I 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.
by Elizabeth Short, Morning Star, Friday, August 30, 2024
PALESTINE ACTION activists who occupied a weapons factory to disrupt
weapon productions for Israel in Shipley are set to go on trial on
Monday.
The four activists were charged with criminal damage after they were
seen scaling and taking a sledgehammer to the roof of the US-owned
Teledyne Defence and Space factory on April 2.
The factory manufactures components for missiles, electronics, gunsights and munitions for the Israeli military.
Operations were ground to a halt as a result of the action.
Two out of four activists were remanded to prison afterwards.
One was held for approximately one month, while the other was held for three months.
Palestine Action says the firm “boasts of its involvement with
missile products procured by Israel, including the AGM-Harpoon, AIM-120
AMRAAM and AGM-114 Hellfire missiles deployed by Israel against Gaza —
the latter reportedly being used to strike al-Shifa hospital.”
It also produces parts, including filters and multifunction
assemblies for drones and aircraft, along with radar systems such as the
type fitted in F-35 Fighter jets used by Israel.
Since 2018, its parent company Teledyne Technologies has applied for 134 export licences to Israel.
A Palestine Action spokesperson said: “Under Section 1 of the
Genocide Convention, Britain is obliged to prevent and punish the
commission of genocide.
“When our government fails to do so, it’s the legal and moral obligation of ordinary people to take direct action.
“The weapons manufacturers arming genocide are the guilty ones, not Palestine Action.”
It comes after it was announced on Thursday that co-founder of
Palestine Action Richard Barnard faces three charges over giving two
speeches.
Mr Barnard is accused of supporting a proscribed organisation under
the Terrorism Act and two counts of encouraging criminal damage against
arms manufacturers.
Government ministers continue to reject calls to suspend arms exports while the death toll in Gaza tops 40,000.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy has pushed back against publishing
legal advice on whether the exports are being used to facilitate
international war crimes, despite calling on the previous Tory
government to do so while in opposition.
Complicity requires all licences to be suspended, according to government rules.
The US has been rushing weapons shipments to Israel since the end of July, Haaretz reported on Thursday, citing open-sourced aviation data.
The report said that the spike in arms shipments made August the
second busiest month at Israel’s Nevatim Airbase for US deliveries since
Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza began back in October 2023 following the
Hamas attack on southern Israel.
Dozens of US military transport flights, as well as Israeli civilian
and military and cargo planes, have landed at the base, mainly traveling
from Qatar and the Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.
The Haaretz report appeared to attribute the rush in arms
shipments to US preparations for a potential Iranian attack. The US has
deployed additional fighter jets and warships to the region and is
vowing to defend Israel from Iran’s response to the Israeli
assassination of Hamas’s political chief, Ismail Haniyeh, on Iranian
territory. Following a major exchange of fire between Israel and
Hezbollah on Sunday, the US is still expecting a reprisal attack from
Iran.
Besides helping Israel prepare for a potential attack from Iran, the
US weapons shipments also help fuel the slaughter in Gaza and Israel’s
operations in the West Bank, which significantly escalated on Wednesday. Israeli forces launched their largest attack on the Israeli-occupied West Bank since the Second Intifada in the early 2000s.
The rush in arms shipments also shows strong support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been working to prevent a ceasefire deal with Hamas, and shows President Biden and Vice President Harris are not serious about ending the slaughter in Gaza.
The Israeli Defense Ministry said on Monday that the US had delivered over 50,000 tons of weapons and
other military equipment since October 7. The ministry said the US
support was “crucial for sustaining the IDF’s operational capabilities
during the ongoing war.”
American foreign policy failures have inflicted untold misery
worldwide for decades, while Beijing is now achieving tangible results
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister
Wang Yi shake hands at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing on 26
April 2024 (Mark Schiefelbein/AFP)
Conventional wisdom decrees that the 21st century’s most important geopolitical battle will be between the United States and China.
In this context, the western mainstream narrative portrays the US as
committed to safeguarding and enforcing the so-called rules-based world
order, which Washington created and has presided over since its victory
in the Second World War.
This rules-based order should correspond with the international law
codified in many covenants since the birth of the United Nations almost
80 years ago. It does not.
At best, this rules-based order reflects a US/western interpretation
of selected aspects of international law. At worst, international law
has been twisted to suit the West’s specific interests.
In both cases, the purpose is to serve the West’s geopolitical
interests and justify its hegemony. Of course, blinded by hubris,
western powers believe that because these “rules” allegedly fit their
interests, they also serve the interests of all humankind. They are
wrong.
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That same western mainstream narrative portrays China as the main
threat to this rules-based order, attributing to the Asian nation both
the will and the capability to challenge and modify this order.
That the US and its allies have come to such conclusions demonstrates
the catastrophic cognitive dissonance characterising western leaders’
analysis and decision-making.
Diplomatic failures
It is extraordinary that western chancelleries attribute such
subversive intentions to Communist China, which – contrary to the US –
has not deployed its army abroad for nearly half a century (the last
instance being in 1979, against Vietnam).
Unlike the US, China has never interfered in or organised a coup
against any other country. Unlike the US, it has never adopted
unilateral sanctions against any country except those legally authorised
by the UN Security Council. Also, unlike the US, it owns only one
military base abroad (in Djibouti), and its navy – again, contrary to
the US – mainly patrols the South China Sea, which constitutes the
country’s most important supply line.
War on Gaza: How the western ‘rules-based order’ is a sham
China’s main territorial claim concerns an island in the Pacific
Ocean close to its coast (Taiwan), which, since 1972, through three
joint US-China communiques, Washington has unequivocally recognised as
part of mainland China. To eliminate any ambiguity, the US doubled down
by facilitating Taiwan’s expulsion from the UN to give its seat to
Communist China.
If such extremely restrained and responsible behaviour qualifies
China as a threat to the rules-based order, how should the behaviour of
the US and its closest allies (particularly Israel) be viewed?
Another interesting metric for assessing whether the US or China
poses the greatest threat to the rules-based world order is their
respective behaviour in the most troublesome region of the planet: the
Middle East.
Since the end of the Second World War, the US has claimed an
exclusive role in allegedly promoting peace and stability in the region.
It has been called “Pax Americana”, though, in recent times, it has
been anything but peaceful.
US diplomacy once boasted significant successes, from shuttle
diplomacy after the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the 1978 Camp David Accords,
which secured peace between Israel and Egypt, to the 1994 peace deal between Israel and Jordan.
However, over the last three decades, the US’ magic touch in the region has almost systematically failed.
China and the Middle East
These failures encompass everything from the collapse of an Israeli-Palestinian deal in 2000 and the “war on terror” across the broader Middle East (including Afghanistan in 2001 and a renewed invasion of Iraq in 2003) to an ignominious withdrawal from Kabul two decades later and the delivery of Iraq to pro-Iran militias after 2011.
They also include the “Assad must go” policy in Syria in 2011, followed by the country’s readmission to the Arab League and the reopening of Arab and western embassies in Damascus, along with an intelligent nuclear deal with Iran in 2015, followed by the Trump administration’s ignominious withdrawal from the same deal three years later.
Saudi-Iran reconciliation: How China is reshaping the Middle East
In addition, the US’ failures encompass the biased Abraham Accords,
which only served Israel’s interests, and an ironclad and blind support
for Israel in its murderous assault on Gaza, which has led to
accusations at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the
International Criminal Court (ICC) for genocide and crimes against
humanity.
And then, there is China, a latecomer to the Middle East.
Unlike the US, China has no military bases in the region and not a single soldier has been deployed, except for a few hundred who have been engaged in the UN-mandated Unifil mission patrolling and surveying the critical border between Israel and Lebanon.
For decades, China’s main concern in the Middle East has been
developing economic and trade relations with the countries in the
region, and it has been successful on both counts. China boasts
strategic economic agreements with Egypt, Iran and all the members of
the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), as well as good relations with Israel.
More recently, China’s diplomatic efforts have accomplished two major successes.
In 2023, it brokered a rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia,
two of the most important players in the region, pursuing a very
different political path from the one favoured by the US, which seeks to
isolate Iran to trigger regime change in Tehran.
Earlier this year, China brokered another important understanding by successfully promoting reconciliation talks among the different Palestinian factions, especially between Fatah and Hamas.
Honest broker
This diplomatic achievement should not be underestimated because the
decades-old divisions among Palestinians have been a significant
obstacle to a successful peace process.
Israel has been claiming for years that it has no credible partner
for negotiations. Of course, since the 1980s, Israel has actively
fomented divisions among the different Palestinian factions, precisely
so it could maintain the narrative that it lacks a partner for peace
talks and thereby continue its annexation of the occupied territories.
If the Palestinian factions respect and fulfil the understandings
reached in Beijing, this could be a crucial first step towards a more
credible peace process in the future.
The current rules-based order, as often claimed by the US and its
allies, is nothing more than a semantic trick aimed at concealing
western hypocrisy and double standards
In other words, while the US has been providing iron-clad support to
Israel’s genocide by sending vast amounts of weapons, shielding Israel’s
crimes at the UN Security Council and trying – so far unsuccessfully –
to broker a ceasefire in Gaza and secure the release of Israeli
hostages, China has laid the first necessary stone for a more credible
and durable peace process.
By drawing the right lessons from history and considering the long
list of US failures in promoting an Israeli-Palestinian deal, China
could legitimately claim that its role as a mediator between Israel and
Palestine stands a greater chance of success.
One thing is certain: Beijing – again, contrary to Washington – would be an honest broker.
A Chinese success here could significantly bolster the rules-based
order, but the right one – one that respects international law and
international humanitarian law. The current rules-based order, as often
claimed by the US and its allies, is nothing more than a semantic trick
aimed at concealing western hypocrisy and double standards.
China is not challenging the Global West’s rules-based order. It is
simply joining the Global Rest in demanding respect for international
law, its consistent application to all states without double standards
and the putting aside, finally, of misleading western terminology.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Marco Carnelos is a former Italian diplomat. He has been assigned to
Somalia, Australia and the United Nations. He served in the foreign
policy staff of three Italian prime ministers between 1995 and 2011.
More recently he has been Middle East peace process coordinator special
envoy for Syria for the Italian government and, until November 2017,
Italy’s ambassador to Iraq.
The Biden administration has continued to deliver weapons
by Dave DeCamp Antiwar. com, August 26, 2024
The Israeli Defense Ministry said Monday that the US has delivered
over 50,000 tons of weapons and other military equipment since the start
of Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza, demonstrating the Biden
administration’s staunch support for the slaughter.
Since October 7, 107 ships and 500 transport planes have brought US
military aid shipments to Israel. The Israeli Defense Ministry said the
deliveries have included “armored vehicles, munitions, ammunition,
personal protection gear, and medical equipment.”
The ministry added that the US support was “crucial for sustaining the IDF’s operational capabilities during the ongoing war.”
Back in April, President Biden signed a bill into law that included
$17 billion in additional military aid for Israel on top of the $3.8
billion the country receives each year. The State Department recently
approved a series of major arms deals for Israel worth $20 billion,
including a new fleet of F-15 fighter jets.
Stripped, blindfolded, and bound Palestinian civilians are taken
prisoner and ordered into a line by Israeli occupation forces in Gaza in
December 2023.
(Photo: Social media post by Israeli soldier)
“The torture of Palestinian healthcare
workers is a window into the much larger issue of the Israeli
government’s treatment of detainees generally,” said one Human Rights
Watch expert.
Palestinian medical workers’ harrowing accounts of arbitrary detention and torture by Israeli occupation forces in Gaza
prompted calls on Monday for a war crimes investigation by the
International Criminal Court, whose chief prosecutor is already seeking
to arrest Israeli and Hamas leaders for atrocities committed on and
after last October 7.
Eight doctors, nurses, and paramedics formerly held by Israeltold
Human Rights Watch (HRW) that they suffered “torture—including rape and
sexual abuse by Israeli forces—denial of medical care, and poor
detention conditions,” as well as “humiliation, beatings, forced stress
positions, prolonged cuffing, and blindfolding.”
“The Israeli government’s mistreatment of Palestinian healthcare
workers has continued in the shadows and needs to immediately stop,” HRW
acting Middle East director Balkees Jarrah said in a statement. “The
torture and other ill-treatment of doctors, nurses, and paramedics
should be thoroughly investigated and appropriately punished, including
by the International Criminal Court (ICC).”
“The torture of Palestinian healthcare workers is a window into the
much larger issue of the Israeli government’s treatment of detainees
generally,” Jarrah added. “Governments should publicly call on the
Israeli authorities to release unlawfully detained healthcare workers
and end the cruel mistreatment and nightmarish conditions for all
detained Palestinians.”
The medical workers interviewed by HRW provided similar accounts of
being detained in Gaza before being sent to detention facilities in
Israel, including the notorious Sde Teiman prison, where former
prisoners and Israeli whistleblowers have described torture and other abuse including amputations due to extreme shackling. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is investigating the deaths of at least 36 Sde Teiman detainees, including one man who died after allegedly being sodomized with an electric baton.
A group of Sde Teiman guards has also been arrested in connection with an alleged gang-rape of a detainee that was caught on video.
The IDF reservists’ arrests sparked a violent attempt to free the
suspects by a far-right mob whose members included senior Israeli
government officials. Meanwhile, many Israeli leaders, media
personalities, and celebrities have publicly defended the rape and torture of Palestinian prisoners.
One paramedic who was imprisoned at Sde Teiman and featured in the
new HRW report said he was “suspended from a chain attached to
handcuffs, electroshocked, denied medical care for broken ribs caused by
beatings, and administered what he believed was a psychoactive drug
before interrogations.”
“It was so degrading, it was unbelievable,” he said. “I was helping
people as a paramedic, I never expected something like this.”
Another paramedic imprisoned at Sde Teiman, 36-year-old Walid
Khalili, said that when his captors removed his blindfold, he saw
“dozens of detainees in diapers… suspended from the ceiling.”
“He said that personnel at the facility then suspended him from a
chain, so his feet were not touching the ground, dressed him in a
garment and a headband that were attached to wires, and shocked him with
electricity,” the report states.
An ambulance driver told HRW that he saw Israeli guards beat two men
to death with metal pipes while he and other Palestinians were being
held in a large metal cage near the Israel-Gaza border fence.
Eyad Abed, a 50-year-old surgeon at the Indonesian Hospital, was
seized by Israeli forces during the November siege and invasion of the
facility. Abed said Israeli soldiers broke his ribs and tailbone during
torture sessions.
“Every minute we were beaten,” Abed told HRW. “I mean all over the
body, on sensitive areas between the legs, the chest, the back. We were
kicked all over the body and the face. They used the front of their
boots which had a metal tip, then their weapons. They had lighters: One
soldier tried to burn me but burned the person next to me. I told them
I’m a doctor, but they didn’t care.”
In addition to torture, the medical workers interviewed by HRW described hellish living conditions in Israeli custody.
According to the report:
Abed, the surgeon, said the food was “horrible” and inadequate, and
that he lost 22 kilograms (49 pounds) during a month and a half in
detention. The bathrooms were “not even fit for animals.” The mattresses
and blankets were thin, and the cold nights were “unbearable.” In the
cells, water for toilets and for drinking was only available for one
hour a day, with a “disgusting” stench emanating from the nonflushable
toilets. “They gave us a bag for the garbage. We used to fill it with
water and drink from it later. It smelled horrible but we had no
choice,” Abed said.
The new HRW report is the latest evidence of Israeli torture of
Palestinian medical workers, more than 500 of whom have been killed by
Israeli bombs and bullets since October, according to United Nations agencies. There have been numerous reports of Israeli forces deliberately targeting medical workers.
Healthcare professionals living and working—often without pay for months—under such conditions are experiencing severe trauma.
“Several staff members told us they were simply waiting to die, and
that they hoped Israel would get it over with sooner rather than later,”
a pair of U.S. surgeons who volunteered at Gaza European Hospital wrote earlier this month for Politico.
Israel is currently on trial for genocide
at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands.
Israeli forces have killed more than 40,400 Palestinians—mostly women
and children—in Gaza since October, while wounding at least 93,500
others. At least 10,000 more Gazans are missing and believed dead and
buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of buildings in the
obliterated strip.
Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced by Israel’s bombardment and invasion. Israel’s ” complete siege” of Gaza has pushed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians over the brink of starvation; dozens of children have died due to malnutrition, dehydration, and lack of adequate medical care. Preventable diseases including measles, hepatitis, and polio are spreading, threatening not only Gazans but people in nearby countries including Israel and Egypt.
Meanwhile at the ICC—which is also located in The Hague—Prosecutor Karim Khan is pushing
the tribunal to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three
Hamas leaders, at least one of whom, former political chief Ismail
Haniyeh, has been assassinated by Israel.
Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli airstrike on Zibqin in southern Lebanon, on August 25, 2024.KAWNAT HAJU / AFP via Getty Images
Israel’s military deployed around 100 fighter jets to launch a
massive bombing campaign in southern Lebanon on Sunday, endangering tens of thousands of civilians and heightening the chances of an all-out regional war.
The Israel
Defense Forces (IDF) characterized the wave of airstrikes as an effort
to preemptively “remove the threat” posed by a purportedly imminent
Hezbollah attack, but observers argued the Israeli bombing marked a
serious escalation that could further undermine hopes of a cease-fire
deal in Gaza.
“Looks like Israel is now escalating in Lebanon in a major way in the
hopes of kicking off a major war in the north that has thus far been
kept to more limited exchanges,” wrote political analyst Yousef Munayyer. “Just as negotiations for a cease-fire were reportedly advancing.”
Hezbollah said Sunday that it had fired hundreds of drones and
rockets at Israeli military sites in retaliation for the assassination
of one of the group’s senior commanders last month. Hezbollah said the
“first phase” of its response was complete and rejected the IDF’s claim
that it preempted the group’s retaliatory action.
The Associated Press reported that “by mid-morning, it appeared that the exchange had ended, with both sides saying they had only aimed at military targets.”
“At least three people were killed in the strikes on Lebanon,” AP noted, “while there were no reports of casualties in Israel.”
Israel Katz, the Israeli foreign minister, wrote on social media
following the attack on Lebanon that he “sent a direct message to dozens
of foreign ministers worldwide, urging them to support Israel against
the Iranian axis of evil and its proxies, led by Hezbollah.”
Sunday’s dangerous back-and-forth, described
by one newspaper as the two sides’ biggest exchange of fire since the
2006 war, further intensified concerns that the region is moving toward
the precipice of an all-out conflict as Israel’s U.S.-backed assault on
the Gaza Strip continues with no end in sight.
A White House spokesperson said Sunday that U.S. President Joe Biden is “closely monitoring events in Israel and Lebanon.”
“At his direction, senior U.S. officials have been communicating
continuously with their Israeli counterparts,” the spokesperson said.
“We will keep supporting Israel’s right to defend itself, and we will
keep working for regional stability.”
One senior U.S. official said Israel did not give the White House advance notice of the Lebanon attack.
Monica Marks, professor of Middle East politics at New York University Abu Dhabi, wrote
that the White House’s claim to be promoting regional stability “lands
like a bad joke” given ongoing U.S. support for Israel’s “escalatory
acts.”
“Lives on the ground are at stake. So are [Democratic presidential nominee Kamala] Harris‘ chances and Biden’s legacy,” Marks added. “D.C. is playing Middle East roulette.”
Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon came after another horrific day in
the Gaza Strip, where the IDF killed dozens of Palestinians in southern
Gaza. “Among the dead,” according to the AP, “were 11 members of a family, including two children, after an airstrike hit their home in Khan Younis.”
The atrocities preceded a fresh round of high-level cease-fire talks,
negotiations that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly thwarted with hardline demands.
The Washington Post reported
Saturday that “Israel and Hamas were sending senior-level delegations
to Cairo this weekend as U.S., Qatari, and Egyptian mediators prepared
for a high-stakes summit they hope will break the deadlock in
negotiations for a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip.”
“Hamas officials arrived in the Egyptian capital Saturday, while
Israeli media reported that a team led by the head of Mossad, David
Barnea, would travel there Sunday,” the Post added. “The
summit, also on Sunday, will include CIA Director William J. Burns,
Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel, and Qatari Prime Minister
Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.”
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On August 12, the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, issued a
press statement commemorating the anniversary of the adoption of the
Geneva Conventions.
He said: “The 75th anniversary of the adoption of the 1949 Geneva
Conventions is a fitting occasion to reaffirm our commitment to
respecting international humanitarian law… We call on others to do the
same.”
Except Israel.
Blinken added: “Faced with the horrible reality of war, parties to
armed conflict must comply with international humanitarian law to
mitigate many of war’s worst humanitarian consequences, support pathways
to peace, and advance the protection of civilians and other victims.”
Except Israel.
Of course, Blinken did not add the words “except Israel” but he
should have, considering what had happened just two days earlier.
On August 10, Israel dropped bombs on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians, killing over 100 and injuring hundreds more.
The New York Times reported that one witness “said he found a scene
of carnage unlike any he had seen in the past 10 months of war: A prayer
hall strewed with bodies and body parts over two floors.” Another
witness said “the dead were all in pieces.”
CNN said there was “no advance warning of the attack” and reported
that the director for ambulance and emergency services said, “All of
these people who were targeted were civilians, unarmed children, the
elderly, men and women.”
NBC News described the event as “one of the deadliest attacks in the
10-month war” and said the strikes hit the school “during dawn prayers.”
The network reported, “The White House said it was deeply concerned.”
Two days earlier, Secretary Blinken announced that the US was sending
billions more to Israel in a new weapons package.
The Financial Times quoted a surgeon as saying, “This was a very
bloody day,” and that he had performed several amputations including on
at least four children.
War deaths in Gaza have now passed 40,000 with thousands more still
buried under the rubble. At least two-thirds were women and children.
Over 95 percent of the people in Palestine were not members of Hamas.
Jeffrey Sachs is a world-renowned economist and foreign policy expert
and holds the highest rank awarded by Columbia University. He is a Jew
and a fierce critic of this war.
He said during Judge Napolitano’s August 13th podcast that Israel is
now a “completely lawless country.” He said Israel is “doing whatever it
can to provoke” war in the Middle East and “this is not what the
American people want.”
He added that “Netanyahu and his party want no Palestinian state and
this means no peace.” He said this is what the Israel Lobby wants.
Netanyahu received 50 standing ovations when he spoke to the Congress
on July 24. None of these members would have applauded the killing of
thousands of children in any other country. In fact, they would have
been rushing to condemn it.
Professor Sachs has said in many interviews that the US is “complicit
in the genocide” that is still going on in Gaza. He says this war would
not last one more day without US support.
I believe God will punish the members of Hamas who did horrible
things to Jewish people last October 7. But I also believe that God
loves the innocent people of Palestine, too, especially the little
children.
Psalm 147 says: “The Lord builds up Jerusalem, He gathers together
the outcasts of Israel. He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their
wounds.” There are certainly no more outcast people in Israel today than
those living at the brink of starvation in Gaza.
The Bible also instructs us, in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, to “seek peace and pursue it.”
A few weeks ago the US supported a UN resolution calling for an
immediate ceasefire. Netanyahu has ignored this because he either wants
to kill all the Palestinian people or at least ethnically cleanse them
out of Israel.
We are $35 trillion in debt. We are spending money we do not have to
support this war. Almost every member of Congress is scared to death
that the Israel Lobby will spend millions against them if they speak out
against Netanyahu. I guess, unfortunately, that this war will continue.
John James Duncan Jr. is an American politician who served as the
U.S. representative for Tennessee’s 2nd congressional district from
1988 to 2019. A lawyer, former judge, and former long serving member of
the Army National Guard, he is a member of the Republican Party.
By Sharon Zhang , Truthout Published August 22, 2024
Israeli tanks are seen next to destroyed buildings during a ground operation in the southern Gaza Strip on July 3, 2024.
Israeli officials’ ceasefire demands show that they aren’t just using
ceasefire negotiations to prolong their genocide of Gaza, but also to
secure permission to further deepen their colonization of Palestine, a
UN expert has said.
In the latest ceasefire talks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu has been insistent that Israel be able to maintain a permanent
military occupation of Gaza’s border with Egypt and a corridor built by
Israeli forces cutting across the middle of the Gaza Strip, which
Israelis respectively call the Philadelphi Corridor and Netzarim
Corridor.
Israel’s insistence on maintaining control over these corridors is a
clear show of their intention to expand their ethnic cleansing and “eat
up” more of Palestine, said Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur
for the occupied Palestinian territories.
“Under the guise of ‘ceasefire negotiations’ Israel is trying to
create the conditions for permanent occupation and more land grab. Those
familiar with Palestine’s history recognize in what is happening to the
Palestinians under Israel’s unlawful occupation, the pattern of settler
colonialism,” said Albanese on social media on Thursday.
Albanese shared an observation from University of Edinburgh
international relations professor Nicola Perugini, who noted: “Corridors
are key tools of fragmentation, enclavisation and land dispossession in
the history of Israel’s colonisation of Palestine. Corridors (Allon
Plan etc) were key in settling the West Bank.”
Israel’s ground assault is now so widespread that Palestinians have no escape from the front line. By Sharon Zhang , Truthout
August 22, 2024
The Allon Plan was a proposal drawn up by then-Deputy Prime Minister
Yigal Allon after the 1967 war to annex Gaza, forcibly transfer
Palestinians, and partition
the West Bank. As part of the plan, corridors would be built to connect
the areas partitioned to Israel and Jordan. The plan was never put in
place, but experts have noted that its principles of annexation and forcible transfers have echoed across decades of Zionist policy.
Indeed, over the past months, Israel has built two corridors in Gaza
that analysts say indicate their intention for a permanent military
occupation. According to Forensic Architecture,
as well as the Netzarim Corridor, Israel has been building a road that
gives Israeli forces direct access to Gaza City. The construction of
these two corridors are “infrastructural indications of an intended
military presence” in north Gaza, the group said.
At the same time, a permanent Israeli takeover of the Philadelphi
corridor — a major sticking point for Netanyahu in negotiations — would
mean that Israel gets to control the entirety of Gaza’s border, as its
border with Egypt is the only side of Gaza not surrounded by Israel.
Hamas has been strongly opposed to Israel’s occupation of the two
corridors in negotiations.
In essence, Israel’s position in the ceasefire talks is for there to
be no ceasefire — for Israel to be allowed to continue its genocide for
as long as Israeli leaders desire — and for mediators to give Israel
permission to expand its occupation of Palestine. This means that, if
U.S. officials agree to an Israeli “ceasefire” plan, they are not only
giving the green light to the genocide, but also for Israel to take
steps toward annexing Gaza.
Corporate media outlets have covered the ceasefire talks with
abandon, willingly repeating U.S. officials’ claims that Hamas, not
Israel, is opposed to a ceasefire — despite Hamas leaders’ clear
acceptance of President Joe Biden’s three-phase ceasefire deal.
These outlets seemingly seek to obfuscate the truth of the
negotiations and run endless cover for Israel; in fact, perhaps sensing
Israel’s positioning in the talks, The Atlantic published a much-criticized article
recently essentially seeking to redefine the entire concept of settler
colonialism in order to absolve Israel of the bloody practice.
Experts and commentators have noted
that the true purpose of the ceasefire talks and the U.S.’s
participation in them, is to give license for the genocide to continue.
Like the Oslo process in the 1990s, analyst Mouin Rabbani said recently,
the ceasefire talks serve as a way to “buy time” for Israel’s genocide.
“[T]heir purpose is process, and their objective has therefore been to
avoid reaching a ceasefire agreement rather than concluding one,”
Rabbani wrote.
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Sharon Zhang is a news writer at Truthout covering politics, climate and labor. Before coming to Truthout, Sharon had written stories for Pacific Standard, The New Republic, and more. She has a master’s degree in environmental studies. She can be found on Twitter: @zhang_sharon.
Sources told 𝑌𝑛𝑒𝑡 that Blinken’s remarks about the
negotiations indicate his ‘amateurism, naivety, and lack of
understanding’
by Dave DeCamp, Antiwar. com, August 22, 2024
Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s comments about Gaza ceasefire
talks this week sentenced the negotiations to death, Middle East Eye
reported Thursday, citing Israeli media.
After meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on
Monday, Blinken said the Israeli leader agreed to a new US proposal and
that it was now up to Hamas to agree to the deal. However, the US
proposal included new demands from Netanyahu that Hamas considers
unacceptable. Israeli, US, and Arab sources have all said Netanyahu’s
demands are too hardline and will prevent a deal.
Sources speaking to Ynet slammed Blinken for making the
comments that portrayed Hamas as the obstacle to a deal. “Blinken made a
very serious foul here that indicates innocence, amateurism, naivety,
and lack of understanding,” a source said.
They added that Blinken’s positive spin on the ceasefire negotiations
was likely an effort to prevent the situation from overshadowing the
Democratic National Convention.
“He broadcast optimism from intra-American political considerations,
so that the Democratic convention in Chicago would go smoothly, but
senior officials of the Israeli negotiating team who listened to his
press conference wanted to dispel the speculations,” the source said.
The sources called Blinken’s comments a “gift” to Netanyahu and said
the Israeli leader’s continued insistence that Israel must maintain
control of the Gaza-Egypt border, known as the Philadelphi Corridor,
will prevent a deal.
“There is no deal and there is no summit if the Israeli insistence on
deploying forces along the Philadelphi axis continues,” the source
said. “What was implied in Blinken’s words is that the US is giving
Netanyahu support for IDF forces to remain in Philadelphi, while both
the Egyptians refuse and Hamas refuses.”
US and Israeli officials are due to meet again in Cairo this week to
discuss the ceasefire, but Arab mediators have said there’s no point in
holding talks unless the US puts significant pressure on Netanyahu to
back down from his demands and agree to a deal.
An observation from George Orwell – “those who control the present,
control the past and those who control the past control the future” – is
acutely relevant to how President Biden talked about Gaza during his
speech at the Democratic convention Monday night. His words fit into a
messaging template now in its eleventh month, depicting the U.S.
government as tirelessly seeking peace, while supplying the weapons and
bombs that have enabled Israel’s continual slaughter of civilians.
“We’ll keep working, to bring hostages home, and end the war in Gaza, and bring peace and security to the Middle East,” Biden told
the cheering delegates. “As you know, I wrote a peace treaty for Gaza. A
few days ago I put forward a proposal that brought us closer to doing
that than we’ve done since October 7th.”
It was a journey into an alternative universe of political guile from a president who just six days earlier had approved
sending $20 billion worth of more weapons to Israel. Yet the Biden
delegates in the convention hall responded with a crescendo of roaring
admiration.
Applause swelled as Biden continued: “We’re working around-the-clock,
my secretary of state, to prevent a wider war and reunite hostages with
their families, and surge humanitarian health and food assistance into
Gaza now, to end the civilian suffering of the Palestinian people and
finally, finally, finally deliver a ceasefire and end this war.”
In Chicago’s United Center, the president basked in adulation while
claiming to be a peacemaker despite a record of literally making
possible the methodical massacres of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians.
Orwell would have understood. A political reflex has been in motion
from top U.S. leaders, claiming to be peace seekers while aiding and
abetting the slaughter. Normalizing deception about the past sets a
pattern for perpetrating such deception in the future.
And so, working inside the paradigm that Orwell described, Biden
exerts control over the present, strives to control narratives about the
past, and seeks to make it all seem normal, prefiguring the future.
The eagerness of delegates to cheer for Biden’s mendaciously absurd
narrative about his administration’s policies toward Gaza was in a
broader context – the convention’s lovefest for the lame-duck president.
Hours before the convention opened, Peter Beinart released a short
video essay anticipating the fervent adulation. “I just don’t think when
you’re analyzing a presidency or a person, you sequester what’s
happened in Gaza,” he said.
“I mean, if you’re a liberal-minded person, you believe that genocide
is just about the worst thing that a country can do, and it’s just about
the worst thing that your country can do if your country is arming a
genocide.”
Beinart continued: “And it’s really not that controversial anymore
that this qualifies as a genocide. I read the academic writing on this. I
don’t see any genuine scholars of human rights international law who
are saying it’s not indeed there… If you’re gonna say something about
Joe Biden, the president, Joe Biden, the man, you have to factor in what
Joe Biden, the president, Joe Biden, the man, has done, vis-à-vis Gaza.
It’s central to his legacy. It’s central to his character. And if you
don’t, then you’re saying that Palestinian lives just don’t matter, or
at least they don’t matter this particular day, and I think that’s
inhumane. I don’t think we can ever say that some group of people’s
lives simply don’t matter because it’s inconvenient for us to talk about
them at a particular moment.”
Underscoring the grotesque moral obtuseness from the convention stage
was the joyful display of generations as the president praised and
embraced his offspring. Joe Biden walked off stage holding the hand of
his cute little grandson, a precious child no more precious than any one
of the many thousands of children the president has helped Israel to kill.
Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and
executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. He is the
author of many books including War Made Easy. His latest book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, was published in 2023 by The New Press.
The ICJ’s authoritative ruling on the Israeli occupation makes clear
that boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against Israeli occupation,
colonization, and apartheid are not only a moral imperative but also a
legal obligation.
BDS activists in New York City (Photo: Joe Catron)
Israel and its lobby have, for years now, been engaged in a frenzy of
activity to further insulate Israel from accountability by using their
influence in the West to effectively outlaw organized opposition to
Israel. Foremost among these efforts has been the Israeli campaign to
penalize calls to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel for its
gross violations of human rights. As a result, countless laws and
policies are now on the books across the U.S. and the broader West,
trampling on core constitutional principles and internationally
guaranteed human rights in defense of Israeli impunity. But an advisory
opinion issued last month by the International Court of Justice (ICJ)
should help to turn that around.
In its historic ruling, the ICJ found that Israel’s occupation of the
West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza is entirely unlawful, that Israel
practices apartheid and racial segregation, and that all states are
under a duty to help bring this to an end, including by cutting off all
economic, trade and investment relations with Israel in the Occupied
Palestinian Territory. In other words, as a matter of international law,
all countries are obliged to participate in an economic boycott of
Israel’s activities in the occupied Palestinian territory and to divest
from any existing economic relations there.
Because the court was bound by the parameters of the request from the
UN General Assembly that triggered its findings, it did not address
duties and obligations relating to activities inside the 1948 Green
Line. However, the court’s authoritative statement of the requirements
of international law makes clear that proponents of BDS have not only
the moral high ground but also a firm grounding in international law.
The court’s advisory opinion in July comes on the heels of the
commencement of genocide proceedings against Israel in the ICJ last
December, and a request in May by the Prosecutor of the International
Criminal Court for arrest warrants for the Israeli Prime Minister and
the Defense Minister for crimes against humanity, including
extermination. Together, they represent a historic shift away from 76 years of Western-sponsored Israeli exceptionalism and impunity, feeding hope of a new era of accountability.
Recognizing this, Israel, as well as its Western allies accused of
complicity in Israel’s international crimes (chief among them, the U.S.,
UK, and Germany) have been scrambling to oppose, delay, and obstruct
action by these courts, both by intervening in court proceedings and, in
some cases, by threatening court officials. And indeed, the ICC warrant
process has already been inordinately delayed when compared to previous
cases. Nevertheless, for its part, the ICJ advisory opinion was both
timely and uncompromising in its application of international law to
Israel.
Israel and its allies also defensively claim that advisory opinions
of the ICJ are “non-binding” and, indeed, the court cannot compel a
state to comply with its findings. But what this tactic ignores is that
the laws to which the court refers in its authoritative opinion are, in
fact, binding on all states. For example, the court observed that the
right of the Palestinians to self-determination, their rights under
international human rights and humanitarian law, and the prohibition of
Israel’s acquisition of territory by force impose so-called “erga omnes” obligations, that is, binding obligations that apply to all countries.
Among these obligations are the duty not to recognize or assist the
occupation in any way, and the duty to take action to realize the equal
rights and self-determination of the Palestinian people. It follows that
any policies or acts by a Western country that in any way recognize
Israel’s occupation, assist Israel in that occupation (economically,
militarily, diplomatically, etc.), or prohibit persons under its
jurisdiction from respecting international law by boycotting or
divesting from Israel’s illegal occupation, would be unlawful.
Of course, the U.S., which has long ignored the constraints of
international law and invested decades of effort in carving out an
exception for Israeli impunity, is likely to reject the court’s findings
and oppose the implementing resolution of the UN General Assembly,
which is expected to follow. Some other Western states invested in the
Israeli axis, like the UK and Germany, may follow suit. But it is likely
that most countries, including other Western states, will adjust their
policies to ensure legal compliance.
Groups and individuals targeted by efforts to penalize BDS or to
compel people to reject it will now have an important new tool in their
legal arsenal as they assert their rights either administratively or
judicially. They can now invoke the authoritative ruling of the World
Court to credibly assert that participating in boycotts, divestment, and
sanctions against Israeli occupation, colonization, and apartheid is
not only a moral imperative and constitutional and human right, but also
an international legal obligation.
Haaretz Editorial: Don’t Buy the Lie That Israeli Settler Violence Is the Exception. It’s the Rule
Three of the women who were attacked, in their house in Rahat, on Sunday.Credit: Eliyahu Hershkovitz
Editorial of Israeli Newspaper Haaretz, Aug 13, 2024 12:23 am IDT
In the land of the “wild weeds” of the West Bank, the Jews are above
the law and Arabs may be killed with impunity. Four Bedouin women and a
2-year-old girl – Israeli citizens from the city of Rahat – entered the
Givat Ronen settlement outpost by mistake on Friday evening. A
navigational error nearly cost them their lives. They were beaten, their
car was torched and according to one of the women, one of the
assailants put a rifle to the toddler’s head.
We must look squarely at the dangerous ultranationalist violence
from the breeding ground of the Jewish supremacy enterprise. “We wanted
to go toward Nablus, and [the navigation app] Waze misled us,” one of
the women related. “We accidentally entered some place and then people
started running after the vehicle, throwing rocks from the hill. After
they broke all the windows, they sprayed tear gas. What they threw
wasn’t stones, but rather [concrete] blocks, big rocks. They all had weapons,
there were a lot of them,” she said. “They told us to get out of the
car. We told them that we were Israeli citizens, that we didn’t do
anything, we just got confused with Waze – and they didn’t even hear
us.”
They got out of the car and fled for their lives as the settlers set their car on fire. The women called the police, which was slow to arrive,
and it was the army that eventually rescued them. They were admitted to
Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva and discharged about two hours later;
two of the women had rib and shoulder fractures.
Two suspects in the attack were arrested by the Shin Bet security
service and the police on Monday. We must hope that this time, by virtue
of the victims being Israeli, the hateful criminals from the territories
will be brought to justice. But we must not be deluded into thinking
that this will solve the problem of violence in the territories. After
all, there are lawmakers who justify it. MK Limor Son Har-Melech did
exactly that, claiming that the settlers feared “an incident of
espionage, intelligence-gathering.” This is the same Knesset member who,
two weeks ago, demonstrated alongside members of the far right who
broke into the Sde Teiman base and who attacked and threatened the
military advocate general.
“Violence eats away at the foundations of democracy. It must be
condemned, denounced, isolated,” Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said just
moments before he was murdered for political reasons. We must not turn a
blind eye to the winds of lynches and pogroms blowing here. The denial
mechanism must not be allowed to label this case as an exception that
proves the rule. It’s not just a “handful” of people, they aren’t “wild weeds” and it’s not that settlers occasionally slip up and lynch someone. Enough with this lie.
In the absence of a government that wants to deal with this menace,
law enforcement and the courts must treat settler violence with the
utmost severity. At the same time, the Israeli public must awaken from
its moral coma regarding the barbarization of Jewish ultranationalism, which has long since crossed the Green Line into Israel proper.
The above article is Haaretz’s lead editorial, as published in the Hebrew and English newspapers in Israel
The decision by the United States to supply arms worth $20 billion to
Israel one day after announcing the deployment of a second aircraft
carrier strike group to the region marks a further step towards a Middle
East war. Backed by the entire ruling class, the Biden administration
is determined to wage a catastrophic conflict targeting Iran, which it
views as one front in a global eruption of imperialist violence against
its rivals, which can only be stopped by the independent political
mobilisation of the international working class.
With
destroyed buildings in the Gaza Strip behind him, an Israeli soldier
waves from a tank, near the Israel-Gaza border in southern Israel,
Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024. [AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov]
This is the inescapable conclusion that must be drawn from a review
of the contents of the arms sale. After facilitating Israel’s genocide
in Gaza for over 10 months, the Biden administration plans to deliver
over 50 F-15 fighter jets, advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles,
120mm tank ammunition, high explosive mortars and tactical vehicles. The
delivery of the full fleet of jets is anticipated to take five years to
complete.
From the purely military point of view, there is no conceivable use
for such a vast arsenal in Gaza, which has already been bombed to
smithereens and where Hamas fighters possess at most rudimentary
short-range rockets that rarely endanger any target inside Israel.
Israel’s urgent need for such weaponry only makes sense in the context
of advanced preparations against more sophisticated opponents, such as
the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon and Iran itself, which have the
capacity to shoot down Israeli aircraft and strike the country directly
with long-range missiles.
As Socialist Equality Party (SEP) presidential candidate Joseph Kishore explained in a statement condemning the arms sale,
There is a sinister subtext to the Pentagon announcement. Israel
already has unquestioned air superiority in the region. The sole purpose
of this weapons sale is to replace anticipated losses in a war with
Iran and its allies, which could erupt at any moment. The Biden-Harris
administration wants to ensure that Israel can continue pulverizing the
people of the Middle East without missing a beat.
The latest arms sale was preceded by unmistakable signs that
Washington wants a region-wide war. From the outset of Israel’s genocide
last October, US government officials have made clear that their
endorsement of the “final solution” of the Palestinian question is bound
up with plans to fight Iran, a key ally of Russia and China in the
Middle East.
After Israel bombed Iran’s consulate in Damascus in April, killing
seven senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps members, American and
other NATO military assets helped ward off Iran’s retaliatory attack on
Israel with drones and missiles. Israel’s latest outrageous provocation,
the assassination of Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut and Hamas
political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran within hours of each other in
late July, prompted Washington to announce the $20 billion arms deal
and grant Israel $3.5 billion from the $14 billion aid package passed by
Congress in April to purchase US-made weaponry immediately. In
addition, the Biden administration lifted a three-year arms embargo on
Saudi Arabia, Iran’s arch rival in the region.
With Iranian officials, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, having
reaffirmed their right to retaliate against Israel’s assassination of
Haniyeh, the Biden administration is goading Tehran into launching a
strike that can then be used to justify further escalation.
American and Israeli politicians no longer make any secret about the
fact that Iran is a target for attack. During his address to a joint
session of Congress in July, Netanyahu openly proclaimed his intention
to wage war in alliance with US imperialism against Iran, for which he
received bipartisan standing ovations. “If you remember one thing, one
thing from this speech, remember this: Our enemies are your enemies, our
fight is your fight, and our victory will be your victory,” he declared
to rousing cheers. “Iran understands that to truly challenge America,
it must first conquer the Middle East … Yet in the heart of the Middle
East, standing in Iran’s way, is … the State of Israel.”
Netanyahu discussed a war throughout the Middle East in a closed-door
meeting the following day with Vice President and Democratic
presidential candidate Kamala Harris, who opened her briefing to the
press afterward with the statement, “So, I just had a frank and
constructive meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu. I told him that I
will always ensure that Israel is able to defend itself, including from
Iran and Iran-backed militias, such as Hamas and Hezbollah.”
American imperialist strategists hope through war to fundamentally
restructure the Middle East in Washington’s interests at the expense of
its rivals. Eliminating Tehran-aligned Hezbollah in Lebanon and Pushing
Iranian forces out of neighbouring Syria would undermine the pro-Iranian
Assad regime and open up Russian forces at their only Mediterranean
naval base in Tartus to direct attack. Washington also hopes through war
to undermine China’s increasing influence in the region, as shown by
its brokering of a truce between Iran and Saudi Arabia last year, and
its growing economic presence.
But these hopes are delusional. American imperialism has already
killed millions of people across the Middle East and Central Asia during
three decades of uninterrupted war, and laid waste to entire societies.
The devastation of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria did nothing to
reverse American imperialism’s precipitous economic decline vis-a-vis
its competitors but exacerbated great power conflicts. A new war would
therefore quickly spiral into a direct clash between the major powers on
a global scale.
These past disasters act as an accelerant rather than a brake on
American imperialism’s unleashing of new military adventures.
Washington’s determination to provoke all-out war with Iran is
inseparable from its global strategy of world war, which it views as the
only viable means to retain its hegemony against rivals and nominal
“allies” alike.
In addition to the Middle East, which is seen as a critical front in
this war due to the region’s high concentration of energy resources and
its geostrategic significance for control over Europe and Asia,
Washington is at war with Russia in Ukraine and preparing for one with
China in the Indo-Pacific.
Explaining at an earlier stage in this process that “no part of the
globe is outside the interest of American capitalism,” the International
Committee of the Fourth International wrote in its 2016 statement Socialism and the Fight against War,
“Every continent and every country is viewed through the prism of US
imperialism’s economic and geopolitical interests. The American ruling
class is focused on developing a strategy to counter every real and
potential challenge.”
This redivision of the world involves all of the imperialist powers
of North America, Europe, and Japan. It arises from the intractable
contradictions of world capitalism: between globalised production and
the division of the world into antagonistic nation states, and between
the mass social character of production and its concentration in a few
private hands. The only resolution open to the imperialists is to plunge
humanity into the barbarism of a global conflagration, even though this
raises the prospect of nuclear armageddon.
The same capitalist contradictions are propelling the working class
into revolutionary struggle. Workers around the world are outraged by
the barbarism of the Gaza genocide and the hypocrisy of its imperialist
defenders, and by the drive of the ruling class to place the full weight
of militarism and war on the backs of workers through wage cuts and
austerity. The urgent task is to unify these struggles into a global
anti-war movement led by the working class on the basis of the programme
of world socialist revolution since imperialist war can only be stopped
by ending the capitalist system in which it is rooted.
This necessitates the construction of a mass socialist and
internationalist party of the working class. That party is the Socialist
Equality Party in the US and other national sections of the ICFI
throughout the world.
