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By badil.org

States have played a decisive role in the continuation of the Israeli genocidal war in the Gaza Strip. While states’ complicity has enabled the Israeli regime to carry out international crimes in Gaza, it is also states’ performative acts and inaction that have entrenched and expanded Israeli impunity. Symbolic gestures, such as state recognition or targeted sanctions against individuals, serve primarily as a means for states to buy time for genocide and to evade their obligations to take meaningful measures. The minimum obligation of states is to impose diplomatic, economic and military sanctions against the Israeli regime to bring an end to the genocide and hold it accountable for its ongoing international crimes

The genocide in Gaza has now entered its 23rd month, with 62,000 Palestinians killed, over 1.9 million forcibly displaced multiple times, and the entire population facing famine. The need for decisive intervention is long overdue. Yet state rhetoric and symbolic gestures remain the staple of states’ “actions” from the start of the genocide to today, even as the Israeli Prime Minister openly declares plans to colonize the Gaza Strip and forcibly displace its population outside of it.

The United States’ (US) actions have been the most consequential. While sustaining the capacity of the Israeli regime to commit a genocide in Gaza through the continuous flow of arms and political support, it has also prolonged the genocide through false promises and paralyzed the international community from taking meaningful action. It has assumed a false mediator role, posing as a neutral party in the genocide, while posturing that a ceasefire is imminent and promoting the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation as a pernicious “solution” to a starvation campaign it helped manufacture. The US has also actively blocked international measures, weaponizing its veto and threatening states, such as South Africa, that are fulfilling their legal obligations under international law to end genocide. This is all part of the machinery that has ensured that the Israeli regime is able to continue committing its international crimes in Gaza with impunity.

Instead of fulfilling their obligations, other states have offered numerous empty, token measures: the European Union (EU) merely “reviewing” rather than suspending the EU–Israel Association Agreement; sanctions limited to individual Israelis, rather than the regime itself; and symbolic moves such as Ireland’s proposed Prohibition of Importation of Goods Bill, which only prohibits products from Israeli colonies and not the entirety of the Israeli regime. Not only are these measures mostly ineffectual, but they cloak states’ inaction and serve to diffuse and placate the international solidarity movement.

States are also using the recognition of a Palestinian state to distract the public, avoid their legal obligations and obfuscate their complicity. France, Malta, Canada and Australia have announced their intention to do so at the September 2025 UN General Assembly. Meanwhile, the UK is using Palestinian statehood as a bargaining chip—threatening to recognize Palestine unless the Israeli regime agrees to a ceasefire in Gaza. The recognition of a theoretical, quasi-state does nothing to end the ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip nor ensure the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people. In fact, states’ posturing buys time for the genocide through meaningless and time consuming debates and conferences on the merits of a two-state solution, rather on ending Israeli genocide, crimes and impunity.

This follows a pattern used by states to portray a facade of action. For example in February 2024, as the Israeli regime was preparing for a large-scale ground invasion of Rafah, the EU merely “asked” the Israeli regime not to escalate its “military action in Rafah.” The EU and member states’ statements proved to be ultimately useless, unaccompanied by any concrete actions, as the Israeli regime continued to invade and destroy Rafah unabated. Today, in the face of an explicit Israeli colonization plan for Gaza, the EU and its member states are once again issuing hollow appeals for the Israeli regime to “urgently reverse this decision and not implement it.”

Such statements, from the very powers arming and shielding the genocidal regime, are willful attempts to obscure facts and shirk their legal obligations, including to take measures to stop genocide and refrain from being complicit. These states are not powerless bystanders without leverage or political power. In fact, their role has surpassed inaction and even complicity to active participation in genocide. The Israeli regime is not acting in a vacuum; its capacity to commit and sustain genocide exists only because these states provide it with weapons and diplomatic cover.

As the Israeli regime continues to escalate its crimes, complicit states like Germany are attempting to distance themselves from the genocidal war. However, Germany’s announcement – that it will stop supplying the Israeli regime with weapons for use in Gaza – does not erase 23 months of military and political complicity, and is not nearly sufficient in fulfilling its obligations to stop genocide. Anything less than the imposition of blanket sanctions is inadequate and ensures that the Israeli regime remains belligerent in the commission of genocide and international crimes against the Palestinian people.

States have also taken no actions beyond generic statements and condemnations against Israeli imposed starvation in Gaza, the operations of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, and the ongoing dismantlement and replacement of the UN-led humanitarian system in the Gaza Strip. In terms of language, these states have avoided acknowledging the reality of deliberate starvation, refusing to use the term famine and instead reducing it to the depoliticized label of a “humanitarian crisis.” Months ago, several states issued warnings and threatened measures in response to these conditions, yet no concrete steps have followed. This calculated inaction has ensured the uninterrupted continuation of policies that deprive the Palestinians in Gaza of life-sustaining aid and services, thereby entrenching the mechanisms of genocide and maintaining its status quo.

Since the Nakba has been ongoing for 77 years, and the genocide for 23 months, it is undeniable that past and present  state “actions” are wholly insufficient and ineffective in ending Israeli crimes. States must stop the provision of unconditional military and diplomatic support to the Israeli regime and the imposition of unsolicited political solutions on the Palestinian people. To abide by their obligations under international law, including the Genocide Convention, states must adopt decisive measures, including at the very minimum, the imposition of military, economic, and diplomatic sanctions against the Israeli regime.

15 August 2025

Source: badil.org

By Dr Maung Zarni

As a seasoned dissident in exile, I have been deeply troubled by the emerging news report – and ensuing advocacy pieces – that Myanmar’s anti-Junta opposition in the diaspora and their Western supporters are dangling before Trump’s transactional administration the prospects of a fire sale of the country’s strategic natural resources , namely rare earth materials, in exchange for political recognition, material assistance and so on for the so-called National Unity Government.

Former US marine and ex-Chair of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee Jim Webb has, for instance, made the case for such support to a country seen through the American eyes as “Asia’s prize”.

I was American-educated and had lived and worked in the United States, including in “Washington swamp”, for 17 years (1988-2005). Then I “self-deported”, to borrow the current White Nationalist language of Trumpian xenophobes –from the USA for good, out of my profound disgust after the 2nd American invasion of Iraq and the resultant destruction of an entire society there.

Having studied Washington’s largely failed foreign policy missions – particularly militaristic adventures – since the start of the Cold War in the early 1950’s, I have zero confidence or trust in the US foreign policy elite. They have never really been “friends of democracy”, much less “allies in liberation struggles”. Just ask the Hungarian democrats, Czechoslovakian dissidents, South Vietnamese, Cambodians, Afghanis and, as of this writing, Ukrainians.

Washington barks or used to until Trump’s second coming, human rights, democracy and freedom. But it is all bark and no bite. Worse still, the bipartisan United States is the co-perpetrator (along with its European poodles Germany and UK) in Israel’s textbook ongoing genocide in Gaza and occupation of the West Bank. Washington weaponises law to punish any opposition against crimes against humanity.

The painful truth is the people of Myanmar have no real good option.

The country is in the early stages of internal disintegration. Admittedly, the authoritarian and genocidal national military bears the lion’s share of responsibility for this spectacular failure in state building over 60-years.

But Myanmar’s ethnic regions have zero chance of emerging as new republics ala post-Yugoslavia states. Painfully, no central or real organization is in a position, politically, geographically or militarily to speak for the entire 55 million peoples of diverse ethnicities, faiths, political creeds and material interests.

For better or for worse, the junta is effectively treated by virtually all neighbouring regimes and national militaries – including India and China, as well as the Association of South East Asian Nations as the only reliable institutional partner in Myanmar. Four years after Myanmar Spring revolution rose organically in response to the military coup that ousted Aung San Suu Kyi government, there have emerged credible allegations that besides the junta as the usual violators of human rights and international criminal law, some of the most powerful anti-junta armed militias, for instance, the Arakan Army, have been committing war crimes, crimes against humanity and possibly even genocide against the country’s Rohingya people.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDrnP9nhug8]

On TRT World’s Newsmakers program today 13 August, I joined a group of foreign experts with Myanmar expertise from China, Australia and UK to discuss this emerging issue of US-China (potential) contest in Myanmar over the extraction and processing of the rare earth materials. The largest portion of China’s total processing quantity of the rare earth materials are reportedly sourced in Norther Myanmar.

I anchored my argument against the opposition group trying to draw in Washington in our civil war over power, land, revenues, and strategic trade routes, in the immutable reality of the 1,400-miles of Sino-Myanmar borders. We can’t choose our neighbours and we alienate and offend powerful neighbours at our own collective peril.

Besides, the United States has proven to be a force behind destabilizing and destroying wholesale societies all over the world including on the Korean peninsular and Vietnam. Finally, Myanmar is an integral component of China’s global vision, a fact that will ensure that Beijing responds to any American encroachment in its backyard.

Dr Maung Zarni is a scholar, educator and human rights activist with 30-years of involvement in Burmese political affairs, Zarni has been denounced as an “enemy of the State” for his opposition to the Myanmar genocide.i

14 August 2025

Source: forsea.co

The great threat to Israel’s survival is not the Arab nations, the Palestinians, or Iran, but the policies of Israel’s extremist government.

H.E. Gideon Sa’ar

Foreign Minister

Government of Israel

August 9, 2025

Dear Mr. Minister,

I write to you following your speech at the United Nations Security Council on August 5. I attended the session but did not have the chance to speak with you following the session. I want to share my reflections on your speech.

In your speech your failed to recognize why almost the entire world, including many Jews such as myself, are aghast at your government’s behavior. In the view of most of the world, with which I concur, Israel is engaged in mass murder and starvation; you would not have known it from your speech. You failed to acknowledge that Israel has caused the deaths to date of some 18,500 Palestinian children, whose names were recently listed by The Washington Post. You blamed all the mass murder of civilians by Israeli forces on Hamas, even as the world watches video clips every day of Israeli forces killing starving civilians in cold blood as they approach food distribution points. You lamented the starvation of 20 hostages but failed to mention Israel’s starvation of 2 million Palestinians. You failed to mention that your own prime minister worked actively over the years to fund Hamas, as The Times of Israel has documented.

Whether your oversights are the result of obtuseness or prevarication, they would be a tragedy for Israel alone were it not for the fact that you attempted to rope me and millions of other Jews into your government’s crimes against humanity. You declared at the U.N. session that Israel is “The sovereign state of the Jewish people.” This is false. Israel is the sovereign state of its citizens. I am a Jew, and a citizen of the United States. Israel is not my state and never will be.

Your language about Jews in your speech betrayed the gulf between us. You referred to Judaism as a nationality. This is indeed the Zionist construct, but it runs counter to 2,000 years of Jewish belief and Jewish life. It is an idea that I and millions of other Jews reject. Judaism for me and for countless others outside of Israel is a life of ethics, culture, tradition, law, and belief that has nothing to do with nationality. For 2,000 years, Jews lived in all parts of the world in countless nations.

The great Rabbinic sages of the Babylonian Talmud in fact explicitly proscribed a mass return of the Jewish people to Jerusalem, telling the Jewish people to live in their own homelands (Ketubot 111a). Sadly, the Zionists undertook massive campaigns including financial subsidies and scare tactics to induce Jewish communities to leave their own homelands, languages, local cultures, and relations with their fellow inhabitants to draw them to Israel. I have traveled throughout the world visiting nearly empty synagogues and vacated Jewish communities, with only a few elderly Jews remaining, and where these few remaining Jews insisted that their communities once lived in peace and harmony with the non-Jewish majorities. Zionism has weakened or put an end to countless vibrant communities of our co-religionists around the world.

It is an ironic fact that when Zionists convinced the British Government in 1917 to issue the Balfour Declaration, the one Jew in the Cabinet, Sir Edwin Montagu, strenuously objected, stating that he was a British citizen who happened to be Jewish, not the member of a Jewish nation: “I assert that there is not a Jewish nation. The members of my family, for instance, who have been in this country for generations, have no sort or kind of community of view or of desire with any Jewish family in any other country beyond the fact that they profess to a greater or less degree the same religion.”

In this context, it’s also worth recalling that the Balfour Declaration states clearly and unequivocally that “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.” Zionism has failed that test.

Your government is committed to the permanent occupation of all of Palestine and stands in violent, unrelenting opposition to a sovereign State of Palestine. The founding platform of Likud in 1977 hides nothing in this regard, declaring openly that “between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.” To accomplish this, Israel demonizes the Palestinian people and crushes them physically, through mass starvation, murder, ethnic cleansing, administrative detention, torture, land seizures, and other forms of brutal repression. You yourself shamefully declared that “all Palestinian factions” support terrorism.

Your counterpart at the U.N. Security Council session, Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour, declared just the opposite. He stated clearly: “The solution is ending this illegal occupation and ending this disastrous conflict; it is the realization of the independence and sovereignty of the Palestinian state, not its destruction; it is the fulfillment of our rights, not their continued denial; it is respect for international law, not its trampling; it is the implementation of the two-state solution, not a one state reality with Palestinians condemned to genocide, ethnic cleansing, or apartheid.”

Israel stands against almost the entire world in its endeavor to block the two-state solution. Already, 147 countries recognize the State of Palestine, and many more will soon do so. One-hundred and seventy U.N. member states recently voted in support of the right of the Palestinian people to political self-determination, with only six opposed (Argentina, Israel, Micronesia, Nauru, Paraguay, United States).

Your presentation utterly neglected the powerful “New York Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State solution,” issued by the world community at the High-Level International Conference on Implementing the Two-State Solution held on July 29, 2025, just one week before your own speech at the U.N. Security Council. Saudi Arabia and France co-chaired that high-level conference. Arab and Islamic nations all over the world called for peace and normalization of relations with Israel when Israel abides by international law and decency in line with the two-state solution. Your government rejects peace, because it aims for domination over all of Palestine instead.

Israel holds on to its extremist position by a slenderest of threads, backed (until now) by the United States but by no other major power. We also should acknowledge a major reason for the U,S. backing until now: Christian Evangelical Protestants who believe that the gathering of the Jews in Israel is the prelude to the damnation or conversion of the Jews, and the end of the world. Those are your government’s allies. As for overall American public opinion, disapproval of Israel’s actions now stands at 60%, with only 32% approving.

Mr. Minister, the global revulsion you cited is against the actions of your government, not against Jews. Israel is threatened from within by zealotry and extremism that in turn bring worldwide disapprobation of Israel by Jews and non-Jews alike. The great threat to Israel’s survival is not the Arab nations, the Palestinians, or Iran, but the policies of Israel’s extremist government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, Bezalel Smotrich, and Itamar Ben-Gvir.

The two-state solution is the path—and the only path—to Israel’s survival. You may believe that nuclear weapons and the U.S. government are your salvation, but brute power will be evanescent if Israel’s grave injustice toward the Palestinian people continues. The Jewish Prophets taught again and again that unjust states do not long survive.

Sincerely yours,

Jeffrey D. Sachs

New York City

11 August 2025

Source: commondreams.org

By Ashish Singh

In the sweltering Delhi summer of 2017, an unusual event slipped into the rhythm of urban life, not with the stiff collars of cultural protocol but with the ease of a sudden breeze in a closed room. Titled The Drifting Canvas, this immersive digital exhibition transformed Select City Walk Mall into a corridor of art history. Curated by Russian art historian Yasha Yavorskaya and brought to India by Vikas Nair and Manikantan, it was a quiet rebellion against elitism in the world of art.

This wasn’t a gallery in the traditional sense. There were no guards shushing visitors, no hushed tones of reverence, no glass separating viewers from creation. Instead, over a thousand masterpieces from Van Gogh, Monet, Chagall, Schiele, Rousseau, and Malevich shimmered across massive HD screens, choreographed with music, motion, and light. Time itself seemed to stretch as brushstrokes unfolded slowly before the eyes. Children stood still. Shoppers paused. It was not spectacle for the sake of distraction. It was intervention. A reminder that beauty need not arrive with a price tag or pedigree.

But The Drifting Canvas was not merely a foreign showcase parachuted into an Indian mall. That temptation would have been easy and ultimately shallow. What grounded the exhibition meaningfully in India was the inclusion of Desi Canvas, a powerful countercurrent curated by Delhi-based artist Aakshat Sinha. With over 40 Indian artists ranging from the acclaimed Anupam Sud and Arpana Caur to emerging practitioners, Sinha’s section wasn’t supplementary. It was essential. It reminded viewers that India’s artistic language is not marginal but central, not reactive but assertive in its voice and vocabulary.

Sinha’s curatorial lens was sharp and unafraid. Works tackled caste, gender, myth, memory, violence, desire, and always the self. These weren’t the sanitized images of Indian art packaged for global validation. They were urgent, unsettling, and immediate. In dialogue with Western modernism, they did not defer. They responded.

This wasn’t just about visual pleasure. In a country where access to cultural spaces is still disproportionately urban, upper-class, and English-speaking, The Drifting Canvas quietly pushed back. It did what public institutions in India often fail to do. It created public art, not art in public spaces, but art for the public. When a child in South Delhi can encounter Egon Schiele’s raw emotion or Marc Chagall’s poetic surrealism on her way to the food court, that moment matters. And that’s the kind of cultural legitimacy we need to defend.

Of course, one might raise concerns. Are animated reproductions of masterworks truly art? Is there a danger of oversimplifying or commodifying aesthetics when you place them in a commercial mall? Possibly. But the alternative, hoarding art away from people in climate-controlled exclusivity, is far worse. When art is liberated from its curated silence and allowed to speak where life bustles and breathes, something genuinely democratic begins.

What The Drifting Canvas did was subtle but profound. It tore down the artificial boundary between connoisseur and casual observer. It said you didn’t need a degree in aesthetics to be moved by colour, form, or abstraction. You only needed to be there, to be present. It acknowledged that art, when made public, doesn’t lose its depth. It multiplies its meaning.

Manikantan, one of the key organisers, understood this intuitively. For him, this was not a one-time event but a possibility, a prototype for a different kind of cultural infrastructure, one where technology becomes the medium, not the barrier, for intimacy with art. Vikas Nair, equally invested, had first encountered the exhibition abroad and instinctively knew that India needed this not as indulgence but as a necessity.

Their intuition was right. The Drifting Canvas came at a time when art institutions in India were becoming increasingly insular and state support for creative expression was shrinking. Funding was precarious. Dissent was censored. And yet, here was a show that said art could still show up uninvited where no one expected it. And it could stay.

In many ways, Yasha’s decision to work with Indian collaborators rather than simply license a product was key. It allowed the exhibition to feel rooted even as it reached outward. The inclusion of Indian voices wasn’t decorative. It was dialogic.

Events like The Drifting Canvas remind us that art has the power to intervene in the most ordinary moments and render them unforgettable. They dissolve the outdated binary between the cultivated and the curious. They show us that wonder doesn’t discriminate and cultural legitimacy cannot remain the privilege of a few.

So perhaps it wasn’t just the canvas that drifted into the mall. It was memory, imagination, rebellion, and for a brief moment in Delhi, they all became public property.

Ashish Singh has finished his Ph.D. coursework in political science from the NRU-HSE, Moscow, Russia.

10 August 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Coordination of Democratic Rights Organisation (CDRO)

The Jammu & Kashmir Home Department has banned the publication of 25 books on Kashmir, including those by notable authors such as Arundhati Roy, Sumantra Bose and A G Noorani. A notification issued by the Principal Secretary of the Home Department, Chandraker Bharti, by order of Lieutenant-Governor Manoj Sinha, said: “…it has come to the notice of the Government, that certain literature propagates false narrative and secessionism in Jammu and Kashmir… This literature would deeply impact the psyche of youth by promoting (a) culture of grievance, victimhood and terrorist heroism. … Some of the means by which this literature has contributed to the radicalization of youth in J&K include distortion of historical facts, glorification of terrorists, vilification of security forces, religious radicalization, promotion of alienation, pathway to violence and terrorism etc.”  As per the notification, these 25 books were “found to excite secessionism and endangering sovereignty and integrity of India, thereby, attracting the provisions of Sections 152, 196 & 197 of Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023” (https://indianexpress.com/article/india/arundhati-roy-noorani-jk-bans-publication-25-books-kashmir-propagating-secessionism-10174625/)

A look into the list of books (provided at the end of this Press Release), which are academical outputs, historical accounts, journalistic descriptions or political commentaries, shows that these books include widely acclaimed The Kashmir Dispute 1947-2012 by noted constitutional expert, A. G. Noorani, Kashmir in Conflict – India, Pakistan and the Unending War by the British author and historian Victoria Schofield, Kashmir at the Crossroads and Contested Landsby eminent scholar, Prof. Sumantra Bose from the London School of Economics, Azadi by Booker Prize winner and public intellectual, Arundhati Roy., A Dismantled State: The Untold Story of Kashmir After Article 370 by journalist Anuradha Bhasin. According to the notification, these books need to be declared as ‘forfeited’ as per the provisions of Section 98 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita  2023.

The timing of this notification also deserves mention. On the 5^th of August, 2019, the statehood of Jammu and Kashmir was removed, and the constitutional provision, enshrined in the now-abrogated Article 370, was trampled by the present government.  Since then, there has been a seething anger and a burning desire of the people of Jammu and Kashmir to reclaim statehood. Voicing this aspiration, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, on the sixth anniversary of the August 2019 parliamentary decree,  wrote in a letter to all national parties, including the BJP,  “Restoration of Statehood is not a concession to J&K but a course correction that the very idea of India is undermined if the Statehood which is foundational and constitutional right is reduced to the discretionary favour of the central government,” Mr. Abdullah wrote in the letter. “ (https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/jammu-and-kashmir/omar-seeks-restoration-of-jks-statehood-calls-for-course-correction/article69901157.ece). The banning of the books should also be seen against this backdrop of a popular sentiment.

CDRO observes with alarm that this attempt is to stop the reading of widely acclaimed books. We, at CDRO, firmly believe that this is not just an attempt to prevent some specific books from being discussed. These are brazen attempts to curb opinions which are critical of the present regimen and prevent the public to learn multidimensional aspects of political discourses and becoming an informed, rational citizen. Thus, behind this authoritarian step lies the fascist’s desire to control every opinion through the choking of democratic voices.

We note with concern that the bare fangs of fascism are becoming more conspicuous and ready to impose itself on the public, democratic institutions, and the population. CDRO feels that it is high time to stand united against all such onslaughts.  Hence, the CDRO demands an immediate withdrawal of this anti-people notification. It urges all democratic-minded people and, in particular, the authors, journalists and other media personalities, to stand united against the notification and express public solidarity with the authors whose books have been listed. Let us all unite and show our protest through public defiance of the notification.

(Asish Gupta)                                  (Tapas Chakraborty)                    (Kranthi Chaitanya)

Coordinators, CDRO

Constituent Organisations of CDRO:

Association for Democratic Rights (AFDR, Punjab); Association for Democratic Rights (AFDR, Haryana), Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR, West Bengal); Asansol Civil Rights Association(West Bengal); Bandi Mukti Committee(West Bengal); Civil Liberties Committee (Andhra Pradesh); Civil Liberties Committee (Telangana); Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights (Maharashtra); Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights (CPDR TamilNadu); Coordination for Human Rights (Manipur); Manab Adhikar Sangram Samiti (Assam); Naga Peoples Movement for Human Rights; Peoples’Committee for Human Rights (Jammu and Kashmir); Peoples Democratic Forum(Karnataka); Jharkhand Council for Democratic Rights (Jharkhand); Peoples Union for Civil Rights (Haryana), Campaign for Peace & Democracy in Manipur, Delhi; Janakeeya Manushyaavakasha Prasthanam, Kerala.

The list of Books banned by the recent notification are:

1. Human Rights Violations in Kashmir – Piotr Balcerowicz and Agnieszka Kuszewska

2. Kashmiris Fight for Freedom – Mohd Yusuf Saraf
3. Colonizing Kashmir: State-Building under Indian occupation – Hafsa Kanjwal 
4. Kashmir Politics and Plebiscite – Abdul Jabbar Gockhami
5. Do You Remember Kunan Poshpora? – by Essar Batool, Ifrah Butt, Munaza Rashid, Natasha Rather, Samreen Mushtaq
6. Mujahid ki Azan – Imam Hasan Al-Bana Shaheed 
7. Al Jihadul fil Islam – Abul A’la al-Maududi
8. Independent Kashmir – Christopher Snedden
9. Resisting Occupation in Kashmir – Haley Duschinski, Mona Bhat, Ather Zia and Cynthia Mahmood
10. Between Democracy & Nation: Gender and Militarisation in Kashmir – Seema Kazi
11. Contested Lands – Sumantra Bose
12. In Search of a Future: The Story of Kashmir – David Devadas
13. Kashmir in Conflict: India, Pakistan and the Unending War – Victoria Schofield
14. The Kashmir Dispute: 1947-2012 – A.G. Noorani
15. Kashmir at the Crossroads: Inside a 21st-Century Conflict – Sumantra Bose
16. A Dismantled State: The Untold Story of Kashmir after Article 370 – Anuradha Bhasin
17. Resisting Disappearance: Military Occupation & Women’s Activism in Kashmir – by Ather Zia
18. Confronting Terrorism – Maroof Raza (Editor)
19. Freedom in Captivity: Negotiations of belonging along Kashmiri Frontier – Radhika Gupta
20. Kashmir: The Case for Freedom – Tariq Ali, Hilal Bhatt, Angana P Chatterji, Habbah Khatun, Pankaj Mishra and Arundhati Roy
21. Azadi: Freedom, Fascism, Fiction – Arundhati Roy
22. USA and Kashmir – Shamshad Shan
23. Law & Conflict Resolution in Kashmir- Piotr Balcerowicz and Agnieszka Kuszewska
24. Tarikh-i-Siyasat Kashmir – Afaq
25. Kashmir & the future of South Asia – Sugata Bose and Ayesha Jalal (Editors)

10 August 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Quds News Network

Gaza (Quds News Network)- At least 100 Palestinian children and infants have died from malnutrition and starvation in Gaza, as Israel continues to block aid, including food, medicine, and fuel, from entering the enclave for five months. The Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed on Sunday that the total number of hunger-related deaths is 217.

In a statement, the Ministry said at least 217 have died from malnutrition and hunger since the start of the Israeli genocide in Ocotber 2023. Among them are 100 children and infants.

What We Know

UNICEF has warned that Gaza faces a grave risk of famine, with one in three people going days without food.

Over 100 humanitarian organizations, including Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders (MSF), and Oxfam, warned that “mass starvation” is spreading across Gaza, with their colleagues in the enclave wasting away from hunger.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said Gaza City has been the area “worst-hit” by malnutrition in the Gaza Strip, with nearly one in five children under five there now acutely malnourished.

The World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that thousands of Palestinians in Gaza are “on the verge of catastrophic hunger,” with one in three people in the enclave going days without food.

Health officials in Gaza issued a stark warning lately: Hundreds of severely emaciated Palestinians are on the verge of death, their bodies too weak to resist any longer.

The Director of Al-Shifa Hospital said hospitals are dealing with hundreds suffering from severe hunger and malnutrition. “We don’t have enough beds or medicine,” he said. “We’re seeing symptoms like memory loss, exhaustion, and collapse from extreme hunger.” He added: “We have 17,000 children suffering from severe malnutrition. This is a generation being starved to death.”

According to the Government Media Office in Gaza, over 650,000 children under the age of five face an imminent and severe risk of acute malnutrition in the coming weeks, out of a total of 1.1 million children in the Gaza Strip.

Currently, around 1.25 million people in Gaza are living under catastrophic hunger conditions, while 96% of the population is suffering from severe levels of food insecurity, including more than one million children, according to the Office.

UNRWA warned, “The Israeli Authorities are starving civilians in Gaza. Among them are 1 million children.”

Jagan Chapagain, the secretary-general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said Palestinians in Gaza face “an acute risk of famine”.

“No one should have to risk their life to get basic humanitarian assistance,” he said.

According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) two weeks ago, two out of three famine thresholds for food consumption have been breached across most of Gaza, with acute malnutrition levels in Gaza City confirming aid agencies’ repeated warnings.

“Mounting evidence shows that widespread starvation, malnutrition, and disease are driving a rise in hunger-related deaths,” the IPC assessment maintained.

“The worst-case scenario of Famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip.”

“It’s clearly a disaster unfolding in front of our eyes, in front of our television screens,” said Ross Smith, UN World Food Programme (WFP) Director of Emergencies.

“This is not a warning, this is a call to action. This is unlike anything we have seen in this century,” he told journalists in Geneva.

The last IPC analysis on Gaza, issued on May 12, forecast that the entire population would likely experience high levels of acute food insecurity by the end of September, with 469,500 people projected to likely hit “catastrophic” levels.

Michael Fakhri, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, said: “Israel has built the most efficient starvation machine you can imagine. So while it’s always shocking to see people being starved, no one should act surprised. All the information has been out in the open since early 2024.”

“Israel is starving Gaza. It’s genocide. It’s a crime against humanity. It’s a war crime. I have been repeating it and repeating it and repeating it.”

Is Humanitarian Aid Reaching Gaza?

On March 2, Israel announced the closure of Gaza’s main crossings, cutting off food, medical and humanitarian supplies, worsening a humanitarian crisis for 2.3 million Palestinians, with human rights organizations accusing it of using starvation as a weapon of war against Palestinians.

After more than 80 days of total blockade, starvation, and growing international outrage, limited aid has allegedly been distributed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a scandal-plagued organization backed by the US and Israel, created to bypass the UN’s established aid delivery infrastructure in the Gaza Strip.

Most humanitarian organisations, including the UN, have distanced themselves from GHF, arguing that the group violates humanitarian principles by restricting aid to south and central Gaza, requiring Palestinians to walk long distances to collect aid, and only providing limited aid, among other critiques. They have also said the model would increase forced displacement in Gaza.

Moreover, mass killings of aid seekers near and at GHF aid sites have become a grim daily reality amid chaotic scenes, as desperate Palestinians are given only a narrow window to rush for food and are targeted by Israeli forces and American mercenaries. Testimonies and evidence from US mercenaries working with GHF, as well as from Gaza civilians, reveal that aid seekers are being directly and deliberately targeted, despite posing no threat.

Palestinians in Gaza and the UN described these sites as “mass death traps” and “slaughterhouses”.

According to the UN human rights office, at least 859 people have been killed while seeking food near or at the GHF sites since the GHF began operating in late May. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said: “Most of these killings were committed by the Israeli military.”

514 were also killed by Israeli forces along the routes of food convoys, OHCHR added.

Human Rights Watch stated last week that Israel’s killing of aid seekers at GHF sites amounts to war crimes.

With starvation across the Strip spreading, international outcry over images of emaciated children and increasing reports of hunger-related deaths pressured Israel to let more aid into the Gaza, the Israeli military announced a “tactical pause” in military activity in some areas of Gaza which it claimed would make it easier to send in UN convoys. However, attacks and killings have been reported across most of the Strip.

A UN worker said the “last minute” aid windows may not be enough to treat malnourished children.

The UN confirmed that Israel is still blocking food from reaching starving Palestinians with only a few trucks of aid having reached Gaza.

Last week, the WFP said it is not getting the necessary volumes of humanitarian assistance into Gaza despite Israel claiming it issued new measures to enable more supplies to enter the enclave.

“We have not gotten the authorisation, the permission to move in the volumes that we’ve requested,” Smith said.

Smith said the disaster unfolding in Gaza is “unlike anything we have seen in this century”, adding that it was reminiscent of famines seen in Ethiopia and Biafra, Nigeria, in the 20th century.

On Sunday, the Gaza Government Media Office and aid groups confirmed that only 1,210 aid trucks have entered the Gaza Strip since Israel announced on July 27 that it would allow the entry of aid, an average of just 84 trucks per day. This represents just 14% of the estimated 4,800 trucks required to meet minimum humanitarian needs.

It added that Gaza requires at least 600 aid and fuel trucks daily to provide for the essential needs of its health, public service, and food sectors.

The Office noted: “We confirm that there are more than 22,000 humanitarian aid trucks currently parked at the Gaza Strip crossing gates, most of which belong to UN and international organizations and various entities.”

On Friday, the World Food Programme (WFP) called on Israel to allow at least 100 aid trucks per day into Gaza, noting that only 60 of its aid truck drivers have been vetted and approved by the Israeli military to date.

The 100 trucks per day the organisation called for is a fraction of the 600 per day other UN agencies and Gaza authorities have said are needed to meet the basic needs of residents in the Strip.

“Since July 27, 266 WFP trucks arriving at crossing points were turned back, 31 percent of which had initially been approved,” the agency’s latest report said.

“Convoy movements are frequently hampered by last-minute changes by Israeli authorities, and heavy insecurity due to military activities along convoy routes.”

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, also noted on Saturday that it has not been allowed to bring any humanitarian aid into Gaza, including food and medicine, for more than five months, depriving hungry and ailing Palestinians of what they need to survive.

“Engineering Starvation” in Gaza

Israel has deliberately engineered famine and chaos in Gaza, the Gaza Government Media Office said, as most of the aid trucks that entered Gaza were looted in a “systematic disorder fostered by the Israeli occupation”.

“What is happening in Gaza is a clear and deliberate model of how the Israeli occupation is consciously fostering chaos and engineering starvation,” the Media Office said, adding that aid is being intentionally prevented from reaching warehouses or intended recipients.

Gaza’s Ministry of Interior and National Security has also accused Israel of pursuing a policy of targeting its staff “carrying out their duty of securing aid trucks distributed by international organisations, preventing them from reaching those in need safely”.

It also accused Israeli forces of sponsoring “networks of thieves and thugs to seize control of aid trucks, depriving more than two million citizens of safe access and perpetuating famine in the Strip”.

“This is a blatant attempt by the occupation to absolve itself of legal responsibility for using starvation as a weapon in times of war,” the Ministry said in a statement.

This strategy forces Palestinians to travel long distances for aid, putting themselves at great risk, the statement read, adding that this has led to the “destruction of some of the aid supplies due to stampede and overcrowding”.

“Meanwhile, the occupation directly targets them and commits massacres, killing dozens daily near the routes leading to the entry of aid.”

10 August 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr Arun Mitra

Everyone by now knows the dreadful effects of the atomic bombs used by the US on human population at Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6th and 9th August 1945 respectively. Testimonies by the survivors, the Hibakusha and the reports by the Red Cross speak effectively of the catastrophe that occurred in these two places. Over two lakh people died. Number of people injured, rendered destitute, homeless and orphaned far exceeds this number.  Effect of radiations on the generations after that is still felt. That was the time of unprecedented humanitarian crises and agony never heard of before.   

Dr. Marcel Junod, the new head of the ICRC’s delegation in Japan was the first foreign doctor to reach Hiroshima on 8 September 1945, one month after the dropping of the atom bomb. He described that the center of the city was a sort of white patch, flattened and smooth like the palm of a hand. The medical care was in shambles and rudimentary with any medicines or equipment to support the medical care. Dr Junod noted the consequences of the bomb for Hiroshima’s medical corps; out of 300 doctors, 270 died or were injured; out of 1,780 nurses, 1,654 perished or were injured. He made an appeal for the bomb to be banned outright, just as poison gas was outlawed in the aftermath of the First World War. 

This catastrophe should have been a lesson for the world community to move forward for complete abolition of nuclear weapons from earth. On the contrary the number of nuclear weapons possessing countries increased with present number to be at nine. These include USA, Russia, Britain, France, China, North Korea, India, Pakistan and Israel. It is an irony that five of these are in Asia, which is relatively a deprived region.

In 2023 China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the UK and US spent a combined $91.4 billion on their nuclear arms, which breaks down to $173,884 per minute, or $2,898  a second.  The United States’ share of total spending, $51.5 billion, is more than all the other nuclear-armed countries put together

It is now well proven through various studies that the nuclear weapons are a real threat to not only the human population but the whole flora & fauna on earth. A study on Climate Consequences of Regional Nuclear War has pointed out that even a limited nuclear war between India and Pakistan using 100 Hiroshima sized nuclear weapons would put over two billion people at risk of starvation and death. A nuclear exchange between the two major nuclear powers, the Russia and the USA could be end of modern civilisation built through thousands years of human labour.     

It is therefore imperative that nuclear weapons are abolished for good. On-going wars must stop. Nuclear weapon will not be used suddenly but conditions for their use are created by the pre-existing war conditions. Any further escalation between Russia and Ukraine as indicated by the NATO, EU and the decision of the US to supply long range missiles to Ukraine could lead to dangerous results. Continuing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza by the Zionist Israeli regime and its quest to increase the area under control to other parts of the Middle East could be dangerous in the long run. Recent war between Iran and Israel can be dangerous even now as the tension is not over. Tension between India and Pakistan and also China the three nuclear powered neighbours is to be seen with serious concern. On-going conflicts in parts of Africa add to their concerns for food and health. Trump;s rhetoric to take over Panama Canal, change the Gulf of Mexico, lust to control Green Land and also his desire to make Canada another state of the US is fraught with danger. 

Secretary General of the UN, Antonio Gutteres has said that ‘Humanity is just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation’. It is time now that all states must condemn the recent threats to use nuclear weapons, the increase and modernization of nuclear arsenals, and the increased role of nuclear weapons in security doctrines.   

To achieve the goal of nuclear abolition there is need to build strong anti- nuclear narrative. This would need a strong peace movement. The immediate post 2nd world war period saw emergence of such peace initiatives. Powerful public protests in 1980s led to several treaties like the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the START which played a significant role in bringing down the number of nuclear weapons which was at its peak in 1985. Coordinated action by the global south is needed as was seen when the Non –aligned movement was active.  There is need to rejuvenate the NAM, SAARC. Promote Nuclear weapons Free Zones. The so called big power must accept the reality of multi polar world. The Trump administration should shed its plans for global dominance. Any increase in the economic inequalities around the globe will add to tensions and arms race. There is need to reject the thought that peace comes through military power. Peace education should be given from the very childhood child hood to save the future.

Dr Arun Mitra is a Practicing ENT Surgeon in Ludhiana, Punjab. 

8 August 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr. Ramzy Baroud

The Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem released a comprehensive report on July 27 describing the Israeli war on Gaza as genocide. However, the delay in publishing such an indictment is troubling and adds to an existing problem of politically motivated decision-making processes that have, in their own right, prolonged the ongoing Israeli war crimes.

The report accused Israel of committing genocide, a conclusion reached after a detailed analysis of the military campaign’s intent, the systematic destruction of civilian life, and the government-engineered famine. This finding is significant because it adds to the massive body of legal and testimonial evidence affirming the Palestinian position that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute a genocide.

Moreover, the fact that B’Tselem is an Israeli organization is doubly important. It represents an insider’s indictment of the horrific massacres and the government-engineered famine in the Strip, directly challenging the baseless argument that accusing Israel of genocide is an act of antisemitism.

Western media were particularly interested in this report, despite the fact that numerous first-hand Palestinian reports and investigations are often ignored or downplayed. This double standard continues to feed into a chronic media problem in its perception of Palestine and Israel.

Claims by Palestinians of Israeli war crimes have historically been ignored by mainstream media or academia. Whether the Zionist militia’s massacre of Tantura in 1948, the actual number of Palestinians and Lebanese killed in the massacres of Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon in 1982, or the events resulting in the Jenin massacre in the West Bank in 2002, the media has frequently ignored the Palestinian account. It often gains a degree of validation only if it is backed by Israeli or Western voices.

The latest B’Tselem report is no exception. But another question must be asked: why did it take nearly two years for B’Tselem to reach such an obvious conclusion? Israeli rights groups, in particular, have far greater access to the conduct of the Israeli army, the statements of politicians, and Hebrew media coverage than any other entity. Such a conclusion, therefore, should have been reached in a matter of two months, not two years.

This kind of intentional delay has so far defined the position of many international institutions, organizations, and individuals whose moral authority would have helped Palestinians establish the facts of the genocide globally much earlier.

For example, despite the ICJ’s historic ruling on January 26, 2024, that determined that there are plausible grounds for South Africa’s accusation of Israel of committing genocide, the court is still unable, or unwilling, to produce a conclusive ruling. A definitive ruling would have been a significant pressure card on Israel to end its mass killing in Gaza. 

Instead, for now, the ICJ expects Israel to investigate itself, a most unrealistic expectation at a time when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promises his extremist ministers that Israel will encourage the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

The same indictment of intentional and politicized delays can be attributed to the International Criminal Court. While it issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defense minister on November 21, 2024, no concrete action has been taken. Instead, it is the Chief Prosecutor of the court, Karim Khan, who finds himself attacked by the US government and media for having the courage to follow through on the investigation.

Individuals, too, especially those who have been associated with ‘revolutionary’ politics, the likes of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders, among others, have been reluctant to act. On March 22, 2024, Ocasio-Cortez refused to use the term genocide in Gaza, going as far as claiming that, while she saw an “unfolding genocide,” she was not yet ready to use the term herself.

Sanders, on the other hand, who has spoken out repeatedly and strongly against Netanyahu, describing him in an interview with CNN on July 31 as a “disgusting liar,” has had repeated moral lapses since the start of the war. When the term genocide was used by many, far less ‘radical’ politicians, Sanders doubled down during a lecture at a university in Ireland. He said that the word genocide “makes him queasy,” and he urged people to be “careful about it”.

These are not simply lost opportunities or instances of moral equivocation. They have had a profound and direct impact on Israel’s behavior. The timely intervention of governments, international institutions, high courts, media, and human rights groups would have fundamentally changed the dynamics of the war. Such collective pressure could have forced Israel and its allies to end the war, potentially saving thousands of lives.

Delays born of political calculation and fear of retribution have given Israel the critical space it needed to carry out its genocide. Israel is actively exploiting this lack of legal and moral clarity to persist in its mass slaughter of Palestinians.

This must change. The Palestinian perspective, their suffering, and their truths must be respected and honored without needing validation from Israeli or other sources. The Palestinian voice and their rights must be truly centered, not as an academic cliché or political jargon, but as an undeniable, everyday reality.

As for those who have delayed their verdict regarding the Israeli genocide, no rationale can possibly absolve them. They will be judged by history and by the desperate pleas of Gaza’s mothers and fathers, who tried and failed to save their children from the Israeli killing machine and the world’s collective silence or inaction.

Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle.

8 August 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Quds News Network

Gaza (Quds News Network)- Israel’s security cabinet approved a plan on Thursday by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the military occupation of Gaza City. The plan involves displacing tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians, including many who had already been forced to flee northern Gaza, to camps in central Gaza.

Netanyahu had earlier said Israel intended to take over all of the Gaza Strip, but the plan only mentions Gaza City.

“The IDF will prepare to take control of Gaza City while providing humanitarian aid to the civilian population outside the combat zones,” Israel’s military claimed.

Reports in Israeli media say the plan initially focuses on taking full control of Gaza City, displacing its one million residents further south. Forces would also take control of refugee camps in central Gaza.

The Israeli security cabinet’s approval of an expansion of the war would includes more than one phase, according to CNN, citing an Israeli source.

The deadline for the first phase is October 7, according to the source. October 7, 2025, is the second anniversary of Israel’s war in Gaza.

A second source said that the plan calls for no aid distribution within Gaza City as a means of forcing Palestinians to flee.

The UN has warned that a complete military takeover would risk “catastrophic consequences” for Palestinian civilians and Israeli captives held in Gaza. The UK’s ambassador to Israel has said it would be “a huge mistake”.

The Israeli military currently takes control of about three-quarters of Gaza, and almost all of its 2.1 million citizens are now in the quarter of the territory that the military does not control.

The UN estimates some 87% of Gaza is either in militarised zones or under evacuation orders.

There are areas in central Gaza and along the Mediterranean coast that Israel does not occupy, according to the UN.

These include refugee camps, where much of Gaza’s population is now living after their homes were destroyed by Israel. The vast majority of Gaza’s population has already been displaced by the war, many people several times over.

Top UN official Miroslav Jenča told the UN Security Council earlier this week that a plan to occupy Gaza would be against international law and was a “deeply alarming” prospect.

US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that taking over Gaza was “really up to Israel”.

“Where Should We Go? We’re Already Starving and Displaced”

Displaced Palestinians in Gaza have voiced outrage and fear in response to the announced plan.

Mohamed Shabaan, who was already displaced from his home in the Tuffah neighborhood, which was completely destroyed in Israeli airstrikes, called the plan a “disaster.”

“We’re already living in a disaster. We are starving and displaced. Where should we go next?” he told Quds News Network.

Shabaan added that people simply cannot endure being forcibly displaced over and over again.

“People have no money. They’re starving, their children are starving. Bombing is everywhere. We are tired and exhausted.”

Aya Naim, a displaced widow and mother of a two-year-old boy, said she has nowhere to go if the plan is implemented.”

“I have no money to buy a tent or flee with the little I have. My child is starving, and the situation is already deteriorating.”

She added, “We were displaced to the south last year. This is insane. I have no family except my child. I’m afraid for him. There is no safe place. No food. No water. No life.”

“Haven’t they had enough of killing and destroying?” she continued.

“There is nothing left to occupy. There is no Gaza left. Israel has already destroyed all of Gaza and squeezed all of it into the western part of Gaza City, and that’s all that’s left,” Houssam al-Kahlout said.

Global Outrage Erupts as Israel Announces Plan to Occupy Gaza City

On Thursday, Israel’s security cabinet approved a plan by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the military occupation of Gaza City, sparking widespread outrage and condemnation. The plan involves displacing tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians, including many who had already been forced to flee northern Gaza, to camps in central Gaza.

Netanyahu had earlier said Israel intended to take over all of the Gaza Strip, but the plan only mentions Gaza City.

“The IDF will prepare to take control of Gaza City while providing humanitarian aid to the civilian population outside the combat zones,” Israel’s military claimed.

Reports in Israeli media say the plan initially focuses on taking full control of Gaza City, displacing its one million residents further south. Forces would also take control of refugee camps in central Gaza.

The Israeli security cabinet’s approval of an expansion of the war would include more than one phase, according to CNN, citing an Israeli source.

The deadline for the first phase is October 7, according to the source. October 7, 2025, is the second anniversary of Israel’s war in Gaza.

A second source said that the plan calls for no aid distribution within Gaza City as a means of forcing Palestinians to flee.

The Israeli military currently takes control of about three-quarters of Gaza, and almost all of its 2.1 million citizens are now in the quarter of the territory that the military does not control.

The UN estimates some 87% of Gaza is either in militarised zones or under evacuation orders.

There are areas in central Gaza and along the Mediterranean coast that Israel does not occupy, according to the UN.

These include refugee camps, where much of Gaza’s population is now living after their homes were destroyed by Israel. The vast majority of Gaza’s population has already been displaced by the war, many people several times over.

Here’s some reactions to the announced Gaza occupation plan:

Palestine

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said Friday that Israel’s decision to occupy the Gaza Strip reveals the true nature of its war, “an unjustified campaign against Palestinian civilians.”

In a statement, the ministry condemned the Israeli Security Cabinet’s newly approved plan as a “dangerous and illegal escalation.”

“This decision reveals that the Israeli war was never defensive; it has always been a war of extermination and forced displacement against the people of Gaza,” the ministry said, warning of the “certain death” of civilians remaining in the strip.

“This development cannot be ignored,” the ministry said.

Hamas slammed the plan, saying “Netanyahu’s remarks represent a blatant reversal of the negotiation process and clearly expose the real reasons behind his withdrawal from the latest round of talks, despite us being close to reaching a final agreement.”

The Netanyahu plan “leaves no doubt that he aims to sacrifice the captives to serve his personal interests and extremist ideological agenda.”

Palestinians in Gaza

Displaced Palestinians in Gaza have voiced outrage and fear in response to the announced plan.

Mohamed Shabaan, who was already displaced from his home in the Tuffah neighborhood, which was completely destroyed in Israeli airstrikes, called the plan a “disaster.”

“We’re already living in a disaster. We are starving and displaced. Where should we go next?” he told Quds News Network.

Shabaan added that people simply cannot endure being forcibly displaced over and over again.

“People have no money. They’re starving, their children are starving. Bombing is everywhere. We are tired and exhausted.”

Aya Naim, a displaced widow and mother of a two-year-old boy, said she has nowhere to go if the plan is implemented.”

“I have no money to buy a tent or flee with the little I have. My child is starving, and the situation is already deteriorating.”

She added, “We were displaced to the south last year. This is insane. I have no family except my child. I’m afraid for him. There is no safe place. No food. No water. No life.”

“Haven’t they had enough of killing and destroying?” she continued.

“There is nothing left to occupy. There is no Gaza left. Israel has already destroyed all of Gaza and squeezed all of it into the western part of Gaza City, and that’s all that’s left,” Houssam al-Kahlout said.

Turkey

Turkey has condemned “in strongest terms Israel’s decision to expand military operation in Gaza, which constitutes a new phase of expansionist and genocidal policy.”

“Every step taken by the fundamentalist Netanyahu government to continue the genocide against the Palestinians and to expand the occupation deals a heavy blow to international peace and security, increases regional instability, and deepens the humanitarian crisis,” said the Turkish Foreign Ministry in a statement.

UK

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has urged Netanyahu to reconsider his plans to take over Gaza City and said the move would only bring more bloodshed.

“Every day the humanitarian crisis in Gaza worsens and hostages taken by Hamas are being held in appalling and inhuman conditions. What we need is a ceasefire, a surge in humanitarian aid, the release of all hostages by Hamas and a negotiated solution,” Starmer said.

The leader of the Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey, said it was increasingly clear that Netanyahu’s goal was “ethnic cleansing” in Gaza. He urged Starmer to cease all arms exports to Israel and sanction Netanyahu and his cabinet.

The energy minister Miatta Fahnbulleh told Sky News the Israeli decision to take over Gaza City was wrong. “We think that it will risk escalating an already intolerable situation, and the consequence will be more bloodshed,” she said. “There’s no one that can see what is happening and unfolding in Gaza that isn’t horrified by it.

China

China expressed “serious concerns” on Friday over Israel’s plan to take control of Gaza City, urging it to “immediately cease its dangerous actions”.

“Gaza belongs to the Palestinian people and is an inseparable part of Palestinian territory,” a Foreign Ministry spokesperson told Agence France-Presse (AFP) in a message.

UN

Israel’s “plan for a complete military takeover of the occupied Gaza strip must be immediately halted. It runs contrary to the ruling of the International Court of Justice that Israel must bring its occupation to an end as soon as possible, to the realisation of the agreed two-State solution and to the right of Palestinians to self-determination,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volket Türk said in a statement.

“On all evidence to date, this further escalation will result in more massive forced displacement, more killing, more unbearable suffering, senseless destruction and atrocity crimes.”

Instead of intensifying this war, he said, Israel “should put all its efforts into saving the lives of Gaza’s civilians by allowing the full, unfettered flow of humanitarian aid. The hostages must be immediately and unconditionally released by Palestinian armed groups. Palestinians arbitrarily detained by Israel must also be immediately and unconditionally released.”

EU

Israel’s decision to extend its military operation in Gaza “must be reconsidered”, said European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.

“Humanitarian aid must be given immediate and unhindered access to Gaza to deliver what is urgently needed on the ground.”

“A ceasefire is needed now,” she added.

Australia

Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong urged Israel “not to go down this path”, saying it will “only worsen the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza”.

She said permanent forced displacement was a violation of international law and repeated calls for a ceasefire and aid to flow unimpeded.

Australia’s Environment Minister Murray Watt had earlier also voiced his criticism, saying the government “strongly opposed the forced occupation of Gaza”.

Germany

Germany will suspend its arms exports to Israel which could be used in the Gaza Strip, Chancellor Friedrich Merz said in reaction to Israel’s plans.

“Under these circumstances, the German government will not authorise any exports of military equipment that could be used in the Gaza Strip until further notice.”

Historically, Germany has been one of the largest arms suppliers to Israel.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the US was Israel’s largest supplier of military imports in the period between 2020-2024, with Germany the second largest.

Denmark

Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen called on Israel to “immediately reverse its decision to take control of Gaza.”

8 August 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Justice Markandey Katju

When I was a Judge in Allahabad High Court ( 1991-2004 ) I heard dozens of cases of Pakistanis who had come to India who on a short term ( usually one month ) visa, and were served deportation orders for deporting them to Pakistan, when their visas expired but they did not go back. They filed writ petitions against these orders, which came up before me. In all such cases I passed this order “ Until further orders the petitioner will not be deported from India “.

These Pakistanis were old people who had migrated from UP in India to Pakistan after Partition of 1947. When they migrated they were young people, who left India either because of religious feelings, or because of a sense of insecurity. They had left behind many relatives and friends in India, and now that they were old and passions had subsided they wanted to spend the evening of their lives in the place they had grown up in, and with their relatives and friends in India. The graves of their forefathers were here, and they wanted to be buried next to these graves when they died.

In view of the hostile relations between India and Pakistan it is difficult for Pakistanis to get an Indian visa ( after the recent Indo-Pak hostilities they have been stopped altogether ). And even when granted, it was usually for a very short term of about one month, and with all kinds of restrictions e.g. that one can visit only one city, report to the nearest police station every week, etc.

So these petitioners who appeared before me had come on one month visas for visiting some city in UP like Allahabad, Kanpur, Agra, Benares, etc. When that one month period was over, and still they did not leave, they were served deportation orders, which they challenged.

As I mentioned above, I stayed all such deportation notices till further orders.

Now the Allahabad High Court has a heavy pendency of cases ( about 10 lacs or 1 million ). Consequently, a case heard on a certain day usually comes up for the next hearing after 4-5 years. So the result of my orders in these cases was that by judicial orders I converted one month visas into 4-5 years visas. Why did I do this ? Now that the matter is old I can reveal the real reason.

I regard, and have always regarded, India and Pakistan as one country. I regard Partition of 1947 as a a British swindle, and I believe that one day Pakistan will reunite with India, from which it has only been temporarily and artificially separated. We share the same culture, look like each other, and were one since Mughal times.

So I regard all Pakistanis as Indians. And therefore I regarded these petitioners as Indians. So how can an Indian be deported from India ?

Of course I did not say this in my orders, but this was the real reason.

The great Urdu poet Munawwar Rana has written a long poem called ‘Muhajirnama’ about the anguish and nostalgia of many muhajirs who had migrated from India to Pakistan at the time of partition, and who remember the land where they were born and grew up. In particular, I remember the lines in that poem relating to my home town Allahabad ( where I lived for 58 out of my 77 years ) :

“ Gale milti hui nadiyaan, gale milte hue mausam

  Allahabad ka kaisa nazaara chhod aaye hain

  Kal ek amrood waale se kehna pad gaya mujhko

  Jahaan se aaye hain is phal ki bagiya chhod aaye hain

  Kuch der tak to woh takta raha mujhe, phir bola

  Woh sangam ka ilaaqa chhut gaya, ya chhod aaye hain ?

  Abhi hum sonch mein gum the ki usse kya kaha jaaye

  Hamaare aansuon ne raaz khola chhod aaye hain “

I also remember the lines relating to Lucknow, where I was born :

“ Moharram mein hamaara Lucknow Iran lagta tha

  Madad maula Husainabad rota chhod aaye hain “

Or these lines :

 “ Bhateejee ab saleeqe se dupatta odhti hogi

   Wahi jisko jhoole mein humakta chhod aaye hain “

It must have been these feelings which made these petitioners stay over after expiry of their one month visa.

Why do I say that India and Pakistan ( and Bangladesh ) are really one country ?  Because we share the same culture. Why do I say that we share the same culture  ? 

Because culture is largely based on language, not on religion. In large parts of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh a common language Hindustani ( called Hindi in India, and Urdu in Pakistan ) is spoken, if not as a first language then as a second language. That is what unites us. I speak to many Pakistani friends on whatsapp in Hindustani.

We were one for 500 years since the time of the great Mughal Emperor Akbar, whom I call the real Father of the Indian subcontinent, not Gandhi and Jinnah, who were really British agents

What is Pakistan  ? It is Punjab, Sind, Balochistan and KP. These were all part of India since the time of Moghul Emperor Akbar. 

Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis living abroad socialise and intermingle as if no Partition ever took place, 

Partition in 1947 was a British swindle, based on the bogus two nation theory, using Gandhi and Jinnah as their main agents. It was the biggest tragedy of India in our 5000 year old known history. 

It is high time Indians, Pakistanis, and Bangladeshis know the truth. Unless we reunite we will never be able transform our subcontinent into a modern industrial giant ( for which we have all the potential with our huge pool of bright engineers, scientists and immense natural resources ), which transformation alone can abolish the curses which have plagued us for centuries–massive poverty, massive unemployment, appalling level of child malnutrition ( every second child in our subcontinent is malnourished, according to Global Hunger Index ), almost total lack of proper healthcare and good education for ourmasses, etc but will waste our precious resources in hostility with each other.

Of late, a great change has come about in the mindsets of a large number of Pakistanis. Let me explain.

I am a well wisher of Pakistanis, and want them to have decent and prosperous lives. I have often said that 95% Pakistanis are good people, just as 95% Indians are good people, 95% Hindus are good people, just as 95% Muslims are good people.

At the same time, I have consistently and repeatedly said that Partition of 1947 was a British swindle on the basis of the bogus two nation theory, and its purpose was to keep our people backward and semi-feudal, so that united India does not emerge as a modern industrial giant, like China ( for which it has all the potential ) and thus become a big rival to Western industry. I regard Pakistan ( and Bangladesh ) as part of India, with which it will inevitably reunite one day under a secular government, though that will take time.

Earlier when I used to say this, almost every Pakistani would respond by hurling the choicest abuses, invectives, vituperations, fulmination, and insults on me.

Today that is no longer so. I now see a sea change among a large number of Pakistanis, who do not feel offended when I say this. I talk with a lot of Pakistanis on whatsapp, and many now agree with me. How has this metamorphosis come about ?

I attribute it to three reasons.

(1) Truth has great power ( satya mein badi shakti hoti hai ). As Victor Hugo said ” There is one thing more powerful than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come ”. The idea that India and Pakistan ( and Bangladesh ) are really one nation and are bound to reunite one day under a secular government, is an idea whose time has come.

When I first mooted the idea of reunification, many people scoffed at me, and said I was day dreaming. But the same was said of Mazzini when he put forward the idea of Italian unification ( Risorgimento ) something which was later achieved by Garibaldi and Cavour in 1861. German unification was achieved under Bismarck in 1871. 

Some people object that much water has flown after 1947, and hence reunification of India now is not feasible. But German reunification was achieved in 1990 after a separation of 45 years. Vietnam was reunited in 1975 after 30 years. China has still not given up its claim over Taiwan.

Others object that there is too much religious fanaticism, and so we cannot unite. But as I have pointed out in my article “The Truth about Pakistan” ( see online ), there was no communal fanaticism or bigotry before 1857 ( see also online ‘History in the service of Imperialism’ by BN Pande ). Before 1857 Hindus and Muslims used to live amicably like brothers and sisters, help each other, and participate in each others festivals. It was only after 1857 that the seeds of communalism were artificially injected into our body politic by the British policy of divide and rule, which led to Partition. So communalism is an artificially-created phenomenon, and can easily be suppressed by a strong secular government.

Of course, reunification will not be achieved easily or immediately. It will take time, maybe 15-20 years. The Western powers who divided us will not allow us to reunite easily, for they do not want another modern industrial giant like China as an industrial rival (one China has created enough headaches for them). But reunite we must if we wish to escape from poverty, hunger, etc.

The main problems of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are the same — massive poverty, unemployment, malnutrition, lack of healthcare and good education, etc. If we reunite, we can pool in our resources and overcome these problems in 15-20 years. We can save much of the billions of dollars we spend annually on purchasing arms abroad, and use it for our people’s welfare.
We were befooled by the British into thinking we are enemies, but how much longer must we remain befooled? How much longer must blood flow between us ?

After reunification, which in my opinion is bound to happen since we are really one nation, we must rapidly industrialise on a gigantic scale. That alone can solve our country’s huge socio-economic problems, and give our people a high standard of living and decent lives.

As stated above, when I expressed the above ideas many years ago, many people ( both in India and Pakistan ) ridiculed me and sneered and jeered at me, saying that I was the only one in the world holding such views. I replied that they should examine whether my ideas are correct or not, and not go by the fact that no one till now has ever expressed them. It often happens that one man alone is correct, and the rest of the world is wrong. 

I gave the example of Copernicus who in 1543 said that it is the earth which goes around the sun ( the heliocentric theory ) and not the sun which goes around the earth ( the geocentric theory ) of the Bible and the ancient Greek thinker Ptolemy ) which was believed by the whole world at that time. Today everyone agrees with Copernicus.

If there were no new ideas in the world there would be no progress. So the charge against me that I express novel ideas is  specious

(2) Abraham Lincoln said ” You can fool some people all the time, and all people for some time, but you cannot fool all people all the time ”.  We have been fooled enough for too long a time

(3) Historical experience shows that wisdom dawns on most people only when life becomes unbearable to them in the prevailing situation. 

Life for most Indians and Pakistanis has become unbearable because of the terrible socio-economic conditions now prevailing, with massive unemployment, skyrocketing prices of food and other essential commodities, highly inflated electricity bills, water shortage, etc. Without this situation, truth would never have dawned on Indians and Pakistanis. 

A great change has now come about in Pakistan. Pakistanis, who were earlier hostile to me, and pooh poohed and ridiculed my idea of Indian reunification, now realise I am their well wisher, and stand for the truth. I want them to have good lives, but they will never have them until and unless we undo the fraudulent Partition, and reunite under a secular government led by modern minded leaders determined to rapidly industrialize the country and raise the standard of living of the people, and give them decent lives. 

We have been befooled for 78 years since 1947. For how much longer must we remain befooled ? It is high time now to reunite. 

Some people ask what will be the practical steps for Indian reunification ? My answer  is : presently we have only to spread the idea that we must reunite, and for that I have created an organization called the Indian Reunification Association or IRA ( see online ). Later, when the idea of reunification is widespread ( as it is bound to be, since it is based on truth ), people will use their creativity and find out ways and means of peaceful and voluntary reunification.

Justice Markandey Katju is a former Judge of Indian Supreme Court

6 August 2025

Source: countercurrents.org