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By Shariq Us Sabah

France’s recognition of Palestine is welcome, but without follow-through it risks joining the long list of empty declarations that Palestinians have heard for generations. Symbolic gestures do not alter the structures of occupation, nor do they dismantle systems of domination. History shows that real change comes only when the international community chooses action over words.

The precedent of apartheid South Africa is instructive. By the mid-1980s, Europe had severed relations with Pretoria. In 1986, the United States Congress overrode President Ronald Reagan’s veto to impose sanctions. The regime’s legitimacy collapsed once its allies withdrew support. South Africa’s rulers did not embrace democracy out of benevolence; they yielded because isolation left them with no alternative.

The parallel with Palestine is unavoidable. Leading human rights organisations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have concluded that Israel’s policies amount to apartheid under international law. The evidence includes systematic segregation, unequal rights, and the denial of Palestinian self-determination. Yet unlike the consensus that formed against South Africa, Israel still enjoys Western protection.

That protection takes the form of billions in military aid, preferential trade, and diplomatic cover at the United Nations. Far from moderating Israeli policy, such indulgence has entrenched settlement expansion, deepened the occupation, and enabled repeated assaults on Gaza. The promise of a two-state solution grows ever more remote, yet the subsidies and weapons continue to flow.

This contradiction undermines Western credibility. Governments invoke international law to condemn Russian actions in Ukraine, but ignore the same principles in Palestine. They demand accountability elsewhere while shielding an ally. The double standard corrodes the very notion of a rules-based order. If international law is applied selectively, it ceases to be law and becomes mere political convenience.

The tools of accountability are already known. Cutting military assistance, suspending trade privileges, and conditioning diplomatic relations are not radical innovations. They are the same measures that once dismantled apartheid South Africa. Then, as now, critics warned that sanctions would harden attitudes and close the door to dialogue. In reality, they created the conditions that made dialogue inevitable.

There is also a moral question. For decades, Palestinians have lived under occupation, siege, and dispossession. The right to self-determination is a principle enshrined in international law. To deny it indefinitely is to legitimise permanent subjugation. The longer the West shields Israel, the clearer the message: some nations’ rights are negotiable, others sacrosanct. That is a dangerous precedent in an already fractured world.

Recognition of Palestine is a necessary step, but it must be more than symbolic. What is required is coordinated international pressure, the deliberate use of economic and diplomatic leverage, and the political will to apply the same standards to Israel that once brought down apartheid in South Africa.

The international community has faced this test before. Few believed white minority rule in South Africa would collapse. Yet global pressure, combined with internal resistance, forced change. It happened not through war but through persistence, solidarity, and isolation of the oppressor.

The Palestinians deserve the same clarity and commitment. If Western governments act only with words, they will prolong suffering and diminish their own standing. The choice is clear. Either sustain an unjust order or summon the resolve that history demands.

Palestine cannot wait another generation for justice.

Shariq Us Sabah is a writer and commentator on geopolitics and human rights.

26 September 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Huda Skaik

Riyad Nofal, a photographer from Jabaliya, has been displaced 14 times since Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza began almost two years ago.

Despite being constantly uprooted, Riyad remained within Gaza City most of the time. That changed earlier this month.

After the Israeli army launched a major ground invasion, threatening to take control of Gaza City, Riyad was forced to relocate to Deir al-Balah, central Gaza.

Riyad, 69, worked as a photographer for 43 years and owned a studio, 12 shops and 14 apartments. All were located in Jabaliya, northern Gaza.

On 7 October 2023, Riyad’s eldest son Omar was killed in a massacre in Jabaliya and left behind nine children. Riyad has been taking care of them since then.

Another son of Riyad, the photojournalist Mohammad, was killed alongside his renowned colleague Anas Al-Sharif and five other journalists when Israel targeted their tent near Al-Shifa Hospital on 10 August 2025.

On 22 June 2025, Riyad’s wife died from wounds inflicted when Israeli shrapnel pierced her head a few days before.

For almost two years of Israeli genocide, Riyad “refused to abandon everything” he owned and leave Gaza City.

“But in the end,” Riyad said, “it was all destroyed – I lost my wife, my two sons and even my health.”

Riyad cannot bear all this loss, feeling like he has “aged 10 years in two years of war.”

“Sometimes I wish for death,” Riyad said, “because it is easier than this life.”

Homeland

To Riyad, Gaza City means life.

If the war ends, he said, he wants to return to Gaza City and pitch a tent even if on the rubble – only there will he feel alive again, surrounded by the scent of the people he loves.

Montaser Terzi, a 37-year-old Christian from Gaza City, shares the same feelings.

“Every time I hear the words ‘occupation of Gaza,’ I feel shaken inside,” Terzi told The Electronic Intifada.

For him, being displaced from the city – with Israel occupying it directly – is an existential fear.

“My life is tied to my home – the voices of my mother and father, family gatherings and the aroma of food during the holidays,” Terzi said.

When Israel attempted a ground invasion on Gaza in October 2023, Terzi found refuge at the Latin Catholic Church when bombardments grew too close to his house in al-Daraj neighborhood.

“Christians have ancient roots in this City,” he said. “It’s not just about life and death, but about our existence here.”

But this time, Terzi – again taking refuge at the Latin Catholic Church – is afraid the Christian community will lose their churches, memories and their presence.

Despite the destruction, people always returned. But this time, Terzi said, people are afraid they won’t be allowed back.

“Gaza is my homeland – I cannot imagine my life away from it,” Terzi said. “I believe we will return no matter what.”

Collective memory

For 22 months of Israeli genocide, Ahmad Mortaja, 30, a child protection and psychosocial support coordinator from the Shujaiya neighborhood, has refused to leave Gaza City and relocate to southern parts of the Strip.

He lost his two houses in Shujaiya at the first months of the genocide. The first was the house he was raised in and the second was the one his father had built and they grew up in.

“Our existence has become meaningless – we own nothing in this city,” he said. “The war has devoured both our homes, not caring about us or the memories and belongings we carried inside.”

Though he has been displaced within Gaza City itself, each time Mortaja left, he said, he left a piece of himself behind.

Before he stopped counting, Mortaja had been displaced more than 15 times. Displaying dark humor, his friends joke that he deserves an award for being the most displaced.

Mortaja’s last displacement was on 1 June 2025.

“I’m displaced in the west of the city, in one of the high-rise towers, to which eyes have recently turned,” he said, referring to Israel’s campaign to level Gaza’s high-rise towers.

People in Gaza City are, Mortaja said, exhausted and move south driven by their fear.

Mortaja and his family – just like the majority in Gaza that feel helpless – couldn’t find a place for themselves to evacuate to in the south.

What shapes the people of Gaza City, Mortaja said, is their memory.

His greatest fear is losing his memory – and with it, losing the city itself, along with himself, his friends and his family.

“If I leave to the south,” he said, “I won’t be able to convince my memory to leave with me – it will surely flee through the city streets, beyond my reach.”

Bittersweet love

Memory for Nadra al-Tibi is also what roots her in Gaza City.

Al-Tibi, 25, a freelance correspondent for China’s CGTN, left her house in Nasr neighborhood and is still displaced in Beach refugee camp in Gaza City, refusing to leave the city altogether.

“Every corner of the house holds a small memory: a laugh hanging in the corners, my mother’s prayers in the kitchen, my first steps in the hallway and the winter nights,” al-Tibi said. “It’s all these simple details that keep me rooted in this place.”

Al-Tibi – who was displaced at least six times inside Gaza City and then to southern Gaza for 400 days – felt like each displacement involved leaving pieces of her heart behind.

When a ceasefire was announced on 19 January 2025, and the road north reopened on 27 January, al-Tibi returned to Gaza City.

For al-Tibi, Gaza City is a mirror of her dreams, but it is also a mirror of her patience and hunger.

“Gaza is an open wound that teaches people the meaning of life and resistance and makes them believe that identity can grow even from beneath the rubble,” she said.

If Gaza City is lost, al-Tibi fears she will lose her sense of belonging – a sense that Gaza, despite its cruelty, is her home.

With every news story about a journalist being targeted, al-Tibi remembers that she could be the next journalist to be targeted.

“This feeling never leaves me,” she said. “But instead of silencing me, it makes me cling to my language, my pen and my voice more.”

The invasion of Gaza City, al-Tibi said, is not only about stealing the land, about stealing street names, the voices of children in the alleys and memory itself.

Sara Awad, an English literature student, says she is losing her memory after leaving Gaza City.

“I feel like my memories are disappearing and parts of me are shrinking,” Awad said.

On 11 September, Awad, 21, left her house in Sheikh Radwan, a neighborhood in the northern part of Gaza City, where she lived for 20 years, and moved to a tent in al-Zawayda, central Gaza.

Awad thought Israel’s campaign to invade and take direct control of Gaza City was just a “psychological war,” never believing she would be forced out of her neighborhood or house.

“This is my home, my room, our kitchen, our living room, our stairs, our roof and our garden, where my grandfather used to plant crops before he died,” she said. “I feel like Israel is occupying me and killing me – not just my city.”

Awad’s grandfather, Rafeeq, was 73 when he succumbed to cancer on 21 October 2023 due to the lack of vital treatment.

Israel is trying to make people in Gaza hate living there by bombing the places they love and belong to – restaurants, cafes, schools, universities and mosques.

“I hear [on the news] about the blowing up of houses in Sheikh Radwan neighborhood,” Awad said, referring to Israel’s use of explosive-laden robots to obliterate houses.

Though Awad has been displaced three times since October 2023, this displacement, she said, is different and worse since there is no coming back to the house.

“We will return because the land is ours, but I have no hope that I will return and find my house,” Awad said.

In William Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet, the protagonist declares: “I must be cruel only to be kind.” He meant that causing pain could at times serve a greater good.

Gaza and Hamlet are alike.

“Gaza is the mother who can be cruel to her children,” said Ahmad Mortaja. “Yet no matter what she does to them, her children continue to love her and remain attached to her.”

It is a phoenix, Mortaja said, always rising from the ashes, declaring that hope still lies beneath the rubble.

“When Gaza rises again,” Mortaja said, “we must dust it off and live once more.”

Mahmoud Darwish, the renowned Palestinian poet, once wrote: “We have on this land what makes life worth living.”

Mortaja affirmed: “And who deserves life more than us.”

Huda Skaik is a student of English and a journalist based in Gaza.

26 September 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Haya Hijazi 

In Gaza, destruction is not limited to homes, hospitals, and markets. Less visible, yet equally tragic, is the erasure of memory, knowledge, and culture: the obliteration of libraries.

For decades, libraries—university archives, public collections, school libraries, and even personal shelves in family homes—were fragile lifelines to the outside world. In a besieged enclave where travel and access to education are restricted, books were more than paper; they were passports, companions, and windows to a world most Gazans could never touch.

Today, many of these collections lie in ruins. Bombed universities have lost research and historical archives. Schools where children once held storybooks now stand silent, with torn pages fluttering in the rubble. Private libraries, painstakingly built over decades, have turned to ashes. Every lost book is not just paper destroyed—it is a dream, a voice, a life’s work silenced.

I spoke with students who described their despair. Nadia, a medical student, told me:

“I was working on my thesis about women’s health, relying on rare journals that no longer exist after the library was destroyed. It feels as if my future was buried with those books.”

At a local school, a 10-year-old boy held a torn page from his favorite book and said:

“I tried to save it, but it’s not the same. It feels like a piece of my childhood is gone.”

Even home libraries have not been spared. Take my own father, a pediatrician and passionate reader. He had collected over two thousand books over forty years in our home in northern Gaza. He never sold a single book—they were a part of him, of his life and knowledge. When our home was bombed, the library burned completely, taking decades of passion, research, and memories with the flames.

Similarly, the Abu Ali family, who gathered their books over three decades, found most of their library reduced to ash after their neighborhood was hit. The father said:

“These books are not just books. They are our memories, our children’s dreams. Now everything is gone.”

The destruction of libraries is not collateral damage—it is an assault on memory and identity. To erase books is to erase the ability to remember, to learn, and to pass on culture. In Gaza, where generations already struggle under siege, the loss of libraries is a wound that will outlast the war.

Global conversations about Gaza often highlight destroyed hospitals, lives lost, and displaced families. These are urgent tragedies, but they do not tell the full story. There is a slower, quieter death: the death of memory. A society without its libraries is robbed not only of its present but of its past and future.

Libraries are not just buildings; they are guardians of language, history, imagination, and dreams. When Gaza’s libraries burn, it is not only Gazans who lose. The world loses stories, research, voices, and perspectives that might change how we understand resilience, struggle, and humanity.

Rebuilding Gaza will not only be about reconstructing homes and hospitals. It must include rebuilding memory—schools, archives, and libraries. Without that, the people of Gaza will remain displaced even in their own land, unable to reclaim the written traces of their identity.

Having grown up surrounded by these books, I mourn not only the buildings destroyed but also the dreams they held. When books turn to dust, memory itself is endangered. And when memory burns, so does the hope of a future built on knowledge.

Haya Hijazi is a 29-year-old obstetrician and gynecologist from Gaza, a humanitarian activist, and a freelance writer.

26 September 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Rima Najjar

Author’s note: This essay confronts the global failure to protect Palestinian life by exposing the gap between rhetorical recognition and material consequence. It argues that the tools to dismantle occupation — legal, diplomatic, and economic — already exist, and that their non-use is not a matter of complexity but of political refusal. Through a region-by-region analysis of the European Union, United States, Latin America, Africa, and Arab states, the essay outlines concrete actions that could be taken today if there were sufficient will. It dismantles the myth of impossibility by drawing on historical precedents — from South Africa to East Timor — and shows that rupture with the system of hypocrisy is not only survivable, but necessary. The final section indicts the architecture of inertia and calls for strategic, unapologetic action: sanctions, severed ties, and international protection. Palestinian liberation is not a diplomatic abstraction. It is a political imperative — and it will not be achieved through recognition alone, but through consequences to the occupier.
 — -

Section I: Concrete Actions and Legal Pathways

The world does not suffer from ignorance. It suffers from cowardice. Palestine is not unseen — it is unprotected. Every summit, every statement, every gesture of recognition has not affirmed Palestinian sovereignty — it has fragmented it. From partial UN observer status to selective recognition of a “State of Palestine” within undefined borders, these gestures have acknowledged slivers of Palestine while evading the totality of its dispossession. They have treated recognition as resolution, while leaving the machinery of occupation intact.

In a recent interview with Al Mayadeen, senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan declared:

“International recognition of the State of Palestine is a step in the right direction, but what is needed are practical measures — namely, an end to the aggression. These practical steps do not come through imposing guardianship on the Palestinian people, but through imposing sanctions on the occupation.”
 (الاعترافات الدولية بدولة فلسطين تمثّل “خطوةً في الاتجاه الصحيح”، والمطلوب هو “إجراءات عملية، وهي وقف العدوان”… لا تكون عبر فرض وصايا على الشعب الفلسطيني، بل في فرض عقوبات على الاحتلال.)

Hamdan’s statement is not a plea. It is a demand for material consequence. If the goal of two-state negotiations is to end aggression, dismantle apartheid, and protect Palestinian life — not merely to manage optics or defer confrontation — then the message is clear: put your actions where your declarations are. This essay outlines what those actions look like — concretely, legally, and politically. They are not impossible. They are not utopian. They are entirely feasible if there is political will.

And they are not ends in themselves. They are steps toward the only horizon that matters: Palestinian liberation and self-determination in our homeland. Not as a diplomatic abstraction, but as a lived reality — where Palestinians govern themselves, protect themselves, and narrate themselves without foreign guardianship or settler veto. This is not a distant dream. It is the trajectory of our struggle, and it will remain so until the architecture of occupation is dismantled — not symbolically, but structurally.

European Union: Dismantling the Façade of Conditionality

The European Union has long positioned itself as a defender of human rights and international law. Yet its relationship with Israel reveals a stark contradiction: rhetorical commitment to Palestinian sovereignty paired with material complicity in its erasure. This contradiction is not abstract — it is codified, funded, and diplomatically maintained.

The EU routinely affirms its support for a two-state solution and the rights of Palestinians to self-determination. It has recognized the State of Palestine in various symbolic forms, including observer status at the UN and diplomatic missions across member states. But these gestures have acknowledged fragments of Palestine — selective borders, provisional governance, and deferred sovereignty — while leaving the machinery of occupation untouched.

Meanwhile, the EU-Israel Association Agreement, signed in 1995 and ratified in 2000, remains the cornerstone of economic and political cooperation. It grants Israel preferential trade status and deep scientific, cultural, and technological collaboration — all under the condition, stated in Article 2, that such cooperation is contingent on respect for human rights and democratic principles.

Israel has violated these principles systematically and publicly. From the siege of Gaza to the expansion of illegal settlements, from extrajudicial killings to the apartheid wall, the evidence is not ambiguous. It is overwhelming. And yet the agreement remains intact.

Suspension is not unprecedented. The EU has frozen association agreements with Belarus, Syria, and Russia under similar grounds. The legal mechanism exists. The political will does not.

Beyond trade, the EU continues to fund Israeli institutions through Horizon Europe, its flagship research and innovation program. Millions of euros have flowed to Israeli universities and tech firms directly involved in developing surveillance systems, military hardware, and predictive policing tools used against Palestinians. These are not neutral technologies. They are instruments of suppression.

Exclusion is not radical. Russia was barred from Horizon Europe following its invasion of Ukraine. The precedent is clear: when aggression is European-coded, rupture is swift. When it is Palestinian-coded, delay becomes doctrine.

The EU also possesses a targeted sanctions regime: the EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime, adopted in 2020. It allows for asset freezes and travel bans against individuals and entities responsible for serious human rights violations. It has been used against officials in Myanmar, Iran, and China. It has never been used against Israeli generals, ministers, or settlement financiers — despite their documented roles in war crimes and systemic apartheid.

The tools are there. The European Union possesses binding legal frameworks, enforceable human rights clauses, and targeted sanctions regimes designed precisely for moments like this. Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement provides a clear basis for suspension. Horizon Europe funding can be revoked. The Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime is operational. These are not aspirational instruments — they are ready for use.

So what stands in the way?

Member states fear economic backlash, diplomatic strain, and the erosion of strategic alliances. But these are not insurmountable costs. They are calculated preservations of comfort. Economic consequences are negotiable. Diplomatic tension is survivable. Strategic partnerships are mutable. What is feared is not collapse but accountability. What is feared is the precedent Palestine would set: that occupation can be punished, apartheid can be isolated, and complicity can be named—not just in Palestine but everywhere.

To act on Palestine is to admit that accountability need not be exceptional. It can be universalized. That if Palestine’s occupation is punishable, so too are the annexations in Western Sahara, the enclosures in Kashmir, the racialized border regimes across Europe. That if apartheid can be isolated here, it can be isolated in refugee camps turned into carceral zones. That if complicity can be named in the EU’s dealings with Israel, it can be named in its arms exports, its surveillance partnerships, its border fortifications.

Palestine threatens not just a rupture in policy but a rupture in precedent. It demands a grammar of accountability that does not stop at the gates of strategic interest. And that is what stands in the way: not the cost of action, but the contagion of clarity.

This is why complexity is invoked — not to clarify, but to paralyze. It becomes the shield behind which cowardice is rationalized. Politicians fear accusations of antisemitism, the loss of defense contracts, and the destabilization of alliances built on surveillance and suppression. They defer action not because they cannot act, but because they choose not to. This is not a failure of capacity. It is a failure of will.

United States: Exceptionalism as Immunity

No state has done more to shield Israel from accountability than the United States. It is not merely a strategic ally — it is the guarantor of impunity. Through military aid, diplomatic cover, and veto power at the United Nations, the U.S. has transformed its rhetorical support for a two-state solution into a structural endorsement of apartheid.

The U.S. provides Israel with over $3.8 billion annually in military assistance. This aid is governed by binding legal frameworks — frameworks that, if applied, would trigger immediate suspension.

• The Leahy Law prohibits U.S. military assistance to foreign security forces implicated in gross human rights violations. Israeli units operating in Gaza and the West Bank have been repeatedly documented committing such violations. Yet no unit has ever been sanctioned under Leahy.
• The Foreign Assistance Act bars aid to governments that engage in consistent patterns of human rights abuse. The State Department’s own reports confirm these patterns in Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. Still, the aid flows uninterrupted.
• The Arms Export Control Act requires that U.S. weapons be used for legitimate self-defense. The use of American-made bombs, drones, and rifles in the killing of civilians, the destruction of homes, and the targeting of journalists violates this condition. Yet enforcement is absent.

These are not obscure statutes. They are foundational. They have been used to restrict aid to Colombia, Egypt, and Indonesia. Their non-application to Israel is not a legal oversight — it is a political exemption.

This exemption is sustained by a bipartisan consensus rooted in strategic interests, electoral calculations, and ideological alignment. Politicians fear backlash from powerful lobbying groups. They fear being labeled antisemitic. They fear losing campaign contributions and media favor. But these fears are not insurmountable. They are manufactured constraints — designed to preserve a status quo that is morally indefensible.

The refusal to act is not born of complexity. It is born of exceptionalism. Israel is treated as untouchable — not because it is innocent, but because its impunity is useful. It serves as a proxy, a partner, and a pillar of U.S. influence in the region. To condition aid, to impose sanctions, to support international protection mechanisms would mean rupturing that utility. It would mean choosing justice over dominance.

Latin America and Africa: Reviving the Legacy of Anti-Apartheid Diplomacy

Latin America and Africa have long served as moral compasses in the international arena — regions where anti-colonial and anti-apartheid movements shaped foreign policy with clarity and conviction. From the Non-Aligned Movement to the global boycott of South Africa, these blocs once led the charge against imperialism and racial domination. Today, that legacy is being tested.

Several states have already taken steps toward rupture. Bolivia severed diplomatic ties with Israel in 2009 following the assault on Gaza, and again in 2023 amid renewed atrocities. South Africa recalled its ambassador and referred Israel to the International Criminal Court, invoking the Genocide Convention. Namibia, Algeria, and Colombia have issued scathing indictments of Israeli aggression, framing it as apartheid and ethnic cleansing.

But these gestures must become infrastructure.

• Recall ambassadors and suspend diplomatic relations: This is not symbolic. It is a declaration of non-consent. It signals that normalization with apartheid is not acceptable. Bolivia and Venezuela have done this. Others must follow.
• Impose trade restrictions on settlement goods: While the EU debates labeling, Latin American and African states can ban imports outright. These goods are produced on stolen land, often by exploited labor. Their presence in global markets legitimizes dispossession.
• Mobilize regional blocs: The African Union (AU) and Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) have the capacity to issue binding resolutions, coordinate sanctions, and create diplomatic pressure. These blocs were forged in the crucible of resistance. They must now act as engines of accountability.
• Support international legal mechanisms: States can file amicus briefs to the ICC, support UN investigations, and fund legal infrastructure for Palestinian civil society. South Africa’s recent referral to the ICJ is a model — not an exception.
• Withdraw from military and intelligence cooperation: Surveillance regimes are transnational. Israeli firms export technologies tested on Palestinians to governments across Africa and Latin America. Severing these ties is not just solidarity — it is self-defense.

The legacy of anti-apartheid diplomacy is not a relic. It is a blueprint. These regions have shown that rupture is survivable, that moral clarity can be policy, and that solidarity can be statecraft. The question now is whether they will act not just in memory of past struggles, but in defense of a present one.
 — -

Arab States: From Normalization to Strategic Rupture

No region has been more entangled in the contradictions of Palestine than the Arab world. Arab governments have long positioned themselves as defenders of Palestinian rights — issuing statements, convening summits, and funding humanitarian aid. Yet many have simultaneously deepened security cooperation with Israel, signed normalization agreements, and treated Palestinian sovereignty as a bargaining chip in broader geopolitical negotiations.

The Abraham Accords, signed by the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan, exemplify this contradiction. Framed as peace deals, they normalized relations with a state actively expanding settlements, besieging Gaza, and annexing land. These agreements did not end occupation — they entrenched it. They did not protect Palestinians — they bypassed them.

This is not diplomacy. It is abandonment.

To reorient Arab diplomacy toward liberation, the following actions must be taken:

• Sever intelligence and military cooperation: Arab states have shared surveillance infrastructure, border technologies, and counterterrorism protocols with Israel. These systems are used to monitor, suppress, and criminalize Palestinian resistance. Ending this cooperation is not symbolic — it is strategic.
• Withdraw from normalization frameworks: The Abraham Accords and similar agreements must be dismantled. They treat suppression as stability and occupation as inevitability. Their existence signals that Palestinian rights are negotiable. Their dissolution would signal that they are not.
• Recall ambassadors and suspend diplomatic ties: This is a minimal threshold of moral clarity. It communicates that apartheid is not a partner, and that ethnic cleansing is not a basis for cooperation.
• Redirect financial and diplomatic resources: Arab states must invest in Palestinian civil society, legal defense infrastructure, and international advocacy. This includes funding ICC referrals, supporting UN mechanisms, and amplifying Palestinian testimony in global forums.
• Mobilize the Arab League: Once a platform for anti-colonial solidarity, the League has become a site of paralysis. It must be revived as a bloc capable of issuing binding resolutions, coordinating sanctions, and confronting occupation with unified clarity.

These actions are not unprecedented. Egypt and Jordan suspended ties in moments of rupture. Algeria and Iraq have maintained principled distance. Kuwait and Qatar have resisted normalization. The infrastructure of refusal exists. It must be activated.

Arab states must decide: will they continue to treat Palestine as a diplomatic instrument, or will they act to protect it as a sovereign struggle? The time for summit statements has passed. The time for strategic rupture has arrived.
 — -

Section II: The Myth of Impossibility

The refusal to act is often framed as necessity. Governments invoke complexity, instability, and geopolitical risk to justify paralysis. They say the situation is “too delicate,” “too entrenched,” “too unique.” But these are not diagnoses. They are defenses. What they obscure is the truth: rupture is not impossible. It is feared because it is precedent-setting.

Palestine is not the exception. It is the mirror.

The collapse of apartheid in South Africa was not gradual. It was sudden, disorienting, and — until it happened — widely dismissed as impossible. Western governments had spent decades propping up the regime, rationalizing its brutality, and criminalizing its opponents. But when rupture came, it came fast. Sanctions were imposed. Diplomatic ties were severed. Cultural and academic boycotts gained traction. The myth of impossibility dissolved under the weight of sustained pressure and moral clarity.

East Timor was occupied by Indonesia for nearly 25 years. The international community remained largely silent, citing strategic alliances and regional stability. But after relentless advocacy, civil society mobilization, and a shift in global consciousness, the occupation ended. A UN peacekeeping force was deployed. A referendum was held. Independence was achieved.

Portugal’s colonial empire collapsed under similar conditions. So did the regimes in Chile, Argentina, and the Balkans. In each case, rupture was framed as unthinkable — until it became inevitable.

What these examples reveal is not inevitability, but contingency. Occupation ends when the cost of complicity exceeds the cost of rupture. When civil society refuses to be anesthetized. When governments are forced to choose between moral clarity and strategic comfort.

Palestine is no different. The occupation persists not because it is unresolvable, but because it is useful. It serves as a testing ground for surveillance technologies, a laboratory for military doctrine, and a pillar of regional control. To dismantle it would mean dismantling the architecture that benefits from it.

And that is why impossibility is invoked — not to describe reality, but to defer responsibility.

But the precedent exists. The tools exist. The will can be built. What is needed is not another summit. What is needed is rupture — strategic, sustained, and unapologetic. Not for its own sake, but for the sake of liberation.

And rupture is survivable. The myth of insurmountability collapses under the weight of political testimony. The constraints invoked to justify inaction are not structural — they are strategic. Manufactured to preserve a status quo that is morally indefensible, but not immutable. Politicians who have bucked the system and endured prove that the cost of courage is often exaggerated to paralyze dissent.

• Jeremy Corbyn (UK)
   Despite relentless media attacks and political isolation, Corbyn maintained his position as Labour Party leader for five years while openly criticizing Israeli policies and advocating for Palestinian rights. He faced accusations of antisemitism weaponized against his platform, yet his stance catalyzed a generational shift in discourse within the UK. His survival — and the movement that outlived his leadership — demonstrates that political backlash is not fatal when rooted in moral clarity.
• Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib (US)
   Both congresswomen have publicly condemned Israeli apartheid, called for conditioning aid, and supported BDS-related measures. They have faced censure, smear campaigns, and threats — but they remain in office, re-elected by constituents who value their integrity. Their presence in Congress proves that critique of Israel is not a political death sentence, even in the heart of American exceptionalism.
• Evo Morales (Bolivia)
   Under Morales, Bolivia severed diplomatic ties with Israel in 2009 following the assault on Gaza. The move was framed as a rejection of state terrorism. Morales remained in power for over a decade, and Bolivia’s rupture with Israel was later reaffirmed by subsequent governments. The backlash was minimal compared to the moral weight of the decision.
• Nelson Mandela and the ANC (South Africa)
   Mandela’s unwavering support for Palestine — despite Western pressure — was not a liability. It was a cornerstone of post-apartheid foreign policy. The ANC’s solidarity with Palestine has persisted across administrations, and South Africa continues to lead global calls for accountability, including recent moves to refer Israel to the ICC.

These examples reveal a pattern: the cost of dissent is real, but it is not terminal. Politicians who act with clarity and conviction may face backlash, but they also reshape the discourse, embolden civil society, and prove that the machinery of complicity can be disrupted. The fear invoked by most governments is not of collapse — it is of precedent. Palestine threatens to normalize rupture. And that, more than anything, is what the status quo cannot afford.

To invoke impossibility is to preempt accountability. The politicians who endure backlash do not merely survive; they expand the terrain of discourse, making space for testimony that was once unspeakable. Their endurance is not proof of exceptionalism — it is proof that the machinery of complicity can be interrupted. What remains is not a question of feasibility, but of will. And will, unlike myth, can be built.
 — -

Section III: Indicting the Architecture of Inertia and Calling for Action

The international system is calibrated to defer Palestinian liberation. It rewards delay, incentivizes ambiguity, and punishes clarity. It treats Palestinian suffering as a humanitarian crisis to be managed — not a political condition to be dismantled. It elevates negotiations that entrench occupation, and silences demands that threaten its scaffolding.

But the scaffolding is not immutable.
 It can be dismantled — legally, politically, and strategically.
 The tools exist. The precedents are clear. The cost is survivable.
 What remains is the question of will.

So let us be precise:

1. Dissolve Association Agreements

Dissolve association agreements with the State of Israel that condition cooperation on human rights while systematically ignoring their violation. The EU-Israel Association Agreement, signed in 1995 and activated in 2000, explicitly ties economic and political cooperation to respect for human rights and democratic principles. Yet the EU continues to deepen trade, research, and defense ties with Israel while it annexes land, bombs refugee camps, and imposes biometric control over millions of Palestinians. This is not oversight — it is endorsement.

• Suspend Horizon Europe partnerships that funnel research funding into Israeli institutions complicit in occupation, including those developing surveillance technologies used in the West Bank and Gaza.
• Terminate bilateral agreements that enable joint policing, border control, and counterterrorism operations — operations that treat Palestinian resistance as pathology and Israeli militarism as innovation.

These agreements are not neutral frameworks. They are instruments of normalization.
 To dissolve them is not to abandon diplomacy, it is to restore its integrity.
 Human rights clauses must not be decorative. They must be enforceable.
 And when they are violated, cooperation must end.

2. Sever Diplomatic Ties

Sever diplomatic ties with the State of Israel — a regime that sustains apartheid through annexation, siege, and ethnic cleansing. This is not metaphor. It is policy.

• Israel has annexed East Jerusalem, expanded settlements across the West Bank in violation of international law, and imposed a 17-year blockade on Gaza.
• It has deployed white phosphorus on civilian populations, bombed hospitals and refugee camps, and executed mass displacement campaigns under the guise of “security.”

Cut ties with the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which coordinates global propaganda campaigns to sanitize occupation.
 Expel ambassadors who defend the bombing of schools as “self-defense.”
 Suspend bilateral agreements that facilitate arms transfers, intelligence sharing, and joint surveillance operations.
 End participation in trade forums that normalize apartheid as diplomacy.

Sever ties not just symbolically, but structurally:

• Cancel military cooperation with Elbit Systems, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, and Israel Aerospace Industries — firms that export occupation as technology.
• Withdraw from academic partnerships that whitewash apartheid as innovation.
• Refuse cultural exchanges that rebrand siege as resilience.

Diplomatic ties are not neutral. They are endorsements.
 To maintain them is to legitimize ethnic cleansing as policy.
 To sever them is not extremism — it is precedent.
 South Africa did it. Bolivia did it. Venezuela did it.
 The cost is survivable. The moral clarity is overdue.

3. Impose Targeted Sanctions

Impose targeted sanctions — not generically, but surgically.
 Name the financiers, commanders, and technologists who sustain the machinery of apartheid.

• Sanction Caterpillar Inc. for supplying bulldozers used to demolish Palestinian homes.
• Sanction Lockheed Martin and Leonardo for providing weapons deployed in Gaza.
• Sanction Palantir, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet (Google), and IBM for building surveillance infrastructures that enable biometric control, predictive policing, and digital targeting of Palestinian civilians.
• Sanction Airbnb and Booking.com for profiting from illegal settlement tourism.
• Sanction HD Hyundai for supplying machinery used in territorial erasure.

These are not passive actors; they are active collaborators.
 Their technologies, logistics, and capital flows are embedded in the architecture of dispossession.

And sanction the military commanders whose names are known:
 Those who oversaw the bombardment of hospitals, refugee camps, and schools.
 Their ranks are not anonymous. Their strategies are not accidental.
 The chain of command is traceable.
 The refusal to name them is not caution — it is complicity.

To dismantle occupation, dismantle the scaffolding that sustains it.
 Not just the ideology, but the infrastructure.
 Not just the rhetoric, but the revenue.
 Sanctions must be precise, public, and persistent.
 Anything less is performance.

4. Mobilize International Protection Forces

Mobilize international protection forces — not to manage optics, but to protect life.
 Not to perform neutrality, but to interrupt annihilation.

The United Nations has deployed peacekeeping missions in Rwanda, Bosnia, East Timor, and South Sudan.
 It has the infrastructure. It has the precedent.
 What it lacks is political will.

• Deploy forces to Gaza — not to monitor ceasefires that never hold, but to shield civilians from bombardment.
• Station observers in the West Bank — not to document settler violence after the fact, but to prevent it in real time.
• Activate the UN Human Rights Council’s mandate — not to issue reports that gather dust, but to authorize intervention.

Call upon regional bodies — the African Union, the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation — to send protection units, not just statements.
 Demand that NATO and the EU confront their complicity by refusing to treat Israeli aggression as security cooperation.

Protection forces must not be symbolic. They must be material:
 Armored vehicles, medical units, communications infrastructure.
 Their presence must disrupt the calculus of impunity.
 Their mandate must be clear: protect Palestinian life.
 Not manage perception. Not negotiate delay. Protect.

5. Withdraw from Normalization Frameworks

Withdraw from normalization frameworks that treat suppression as stability.
 The Abraham Accords, brokered by the United States, rebrand apartheid as diplomacy — offering Israel regional legitimacy while entrenching Palestinian dispossession.

These agreements are not peace deals. They are strategic alliances that reward annexation, siege, and ethnic cleansing with trade, arms, and surveillance partnerships.

• Suspend participation in the Negev Forum, which convenes Israel, the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, Egypt, and the United States under the banner of regional cooperation while excluding Palestinian representation.
• Dismantle bilateral frameworks that facilitate joint counterterrorism operations — operations that criminalize resistance and export Israeli military doctrine as a model of “security.”

Normalization is not reconciliation. It is erasure.
 It demands silence in exchange for access, complicity in exchange for capital.
 To withdraw is not to abandon diplomacy — it is to refuse its weaponization.
 Stability built on suppression is not peace.
 It is scaffolding for apartheid.

6. Redirect Resources Toward Palestinian Sovereignty

Redirect resources toward Palestinian civil society, legal infrastructure, and testimonial preservation.
 Not to manage suffering, but to fortify sovereignty.

• Fund organizations like Al-Haq, Addameer, Samidoun, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights — groups that document violations, litigate in international courts, and archive testimony under siege.
• Support the work of Defense for Children International — Palestine, which exposes the detention and torture of minors.
• Channel resources to grassroots networks in Gaza and the West Bank that sustain food distribution, medical care, and trauma support — not through intermediaries, but directly.

Invest in digital infrastructure that protects archives from erasure.
 Equip libraries, cultural centers, and oral history projects with the tools to preserve testimony in the face of bombardment and displacement.
 Support legal teams preparing cases for the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice — not with symbolic gestures, but with sustained funding, translation, and forensic expertise.

Redirect academic grants, cultural funds, and humanitarian budgets away from institutions that normalize occupation and toward those that resist it.
 Aid must not be aestheticized. It must be politicized. It must be strategic.
 To preserve Palestinian life is to preserve Palestinian testimony.
 And testimony, under siege, is resistance.

Final Invocation

These are not radical demands.
 They are the baseline of ethical diplomacy.

Anything less is endorsement by inertia.
 Every refusal to act is a reinforcement of occupation.
 Every delay is complicity.

The time for symbolic gestures has passed.
 The time for strategic rupture is now.

Palestinian liberation is not a diplomatic abstraction.
 It is a political imperative.
 And it will not be achieved through recognition alone.
 It will be achieved through consequence — to the occupier.

Note: First published in Medium

Rima Najjar is a Palestinian whose father’s side of the family comes from the forcibly depopulated village of Lifta on the western outskirts of Jerusalem and whose mother’s side of the family is from Ijzim, south of Haifa.

25 September 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Ismail Al Sharif

“…As though you and your superiors had any right to determine who should and who should not inhabit this world – we find that no one, that is no member of the human race, can be expected to want to share the earth with you. This is the reason, and the only reason, for which you deserve to be hanged,” – Hannah Arendt, German-Jewish philosopher.

When you read the sentence: “We had to create conditions more painful than death,” you might think it’s taken from a horror novel or a dystopian narrative that depicts future or imaginary societies in which values collapse, injustice prevails, and environmental and social devastation rages. It’s the “corrupt city,” the exact opposite of utopia, the ideal city.

You might think the sentence appeared in one of Ahmed Khaled Tawfik’s “Utopia,” George Orwell’s “1984,” or Albert Camus’s “The Plague.” You might think it was a line in the testimony of a serial killer who plagued the police for a full decade before dozens of bodies were discovered buried in his garden.

But would you believe that this statement was uttered by Minister of “Zionist Heritage,” Amichai Eliyahu? He wasn’t angry, he wasn’t agitated, and no spittle was flying from his mouth. He said it with calm, measured calm, wearing a smart suit and tie, his face sporting a trimmed beard that, at first glance, you might mistake for a dignified sheikh or a holy man.

His statement was devoid of any emotion, like a routine uttering from a government employee, explaining to people that the power outage was due to a heat wave, or that the road closures were due to temporary maintenance work.

Have you ever wondered how decisions to commit genocide are made? And how countries became complicit in these?

My direct answer: Decisions to commit genocide are made when they are put on the agenda, when they are announced from golf courses or discussed at dinner tables. When children and women are killed by bombs, and hospitals and shelters are destroyed, a dapper bureaucrat takes the stage.

He starts his day with a jog around his house, has breakfast with his children, kisses his wife goodbye, asks her what she needs from the market, and instructs his children to behave.

This same bureaucrat takes center-stage to defend genocide, beautifying it, whilst sanitizing it linguistically, using flowery terms such as: “Precision strikes,” “human shields,” “collateral damage.”

He like other bureaucrats are creative in manipulating the vocabulary: Torture is transformed into “interrogation,” starvation into “economic pressure,” and ethnic cleansing into “security buffer zones” or “humanitarian cities.” Even death traps are remarketed under glamorous names, such as the “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.”

Let’s return to the Minister of “Zionist Heritage,” who concludes his statement by saying: “Death is no longer enough. It must be painful, prolonged, and free from any international accountability.”

Even the most brutal of tyrants in history were careful to conceal their intentions when committing crimes. When the Qarmatians slaughtered pilgrims in Mecca in 317 AH, they claimed they were doing so to destroy idols. When the pilgrims committed the Euphrates Massacre against the people of Iraq, the pretext was “sedition.” Even when the United States committed the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War, it described it as “military engagement.”

But this time, and for the first time in history, this man comes out publicly and admits to committing genocide, while dressed in his finest suit and tie. It is the most brutal and horrific genocide in our modern history and under our eyes.

Perhaps, one day, criminals like him will be brought to justice and charged with war crimes. They will defend themselves coldly: “We were following orders,” or “it was just a business procedure,” without pain, without remorse, and without the slightest sense of guilt or responsibility.

This is exactly what Hannah Arendt described as the “banality of evil.”

This article by Ismail Al Sharif written in Arabic for the Addustour daily  was published from Arabic on the crossfirearabia.com website 

25 September 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Pon.Chandran 

What is the background of the recent unrest in Nepal?

The recent unrest in Nepal is primarily a result of widespread public anger over the government’s ban on numerous popular social media platforms, which has compounded existing frustrations with deep-seated issues like corruption and political instability.

Here is a breakdown of the background of the unrest:

1. The Immediate Trigger: A Social Media Ban

• The Ban: The Nepalese government recently blocked access to over two dozen social media platforms, including widely used sites like Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, and X (formerly Twitter). (It was a trigger, but more an alibi because the the ban was lifted by evening and Home Minster resigned by 8pm of day1, Sep 8. And the PM resigned by 2.30pm on Day2, Sep9 but worst violence continued. Not only ruling party was attacked, but almost all parties, their leaders, families attacked, burnt. Top court, parliament,  media, businesses, vehicles, leaders physically etc buildings attacked, smashed, burnt (a former Left PM’s wife, of Khanal, almost died). (In bangladesh , only ruling party elements were targeted and no indiscriminate violence against all and sundry..they were organized,had a leadership which was not the case).. Nepali businesses, malls, transport companies were mostly attacked…but not MNCs or Indian ones ..)        

Government’s Rationale: Authorities stated that the ban (upheld by supreme court on Sep4)  was imposed because the companies failed ( rather refused, and all were foreign, ie, western companies that had monopolized communications…)  to comply with a new law that requires social media platforms to (formally, merely) register within the country (sovereignty challenged…fake news fake IDs alleged by Govt..media ‘blocked’ , not banned, from Sep 5, and one week time given to comply with Registration rules…but violence began   ) . (The government has also cited concerns about “misinformation” and “national dignity.”

• Public Reaction: The ban has been met with massive outrage, particularly from young people (often referred to as “Gen Z” in media reports) and young professionals. Protesters have denounced the blackout as a direct assault on freedom of speech, which is a fundamental right (more a spin by the western entities, because vociferous and conspicuous  demand was restoration of monarchy…no symbols of that were attacked…there was a demand to make Nepal a Hindu rashtra, which was openly demanded by BJP-Aditya Yogi, a CM of an almost adjoining state , and openly pressed by Modi-led India.. discussion on the Constitution went on for years, not knee-jerk or formal decision…the parliament, all most all parties refused to bend, and insisted secularism). They argue that the ban severely disrupts (this is more objective, but the ban was lifted on Day1 itself; PM Oli claimed he did not personally insist or back the ban by the executive, but questioned how can the foreign media defy rules of registration – a question of sovereignty- but he was chief target though he resigned by 2.30 pm, within 36 hours of the turmoil…he was called chor and Desha drohi…UML party office raided and communist party flag pulled down and that was highlighted in media…Oli  was just back from SCO and bilateral meets/agreements with China..all parties, including Nepali Congress, the army and monarchy too are pro-China over the decades, vexed by India’s expansionism, Trade-transit treaty that was repeatedly used to blockade supplies, including petrol grains and medicines, from India and Nepal was strangulated for weeks, more than once…there were no such protests then by GenZ! There has been open pressure and lures by aid to force Nepal to become part of US Asia Pacific strategy as against China, which many parties, leaders and parliament’s majority resisted for years now..published comments on Nepal..there was a series of 5-6 articles in CC on Nepal, including on border dispute with Nepal, admitted and discussed by PM Vajpayee and relented even by Modi, but the discussion never takes place…Nepal-Oli govt then issued  a map of its own..it was a a reaction after India published a changed map that had to do with JK-370 Bill being passed, which had a bearing on LAC and border dispute with China..these vital issues never mentioned by most of the Indian media, which is oriented and manipulated by the West )  not only communication but also small businesses, news dissemination, and the vital tourism industry, which relies heavily on social media for promotion and customer engagement.

2. Underlying Causes and Systemic Issues

The social media ban is seen by many as the final straw, bringing to a head long-simmering discontent over a range of systemic problems:

• Corruption: Protesters have chanted slogans against corruption, which is perceived as deeply entrenched and institutionalized in Nepal (that was there also in multi-party democracy under monarchy for over two decades, but no such protests ). The unrest has been fueled by viral social media campaigns, such as the #NepoKid and #NepoBaby trends, which have contrasted the lavish lifestyles of politicians’ children with the daily struggles of ordinary citizens. (since when this class divide- almost universal, more so in India- become a big issue that could trigger such a violent protest? These words Nepokids- Nepo babis , almost new in Indian media, except for elite circles…Even I heard them the first time and did not initially understand what they meant …these words, a western idiom, are a clue to western forces role in protests..) These online campaigns have effectively merged with the protests, demonstrating a powerful public demand for accountability.
• Political Instability: Nepal has a long history of political instability, with frequent changes in government. Since the abolition of the monarchy in 2008, no government has completed a full term. This constant power struggle and the focus of political leaders on “making and unmaking” governments have hindered the country’s development and created a sense of disillusionment among the populace. (This is a media reasoning..only political parties are worried about this…ordinary people are least bothered, their lives are the same –business as usual-  despite any Govt or no political admin/ govt…because the state continues..)
• Lack of Economic Opportunity: High youth unemployment has forced many young Nepalis to seek work abroad, with remittances making up a significant portion of the country’s GDP. This economic hardship and lack of prospects at home contribute to a frustrated and restless youth population that is quick to mobilize against perceived government failures.(This is a fact, a reality, used the by the media as a factor in protests…but emigrants usually are happy and busy in livelihood, and do not play active role in protests…families are happy with the remittances…a politically conscious and active Kerala, for decades, has ‘Money order economy’ wherein a big share (one third?) of state GDP is by remittances from NRIs, more  from Gulf than even West..India too has a big share from NRIs, $135 billion in FY 2025, ie 3% 0f GDP( almost double of 69 in  2017) and it is more than FDI …and 10% of India’s gros current account inflows ..and they cover a significant proportion of inda’s trade deficit of$287..)   .   
• Censorship and Authoritarianism: Many see the social media ban and the new law that prompted it as an attempt by the government to silence dissent and curb freedom of expression (why no such serious protests in India or any state or even a city for this reason? Is backward Nepal more conscious? The more conscious citizens in Nepal are with political parties, most of them behind the Left parties…and they are not mostly in the protests …the less conscious, more so youth Gen Z who don’t mostly care to read news or views, are more active in protests ). Rights groups have condemned the legislation as a tool for censorship, further fueling the public’s perception of an increasingly authoritarian government.

What triggered the “ shoot at site” order and the killing of 20 protestors?

The “shoot at sight” order and the killing of at least 20 protesters in Nepal were triggered by the escalation of a youth-led demonstration against the government’s social media ban.

Here is a breakdown  of what led to these events:

1. Escalation of Protests:

• Initial Peaceful March: The protests began with thousands of young people, often referred to as “Gen Z,” marching through the streets of Kathmandu to protest the government’s ban on numerous social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and X (formerly Twitter). ( An organizer of protests  said a stone was thrown at a CCTV camera, and then hardened the state violence- an agent provocateur? Some organizers said the peaceful protest suddenly turned violent due to ‘outsiders’, unknown entities, some suggested foreign hand, quite plausible .. )  
• Breach of Restricted Zone: The situation turned violent when the protesters, frustrated by a lack of response, breached security barricades and advanced towards the parliament building.
• Storming the Parliament: Protesters managed to break through police lines and some even entered the parliament premises, setting fire to the gates. This act was seen by authorities as a direct threat to the country’s governance.

2. Government Response:

• Police Firing: In response to the breach and the destruction, police forces initially used water cannons and tear gas to try and disperse the crowd. However, as the situation spiraled out of control and police were outnumbered, they resorted to using live ammunition.
• The “Shoot at Sight” Order: The government, in a move to contain the rapidly escalating violence and prevent further damage to government buildings, issued a “shoot at sight” order. This order implemented to enforce a curfew in key areas of Kathmandu, including around the parliament, the prime minister’s residence,  and other government buildings.

3. The Casualties:

• Live Ammunition: The use of live ammunition by security forces resulted in a high number of casualties. Reports indicate that at least 20 people were killed, with many more injured, some with bullet wounds to the head and chest. (all killed on Day1..why ? any particular factor? ),
• Widespread Violence: The violence was not confined to Kathmandu. Protests and clashes also broke out in other cities, such as Itahari, where additional deaths were reported. (many injured after violence crossed all limits, and many died later, may be in hospitals..more than 50 deaths ..In Bangladesh, in comparison, weeks of protest, and 3500 plus shot dead, many more injured, Police chief apologized belatedly)

The public’s anger over the social media ban, combined with long-standing grievances against corruption and political instability, fueled the protests. The government’s decision to use lethal force and issue a “shoot at sight” order in response to the protests further inflamed (false, issued after severe and indiscriminate violence)  the situation, leading to the tragic loss of life and a deeper political crisis. In the aftermath of the violence, Nepal’s Home Minister resigned (false, he resigned on Day1, along with withdrawal of the order to block, not ban, the media,  by evening, Oli asked others not to resign), and an inquiry committee has been formed to investigate the events.

Pon.Chandran is a Human Rights Activist, Life Member of PUCL, Coimbatore.

25 September 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Ranjan Solomon

“Independence cannot be real if a nation depends upon gifts and loans from outside for its development. South–South cooperation is the only way to break the chains of dependency.”

– Julius Nyerere-

The West has been jolted into a phase of self-assertion, not because it is confident about its own future, but because it senses the ground shifting beneath its feet. The emergence of BRICS as a cohesive economic and political force has triggered deep anxiety in Washington, Brussels, and London. For decades, Western powers took for granted that they alone could define the grammar of world order—through the IMF, World Bank, NATO, the dollar, and the cultural hegemony of liberal capitalism. That grammar is now being rewritten. It is not being erased overnight, but it is losing coherence, and the world is beginning to speak in other tongues.

BRICS is not simply a counterweight to Western dominance. It is, more profoundly, the architecture of a post-Western order. What distinguishes BRICS from the Cold War blocs is that it is not primarily defined by opposition. As one editorial observed, the association of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa is less about confronting the West than it is about insulating themselves from Washington’s gravitational pull, while creating space for their own joint industrial and technological base. ¹ This is not the rhetoric of resentment; it is the quiet, deliberate work of building sovereignty.

The numbers speak with their own eloquence. With the expansion to 11 members, BRICS now encompasses nearly half of the world’s population and more than 40 percent of global GDP. ² That makes it more representative, more demographically diverse, and in many ways more economically dynamic than the G7. The bloc’s aggregate share of global trade and production continues to grow, even as the G7 economies stagnate under the weight of debt, demographic decline, and static industrial bases. Vladimir Putin put it bluntly at the 2024 summit: *“In the foreseeable future, BRICS will generate the main increase in global GDP.” *³ He described this as a pathway not just to growth but to “economic sovereignty,” signalling the long-term strategic vision that underlies the bloc.

Trade flows illustrate this rebalancing. Intra-BRICS trade has expanded by over 30 percent in the past decade, with China–India trade volumes alone crossing $130 billion annually despite their political differences. Russia has redirected much of its energy exports away from Europe and into Asia, with India and China now accounting for the bulk of its oil purchases. Brazil and South Africa have leveraged their commodity wealth to open up new South–South markets, bypassing the old dependency on Europe and the United States. These flows are not merely transactional—they symbolize a quiet realignment in which the Global South learns to feed, fuel, and finance itself with diminishing reliance on the West.

Energy politics, too, is being reshaped. BRICS+ countries now control over 40 percent of global crude exports, a figure that undermines the assumption of Western dominance over energy markets. ⁴ Saudi Arabia’s entry into BRICS has given the bloc a central role in oil pricing, while Russia’s pivot to Asia has accelerated the creation of non-dollar denominated energy contracts. The idea of “petro-dollar hegemony” is under siege, with BRICS experimenting in denominating oil and gas sales in local currencies or through a reserve basket. For countries long squeezed by energy price volatility manipulated through Western markets, this shift represents a profound move toward autonomy.

Beyond hydrocarbons, BRICS is also seizing the green transition. China already leads the world in solar panel and battery production, while India has become the third-largest renewable energy producer. Brazil, under Lula, has committed to making the Amazon a cornerstone of global climate governance, and South Africa has sought to leverage BRICS financing to transition from coal dependency to renewables. These efforts are neither seamless nor uniformly advanced, but they signal that the bloc intends to contest Western claims to moral and technological leadership in the climate arena. Rather than being passive recipients of Western aid and “green finance,” BRICS members are positioning themselves as active shapers of the energy future.

Debt politics is another arena where BRICS has staked its claim. For decades, the IMF and World Bank have imposed austerity in exchange for loans, pushing Global South economies deeper into cycles of dependency. The New Development Bank, though still modest in size, represents a different philosophy—lending for infrastructure and sustainable development without the draconian political conditionalities attached by Washington institutions. ⁵ While critics argue that BRICS financing risks replicating dependency, the symbolism remains potent: for the first time in decades, there exists an institutional alternative. For many indebted African nations, this is a lifeline. For Western creditors, it is a threat.

The backlash from the West has been predictable. The United States and Europe have raised the specter of tariffs, even threatening across-the-board duties on BRICS exports. But the effect has been counterproductive. Instead of intimidating the bloc, it has strengthened its cohesion. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa captured the mood when he declared at the Johannesburg summit: *“BRICS is a powerful force for a fairer, more inclusive and multipolar world order.”*⁶ He insisted that South Africa’s own history of liberation demanded solidarity with the Global South in its struggle for autonomy from economic domination. His words resonate far beyond Pretoria, for they express the moral legitimacy BRICS seeks to claim—that this is not merely an economic compact, but a justice-oriented project to redress centuries of inequity.

Of course, BRICS is no utopia. Its members differ in political systems, regional rivalries, and strategic orientations. India and China remain locked in an uneasy competition, while Brazil tries to balance its southern identity with global ambition. Yet these contradictions have not prevented the bloc from moving forward. On the contrary, its durability comes from its pragmatism. It is not ideology that holds BRICS together, but a shared conviction that the global order must be multipolar, that sovereignty must be protected, and that development must not be hostage to the institutions of empire.

This explains why BRICS continues to expand its thematic scope. The Rio Declaration of 2025 was organized around three pillars—economic and finance, political and security, and cultural and people-to-people exchanges. It also addressed new domains like artificial intelligence, insisting that global governance of AI must be shaped under UN principles rather than dictated by Silicon Valley. ⁷ These positions underline the bloc’s determination to participate in setting rules, rather than merely accepting them.

What we are witnessing is not the collapse of the old order through revolution, but its erosion through irrelevance. The West is struggling to project dominance not because it has suddenly become weak, but because others have grown stronger. Power is never endless, and empires inevitably exhaust themselves. The imperial economies of today, weighed down by inequality and political fatigue, look static compared to the dynamism of the emerging economies. Karma, one might say, has caught up with them.

BRICS is the scaffolding of a new architecture. It is still under construction, uneven, and at times fragile. But its foundation is clear: sovereignty, multipolarity, and solidarity. The old order, built on unipolar domination, is yielding to a more complex, contested, but ultimately more representative world. What lies ahead is not a simple reversal, where the West declines and others replace it, but a transformation in which no single bloc will dominate. This is the deeper meaning of BRICS: the end of singular hegemony, and the emergence of plurality.

The old order is indeed changing—not with the noise of sudden collapse, but with the steady hum of a new world being born.

Ranjan Solomon is a political commentator and rights advocate writing on justice, decolonisation and democracy.

References

1. The Guardian, “The Guardian view on BRICS growing up: a new bloc seeks autonomy and eyes a post-western order,” July 13, 2025.

2. Boston Consulting Group, BRICS Enlargement and the Shifting World Order, 2024.

3. Reuters, “Putin says BRICS will generate most global economic growth,” Oct. 18, 2024.

4. AP News, “BRICS+ now controls 40% of global crude exports,” Aug. 2024.

5. Global Observatory, “BRICS and the West: Don’t Believe the Cold War Hype,” Aug. 2023.

6. Cyril Ramaphosa, BRICS Johannesburg Summit Address, Aug. 2023.

7. 17th BRICS Summit, Rio Declaration, July 2025.

25 September 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Ahmad Abu Shawish

In Nuseirat refugee camp, my home sits at the intersection of two streets: a by-street at the entrance of the house and a main street behind it.

The by-street would often be filled with children — my younger siblings and cousins and neighbors’ kids, most of whom were displaced and living in the six-story building beside us.

The girls would play hajala or hopscotch while the boys would usually play qulul or marbles, trying to knuckle down each other.

These simple games were an attempt to stitch together fragments of normal life, shredded by displacement and horror.

Since April 2024, my family and I started a simple voluntary initiative where we used our solar panels to power a screen in the backyard of our house and display cartoons for the displaced neighboring children.

In May 2024 – when an institution started funding our initiative – we expanded to include psychosocial support for children through joyful activities such as drawing and dancing.

Soso

Every time I passed from the by-street with children there, the children would circle me and ask excitedly whether there would be an activity today or not.

“I want ‘Masha and the Bear’ today, please,” Soso, a 5-year-old girl, would say. She would always ask me to play the famous Russian cartoon whenever we would start an activity.

Her name was Siham al-Ashi; Soso was the pet name I had given her as she would always run toward me, her arms wide open, ready to fold me into a hug.

Her delicate face was always accompanied by a shy, beautiful smile.

Soso had bright brown eyes and her hair was black, most often streaming behind her like a ribbon in the wind.

I often noticed her during the sessions dancing and cheering with her whole being, as if trying to escape the war through joy.

Real Madrid fans

A few meters beyond in the same by-street, I would usually sit with a group of friends on the edge of my house stoop.

Hisham al-Talatine, 21, was one of my close friends.

Hisham and his family lived next door in the same six-story building after being displaced in March 2024 from Gaza City to Nuseirat.

Hisham and I became friends on 30 April 2024 when he came to the door of our house and asked if he could watch the Champions League semifinal between Real Madrid and Bayern Munich.

We watched it together – our friendship grew even vaster as it turned out we both were Real Madrid fans.

Whenever Real Madrid lost, we would sit and complain about every detail. When the team won, we celebrated as though we were the players on the field.

On 1 June 2024, my birthday coincided with Real Madrid lifting the trophy of the Champions League.

The next day, when Hisham and I were at a cafe facing the sea, Hisham handed me a fresh strawberry juice.

“Is that for my birthday or for the champions?” I asked him jokingly.

“This is for the champions – who cares about your birthday?” Hisham replied with a teasing laugh.

He was only joking, far more caught up in Real Madrid’s victory than anything else.

After every Real Madrid match we watched together, Hisham and I would analyze it as though we were part of the team – discussing the coach’s decisions and the players’ substitutions.

With each game, I felt our bond grow stronger.

Hisham and I even shared clothes – he would often come to my house to borrow some.

Whenever I gathered with my friends – where we would debate about football between Real Madrid and Barcelona fans – Hisham would always side with me.

Chess

The by-street wasn’t just filled with children and youth.

Every day, Abu Ahmad Diab, Abu Nahed Halil and his cousin Abu Hadi Halil – displaced men over 50 and displaced in the same nearby building – would gather in the street.

During the cool hours of the day in the late afternoon, they would usually place plastic chairs and gather around a chessboard.

Despite the age gap, joining them was my favorite part of the day. We often played chess until the call to prayer or sometimes until the children’s voices faded into the night.

One day in October 2024, I was hurrying to my tutoring center as a high school student when I passed by Abu Ahmad and Abu Hadi who were in their usual spot, playing chess.

“Come! Let’s see if you’ve learned something new today!” Abu Hadi called out to me.

As Abu Hadi was still learning chess and kept losing, Abu Ahmad teased him: “Right after a clever checkmate? Maybe you should teach yourself first!”

They burst into laughter, and I joined them laughing as I continued my way to the tutoring center.

Apocalypse

On 10 November 2024, at around 1:35 pm, I stepped outside my home.

Children were completely absorbed in their games, and Soso was there, hopping between chalked squares.

A few meters away, Abu Hadi, Abu Nahed and Abu Ahmad huddled around the chessboard.

“Come and see how I’m finally going to beat Abu Ahmad!” Abu Hadi called me with a voice full of playful confidence.

I smiled and was genuinely curious as he had never won a single game before.

But something made me hesitate – some kind of a providence.

For the first time, I didn’t join them and went back inside.

I sat down, scrolling through my phone for a few minutes.

My curiosity tugged at me more to see if Abu Hadi would really manage to defeat Abu Ahmad.

I got up at 1:45 pm and opened the front door.

I headed toward the garden door to open it and go out to the by-street.

But I felt as if everything collapsed – an explosion tore through the street and hurled me back.

A storm of fragments and dust engulfed me, and my eardrums felt as if they had been perforated by the piercing sound.

Chunks of flesh clung to my face and shirt.

Blood splattered across our front door.

I froze.

My arms were trembling – my legs numb.

I couldn’t move. For a moment.

The world went silent – except for the ringing in my ears and the heaviness crushing my chest.

With faltering steps, I tried to open the garden door, but it didn’t budge as it had been twisted and shattered by the blast.

I sprinted back inside the house, turned to the door facing the main street, then stepped outside and headed toward the by-street where we used to gather every day.

The scene was ineffable – horrifying beyond anything words could describe.

Four or five bodies lay motionless on the ground, right in front of our house.

I couldn’t move forward. My knees locked. My voice cracked.

“Ya Allah… Ya Allah,” was all I could cry out.

Dust was all around.

I took a few more steps, and that’s when I saw a little girl, lying on the ground with part of her brain exposed from her head – she was Soso.

I bent down and checked her chest, feeling for her heartbeat with shaky hands.

She was still breathing, her pulse faint.

Some people screamed around me: “Leave her!” “Cover the body!”

I couldn’t. All I was thinking about was saving Soso.

I picked her up in my arms and hurried a few steps toward the main street, desperate to find any transportation to take her to the hospital.

Just then, two people with a motorcycle stopped, took Soso and rushed her to Al-Awda Hospital Nuseirat.

I returned to the site of the incident.

The dust had settled, and I saw the full picture of the street – it transformed into something I still cannot name.

Beheaded and torn bodies were scattered around.

I couldn’t recognize a single face. Not even one.

Then I saw a body – wearing a navy blue T-shirt I knew very well. It was mine.

Only then did I realize it was Hisham’s body.

He had been killed alongside Abu Hadi and Abu Ahmad.

Abu Nahed was severely injured and succumbed to his wounds the next day.

Soso went into clinical death and passed away two days later, on 12 November.

The smell of death in Gaza became familiar – almost routine.

The street that was once full of life now turned into a ghost street.

That airstrike didn’t kill me but it destroyed something inside.

It wiped out all of the vibes that filled the place.

From that moment on, I started avoiding walking through that road – not out of fear, but because I don’t want to relive that terrible scene again.

It is a mental wound that I will carry for the rest of my life.

A few moments separated me from death, but maybe God chose me to live and tell the story of my friends and neighbors.

Ahmad Abu Shawish is a journalist and an activist in Gaza.

25 September 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr Fatima Hendricks

The Gaza-bound flotilla’s nonviolent direct action requires strength and steadfastness. It is an active resistance to decades of injustice from an illegal sea, land, and air blockade.

It is 4:00 am on the 10th day of our sail, aboard a boat in the Global Sumud Flotilla. We have heard explosions hitting other boats and seen drones piercing the night sky.

Tensions are high as we wonder about the fate of the attacked boats and when our turn will come.

I am on night watch and taking a short break, for morning prayers. Despite the adrenaline, my heart is filled with awe at the magnificent starry night and the whooshing of the waves as they splash against our vessel. The splashing waves remind me of the waves of resistance from oppressed peoples and their allies since time immemorial, some violent and others not.

I was first introduced to the concept of nonviolent resistance during my time at the Madina Institute Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies. However, as a South African growing up during Apartheid, there have been moments when I perceived the strategy of nonviolence as weak, wondering if liberation would have ever come to South Africa without armed struggle.

In recent years, my perspective has been reaffirmed that nonviolent direct action is strategically effective yet difficult to execute. Some describe nonviolence as passive, yet it is one of the most testing, active approaches we can take in resisting oppression. Nonviolence is far from a cop-out or a weak means of struggle, as I am learning on this flotilla.

As comrades on the flotilla, we have often said, “When governments fail, the people set sail.” Governments and corporations have largely been weak in their tangible material interventions for Gaza, offering mostly rhetoric of condemnation and “thoughts and prayers.”

This 38th flotilla to Gaza, aiming to break the illegal and immoral siege, is the largest and most historic to date. It is galvanizing attention on the urgent action required to open a sustainable sea corridor for humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people in Gaza.

Given the occupying power’s war crimes on previous flotillas and its current aggression toward our flotilla in real time, I recall my chat with Ayesha Vahed, a South African attorney and legal reporter practicing in South Africa and The Hague. When asked, Vahed reaffirmed and explained to me that the Global Sumud Flotilla is protected under international law:

According to International Law, the flotilla mission is a completely lawful, civil, nonviolent humanitarian mission. The Israeli blockade, engineered to starve an entire population, is illegal under International Maritime Law. The flotilla has a right to humanitarian passage, based on the fact that the people in Gaza are under an occupying power and have a right to receive aid. This gives the flotilla free passage through international waters, an obligation that has been reaffirmed by the International Court of Justice, which has already ruled that Israel is obliged to allow unrestricted access of aid into Gaza.

Various international lawyers, academics, legal experts, and genocide scholars have mobilized behind this lawful initiative. Furthermore, the confirmation by the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip obliges all States to fulfill their legal obligations under International Law. In a situation of genocide, states have an *erga omnes* obligation, which is an obligation owed to the international community as a whole, to facilitate human rights and protection, which in this case extends to the opening of humanitarian corridors.

Despite this international framework of legality, the Global Sumud Flotilla participants are being described as terrorists. This hasbara campaign is intended to construct a faulty basis for further aggressive actions toward flotilla participants, past and present. However, this type of behavior is not new to nonviolent movements, as was witnessed in the US Civil Rights Movement and the Palestinian Great March of Return.

As we sail in the People’s Flotilla, the mandatory nonviolence training we received in Tunis from GSF trainers stressed that nonviolence is a dynamic method of action, not an avoidance of conflict. I personally witness the intensity of global mobilization and organizing as intensely active, not passive.

During our training in Tunisia, advocate Shabnam Mayet shared the history of flotilla missions to break Israel’s illegal siege, and it was moving to meet and hear from those who had been on past flotilla missions, including the Mavi Marmara in 2010 when Israel Occupation Forces soldiers murdered nine activists during the interception of the vessel in international waters.

Our training also included examples of nonviolent actions shared by comrades from across the world, including historical examples from the Civil Rights Movement in America, the 1956 Women’s March in South Africa, protests by Turkish women who were excluded from official spaces for wearing the hijab, and Mexican anti-government protests.

The flotilla’s collective action across movements and countries involves broad-based mass participation and is a notable example of nonviolent mobilization, coupled with calls for boycotts, divestment, and sanctions. It is a movement built on strategic resistance to an illegal blockade and occupation.

The flotilla’s nonviolent direct action requires strength and Sumud (steadfastness). It is an active resistance to decades of injustice from an illegal sea, land, and air blockade. It is far from a passive, symbolic, or performative action.

If people ask me how hard it is to enact nonviolence as a strategy of resistance, my response is that it is tough but necessary, given the occupying power’s total disregard for the sacredness of human life. Acting in nonviolence requires great Sumud in the face of genocidal evil and violent occupation.

As humanitarians on a mission of hope, and solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza, nonviolence is our means of resistance, and our language of love.

Dr Fatima Hendricks is an occupational therapist, mother of two, and cancer survivor. Dr. Hendricks has three master’s degrees, a doctorate, and 30 years of international experience in health and education program development.

25 September 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Quds News Network

New York (QNN)- Spain and Italy have sent naval ships to protect the Global Sumud Flotilla after a night of drone attacks on civilian vessels carrying aid to Gaza. Human rights experts are now urging other Mediterranean states to dispatch more military ships to secure the mission.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced Spain’s decision in New York during the UN General Assembly. He said a naval action ship will leave Cartagena on Thursday, fully equipped to escort the flotilla and carry out rescue operations if needed.

Italy already ordered its frigate Fasan to approach the convoy after drones targeted the flotilla in international waters off the Greek island of Gavdos. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni defended the move but urged the flotilla to offload its aid in Cyprus for delivery through the Catholic Church. She described the mission as “dangerous and irresponsible.”

The Global Sumud Flotilla consists of about 50 civilian boats with passengers from 17 countries, including activist Greta Thunberg and former Barcelona mayor Ada Colau. Organizers reported 13 explosions from incendiary objects dropped by drones and more than 15 drones flying at low altitude over one of the boats.

Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares condemned the attacks as “totally unacceptable.” He stressed that anyone responsible for harming the flotilla will face international justice. He said Spain is in direct contact with governments whose citizens are on board.

Flotilla condemned Israel and its allies for the assaults, which included explosions, drone swarms, and communications jamming. They vowed to continue sailing toward Gaza despite the threats. “We will not be intimidated,” the coalition declared.

Israel, meanwhile, repeated its threatenings, calling the humanitarian mission “Hamas flotilla”. Israeli officials claimed that the naval blockade is “legal” and promised to take “necessary measures” if the ships approach Gaza. Tel Aviv demanded that all aid be unloaded in Ashkelon for “distribution under Israeli control”, even as UN officials stress that Israel is deliberately blocking food into Gaza, deepening famine.

The attacks and rising tensions sparked urgent calls for wider protection. UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese appealed to Mediterranean states to act. “Send navies now to protect the flotilla, escort it safely to Gaza, and break the siege,” she said. “If not to stop a genocide, when people are being literally slaughtered, when?”

The Global Sumud Flotilla is one of the largest international efforts in years to challenge Israel’s blockade. Its mission is clear, organizers say: deliver food, medicine, and relief directly to Gaza’s starving population.

25 September 2025

Source: countercurrents.org