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By Dr. Muhammad Turki Bani Salama

In light of the ongoing brutal Israeli aggression on Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, the Arab and Islamic media arenas are crowded with official statements of condemnation and denunciation yet the situation remains the same. These expressions of concern and repeated warnings have become, in essence, part of a farcical and repetitive political play that does not provide any tangible support or actual assistance to the afflicted peoples. Rather they are empty words to alleviate popular pressures without any actual intention to take effective steps on the ground.

It is ironic these Arab and Islamic countries do not miss an opportunity to declare their support for Palestine and Lebanon in international forums. They are content with a monotonous diplomatic theatrical performance of statements of condemnation and warning without taking any real steps on the ground.

This is despite the number of dead, wounded and displaced who are increasing daily. These countries, especially the ones who normalized with Israel, are not even bothering to sever relations with Jewish state, or even think of imposing any significant economic sanctions on the entity.

On the contrary, some of these countries have increased the volume of trade and economic exchange with Israel since the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Flood battle since last October, as if they fear upsetting their new trading partner, while continue to present themselves to the world as protectors of Arab, Islamic and humanitarian principles and values.

This blatant contradiction between political rhetoric and action on the ground cannot but arouse the astonishment of the Arab and Islamic peoples. How can these countries claim to adhere to the values of Arabism, Islam and humanity, while they turn a blind eye to Israeli violations against the Arab populations of Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen?

How can this support and these hollow words be considered real solidarity? The Arab peoples are asking: Where are the actions that reflect these resonant statements on the ground?

What is even more bizarre in this absurd scene is that even the drug dealers in the Maghreb have taken a more serious stance than those countries. By their decision to stop drug smuggling to Israel, they have demonstrated a greater understanding of effective action than many of the nation’s leaders.

[https://twitter.com/raialyoum1/status/1842175872666878454]

Those who operate in an illegal field have taken a stance that shows that real action can be more effective than any diplomatic statements at Arab summits. If only Arab leaders would learn a lesson from the drug dealers on how to provide support, relief to the distressed and rescue the oppressed.

As for banking on international law and the international community to stop the Israeli aggression, it is a losing bet by all standards. Israel is fully supported by the West, led by the Zionist United States, the head of the snake, and which no longer hides its explicit loyalty to the Zionist project.

While Washington sings the praises of human rights on every occasion, it adopts double-standard policies, turns a blind eye to the flagrant violations of Arab rights, and supplies Israel on a daily basis the latest lethal weapons to continue its aggression against the Arab people without deterrence.

Relying on the Security Council or the United Nations for justice and/or to stop the aggression is just an illusion and a mirage, closer to waiting for the impossible, because these institutions have proven time and again, they are unable to take any serious position when it comes to Israel.

So the fundamental question here is: Will the Arabs continue to play the role of spectators or will they decide to take serious positions to protect themselves and their interests first before thinking about protecting the rights of the peoples of Palestine and Lebanon?

And can the Arabs ever go beyond mere statements and take actual steps that restore balance in the face of Israeli arrogance? Or have the Arabs left history, geography and the entire political equation, and no benefit can be expected of them?

Only the coming days will reveal the answer but what is for certain now is Arab peoples can no longer tolerate more empty promises and hollow statements. They are waiting for real action that embody a strong political will capable of bringing about change.

In the end, the aggression continues, and with it the official Arab and international silence remains, at a time when the suffering of the Arab peoples in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere increases. These people have no choice but to resist, without expecting someone to appear in this lunatic world to take bold positions and truly stand for justice and humanity, in the face of the Zionist-American barbarism, brutal aggression and ongoing injustice.

Dr. Muhammad Turki Bani Salama is a Jordanian academic and a full professor who contributed this opinion in Arabic to Raialyoum.com.

6 October 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Mir Adnan Aziz

Israel occupies a land that was inhabited by and belonged to the Palestinians. Confining the Palestinians to genocidal and inhuman conditions, Israel has since its inception, invaded almost all its neighbors and still occupies their lands. In 1981, it destroyed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor. Morphing into a Murder Inc., it has sent assassins around the globe with a never diminishing hit list.

Nurtured, protected and encouraged by Washington, Israel is the only nuclear power in the Middle East. It refuses inspection of its nuclear program. Western estimates put its nuclear arsenal at 400 bombs. With a population of .9 million, the equation comes to one nuclear bomb to defend 2250 Israelis.

Despite this massive power, Israel’s myth of invincibility lay shattered with Hamas’s October 7 assault. Eminent Israeli historian Illian Pappe describes this reversal in his recent article titled “The collapse of Zionism.” He likens the Hamas assault to an earthquake that strikes an old building with the already present cracks reaching the foundations.

Netanyahu termed the assassination of Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah as the “key to restoring power balance and recovering the hostages.” Despite decades of brutal subjugation and subterfuge, the acceptance of lacking in the power balance and Hamas holding Israeli hostages is in itself an acknowledgement of defeat.

It is also a proven fact that Israel’s assassination spree has failed miserably to quell the resistance. It has rather proved counterproductive. It was only after Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin and his successor Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi were assassinated in 2004, that the group developed close ties with Iran.

Just like its mentor’s humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan after two decades of occupation, a rejuvenated Hezbollah forced an equally chastened Israel to end its two decade occupation of Southern Lebanon. This period also entailed the gruesome Sabra and Shatila massacres.

In March 2019, veteran diplomat William Burns, as President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, dubbed Trump’s Iran Policy as untethered to history. He declared that the “false assumptions about how a muscular, unilateralist US approach can produce the capitulation or implosion of the Iranian regime is an assumption untethered to history.”

Today, the peacenik William Burns who advocated caution is Direct CIA of the Biden administration as Washington seeks the capitulation of Iran through Israel. Narcissism and hegemonic hubris are a lethal concoction that soothes the mind ever whispering that history is for losers. It never is.

With the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, a pragmatic and moderate political operator, the Hamas leadership mantle has now gone to Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the October 7 attack.

Still living in Gaza, Sinwar has spent 22 years in Israeli prisons. In 2011, he was released in a prisoner exchange for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier who remained in Hamas custody for five years. With Haniyeh’s assassination, Hamas’s political bureau has been taken over by its military wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades.

In his book Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations, Israeli author Ronen Bergman affirms that Israel has assassinated more than 2,700 people throughout its history. He describes it as Israel seeking to stop history without engaging in diplomacy and statesmanship.

He also writes how some Israeli military figures opposed the assassination plan of Hezbollah leader Abbas al-Musawi warning that he “would be replaced by someone more radical.”

In 1992, Abbas al-Musawi along with his wife and five-year-old son were killed in an Israeli helicopter gunship strike in south Lebanon. His successor Hassan Nasrallah turned out to be more resourceful and eloquent. He transformed Hezbollah to a formidable military force with long-range rockets and precision-guided missiles.

Just like its mentor’s humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan after 2 decades of occupation, a rejuvenated Hezbollah forced an equally chastened Israel to end its 2 decades occupation of Southern Lebanon. This period also entailed the gruesome Sabra and Shatila massacres.

Yahya Ayyash, a 29 year Hamas operative, was on Mossad’s most wanted list. In 1996 on receiving a call from his father he asked “how are you father?” His last words, the rigged phone exploded, killing him on the spot.

This was almost three decades before the pagers and walkie-talkies started exploding in Beirut. Ayyash’s assassination was deeply unsettling for Hamas as it exposed the extent to which Israeli intelligence had penetrated its ranks. Time proved it a temporary setback.

Netanyahu’s persistent stonewalling of the peace negotiations is his fear that the release of hostages could lead to a ceasefire and a rekindled political process. His political survival, as that of his Zionist coterie, lies in extending the war theater to Iran.

Instead of reining in this insanity Washington, an enabler in the Gaza genocide, threatens anyone who dare stand up to Israel. Continuously arming and encouraging it, Washington feigns ignorance to Israel’s provocations and atrocities.

Apart from arming Israel, Washington’s partner in crime status lies proven with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s leaked documents. They show that Israel has direct and complete access to the highly classified information shared by America’s spy agencies.

Experts and polls hold the view that Israel has played right into Hamas’s hands. For the first time in its history, Israel is seen as a genocidal war-mongering entity by the people in the West. Pro-Palestinian news and views are at the forefront of the international media, universities and streets.

Time has proved that come what may, Israel cannot quash the Palestinian cause. “To say that we are going to make Hamas disappear is to throw sand in people’s eyes. Hamas is an ideology – we cannot eliminate an ideology.” These were the comments made recently by the IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari in an interview with Israel’s Channel 13.

One can feel Ghassan Kanafani smiling. He was as accomplished an artist as he was a man of letters. One of the most prominent Arab novelists and resistance writers, he was assassinated by Mossad in July 1972 along with his niece Lamees in Beirut. An obituary in Lebanon’s Daily Star described him as a (Palestinian) commando who never fired a gun and whose weapon was a pen.

Celebrated Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish eulogized Kanafani in a poignant elegy: “They blew you up, as they blow up a front, a base, a mountain, a capital, and they fought you, as they fight an army; because you are a symbol of a wounded civilization.”

A few walls still remain standing defiantly in a devastated Gaza. Spray painted on them is Kanafani’s sublime quote symbolizing Palestine’s valiant generational struggle: “Bodies fall but ideas endure.”

Mir Adnan Aziz is a freelance contributor based in Pakistan and can be reached at miradnanaziz@gmail.com

5 October 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Tings Chak and Vijay Prashad

On October 1, 1949, the leader of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Mao Zedong (1893–1976) announced the creation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Three hundred thousand people gathered in Tiananmen Square to welcome the new government and to greet the new leadership. After Mao made his initial announcement, he unfurled the new flag of the PRC, and then the military chief Zhu De reviewed the forces of the People’s Liberation Army. Similar celebrations were held in other parts of China. The foundation of the PRC ended a century of humiliation before the imperialists (that began with the first Anglo-Opium War of 1839) and the long second world war (that began with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931). Ten days before, at the first plenary session of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, Mao had said, “we are all convinced that our work would go down in the history of humankind, demonstrating that the Chinese people, comprising one quarter of humanity, have now stood up.”

The words in the name of new state, the PRC, are important: people and republic. The word republic signified the completion of the 1911 revolution that ended the Qing dynasty (1644–1911) and that inaugurated a form of post-monarchical sovereignty. Chinese republicanism drew from the reformist views from people as diverse as Kang Youwei (1858–1927) and Liang Qichao (1873–1929)—who supported a constitutional monarchy—and then put into practice by Sun Yat-Sen (1866–1925), who was not only against monarchies but more importantly against the wretched cultural inheritance of the centuries and for the unity of the Chinese people across a sprawling territory. The other word—people—has a rich history in Chinese thought and in Marxist theory, where it means that the state must operate on behalf of a range of classes that form most of the society (peasants, workers, intellectuals, and the petty bourgeoisie—the four stars in the new flag of China, with the fifth and largest star representing the CPC). The PRC was understood from the start to be an instrument for the transformation of Chinese society and not the culmination of a previous transformation. It was not a socialist state, but a people’s republic, which would strive to construct socialism. From the very beginning, it was understood by the leadership of the CPC that the Chinese Revolution was not an event that took place in 1949 but a process that began long before, at least since the formation of the Chinese Soviet Republic in Ruijin in 1931 to the revolutionary base in Yan’an in 1936.

The Three Mass Movements

The PRC’s formation came at a time when it had not yet established the unity of the territory or found the means to defend itself against imperialist aggression. Two of the main mass movements deepened right after 1949 were the completion of the defeat of the Kuomintang forces in the southwest and south China, and the establishment of allies in the world (particularly the Soviet Union with the Sino-Soviet Treaty of February 1950) against the imperialist support for the Kuomintang (once it had moved to Taiwan) and then with the US invasion of the Korean peninsula in June 1950. These two mass movements—the defeat of the rightist forces and the building of strength to defend against imperialist aggression—forced the PRC to hold off on the third mass movement, which however was the most enduring: the agrarian reform plan.

The decisions of the CPC in the winter of 1950 began a land reform process in the newly liberated zones that were substantially completed by the spring of 1953. The first general principle of the Law of Agrarian Reform noted, “Abolition of the land ownership of the feudal exploitative landlord class and introduction of peasant land ownership so as to liberate rural productive forces, develop agricultural production and pave the way for New China’s industrialisation.” That was the goal. The process was for the state to encourage grassroots political power, trained and led by the CPC, to conduct land reforms in a guided, planned, and orderly manner. The PRC was not to give land to the peasants, but it was to ensure that the peasants could build regionally and locally to accomplish the task of redistributing resources in their areas. Forced confiscation was not as much the policy as political education in the rural areas to transform land relations away from feudal oppression to a more just basis. By 1956, 90 percent of the country’s peasants had land to till, 100 million peasants were organised in agricultural cooperatives, and private industry was effectively abolished.

Agrarian reform had several productive outcomes: it meant that the landless peasantry and agricultural workers now had access to land and resources that allowed them to live with dignity; it meant that the total population of the rural area worked with a stake in the land and with an interest in making material improvements to the land, which increased productivity; it meant that the old landlord culture of hierarchy and its wretched outcomes in terms of patriarchal relations, for instance, was stamped out. These positive outcomes improved the living and working conditions of most of the Chinese people and built an almost immediate sense of loyalty to the Chinese Revolution.

Overcoming the Penalties of the Past

In 1949, the official literacy rate in China was recorded at 20 percent, although by all indications this was a highly inflated number. This was simply one measure of the miserable conditions of life for the mass of the Chinese population. Another was that population mortality was immense, with infant mortality at a striking 250 per 1000 lived births. The average Chinese life expectancy did not surpass 35 years. Coming out of the Century of Humiliation at the hands of imperialist powers, China’s GDP fell from about one-third of the global economy at the beginning of the nineteenth century to only 5 percent at the PRC’s founding. At that time, in terms of GDP per capital, China was the eleventh poorest nation in the world, behind eight African and two Asian countries. The immense turmoil in the Chinese countryside from the nineteenth century—reflected in the wars against the British and the peasant uprisings, such as the Taiping (1850–1864), Nian (1851–1868), and the Du Wenxiu (1856–1872) rebellions—and the theft by a small class of feudal landowners forced the peasantry and workers into an unreconcilable set of circumstances. They fought because they had to fight, and they were able to prevail because of the context of the war against the Japanese and the brilliant strategic choices made by the CPC during and after the culmination of the Long March.

To overcome the penalties of the past is not an easy option. The PRC simply did not have the resources to redistribute wealth through the creation of an immediately adequate educational and health infrastructure. During the process of agrarian reform, the PRC developed a First Five-Year Plan (1953–1957) under the leadership of Zhou Enlai (1898–1976) and Chen Yun (1905–1995). This Plan was worked out over two years and emphasised four theoretical points:

• To build an industrial base, which had never really been built to satisfy the needs of the Chinese people both in the cities and in the rural areas. Of all the capital pledged toward construction, 58.2 percent went to the building of industrial capacity.
• To build a New China based on its realities and not on utopian expectations. This meant that the precious resources harnessed by the PRC had to be used judiciously and that the PRC needed to train an enormous army of bureaucrats to manage the expansion of the state and to use the state’s power to assist in democratisation of the economy.
• To use whatever means that the Chinese could assemble without too much reliance upon outside help, although the USSR did provide assistance in the early years for industrialisation in particular. During the period of the first Plan, the USSR sent three thousand technical experts into China and welcomed twelve thousand Chinese students to study technical subjects in the USSR. The foreign loans necessary for development accounted for only 2.7 percent of the Chinese state’s total financial revenue in the first Plan.
• To correctly handle the balance between capital accumulation in a poor country and the consumption needs of the impoverished population. The Plan articulated the need for careful consideration of the immediate interests of the people and their longer-term interests: putting too much of the resources toward building fixed capital might dampen the enthusiasm for socialism, while spending the resources on the immediate troubles will only defer the problems till later.

The sophistication of the theory of the first Plan allowed for some major advances, but these were not sufficient for the prevailing needs. While the objective factors of enhancing the material conditions of life advanced progressively, the major social problems had to be confronted by more subjective techniques. The CPC organised mass campaigns to combat illiteracy (1950–1956), including holding classes in the fields for the peasantry. Caught up in the whirlwind of the 1940s, many rural areas of China developed a mutual help tradition that became the Rural Cooperative Medical Insurance Scheme in the PRC. With this form of medical insurance, the PRC began to distribute its resources to build public health, assisted by the Soviets, including by building general hospitals in the rural provinces and polyclinics in the villages. Both literacy and medical health improved dramatically because of the highly motivated cadre of the PRC, who took their wartime experience of sacrifice and strategy to good effect.

One of the downsides of the need to rely on subjectivism for building socialism is that such a framework is prone to human exaggeration and error, such as in the call for the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). But even here, there the record is not entirely negative. During this period, the PRC formalised the “barefoot doctor” scheme, which allowed medical colleges to provide basic training for doctors to go and serve the people in rural areas and thereby allowed the peasantry to access primary medical care where there had been none before. It required this kind of subjectivism to fight against the temptations of corruption and the deterioration of cadre discipline, both of which had become serious problems in the PRC; these were formulated through the 1951 campaign against the “three evils” in the state sector (corruption, waste, and bureaucracy) and the 1952 fight against the “five evils” in the private sector (bribery, tax evasion, theft of state property, cheating on government contracts, and stealing economic information).

In the twenty-nine-year pre-reform period (1949–1978), China’s life expectancy increased by thirty-two years. In other words, for every year after the Revolution, more than one year was added to the life of an average Chinese person. In 1949, the country’s population was 80 percent illiterate, which in less than three decades was reduced to 16.4 percent in urban areas and 34.7 percent in rural areas; the enrolment of school-age children increased from 20 to 90 percent; and the number of hospitals tripled. From 1952 to 1977, the average annual industrial output growth rate was 11.3 percent. In terms of productive capacity and technological development, China went from not being able to manufacture a car domestically in 1949 to launching its first satellite into outer space in 1970. The Dongfanghong satellite (meaning The East is Red) played the eponymous revolutionary song on loop while in orbit for twenty-eight days. The industrial, economic, and social gains in the transition to socialism under Mao formed the foundation of the post-1978 period.

Breaking the Chain of Dependency

In 1954, Mao addressed the Central People’s Government Council and asked a question that was on the minds of many of the delegates:

Our general objective is to strive to build a great socialist country. Ours is a big country of 600 million people. How long will it really take to accomplish socialist industrialisation and the socialist transformation and mechanisation of agriculture and make China a great socialist country? We won’t set a rigid time-limit now. It will probably take a period of three five-year plans, or fifteen years, to lay the foundation. Will China then become a great country? Not necessarily. I think for us to build a great socialist country, about fifty years, or ten five-year plans, will probably be enough. By then China will be in good shape and quite different from what it is now. What can we make at present? We can make tables and chairs, teacups and teapots, we can grow grain and grind it into flour, and we can make paper. But we can’t make a single motor car, plane, tank or tractor. So, we mustn’t brag and be cocky. Of course, I don’t mean we can become cocky when we turn out our first car, cockier when we make ten cars, and still more cocky when we make more and more cars. That won’t do. Even after fifty years, when our country is in good shape, we should remain as modest as we are now. If by then we should become conceited and look down on others, it would be bad. We mustn’t be conceited even a hundred years from now. We must never be cocky.

Three important points come from this speech. First, that it will take time to build socialism, since revolution in a poor country like China requires the state, the party, and the people to build the material basis for socialism. Patience is a central value of national liberation Marxism. Second, that China needed science, technology, and industrial capacity to break the chain of dependency and produce high-value, modern goods. To do this, China had both to rely upon the import of science and technology and to train its own scientific and technological personnel. Third, humility is as central a value as patience because China is not seeking to advance for national chauvinism but for the purposes of international socialism.

The attempt to break the intractable problem of dependency was attempted (and substantially failed) during the Great Leap Forward (1958–1962) and the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). Many lessons were learned then, and during the two-year period after the death of Mao (1976–1978). In May 1976, Hu Fuming (1935–2023), a CPC member and professor at Nanjing University, published an article with an interesting title, “Practice Is the Sole Criterion for Judging Truth.” This philosophical position, which was attractive to many people in the CPC, was adopted by Deng Xiaoping (1904–1997) in his 1978 speech to the 3rd Plenary Session of the CPC’s 11th Central Committee, which was titled, “Emancipate the Mind. Seek Truth from Facts. Unite as One in Looking to the Future.” What might appear as pragmatism was in fact an adherence to materialism, setting the course of Chinese socialism on the tracks of actuality rather than trying to hasten matters through an excess of subjectivism. The reform era, that opened in 1978, was built on this philosophical foundation.

In January 1963, Zhou Enlai had laid out a programme for China to focus on the Four Modernisations, namely, to modernise agriculture, industry, defence, as well as science and technology. In his 1978 speech, Deng returned to these Four Modernisations and said that they could not take place “if ossified thinking was not done away with.” The following year, Deng said that China must strive to become a “moderately prosperous society” (xiaokang), which could only take place with the advancement of the industrial base. In focusing on the opening up and China’s policy to attract technologically advanced industry into the country, an uneven appraisal has come of the Reform era that started in 1978. Several aspects are neglected, but two should be highlighted: agricultural productivity was to be increased through a household responsibility system (which weakened collective farms in the pursuit of a greater socialisation of labour and a higher form of collectivity); the role of the CPC had to be strengthened over the PRC and over society with a better political education and discipline for the cadre (in 1980, Deng made a speech where he highlighted the major malpractices of “bureaucracy, over-concentration of power, patriarchal behaviour, and leading cadres enjoying life-long tenure and privileges of all kinds”). The country would never be able to meet the challenge of the Four Modernisations and advance to socialism if it ignored the problems created by China’s dependent place in the neocolonial world order, as well as the rot that frequently sets in when power becomes an end in itself.

Private foreign capital came first from the Chinese diaspora then from East Asian capitalists (Japan in the lead) and finally from Western capital; this investment that entered the PRC to take advantage of the highly educated and healthy workforce had to transfer science and technology as a prerequisite, which formed a basis for the growth of China’s own science and technology sector. The PRC placed significant restrictions on the foreign capital, such as that it had to meet the productive needs of Chinese plans, that it had to transfer technology, and that it could not repatriate as much of the profit as it wished. Dependency was broken by this insistence, built on the foundation of the early decades of the Chinese Revolution. It was a consequence of the long trajectory of the Chinese Revolution that it was able to demonstrate high growth rates (nearly 10 percent year-on-year) in the period since 1978, that it was able to abolish absolute poverty, and that it was able to increase household and total consumption—including on education—across the decades since then. The chain of dependency was weakened, but not broken, although the reform period came with its own severe problems—such as increased inequality and a weakened social fabric.

The Zigs and Zags of the Chinese Revolution

In 2012, thirty-four years after the opening up period began, CPC leader Hu Jintao (born 1942) told the 18th National Congress that corruption had become a key issue. “If we fail to handle this issue well,” he warned, “it could prove fatal to the Party, and even cause the collapse of the Party and the fall of the state.” At that Congress, Hu was succeeded by Xi Jinping (born 1953), whose first take was to tackle this issue and to revive the socialist culture in China. In his inaugural speech as the Party head, Xi committed to “striking tigers and flies at the same time,” referring to the corruption that had spread from the high echelons down to the grassroots level. The Party launched the “eight-point” measures for its members, to limit practices such as inconsequential meetings and extravagant receptions, and advocated diligence and thrift. Within a year, 25 percent of official meetings were cancelled, 160,000 “phantom staff” were removed from the government payroll, and 2,580 unnecessary official building projects were stopped. By May 2021, a total of over four million cadres and officials had been investigated, with 3.7 million of them having been punished by the Central Commission of Discipline Inspection. At least forty-three members of the Central Committee and six Politburo members have been punished for corruption, including former ministers, provincial governors, and presidents of the biggest state-owned banks.

Hu’s comments and Xi’s actions reflected concerns that during the period of high growth after 1978, CPC members grew increasingly detached from the people. During the first months of his presidency, Xi launched the “mass line campaign” to bring the Party closer to the grassroots. As part of the Targeted Poverty Alleviation campaign launched in 2014, three million Party cadres were sent to live and work in 128,000 villages as part of this project. In 2020, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, China successfully eradicated extreme poverty, contributing to 76 percent of the global reduction in poverty over the last four decades. The 19th National Congress of the CPC in 2017 marked a shift in the principal contradiction facing Chinese society, from developing the productive forces quickly to addressing unbalance and inadequate development. In other words, the reform and opening up period was seen as a precondition for building a modern socialist society, but its work is still incomplete.

Beyond the Party’s self-correction, Xi’s strong words and actions against the corrupt “flies and tigers” contributed to the Chinese people’s confidence in the government. According to a 2020 study by Harvard University, the central government approval rating sits at 93.1 per cent, seeing the most significant growth in the more underdeveloped regions in the countryside. This rise of confidence in rural areas results from increased social services, trust in local officials, and the campaign against poverty.

In 2016, reflecting on the continuation of Chinese dependency, Xi said that the “dependence on core technology is the biggest hidden trouble for us. Heavy dependence on imported core technology is like building our house on top of someone else’s house.” The US trade war against China, which began in 2018, came after the collapse of confidence in countries such as China, India, and Brazil that the US can be the buyer of last resort (the confidence falling after the Third Great Depression began in 2007). These phenomenon—the lack of confidence and the trade war—set China on a path that would diverge from the West, building the Belt and Road Initiative (2013) and then developing New Quality Productive Forces (2023). The first concept shows China’s interest in building new markets away from the United States and Europe, but also using that process to assist in the development breakthroughs in countries in the Global South. The second concept, central to Xi Jinping Thought, is about moving China to “lead the development of strategic emerging industries and future industries,” as Xi put it in September 2023. The US trade war put pressure on Chinese science to advance in new areas, such as artificial intelligence, biomedicine, nanotechnology, and the manufacturing of computer chips. Two examples of the rapid advances are that China’s digital economy in 2022 accounted for 41.5 percent of its GDP, while its 5G penetration rate was greater than 50 percent in 2023. While the growth of these strategic industries have been key to China’s development, the government has taken decisive measures in recent years to curtail the “disorderly expansion of capital,” specifically targeting Big Tech monopolies and other private sectors as well as real estate speculation. At the same time, there has been an increased emphasis on combating the “three mountains” faced by the Chinese people, which is the high education, housing, and healthcare costs.

The Chinese Revolution continues to be a process. It is unfinished because history proceeds onward and there are many problems to solve, including the character of China’s relationship to the rest of the Global South as it searches for a new development architecture after the complete failure of the International Monetary Fund-World Bank austerity and debt approach. That China has been able to abolish absolute poverty and build advanced technology at the same time indicates that the balance between investment and consumption has been well handled by the PRC under the leadership of the CPC. China’s stability and strength has enabled it to now enter the world sphere and offer leadership to solve seemingly intractable problems, such as between Iran and Saudi Arabia and in Palestine.

This is a good period, after 75 years, to go back and study Mao’s 1954 speech where he highlighted the need for China to develop independent science and technology, patience, and humility. In 2021, with the eradication of extreme poverty and on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the CPC, China was able to achieve its “First Centenary Goal” of building “a moderately prosperous society in all respects”—in other words, achieving xiaokang for a country of 1.4 billion people. Now it is on an unchartered path to achieve its Second Centenary Goal of building “a modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, and harmonious” by 2049, the 100th anniversary of the PRC’s founding. These are important traits of any development process, but especially one rooted in the socialist tradition.

Courtesy: Monthly Review online

The Authors : Tings Chak and Vijay Prashad work at Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and are both editors of the international edition of  Wenghua Zongheng: A Journal of Contemporary Chinese Thought.

Tings Chak is a researcher and the art director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and co-founding member of the Dongsheng collective.

Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor, and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter.

4 October 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Zain Hussain

Following the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, Israel launched an intensive military campaign in Gaza, with the stated aims of destroying Hamas’s military and governing capabilities and bringing home 251 hostages taken during the incursion.

While many states were quick to affirm Israel’s right to self-defence, international concern grew about the high death toll and the severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza as well as about Israel’s conduct of the war. This has included ground assaults and air strikes that have targeted or hit hospitals, schools, emergency shelters and United Nations and other humanitarian operations, as well as areas previously designated as ‘safe zones’ in Gaza by the Israelis. These have resulted in the deaths of journalists, humanitarian workers and peaceful protesters, along with many other civilians.

On 12 December 2023 the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution demanding an ‘immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, parties’ compliance with international law’ and ‘release of all hostages’.

In January 2024 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) indicated provisional measures in a case brought by South Africa related to the application of the 1948 Genocide Convention to the situation in Gaza. According to the measures, Israel should, among other things, take immediate steps to prevent its military from committing acts that might be considered genocidal and to enable the provision of humanitarian assistance in Gaza. In May the court additionally ordered Israel to ‘immediately halt its military offensive … in the Rafah Governorate’.

The following month, a UN Commission of Inquiry found that both Hamas and Israel had been responsible for multiple war crimes since 7 October.

On 18 September 2024 the UN General Assembly adopted a new resolution demanding that Israel ‘brings to an end without delay its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory’. The same resolution called on states to cease the ‘provision or transfer of arms, munitions and related equipment to Israel … in all cases where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that they may be used in the Occupied Palestinian Territory’.

Pressure on states to cease or curtail military exports to Israel has grown. A number of governments have faced a range of domestic and international political and civil society campaigns, investigations and legal challenges concerning their policies on the supply of arms to Israel.

The connection between war crimes and arms transfers is clear. Under the Geneva Conventions, states are committed to ‘respect and ensure respect for’ international humanitarian law (IHL). This is seen as creating the requirement for states to ensure that their arms exports will not be used in violations of IHL. It is complemented by regional and international agreements on regulating arms transfers, including the 2008 European Union Common Position on Arms Exports and the 2013 Arms Trade Treaty. These instruments contain detailed provisions for preventing the use of traded weapons in violating IHL.

This backgrounder explores how the situation in Gaza has affected the arms export policy and practice of six of the world’s top 10 exporters of ‘major conventional arms’ according to the SIPRI Arms Transfers Database.

Arms transfers to Israel

In the past decade Israel has greatly increased its imports of arms. SIPRI estimates that in the five-year period 2019–23, Israel was the world’s 15th largest importer of major arms, accounting for 2.1 per cent of global arms imports in the period. In 2009–13 it ranked only 47th.

Although only three countries supplied major arms to Israel in 2019–23, the United States, Germany and Italy, many others supplied military components, ammunition or services. This backgrounder looks first at the USA, Germany and Italy, and then at three other global major arms exporters among the top 10: the United Kingdom, France and Spain. Four other major arms exporters among the top 10 are excluded from the analysis: Russia and China (the third and fourth largest exporters) because they are not known to supply any arms to Israel; South Korea (the 10th largest exporter) because its exports to Israel are minimal; and Israel itself (the ninth largest exporter).

The United States

In 2019–23 the USA accounted for 69 per cent of Israel’s arms imports. It supplied a variety of major arms, including aircraft, armoured vehicles, missiles and ships. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) rely heavily on arms imports from the USA. For example, all currently active combat aircraft in the Israeli air force were supplied by the USA with special modifications for Israeli use.

Enshrined in US law since 2008 is a requirement to ensure Israel’s ‘Qualitative Military Edge’, meaning its

ability to counter and defeat any credible conventional military threat from any individual state or possible coalition of states or from non-state actors, while sustaining minimal damages and casualties, through the use of superior military means, possessed in sufficient quantity, including weapons, command, control, communication, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities that in their technical characteristics are superior in capability to those of such other individual or possible coalition of states or non-state actors. 

The law also requires that US arms supplies to other states in the Middle East should not compromise Israel’s Qualitative Military Edge.

In 2016 the USA committed to providing $3.8 billion a year in financial military aid to Israel between 2019 and 2028, roughly the same level of support as in the preceding decade. The Israeli and US arms industries engage in deep cooperation in different fields, including missile defence. Israel and the USA jointly develop and produce Israel’s three-tiered air defence system against missile attacks: the Iron Dome, David’s Sling and Arrow.

The USA quickly stepped up emergency military aid to Israel after 7 October 2023. By 10 October, the USA had reportedly transferred 1000 GBU-39 guided aircraft bombs, an expedited delivery under a previously signed contract. Since then, it has similarly expedited delivery of major arms under earlier contracts and sent additional emergency military aid. These transfers have included small diameter bombs, joint direct attack munition (JDAM) guidance kits, missiles for Israel’s Iron Dome system, artillery shells and armoured vehicles.

In January 2024 the USA and Israel moved forward the process for the supply of additional F-35 and F-15 combat aircraft to Israel. In June a letter of agreement was signed for the supply of F-35s and in August the US government approved the possible supply of F-15s.

US military support for Israel has met with domestic opposition, both from members of Congress and from broader civil society. While this opposition has had little tangible impact on military aid flows, on 9 May 2024 the US government announced it would suspend a shipment of weapons to Israel that included 500-pound heavy bombs and Mk-84 2000-pound bombs, citing concerns over Israel’s threatened attack on Rafah. However, on 11 July the government said it would resume the supply of 500-pound bombs.

Germany

According to SIPRI data, Germany accounted for 30 per cent of Israel’s imports of major arms in 2019–23. These were mainly for Israel’s naval forces: 81 per cent of the transfers were frigates and another 10 per cent were torpedoes. The remaining 8.5 per cent were armoured vehicle engines, including those for armoured vehicles used in the Gaza war. Frigates supplied by Germany, namely the Sa’ar 6-class frigates (MEKO A-100 Light Frigates), have also been used in the Gaza war.

On 12 October 2023 German Minister of Defence Boris Pistorius announced that Germany would return two Heron unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to Israel that it had leased to Germany for training purposes. He added that there were requests for ammunition for ships, which would be discussed further with the Israelis.

Describing the government’s position on arms exports to Israel since October 2023, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in July 2024: ‘We have delivered weapons to Israel and we have not made a decision to stop doing so.’

In November 2023 the government reportedly created a working group, consisting of the Federal Foreign Office, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, and the Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control, tasked with expediting arms supplies requested by Israel.

In March 2024 Nicaragua submitted a case to the ICJ asking the court to order Germany to immediately cease military aid and arms exports to Israel, ‘in so far as this aid is used or could be used to commit or to facilitate serious violations of the Genocide Convention, international humanitarian law or other peremptory norms of general international law’. In its order of 30 April the court rejected the request.

In explanation of this decision, the court said:

as stated by Germany, there has been a significant decrease since November 2023 in the value of material for which [export] licences were granted, from approximately €200 million in October 2023 to approximately €24 million in November 2023, to approximately €1 million in March 2024. The Court also notes that, since 7 October 2023, according to Germany, only four licences for ‘war weapons’ have been granted: two for training ammunition, one for propellant charges for test purposes, and one concerning the export of 3000 portable anti-tank weapons. 

In German military exports, ‘war weapons’ are items defined by the German government under the Kriegswaffenliste (war weapons list).

In June 2024 several Palestinian residents of Gaza submitted three requests to an administrative court in Berlin to stop the German government from granting arms export licences until hostilities in Gaza ceased, on the grounds that the approval of such licences might violate international law. The court rejected the requests.

In September 2024, in response to reports that Germany had halted new arms exports to Israel due to legal challenges, a government spokesperson said, ‘There is no moratorium on arms exports to Israel, and there will be no moratorium’, explaining that the ‘federal government decides on the granting of authorizations for arms exports on a case-by-case basis, considering the current situation and taking into account foreign and security policy considerations in accordance with legal and political requirements’.

Italy

In 2019–23 Italy accounted for 0.9 per cent of Israel’s imports of major arms. Most of these comprised light helicopters (59 per cent); the remainder were naval guns (41 per cent) to equip frigates supplied by Germany. Apart from these, Italy is also a partner in the F-35 programme for which it produces components.

In January 2024 the Italian Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, Antonio Tajani, said in an interview that ‘since hostilities began we have suspended all shipments of weapons systems or military material of any kind’ to Israel. However, Defence Minister Guido Crosetto clarified in March 2024 that exports to Israel had continued, but only deliveries under contracts signed before 7 October. This was in line with a statement he had made in November 2023. He also said that these exports were only allowed after checks to ensure that any weapons would not be used against civilians in Gaza.

Other top 10 suppliers

The United Kingdom

According to SIPRI data, the UK has not exported any major arms to Israel since the 1970s. However, the UK does supply Israel with components for various systems such as aircraft, radars and targeting equipment, including components for the F-35 combat aircraft. In 2023 the UK reportedly approved export licences worth at least £17 million (around $22 million) for military exports to Israel, excluding open licences that allow the export of an unlimited quantity of specified goods.

In April 2024 Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces Leo Docherty told parliament: ‘No lethal or other military equipment has been provided to Israel by the UK Government since 4 December 2023.’

Official data on export licences published in June 2024 showed that there were a total of 345 extant licences (i.e. licences that had not been used in full, surrendered or rescinded) in which Israel was included as a recipient. Of these, 108 had been approved since 7 October 2023, covering, among other things, ‘components for helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, training small arms ammunition, submarine components and components for body armour’. The statistics showed that another 185 export licence applications were under consideration. No more recent information has been made publicly available.

In December 2023 two civil society organizations, Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) and Al-Haq, brought a case before the High Court in London challenging the government’s continued approval of arms export licences to Israel. In June 2024 a hearing date was set for October 2024.

On 2 September 2024 Secretary of State for Business and Trade Jonathan Reynolds announced that the UK was suspending all arms export licences for which it ‘assessed those items are for use in military operations in Gaza’ due to concerns they ‘might be used in serious violations of international humanitarian law’. This affected around 30 licences—for items including components for F-16 combat aircraft and UAVs, naval systems and targeting equipment. Reynolds said that licences related to the F-35 programme were excluded except where the components would be going directly from the UK to Israel. Citing the exemption of F-35 components, GLAN and Al-Haq announced that they would continue with their legal action.

France

SIPRI data does not show any French exports of major arms to Israel in 2019–23, the last exports of major arms to Israel from France being in 1998. However, France has supplied components for arms.

In Feburary 2024 French Minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu told the parliamentary defence committee that France’s exports to Israel were only of ‘basic components’ mainly for re-export by Israel. He added that since October 2023 he had told civil servants to be stricter when examining exports to Israel, and that the French government sought to be ‘irreproachable’ regarding arms exports to Israel.

Members of parliament, along with civil society organizations, have asked the government to suspend exports of arms to Israel. For instance, on 11 April 2024 a group of French civil society organizations jointly submitted three cases to an administrative court against the French government concerning the emergency suspension of arms transfers to Israel. However, all three cases were rejected.

In June 2024 the independent investigative organization Disclose alleged that the French government had authorized the export to Israel of electronic equipment used in Hermes 900 UAVs that had possibly been deployed to monitor developments on the ground in Gaza.

Spain

On 25 October 2023 Spain’s acting Minister of Social Rights, Ione Belarra, called on European countries to sever diplomatic relations with Israel and impose an arms embargo and economic sanctions in response to, in her words, Benjamin Netanyahu declaring ‘the United Nations in Israel “non grata”’.

In response to ‘reports in some media outlets’, on 12 February 2024 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation issued a press release confirming that no arms sales to Israel had been authorized since 7 October 2023.

Zain Hussain is a Researcher in the SIPRI Arms Transfers Programme.

4 October 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Jeffrey D. Sachs

30 Sep 2024 – Israel’s violent extremists now in control of its government believe that Israel has the Biblical license, indeed a religious mandate, to destroy the Palestinian people.

When Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the podium at the U.N. General Assembly last week, dozens of governments walked out of the chamber. The global opprobrium of Netanyahu and his government is due to Israel’s depraved violence against its Arab neighbors. Netanyahu purveys a fundamentalist ideology that has turned Israel into the most violent nation in the world.

Israel’s fundamentalist credo holds that Palestinians have no right whatsoever to their own nation. The Israeli Knesset recently passed a declaration rejecting a Palestinian State in what the Knesset calls The Land of Israel, meaning the land west of the Jordan River.

The Knesset of Israel firmly opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state west of Jordan. The establishment of a Palestinian state in the heart of the Land of Israel will pose an existential danger to the State of Israel and its citizens, perpetuate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and destabilize the region.

To call the land west of the Jordan the “heart of the Land of Israel” is breathtaking. Israel is one part of the land west of the Jordan, not the entire land. The International Court of Justice has recently ruled that Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian lands (those outside of Israel’s borders as of June 4, 1967, before the June 1967 war) is plainly illegal. The U.N. General Assembly has recently voted overwhelmingly to back the ICJ ruling and called on Israel to withdraw from Palestinian territories within one year.

It is worth recalling that when the British empire promised a Jewish homeland in Ottoman Palestine in 1917, the Palestinian Arabs constituted around 90% of the population. At the time of the 1947 U.N. partition plan, the Palestinian Arab population was approximately 67% of the population, though the partition plan proposed to give the Arabs only 44% of the land. Now Israel asserts the claim to 100% of the land.

There are many sources of this Israeli brazenness, the most important being the backing of Israel by U.S. military power. Without the U.S. military backing, Israel could not possibly rule over an Apartheid regime in which Palestinian Arabs constitute nearly one half of the population yet hold none of the political power. Future generations will look back in amazement at the success of the Israel Lobby in manipulating the U.S. military to the severe detriment of U.S. national security and global peace.

Yet in addition to the U.S. military, there is another source of Israel’s profound injustice to the Palestinian people, and that is the religious fundamentalism purveyed fanatics such as the self-proclaimed fascist Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s Minister of Finance, and Minister of National Defense Itamar Ben-Gvir. These fanatics hold fast to the biblical Book of Joshua, according to which God promised the Israelites the land “from the Negev wilderness in the south to the Lebanon mountains in the north, from the Euphrates River in the east to the Mediterranean Sea in the west.” (Joshua 1:4).

At the U.N. last week, Netanyahu once again staked Israel’s claim to the land on Biblical grounds: “When I spoke here last year, I said we face the same timeless choice that Moses put before the people of Israel thousands of years ago, as we were about to enter the Promised Land. Moses told us that our actions would determine whether we bequeath to future generations a blessing or a curse.”

What Netanyahu did not tell his fellow leaders (most of whom had in any event vacated the hall), was that Moses laid out a genocidal path to the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 31):

[The LORD] will destroy these nations before you, and you shall dispossess them. Joshua is the one who will cross ahead of you, just as the LORD has spoken. “The LORD will do to them just as He did to Sihon and Og, the kings of the Amorites, and to their land, when He destroyed them. “The LORD will deliver them up before you, and you shall do to them according to all the commandments which I have commanded you.”

Israel’s violent extremists believe that Israel has the Biblical license, indeed a religious mandate, to destroy the Palestinian people. Their Biblical hero is Joshua, the Israelite commander who succeeded Moses, and who led the Israelites’ genocidal conquests. (Netanyahu has also referred to the Amalekites, another case of a God-ordained genocide of foes of the Israelites, in a clear “dog-whistle” to his fundamentalist followers.) Here is the Biblical account of Joshua’s conquest of Hebron (Joshua 10):

Then Joshua and all Israel with him went up from Eglon to Hebron, and they fought against it. They captured it and struck it and its king and all its cities and all the persons who were in it with the edge of the sword. He left no survivor, according to all that he had done to Eglon. And he utterly destroyed it and every person who was in it.

There is a deep irony to this genocidal account. It almost surely is not historically accurate. There is no evidence that the Jewish kingdoms arose from genocides. Most likely they arose from local Canaanite communities adopting early forms of Judaism. Jewish fundamentalists adhere to a 6th century BCE text that is most likely a mythical reconstruction of purported events several centuries earlier, and a form of political bravado that was common in ancient Near Eastern politics. The problem is 21st century Israeli politicians, illegal settlers, and other fundamentalists who propose to live by—and kill by—6th century BCE political propaganda.

Israel’s violent fundamentalists are some 2,600 years out of step with today’s acceptable forms of statecraft and international law. Israel is duty bound to the UN Charter and the Geneva Conventions, not to the Book of Joshua. According to the recent ICJ ruling and UN General Assembly resolution backing it up, Israel must withdraw in the coming twelve months from the occupied Palestinian lands. According to international law, Israel’s borders are those of June 4, 1967, not the Euphrates to the Mediterranean Sea.

The ICJ ruling and U.N. General Assembly vote is not a ruling against the state of Israel per se. It is a ruling only against extremism, indeed against extremism and malevolence on both sides of the divide. There are two peoples, each with roughly half the overall population (and with no shortage of internal social, political, and ideological divisions within the two communities). International law calls for two states, living side by side, in peace.

The best solution, which we should strive for and hope for sooner rather than later, is that the two states, and the two peoples, get along, and actually draw strength from each other. Until then, however, the practical solution will be peacekeepers and fortified borders to protect each side from the animosity of the other, but with each having the chance to prosper. The utterly intolerable and illegal situation is the status quo, in which Israel rules brutally over the Palestinian people.

Hopefully, there will soon be a State of Palestine, sovereign and independent, whether the Knesset wants it or not. This is not Israel’s choice, but the mandate of the world community and of international law. The sooner the State of Palestine is welcomed as member state of the U.N., with the security of both Israel and Palestine backed by U.N. peacekeepers, the sooner will peace come to the region.

______________________________________________

Jeffrey D. Sachs, Professor of Sustainable Development and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University, is Director of Columbia’s Center for Sustainable Development and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

7 October 2024

Source: transcend.org

By Julian Assange

1 Oct 2024 – Read the full text of Julian Assange’s remarks to the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in Strasbourg today on the plea deal,WikiLeaks work, the Espionage Act, the C.I.A.’s retribution, the repression of journalism, and his responses during Q&A.

Ladies and gentlemen, the transition from years of confinement in a maximum security prison to being here before the representatives of 46 nations and 700 million people is a profound and a surreal shift. The experience of isolation for years in a small cell is difficult to convey. It strips away one sense of self, leaving only the raw essence of existence.

I’m yet not fully equipped to speak about what I have endured. The relentless struggle to stay alive, both physically and mentally. Nor can I speak yet about the death by hanging, murder and medical neglect of my fellow prisoners.

I apologize in advance if my words falter, or if my presentation lacks the polish you might expect from such a distinguished forum. Isolation has taken its toll. Which I am trying to unwind. And expressing myself in this setting is a challenge. However, the gravity of this occasion and the weight of the issues at hand compel me to set aside my reservations and speak to you directly.

I have traveled a long way, literally and figuratively, to be before you today. Before our discussion or answering any questions you might have. I wish to thank PACE for its 2020 resolution, which stated that my imprisonment set a dangerous precedent for journalists. I noted that the U.N. Special Rapporteur on torture called for my release. I’m also grateful for Pace’s 2021 statement, expressing concern over credible reports that U.S. officials discussed my assassination again, calling for my prompt release, and I commend the Legal Affairs and Human Rights Committee for commissioning a renowned rapporteur.

Sooner I will start to investigate the circumstance surrounding my detention and conviction, and the consequent implications for human rights. However, like so many of the efforts made in my case, whether they were from parliamentarians, presidents, prime ministers, the pope, U.N. officials and diplomats, unions, legal and medical professionals, academics, activists or citizens, none of them should have been necessary.

None of the statements, resolutions, reports, films, articles, events, fundraisers, protests and letters over the last 14 years should have been necessary. But all of them were necessary because without them, I never would have seen the light of day. This unprecedented global effort was needed because the legal protections of the legal protections that did exist, many existed only on paper when not effective in any remotely reasonable time.

On the Plea Deal

I eventually chose freedom over and realizable justice. After being detained for years and facing 175 year sentence with no effective remedy. Justice for me is now precluded, as the U.S. government insisted in writing into its plea agreement that I cannot filed a case at the European Court of Human Rights or even the Freedom of Information Act request over what it did to me as a result of its extradition request.

I want to be totally clear. I am not free today because the system worked. I am free today after years of incarceration because I pled guilty to journalism. I pled guilty to seeking information from a source. I pled guilty to obtaining information from a source. And I pled guilty to informing the public what that information was. I did not plead guilty to anything else.

I hope my testimony today can serve to highlight the weakness, the weaknesses of the existing safeguards and to help those whose cases are less visible but who are equally vulnerable. As I emerge from the dungeon of Belmarsh, the truth now seems less discernible, and I regret how much ground has been lost during that time period. How expressing the truth has been undermined, attacked, weakened and diminished.

I see more impunity, more secrecy, more retaliation for telling the truth and more self-censorship. It is hard not to draw a line from the U.S. government’s prosecution of me. It’s crossing. Crossing the Rubicon by internationally criminalizing journalism to the true climate for freedom of expression that exists now.

On WikiLeaks’ Work

When I founded WikiLeaks, it was driven by a simple dream to educate people about how the world works, so that through understanding, we might bring about something better. Having a map of where we are lets us understand where we might go. Knowledge empowers us to hold power to account and to demand justice where there is none. We obtained and published truth about tens of thousands of hidden casualties of war and other unseen horrors about programs of assassination, rendition, torture and mass surveillance.

We revealed not just when and where these things happened, but frequently the policies, the agreements and the structures behind them. When we published Collateral Murder, the infamous gotten camera footage of a U.S. Apache helicopter crew eagerly blowing to pieces Iraqi journalists and their rescuers. The visual reality of modern warfare shocked the world, so we also used interest in this video to direct people to the classified policies for when the U.S. military could deploy lethal force in Iraq.

How many civilians could be and how many civilians could be killed before gaining higher approval? In fact, 40 years of my potential 175 year sentence was for obtaining and releasing those policies.

The practical political vision I was left with after being immersed in the world’s dirty wars and secret operations, is simple. Let us stop gagging, torturing, and killing each other for a change. Get these fundamentals right and other political, economic and scientific processes that have space to educate. We’ll have space to take care of the rest.

WikiLeaks work was deeply rooted in the principles that this Assembly stands for. Our journalism elevated freedom of information and the public’s right to know. It found its natural operational home in Europe. I lived in Paris and we had formal corporate registrations in France and in Iceland. A journalistic and technical staff was spread throughout Europe. We publish to the world from servers based in France, in Germany and in Norway.

Manning’s Arrests

But 14 years ago, the United States military arrested one of our lead whistleblowers, Private First Class Manning, a U.S. intelligence analyst based in Iraq. The U.S. government concurrently launched an investigation against me and my colleagues. The U.S. government illicitly sent planes of agents to Iceland, paid bribes to an informant to steal our legal and journalistic work product and without formal process, pressured banks and financial services to block our subscriptions and to freeze our accounts.

The U.K. government took part in some of this retribution. It admitted at the European Court of Human Rights that it had unlawfully spied on my U.K. lawyers during this time.

Ultimately, this harassment was legally groundless. President Obama’s Justice Department chose not to indict me. Recognizing that no crime had been committed, the United States had never before prosecuted a publisher for publishing or obtaining government information. To do so would require a radical and ominous reinterpretation of the U.S. Constitution. In January 2017, Obama also commuted the sentence of Manning, who had been convicted of being one of my sources.

C.I.A.’s Retribution

However, in February 2017, the landscape changed dramatically. President Trump had been elected. He appointed two wolves in MAGA hats. Mike Pompeo, a Kansas congressman and former arms industry executive, as C.I.A. director, and William Barr, a former C.I.A. officer, as U.S. attorney general.

By March 2017, WikiLeaks had exposed the C.I.A.’s infiltration of fringe political parties. Its spying on French and German leaders, its spying on the European Central Bank, European economic ministries, and its standing orders to spy on French on the street as a whole. We revealed the C.I.A.’s vast production of malware and viruses, its subversion of supply chains. Its subversion of antivirus software, cars, smart TVs and iPhones.

C.I.A. Director Pompeo launched a campaign of retribution. It is now a matter of public record that under Pompeo’s explicit direction, the C.I.A. drew up plans to kidnap and to assassinate me within the Ecuadorean Embassy in London and authorize going after my European colleagues, subjecting us to theft, hacking attacks and the planting of false information. My wife and my infant son were also targeted.

A C.I.A. asset was permanently assigned to track my wife. And instructions were given to obtain DNA from my six month old son’s nappy. This is the testimony of more than 30 current and former U.S. intelligence officials speaking to the U.S. press, which has been additionally corroborated by records seized and the prosecution brought against some of the C.I.A. agents involved.

The C.I.A. is targeting of myself, my family and my associates through aggressive, extrajudicial and extraterritorial means. Provides a rare insight into how powerful intelligence organizations engage in transnational repression. Such repressions are not unique. What is unique is that we know so much about this one. Due to numerous whistleblowers and to judicial investigations in Spain.

This assembly is no stranger to extraterritorial abuses by the C.I.A.. Pace’s groundbreaking report on C.I.A. renditions in Europe exposed how the C.I.A. operated secret detention centers and conducted unlawful renditions on European soil, violating human rights and international law. In February this year, the alleged source of some of our C.I.A. revelations, former C.I.A. officer Joshua Schulte, was sentenced to 40 years in prison under conditions of extreme isolation.

His windows are blacked out and a white noise machine plays 24 hours a day over his door so that he cannot even shout through it. These conditions are more severe than those found in Guantanamo Bay.

But transnational repression is also conducted by abusing legal processes. The lack of effective safeguards against this means that Europe is vulnerable to having its mutual legal assistance and expedition treaties hijacked by foreign powers to go after dissenting voices in Europe. In Michael Pompeo’s memoirs, which I read in my prison cell, the former C.I.A. director bragged about how he pressured the U.S. attorney general to bring an extradition case against me in response to our publications about the C.I.A..

Indeed, acceding to Pompeo’s requests, the U.S. attorney general reopened the investigation against me that Obama had closed and re-arrested Manning, this time as a witness, and he was held in a prison for over a year, fined $1,000 a day. In a formal attempt to coerce her into providing secret testimony against me, she ended up attempting to take her own life.

We usually think of attempts to force journalists to testify against their sources. But Manning was now a source being forced to testify against the journalist.

By December 2017, C.I.A. Director Pompeo had got his way and the U.S. government issued a warrant to the U.K. for my extradition. The U.K. government kept the warrant secret from the public for two more years, while it, the U.S. government and the new president of Ecuador moved to shape the political, legal and the diplomatic grounds for my arrest.

When powerful nations feel entitled to target individuals beyond their borders, those individuals do not stand a chance unless there are strong safeguards in place and a state willing to enforce them without this. No individual has a hope of defending themselves against the vast resources that a state aggressor can deploy.

If the situation were not already bad enough, in my case, the U.S. government asserted a dangerous, dangerous new global legal position. Only U.S. citizens have free speech rights. Europeans and other nationalities do not have free speech rights, but the U.S. claims its Espionage Act still applies to them, regardless of where they are. So Europeans in Europe must obey the U.S. secrecy law with no defenses at all.

As far as the U.S. government is concerned, an American in Paris can talk about what the U.S. government is up to. Perhaps, but for a Frenchman in Paris, to do so is a crime with no defense. And he may be extradited, just like me.

Criminalizing News-Gathering

Now that one foreign government has formally asserted that Europeans have no free speech rights, a dangerous precedent has been set. Other powerful states will inevitably follow suit. The war in Ukraine has already seen the criminalization of journalists in Russia. But based on the precedent set in my expedition, there is nothing to stop Russia or indeed any other state from targeting European journalists, publishers or even social media users by claiming that their domestic secrecy laws have been violated.

The rights of journalists and publishers within the European space are seriously threatened.

Transnational repression cannot become the norm here. As one of the world’s two great norms, setting institutions, PACE must act.

The criminalization of news-gathering activities is a threat to investigative journalism everywhere. I was formally convicted by a foreign power for asking, for receiving and publishing truthful information about that power. While I was in Europe.

The fundamental issue is simple journalists should not be prosecuted for doing their jobs. Journalism is not a crime. It is a pillar of a free and informed society.

Mr. Chairman, distinguished delegates. If Europe is to have a future where the freedom to speak and the freedom to publish the truth are not privileges enjoyed by a few, but rights guaranteed to all. Then it must act. So what has happened in my case never happens to anyone else.

I wish to express my deepest gratitude to this assembly, to the conservatives, Social Democrats, liberals, leftists, Greens and independents who have supported me throughout this ordeal and to the countless individuals who have advocated tirelessly, tirelessly for my release. Is heartening to know that in a world often divided by ideology and interests, there remains a shared commitment to the protection of essential human liberties.

Freedom of expression and all that flows from it is at a dark crossroad. I fear that unless institutions like PACE wake up to the gravity of the situation, it will be too late. Let us all commit to doing our part to ensure that the light of freedom never demands that the pursuit of truth will live on, and that the voices of the many are not silenced by the interests of the few.

Responses During Q&A

After 14 years detained in the U.K., including over five years in a maximum security prison and facing 175 year sentence, with the prospect of years more in prison before being able to, have a shot at the European Court of Human Rights.

I, accepted, a plea offer from the United States that would release me from prison immediately. The United States insisted, that I not be allowed to take a case in relation to what had happened to me, in relation to its extradition proceedings. Nor that I could even file a Freedom of Information Act request, on the U.S. government, to see what was done.

There will never be a hearing into what has happened. And that’s why, it’s so important that, PACE, the uncertainty within Europe as to the defenses that can be used by journalists here to protect themselves from transnational repression and extradition. If left in its current state, will inevitably be abused by other states. Yeah. So, you know, I’m setting institutions like PA pace must move to make the situation clear that what happened to me cannot happen again.

Why He Attended

I am here because I believe it is an essential first step for PACE to act, to get the ball rolling, to address the problems of transnational repression and also to make it clear that national security journalism is possible within European borders. As for my adaptation to the big wide world, outside of how serious an embassy siege and maximum security prison, it sure takes some adjustment.

It’s not simply the spooky sound of electric cars that are very spooky. But it’s the it is also the change in the society. Where we once produced a pourtant, where he once released, important war crimes videos. That stirred public debate. Now, every day there are live streaming horrors from the wars in Ukraine and the war in Gaza.

Hundreds of journalists have been killed in Gaza and Ukraine combined.

The impunity. Seems to mount, and it is still uncertain what we can do about it.

By reputation to the world, of course, includes some positive but still tricky things. Becoming a father again to children who have grown up without me. Becoming a husband again. Even dealing with a mother in law.

These, trying family issues. No, she’s. She’s a very lovely woman. I like. I like them very much.

On Asylum

Political asylum is an absolutely essential relief valve for human rights abuses within states. That people can leave a state that is persecuting them not only saves individual lives. It provides a mechanism where journalists can continue to report on their societies after they have been hounded out, and ultimately, the threat of people leaving a state, is what the final analysis controls.

We have seen examples in history of states that made it difficult or impossible for people to leave. And we can see how the situation for people living there collapsed. It must be competition between states, to be good places for people to live and to work.

The assault on asylum through means of transnational repression. It’s another matter in my case.

It was difficult to find a state that would give asylum, that I was able to get to. There is a big gap in the asylum system for people. Who are not fleeing their own state, but fleeing an ally of that state. Or any third state. That was my case. Asylum law does not easily cover the case where, let’s say an Australian is fleeing persecution by the United States.

Or we could imagine a Kazakhstani fleeing persecution by Russia or China. I was not able to apply for asylum within the U.K.. Of course, the U.K. has its own particular political angle. It might have been difficult to convince the courts to give me, or in fact anyone, asylum in relation to the United States in the U.K.. But there wasn’t even a chance because citizens from third states, under the 1951 convention, as it’s implemented in most European states, cannot apply for asylum.

On the High Court Case

In the final U.K. High High Court case, which I won and the U.S., appealed against.

I won under the basis of nationality discrimination. That is in the U.K. Extradition Act. You’re not meant to discriminate. At trial or during a penalty phase against someone on the basis of their nationality.

The U.S. tried different tricks to get around that in the U.K. system, and it was uncertain whether we, whether I, or the United States would ultimately prevail. However, there is nothing in the European Charter. That prevents nationality discrimination in relation to extradition. So this is a small protection. It was hard to use within the U.K. Extradition Act.

But it’s not clear that it exists in most European states.

The first part of your questions about the C.I.A., the second part was about, do I see myself as a political prisoner? Answering the first one first? Yes. I was a political prisoner. The political basis for the U.S. government’s retributive acts against me was in relation to publishing the truth about what the U.S. government had done then in a formal legal sense, once the U.S. proceeded with its legal retribution, it used the Espionage Act, a classic, political offense. In relation to the C.I.A.’s, Campaign of transnational repression against Wikileaks.

We felt that something was going on at the time. There were many small signs that came together. But.

Having a ominous feeling and some, subtle input tips from a whistleblower and one of the, security contractors that the C.I.A. had contracted didn’t give me the full and disturbing picture, which later emerged.

It is a interesting example where intelligence organization has targeted and investigated of organization Wikileaks. As a result of our investigations, a criminal case in Spain, and in particular work done by U.S. journalists, which under the precedent that has been established in my case, might will now be themselves criminal. Detailed information about the actions of the C.I.A. took came out.

Those details involved the testimony of more than 30 current or former U.S. intelligence officials. A there are two, resulting processes. A criminal case in Spain with a number of victims, including my wife, my son, people who came to visit me at the embassy, lawyers, journalists, and a civil suit in the United States against the C.I.A. in the United States.

The C.I.A. has, in response to that civil suit declared formally by the C.I.A. director and the attorney general, state secrets privilege to knock out the case, the. Claim is that the C.I.A. may have a defense, but that defense is classified. And, so the case, the civil case cannot go forward. So it’s complete impunity. Within the U.S. system.

On Mistakes Made 

Q: Mr. Assange, if you could go back in time, would you do everything the same? And if not, what would you do differently? I’m not asking just in the terms of personal cost that you suffered, but also in terms of effectiveness or impact of what you tried to do. Thank you.

A: This is a very deep question about free will. Why do people do things when they do them? Looking back. We were often constrained by. Our resources, the number of staff by secrecy, that was necessary to protect our sources. If I could go back and have a lot of extra resources. Of course. Political approaches.

Media approaches, could have maximized even further the impact, the revelations that we made. But I suppose your question is, is trying to say, well, were there any knobs that could be turned in hindsight, of course, thousands of small things. I was not from the United Kingdom. I had a good friend in the United Kingdom, Gavin McFadzean, who’s an American journalist.

A very good man. But it took me time to when I once I was trapped in the United Kingdom, it took me time to understand what U.K. society was about, who you could trust. You couldn’t trust the. Different types of maneuvers that are made, in that society. And, there are different media partners that, perhaps we, could have chosen differently.

Q: You were the subject of a European arrest warrant issued by Sweden. To what extent do you think the European arrest warrants are being used as tools of repression? And to what extent do you think the rules could be changed so that they can no longer be used for that purpose?

A: The European Arrest Warrant System was introduced post-September 11, with the political rationale that it would be used for the fast transfer of Muslim terrorists between European states. The first European arrest Warrant that was issued was issued by Sweden for a drunk driver. We must understand that when we pick a disfavored group, Muslims at that time and. Say, well, this repressive legislation, it’s only going to be for them, inevitably, bureaucrats, elements of the security state will seize upon those measures and apply them more broadly.

Injustice to one person spread soon enough to most people.

I don’t know, the statistics on how often arrest warrants were abused. I was there was an attempt to extradite me without any charge from the United Kingdom by Sweden. The. U.K. government subsequently changed the law to prevent extradition without charge. But in its amendment, to the existing legislation, it included a rider to make sure that it didn’t apply to me.

On First Amendment and Article 10 

We performed a legal analysis to try to understand what the abilities and limitations were within Europe for publishing documents from a number of different countries, including United States.

We understood that in theory, article ten, should protect journalists in Europe. Similarly, looking at the U.S. First Amendment to its constitution, that no publisher had ever been prosecuted for publishing classified information from the United States, either domestically or internationally.

I expected some kind of harassment legal process. I was prepared to fight for that. I believe the value of these publications was such, it is okay to have that fight and that we would prevail because we had understood, what was legally possible. My naivete was believing in the law. When push comes to shove, laws are just pieces of paper, and they can be reinterpreted for political expediency.

They are the rules made by the ruling class more broadly. And if those rules don’t suit what it wants to do, it reinterprets them or hopefully, changes them, which is clearer? In the case of the United States, we angered one of the constituent powers of the United States, the intelligence sector, the security state, the secrecy state.

It was powerful enough to push for a reinterpretation. The U.S. Constitution, the U.S. First Amendment seems pretty black and white to me. It’s very short. It says the Congress shall make no law, restricting speech or the press.

However, that was, the that the U.S. Constitution, those precedents relating to it,

We’re just, reinterpret to the way and yes, perhaps ultimately if I, if it got to the Supreme Court of the United States, and I was still alive in that system, I might have won, depending on what the makeup was of the U.S. Supreme Court. But in the meantime, I had lost 14 years, on the house arrest, embassy siege and maximum security prison.

So I think this is an important lesson that when a major power faction wants to reinterpret the law, it can push to have the element of the state, in this case, the U.S. Department of Justice do that. And it doesn’t care too much about what is legal. That’s something for a much later day. In the meantime, the deterrent effect that it seeks, the retributive actions that it c seeks, have had their effect.

The U.S.-U.K. extradition treaty is one sided. Nine times more people excited to the United States from the U.K. than the other way around. What about the protections for U.S. citizens being exiled to the U.K.? A stronger,

There is no, need to show a prima facie case or reasonable suspicion. Even when the United States seeks to extradite from the U.K.. It’s a allegation extradition system. The allegation is alleged. You do not even have a chance to argue that is not true. All the arguments are based simply upon. Is that the right person? Does it breach human rights?

That’s it. That said, I do not think in any way that U.K. judges are compelled to extradite most people, and particularly journalists, to the United States. Some judges in the U.K. found in my favor at different stages in that process. Other judges did not.

But all judges, whether they were finding in my favor or not in the United Kingdom, showed extraordinary deference to the United States. Engaged in astonishing intellectual backflips, to allow the United States to have its way, on my extradition and in relation to setting precedents that occurred in my case, more broadly, that’s a to my mind, a function of.

The selection of U.K. judges, the narrow section of British society from which they come. They’re. Deep engagement with the U.K. establishment and the U.K. establishment’s deep engagement with the United States. Whether that’s in the intelligence sector via the which is now the largest, largest manufacturer in the United Kingdom, a weapons company, a BP shell, and some of the major banks.

The United Kingdom’s establishment is made up out of people who have benefited from that system for a long period of time. And almost all judges are from it. They don’t need to be told explicitly what to do. They understand what is good for that cohort, and what is good for that cohort is keeping a good relationship with the United States government.

On Lawfare

Lawfare is the use of the law to achieve ends, that would normally be achieved in some other form of conflict. We’re not talking about simply litigating to protect your rights. But rather. Picking laws, to get your man or to get the organization you want to get. Not justice seeking its resolution in law.

We’ve seen a lot of cases like that and obviously experienced ourselves, ourselves in many different domains.

I’m not sure precisely what can be done about it. There is a anti-SLAPP movement in Europe, which I commend. SLAPP is strategic lawsuits against public participation. There is good legislation in California to deal with SLAPP suits, and to reverse liabilities at an early stage, and to make, abusive lawsuits more expensive to conduct.

But I, I think we should understand a bigger picture, which is that whenever we make a law, we create a tool that self-interested bureaucrats, companies, and the worst elements of the security state will use and will expand the interpretation, in order to achieve control over others. And that’s why law reforms are constantly needed, because laws are abused and expanded.

And so it needs, constant vigilance, but also great care in making laws in the first place, because they, will be seized upon and abused.

On Support He Received

Other publications, journalists, unions, freedom of expression, organizations, was different at different stages. The those who saw the threats to everyone else and understood the case first, were the lawyers involved in major publications like lawyers for the New York Times? Freedom of expression. NGOs, were the next to see the threat.

Of the larger media organizations, unfortunately, many of them. Went with their political or geopolitical alignment.

So it was easy to gain support. From media organizations in neutral states, and obviously states hostile to United States, allies of the United States took longer media organizations within the United States. The journalists there, not the lawyers, but the journalists, took longer still.

It is a concern. And I, I can see a similar, phenomenon happening, with the journalists being killed in Gaza. And Ukraine.

That the political and geopolitical alignment of media organizations, causes them to not cover those victims, or cover only certain victims. This is a breach of journalistic solidarity. We all need to stick together, to hold the line. A journalist censored anywhere spread censorship, which can then, affect us all. Similarly, journalists being killed or targeted by intelligence agencies.

Need our firm, commitment in writing, or in broadcast. Sometimes there’s, a debate about whether someone is a journalist or an activist. I understand that debate. I’ve tried in my work, to be rigorously accurate. I believe accuracy is everything. Primary sources are everything. But there is one area, where I am an activist and all journalists must be.

And activists. Journalists must be activists for the truth.

Journalist journalists must be activists for the ability to convey the truth. And that means standing up for each other and, making no apologies about it. Thank you. Now, could I invite any other member of the parliamentary assembly who is not a member of the committee, to indicate if they wish to ask a question, and I can see two hands in the air, could I invite you, first of all, to give your name, and then to ask your question, Mr. Assange.

On Technology

I’m very interested in technology. I was a computer scientist from a young age and studied mathematics and physics. Cryptography. It’s with that cryptography that, we set about our system to protect sources and protect our own organization.

I am, enthused about some of the developments that are happening with cryptography. Some of those developments provide alternatives to what we see as huge media power and concentration in the hands of a few billionaires. They are still embryonic. Other technologies emerged out of. The campaign against mass surveillance, there and the Big Bang was the Snowden revelations that radicalized engineers and programmers, in many places, who saw themselves as agents of history, in including algorithms to protect, people’s privacy, including the communications between journalists and their sources.

On the other hand, as I emerge from prison, I see that. Artificial intelligence, is being used to create mass assassinations, where before there was a difference between assassination and warfare. Now the two of conjoined, when where many, perhaps the majority of targets, in Gaza. Are bombed as a result, of artificial intelligence targeting the connection between artificial intelligence and surveillance.

Is important. And artificial intelligence needs information to, come up with targets or ideas or propaganda and.

And when we’re talking, About, the use of artificial intelligence to conduct mass assassinations, surveillance data from telephones, internet, is key to training those algorithms. So there’s,

A lot has, changed. Some things have remained the same. There’s a lot of opportunity, and a lot of risk. I’m still trying to understand where we are, but hopefully we’ll have something more useful to say in due course.

I’m sorry, I’m getting a bit tired, but, Kristen, perhaps you want to take the.

Kristen Hrafnsson:

The one who loves what journalists do about the, Well, what can be done, when we have, horrible stories about, targeted killings where we have now have, evidence of that in and and of course, it is the reality of, reporting on wars is more severe than ever before.

And it was bad. It was bad in Iraq. Now it is even worse. It is a horror story. It is hard to give out advice for these journalists, how they can deal with that situation. The only thing we can call out, at least, is for an outcry and condemnation that this should be going on because we need information, we need this information.

There are no tools to, to secure individuals in Gaza that are being followed by drones and, are being targeted in mass bombing. There is a little defense from that, but, the outcry and the condemnation should be there. We should not be silent when this happens. Thank you.

Assange’s Final Remarks

In 2010, I was living in Paris, and I went to, to the United Kingdom and never came back. Until now. It’s. Good to be back. And it’s good to be amongst people who, as we say in Australia, who give a damn.

It’s good to be amongst friends. And I would just like to thank all the people who have fought for my liberation. And who have understood, importantly, that my liberation was coupled to their own liberation.

The basic fundamental liberties which sustain us all have to be fought for.

And that when one of us falls through the cracks. Soon enough, those cracks will widen and take the rest of us down. So thank you for your your courage in this and other settings and, keep up the fight.

_______________________________________________

Julian Assange is the founder of WikiLeaks. His most recent book is The WikiLeaks Files (Verso).

7 October 2024

Source: transcend.org

By UNICEF

UNICEF calls for a ceasefire to protect children as physical injuries and psychological suffering rise dramatically.

4 Oct 2024 – More than 690 children have reportedly been injured in Lebanon as the conflict has dramatically escalated in recent weeks.

Since 20 August, the number of children injured in the conflict has increased drastically, bringing the total number injured in the last year to 890 as of 2 October, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health.

“This disastrous conflict is exacting a tremendous toll on children,” said UNICEF Regional Director Adele Khodr. “Doctors tell us of treating children who are bloodied, bruised, and broken, suffering both physically and mentally. Many are experiencing anxiety, flashbacks, and nightmares related to explosions. No child should be subjected to such horrific situations.”

The most common injuries reportedly recorded among children include concussions and traumatic brain injuries from the impact of blasts, shrapnel wounds and limb injuries. Hearing loss caused by explosions is also common.

In the last year at least 127 children have been killed, with more than 100 of these deaths occurring in the past 11 days alone, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health.

“These are not mere numbers. They are innocent children, who had dreams and a future just like anyone else,” adds Khodr.

Meanwhile, it is estimated that more than 400,000 children have been displaced from their homes, grappling with fear, anxiety, destruction, and death in an uncertain and unfamiliar environment, and not knowing when they will return home or go back to school. UNICEF is particularly concerned about the long-term impacts of these events on their mental health.

Lebanon’s health system is under immense strain with the increased number of casualties, and has been directly affected by the conflict with at least 10 hospitals sustaining damage, including one neonatal intensive care unit.

In response, UNICEF has delivered 100 tons of emergency medical supplies, with a further 40 tons expected over the weekend. These supplies are being distributed to hospitals, primary health care centres, pop-up clinics, and first responders, to support life-saving care for families, especially pregnant women and children, across Lebanon. UNICEF is also supporting medical services at 50 shelters and psychosocial support sessions.

Given the scale of needs in Lebanon, UNICEF is urgently appealing to the international community to mobilize humanitarian support and ensure that supply routes into Lebanon remain open, allowing for the rapid and safe delivery of life-saving aid to children in need.

UNICEF continues to call for an urgent ceasefire and urges for all parties to protect children and civilian infrastructure, and to ensure that humanitarian actors can safely reach those in need, in accordance with their obligations under international humanitarian law.

7 October 2024

Source: transcend.org

By Juan Cole

6 Oct 2024 – In a radio interview with France Inter on Saturday, French president Emmanuel Macron called for an arms embargo against Israel over its ongoing attacks on Gaza and now Lebanon.

BFMTV reported that he said, “I think that today the priority is to return to a political solution, and that we must halt the delivery of arms for pursuing combat against Gaza. France will not deliver them.”

He clarified that France would continue to export defensive materiel, such as parts for the Israeli Iron Dome anti-missile defense system.

The station notes that President Joe Biden has often called for the avoidance of civilian casualties but has steadfastly declined to use his leverage with Israel, given its dependence on US weaponry and ammunition, to pressure it. In Britain, the Labour government of PM Keir Starmer has halted 10 out of 350 weapons licenses on the grounds that those ten weapons would likely be used by Israel against civilians.

Macron is the first leader of a major European country to argue for an embargo of offensive weapons to Israel in response to its total war on Gaza.

The French president has been heavily criticized by former French diplomats and other public figures for not showing the spine toward the Israeli Right that his predecessors such as François Mitterand and Jacques Chirac had. He had also come under fire from NGOs such as Human Rights Watch and Oxfam. Last April, 115 French parliamentarians on the left demanded that he announce an arms embargo on Israel. The left more or less won the subsequent elections this summer, which the center-right Macron refused to recognize, appointing a right wing prime minister — which has also embroiled him in controversy.

A solid majority of French Muslims who vote have swung to the leftist Insoumise [Rebellion] Party. About 9% of the French are Muslim, though a large number of them, like the French in general, say they have no religion. Religious “nones” are at least 40% of the French population. France is close to many countries in the Arab world, who will have been filling the Quai D’orsay’s ears with bitter complaints about the Israeli genocide. The French Left and its Muslim component are furious about Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and Macron has been feeling the heat.

Macron underlined his continued commitment to Israel’s right to defend itself. He objected, however, “One does not fight terrorism and against terrorism by sacrificing the civilian population.” He did not, however, express any optimism about the prospects of a ceasefire any time soon. “I think,” he said, “that we are not heard.”

He views the policies of the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “a mistake, including for the security of Israel.” He said that both French public opinion and that of the Middle Eastern public is full of resentment toward Israel’s wars, and that it is nurturing hatred.

Unlike the clueless Biden administration “blob,” which is blithely oblivious to the passions that are roiling the Middle Eastern public, the French diplomatic corps and intelligence agencies are full of old Arab hands who know exactly how furious everyone in the Arab world is with not only Israel but its Western backers over the Israeli slaughter of tens of thousands of women and children and its destruction of entire neighborhoods in Gaza — a process it has now begun in Lebanon with its attacks on Dahiyeh in East Beirut.

Macron said it was his priority to avoid an escalation in Lebanon. “The Lebanese people,” he affirmed, “cannot in turn by sacrificed, and Lebanon cannot become a new Gaza.”

There are already indications that the techniques of total war and indiscriminate bombardment deployed by Israel so extensively in Gaza are beginning to be applied to Lebanon.

In a later interview with BMFTV , Macron clarified his position. He was asked by the anchor about his call for an arms embargo, “to whom are you addressing this message?” He wanted to know if Macron was trying to reach President Biden.

The anchor followed up, inquiring whether Macron could be sure that defensive weapons sent by France to Israel weren’t being repurposed for strikes on Gaza or Lebanon.

Macron dismissed the second question, saying “this is absolutely not the case.”

It is true that if France is supplying components for the Iron Dome anti-missile system, they aren’t such that they could be used against Gaza or Lebanon offensively.

Macron pointed out that he has been extremely supportive of Israel in the wake of the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas, and that he has hosted the families of Israeli hostages, the release of whom is a firm French demand.

He continued, “Nevertheless, we also strive to be consistent, and when we call for a ceasefire, it applies to Gaza. This was also true for Lebanon last week. So, we strive not to call for a ceasefire while continuing to deliver weapons for war. And I think this is simply a matter of coherence.”

Macron’s logic here is impeccable, and his mere statement of the case shows up how hypocritical and self-contradictory the policies of the Biden administration are toward this issue.

He reiterated his demand for a ceasefire in Gaza and “the resumption of full-scale humanitarian actions,” as well as diplomatic progress toward a two-state solution.

He added, “As for Lebanon, we also call for a ceasefire. I furthermore note that last week in New York, President Biden and I endorsed a ceasefire text, and thus the United States of America was favorable towards Lebanon. This text was discussed with both the Lebanese and Israel, who were urged to adopt it.”

Lebanon was created by the French when they militarily occupied Syria in 1920, since it was a part of Syria along the Mediterranean coast that had a Christian majority, which made it easier for Western, Christian rule to be accepted. Muslim-majority Syria staged a significant revolt in the late 1930s, and by 1945 it had gained independence legally (de facto independence came in 1946 with the French withdrawal). France continues to view Lebanon and Syria as its spheres of influence. Macron rescued then Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri from Saudi Arabia when Mohamed Bin Salman kidnapped him in 2017.

Macron blasted Netanyahu for rejecting the Franco-American call for a ceasefire in Lebanon.

He seemed to target Biden when he said, “So yes, if we call for a ceasefire, coherence means not supplying the weapons for war. I believe that those who provide them cannot call each day alongside us for a ceasefire.”

He pledged to hold an international conference soon on Lebanon, for the provision of humanitarian aid.

He said that “It will also provide support elements to the Lebanese Armed Forces to secure, particularly, southern Lebanon.” With Hezbollah badly hurt, the Lebanese Army may have to finally assert itself in the Shiite South, and it could come into conflict with the Israeli army. Lebanese soldiers have already been killed by Israel. So Macron’s ambition of shoring up the country’s national army wasn’t exactly music to Netanyahu’s ears.

Bonus video:

BFMTV: “Qu’on cesse de livrer des armes” à Israël pour Gaza: Emmanuel Macron maintient sa position”

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan and author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

7 October 2024

Source: transcend.org

By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies

2 Oct 2024 – On October 1, Iran fired about 180 missiles at Israel in response to Israel’s recent assassinations of leaders of its Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), Hezbollah and Hamas. There are conflicting reports about how many of the missiles struck their targets and if there were any deaths. But Israel is now considering a counterattack that could propel it into an all-out war with Iran, with the U.S. in tow.

For years, Iran has been trying to avoid such a war. That is why it signed the 2015 JCPOA nuclear agreement with the United States, the U.K., France, Germany, Russia, China and the European Union. Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the U.S. out of the JCPOA in 2018, and despite Joe Biden’s much-touted differences with Trump, he failed to restore U.S. compliance. Instead, he tried to use Trump’s violation of the treaty as leverage to demand further concessions from Iran. This only served to further aggravate the schism between the United States and Iran, which have had no diplomatic relations since 1980.

Now, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sees his long-awaited chance to draw the United States into war with Iran. By killing Iranian military leaders and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Iranian soil, as well as attacking Iran’s allies in Lebanon and Yemen, Netanyahu provoked a military response from Iran that has given him an excuse to widen the conflict even further. Tragically, there are warmongering U.S. officials who would welcome a war on Iran, and many more who would blindly go along with it.

Iran’s newly elected president, Masoud Pezeshkian, campaigned on a platform of reconciling with the West. When he came to New York to speak at the UN General Assembly on September 25, he was accompanied by three members of Iran’s JCPOA negotiating team: former foreign minister Javad Zarif; current foreign minister Abbas Araghchi; and deputy foreign minister Majid Ravanchi.

President Pezeshkian’s message in New York was conciliatory. With Zarif and Araghchi at his side at a press conference on September 23, he talked of peace, and of reviving the dormant nuclear agreement. “Vis-a-vis the JCPOA, we said 100 times we are willing to live up to our agreements,” he said. “We do hope we can sit at the table and hold discussions.”

On the crisis in the Middle East, Pezeshkian said that Iran wanted peace and had exercised restraint in the face of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, its assassinations of resistance leaders and Iranian officials, and its war on its neighbors.

“Let’s create a situation where we can co-exist,” said Pezeshkian. “Let’s try to resolve tensions through dialogue…We are willing to put all of our weapons aside so long as Israel will do the same.” He added that Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, while Israel is not, and that Israel’s nuclear arsenal is a serious threat to Iran.

Pezeshkian reiterated Iran’s desire for peace in his speech at the UN General Assembly.

“I am the president of a country that has endured threats, war, occupation, and sanctions throughout its modern history,” he said. “Others have neither come to our assistance nor respected our declared neutrality. Global powers have even sided with aggressors. We have learned that we can only rely on our own people and our own indigenous capabilities. The Islamic Republic of Iran seeks to safeguard its own security, not to create insecurity for others. We want peace for all and seek no war or quarrel with anyone.”

The U.S. response to Iran’s restraint throughout this crisis has been to keep sending destructive weapons to Israel, with which it has devastated Gaza, killed tens of thousands of women and children, bombed neighboring capitals, and beefed up the forces it would need to attack Iran.

That includes a new order for 50 F-15EX long-range bombers, with 750 gallon fuel tanks for the long journey to Iran. That arms deal still has to pass the Senate, where Senator Bernie Sanders is leading the opposition.

On the diplomatic front, the U.S. vetoed successive cease-fire resolutions in the UN Security Council and hijacked Qatar and Egypt’s cease-fire negotiations to provide diplomatic cover for unrestricted genocide.

Military leaders in the United States and Israel appear to be arguing against war on Iran, as they have in the past. Even George W. Bush and Dick Cheney balked at launching another catastrophic war based on lies against Iran, after the CIA publicly admitted in its 2006 National Intelligence Estimate that Iran was not developing nuclear weapons.

When Trump threatened to attack Iran, Tulsi Gabbard warned him that a U.S. war on Iran would be so catastrophic that it would finally, retroactively, make the war on Iraq look like the “cakewalk” the neocons had promised it would be.

But neither U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin nor Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant can control their countries’ war policies, which are in the hands of political leaders with political agendas. Netanyahu has spent many years trying to draw the United States into a war with Iran, and has kept escalating the Gaza crisis for a year, at the cost of tens of thousands of innocent lives, with that goal clearly in mind.

Biden has been out of his depth throughout this crisis, relying on political instincts from an era when acting tough and blindly supporting Israel were politically safe positions for American politicians. Secretary of State Antony Blinken rose to power through the National Security Council and as a Senate staffer, not as a diplomat, riding Biden’s coat-tails into a senior position where he is as out of his depth as his boss.

Meanwhile, pro-Iran militia groups in Iraq warn that, if the U.S. joins in strikes on Iran, they will target U.S. bases in Iraq and the region.

So we are careening toward a catastrophic war with Iran, with no U.S. diplomatic leadership and only Trump and Harris waiting in the wings. As Trita Parsi wrote in Responsible Statecraft, “If U.S. service members find themselves in the line of fire in an expanding Iran-Israel conflict, it will be a direct result of this administration’s failure to use U.S. leverage to pursue America’s most core security interest here — avoiding war.”

Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies are the authors of War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, available from OR Books in November 2022.

7 October 2024

Source: transcend.org