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By Andre Damon

The Biden administration Monday condemned an ongoing investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of senior Israeli figures who masterminded the Gaza genocide.

Israeli media sources reported in recent days that ICC arrest warrants could be imminently issued against Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Israeli Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“We’ve been really clear about the ICC investigation. We do not support it. We don’t believe that they have the jurisdiction,” said White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre.

State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel reiterated these points, declaring, “Our position is clear. We continue to believe that the ICC does not have jurisdiction over the Palestinian situation.”

The White House was joined by leading congressional Republicans. Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson said an ICC arrest warrant for Israeli officials “would directly undermine US national security interests. If unchallenged by the Biden administration, the ICC could create and assume unprecedented power to issue arrest warrants against American political leaders, American diplomats, and American military personnel.”

The United States, the world’s leading perpetrator of war crimes, is not a signatory to the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court and does not recognize its authority to prosecute US war crimes or those of Israel, its proxy in the Middle East.

On September 2, 2020, the United States government imposed sanctions on the ICC prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, in response to an investigation by the court into US war crimes in Afghanistan.

Despite this, the Biden administration publicly welcomed a war crimes investigation by the ICC against Russian President Vladimir Putin over the war in Ukraine.

Asked why the United States supported an International Criminal Court investigation into Russian officials, Patel declared, “There is no moral equivalency between the kinds of things that we see [Russian President Vladimir Putin] and the Kremlin undertake in comparison to the Israeli government.”

Bloomberg and Axios reported that Netanyahu and Biden have discussed measures to obstruct the work of the ICC.

“The Israeli media has revealed that the Israeli government is holding secret meetings, consultations, and conversations with several of its allies, including the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany, in an attempt to prevent the issuance of … arrest warrants and obstruct the Court’s work on the Palestine case,” the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor noted.

Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor of the ICC, said he was investigating the actions of Israeli forces, adding, “Those who do not comply with the law should not complain later when my office takes action pursuant to its mandate.”

The ICC is separate from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which does not prosecute individuals. In a case brought by South Africa, the ICJ ruled in January that Israel must work to prevent “genocidal acts” in Gaza and prevent Palestinians from being killed.

Following the ICJ’s ruling, tens of thousands of Gazans have been killed or injured in bombings, mass executions and through deliberate starvation.

Although neither Israel nor the US is a member of the ICC or recognize its jurisdiction, Palestine has been a member since 2015.

On Sunday, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said he was informed of “rumors” that warrants could be issued imminently against Israeli officials.

He added, “If the warrants are issued, they will harm the commanders and soldiers of the IDF and provide a morale boost to the terrorist organization Hamas and the axis of radical Islam led by Iran against which we are fighting.”

Netanyahu declared that Israel “will never accept any attempt by the ICC to undermine its inherent right of self-defense.” He said any prosecution of Israeli officials by the ICC would be “outrageous,” adding, “We will not bow to it.”

In a message targeted at the imperialist backers of the Gaza genocide, Netanyahu declared, “Whereas decisions of the court in The Hague will not affect Israel’s actions, they would set a dangerous precedent threatening the soldiers and officials of any democracy fighting criminal terrorism and aggression.”

In other words, any indictment of Israeli leaders would, in effect, be an indictment of the leaders of the US, the UK, Germany and France.

On Monday, Reuters reported that ICC prosecutors have interviewed medical personnel at Shifa and Nasser hospitals, where Israeli forces reportedly carried out summary executions and dumped bodies in mass graves.

In the weeks since the discovery of the mass graves at the two hospitals, which collectively contain more than 500 bodies, evidence has grown that Israeli forces executed critically ill hospital patients.

In a statement, the Euro-Med Monitor wrote:

The presence of urinary catheters or splints, which were found to be still attached to some of the dead patients’ bodies during the exhumation process, as well as medical files that were buried with them in Al-Shifa Medical Complex, confirm the execution of ill and injured people.

On Monday, US and UK officials claimed that Israel had revised its terms for a temporary ceasefire in Gaza, while still repudiating any permanent withdrawal of military forces from the territory.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the proposal “extraordinarily generous,” declaring Hamas to be “the only thing standing between the people of Gaza and a ceasefire.”

Osama Hamdan, a Hamas spokesperson, told Al Jazeera in response, “Stopping the attacks against Palestinians is not generous.”

He added:

It’s clear from the Israeli paper that they are still insisting on two major issues. They don’t want a complete ceasefire and they are not talking, in a serious way, about the withdrawal from Gaza. In fact, they are still talking about their presence… which means that they will keep continuing [occupying] Gaza.

Israel, meanwhile, continued its preparations for an attack on Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza, where 1.5 million people are sheltering. Daily bombings on the city continued, including one strike that killed three Palestinians in the Nuseirat refugee camp.

To date, at least 34,488 people have been killed, including more than 14,500 children, with more than 8,000 individuals missing. The number of injured in Gaza is at least 77,643.

On Monday, Middle East Eye reported that Israel is planning on “setting up a complex system of checkpoints that will prevent men of ‘military age’ from fleeing Rafah in preparation for its offensive on the southern Gaza border city.”

It continued:

The checkpoints are designed to allow some women and children to leave Rafah ahead of an expected Israeli offensive, but unarmed, civilian Palestinian men will likely be separated from their families and remain trapped in Rafah during an expected Israeli assault.

Given that Israel has treated areas that it has ordered to evacuate as free-fire zones, it is becoming clear that the looming attack on Rafah will effectively be a mass execution of any who remain in the city.

30 April 2024

Source:: countercurrents.org

By Niko Georgiades, Unicorn Riot

Los Angeles, CA — Over more than five hours on Tuesday night, pro-Israel Zionist agitators violently beat, pepper sprayed and threw fireworks at hundreds of college students and protesters in a “unilateral, surprise attack“ as they held UCLA’s Palestine solidarity encampment while security and police stood by idly. Though police didn’t intervene until the fifth hour of the attack, the encampment stayed intact with the students repelling the continuous onslaught as they defiantly chanted “we’re not leaving” and “Free Palestine.”

The students kept the encampment together despite the violence with a policy to not engage and acting in a defensive posture. Students maintained some of the barricades made of wood and metal that protected the encampment while being punched, pummeled, kicked, hit with projectiles and sprayed with chemicals.

A communique from a group of autonomous UCLA students that was sent out to media is posted at the end of the article and notes that the students feel like the violence they faced was “aided and abetted by [the] administration.”

[https://twitter.com/FilmThePoliceLA/status/1785654963915588036]

The pro-Israel vigilantes, many donning all black with masks on, became more emboldened as the night went along. A large police contingent that showed up four hours into the attack waited in the grass across the quad for an hour as dozens more attacks occurred.

Attackers were recorded screaming “second Nakba” referring to the violent mass expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians in 1948 to make way for the state of Israel. Al Jazeera’s Rob Reynolds said live during their broadcast that to him, the scenes were “reminiscent of settler violence” against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank without the guns.

[https://twitter.com/i/status/1785558648649064639]

[https://twitter.com/Remroum/status/1785584426174312509]

The pro-Palestinian students who were attacked while eating lentils held their ground throughout the night with over one hundred reported hurt and treated by street medics as police reportedly prevented EMTs from entering.

Twenty people are reported to have been treated for concussions. At least four journalists with the campus’s newspaper, the Daily Bruin, were targeted and assaulted by the Israeli supporters.

[https://www.instagram.com/p/C6a6_owOcgH/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=embed_video_watch_again]

Dozens of journalists were documenting through the night. Watch a live stream from independent journalist William Gude (Film The Police LA) from the night below to see the violent events transpire.

ATTACK AT UCLA — LIVESTREAM

A student-led, anti-genocide, pro-Palestine movement has swept the nation over the past two weeks with Gaza solidarity encampments popping up across the country calling on educational institutions to divest from Israel and weapons manufacturers.

With several hundred tents, the UCLA Palestinian encampment is one of the largest and most contentious encampments among the 50-plus campus pro-ceasefire encampments across the nation. As of April 27, over $67,000 had been raised by the pro-Israeli side through a GoFundMe to counter the demonstration. The campaign featured donations by celebrities including Jessica Seinfeld, wife of comedian Jerry Seinfeld.

Attacks on the encampment have been ongoing for several days and have been done primarily by middle-aged adults against young college students. Zionist instigators such as boxing gym owner David Kaminsky have been documented spitting on protesters and yelling anti-Black slurs.

[https://twitter.com/JVPBayArea/status/1785591436936958144]

The day before the large scale assault on the encampment, many of the outside Zionist attackers attempted to breach the barricades. They used psychological tactics similar to those used in Gaza by the Israeli Army including blaring the sounds of babies crying over loud speakers, playing the Hatikvah (Israeli national anthem), Israeli children’s songs and more. The speakers were brought out during Tuesday night’s attack as well.

[https://twitter.com/PplsCityCouncil/status/1785549427819897162]

Just hours before the assault began, on the other side of the country, the New York Police Department carried out a massive violent operation to clear an occupied building at Columbia University, arresting an estimated 50 people along with bystanders outside.

[https://twitter.com/AJEnglish/status/1785584193738846396]

This movement has been excessively and violently repressed by militarized police forces. Over 1,000 college students and protesters have been arrested over the last two weeks in the United States.

___________________________________________________

The following statement was sent to media from a coalition of affinity groups at UCLA:

Communique from a group of autonomous UCLA students after Zionist attacks on night 6 of Palestinian Solidarity Encampment.

we are a coalition of autonomous affinity groups and frustrated security leadership members in the UCLA encampment dedicated to the Palestinian resistance.

we are inspired by the encampments all over the country and the UCLA camp specifically, and are honored to be in community building this space with our comrades. However, we are also frustrated with shit going down and hope to put this out for others who feel the same in the camp or students who feel similar in other encampments across the globe.

the following is just a few points we feel are important to express, especially following the zionist attacks on our camp, including but not limited to chemical weapons, explosive devices, and psychological terror aided and abetted by administration.

1. Against Leadership

we want to stress that we are attacking leadership as a concept, not individual leaders. While we appreciate and are inspired by SJP, JVP, etc. leadership we need to stress that we need to move past “leadership” and towards autonomy.

we have noticed a trend of the desire to appear peaceful for the media taking precedent over the right of protestors to self defense, mirroring the world’s response to Palestinians’ right to self defense in the face of blatant fascist attacks and eliminationist violence.

we cannot allow our resistance movement to demand obedience over safety in the same way as western imperialist forces against the colonized.

2. Abolition Begins in the Encampment

NO FUCKING PEACE POLICE. Advocating for non-violence while we are actively under attack is bullshit.

we are not here to recreate the outside world in this encampment. We are here because we know a different world is possible, and are actively working towards it.

stressful situations lead to responses that are engrained in us, such as hierarchy and policing, but we can fight this.

think about in what ways we can work to dismantle the cops in our heads.

3. Fuck your Fire Code – Against Any Collaboration

anyone working with admin (fire marshalls, construction crews, etc.) are collaborating with cops and interacting with them puts us at risk.

it is one thing to keep up appearances of obedience when necessary and do what we want when the coast is clear, but actual collaboration is not an option.

in a post 9/11 amerikkka the use of “safety” as an excuse for increased policing should not be a tactic we fall for anymore.

the class nature of certain employees on campus does not necessarily make them our allies.

4. On Grace and Solidarity

Our position within this movement necessitates that we, as comrades, are in constant solidarity with each other even as we learn and grow.

for many of us, organizers included, this is our first radical direct action. People in this camp might not know things that people who are more experienced in direct action understand and we need to hold space to teach each other and make mistakes without vitriol or withdrawing our solidarity.

our petty differences and mistakes cannot be an excuse for us to not have each others backs in the face of violence and repression.

with these points being said, we want to stress the need to escalate for Gaza.

ALL POWER TO THE STUDENTS!
ALL POWER TO PALESTINE!

End of statement

_______________________

1 May 2024

Sourcce: unicornriot.ninja

By The Cradle

Israel has waged a multi-year campaign against the UN aid group for Palestinian refugees in hopes of eradicating the right of return.

22 Apr 2024 – Israel has failed to provide any evidence of its claims that employees of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) are members of “terrorist organizations,” according to an independent review led by former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna.

In January, Israel claimed without evidence that some UNRWA staff – until then the primary conduit of humanitarian aid into the besieged and bombed Gaza Strip – were members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and had participated in the Hamas-led attack on Israeli military bases and settlements on 7 October, known as Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.

The Israeli allegations promptly caused the US and other western nations to cut funding to UNRWA. This came amid reports from rights groups that Israel was using starvation as a weapon against the 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza.

The Guardian reported on 22 April that the “Colonna report,” which was commissioned by the UN in the wake of Israeli allegations, found that UNRWA had regularly supplied Israel with lists of its employees for vetting, and that “the Israeli government has not informed UNRWA of any concerns relating to any UNRWA staff based on these staff lists since 2011.”

The Guardian added that most donor nations have resumed their funding in recent weeks. However, UK ministers had said they would wait for the Colonna report to decide whether to resume funding. The US Congress has since banned any future financial support of UNRWA.

The Colonna review was drafted with the help of three Nordic research institutes and will be published later on Monday.

It confirms that Israel has yet to provide any evidence of its claims.

It notes that in March, “Israel made public claims that a significant number of Unrwa employees are members of terrorist organizations.”

“However, Israel has yet to provide supporting evidence of this,” the report says.

The Colonna review makes clear that UNRWA is “indispensable” to Palestinians across the region.

“In the absence of a political solution between Israel and the Palestinians, UNRWA remains pivotal in providing life-saving humanitarian aid and essential social services, particularly in health and education, to Palestinian refugees in Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and the West Bank,” the review says.

“As such, UNRWA is irreplaceable and indispensable to Palestinians’ human and economic development. In addition, many view UNRWA as a humanitarian lifeline.”

The report added that “UNRWA has established a significant number of mechanisms and procedures to ensure compliance with the humanitarian principles, with emphasis on the principle of neutrality and that it possesses a more developed approach to neutrality than other similar UN or NGO entities.”

The three Nordic research institutes—the Swedish-based Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, the Norwegian Chr Michelsen Institute, and the Danish Institute for Human Rights—sent the UN a more detailed assessment of the Israeli allegations against UNRWA.

The assessment refuted Israeli claims that Palestinian children are taught antisemitic content in UNRWA-run schools, which use Palestinian Authority (PA) textbooks.

“Three international assessments of PA textbooks in recent years have provided a nuanced picture,” the assessment says. “Two identified presence of bias and antagonistic content, but did not provide evidence of antisemitic content. The third assessment, by the [German-based] Georg Eckert Institute, studied 156 PA textbooks and identified two examples that it found to display antisemitic motifs but noted that one of them had already been removed, the other has been altered.”

As The Cradle’s William Van Wagenen reported in February, Israel’s evidence-free allegations against UNRWA are part of a multi-year campaign to dismantle the agency that began before 7 October. Israel wishes to deprive Palestinian refugees of lifesaving assistance and to eradicate the notion that they will one day return to the lands they were expelled from by Zionist militias in 1948 when the state of Israel was created.

29 April 2024

Source: transcend.org

By Pepe Escobar

17 Apr 2014 – A Holy of the Holies was shattered in the Holy Land as Iran staged a quite measured, heavily choreographed response to the Israeli terror attack against its consulate/ambassador residence in Damascus, a de facto evisceration of the Vienna Convention on diplomatic immunity.

This game-changer will directly interfere on how the Anglo-American system manages its simultaneous conflagration with Russia, China and Iran – three top BRICS members.
The key problem is escalations are already built in – and will be hard to remove. The Total Cancel War against Russia; the genocide in Gaza – with its explicit policy masterfully decoded by Prof. Michael Hudson; and the decoupling/shaping the terrain against China won’t simply vanish – as all communication bridges with the Global Majority keep being torched. Yet the Iranian message indeed establishes a “New Equation” – as Tehran christened it, and prefigures many other surprises to come from West Asia. Iran wanted to – and did send – a clear message. New equation: if the biblical psychopathic entity keeps attacking Iranian interests, from henceforth it will be counter-attacked inside Israel. All that in a matter of “seconds” – as the Security Council in Tehran has already cleared all the procedures. Escalation though seems inevitable. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak: “Netanyahu is influenced by his [fundamentalist] political partners to go into an escalation so he can hold onto power and accelerate the coming of the Messiah.” Compare it to Iranian President Raisi: “The smallest act against Tehran’s interests will be met with a massive, extensive, and painful response against all its operations.”

Infographics: Iran’s Operation ‘True Promise’ Launched on Israel 14 April, 12:58 GMT

Goodbye to Your ‘Invincible’ Defense Maze

For Tehran, regulating the intensity of the clash in West Asia between Israel and the Axis of Resistance while simultaneously establishing strategic deterrence to replace “strategic patience” was a matter of launching a triple wave: a drone swarm opening the path for cruise missiles and ballistic missiles.
The performance of the much-vaunted Iron Dome, Arrow-3 and David’s Sling – aided by F-35 fighter jets and the US and the UK naval force – was not exactly stellar. There’s no video of the “outer-layer” Arrow-3 system shooting down anything in space.
At least 9 ballistic missiles penetrated the dense Israeli defense network and hit the Nevatim and Ramon bases. Israel is absolutely mum on the fate of its Golan Heights intel installation – hit by cruise missiles.

Strike on Israel ‘Just a Slap in the Face’ Previewing Iran’s True Capabilities 14 April, 18:38 GMT

Amidst classic fog of war, it’s irrelevant whether Tehran launched hundreds or dozens of drones and missiles. Regardless of NATOstan media hype, what’s proven beyond the shadow of a doubt is that the supposedly “invincible” Israeli defense maze – ranging from US-made AD/ABM systems to Israeli knockoffs – is helpless in real war against a technologically advanced adversary.
What was accomplished by a single operation did raise quite a few professional eyebrows. Iran forced Israel to furiously deplete its stock of interceptors and spend at least $1.35 billion – while having its escalatory dominance and deterrence strategy completely shattered.
The psychological blow was even fiercer.
What if Iran had unleashed a series of strikes without a generous previous warning lasting several days? What if US, UK, France and – traitorous – Jordan were not ready for coordinated defense? (The – startling – fact they were all directly dispensing firepower on Tel Aviv’s behalf was not analyzed at all). What if Iran had hit serious industrial and infrastructural targets?

Establishing an Equation Without Disturbing a Pivot
TO CONTINUE READING Go to Original

29 April 2024

Source: transcend.org

By Caitlin Johnstone

That’s how crazy they need us to be to keep us supporting a globe-spanning empire that literally cannot exist without nonstop violence and tyranny.

25 Apr 2024 – All the frenzied shrieking about pro-Palestine protests at universities these last few days makes it clear that our civilization is so twisted and insane that it sees protesting a genocide as far worse than committing one. Which is about as backwards as any society could possibly be.

Seriously, try to imagine a crazier, more upside-down civilization than one which gets more angry at people protesting genocidal atrocities than it does at people committing them. A civilization where people wear their pants on their head and walk backwards all day? That would be less crazy. A civilization where the dogs own the people and the children go to work while the parents go to school? That would be less crazy.

It’s as wrong as you can possibly get anything in this world. It’s actually hard to imagine how anyone could get anything more wrong. If you’ve accepted daily massacres of innocent civilians as the baseline normal and appropriate thing, and regard any opposition to this as a freakish and evil abomination, then you’re as screwed up and confused about reality as any other stark raving lunatic in town. Maybe worse.

To view nonstop mass military slaughter as moral and opposition thereto as immoral is to live in a mental moral universe that has been flipped on its head. It’s to inhabit a reality tunnel that has become completely divorced from reality. But that’s the kind of mainstream worldview that the political-media class in this society are working to indoctrinate us into day in and day out throughout our entire lives.

I just saw a tweet from the commentator Briahna Joy Gray saying that in order to find any mention in The New York Times of the hundreds of Palestinians in mass graves that are being discovered in Gaza, she had to scroll past no fewer than four stories about pro-Palestine protests on college campuses — including two op-eds which criticized the protesters.

What kind of warped, fucked up dystopia is this where that’s the kind of mainstream news outlet people are getting their information and ideas from? Our entire civilization is saturated with reality-distorting propaganda like this, and it’s making people insane. It’s got our moral compasses flipped 180 degrees from our true north, and our inner sensemaker tuning in to frequencies of nothing but garbled static.

That’s how crazy they need us to be to keep us supporting a globe-spanning empire that literally cannot exist without nonstop violence and tyranny. They need us thinking up is down and black is white. They need us not just unable to tell the difference between right and wrong, but actually believing that wrong is right and right is wrong. So they pound our collective consciousness day in and day out with extremely aggressive psyops in the form of mass media propaganda to ensure that our insides are scrambled around enough to consent to the amount of depravity necessary for our rulers to continue dominating this planet.

This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal, as Aaron Bushnell said moments before lighting himself on fire in protest of the genocide in Gaza. A society where mass graves get less media attention than university protesters. A society where more political firepower is going into stopping pro-Palestine demonstrations on college campuses than ending Israel’s murderous assault on an enclosed enclave packed full of children. A society where trying to stop a genocide is considered evil, and committing one is considered good.

29 April 2024

Source: transcend.org

By Oren Ziv

Armed Israeli settlers raided more than a dozen Palestinian communities under the army’s guard, leaving a trail of death and destruction in their wake.

18 Apr 2024 – Israeli settlers embarked on a murderous rampage across the occupied West Bank over the weekend, killing at least three Palestinians and destroying property in more than a dozen villages and towns. The immediate trigger for the attacks was the disappearance on Friday, April 12 of Binyamin Ahimeir, a 14-year-old Israeli who went out shepherding that morning from the recently “legalized” Malachei HaShalom (“Angels of Peace”) outpost. By the time Israeli authorities found Ahimeir’s body the following day and declared him a terror victim, the settlers’ rampage through the surrounding Palestinian communities was already in full swing.

According to the human rights group Yesh Din, Israeli settlers attacked 11 Palestinian villages and towns on Saturday alone. They threw stones, set fire to more than 100 vehicles, damaged scores of homes and businesses, and slaughtered hundreds of livestock. In the village of Beitin, near Ramallah, settlers shot dead 17-year-old Omar Hamed. In Al-Mughayyir, slightly further north, 25-year-old Jihad Abu Aliya was killed in circumstances that are still somewhat unclear: settlers were attacking the village at the time, but the Israeli army stated that Abu Aliya was killed by their fire. Another incident captured on a security camera shows Israeli soldiers standing guard while settlers set fire to a car in the town of Deir Dibwan, also near Ramallah.

The pogroms continued into Monday, when Israeli settlers shot dead two Palestinian shepherds — Abdelrahman Bani Fadel, 30, and Mohammed Ashraf Bani Jama, 21 — on land belonging to the community of Khirbet al-Tawil, east of the town of Aqraba near Nablus. According to testimonies from villagers, a large group of settlers, some of them armed, entered privately-owned Palestinian land near the residents’ homes at around 4 p.m. with a herd of cows (settlers are increasingly choosing to herd cows over sheep and goats because they eat more and are harder to frighten). Later, more settlers arrived, some of them armed and masked. Soldiers also arrived on the scene.

Shortly thereafter, according to eyewitnesses, in broad daylight, settlers opened fire on the Palestinians, killing the two men. The IDF Spokesperson subsequently announced that the shooting had not been carried out by soldiers. The event was live streamed on the Facebook page of the adjacent Palestinian town; in the video, dozens of shots can be heard ringing out in several clusters for more than a minute.

Nidal, whose cousin, Abdelrahman, was killed yesterday and who was present at the scene, told +972: “I told the soldiers to push the settlers out and we’ll leave. Some had weapons and clubs, some were masked.” According to Nidal, one of the settlers then pepper sprayed one of the Palestinians, and a brawl ensued. “The soldiers fired in the air, and seconds later the settlers fired M16s from up close,” he said. “I’ve lived here for 35 years — there’s no law here. The settlers are above the law.”

For now, it appears that the Israeli authorities are taking the incident seriously: the military did not allow the bodies to be evacuated, transferring them instead to the National Center of Forensic Medicine for autopsy, which theoretically could enable the police to identify the shooters. On Tuesday morning, officers from the police’s Forensic Science Unit were seen at the scene of the shooting, collecting evidence and photographing the area.

The chances of a violent settler being brought to justice under Israeli law, however, are extremely low: since 2005, only 3 percent of Israeli police files opened regarding settler violence ended in conviction. In response to our request for comment, police told +972 that no arrests have been made so far in connection with the incident.

‘The soldiers stood by and didn’t intervene’

In the mourning tent in the center of Aqraba on Tuesday, Maher Bani Fadel, father of Abdelrahman, recounted the incident to +972. “At first, they came — four settlers with their cattle — and went into the olive grove near the houses,” he said. “They called for more settlers: a few dozen came, and they threw stones at us. There were about 20 of us, and four or five soldiers were present. The settlers fired live ammunition at us, maybe 30-40 bullets, from a few meters away. A lot of them had weapons; I don’t know which ones fired. It’s a new weapon they received from [Israeli National Security Minister Itamar] Ben Gvir.

“When the army saw the two dead bodies, they started separating [the settlers and the Palestinians],” Maher continued, adding that he was hit with a club and a stone during the incident. Before the shooting, “we told [the settlers] they weren’t allowed to be here. They said the government gave them permission, but it’s land belonging to our parents and grandparents.”

The mayor of Aqraba, Saleh Jaber, who arrived at the scene before the shooting, told +972: “Residents called me, saying there was a [settler’s] herd of cattle near the houses. We contacted the Civil Administration [the bureaucratic arm of the Israeli occupation] but the police came only after the killing.”

The IDF Spokesperson announced after the incident that soldiers had arrived in the area after reports of an attack by Palestinians on a Jewish shepherd. Jaber rejects this characterization of events, clarifying that it was settlers who initiated the attack. “It’s not true that the shepherds attacked,” he said. “I was there and there was no attack by the shepherds. The settlers who fired were dressed in civilian clothes and armed with M16s. The soldiers first fired in the air and then settlers fired [at the Palestinians]. The soldiers stood by and didn’t intervene.”

About a month ago, Israeli soldiers shot dead the Palestinian shepherd Fakher Jaber, 43, in the same area. According to a testimony published by Haaretz, Jaber was sitting under a tree when he was shot. Then, too, the IDF Spokesperson claimed that the army arrived at the scene following a report of an attack on a settler.

Dror Etkes, a researcher with the organization Kerem Navot which closely monitors Israel’s takeover of Palestinian land in the West Bank, confirmed that the attack took place on private Palestinian land. In recent years, two settler outposts have been encroaching on Palestinian land in the area: “Jackson’s Farm,” near the settlement of Gitit, and “Itamar Cohen’s Farm,” to the north. “The settlements, outposts, firing zones, and declarations of state land are closing in on Aqraba and the communities in the area from three directions,” Etkes told +972. “They have a lot of fertile land, so they have become a target for plunder.”

Last month, the state declared 8,160 dunams (around 2,000 acres) of land in Aqraba as “state land,” not including the land where the two shepherds were shot on Monday. According to Jaber, the takeover of Palestinian land in the area has accelerated under Israel’s far-right government. “Their goal is to take over all the land in the Jordan Valley,” he said. “What happened [on Monday] is the direct result of settler harassment and land expropriation.”

‘The settlers came back five times’

Another Palestinian town hit badly by settler attacks on Saturday was Duma. According to residents who spoke to +972, around 200 settlers — many of them masked, and some of them armed — raided the town shortly after the body of the teenager Ahimeir was found. They set fire to homes, cars, and farm equipment, and attacked residents. Soldiers were also present, as seen in videos from the incident, and even fired tear gas at Palestinians who tried to repel the settlers.

“If they weren’t masked, I might have recognized them,” Murad Dawabsheh, a 52-year-old father of five, said of the settlers who attacked his home on Saturday; before October 7, he worked as a construction worker in one of the nearby settlements. Speaking to +972 on Sunday, he sat in front of his burned garden offering visiting well-wishers some of the ful that he managed to salvage from the blackened plants.

In addition to the garden, settlers burned to the ground a small building next to his house which served as an office and storage room, as well as a warehouse containing wooden construction planks worth thousands of shekels. The attackers also tried to set fire to the front door of the house using clothes and shoes that they’d found nearby. “There were soldiers with them,” Murad recounted. “When I saw them coming, I went into the house. Later, I opened the door for a moment, poured water and pushed the burning clothes away with my foot. The settlers came back five times.”

In his former office, settlers set alight many books, including religious books and poetry. “This is my archive,” he lamented. “Who burns books? I understand Hebrew, I heard them telling each other to burn down the gray house [the main building where Dawabsheh’s family was hiding]. I didn’t have time to be afraid for myself, I was afraid for my wife and children.”

The head of the town council, Hussein Dawabsheh, told +972 that according to initial information, three agricultural buildings and seven houses were partially burned during the attack, and five houses were burned completely. Fifteen vehicles, an excavator and three tractors, farmland, and olive trees were also set ablaze.

“We are all in danger when the army enters with the settlers,” he said. “The settlers walked in a large group. The older ones gave instructions to the younger ones — where to go and what to burn.” According to Hussein, the military prevented fire trucks and ambulances from entering the village during the attack.

‘If residents hadn’t fled, entire families would have burned’

Most of the damage in the attack on Duma was in the Khalat al-Dara neighborhood, located parallel to the Alon Road which connects the Ramallah area to the Jordan Valley. On Sunday, Mohammed Salawdeh stood in his workshop and appraised the extensive damage. Here, as in other houses, piles of straw and twigs could be seen in different corners of the house — evidence of the settlers’ attempts to set fire to the building.

When the attack began, Salawdeh fled to another house in a safer, more central part of the village. “On the way, we saw armed people — some with bottles of gasoline and Molotov cocktails, some in military uniforms — guarded by the army. If someone tried to defend [the village], they shot him.”

A few meters away from Mohammed’s house stands the charred remains of the home of his relative, Anwar Salawdeh. The elegant house, which 27-year-old Anwar had only recently finished building and furnishing, was set on fire by settlers on Saturday, causing severe damage.

“I left school to work at the age of 13, and saved up since then until I could build a house,” Anwar told +972, his voice muted. “At the time of the attack, I was working in Anata [a Palestinian town near Jerusalem]; I only came back today.” The cost of building the house, he said, was about NIS 150,000 (around $40,000). “I have another NIS 100,000 in loans. I started building the house in 2020 and finished this year with the intention of getting married and living here,” Anwar continued, showing me photos of the house before it was destroyed.

Elsewhere in the neighborhood, Mohammed Rashid Dawabsheh stayed to protect his home during the attack after his wife Abir fled in a car with their four children and another relative toward the town center when the settlers arrived. “When I was in the car, I saw a settler dressed in black opening fire,” Abir told +972. The lower apartment in the building, which was recently renovated, sustained extensive damage: windows were shattered, and the stones that the settlers threw and the wooden beams they shoved into the broken windows to push burning straw inside were still visible.

During the attack, Mohammed hid in the building’s stairwell and, with a wooden beam, blocked the door. “I heard them say, ‘Open up you son of a bitch.’ I hid there, then went up to the roof and hid behind a closet.”

According to Mohammed, four Israeli military jeeps were positioned outside the house, from where they fired teargas at the residents who tried to protect themselves and their property. On Sunday, many tear gas canisters could be seen scattered around the site.

“Three minutes after my family fled, [the soldiers] came here. After many minutes, the settlers continued on and some of the army stayed here. The soldiers opened the way for the settlers and let them attack.” On the road near his home, there was still a stone barrier set up by settlers “so that ambulances and assistance couldn’t arrive,” Mohammed added.

The village of Duma made headlines in Israel and around the world in 2015 after an Israeli settler, Amiram Ben Uliel, set fire to the home of Sa’ad and Riham Dawabsheh, killing them together with their 18-month-old son, Ali. Ahmad, Sa’ad’s brother, suffered severe burns in the attack. Since then, there haven’t been attacks of this magnitude in the village, and Saturday pogrom evoked traumatic memories.

“Of course it reminds us of what happened to the Dawabsheh family,” Mohammed Dawabshe said. His house, like many others in the village, has a thick mesh covering the windows to make it impossible to insert burning objects — a lesson learned from 2015. “There is no security, neither on the roads nor at home,” the council leader added. “If the residents hadn’t fled, entire families would have been burned in their homes.”

In a statement to +972, an Israeli army spokesperson said of the soldiers’ presence in the village: “On Saturday, IDF forces operated throughout Judea and Samaria in order to disperse the friction that developed in the area, and to protect property and the lives of all civilians. Any complaint received about inappropriate conduct by IDF soldiers will be examined as is customary and dealt with accordingly.”

+972 contacted the police for comment on whether any suspects in the attacks on Duma and other villages over the weekend have been arrested; their response will be added as and when it is received.

Oren Ziv is a photojournalist, reporter for Local Call, and a founding member of the Activestills photography collective.

29 April 2024

Source: transcend.org

By Craig Murray

“The author has no doubt the Western political elite are complicit in the genocide of Palestinians at a much deeper level than the people have yet understood.

26 Apr 2024 – Governments cannot take big decisions extremely quickly except in the most extreme of circumstances.

There are mechanisms in all states that consider policy decisions, weigh them up, involve the various departments of the state whose activities are affected by that decision, and arrive at a conclusion, though not necessarily a good one.

The decision to stop aid funding to UNRWA, the specialized U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians, was not taken by numerous Western states in a single day.

In the U.K., several different government ministries had to coordinate.

Even within only a single ministry, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO,), views would have to be coordinated through written submissions and interdepartmental meetings between the departments dealing with the Middle East, with the United Nations, with the United States, with Europe and then of course between the diplomatic and development wings of the ministry.

That process would include seeking the views of British ambassadors to Tel Aviv, Doha, Cairo, Riyadh, Istanbul and Washington and to the United Nations in Geneva and in New York.

It is not necessarily a lengthy process but it is not a day’s work, and nor would it need to be. There was no practical impact to making the announcement of cutting UNRWA funding a day sooner or a day later.

Consider that the parallel process had to be completed in the United States, in Canada, in Germany, in Australia and in all the other Western powers that contributed to starvation in Gaza by cutting aid to UNRWA.

All of these countries had to go through their procedures, and it could only be by prior coordination – weeks in advance – between these states that they announced all on the same day the destruction of the life support system for Palestinians, then in absolute need.

And then consider that we now know for certain that the Israelis had produced no evidence whatsoever of UNRWA complicity in Hamas resistance, on which these decisions in all those states were allegedly based.

I have no doubt at all that the Western political elite, paid tools of the zionist machine, are complicit in the genocide of Palestinians and ethnic cleansing of Gaza at a much deeper level than the people have yet understood.

The refusal by Labour leader Keir Starmer and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to contemplate ending arms sales and military support to Israel is not due to inertia or concern for the arms industry. It is that they actively support the destruction of the Palestinians.

Within an Hour

The coordinated decision of the Western nations to fast track famine by stopping UNRWA funding was announced within an hour of the ICJ ruling that Gazans were at immediate risk of genocide, driving from the headlines that adverse ruling against Israel.

This sent the clearest signal in response that the Western powers would not be stopped from genocide by international law or institutions.

The Western powers give not a fig for 16,000 massacred Palestinian infants. No evidence of mass graves in hospitals will move them. They knew genocide was happening and continued actively to arm and abet it.

This genocide is the desired goal of the West. No other explanation is remotely plausible.

I have never believed the spin that Joe Biden is trying to restrain Benjamin Netanyahu, while simultaneously arming and funding Netanyahu and using U.S. forces to fight alongside him.

Biden is making no effort to restrain Netanyahu. Biden fully supports the genocide.

My reading of this was reinforced when I was looking back at the Israeli murders on the Mavi Mamara in 2010, when they killed ten unarmed aid workers attempting a Freedom Flotilla aid delivery to Gaza.

Israel’s actions were clearly both murderous and in breach of international law. Biden as vice president defended Israel staunchly then.  It is essential to understand that Genocide Joe has always been Genocide Joe. I wrote:

“Joe Biden took the lead in defending the raid to the U.S. public. In an interview with PBS, he described the raid as ‘legitimate’ and argued that the flotilla organizers could have disembarked elsewhere before transferring the aid to Gaza.

‘So what’s the big deal here? What’s the big deal of insisting it go straight to Gaza?’ Biden asked about the humanitarian mission. ‘Well, it’s legitimate for Israel to say, ‘I don’t know what’s on that ship. These guys are dropping eight — 3,000 rockets on my people.’”

Biden is not being outplayed by Netanyahu. He is actively abetting Netanyahu and shares with him the objective of full Israeli occupation of Gaza after the Palestinian people are killed or expelled into Sinai.

He also shares with Netanyahu the aim of a wider regional conflict in which the U.S. and Gulf states ally with Israel against Iran, Syria, Yemen and Hezbollah. This is their joint vision of the Middle East – Greater Israel, and U.S. hegemony operating through the Sunni monarchies.

“This genocide is the desired goal of the West. No other explanation is remotely plausible.”

If you believe all the spin from the White House about Biden trying to restrain Netanyahu, I suggest you look instead at the White House and State Department spokesmen refusing to accept any single instance of Israeli atrocity and deferring to Israel on every single crime.

I am currently in Pakistan, and I must say it has been a great refreshment to be in a country where everybody understands why ISIS, Al Nusra etc. never attacked Israeli interests, and sees precisely what Western governments are doing over Gaza. What is understood by developing nations is thankfully understood by Gen Z in the West as well.

The Arab regimes of the Gulf and Jordan are dependent upon Israeli and U.S. security services and surveillance for protection from their own people.

The lack of really massive street protest against their own regimes by Arab peoples is a direct testimony to the effectiveness of that vicious repression, particularly when states like Jordan actually fight alongside Israel against Iranian weapons.

The anti-Iranian card is of course the trick both Biden and Netanyahu have left to play. By promoting an escalation with Iran, Western politicians were able to default to a position of claiming the case for arming Israel was proven – and I think were genuinely perplexed to find the public did not buy it.

The political class, across the Western world and the Arab world, is utterly divorced from its people over Gaza.

We are seeing worldwide repression, as peaceful conferences are stormed by police in Germany, students are beaten by police on American campuses, and in the U.K. old white people like me suffer the kind of continual harassment long suffered by young Muslim men.

This is not the work of Netanyahu operating as a rogue. It is the result of the machinations of a professional political class across the Western world welded to zionism, with the supremacy of Israel as an article of fundamental belief.

Times are not this dark by accident. They were designed to be this dark.

Craig Murray is an author, broadcaster and human rights activist.

29 April 2024

Source: transcend.org

By Peter Koenig

22 Apr 2024 – Brutality, atrocity no end.

Horrendous indiscriminate firebombing of Gaza’s southernmost city, Rafah.

We know Netanyahu does not move a finger without Washington’s OK.

This was clearly proven by the benign counterattack on Iran – to “retaliate” against Iran’s 14 April “checkmate” (Scott Ritter) retaliatory attack on Israel. Retaliating against Israel’s blowing up Iran’s Consulate in Damascus on 1 April and killing seven Iranians, including two military officers.

President Biden demanded Netanyahu not to risk a large-scale war, to be soft with his retaliation.

By contrast, Biden must have given Netanyahu green light to do away with Rafah, where currently more than a million Palestinians are stranded – bombed from the North of Gaza to the southern tip, Rafah, the locked gate to Egypt.

See this 12-second video. It shows the horror these people must go through. No idea how many will be killed. Its extermination of an entire people – mandated by the Zionists in charge of the US of A and all the puppets in Europe.

[https://twitter.com/BRICSinfo/status/1782090165957095478]

This is way beyond shame – beyond crime, beyond evil – this crime inflicted by Zionist-Israel green-lighted by Washington and its Brussels vassals must be brought to justice. This, and the more than 75 years of “ethnic cleansing”, indiscriminate, never punished killing of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

The Open Prison Zionist-Israel has created of Gaza in 2008, closing all borders and militarily occupying the narrow strip of land at that time of 2.3 million people – no access to media, no access to witnesses – murders, tortures, indescribable atrocities committed, a Holocaust in hiding, of which occasional evidence leaked out.

Then the well-planned – at least three years ahead – Hamas assault of 7 October 2023 on Israel – organized between Zionist-Irael, the US, and UK Secret Services. The attack is now blamed on Hamas. Let us be clear, Hamas is a creation, including funding, by Zionist-Israel.

The purpose, partly to be a “terrorist” (Israel and the West) counterweight to the legitimate Palestinian Authority, partly, to have at any time a legit cause for a “false flag” – exactly as the world witnessed on 7 October.

Israel’s Defense Forces (IDF) reported that in the first hours of the Hamas attack, 1,200 Israelis were killed and more than 200 taken hostage. There is no proof for either claim. Yet, it is repeated ad nauseam even by the non-mainstream media, as if it were the truth.

There are Israeli witness accounts that the IDF was shooting and killing Israeli youth, participating in the Supernova Music Festival in the Negev desert, about five kilometers from the Gaza border on 7 October. The blame for murdering innocent party-goers was put on Hamas.

*

This “final” assault on Rafah was announced for weeks by Netanyahu – but he needed to wait for approval of the Zionists commanding Washington.

What will happen to the survivors? Will Israel eventually open the gate to the Sinai Desert, where Egypt, in connivance with Netanyahu and possibly co-paid by Israel, has already built tent cities to accommodate at least some of the Palestinian refugees, never to return to their home land? How long and how many will survive, without adequate food and water, and sanitary facilities, health services?

It looks like the final straw of a well-planned extermination of the Palestinian people, to illegally appropriate their land, and the tremendous gas resources offshore of Gaza, conservatively estimated already more than 20 years ago at a trillion cubic feet. An updated assessment might be exponentially higher. But under the circumstances nobody talks or writes about it.

The illegal creation of Israel dates back at least to the Balfour Declaration of 1917 during WWI. At that time Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire with a small Jewish population, living in peace together with the Palestinian majority.

The Balfour Declaration was contained in a letter dated 2 November 1917 from the United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lord Rothschild, leader of the British Jewish Community, for transmission to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland (Wikipedia).

This declaration served the British Government to propose to the United Nations in 1948, the creation of the State of Israel on the Palestine territory. This was illegal as Ottoman-occupied territories became free sovereign nations after WWI, including Palestine. The Mandate to the young, only 52-member strong United Nations in 1948 was illegal. See this “Israel Is an Illegal State”. Dr. Ralph Wilde at the ICJ (videos of ICJ court sessions of 2h 42min and Dr. Wilde’s Plaidoyer 26 min – 29 February 2024).

*

How much longer will the world stand by – or worse encourage this horror show? Make no mistake, not about the people of the world, we are strictly talking about the so-called leaders (sic) of the Western world – most of them were never really democratically elected, but put in their positions with legislative trickery from a selection of the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Academy for Young Global Leaders (YGL).  

On more than one occasion, Klaus Schwab, the WEF’s CEO, boasted about being proud having been able to infiltrate YGLs in governments throughout the world. These so-called Western leaders, they appear to be non-humans, bred by the non-human WEF which is supported and funded by Big Capital, including BlackRock / Vanguard, plus an inter-mingled crop of top Wall Street Financiers. 

How long will the West, especially the European people, stand by such unelected tyrants, like Ms. Von der Leyen, named President of the EU and the WEF appointed puppets, such as Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz and Rishi Sunak? 

The Rafah onslaught may be another nail in Zionist-Israel’s coffin, from which a free Palestine may emerge. May Palestinians return to their old-new sovereign Palestine homeland.

Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world.

29 April 2024

Source: transcend.org

By Mahboob A. Khawaja

Palestinains in Search of Global Humanity!

25 Apr 2024 – Once a people or a nation colonized by European imperialists, it remains colonized and subjugated by the Masters forever. The contemporary oil-producing Arab world represents that historic reality. The Israeli planned onslaught on Gaza for over six months and its catastrophic consequences of crimes against humanity and alleged genocide – all have imprints of complicity of modern Arab -Muslim leaders. Why have the learned and scholars (“Ulema”) and imams not spoken against the inept leaders and tyrants of the Arab-Muslim world? Does it signals the end of the Arab-Muslim failed leadership to protect the besieged people of Gaza?

Are the global institutions of peace, security and conflict management fast becoming obsolete in a real crisis situation? And global humanity is captive of the US-Israel’s intransigence and plans never experienced in history. Why should the global community allow arbitrary terror of killing and expulsion of 2.5 million people of Gaza? Philip Giraldi (Global Research: 2/21/24), “The United States Vetoes Yet Another UN Humanitarian Ceasefire Over Gaza” …. several interesting developments relating to Israel’s ongoing destruction of Gaza and its people, but one might well question the motives of at least one of the principal players in the drama, namely Joe Biden’s United States Government.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/united-states-vetoes-another-un-humanitarian-ceasefire-gaza/5850155:

How the War Dehumanized the Arab-Muslim World? The Arab-Muslim world is a world of bewildered fantasy – no strength, no power to think intelligently,no policies to defend Islam, dubious spectators watching Western military actions-reactions to assign a finished answer to the Palestinian movement for national freedom. If the people of Palestine had white anglo-saxon ethnicity like the Ukranians or the EU, the US-West European leaders would have rushed to help the victims and bomb the aggressor. Even drinking water, medicines, foods, shelters and clean oxygen are not allowed by the Israeli occupation forces. What is next after another inexplicable shocking cataclysm in the making seen on the political horizon?

Were Ancient Warriors More Civilized and Humane than Israel and the US?

Those bombing and destroying the Earth and its life cycle are not normal human beings. Were the ancient people of stone-age more intelligent and responsible for not having destroyed the earth and environment in wars and kept mankind in safety and unity? They fought but protected the environment and kept human races in tact.

American supplied weaponry massacred more than 34,500 innocent people of Gaza, 14,000 children, 9,500 women; and Israel bombed and destroyed the habitats and its citizens for no other reason except intransigence and animosity against Arabs and Muslims.The Earth belongs to all humanity and is a living entity and rotates itself at a speed of 1000 miles per hour at equator and orbits Sun at average speed of 67062 MPH. Earth is a trust to humanity and trust includes accountability. The Earth sustains all forms of living things(known and unknown), the essential foundation of our very existence. Pathologically wicked leaders and nations claiming to be most powerful start acting like God to challenge the sanctity and limits of the Laws of God; historically, they become an object of unthinkable natural calamities- earthquakes, wildfires, floods, deaths and destruction. “Say! Travel through the earth; And see what was the end of those who rejected Truth.” spell out the annals of human history. Those bombing and causing catastrophic events to destroy the planet Earth and mankind and all of its treasures and enrichments are not normal human beings.

There are No Arab-Muslim Leaders to Protect People of Gaza and Palestine

Steven Cook (“Arab Countries Have Israel’s Back—for Their Own Sake.” Foreign Policy: 4/18/24) explains that “Last weekend’s security cooperation in the Middle East doesn’t indicate a new future for the region.” Historically, wicked and aggressive people enjoin friendship and apathy for vicious plans against mankind. President Joe Biden pretended to support the Two States solution in the Middle East. He turned out to be an  imposter when vetoed Palestine full membership at the UNSC. Israelis friendly Arab leaders of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar and others were silent spectators, not challenging the wicked actions professed by the US diplomacy. They were submissive to the Master, not safeguarding the interest of their own people. Many Arab leaders including the Saudi and the UAE princes have investments in Israel via Jared Kushner- son-in-law of Donald Trump. America and Israel view all the Arab States as vulnerable to besiegement and political supremacy. Several centuries earlier, the Arabs were described as:

“Thus have We made of you An Ummah justly balanced,that ye might be witnesses over other nations……to Those guided by God. (Quran: 2: 143)

Living in the fantasy of time and power, Arab-Muslim states have no armies or leaders to protect the on-going civilians bloodbath in Gaza and the national interest of Palestine.America and Israel have working plans to conquer more Arab lands -Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia and others to resettle the Palestinians and put a finished answer on Palestine as a future State. Would the Arab-Muslim leaders rethink outside the imperial box to plan for a navigational change in relationships with the US and its military hegemony? The time, history and future generations of conscientious people will curse the so-called tribal agents for their wickedness and greed to be kings and queens and princes and nothing else to make their presence in the global arena of emerging conflicts. Please see: “How Did Arab Leaders Betrayed Islam and Defied the Logic of Political Change, Peace and Security.” 

https://www.uncommonthought.com/mtblog/archives/2023/10/07/how-did-arab-leaders-betrayed-islam-and defied-the-logic-of-political-change-peace-and-security.php

While the Arab leaders make melodramatic and misleading claims of security and peace with Israel and the West, the region is a highly militarized and destabilized landscape of continuous conflicts. To subdue and humiliate the “camel jockeys” of the oil producing Arab world, now the US exports wars, weapons and poisonous thoughts to divide and conquer the Arabian Peninsula.To change the future, America and Israel needed a just and a strong political challenge to stop the war on Gaza but it was nowhere to be seen on the Arabian leadership horizon. For too long, Arab leaders breathe oxygen in moral and intellectual decadence and a delusional fantasy of oil-run economic prosperity. Israeli and the US strategic plans are working, while the Arab-Muslim leaders never thought of proactive critical thinking about the future except transitory oil-fed happiness and sports and erecting hi-rise buildings defying conventional wisdom.

 Would the current so called Arabian princes, kings and ameers be phased-out by the new young conscientious generations of political activists? The time and opportunities call for new Arab leadership of educated and honest people, rethinking and new ideas to reject violence and vengeance as contrary to the nature of humanity, peace and intellect. To avoid most dreadful tragedies in the making, the new educated and responsible generations of Arab-Muslim leaders would reject tyranny of war as a means to solve political problems and take a firm stand with moral and intellectual strength to persuasive communication and dialogue for peace, security and conflict resolution.

Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in international affairs-global security, peace and conflict resolution and has spent several academic years across the Russian-Ukrainian and Central Asian regions knowing the people, diverse cultures of thinking and political governance and a keen interest in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications including the latest: One Humanity and the Remaking of Global Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution, Dec 2019.

29 April 2024

Source: transcend.org

By Bharat Dogra

22 Apr 2024 – Cuba provides an inspiring example of a very small country whose doctors have reached some of the most difficult areas of human distress and disasters to provide their medical services to people who needed them the most. US President Barack Obama said—

“No one should deny the service that thousands of Cuban doctors have delivered for the poor suffering people.”

What is the reward that Cuba gets for this service? Often its people cannot get essential services and medical equipment. This is due to the embargo against Cuba imposed by the USA for over six decades.

In addition Cubans face problems in getting food, meeting other basic needs and trading with other countries, despite trade being integral to the development needs of this island nation. The UN Economic Commission for Latin America estimated embargo costs for Cuba at 130 billion dollars, or about 2 billion dollars per year. Other estimates mention a higher figure.

Don’t ask for any credible reasons to explain why the USA has done this because none exists. Have you ever seen a bully tormenting a small child? The bully does not have to give any reasons, he does what he is doing because he can go on doing this.

The only hopeful time for Cuba during these long decades was when President Obama removed many restrictions and initiated cooperation activities instead, giving very encouraging results. But this period lasted only for a short while, and President Trump made things worse by introducing terror sponsor charges as well against the country, without any evidence of course.

Such charges, which were first brought in during the tenure of Ronald Reagan, ignore the well-known fact that it is the Cubans who have been at the receiving end of several terror attacks launched by Cuban exiles from US territory and often with help from US sources, including the CIA. One of these attacks led to the death of 73 air travelers. Cuban hotels with tourists living there have also been attacked. There were several attacks on the Cuban President Fidel Castro to try to assassinate or harm him.

After the success of the Cuban revolution led by Castro which brought many equality and justice-based changes in Cuba, the USA embarked on a policy of disrupting Cuban government and economy. This is how the aims of US policy were summarized by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, USA, Lester D. Mallory in 1960—

“Every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba…denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.”

When such a statement is made openly, is anything left to say regarding the glaring violation of all ethical considerations in US policies towards Cuba?

The utter lack of ethics in US embargo policy is also evident from the consistent opposition to this policy by an overwhelming majority of countries as reflected in UN General Assembly annual voting on Cuba’s resolution condemning US embargo. During the last year this was supported by 187 member countries, opposed by only two (who else but USA and Israel) with one absentee (Ukraine). Hence there is almost universal opposition to US embargo (which is called blockade by the Cuban government) and this embargo with all its extensive sanctions should be lifted immediately. This is a clear example of an entirely avoidable humanitarian crisis which can end very easily merely by a bit of enlightened decision making on the part of the US authorities.

Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Planet in Peril, Protecting Earth for Children, A Day in 2071, and Earth without Borders.

29 April 2024

Source: transcend.org