-stats-tracked" href="https://www.commondreams.org"><br /></a></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></article></div></div></div></div></div><div class="wrap" id="sPost_Layout_Default_0_0_4_0_0_11"><div class="lead_post_body_main" id="sPost_Layout_Default_0_0_4_0_0_11_0"><div class="wrap" id="sPost_Layout_Default_0_0_4_0_0_11_0_1"><div class="mb-2 lead_post_share_social singleAuthorPost" id="sPost_Layout_Default_0_0_4_0_0_11_0_1_0"><div class="posts-custom posts-custom-section section-holder clearfix" 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They Were Right"><div class="body-description"><p>Jewish
organizations that now are staunch supporters of the Israeli state were
concerned with the same issues that Palestinians protest now. </p><p>At
the November 1917 issuance of the Balfour Declaration of the British
government in favor of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, many American
Jewish Committee members and officers had observed that, if successful,
the goal of a Jewish state to rule the multi-ethnic land of Palestine
would lead to oppression of non-Jews.</p><p>In an April 1918 executive
committee meeting considering the declaration, a member noted the goal
of the AJC to protect civil and religious rights of Jews living as
minorities around the world, and worried that a Jewish state could
oppress non-Jews:</p><blockquote>If a national home in Palestine be
established, it may be that there too the good offices of this Committee
may become necessary to protect a minority against an arrogant
majority.</blockquote><p>In 1919, AJC President Louis Marshall asserted
an AJC statement on the Balfour declaration had been definitive in
rejecting political Zionism:</p><blockquote>In April last the American
Jewish Committee defined its position in terms which could not be
misunderstood, which indicated that, while it hailed with satisfaction
the Balfour Declaration, it did so because of the two conditions
annexed, namely, that it would not affect the rights of the non-Jewish
inhabitants of Palestine and that it was not to be regarded as in any
way affecting the status of Jews who lived in other lands.</blockquote><p>In
September 1946, when the organization reluctantly adopted a
pro-partition position and began lobbying the UN and US government, AJC
President Joseph Proskauer told his board, āThe so-called Jewish State
is not to be called by that name but will bear some appropriate
geographical designation. It will be Jewish only in the sense that the
Jews will form a majority of the population.ā</p><p class="pull-quote">Mainstream
Jewish organizations knew endless violence and oppression would result
from imposing a Jewish state in Palestine against the stated wishes of
its non-Jewish inhabitants.</p><p>The pernicious results of insisting on
forcing Jewish sovereignty over Palestineāand necessarily disrupting
Arab life thereāwas well understood within the Jewish organizations and
in the general press. </p><p>In November 1939, Louis D. Brandeis
objected to a planned visit to the United States by Zionist leader Chaim
Weizmann: "He (Brandeis) believed the whole thing was a mistake. He was
afraid Weizmann would press his plan for political action, based on a
future re-shuffling of populations."</p><p>In a February 1940 meeting
with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Weizman said that "of course they
(Jews) would compensate the Arabs in a reasonable way for anything they
got," creating a Jewish Palestine and incentivizing Arabs to leave.</p><p>Historian
George Antonius wrote in the widely-read book The Arab Awakening (1939)
that āthe logic of facts is inexorable. It shows that no room can be
made in Palestine for a second nation except by dislodging or
exterminating the nation in possession.ā</p><p>Journalist I.F. Stone
wrote on a 1945 visit to Palestine, āWithout the Zionist movement, what
has been achieved in Palestine would never have come to pass. ā¦But the
strength associated with such a movement also has its corresponding
defects, and the defects of Zionism are its failure to take into account
the feelings and aspirations of the Palestinian Arab.ā</p><p>A November
1947 CIA memo noted, "many [American] Zionist organizations, while
supporting the objectives of a National Home for Jews, do not advocate
an independent Jewish nation in Palestine."</p><p>In a public letter,
Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt, and others stated that in the years up
to statehood, Jewish terrorists "inaugurated a reign of terror in the
Palestine Jewish community. Teachers were beaten up for speaking against
them, adults were shot for not letting their children join them. By
gangster methods, beatings, window-smashing, and widespread robberies,
the terrorists intimidated the population and exacted a heavy tribute."</p><p><i>Commentary</i>
monthly magazine (then published by the AJC) reported in March 1948,
"The terrorists defeated us," British officers admit. "We couldn't track
them down. The Jewish population was too frightened of them to help
us."</p><p>The AJC knew, from news reports and its on-scene
correspondent in Palestine, of the militant fervor that was building for
a Jewish state among the Zionist component.</p><p>Radical Zionist
militias engaged in increasing violence against Arabs, British mandate
administrators, and insufficiently-Zionist Jews in Palestine. Zionist
terrorism spread to incidents like the 1944 assassination of British
administrator Lord Moyne in Cairo, the 1946 bombing of the King David
Hotel in Jerusalem, and attacks on Arab communities, markets and busses.
The terrorism spread abroad to bombing of British facilities in
Rome(1946) and Vienna and a British troop train(1947).</p><p>In December
1947 AJC analyst Milton Himmelfarb wrote that one reason for the AJC
change of position to favor partition of Palestine was that āThe
terrorists' activities in Palestine, and the posterings and mouthings of
their supporters here and abroad, led a number of AJC people to wonder
whether a Jewish state was the chief enemy. They began to feel that
after the state was created, the daily papers in New York at least would
no longer carry headlines screaming of King David Hotel explosions and
hangings of British sergeants; in short, ābetter an evil end than an
endless evil.āā</p><p>On the cusp of the implementation of the partition
plan, one AJC analysis of the coming "Zionization" of Jews in the
United States warned diaspora Jews would be enlisted to the Zionist
cause "beyond any consideration of good or evil."</p><p>Terrorist leader
and future Israeli Prime Minister Yitzchak Shamir led the September
1948 assassination of UN mediator Count Folke Bernadotte in Jerusalem ā
to foil the diplomatās efforts to encourage compromise on land taken by
Israel beyond the partition plan, and return of Arab refugees forced
from the new State of Israel.</p><p>In a draft section that was removed
from a February 15, 1948, speech that chairman (and future AJC
president) Jacob Blaustein gave on the subject of Palestine partition,
he reported "terrorist groups of Palestinian Jews took the offensive"
and that "If Partition fails, it is more than likely that these Jewish
extremists will resort to terrorism and violence in spite of efforts to
control them."</p><p>In the years since, the AJC and other mainstream
Jewish organizations have given up any notion of restraining Jewish
nationalist ambitions, abandoned concern they had for the right of
return of Palestinians exiled from their homes, and serve in the US as
defenders of whatever military power the Israeli government exercises
against the non-Jewish people of Palestine.</p><p>American Jewish
leaders increasingly took their cues from Israel, and by 1953 the AJC
set up a program of pro-Israeli propaganda, being fed by the Israeli
consul in New York obvious falsehoods such as that Israel was a "feat of
colonization unique in history, which was accomplished without
displacing anyone."</p><p>Mainstream Jewish organizations knew endless
violence and oppression would result from imposing a Jewish state in
Palestine against the stated wishes of its non-Jewish inhabitants. This
has proved accurate, most recently in Israel's methodical destruction of
the means of life for millions in Gaza, and increasing state and
settler terror against residents of the occupied West Bank.</p><div class="horizontal-rule"></div><p><i>[Above citations are from the author's book: <a class="rm-stats-tracked" href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1257010735" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The
Speech, and Its Context: Jacob Blausteinās Speech, āThe Meaning of
Palestine Partition to American Jews,ā Given to the Baltimore Chapter,
American Jewish Committee, February 15, 1948</a>]</i></p></div></div><span data-authors="Abba Solomon" data-elid="2667171231" data-headline="Many Jews and Jewish Organizations Recognized the Dangers of Zionism. They Were Right" data-page-title="Many Jews and Jewish Organizations Recognized the Dangers of Zionism. They Were Right | Common Dreams" data-post-url="https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/jewish-organizations-against-zionism"></span></div></div></div></article></div></div></div></div></div><div class="creative_common_work actz" id="sPost_Layout_Default_0_0_4_0_0_11_0_2">
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely. </div><div class="creative_common_work actz" id="sPost_Layout_Default_0_0_4_0_0_11_0_2">- <br /></div></div></div><div class="wrap authors_post_block" id="sPost_Layout_Default_0_0_4_0_0_12"><div class="mb-2 lead_post_tags_seo mobile_social_links" id="sPost_Layout_Default_0_0_4_0_0_12_0"><div class="posts-custom posts-custom-section section-holder clearfix" data-attr-all_element_order="author,body,tags,post_shares,section,headline,community_name,date,subheadline,badges,badges_sponsored,photo_credit,photo_caption,snark_line,page_views,date_modified,follow_button,community_comments,like_button,source_link,collection_button,primary_tag,main_author,all_sections,product_prices,product_vendor,product_buy_link,words_count,time_to_read,custom_field_sourceprofilename,site_field_user_twitter,site_field_job_title,site_field_user_email,custom_field_contact_info,custom_field_location,custom_field_organization_phone,custom_field_organization_website,custom_field_organization_twitter,custom_field_organization_fb,custom_field_organization_instagram,custom_field_press_button_link,custom_field_action_button_link,custom_field_copywrite_line,site_field_user_affiliation,site_field_gender,site_field_alumniOf_name,site_field_alumniOf_url,site_field_knows_about,site_field_other_profiles,site_field_worksfor_name,site_field_worksfor_url,custom_field_source_text,custom_field_discourse_post_id,custom_field_discourse_post_url" data-attr-all_share_buttons="Facebook,Twitter,Flipboard,Reddit,CopyLink,Pinterest,Tumblr,Email,SMS,Separator,GooglePlus,Linkedin,Whatsapp,Slack" data-attr-element_classes="lead_post_tags_seo mobile_social_links" data-attr-filters="section,post_body_pager" data-attr-format="posts-custom" data-attr-from_regular_sections_other_than="breaking-news,about-us" data-attr-header_template="jinja/post/custom-css.html" data-attr-is_current_post="true" data-attr-layout_all_headline_tag="h1" data-attr-layout_all_subheadline_tag="h2" data-attr-layout_author="bottom" data-attr-layout_body="bottom" data-attr-layout_copylink="active" data-attr-layout_email="inactive" data-attr-layout_flipboard="active" data-attr-layout_googleplus="inactive" data-attr-layout_linkedin="inactive" data-attr-layout_pinterest="active" data-attr-layout_post_shares="bottom" data-attr-layout_quality="1" data-attr-layout_reddit="active" data-attr-layout_remove_image="true" data-attr-layout_separator="inactive" data-attr-layout_slack="inactive" data-attr-layout_sms="inactive" data-attr-layout_tags="bottom" data-attr-layout_tumblr="inactive" data-attr-layout_whatsapp="inactive" data-attr-node_id="/root/blocks/block[post_layout_default]/abtests/abtest[1]/element_wrapper[4]/current_post-" data-attr-posts_id="sPost_Layout_Default_0_0_4_0_0_12_0" data-attr-section_url="" data-attr-show_around_the_web="true" data-attr-show_authors_bio="true" data-attr-source="" data-attr-use_tag_image_for_lead_media="true" data-attr-v="2" data-block="None" data-format="posts-custom" data-has-more="false" data-is-reordable="false" data-section-id="" data-source-type="current_post" data-source-unique="true" data-source="current_post" data-using-stickers="false"><div class="posts-wrapper clearfix"><div class="widget post-partial tag-balfour-declaration tag-gaza tag-human-rights tag-israel-gaza-war tag-palestine tag-palestinian-rights tag-zionism tag-israel post-section--opinion" data-category="Opinion"><article class="clearfix image-article sm-mb-1 quality-HD post-2667171231" data-category="Opinion" data-frozen-sections="[]"><div class="row px10"><div class="rm-col-center col sm-mb-1" style="width: 100%;"><div class="widget__head"></div><div class="widget__body clearfix sm-mt-1"><div class="social-author clearfix"><div class="social-author__avatar image"><div class="cover-all image" style="background-image: url("https://www.commondreams.org/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8zMTk4NTQwMS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTczMDM5NDIyN30.jt0CQhhWCQgUKlRi-bN_BYP7rdkHbORRC9GOcvh20nQ/image.jpg?width=210");"></div></div><a class="social-author__name rm-stats-tracked" data-type="text" href="https://www.commondreams.org/author/abba-solomon">Abba Solomon</a><div class="social-author__bio">Abba
A. Solomon is the author of "The Speech, and Its Context: Jacob
Blaustein's Speech 'The Meaning of Palestine Partition to American
Jews,' Given to the Baltimore Chapter American Jewish Committee,
February 15, 1948."</div><div class="author_border"><a class="full_biolink" href="https://www.commondreams.org/author/abba-solomon">Full Bio ></a></div></div><span class="js-scroll-trigger" data-target="body" data-toggle-class="with-floating-shares" data-triggers="render-rebelbar"></span><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body css-listicle-body-2667171231" data-headline="Many Jews and Jewish Organizations Recognized the Dangers of Zionism. They Were Right"><div class="body-description"><div class="around-the-web"><div class="from-your-site__headline">From Your Site Articles</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></article></div></div></div></div></div>Nasir Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16981781828241865509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963508092996469398.post-6391900511741929872024-02-02T13:22:00.006+01:002024-02-02T13:22:41.568+01:00The US Toppling of Imran Khan <p> </p><div class="wrap" id="sPost_Layout_Default_0_0_4_0_0_11"><div class="lead_post_body_main" id="sPost_Layout_Default_0_0_4_0_0_11_0"><div class="mb-2 lead_post_lead_media" id="sPost_Layout_Default_0_0_4_0_0_11_0_0"><div class="posts-custom posts-custom-section section-holder clearfix" data-attr-all_element_order="photo_caption,photo_credit,headline,subheadline,author,date,post_shares,body,date_modified,badges,badges_sponsored,community_name,snark_line,page_views,section,follow_button,community_comments,like_button,source_link,collection_button,tags,primary_tag,main_author,all_sections,product_prices,product_vendor,product_buy_link,words_count,time_to_read,custom_field_sourceprofilename,site_field_Twitter,site_field_UserAffiliation,site_field_UserEmail,site_field_user_twitter,site_field_job_title,site_field_user_email,custom_field_contact_info,custom_field_location,custom_field_copywrite_line,site_field_user_affiliation,site_field_gender,site_field_alumniOf_name,site_field_alumniOf_url,site_field_knows_about,site_field_other_profiles,site_field_worksfor_name,site_field_worksfor_url,custom_field_source_text" data-attr-all_share_buttons="Facebook,Twitter,Linkedin,Separator,Email,Tumblr,GooglePlus,Pinterest,Whatsapp,Reddit,CopyLink,Flipboard,SMS,Slack" data-attr-data-rm-device-crops="true" data-attr-element_classes="lead_post_lead_media" data-attr-filters="section,post_body_pager" data-attr-format="posts-custom" data-attr-from_regular_sections_other_than="breaking-news,about-us" data-attr-is_current_post="true" data-attr-layout_all_headline_tag="h1" data-attr-layout_all_image_crop="3x1" data-attr-layout_all_show_video="true" data-attr-layout_all_subheadline_tag="h2" data-attr-layout_all_video_crop="16x9" data-attr-layout_headline="bottom" data-attr-layout_mobile_image_crop="3x2" data-attr-layout_photo_caption="bottom" data-attr-layout_photo_credit="bottom" data-attr-layout_quality="1" data-attr-layout_subheadline="bottom" data-attr-node_id="/root/blocks/block[post_layout_default]/abtests/abtest[1]/element_wrapper[3]/element_wrapper/current_post[1]-" data-attr-posts_id="sPost_Layout_Default_0_0_4_0_0_11_0_0" data-attr-section_url="" data-attr-source="" data-attr-use_tag_image_for_lead_media="true" data-attr-v="2" data-block="None" data-format="posts-custom" data-has-more="false" data-is-reordable="false" data-section-id="" data-source-type="current_post" data-source-unique="true" data-source="current_post" data-using-stickers="false"><div class="posts-wrapper clearfix"><div class="widget post-partial tag-afghanistan tag-cia tag-democracy tag-imran-khan tag-regime-change tag-united-states tag-pakistan post-section--opinion" data-category="Opinion"><article class="clearfix image-article sm-mb-1 quality-HD post-2667146213" data-category="Opinion" data-frozen-sections="[]"><div class="row px10"><div class="rm-col-center col sm-mb-1" style="width: 100.0%;"><div class="widget__head"><picture><source></source><img alt="The US Toppling of Imran Khan" aria-label="The US Toppling of Imran Khan" class="rm-lazyloadable-image rm-hero-media" height="400" role="img" src="https://www.commondreams.org/media-library/supporters-and-activists-of-pakistan-tehreek-e-insaf-pti-party-shout-slogans-during-a-protest-demanding-the-release-of-pti-lea.jpg?id=51267956&width=1200&height=400&quality=90&coordinates=0%2C69%2C0%2C274" style="object-fit: cover;" width="1200" /></picture></div><div class="widget__body clearfix sm-mt-1"><div class="photo-caption"><p>Supporters
and activists of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party shout slogans
during a protest demanding the release of PTI leader Imran Khan, in
Peshawar on January 28, 2024.</p></div><div class="photo-credit">
(Photo by Abdul MAJEED / AFP) (Photo by ABDUL MAJEED/AFP via Getty Images)
</div><h1 class="widget__headline h1"><span class="widget__headline-text custom-post-headline" data-type="text"></span></h1><div class="widget__subheadline"><h2 class="widget__subheadline-text h2" data-type="text"><p>Covert regime change strikes again. This time in Pakistan.<br /></p></h2></div></div></div></div></article></div></div></div></div><div class="wrap" id="sPost_Layout_Default_0_0_4_0_0_11_0_1"><div class="mb-2 lead_post_share_social singleAuthorPost" id="sPost_Layout_Default_0_0_4_0_0_11_0_1_0"><div class="posts-custom posts-custom-section section-holder clearfix" data-attr-all_element_order="snark_line,post_shares,custom_field_source_text,author,date,all_sections,photo_caption,photo_credit,headline,subheadline,body,date_modified,badges,badges_sponsored,community_name,page_views,section,follow_button,community_comments,like_button,source_link,collection_button,tags,primary_tag,main_author,product_prices,product_vendor,product_buy_link,words_count,time_to_read,custom_field_sourceprofilename,site_field_user_twitter,site_field_job_title,site_field_user_email,custom_field_contact_info,custom_field_location,custom_field_organization_phone,custom_field_organization_website,custom_field_organization_twitter,custom_field_organization_fb,custom_field_organization_instagram,custom_field_press_button_link,custom_field_action_button_link,custom_field_copywrite_line,site_field_user_affiliation,site_field_gender,site_field_alumniOf_name,site_field_alumniOf_url,site_field_knows_about,site_field_other_profiles,site_field_worksfor_name,site_field_worksfor_url" data-attr-all_share_buttons="Facebook,Twitter,Flipboard,Reddit,CopyLink,Pinterest,Tumblr,Email,SMS,Separator,GooglePlus,Linkedin,Whatsapp,Slack" data-attr-element_classes="lead_post_share_social " data-attr-filters="section,post_body_pager" data-attr-format="posts-custom" data-attr-from_regular_sections_other_than="breaking-news,about-us" data-attr-is_current_post="true" data-attr-layout_all_date_format="%b %d, %Y" data-attr-layout_all_headline_tag="h1" data-attr-layout_all_image_crop="3x1" data-attr-layout_all_subheadline_tag="h2" data-attr-layout_copylink="active" data-attr-layout_custom_field_source_text="bottom" data-attr-layout_email="inactive" data-attr-layout_flipboard="active" data-attr-layout_googleplus="inactive" data-attr-layout_linkedin="inactive" data-attr-layout_pinterest="active" data-attr-layout_post_shares="bottom" data-attr-layout_quality="1" data-attr-layout_reddit="active" data-attr-layout_remove_image="true" data-attr-layout_separator="inactive" data-attr-layout_slack="inactive" data-attr-layout_sms="inactive" data-attr-layout_snark_line="bottom" data-attr-layout_tumblr="inactive" data-attr-layout_whatsapp="inactive" data-attr-node_id="/root/blocks/block[post_layout_default]/abtests/abtest[1]/element_wrapper[3]/element_wrapper/element_wrapper[1]/current_post[1]-" data-attr-posts_id="sPost_Layout_Default_0_0_4_0_0_11_0_1_0" data-attr-section_url="" data-attr-source="" data-attr-v="2" data-block="None" data-format="posts-custom" data-has-more="false" data-is-reordable="false" data-section-id="" data-source-type="current_post" data-source-unique="true" data-source="current_post" data-using-stickers="false"><div class="posts-wrapper clearfix"><div class="widget post-partial tag-afghanistan tag-cia tag-democracy tag-imran-khan tag-regime-change tag-united-states tag-pakistan post-section--opinion" data-category="Opinion"><article class="clearfix image-article sm-mb-1 quality-HD post-2667146213" data-category="Opinion" data-frozen-sections="[]"><div class="row px10"><div class="rm-col-center col sm-mb-1" style="width: 100.0%;"><div class="widget__head"></div><div class="widget__body clearfix sm-mt-1"><div class="snark-line"><div class="singleAuthor"><div class="social-author clearfix"><div class="social-author__avatar image"><div class="cover-all image" style="background-image: url(https://www.commondreams.org/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8zMTk4NjY2My9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTc2OTIyODcwMH0.zwk_npv5d-SvfS4Vq8Hql9MZbsgpgcwfSa5VjcLVLTY/image.png?width=210);"></div></div><a class="social-author__name rm-stats-tracked" data-type="text" href="https://www.commondreams.org/author/jeffrey-d-sachs">Jeffrey D. Sachs</a>, Common Dreams, <span class="social-date__text">Feb 01, 2024</span></div></div></div><div class="widget__shares share-panel"><span class="comment_round_button" data-link="https://commons.commondreams.org/t/the-us-toppling-of-imran-khan/149729"><span class="comment_count"></span></span><span aria-label="Print Page" class="share share-print share-popup rm-stats-tracked" data-track-share="Print" rel="noopener noreferrer"></span><span class="donate_round_button"><a href="https://giving.commondreams.org/-/XKQWGZVR"><svg fill="none" height="32" viewbox="0 0 33 32" width="33" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"></svg></a></span></div></div></div></div></article></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="wrap" id="sPost_Layout_Default_0_0_4_0_0_11"><div class="lead_post_body_main" id="sPost_Layout_Default_0_0_4_0_0_11_0"><div class="wrap" id="sPost_Layout_Default_0_0_4_0_0_11_0_1"><div class="mb-2 lead_post_share_social singleAuthorPost" 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principal instrument of U.S. foreign policy is covert regime change,
meaning a secret action by the U.S. government to bring down the
government of another country. There are strong reasons to believe that
U.S. actions led to the removal from power of Pakistanās Prime Minister
Imran Khan in April 2022, followed by his arrest on trumped-up charges
of corruption and espionage, and sentencing this week to 10 years
imprisonment on the espionage charge. The political objective is to
block Pakistanās most popular politician from returning to power in the
elections on February 8. </p><p>The key to covert operations of course
is that they are secret and hence deniable by the U.S. government. Even
when the evidence comes to light through whistleblowers or leaks, as it
very often does, the U.S. government rejects the authenticity of the
evidence and the mainstream media generally ignore the story because it
contradicts the official narrative. Because editors at these mainstream
outlets donāt want to peddle in āconspiracy theories,ā or are simply
happy to be the mouthpieces for officialdom, they give the U.S.
government a very wide berth for actual regime-change conspiracies. </p><p>Covert regime change by the U.S. is shockingly routine. <a class="rm-stats-tracked" href="https://academic.oup.com/cornell-scholarship-online/book/42677" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><u>One authoritative study</u></a>
by Boston University professor Lindsay OāRourke counts 64 covert regime
change operations by the U.S. during the Cold War (1947 and 1989), and
in fact the number was far larger because she chose to count repeated
attempts within one country as a single extended episode. Since then,
U.S. regime change operations have remained frequent, such as when
President Barrack Obama tasked the CIA (<a class="rm-stats-tracked" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/world/middleeast/cia-syria-rebel-arm-train-trump.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><u><em>Operation Timber Sycamore</em></u></a>)
with overthrowing Syriaās President Bashar al-Assad. That covert
operation remained secret until several years after the operation, and
even then, was hardly covered by the mainstream media. </p><p class="pull-quote">From the U.S. perspective, āneutralā is a fighting word.</p><p>All
of this brings us to Pakistan, another case where evidence points
strongly to U.S.-led regime change. In this case, the U.S. desired to
bring down the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan, the charismatic,
talented, and hugely popular leader in Pakistan, renowned both for his
world-leading cricket mastery and for his common touch with the people.
His popularity, independence, and enormous talents make him a prime
target of the U.S., which frets about popular leaders who donāt fall
into line with U.S. policy.</p><p>Imran Khanās āsinā was to be too
cooperative with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President
Xi Jinping, while also seeking normal relations with the United States.
The great mantra of U.S. foreign policy, and the activating principle of
the CIA, is that a foreign leader is āeither with us or against us.ā
Leaders who try to be neutral amongst the great powers are at dire risk
of losing their positions, or even their lives, at U.S. instigation,
since the U.S. does not accept neutrality. Leaders seeking neutrality
dating back to Patrice Lumumba (Zaire), Norodom Sihanouk (Cambodia),
Viktor Yanukovych (Ukraine), and many others, have been toppled with the
not-so-hidden-hand of the U.S. government. </p><p>Like many leaders in
the developing world, Khan does not want to break relations with either
the U.S. or Russia over the Ukraine War. By sheer coincidence of prior
scheduling, Khan happened to be in Moscow to meet Putin on the day that
Russia launched the special military operation (February 24, 2022). From
the start, Khan advocated that the conflict in Ukraine should be
settled at the negotiating table rather than on the battlefield. The
U.S. and E.U. arm-twisted foreign leaders including Khan to fall into
line against Putin and to support Western sanctions against Russia, yet
Khan resisted. </p><p>Khan probably sealed his fate on March 6 when he <a class="rm-stats-tracked" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voFkiKj3nIs" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><u>held a large rally in northern Pakistan</u></a>.
At the rally, he berated the West, and especially 22 EU ambassadors,
for pressuring him to condemn Russia at a vote in the United Nations. He
also excoriated NATOās war against terror in next-door Afghanistan as
having been utterly devastating to Pakistan, with no acknowledgment,
respect, or appreciation for Pakistanās suffering. </p><p class="pull-quote">[Khan's]
popularity, independence, and enormous talents make him a prime target
of the U.S., which frets about popular leaders who donāt fall into line
with U.S. policy.</p><p>Khan told the cheering crowds, āEU ambassadors
wrote a letter to us asking us to condemn and vote against Russiaā¦ What
do you think of us? Are we your slaves ... that whatever you say, we
will do?" He added, āWe are friends with Russia, and we are also friends
with America; we are friends with China and with Europe; we are not in
any camp. Pakistan would remain neutral and work with those trying to
end the war in Ukraine.ā </p><p>From the U.S. perspective, āneutralā is a
fighting word. The grim follow-up for Khan was revealed in August 2023
by investigative reporters at <a class="rm-stats-tracked" href="https://theintercept.com/2023/08/09/imran-khan-pakistan-cypher-ukraine-russia/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><u><em>The Intercept</em></u></a>.
Just one day after Khanās rally, Assistant Secretary of State for the
Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu met in Washington
with Pakistanās Ambassador to the U.S., Asad Majeed Khan. Following the
meeting, Ambassador Khan sent a secret cable (a ācypherā) back to
Islamabad, which was then leaked to <em>The Intercept</em> by a Pakistani military official.</p><p>The
cable recounts how Assistant Secretary Lu berated Prime Minister Khan
for his neutral stance. The cable quotes Lu as saying that āpeople here
and in Europe are quite concerned about why Pakistan is taking such an
aggressively neutral position (on Ukraine), if such a position is even
possible. It does not seem such a neutral stand to us.ā </p><p>Lu then
conveyed the bottom line to Ambassador Khan. āI think if the
no-confidence vote against the Prime Minister succeeds, all will be
forgiven in Washington because the Russia visit is being looked at as a
decision by the Prime Minister. Otherwise, I think it will be tough
going ahead.ā </p><p>Five weeks later on April 10, with the U.S. blunt
threat hanging over the powerful Pakistani military, and with the
militaryās hold over the Pakistani parliament, the Parliament ousted
Khan in a no-confidence vote. Within weeks, the new government followed
with brazenly manufactured charges of corruption against Khan, to put
him under arrest and prevent his return to power. In utterly Orwellian
turn, when Khan made known the existence of the diplomatic cable that
revealed Americaās role in his ouster, the new government <a class="rm-stats-tracked" href="https://theintercept.com/2023/12/18/pakistan-cypher-imran-khan-charges/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><u>charged Khan</u></a>
with espionage. He has now been convicted on these charges to an
unconscionable 10 years, with the U.S. government remaining silent on
this outrage. </p><p>When asked about Khanās conviction, the State Department <a class="rm-stats-tracked" href="https://www.geo.tv/latest/529238-us-state-dept-avoids-detailed-comment-on-imran-khans-cipher-case-sentence" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><u>had the following to say</u></a>:
"Itās a matter for the Pakistani courts." Such an answer is a vivid
example of how U.S.-led regime change works. The State Department
supports Khanās imprisonment over Khanās public revelation of U.S.
actions. </p><p>Pakistan will therefore hold elections on February 8
with its most popular democratic leader in prison and with Khanās party
the subject of relentless attacks, political murders, media blackouts,
and other heavy-handed repression. In all of this, the U.S. government
is utterly complicit. So much for Americaās ādemocraticā values. The
U.S. government has gotten its way for nowāand has deeply destabilized a
nuclear-armed nation of 240 million people. Only Khanās release from
prison and his participation in the upcoming election could restore
stability. </p></div></div><span class="" data-authors="Jeffrey D. Sachs" data-elid="2667146213" data-headline="The US Toppling of Imran Khan" data-page-title="The US Toppling of Imran Khan | Common Dreams" data-post-url="https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/us-ouster-of-imran-khan"></span></div></div></div></article></div></div></div></div></div><div class="creative_common_work actz" id="sPost_Layout_Default_0_0_4_0_0_11_0_2">
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely. </div><div class="creative_common_work actz" id="sPost_Layout_Default_0_0_4_0_0_11_0_2">- <br /></div></div></div><div class="wrap authors_post_block" id="sPost_Layout_Default_0_0_4_0_0_12"><div class="mb-2 lead_post_tags_seo mobile_social_links" id="sPost_Layout_Default_0_0_4_0_0_12_0"><div class="posts-custom posts-custom-section section-holder clearfix" data-attr-all_element_order="author,body,tags,post_shares,section,headline,community_name,date,subheadline,badges,badges_sponsored,photo_credit,photo_caption,snark_line,page_views,date_modified,follow_button,community_comments,like_button,source_link,collection_button,primary_tag,main_author,all_sections,product_prices,product_vendor,product_buy_link,words_count,time_to_read,custom_field_sourceprofilename,site_field_user_twitter,site_field_job_title,site_field_user_email,custom_field_contact_info,custom_field_location,custom_field_organization_phone,custom_field_organization_website,custom_field_organization_twitter,custom_field_organization_fb,custom_field_organization_instagram,custom_field_press_button_link,custom_field_action_button_link,custom_field_copywrite_line,site_field_user_affiliation,site_field_gender,site_field_alumniOf_name,site_field_alumniOf_url,site_field_knows_about,site_field_other_profiles,site_field_worksfor_name,site_field_worksfor_url,custom_field_source_text,custom_field_discourse_post_id,custom_field_discourse_post_url" data-attr-all_share_buttons="Facebook,Twitter,Flipboard,Reddit,CopyLink,Pinterest,Tumblr,Email,SMS,Separator,GooglePlus,Linkedin,Whatsapp,Slack" data-attr-element_classes="lead_post_tags_seo mobile_social_links" data-attr-filters="section,post_body_pager" data-attr-format="posts-custom" data-attr-from_regular_sections_other_than="breaking-news,about-us" data-attr-header_template="jinja/post/custom-css.html" data-attr-is_current_post="true" data-attr-layout_all_headline_tag="h1" data-attr-layout_all_subheadline_tag="h2" data-attr-layout_author="bottom" data-attr-layout_body="bottom" data-attr-layout_copylink="active" data-attr-layout_email="inactive" data-attr-layout_flipboard="active" data-attr-layout_googleplus="inactive" data-attr-layout_linkedin="inactive" data-attr-layout_pinterest="active" data-attr-layout_post_shares="bottom" data-attr-layout_quality="1" data-attr-layout_reddit="active" data-attr-layout_remove_image="true" data-attr-layout_separator="inactive" data-attr-layout_slack="inactive" data-attr-layout_sms="inactive" data-attr-layout_tags="bottom" data-attr-layout_tumblr="inactive" data-attr-layout_whatsapp="inactive" data-attr-node_id="/root/blocks/block[post_layout_default]/abtests/abtest[1]/element_wrapper[4]/current_post-" data-attr-posts_id="sPost_Layout_Default_0_0_4_0_0_12_0" data-attr-section_url="" data-attr-show_around_the_web="true" data-attr-show_authors_bio="true" data-attr-source="" data-attr-use_tag_image_for_lead_media="true" data-attr-v="2" data-block="None" data-format="posts-custom" data-has-more="false" data-is-reordable="false" data-section-id="" data-source-type="current_post" data-source-unique="true" data-source="current_post" data-using-stickers="false"><div class="posts-wrapper clearfix"><div class="widget post-partial tag-afghanistan tag-cia tag-democracy tag-imran-khan tag-regime-change tag-united-states tag-pakistan post-section--opinion" data-category="Opinion"><article class="clearfix image-article sm-mb-1 quality-HD post-2667146213" data-category="Opinion" data-frozen-sections="[]"><div class="row px10"><div class="rm-col-center col sm-mb-1" style="width: 100.0%;"><div class="widget__head"></div><div class="widget__body clearfix sm-mt-1"><div class="social-author clearfix"><div class="social-author__avatar image"><div class="cover-all image" style="background-image: url("https://www.commondreams.org/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8zMTk4NjY2My9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTc2OTIyODcwMH0.zwk_npv5d-SvfS4Vq8Hql9MZbsgpgcwfSa5VjcLVLTY/image.png?width=210");"></div></div><a class="social-author__name rm-stats-tracked" data-type="text" href="https://www.commondreams.org/author/jeffrey-d-sachs">Jeffrey D. Sachs</a></div><div class="social-author clearfix"> <div class="social-author__bio">Jeffrey
D. Sachs is a University Professor and Director of the Center for
Sustainable Development at Columbia University, where he directed The
Earth Institute from 2002 until 2016. He is also President of the UN
Sustainable Development Solutions Network and a commissioner of the UN
Broadband Commission for Development. He has been advisor to three
United Nations Secretaries-General, and currently serves as an SDG
Advocate under Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Sachs is the author,
most recently, of "A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism"
(2020). Other books include: "Building the New American Economy: Smart,
Fair, and Sustainable" (2017) and "The Age of Sustainable Development,"
(2015) with Ban Ki-moon.</div><div class="author_border"><a class="full_biolink" href="https://www.commondreams.org/author/jeffrey-d-sachs">Full Bio ></a></div></div></div></div></div></article></div></div></div></div></div>Nasir Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16981781828241865509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963508092996469398.post-76070339816291600322024-01-28T17:08:00.001+01:002024-01-29T20:24:57.623+01:00šš”š ššØš„šØššš®š¬š, šš¬š«ššš„ šš§š šš”š ššš„šš¬šš¢š§š¢šš§š¬<p> </p><h2></h2>
<small class="single-by"></small>
<p>This short text I wrote on January 28, 2022, which I am publishing for the first time on my sites.</p>
<p></p>
<p>āNasir Khan</p>
<p>For <a></a>most people, the Holocaust under the Nazis means only the
killing of Jews. As a result, for the rulers of Israel, it has been the
only thing that matters and is still used as a defence to the ethnic
cleansing of the Palestinians from their land.</p>
<p>The Israeli arguments and response run along such lines: If we have
got rid of the Palestinians, then donāt forget, we are the victims of
the Holocaust! But why did you destroy Gaza in 2014? Oh, to ask this
question is anti-Semitism! Donāt forget what happened to us under the
Germans. Thus, the Holocaust is a catch-all defence to every crime
Israel has committed and is committing against the Palestinians.</p>
<p>Why are you still illegally expanding in the occupied areas? We can
expand wherever we want because this is āour landā that God gave us. But
why did the same God create thousands of years ago a people who have
lived in Palestine for thousands of years and are called Palestinians?
You see, you are anti-Semitic to say a thing like that. You hate us. Why
donāt you shut up and mind your own business? Go away, you bloody
anti-Semitic scoundrel!</p>
<p>But what the Nazis did to the Gypsies, the Poles, and to the millions
of Soviet citizens during the Second World War finds little mention in
the Holocaust narrative.</p>Nasir Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16981781828241865509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963508092996469398.post-20167226905397452952024-01-26T19:17:00.004+01:002024-01-26T19:17:34.264+01:00Antonio Negri on Lenin's The State and Revolution<p> </p><h1 class="t-rte"></h1><p class="c-article-detail__lede"></p><p data-mce-fragment="1">Antonio Negri argues that <em>The State and Revolution</em> by Lenin is the best introduction to Marxism as it places bodies within the daily revolutionary struggle. </p><p></p><p class="c-article-detail__meta"><a href="https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/news/tagged/article-author-antonio-negri">Antonio Negri, </a><span class="c-article-detail__date">25 January 2024</span>
</p>
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<img alt="Antonio Negri on Lenin's The State and Revolution" height="624" src="https://www.versobooks.com/cdn/shop/articles/Negri_Intro_blog.png?v=1706199902&width=1128" width="1128" />
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<p data-mce-fragment="1"><span data-mce-fragment="1" data-mce-style="font-weight: 400;" style="font-weight: 400;">When asked which book offers the best introduction to Marxism, I answer: </span><i data-mce-fragment="1"><span data-mce-fragment="1" data-mce-style="font-weight: 400;" style="font-weight: 400;">The State and Revolution </span></i><span data-mce-fragment="1" data-mce-style="font-weight: 400;" style="font-weight: 400;">by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.</span> <span data-mce-fragment="1" data-mce-style="font-weight: 400;" style="font-weight: 400;">Why? Because,</span><span data-mce-fragment="1" data-mce-style="font-weight: 400;" style="font-weight: 400;"> if Marx is the brains of Marxism, Lenin is its body; and, for materialists, the brain too is located in the body</span><span data-mce-fragment="1" data-mce-style="font-weight: 400;" style="font-weight: 400;">. Marxism is not an economic theory, but a </span><i data-mce-fragment="1"><span data-mce-fragment="1" data-mce-style="font-weight: 400;" style="font-weight: 400;">critique </span></i><span data-mce-fragment="1" data-mce-style="font-weight: 400;" style="font-weight: 400;">of
political economy, where critique, first of all, signifies oneās
capacity for analysis by immersion in a chaotic, conflict-ridden world,
materially dominated by bosses who exploit you and a sovereign who
commands you. </span></p>
<p data-mce-fragment="1"><span data-mce-fragment="1" data-mce-style="font-weight: 400;" style="font-weight: 400;">These
relations ā āexploits youā, ācommands youā ā mean that such control
involves your body: that is, the bodies, energy, passions and values of
those who live and work on our planet. With </span><i data-mce-fragment="1"><span data-mce-fragment="1" data-mce-style="font-weight: 400;" style="font-weight: 400;">The State and Revolution</span></i><span data-mce-fragment="1" data-mce-style="font-weight: 400;" style="font-weight: 400;">,
Lenin places bodies within the daily struggle where economic demands
and political passion, emancipatory effort and emancipatory power, are
conjoined. In this initial approach, </span><i data-mce-fragment="1"><span data-mce-fragment="1" data-mce-style="font-weight: 400;" style="font-weight: 400;">The State and Revolution </span></i><span data-mce-fragment="1" data-mce-style="font-weight: 400;" style="font-weight: 400;">signifies bodies in struggle against the materiality of capitalist control.</span></p>
<p data-mce-fragment="1"><span data-mce-fragment="1" data-mce-style="font-weight: 400;" style="font-weight: 400;">This
connection reveals an initial meaning of Marxism as critique: it
signifies being within political economy, remaining inside the complex
of acts of exploitation and means of power (of capitalism and
sovereignty), inside the indissoluble bond that makes of them a state</span><span data-mce-fragment="1" data-mce-style="font-weight: 400;" style="font-weight: 400;">.
The state is the exploitation of the bodies of labourers and command
over the brains of subjects. Revolution is the critique exercised by
bodies against this exploitation and sovereign power.</span></p>
<p data-mce-fragment="1"><span data-mce-fragment="1" data-mce-style="font-weight: 400;" style="font-weight: 400;">Emerging
from the inside, critique, at the same time, induces the power of the
against. āAgainstā signifies understanding how bodies can proceed
against capital; hence it invites translating Capital ā the
inexhaustible book of Marxist critique ā into the materialist experiment
of a possible revolution. Because the āwithin-againstā conjugation
follows, and determines, the materialist mutation of the set of bodies
into classes and thus constitutes the red thread of subjectivation into
class struggle. The pedagogy of Marxism, which is only science qua
critique and only critique qua subjectivation, is planted on this peak
of Leninās discourse. It is not possible to be Marxist other than within
the Leninist paradox of the totality and the partial viewpoint. And
notice then how Capital comes, so to speak, to be subjectivated ā which
does </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">not mean abandoned to the pleasures
of a philology that is invariably curious and sometimes dissolute, or to
the ceremonies of a rebellious dogmatism. Rather, it means
re-articulated in its historical relationship with struggles, in the
different technical and political compositions of the two classes. As
Roman Rosdolsky noted, the initial plan of Capital envisaged a chapter
on the state. Marx was unable to write it as the continuation of the
great chapters of economic critique he had already composed. But, in his
historical writings and interventions in the International, the people
and parties it comprised, he sketched a theoretical framework. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">There Lenin adopted it, and imparted
to it a musculature, with the experience of a victorious class struggle
taking the place of unclear incidents and occasional volcanic party
polemics. Here, āsubjectivationā assumes its true meaning, as pedagogy
and also as the apex of the operative synthesis of the āwithin and
againstā we have registered in the pages of The State and Revolution.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Within and against possibly suffice
to put both Capital and Marxās historical writings into prose. But The
State and Revolution goes much further. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">The revolution, Lenin says, has begun. Where are we going? What is the beyond we are striving towards?</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">
And, here, Leninās subjective action twists towards reality, from
utopia to science, from science to the concreteness of revolutionary
force. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">It seems that we have returned to the
beginning, and that enthusiasm for being located within and struggling
against capital has matured as such in a perpetual motion. Such is not
the case: here subjectivation makes it possible positively to itemize
the transitions that ārevolutionary deedsā must accomplish in order to
construct the beyond, in order to go beyond the beyond, from socialism
to communism. And the road is mapped out with the intelligence and power
of constituent praxis.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Utopia is connected with reality and takes shape in conjunction with the attack on current class domination.</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">
Thus, the utopian āwithering away of the state ā is understood in
materialist terms as a constituent process. And we see this process
completed, because it is no longer an ideal but a test for the
subjectivity that transforms the real: Marx and Lenin are definitively
recomposed ā and with what force!</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">
Destroying the state and reconstructing the set of institutions that
make a free existence possible become tasks accomplished in common. When
we finish reading The State and Revolution, our bodies are engaged in
that task.</span></p>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">ā An edited excerpt from <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/products/3098-the-state-and-revolution?_pos=1&_psq=state+and+revolution&_ss=e&_v=1.0" title="The State and Revolution by V. I. Lenin">The
State and Revolution: The Marxist Theory of the State and the Tasks of
the Proletariat in the Revolution by V. I. Lenin, Introduction by
Antonio Negri.</a></span>Nasir Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16981781828241865509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963508092996469398.post-21657979722312921962024-01-22T19:35:00.004+01:002024-01-22T19:35:33.466+01:00 Norman Solomon: The High-Profile Invisibility of the Gaza War<p><span class="entry-header block mb-5"><span class="entry-header__bottom font-lora text-xl md:text-2xl font-semibold">How media biases cloak the gruesome realities of hunger, displacement, and death.</span></span></p><p><span class="entry-header block mb-5"><span class="entry-header__bottom font-lora text-xl md:text-2xl font-semibold"> </span>
</span>
<span class="block mb-6 lg:mb-12 relative">
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<img alt="" class="w-full h-full object-center object-cover wp-post-image" height="720" src="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/AP24014459083636-1280x720.jpg" width="1280" /> </span>
<span class="featured-image-caption font-proxima-nova font-normal text-tiny text-medium-grey mt-3 block">Palestinian
children displaced by Israeli air and ground offensive on the Gaza
Strip walk through a temporary tent camp near Kerem Shalom crossing in
Rafah, Sunday, Jan. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Hatem Ali)</span>
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<div class="flex flex-col lg:gap-8 mb-5 lg:mb-0"><span class="entry-author lg:w-40 lg:m-auto flex items-center lg:block mb-5 lg:mb-0"><a class="border border-grey rounded-full w-16 lg:w-24 h-16 lg:h-24 bg-lighter-grey lg:m-auto lg:mb-4 inline-block lg:block flex-shrink-0" href="https://www.truthdig.com/author/norman_solomon/"><img alt="Norman Solomon / Truthdig" class="rounded-full object-cover w-full h-full" src="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/profile-standard-solomon_norman_bart_nagel-aspect-ratio-1-1.jpg" /></a><span class="ml-4 lg:ml-0 block"> </span></span></div><div class="flex flex-col lg:gap-8 mb-5 lg:mb-0"><span class="entry-author lg:w-40 lg:m-auto flex items-center lg:block mb-5 lg:mb-0"><span class="ml-4 lg:ml-0 block"><a class="uppercase font-proxima-nova font-normal tracking-wide text-sm inline-block lg:relative lg:left-1/2 lg:transform lg:-translate-x-1/2 text-center" href="https://www.truthdig.com/author/norman_solomon/">Norman Solomon / Truthdig</a><span class="uppercase font-proxima-nova font-normal tracking-wide text-sm text-medium-grey block lg:text-center">Columnist, Jan 18, 2024<br /></span></span></span></div>
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<p class="has-drop-cap">Zen wisdom tells us that the
finger pointing at the moon is not the moon. Yet itās easy to fall into
the illusion that when we see news about the Gaza war, weāre really
seeing the war.</p><p>We are not.</p><p>What we do routinely see is reporting thatās as different from the actual war as a pointed finger is from the moon.</p><p>The
media words and images reach us light years away from what itās
actually like to be in a war zone. The experience of consuming news from
afar could hardly be more different. And beliefs or unconscious notions
that media outlets convey warās realities end up obscuring those
realities all the more.</p><p>Inherent limitations on what journalism can convey are compounded by media biases. In-depth content analysis by The Intercept <a href="https://theintercept.com/2024/01/09/newspapers-israel-palestine-bias-new-york-times/" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow" target="_blank">found</a> that
coverage of the Gaza war by the New York Times, Washington Post and Los
Angeles Times āshowed a consistent bias against Palestinians.ā Those
highly influential papers ādisproportionately emphasized Israeli deaths
in the conflictā and āused emotive language to describe the killings of
Israelis, but not Palestinians.ā</p><figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left">
<blockquote>
<p>For the vast majority of Americans, no matter how much mainstream
media they consume, the war that actually exists ā in contrast to the
war reporting by news outlets ā remains virtually invisible.</p>
</blockquote>
</figure><p>What is most profoundly important about war in Gaza ā what <em>actually</em> <em>happens</em> to
people being terrorized, massacred, maimed and traumatized ā has
remained close to invisible for the U.S. public. Extensive surface
coverage seems repetitious and increasingly normal, as death numbers
keep rising and Gaza becomes a routine topic in news media. And yet,
whatās going on now in Gaza is ā<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/west-enabling-genocide-gaza" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow" target="_blank">the most transparent genocide in human history</a>.ā</p><p>With
enormous help from U.S. media and political power structures, the
ongoing mass murder ā by any other name ā has become normalized, mainly
reduced to standard buzz phrases, <a href="https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-782533" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow" target="_blank">weaselly diplomat-speak</a> and euphemistic rhetoric about the Gaza war. Which is exactly what the top leadership of Israelās government wants.</p><p>Extraordinary
determination to keep killing civilians and destroying what little is
left of Palestinian infrastructure in Gaza has caused extremes of <a href="https://islamic-relief.org/news/gaza-now-the-worlds-worst-hunger-crisis-and-on-the-verge-of-famine/" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow" target="_blank">hunger</a>, <a href="https://www.unrwa.org/resources/reports/unrwa-situation-report-60-situation-gaza-strip-and-west-bank-including-east-Jerusalem" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow" target="_blank">displacement</a>, <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/01/1145317#:~:text=Hundreds%20of%20facilities%20hit,seven%20deaths%20and%2052%20injuries." rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow" target="_blank">destruction of medical facilities</a>, and expanding <a href="https://www.who.int/news/item/15-01-2024-preventing-famine-and-deadly-disease-outbreak-in-gaza-requires-faster--safer-aid-access-and-more-supply-routes" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow" target="_blank">outbreaks of lethal diseases</a>, all <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/gaza-famine" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow" target="_blank">obviously calculated and sought</a> by
Israeli leaders. Thinly reported by U.S. media outlets while cravenly
dodged by President Biden and the overwhelming majority of Congress, the
calamity for 2.2 million Palestinian people worsens by the day.</p>
<p>āGazans now make up 80 per cent of all people facing famine or
catastrophic hunger worldwide, marking an unparalleled humanitarian
crisis in the Gaza Strip amid Israelās continued bombardment and siege,ā
the United Nations <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/01/over-one-hundred-days-war-israel-destroying-gazas-food-system-and#:~:text=GENEVA%20(16%20January%202024)%20%E2%80%93,to%20UN%20human%20rights%20experts." rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow" target="_blank">declared</a> this
week. The UN statement quoted experts who said: āCurrently every single
person in Gaza is hungry, a quarter of the population are starving and
struggling to find food and drinkable water, and famine is imminent.ā</p><p>Israel
is waging a war toward extermination. But for the vast majority of
Americans, no matter how much mainstream media they consume, the war
that actually exists ā in contrast to the war reporting by news outlets ā
remains virtually invisible.</p><p>Of course, Hamasās Oct. 7 murderous
attack on civilians and its taking of hostages should be unequivocally
condemned as crimes against humanity. Such condemnation is fully
appropriate, and easy in the United States.</p><p>āDeploring the crimes
of others often gives us a nice warm feeling: we are good people, so
different from those bad people,ā Noam Chomsky has observed. āThat is
particularly true when there is nothing much we can do about the crimes
of others, so that we can strike impressive poses without cost to
ourselves. Looking at our own crimes is much harder, and for those
willing to do it, often carries costs.ā</p><figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left">
<blockquote>
<p>On Tuesday evening, <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/sanders-resolution-gaza" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow" target="_blank">only 11 senators</a> voted
to support a resolution that would have required the Biden
administration to report on Israelās human-rights record in the Gaza
war.</p>
</blockquote>
</figure><p>With the U.S.-backed war on Gaza now in its fourth month,
ālooking at our own crimesā can lead to clearly depicting and
challenging the role of the U.S. government in the ongoing huge crimes
against humanity in Gaza. But such depicting and challenging is
distinctly unpopular if not taboo in the halls of government power ā
even though, and especially because, the U.S. role of <a href="https://www.vox.com/world-politics/2023/11/18/23966137/us-weapons-israel-biden-package-explained" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow" target="_blank">massively arming</a> and supporting Israel is pivotal for the war.</p><p>ļ»æāFor
the narcissist, everything that happens to them is a huge deal, while
nothing that happens to you matters,ā scholar Sophia McClennen <a href="https://www.salon.com/2024/01/13/the-end-of-the-fair-fight/" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow" target="_blank">wrote</a> last
week. āWhen that logic translates to geopolitics, the disproportionate
damage only magnifies. This is why Israel is not held to any standards,
while those who question that logic are told to shut up. And if they
donāt shut up, they are punished or threatened.ā</p><p>Further normalizing the slaughter are the actions and inaction of Congress. On Tuesday evening, <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/sanders-resolution-gaza" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow" target="_blank">only 11 senators</a> voted
to support a resolution that would have required the Biden
administration to report on Israelās human-rights record in the Gaza
war. The sinking of that measure reflects just how depraved the
executive and legislative branches are as enablers of Israel.</p><p class="is-td-marked">The horrors in Gaza are being <a href="https://www.salon.com/2023/11/07/a-massacre-by-any-other-name-israels-military-is-part-of-the-us-machine/" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow" target="_blank">propelled by the U.S. war machine</a>.
But you wouldnāt know it from the standard U.S. media, pointing to the
moon and scarcely hinting at the utter coldness of its dark side.</p>
</span></span></div>Nasir Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16981781828241865509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963508092996469398.post-16944576691517593532024-01-21T11:04:00.001+01:002024-01-21T11:04:22.640+01:00Paradigm Shift: A Time of Universal Lunacy and Deceit<p> </p><h2></h2><p>By Paul Edwards, Clarion India, Jan 20, 2024 <br /></p>
<p>An astonishing thing has happened in America that has never occurred
in the lifetime of anyone now living. No, itās not the crushing win of
Trump in Iowa, nor the absurd determination of Democrats to run the
senile ninny who has made a joke of our Presidency for another term.
These, in their way astonishing, are mere trivialities in this time of
universal lunacy and deceit. </p>
<p>I mean an honest to god paradigm shift everyone can see that official
wise men with public platforms and megaphones have not announced, or
perhaps even noticed. Iām talking about the first clear, undeniable
instance of the failure of the American Empireās Propaganda Machine.</p>
<p>It has been clear for decades, generations, that the American
political elite has no regard for, and no sense of responsibility to,
the actual needs and desires of the ignorant, disorganized public. It
has always dealt with their inchoate hopes by indoctrination, by
arousing and enlisting their imbecile enthusiasms in a mythology of
tawdry, tribal patriotism based on the premise that they are a glorious,
superior people whose leaders courageously embody and implement their
magnificence all over the world.</p>
<p>The techniques of propaganda are refined, but their effect is
entirely due to grotesque pandering to the worst susceptibilities of the
human ego: the desire to assert oneās superlative worth as a member of
a powerful, violent, conquering nation. The force of that tactic,
endlessly repeated, rendered American citizenry, with rare exceptions,
one solid, deluded, unthinking mass, devoted to whatever vicious,
imperial ends the political elite intended.</p>
<p>Their trained mass response, sure as that of performing seals, has,
for the first time ever, failed in regard to the Gaza genocide.</p>
<p>Both parties in Congress are solidly behind their putative leaders in
full support of whatever violence Nazi Zionist Israel inflicts on the
Palestinian people. This is true across the spectrum, from the pathetic
halfwits and defectives in the MAGA sump to mock-noble, self-declared
moral poseurs such as Bernie and AOL. Tlaib is the one outcast who has
dared to affirm the humanity of Palestinians, while the rest join
solemnly to prevent a ceasefire, which would, they say, balk the
Zionistās āright of self-defenceā. </p>
<p>With this level of unanimity, solid from the addled, babbling,
derelict President down, presented forcefully, continually, to the
nation from every organ in the Propaganda Machine, the certain positive
response was confidently awaited. It has not come.</p>
<p>In spite of all our corrupt, Zionist-owned government has done to
enlist its support for the wholesale murder of a people, the American
public has not bought it, and is not coming around. By an overwhelming
majority Americans reject the message of the Machine, and adamantly
disapprove of the Israeli genocide.</p>
<p>Try to recall a single moment when the diktat of the Machine was not
ingested and regurgitated by the whole American public. It took years
and thousands of body bags to sour them on the Viet Nam horror. The
whole country was galvanized behind the lies that led to wars on
Afghanistan, Iraq and its nonexistent WMDs, and it embraced the obscene
āWar on Terrorā with all its follies. </p>
<p>Recall the wildly dishonest demonization of Qaddafi, Assad and Iran
that Americans swallowed. When Putin was Hitlerized for exposing U.S.
treachery in expanding NATO to Russiaās borders, and defending ethnic
Russian Ukrainians from attacks by rabid Ukronazi Banderites, Americans
ate it up and roared approval.</p>
<p>Xi of China is the next candidate for diabolization, but this first
failure of the Machine will create doubt as to the ability of our rotten
government to manage its victim people. The question now is whether
The Empireās iron grip on their minds has been permanently impaired by
its total, and totally despicable, support for the criminal brutality of
an evil and illegitimate state.</p>
<p>It will be a delicious irony if the billionaire Zionists who bought
our Congress find that the felon state it has supported against American
interests has destroyed itself, and broken the death grip its money has
exerted in subverting and betraying us all.</p>
<p>Depending on the endgame of the Zionist genocideāchiefly, on whether
their murderous barbarity results in a deadly regional warāthe effect on
The Empire will be either crippling international infamy, or perilous,
punishing engagement in a war that has the potential to utterly destroy
many nations, including ours.</p>
<p>The American Empire has not represented the interests of its people
for decades, if it ever did, and has only kept them in a kind of mental
and emotional lockdown through controlling their perception of reality.
Nothing has been done for the generality of Americans since the last
great threat to Capitalism in the Great Depression, which resulted in
Social Security and Medicare. </p>
<p>It is intriguing to wonder what grand advancements might come for
The People if the state were to be run for their benefit. That, of
course, will never happen under Imperial Capitalism which will fight to
the end for its absolute rule by any means possible until it self
destructs from massive and insoluble financial fraud, or is hammered and
obliterated in an intentionally provoked war.</p>
<p>T.S. Elliot predicted long ago that the world would not end āin a
bang, but a whimperā. This seems unlikely now when the likely ends are
implosion or explosion. How profoundly sad it will be if the American
people have thrown off the terrible strait jacket of imperial mind
control just when it doesnāt matter any more.</p>Nasir Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16981781828241865509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963508092996469398.post-47704317901655786512024-01-20T19:58:00.000+01:002024-01-20T19:58:20.137+01:00Video: How Israel indoctrinates its people<p> </p><div class="" dir="auto"><div class="x1iorvi4 x1pi30zi x1l90r2v x1swvt13" data-ad-comet-preview="message" data-ad-preview="message" id=":Rlataul9l9aqqd9emhpapd5aqH2:"><div class="x78zum5 xdt5ytf xz62fqu x16ldp7u"><div class="xu06os2 x1ok221b"><span class="x193iq5w xeuugli x13faqbe x1vvkbs x1xmvt09 x1lliihq x1s928wv xhkezso x1gmr53x x1cpjm7i x1fgarty x1943h6x xudqn12 x3x7a5m x6prxxf xvq8zen xo1l8bm xzsf02u x1yc453h" dir="auto"><div class="xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs x126k92a"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">Three months into Israel's bombardment of Gaza, the atrocities the IDF has committed against Palestinians are too numerous to name. Israel is staging a prolonged assault on the Palestinian people's very means of existenceādestroying homes, hospitals, sanitation infrastructure, food and water sources, schools, and more. </div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">To understand the genocidal campaign unfolding before our eyes, we must examine the roots of Israeli society. Israel is a settler colonial state whose <span><a tabindex="-1"></a></span>existence depends on the elimination of Palestinians. Accordingly, Israel is a deeply militarized society whose citizens are raised in an environment of historical revisionism and indoctrination that whitewashes Israel's crimes while cultivating deep-seated racism against Palestinians. </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">Miko Peled, former IDF Special Forces and author of The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine, joins The Chris Hedges Report for a frank conversation on the distortions of history and reality at the foundations of Israeli identity.</div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">.</div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><span><a class="x1i10hfl xjbqb8w x6umtig x1b1mbwd xaqea5y xav7gou x9f619 x1ypdohk xt0psk2 xe8uvvx xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r xexx8yu x4uap5 x18d9i69 xkhd6sd x16tdsg8 x1hl2dhg xggy1nq x1a2a7pz xt0b8zv x1fey0fg" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CU0Uc-PKe9Y&fbclid=IwAR0vx6vi4AXD2u1hbIE15L4JupdOUl5iB7_FVttlIT62rBCNdk5M1Rx-DKY" rel="nofollow noreferrer" role="link" tabindex="0" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CU0Uc-PKe9Y</a></span></div></div></span></div></div></div></div>Nasir Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16981781828241865509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963508092996469398.post-60415530607081048922024-01-18T12:42:00.001+01:002024-01-18T12:42:33.536+01:00Richard Falk: In Gaza, the West Is Enabling the Most Transparent Genocide in Human History<p> </p><h2 class="wp-block-heading">This is extraordinary because the states
supporting Israel, above all the United States, have claimed the high
moral and legal ground and lectured the states of the Global South about
the importance of the rule of law.</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.commondreams.org/author/richard-falk">Richard Falk</a>, Common Dreams, Jan 17, 2024</p>
<p></p>
<p>Recall Samuel Huntingtonās controversial, yet influential, 1993 <em>Foreign Affairs</em>
article, āThe Clash of Civilizations,ā which ends with the provocative
phrase, āThe West against the rest.ā Although the article seemed
far-fetched 30 years ago, it now seems prophetic in its discernment of a
post-Cold War pattern of inter-civilizational rivalry. It is rather
pronounced in relation to the heightened Israel/Palestine conflict
initiated by the October 7 Hamas attack on Israeli territory with the
killing and abusing of Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers, as well as
the seizure of some 200 hostages.</p>
<p>Clearly this attack has been accompanied by some suspicious
circumstances such as Israelās foreknowledge, slow reaction time to the
penetration of its borders, and, perhaps most problematic, the quickness
with which Israeli adopted a genocidal approach with a clear ethnic
cleansing message. At the very least the Hamas attack, itself including
serious war crimes, served almost too conveniently as the needed pretext
for the 100 days of disproportionate and indiscriminate violence,
sadistic atrocities, and the enactment of a scenario that looked toward
making Gaza unlivable and its Palestinian residents dispossessed and
unwanted.</p>
<p>Despite the transparency of the Israeli tactics, partly attributable
to ongoing TV coverage of the devastating and heartbreaking Palestinian
ordeal, what was notable was the way external state actors aligned with
the antagonists. The Global West (white settler colonial states and
former European colonial powers) lined up with Israel, while the most
active pro-Palestinian governments and movements were initially
exclusively Muslim, with support coming more broadly from the Global
South. This racialization of alignments seems to take precedence over
efforts to regulate violence of this intensity by the norms and
procedures of international law, often mediated through the United
Nations.</p>
<p>Liberal democracies failed not only by their refusal to make active
efforts to prevent genocide, which is a central obligation of the
Genocide Convention, but more brazenly by openly facilitating the
continuation of the genocidal onslaught.</p>
<p>This pattern is quite extraordinary because the states supporting
Israel, above all the United States, have claimed the high moral and
legal ground for themselves and have long lectured the states of the
Global South about the importance of the rule of law, human rights, and
respect for international law. This is instead of urging compliance with
international law and morality by both sides in the face of the most
transparent genocide in all of human history. In the numerous pre-Gaza
genocides, the existential horrors that occurred were largely known
after the fact and through statistics and abstractions, occasionally
vivified by the tales told by survivors. The events, although
historically reconstructed, were not as immediately real as these events
in Gaza with the daily reports from journalists on the scene for more
than three months.</p>
<p>Liberal democracies failed not only by their refusal to make active
efforts to prevent genocide, which is a central obligation of the
Genocide Convention, but more brazenly by openly facilitating
continuation of the genocidal onslaught. Israelās frontline supporters
have contributed weapons and munitions, as well as providing
intelligence and assurance of active engagement by ground forces if
requested, as well as providing diplomatic support at the U.N. and
elsewhere throughout this crisis.</p>
<p>These performative elements that describe Israelās recourse to
genocide are undeniable, while the complicity crimes enabling Israel to
continue with genocide remain indistinct, being situated in the
shadowland of genocide. For instance, the complicity crimes are noted
but remain on the periphery of South Africaās laudable application to
the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that includes a request for
Provisional Measures crafted to stop the genocide pending a decision on
the substance of the charges of genocide. The evidence of genocide is
overwhelmingly documented in <a href="https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20231228-app-01-00-en.pdf" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">the 84-page South African submission</a>,
but the failure to address the organic link to the crimes of complicity
is a weakness that could be reflected in what the court decides.</p>
<p>Even if the ICJ does impose these Provisional Measures, including
ordering Israel to desist from further violence in Gaza, it may not
achieve the desired result, at least not before the substantive decision
is reached some three to five years from now. It seems unlikely that
Israel will obey Provisional Measures. It has a record of consistently
defying international law. It is likely that a favorable decision on
these preliminary matters will give rise to a crisis of implementation.</p>
<p>The law is persuasively present, but the political will to enforce is
lacking or even resistant, as here in certain parts of the Global West.</p>
<p>The degree to which the U.S. has supplied weaponry with U.S. taxpayer
money would be an important supplement to rethinking the U.S.
relationship to Israel that is so important and which is underway among
the American peopleāeven in the Washington think tanks that the foreign
policy elites fund and rely upon. Proposing an arms embargo would be
accepted as a timely and appropriate initiative in many sectors of U.S.
public opinion. I hope that such proposals may be brought before the
General Assembly and perhaps the Security Council. Even if not formally
endorsed, such initiatives would have considerable symbolic and possibly
even substantive impacts on further delegitimizing Israelās behavior.</p>
<p>A third specific initiative worth carefully considering would be
timely establishment of a Peopleās Tribunal on the Question of Genocide
initiated by global persons of conscience. Such tribunals were
established in relation to many issues that the formal governance
structures failed to address in satisfactory ways. Important examples
are the Russell Tribunal convened in 1965-66 to assess legal
responsibilities of the U.S. in the Vietnam War and the Iraq War
Tribunal of 2005 in response to the U.S. and U.K. attack and occupation
of Iraq commencing in 2003.</p>
<p>Such a tribunal on Gaza could clarify and document what happened on
and subsequently to October 7. By taking testimony of witnesses, it
could provide an opportunity for the people of the world to speak and to
feel represented in ways that governments and international procedures
are unable to given their entanglement with geopolitical hegemony in
relation to international criminal law and structures of global
governance.</p>
<h3 class="wp-block-heading">The South African World Court Case, Pariah State, and Popular Mobilization</h3>
<p>The South African initiative is important as a welcome effort to
enlist international law and procedures for its assessment and authority
in a context of severe alleged criminality. If the ICJ, the highest
tribunal on a supranational level, responds favorably to South Africaās
highly reasonable and morally imperative request for Provisional
Measures to stop the ongoing Gaza onslaught, it will increase pressure
on Israel and its supporters to comply. And if Israel refuses to do so,
it will escalate pro-Palestinian solidarity efforts throughout the world
and cast Israel into the darkest regions of pariah statehood.</p>
<p>In such an atmosphere, nonviolent activism and pressure for the
imposition of an arms embargo and trade boycotts as well as sports,
culture, and touristic boycotts will become more viable policy options.
This approach by way of civil society activism proved very effective in
the Euro-American peace efforts during the Vietnam War and in the
struggle against apartheid South Africa, and elsewhere.</p>
<p>Israel is becoming a pariah state due to its behavior and defiance
exhibited toward legal and moral norms. It has made itself notorious by
its outrageously forthright acknowledgement of genocidal intent with
respect to Palestinian civilians whom they are under a special
obligation to protect as the occupying power.</p>
<p>We know what we should be doing.to make amends, yet well-entrenched
special interests preclude such rational adjustments, and the military
malfunctions and accompanying geopolitical alignments persist, ignoring
costly failures along the way.</p>
<p>Being a pariah country or rogue state makes Israel politically and
economically vulnerable as never before. At this moment, a mobilized
civil society can contribute to producing a new balance of forces in the
world that has the potential to neutralize Western post-colonial
imperial geopolitics.</p>
<p>It is also relevant to take note of the startling fact that the
anti-colonial wars of the last century were in the end won by the weaker
side militarily. This is an important lesson, as is the realization
that anti-colonial struggle does not end with the attainment of
political independence. It needs to continue to achieve control of
national security and economic resources as the recent anti-French coups
in former French colonies in sub-Saharan Africa illustrate.</p>
<p>In the 21st century weapons alone rarely control political outcomes.
The U.S. should have learned this decades ago in Vietnam, having
controlled the battlefield and dominated the military dimensions of the
war, and yet having failed to achieve control over its political
outcome.</p>
<p>The U.S. is disabled from learning lessons from such defeats. Such
learning would weaken the leverage of the military-industrial-government
complex, including the private sector arms industry. This would subvert
the domestic balance in the U.S. and substantially discredit the global
geopolitical role being played by the U.S. throughout the entire world.</p>
<p>So, it is a dilemma. We know what we should be doing to make amends,
yet well-entrenched special interests preclude such rational
adjustments, and the military malfunctions and accompanying geopolitical
alignments persist, ignoring costly failures along the way.</p>
<p>We know what should be done, but do not have the political clout to
get it done. But global public opinion is shifting, and demonstrations
globally are building opposition to continuing the war.</p>
<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Iran</h3>
<p>There is a huge U.S./Israel propaganda effort to tie Iran to
everything that is regarded as anti-West or anti-Israeli. It has
intensified during this crisis, starting with the October 7 attack by
Iranās supposed proxy Hamas. You notice even the most influential
mainstream print media as <em>The</em><em>New York Times</em> routinely
refers to what Hezbollah or the Houthis do as āIran-backed.ā Such actors
are reduced misleadingly to being proxies of Iran.</p>
<p>This way of denying agency to pro-Palestinian actors and attributing
behavior to Iran is a matter of state propaganda trying to promote
belligerent attitudes toward Iran to the effect that Iran is our major
enemy in the region, while Israel is our loyal friend. At the same time,
it suppresses the reality that If Iran is backing countries and
political movements, it obscures what the U.S. is doing more overtly and
multiple times over.</p>
<p>It is largely unknown what Iran has been doing in the region to
protect its interests. Without doubt, Iran has strong sympathies with
the Palestinian struggle. Those sympathies coincide with its own
political self interest in not being attacked and minimizing the U.S.
role in the region. Additionally, Iran has lots of problems arising from
opposition forces within its own society.</p>
<p>But I think dangerous state propaganda is building up this hostility
toward Iran. It is highly misleading to regard Iran as the real enemy
standing behind all anti-Israeli actions in the region. It is important
to understand as accurately as possible the complexity and unknown
elements present in this crisis situation that contains dangers of wider
war in the region and beyond. As far as is publicly known, Iran has had
an extremely limited degree of involvement in the direct shaping of the
war and Israelās all-out attack on the civilian population of Gaza.</p>
<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Hamas and a Second Nakba</h3>
<p>While I was special rapporteur for the U.N. on Israeli violations of
human rights and international humanitarian law, I had the opportunity
to meet and talk in detail with several of the Hamas leaders who are
living either in Doha or Cairo and also in Gaza. In the period between
2010 and 2014, Hamas was publicly and by back channels pushing for a
50-year cease-fire with Israel. It was conditioned on Israel carrying
out the unanimous 1967 Security Council mandate in SC Res 242 to
withdraw its forces to the pre-war boundaries of āthe green line.ā Hamas
had also sought a long-range cease-fire with Israel after its 2006
electoral victory for up to 50 years.</p>
<p>Neither Israel nor the U.S. would respond to those diplomatic
initiatives. Hamas, Machel particularly who was perhaps the most
intellectual of the Hamas leaders, told me that he warned Washington of
the tragic consequences for both peoples if the conflict was allowed to
go on without a cease-fire, which was confirmed by independent sources.</p>
<p>Where can Palestinians go as the population suffers from famine and continued bombing? What is Israelās goal?</p>
<p>All indications are that Israel used the October 7 attack as a
pretext for the preexisting master plan to get rid of the Palestinians
whose presence blocks the establishment of Greater Israel with sovereign
control over the West Bank and at least portions of Gaza.</p>
<p>I see the so-called commitment to thinning the Palestinian presence
in Gaza and to a functional second Nakba. This is a criminal policy. I
donāt know that it has to have a formal name. It is not a policy
designed to achieve anything but the decapitation of the Palestinian
population. Israel seeks to move Gazans to the Egyptian Sinai, and the
Egyptians have already indicated that they donāt welcome this.</p>
<p>This is not a policy. This is some kind of a threat of elimination.
The Israeli campaign after October 7 was not directed toward Hamasā
terrorism nearly as much as it was directed toward the forced evacuation
of the Palestinians from Gaza and for the related dispossession of
Palestine in the West Bank.</p>
<p>If Israel really wanted to deal with its security in an effective
way, much more efficient and effective methods would have been relied
upon. There was no reason to treat the entire civilian population of
Gaza as if it were implicated in the Hamas attack, and there was
certainly no justification for the genocidal response. The Israeli
motivations seem more related to completing the Zionist Project than to
restoring territorial security. All indications are that Israel used the
October 7 attack as a pretext for the preexisting master plan to get
rid of the Palestinians whose presence blocks the establishment of
Greater Israel with sovereign control over the West Bank and at least
portions of Gaza.</p>
<p>For a proper perspective we should remember that before October 7,
the Netanyahu coalition government that took power at the start of 2023
was known as the most extreme government ever to govern the country
since its establishment in 1948. The new Netanyahu government in Israel
immediately gave a green light to settler violence in the Occupied West
Bank and appointed overtly racist religious leaders to administer the
parts of Palestine still occupied.</p>
<p>This was part of the end game of the whole Zionist project of
claiming territorial sovereignty over the whole of the so-called
promised land, enabling Greater Israel to come into existence.</p>
<h3 class="wp-block-heading">The Need for a Different Context</h3>
<p>We need to establish a different context than the one that exists
now. That means a different outlook on the part of the Western
supporters of Israel. And a different internal Israeli sense of their
own interests, their own future. And itās only when substantive pressure
is brought to bear on an elite that has gone to these lengths that it
can shake commitments to this orientation.</p>
<p>The lengths that the Israeli government has gone to are
characteristic of settler colonial states. All of them, including the
U.S. and Canada, have acted violently to neutralize or exterminate the
resident Indigenous people. That is what this genocidal interlude is all
about. It is an effort to realize the goals of maximal versions of
Zionism, which can only succeed by eliminating the Palestinians as
rightful claimants. It should not be forgotten that in the weeks before
the Hamas attack, including at the U.N., Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu was waving a map of āthe new Middle Eastā that had erased the
existence of Palestine.</p>
<p>Undoubtedly, one of Hamasā motivations was to negate the view that
Palestine had given up its right to self-determination, and that
Palestine could be erased. Recall the old delusional pre-Balfour Zionist
slogan: āA people without land for a land without people.ā Such
utterances of this early Zionist utopian phase literally erased the
Palestinians who for generations lived in Palestine as an entitled
Indigenous population. With the Balfour Declaration of 1917, this
settler colonial vision became a political project with the blessings of
the leading European colonial power.</p>
<p>Given post-colonial realities, the Israeli project is historically
discordant and extreme. It exposes the reality of Israelās policies and
the inevitable resistance response to Israel as a supremacist state.
Israeli state propaganda and management of the public discourse has
obscured the maximalist agenda of Zionism over the years, and we are yet
to know whether this was a deliberate tactic or just reflected the
phases of Israelās development.</p>
<p>This may turn out to be a moment of clarity with respect not only to
Gaza, but to the overall prospects for sustainable peace and justice
between these two embattled peoples.</p>
<p>Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.commondreams.org/author/richard-falk">Richard Falk</a></p>
<p>Richard Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International
Law at Princeton University and served as UN Special Rapporteur on
Human Rights in Palestine and is currently co-convener of <a href="https://www.theshapeproject.com/">SHAPE (Save Humanity and Planet Earth)</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.commondreams.org/author/richard-falk">Full Bio ></a></p>Nasir Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16981781828241865509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963508092996469398.post-53035192799678114722024-01-16T14:03:00.001+01:002024-01-16T14:03:42.786+01:00How Israelās war on Gaza exposed Zionism as a genocidal cult<p> </p><h1 class="wp-block-heading"></h1>
<figure class="wp-block-image"><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/users/joseph-massad"><img alt="" src="https://www.middleeasteye.net/sites/default/files/styles/author_thumbnail/public/pictures/2019-05/1_1015038_1_34.jpg?itok=GRl7QiDB" /></a></figure>
<p><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/users/joseph-massad"></a><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/users/joseph-massad">Joseph Massad</a>, Middle East Eye, Published date: 11 January 2024 </p>
<p>The question is no longer whether the Israeli government is racist
and genocidal, but whether the Israeli Jewish majority supporting its
crimes against Palestinians also fits this description</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image"><img alt="Protesters wave Israeli flags during a demonstration against the hearing at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on a genocide complaint by South Africa against Israel, in The Hague, Netherlands, on 11 January 2024 (Robin Utrecht/AFP)" src="https://www.middleeasteye.net/sites/default/files/styles/max_2600x2600/public/images-story/hague%20protest.jpg?itok=pHxai8P2" /></figure>
<p>Protesters wave Israeli flags during a demonstration against the
hearing at the International Court of Justice on a genocide complaint by
South Africa against Israel, in The Hague, Netherlands, on 11 January
2024 (Robin Utrecht/AFP)</p>
<p>Ever since the current <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/israel" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Israeli</a> cabinet, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, came to power in December 2022, there has been a consensus, even in the <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/03/09/bezalel-smotrich-the-extremist-settler-is-making-his-mark-on-the-israeli-government_6018684_4.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">western</a> <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2023/1/20/23561464/israel-new-right-wing-government-extreme-protests-netanyahu-biden-ben-gvir" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">mainstream</a> and among the Israeli <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/editorial/2023-07-19/ty-article-opinion/netanyahu-is-the-leader-of-jewish-supremacy/00000189-6fb7-d2f8-afeb-7fbf2e980000" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">political</a> <a href="https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-749795" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">opposition</a>, that it is a <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/editorial/2023-07-19/ty-article-opinion/netanyahu-is-the-leader-of-jewish-supremacy/00000189-6fb7-d2f8-afeb-7fbf2e980000" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Jewish supremacist</a>, <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@thetnholler/video/7302510115536571691" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">racist</a> government.</p>
<p>Characterisations of the government, which clearly expressed the
preferences of a majority of the Israeli Jewish electorate, as ā<a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2023/1/20/23561464/israel-new-right-wing-government-extreme-protests-netanyahu-biden-ben-gvir" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">the most extreme</a>ā, ā<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/16/opinions/israel-cease-fire-gaza-miller/index.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">the most fundamentalist</a>ā, and ā<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2015/03/16/middleeast/israeli-election-arabs/index.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">the most racist</a>ā in Israelās history, became common. Other <a href="https://mronline.org/2023/10/09/communist-party-of-israel-and-hadash-netanyahus-fascist-government-bears-full-responsibility-for-the-dangerous-escalation/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">descriptions</a> deemed it Israelās ā<a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-netanyahu-fascist-government-us-respond-must" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">first fascist</a>ā government.</p>
<p>This is aside from the fact that two years before the rise of the
current government, historically pro-Israel mainstream western human
rights <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/02/israels-apartheid-against-palestinians-a-cruel-system-of-domination-and-a-crime-against-humanity/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">organisations</a> had adjudged Israel a racist ā<a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-palestine-apartheid-long-making-news" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">apartheid</a>ā
state since its founding. Palestinians and their supporters have also
used this label to describe Israel since at least the 1960s.</p>
<p>It is the same government, which was the object of international condemnation, that has launched the ongoing <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/live/live-israel-palestine-gaza-war-hamas-conflict" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">genocidal war</a> against the <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/palestine" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Palestinian</a> people, which has so far killed and injured upwards of 100,000 Palestinians and displaced more than two million.</p>
<p>Yet this very same racist government and its genocidal war are
supported, armed, and financed by the US and its European allies, who,
forgetting their earlier criticisms, have not flinched from <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-west-smear-palestinians-antisemitic" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">justifying</a> Israeli crimes, just as they previously defended the Jewish settler colony against accusations of apartheid.</p>
<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Stay informed with MEEās newsletters</h2>
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<p>Increasingly, however, the question being debated is no longer
whether the Israeli government is racist, fascist, or genocidal, but
whether a majority of Israeli Jews also fit those descriptions and that
this government is, indeed, no more than a manifestation of Israeli
Jewish political culture.</p>
<h3 class="wp-block-heading">āNo longer fringeā</h3>
<p>Middle East Eye editor-in-chief David Hearst recently <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/war-gaza-fate-global-justice-hangs-south-africas-icj-case" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">observed</a>
that those expressing genocidal racism among Israeli Jews ā including
soldiers, singers, artists, and politicians ā āare no longer a fringe.
They represent what mainstream Israel thinks. They have become
genocidal, racist and fascist when talking about Palestinians ā
unashamedly so. They are proud of and joke about their racism and do
little to disguise it.ā</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
<p>Since its inception, the Zionist movement has always set out to
ethnically cleanse Palestine of the countryās indigenous Palestinian
population</p>
</blockquote>
<p>According to the Israel Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv Universityās Peace Index <a href="https://time.com/6333781/israel-hamas-poll-palestine/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">polls</a>
taken more than a month after the beginning of the massive Israeli
bombing of Gaza, which by then had killed thousands, ā57.5 percent of
Israeli Jews said that they believed the Israel Defence Forces (IDF)
were using too little firepower in Gaza, 36.6 percent said the IDF was
using an appropriate amount of firepower, while just 1.8 percent said
they believed the IDF was using too much firepower.ā</p>
<p>Commenting on the genocidal views of a majority of Israeli Jews and
their support of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people, Israeli
journalist <a href="https://twitter.com/owenjones84/status/1741516934070390802?t=ejzRPoAJrFQDpEoeiib8zA" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Gideon Levy</a>
appears to be at a loss: āEither thatās the real face of Israel, and
the attack on the 7th legitimised it to be above the surface, or that
the 7th really changed things,ā he said, adding: āI donāt know which one
is true.ā</p>
<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity" />
<p><em><strong><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/live/live-israel-palestine-gaza-war-hamas-conflict" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Follow Middle East Eyeās live coverage of the Israel-Palestine war</a></strong></em></p>
<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity" />
<p>Levyās response is surprising, however, given the documented racism
of the Zionist movement since its inception and the well-known fact that
it has always set out to ethnically cleanse Palestine of the countryās
indigenous Palestinian population.</p>
<p>The Israeli press has published seemingly ā<a href="https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-779510" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">reasonable</a>ā
articles, which frame Israelās planned ethnic cleansing of the
Palestinians of Gaza and their potential expulsion to the Egyptian Sinai
as something wonderful, describing it as āone of the most suitable
places on Earth to provide the people of Gaza with hope and a peaceful
future.ā</p>
<p>Yet one could presumably and just as reasonably counter that proposal
with one suggesting that Israelās Jewish colonists voluntarily move to
the <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/us" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">US</a>
and Europe, particularly Germany, where their rights and privileges are
safeguarded. Indeed, these are among āthe most suitable places on Earth
to provide [Israeli Jews] with hope and a peaceful futureā.</p>
<p>War on Gaza: The fate of global justice hangs on South Africaās ICJ case</p>
<p>David Hearst</p>
<p><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/war-gaza-fate-global-justice-hangs-south-africas-icj-case" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Read More Ā»</a></p>
<p>This is especially true since <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/israels-barak-sees-opportunity-for-peace-in-mideast-upheaval--117069933/135771.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Israeli officials</a> and <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/israels-rightward-shift" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">intellectuals</a> often claim that they live in a ābadā or ā<a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-we-live-in-a-tough-neighborhood/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">tough</a>ā neighbourhood, or even in the ā<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/20/jewish-majority-israel-villa-in-the-jungle" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">jungle</a>ā.
Europe and the US are clearly far superior neighbourhoods with very low
security concerns. After all, Europe is a āgardenā, while āmost of the
rest of the world is a jungleā, as European Union foreign policy chief <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/eu-josep-borrell-europe-garden-built-on-plunder-jungle" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Josep Borrell</a> infamously declared last year. </p>
<p>The EUās German President <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/speech_23_3181" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Ursula von der Leyen</a>
has also emphasised that āJewish culture is European cultureā and that
āEurope must value its own Jewish-ness. So that Jewish life in Europe
can thrive again.ā</p>
<p>Such a voluntary move on the part of Israeli Jews, more than <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/jews-leaving-israel-disillusion-long-time" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">one million of whom</a>
already hold European and US passports, would spare the Palestinian
people (and the Middle East more widely) the violence and wars that
Zionist colonisation since the 1880s and especially after 1948, has
visited on the people of the region.</p>
<p>Perhaps, rather than having Israel and its western sponsors secretly negotiate with ā<a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-negotiating-african-countries-expel-palestinians-gaza-report" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Congo</a>ā or <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/israel-s-allies-warn-against-displacing-palestinians-in-gaza-to-places-like-canada-1.6709389#:~:text=Israel%27s%20allies%20warn%20against%20displacing%20Palestinians%20in%20Gaza%20to%20places%20like%20Canada&text=Countries%20traditionally%20aligned%20with%20Israel,Canada%20could%20take%20in%20Palestinians." rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Canada</a>
to take in expelled Palestinians, as was recently reported, the United
Nations and Arab states should most enthusiastically urge western
countries to welcome Israeli Jews in their midst.</p>
<h3 class="wp-block-heading">A violent cult</h3>
<p>With recent polls and analyses revealing the hatred and genocidal
attitudes of the vast majority of Israelās Jewish citizens towards
Palestinians, their relocation to Europe and the US should bring them
more happiness and peace of mind.</p>
<p>In addition, those who justify the annihilation of Palestinians in order to <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-genocide-against-palestinians-colonial-tradition" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">āsaveā western civilisation</a>
and values with which Israel identifies, would find themselves better
off saving western civilisation from the heart of it, far from the
colonial frontier and the anti-colonial Palestinian resistance.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-mass-murder-palestinians-gaza-began-seven-decades-ago" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank"></a></p>
<p>Israelās mass murder of Palestinians in Gaza began seven decades ago</p>
<p><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-mass-murder-palestinians-gaza-began-seven-decades-ago" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Read More Ā»</a></p>
<p>In this vein, the European Commission coordinator on combatting antisemitism and fostering Jewish life, the German <a href="https://commission.europa.eu/system/files/2023-09/Speech%20by%20Katharina%20von%20Schnurbein%20-%20European%20Days%20of%20Jewish%20Culture%202023.pdf" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Katharina von Schnurbein</a>,
recently affirmed that āEurope would not be Europe without its Jewish
heritage.ā She added: āJewish heritage is part of Europeās DNA. And as
European institutions, we want to protect Jewish heritage, to safeguard
and cherish it. This is a key aspect of fostering Jewish life, which is
the ultimate goal of the EU strategy on combating antisemitism and
fostering Jewish life.ā</p>
<p>One might expect, as a result of such affirmation, that Europeās
doors this time would open for Jews, unlike in the 1930s and 1940s, or
that the US, which refused to admit Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis
and <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/us-government-turned-away-thousands-jewish-refugees-fearing-they-were-nazi-spies-180957324/0%7C" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">sent back a ship</a>
filled with them in 1939 to Europe where many of them perished in
Hitlerās death camps, would welcome Israeli Jews to their better
neighbourhood with open arms.</p>
<p>A large number of <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-12-31/ty-article/.premium/as-mental-health-system-in-israel-collapses-psychiatrists-are-leaving-for-britain/0000018c-c026-d3e0-abac-d8af89aa0000" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Israeli psychiatrists</a>
have already left the country for greener pastures in the United
Kingdom, citing a high workload that has only increased since 7 October
and a mental health system on the brink of collapse.</p>
<p>This is unsurprising, as support for the slaughter of Palestinians in untold <a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180606-poll-61-of-israel-supports-military-response-to-gaza-protests/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">massacres</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/31/israeli-polls-support-gaza-campaign-media" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">wars</a> since 1948 has evidently become a veritable genocidal cult in Israel across all segments of <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-war-doctors-call-gaza-hospitals-bombed" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">society</a> and <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/israeli-president-says-no-innocent-154330724.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">government</a>. Like all members of violent cults, the only way to save them from themselves is to <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/deprogramming" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">deprogram</a>
them. This will undoubtedly be a lengthy and complicated process that,
in the case of many Israeli Jews, will require undoing decades of
brainwashing.</p>
<p>Perhaps those same psychiatrists who left could help deprogram
Israeli Jews in a safe European environment to rid them of their
attachment to ethnic cleansing and genocidal wars.</p>
<h3 class="wp-block-heading">A peaceful future</h3>
<p>Meanwhile, the case South Africa has brought to the International
Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Israel of genocide is raising alarms in
the White House and Western European capitals. This is only the latest
case that the ICJ received accusing Israel of crimes.</p>
<p>A year ago, the United Nations General Assembly approved a request
for an advisory opinion from the ICJ on Israelās occupation of the
Palestinian territories with 87 votes in favour and 26 against ā the
opponents mostly are the same countries that today support Israelās
genocidal war in Gaza.</p>
<p>The ICJ is set to hold public hearings about the case <a href="https://unric.org/en/israel-palestine-the-role-of-international-justice/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">next month</a>. As for the more recent case that South Africa brought, the ICJ is looking into it in an emergency hearing on 11 January.</p>
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<p>The ICJ has faced similar requests in the context of
settler-colonialism since the Second World War. Most notably, in July
1966, the ICJ dismissed a petition put forth in 1962 by Liberia and
Ethiopia concerning the South African settler colony of Namibia, on the
basis that neither of them had legal standing to bring the petition.
Both countries had been former members of the League of Nations, which
had selected South Africa as the mandatory power over Namibia after
World War One.</p>
<p>Liberia and Ethiopiaās 1962 petition called on the court to adjudicate the legal status of Namibia. The president of the court, <a href="https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/The_Devils_are_Among_Us/JNghAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=Herbstein+and+Evensen,+The+Devils+Are+Among+Us&dq=Herbstein+and+Evensen,+The+Devils+Are+Among+Us&printsec=frontcover" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Sir Percy Spender</a>,
himself from the settler colony of Australia, cast the deciding vote in
the seven-to-seven decision in favour of South Africa. That decision
launched the armed struggle by the South West Africa Peopleās
Organisation (Swapo) against the South African apartheid occupiers. That
year, the General Assembly revoked South Africaās mandate but to no
avail.</p>
<p>In 1969, the UN Security Council finally endorsed the General
Assemblyās 1966 revocation of South Africaās mandate. When South Africa
defied the UN and refused to withdraw, the matter was referred in July
1970 to the ICJ for an advisory opinion.</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
<p>It was the 1971 ICJ decision that led to international recognition of
the anti-colonial Swapo and the right of the Namibian people to
self-determination</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Unlike in 1966, this time the <a href="https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/To_be_Born_a_Nation/BZIhAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=SWAPO+of+Namibia,+To+Be+Born+a+Nation&dq=SWAPO+of+Namibia,+To+Be+Born+a+Nation&printsec=frontcover" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">ICJās opinion</a>,
issued on 21 June 1971, completely vindicated the UN position, ruling
that the UN was the lawful governing authority in Namibia and that South
Africa must withdraw.</p>
<p>In contrast with the 1966 pro-colonial ICJ decision, the 1971
decision removed the last vestige of legitimacy the white supremacist
regime still had. Not that South Africa abided by the decision; it did
not. South Africaās western Nato sponsors continued unabashedly to
support its delay tactics masquerading as a āpeace processā and <a href="https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/The_Devils_are_Among_Us/JNghAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=Herbstein+and+Evensen,+The+Devils+Are+Among+Us&dq=Herbstein+and+Evensen,+The+Devils+Are+Among+Us&printsec=frontcover" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">vetoed</a> UN resolutions that called for sanctions on the white supremacist state. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, it was the 1971 ICJ decision that led to <a href="https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/To_be_Born_a_Nation/BZIhAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=SWAPO+of+Namibia,+To+Be+Born+a+Nation&dq=SWAPO+of+Namibia,+To+Be+Born+a+Nation&printsec=frontcover" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">international recognition</a>
of Swapo and the right of the Namibian people to self-determination. It
would take a war of liberation for Namibia to finally obtain
independence in 1990.</p>
<p>This is to say that an ICJ decision that condemns Israelās war as a
genocide will augur well for the Palestinian peopleās struggle against
their cruel and bloodthirsty colonisers. </p>
<p>While it will not bring about immediate liberation and
decolonisation, it will accelerate that process measurably until it
dismantles Israelās regime of Jewish supremacy and saves both
Palestinians and Israeli Jews from the genocidal cult of Zionism.</p>
<p><em>The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.</em></p>
<p>Joseph Massad is professor of modern Arab politics and intellectual
history at Columbia University, New York. He is the author of many books
and academic and journalistic articles. His books include Colonial
Effects: The Making of National Identity in Jordan; Desiring Arabs; The
Persistence of the Palestinian Question: Essays on Zionism and the
Palestinians, and most recently Islam in Liberalism. His books and
articles have been translated into a dozen languages.</p>
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<h3 class="sd-title">Share this:</h3><ul data-sharing-events-added="true"><li class="share-facebook"><a class="share-facebook sd-button share-icon" data-shared="sharing-facebook-35796" href="https://sudhan.wordpress.com/2024/01/16/how-israels-war-on-gaza-exposed-zionism-as-a-genocidal-cult/?share=facebook&nb=1" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="Click to share on Facebook"><span>Facebook</span></a></li><li class="share-twitter"><a class="share-twitter sd-button share-icon" data-shared="sharing-twitter-35796" href="https://sudhan.wordpress.com/2024/01/16/how-israels-war-on-gaza-exposed-zionism-as-a-genocidal-cult/?share=twitter&nb=1" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="Click to share on Twitter"><span>Twitter</span></a></li><li class="share-pinterest"><a class="share-pinterest sd-button share-icon" data-shared="sharing-pinterest-35796" href="https://sudhan.wordpress.com/2024/01/16/how-israels-war-on-gaza-exposed-zionism-as-a-genocidal-cult/?share=pinterest&nb=1" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="Click to share on Pinterest"><span>Pinterest</span></a></li><li class="share-linkedin"><a class="share-linkedin sd-button share-icon" data-shared="sharing-linkedin-35796" href="https://sudhan.wordpress.com/2024/01/16/how-israels-war-on-gaza-exposed-zionism-as-a-genocidal-cult/?share=linkedin&nb=1" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="Click to share on LinkedIn"><span>LinkedIn</span></a></li></ul>Nasir Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16981781828241865509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963508092996469398.post-41256755325995724462024-01-15T11:11:00.001+01:002024-01-15T11:11:27.112+01:00Netanyahu pledges to defy International Court of Justice as Gaza death toll mounts<p><br />@Andre__Damon, WSWS. Org, January 15, 2024<br /><br />In a speech Saturday marking 100 days of Israelās onslaught on Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to continue the massacre in defiance of international law.<br /><br />āWe will restore security to both the south and the north,ā Netanyahu vowed. āNo one will stop usānot The Hague, not the axis of evil, and not anyone else.ā<br /><br />Netanyahu pledged āto fight on to the endāuntil complete victory.ā He continued, adding, āWe will not stop until we achieve victory.ā<br />Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, speaks with Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich during the weekly cabinet meeting at the Defence Ministry in Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday Jan. 7, 2024. [AP Photo/Ronen Zvulun]<br /><br />Netanyahu angrily denounced the genocide case against Israel brought before the International Court of Justice in the Hague, the Netherlands, by South Africa.<br /><br />He called the case a āhypocritical attack in The Hague on the Jewish state that rose from the ashes of the Holocaust,ā and āa moral low in the history of nations.ā He vowed, āThis international defamation campaign will not weaken our hands or weaken our determination to fight to the end.ā<br /><br />In the most explicit terms to date, Netanyahu sought to directly implicate the United States in the war crimes of the Israeli military, saying that he told US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that āthis is not only our war, this is also your war.ā<br /><br />Indeed, the genocide in Gaza is āAmericaās war.ā The United States has provided over 10,000 tons of military equipment to Israel since October 7, transported in 244 cargo plane flights and over 20 ships.<br /><br />On January 12, the New York Times reported that the Central Intelligence Agency is collecting āinformation on senior Hamas leadersā and relaying it to Israel, meaning the United States is providing targeting information for Israeli strikes that have to date killed over 30,000 civilians in Gaza.<br /><br />Last week, the US massively expanded its involvement in the war throughout the Middle East, striking over 30 sites in Yemen on Thursday, followed by more strikes on Friday.<br /><br />In his own statement marking the 100th day of the war, President Joe Biden did not mention, much less express sympathy with, the Gazans who have been killed or the 1.9 million Gazans who are facing starvation and displacement. Instead, the entirety of the three-paragraph statement was directed toward Israelis held hostage by Hamas, whose captivity the Netanyahu regime is using as a pretext to carry out its genocide.<br /><br />US Secretary of State Antony Blinken echoed these statements, declaring, āThe United States will not rest until all remaining hostages, including six Americans, are reunited with their loved ones.ā<br /><br />In its statement marking the 100th day of the attack, the Euro-Med monitor reported that approximately 100,000 Gazans have been killed, reported missing or wounded since October 7.<br />A Palestinian looks at the destruction after an Israel bombs a residential building in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Sunday, Jan. 14, 2024. [AP Photo/Adel Hana]<br /><br />It noted that 31,497 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been killed to date by Israeli bombings. It estimated that a staggering 28,961, or 92 percent, were civilians āincluding 12,345 children, 6,471 women, 295 health personnel, 41 civil defense personnel, and 113 journalists.ā<br /><br />These statistics include both those whose bodies have been identified and over 7,000 people who have been missing for more than 14 days and are presumed dead. The monitor noted that āHundreds of bodies that cannot be recovered due to the ongoing Israeli violence remain on the roadsā¦ particularly in areas where Israelās army has conducted ground incursions.ā<br /><br />A further 1.955 million Palestinians, approximately 85 percent of the total population of the Strip, have been displaced from their homes.<br /><br />Nearly 70,000 housing units have been completely destroyed, and a further 187,300 units have been damaged. These include ā320 schools; 1,671 industrial facilities; 183 health facilities, including 23 hospitals, 59 clinics and 92 ambulances; 239 mosques; three churches; and 170 press offices.ā<br /><br />Summarizing the massive level of destruction, Euro-Med reported that āIsrael is deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure in order to cause as many casualties, material losses, and as much general destruction as possible as a form of retaliation and collective punishment. This is against international humanitarian law, the 1949 Geneva Convention, and amounts to war crimes according to the Rome Statute, which governs the International Criminal Court.ā<br /><br />In its update on the state of the offensive, the United Nations wrote: āOne hundred days into the conflict, intense Israeli bombardments from air, land, and sea continued across much of the Gaza Strip on 14 January, resulting in further civilian casualties and destruction.ā<br /><br />In a statement on Sunday, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini declared, āThe crisis in Gaza is a man-made disaster compounded by dehumanizing language and the use of food, water, and fuel as instruments of war.ā<br /><br />In a statement to Al Jazeera, Lazzarini continued, āWhenever you go to a school, the kids are looking at your eyes begging for a sip of water or a loaf of breadā¦ This 100 days feels to be an eternity.ā</p>Nasir Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16981781828241865509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6963508092996469398.post-8047457938684298802024-01-14T11:52:00.001+01:002024-01-14T11:52:14.053+01:00āBertrand Russellās Last Messageā on Israel and Palestine<p> </p><h2></h2>
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<figure class="wp-block-image"><a href="https://www.heritagetimes.in/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Bertrand-Russells-Last-Message-on-Israel-and-Palestine.jpg"><img alt=""Bertrand Russellās Last Message" on Israel and Palestine" src="https://www.heritagetimes.in/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Bertrand-Russells-Last-Message-on-Israel-and-Palestine-800x445.jpg" /></a></figure>
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<p><a href="https://www.heritagetimes.in/author/jsiddiqui/">M S Siddiqui</a>, Heritagre Times, May 23, 2021<a href="https://www.heritagetimes.in/bertrand-russells-last-message-on-israel-and-palestine/"><time datetime="2021-05-23T15:25:43+00:00"></time></a></p>
<p>This statement on the Middle East was dated 31st January, 1970, and was read on 3rd February, the day after <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_Russell">Bertrand Russell</a>ās death, to an International Conference of Parliamentarians meeting in Cairo.</p>
<p>āThe latest phase of the undeclared war in the Middle East is based
upon a profound miscalculation. The bombing raids deep into Egyptian
territory will not persuade the civilian population to surrender, but
will stiffen their resolve to resist. This is the lesson of all aerial
bombardment.</p>
<p>The Vietnamese who have endured years of American heavy bombing have
responded not by capitulation but by shooting down more enemy aircraft.
In 1940 my own fellow countrymen resisted Hitlerās bombing raids with
unprecedented unity and determination.</p>
<p>For this reason, the present Israeli attacks will fail in their
essential purpose, but at the same time they must be condemned
vigorously throughout the world.</p>
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<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://www.heritagetimes.in/matiel-moghannam-the-palestinian-gandhi/">Matiel Moghannam, āThe Palestinian Gandhiā</a></h4>
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<p>The development of the crisis in the Middle East is both dangerous
and instructive. For over 20 years Israel has expanded by force of arms.
After every stage in this expansion Israel has appealed to āreasonā and
has suggested ānegotiationsā.</p>
<p>This is the traditional role of the imperial power, because it wishes
to consolidate with the least difficulty what it has already taken by
violence. Every new conquest becomes the new basis of the proposed
negotiation from strength, which ignores the injustice of the previous
aggression.</p>
<p>The aggression committed by Israel must be condemned, not only
because no state has the right to annexe foreign territory, but because
every expansion is an experiment to discover how much more aggression
the world will tolerate.</p>
<p>The refugees who surround Palestine in their hundreds of thousands
were described recently by the Washington journalist I.F. Stone as āthe
moral millstone around the neck of world Jewry.ā</p>
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<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://www.heritagetimes.in/german-jewish-doctors-in-india-refuge-opposition-and-success/">German Jewish Doctors in India, Refuge, Opposition and Success</a></h4>
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<p>Many of the refugees are now well into the third decade of their
precarious existence in temporary settlements. The tragedy of the people
of Palestine is that their country was āgivenā by a foreign Power to
another people for the creation of a new State. The result was that many
hundreds of thousands of innocent people were made permanently
homeless.</p>
<p>With every new conflict their number have increased. How much longer
is the world willing to endure this spectacle of wanton cruelty? It is
abundantly clear that the refugees have every right to the homeland from
which they were driven, and the denial of this right is at the heart of
the continuing conflict.</p>
<p>No people anywhere in the world would accept being expelled en masse
from their own country; how can anyone require the people of Palestine
to accept a punishment which nobody else would tolerate? A permanent
just settlement of the refugees in their homeland is an essential
ingredient of any genuine settlement in the Middle East.</p>
<p>We are frequently told that we must sympathize with Israel because of
the suffering of the Jews in Europe at the hands of the Nazis. I see in
this suggestion no reason to perpetuate any suffering.</p><p>What Israel is doing today cannot be condoned, and to invoke the
horrors of the past to justify those of the present is gross hypocrisy.
Not only does Israel condemn a vast number of refugees to misery; not
only are many Arabs under occupation condemned to military rule; but
also Israel condemns the Arab nations only recently emerging from
colonial status, to continued impoverishment as military demands take
precedence over national development.</p>
<p>All who want to see an end to bloodshed in the Middle East must
ensure that any settlement does not contain the seeds of future
conflict. Justice requires that the first step towards a settlement must
be an Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied in June,
1967. A new world campaign is needed to help bring justice to the
long-suffering people of the Middle East.ā</p>
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<h4 class="wp-block-heading">M S Siddiqui</h4>
<p>Dr. Mohammad Siddiqui is a UK based Medical doctor. Apart from
Medicine he is interested in history, culture, art and architecture. He
is an avid collector of rare photographs, postcards, maps, artefacts,
rare books and magazines on different themes like āHajj pilgrimageā,
āDelhiā, āIslam in Britainā and āThe role of Indian soldiers in WWI.ā</p>Nasir Khanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16981781828241865509noreply@blogger.com0