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By Vijay Prashad

Across the Pacific, Indigenous communities lead a growing wave of sovereignty against ongoing legacies of Western colonialism in the region, from the assault on Māori rights in Aotearoa to the US and French military presence in wider Oceania.

For the past few weeks I have been on the road in Aotearoa (New Zealand) and Australia at the invitation of groups such as Te Kuaka, Red Ant, and the Communist Party of Australia. Both countries were shaped by British colonialism, marked by the violent displacement of native communities and theft of their lands. Today, as they become part of the US-led militarisation of the Pacific, their native populations have fought to defend their lands and way of life.

On 6 February 1840, Te Tiriti o Waitangi (the Treaty of Waitangi) was signed by representatives of the British Crown and the Māori groups of Aotearoa. The treaty (which has no point of comparison in Australia) claimed that it would ‘actively protect Māori in the use of their lands, fisheries, forests, and other treasured possessions’ and ‘ensure that both parties to [the treaty] would live together peacefully and develop New Zealand together in partnership’. While I was in Aotearoa, I learned that the new coalition government seeks to ‘reinterpret’ the Treaty of Waitangi in order to roll back protections for Māori families. This includes shrinking initiatives such as the Māori Health Authority (Te Aka Whai Ora) and programmes that promote the use of the Māori language (Te Reo Maori) in public institutions. The fight against these cutbacks has galvanised not only the Māori communities, but large sections of the population who do not want to live in a society that violates its treaties. When Aboriginal Australian Senator Lidia Thorpe disrupted the British monarch Charles’s visit to the country’s parliament last month, she echoed a sentiment that spreads across the Pacific, yelling, as she was dragged out by security: ‘You committed genocide against our people. Give us our land back! Give us what you stole from us – our bones, our skulls, our babies, our people. … We want a treaty in this country. … You are not my king. You are not our king’.

Walangkura Napanangka (Pintupi), Johnny Yungut’s Wife, Tjintjintjin, 2007.

With or without a treaty, both Aotearoa and Australia have seen a groundswell of sentiment for increased sovereignty across the islands of the Pacific, building on a centuries-long legacy. This wave of sovereignty has now begun to turn towards the shores of the massive US military build-up in the Pacific Ocean, which has its sights set on an illusionary threat from China. US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall, speaking at a September 2024 Air & Space Forces Association convention on China and the Indo-Pacific, represented this position well when he said ‘China is not a future threat. China is a threat today’. The evidence for this, Kendall said, is that China is building up its operational capacities to prevent the United States from projecting its power into the western Pacific Ocean region. For Kendall, the problem is not that China was a threat to other countries in East Asia and the South Pacific, but that it is preventing the US from playing a leading role in the region and surrounding waters – including those just outside of China’s territorial limits, where the US has conducted joint ‘freedom of navigation’ exercises with its allies. ‘I am not saying war in the Pacific is imminent or inevitable’, Kendall continued. ‘It is not. But I am saying that the likelihood is increasing and will continue to do so’.

George Parata Kiwara (Ngāti Porou and Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki), Jacinda’s Plan, 2021.

In 1951, in the midst of the Chinese Revolution (1949) and the US war on Korea (1950–1953), senior US foreign policy advisor and later Secretary of State John Foster Dulles helped formulate several key treaties, such as the 1951 Australia, New Zealand, and United States Security (ANZUS) Treaty, which brought Australia and New Zealand firmly out of British influence and into the US’s war plans, and the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty, which ended the formal US occupation of Japan. These deals – part of the US’s aggressive strategy in the region – came alongside the US occupation of several island nations in the Pacific where the US had already established military facilities, including ports and airfields: Hawaii (since 1898), Guam (since 1898), and Samoa (since 1900). Out of this reality, which swept from Japan to Aotearoa, Dulles developed the ‘island chain strategy’, a so-called containment strategy that would establish a military presence on three ‘island chains’ extending outward from China to act as an aggressive perimeter and prevent any power other than the US from commanding the Pacific Ocean.

Over time, these three island chains became hardened strongholds for the projection of US power, with about four hundred bases in the region established to maintain US military assets from Alaska to southern Australia. Despite signing various treaties to demilitarise the region (such as the South Pacific Nuclear Free Treaty, also known as the Treaty of Rarotonga in 1986), the US has moved lethal military assets, including nuclear weapons, through the region for threat projection against China, North Korea, Russia, and Vietnam (at different times and with different intensity). This ‘island chain strategy’ includes military installations in French colonial outposts such as Wallis and Futuna, New Caledonia, and French Polynesia. The US also has military arrangements with the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau.

Christine Napanangka Michaels (Nyirripi), Lappi Lappi Jukurrpa (Lappi Lappi Dreaming), 2019.

While some of these Pacific Island nations are used as bases for US and French power projection against China, others have been used as nuclear test sites. Between 1946 and 1958, the US conducted sixty-seven nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands. One of them, conducted in Bikini Atoll, detonated a thermonuclear weapon a thousand times more powerful than the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Darlene Keju Johnson, who was only three years old at the time of the Bikini Atoll detonation and was one of the first Marshallese women to speak publicly about the nuclear testing in the islands, encapsulated the sentiment of the islanders in one of her speeches: ‘We don’t want our islands to be used to kill people. The bottom line is we want to live in peace’.

Jef Cablog (Cordillera), Stern II, 2021.

Yet, despite the resistance of people like Keju Johnson (who went on to become a director in the Marshall Islands Ministry of Health), the US has been ramping up its military activity in the Pacific over the past fifteen years, such as by refusing to close bases, opening new ones, and expanding others to increase their military capacity. In Australia – without any real public debate – the government decided to supplement US funding to expand the runway on Tindal Air Base in Darwin so that it could house US B-52 and B-1 bombers with nuclear capacity. It also decided to expand submarine facilities from Garden Island to Rockingham and build a new high-tech radar facility for deep-space communications in Exmouth. These expansions came on the heels of the Australia-United Kingdom-United States (AUKUS) partnership in 2021, which has allowed the US and the UK to fully coordinate their strategies. The partnership also sidelined the French manufacturers that until then had supplied Australia with diesel-powered submarines and ensured that it would instead buy nuclear-powered submarines from the UK and US. Eventually, Australia will provide its own submarines for the missions the US and UK are conducting in the waters around China.

Over the past few years, the US has also sought to draw Canada, France, and Germany into the US Pacific project through the US Pacific Partnership Strategy for the Pacific Islands (2022) and the Partnership for the Blue Pacific (2022). In 2021, at the France-Oceania Summit, there was a commitment to reengage with the Pacific, with France bringing new military assets into New Caledonia and French Polynesia. The US and France have also opened a dialogue about coordinating their military activities against China in the Pacific.

Yvette Bouquet (Kanak), Profil art, 1996.

Yet these partnerships are only part of the US ambitions in the region. The US is also opening new bases in the northern islands of the Philippines – the first such expansion in the country since the early 1990s – while intensifying its arm sales with Taiwan, to whom it is providing lethal military technology (including missile defence and tank systems intended to deter a Chinese military assault). Meanwhile the US has improved its coordination with Japan’s military by deciding to establish joint force headquarters, which means that the command structure for US troops in Japan and South Korea will be autonomously controlled by the US command structure in these two Asian countries (not by orders from Washington).

However, the US-European war project is not going as smoothly as anticipated. Protest movements in the Solomon Islands (2021) and New Caledonia (2024), led by communities who are no longer willing to be subjected to neocolonialism, have come as a shock to the US and its allies. It will not be easy for them to build their island chain in the Pacific.

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

16 November 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By John Burton

On November 12, a federal jury in Alexandria, Virginia, returned a unanimous verdict for Abu Ghraib torture victims Salah Al-Ejaili, Suhail Al Shimari and Asa’ad Al-Zuba’e, awarding each $3 million in compensation and another $11 million for punitive damages against CACI Premier Technology, Inc., a publicly traded defense contractor with annual revenues approaching $3 billion.

The eight jurors found unanimously that late in 2003 CACI interrogators conspired “with military personnel to inflict torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment on detainees in the Abu Ghraib hard site that resulted in [each of the three men] being tortured or subjected to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.”

Following US imperialism’s illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq based on lies about complicity in the 9/11 attacks and “weapons of mass destruction,” in April 2004, CBS News’ “60 Minutes” published graphic photos of Iraqis rounded up by the US military and incarcerated in Abu Ghraib Prison outside Bhagdad being tortured by electric shocks, held in stress positions, threatened with dogs and humiliated sexually. Many photos depict gloating US soldiers posing with victims.

Denials by the administration of George W. Bush that the photographs represented US policy were exposed as fraudulent after the leak of three “torture memos” drafted by Department of Justice attorneys John Yoo and Jay Bybee. Using convoluted pseudo-legalisms, the memos created a paper trail declaring that “enhanced interrogation techniques,” including “cruel, inhuman, or degrading” treatment, do not constitute “torture” prohibited by US law.

To quell outrage over the photos, 11 low-level soldiers were eventually court-martialed, with nine given significant sentences. None of their superiors were disciplined, however, and to date the US government has not compensated the torture victims themselves, who cannot sue the military because of governmental immunities.

Attorneys from the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed suit on behalf of the three plaintiffs in 2008 against CACI, asserting that those immunities do not protect private contractors. The complaint alleged that CACI was paid $31 million to supply interrogators at Abu Ghraib, who advised the military guards on how to “soften up” detainees before questioning.

After 16 years of litigation, including multiple reviews in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, a jury empaneled last April was unable to reach a verdict. After a mistrial was declared, several jurors reported that the majority wanted to find against CACI. This time, the jury reached a unanimous verdict in the exact amounts CCR attorneys requested, and judgment has been entered.

The trial and subsequent retrial are the only times a US jury has heard claims brought by Abu Ghraib torture victims.

The three plaintiffs were not depicted in any of the notorious photographs, but each described being subjected to similar treatment.

Al Shimari, a middle-school principal, and Al-Zuba’e, a fruit vendor, both appeared at the trial by video. Al-Ejaili, a journalist, traveled from Iraq to testify in person at both trials.

Each described being beaten, deprived of sleep, isolated, stripped, shaved, forced to wear women’s underwear, subjected to extreme temperatures, sexually assaulted, including forced masturbation, and threatened with firearms and dogs. Al-Ejaili told the jury about being held in a stress position until he vomited black liquid. A photograph exists of him standing in the vomit.

Other evidence at trial included reports from two retired US Army generals, who documented the widespread abuse in the facility and concluded that CACI interrogators encouraged the mistreatment, including at least one who lied to investigators about it.

CACI did not deny the abuse occurred, but claimed the interrogators had minimal interaction with the three plaintiffs, and under the “borrowed servants” doctrine the company cannot be held responsible for misdeeds by employees committed while under the control of the US military.

After the verdict, Al-Ejaili released a written statement. “This victory isn’t only for the three plaintiffs in this case against a corporation,” he said. “This victory is a shining light for everyone who has been oppressed and a strong warning to any company or contractor practicing different forms of torture and abuse.”

CCR attorney Baher Azmy praised the three victims for their resilience, “especially in the face of all the obstacles CACI threw their way.” CCR attorney Katherine Gallagher added, “Private military and security contractors are put on notice that they can and will be held accountable when they breach the most fundamental international law protections—like the prohibition against torture.”

Time will tell whether the verdict stands. While the verdict is a significant milestone, the case is far from over. CACI has vowed to appeal and ultimately the reactionary Supreme Court supermajority will have the last word.

16 November 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Kathy Kelly

The Biblical Book of Job chronicles a string of catastrophes relentlessly plaguing the main character, Job, who loses his prosperity, his home, his health, and his children. Eventually, an agonized Job curses his own existence as well as the god that created him. Issues of evil, justice, and divine wisdom are explored, and while the Book of Job surrenders divine wisdom to God, it recognizes that the work to be done here on earth is our own.

Numerous interpretations of the story exist, and more than one version has circulated through the ancient Near East. One version concludes with Job avowing repentance. “I know that my redeemer liveth, and so I repent in dust and in ashes.”

The Latin root for the word ‘repent’ is pensare – to think. ‘Repent” suggests an effort to rethink.

Job’s surprising repentance has been on my mind as calls increase, in 2024, for the United Nations to rethink its relation to Israel as a member state. Increasingly, civil society groups are pressuring Permanent Missions to the UN to eject Israel as a voting member of the General Assembly.

To paraphrase Pankraj Mishra, writing for the New York Review of Books, a stunned world has watched with disbelief as the United States provisions Israel with weapons enabling a mass murder spree across the Middle East.

Palestinians in the West Bank have recently urged all organizations demanding UN compliance with the International Criminal Court ruling of July 2024 to sign a letter available at World BEYOND War which urges Member States of the United Nations General Assembly to fulfill their duties.

Following up on the potential of this letter, a new coalition, “Global Solidarity for Peace in Palestine” has issued a letter to His Excellency Mr. Philemon Yang, the President of the United Nations General Assembly asking him to convene an urgent meeting of the General Assembly to demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire, establish and secure humanitarian aid corridors and ensure the complete withdrawal of Israel from the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

The letter additionally requests:

·       The revival of the UN Committee Against Apartheid to address systemic violations of international law and human rights in the OPT.

·       Consideration of targeted boycotts, sanctions, and divestments, particularly against illegal operations in the OPT.

·       The establishment of an arms embargo on Israel.

·       Exploration of suspending Israel from the General Assembly until it complies with international law.

To further support these efforts, the letter calls for the establishment of an unarmed UN peacekeeping mission in the OPT under Chapter VII of the UN Charter to ensure the safety and dignity of all civilians.

In a way, Israel has already removed itself from norms maintained by the UN Charter as it has consistently flouted UN treaties, Resolutions and Advisory opinions. We must not forget that Israel refuses to acknowledge to the UN its possession of nuclear weapons.

I felt startled, during an initial planning call held with Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, when one of them spoke of the evacuation he and his family faced, that very day, and said, “We are facing the final solution. Israel is imposing the final solution on us.” Other participants spoke of having shuddered during bombings, day and night.

Journalist Mehdi Hasan,  writes movingly  in the Guardian of how absurd it is that the United Nations’ General Assembly agrees to seat Israel as a U.N. member nation.

Israel’s abusive repudiation of the very idea of the United Nations, its escalating and lethal violation of countless international norms, its repeated, deadly attacks on U.N. sanctuaries and peacekeepers justifies its expulsion. Hasan reminds us that Israel’s outgoing Ambassador to the United Nations shredded the UN charter while standing at the General Assembly podium. This is the Charter that declares the UN mission to eradicate the scourge of warfare for future generations.

It is time for the clouds to part above the burning lands of West Asia – for the suffering there to be comforted and their pitiless accusers rebuked by the gathered voice of humanity, by the agent that created Israel and can, when it wishes, “let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”  The work here is ours and so let our United Nations demand, and not beg, humanity from Israel and from its imperial sponsor, the United States.

Kathy Kelly (kathy.vcnv@gmail.com) co-coordinates the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal and is board president of World BEYOND War.

16 November 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Patrick Jack

A London university’s decision to cancel 100 tickets to a pro-Palestinian lecture has been criticised as “extremely disturbing” and “weak-willed” by academics.

Francesca Albanese, United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, was due to speak on the afternoon of 12 November at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) on “the ‘genocide in Gaza’ and ‘international law”.

However, in an email seen by Times Higher Education, QMUL management blamed “unforeseen circumstances” for moving Ms Albanese’s lecture to a smaller venue. It is understood that around 100 tickets were cancelled as a result.

Ms Albanese has already spoken at the University of Greenwich, SOAS University of London and the London School of Economics in recent days.

Protestors, led by the Campaign Against Antisemitism, have demonstrated against Ms Albanese, who is also an affiliate scholar at the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University, for her views and urged universities to “#BanFran”.

At LSE, images on social media show police attempting to keep the peace between pro-Palestinian protestors and those holding banners denying that a genocide is taking place in Gaza.

“This just seems to me to be another attempt to stifle those of us at Queen Mary who are opposed to Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians,” Penny Green, professor of law and globalisation at QMUL told THE.

She accused the institution of using a securitisation argument for restricting access to the lecture, which she warned was “extremely disturbing”.

“I understand some degree of security required, but this is very, very heavy handed,” added Professor Green, who is also head of the law department.

“It seems to me that this whole securitisation argument is to deflect attention away from management’s persistent attempt to silence pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel anti-genocide voices.”

Professor Green said the institution had failed to defend colleagues who have been “attacked by Zionists”.

“It has taken a very Israeli sympathetic approach to the genocide,” she said. “It seems to me that they have hitched their colours to the to the Israeli flag and not to the Palestinians.”

With the pro-Palestinian supports within the institution being “silenced in favour of a very tiny minority of Zionist voices”, she said that students and staff were “angry” and “despairing” towards university management.

“This is the UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories…if the university isn’t going to make a space for those UN voices then that’s extremely disturbing from my point of view.”

Those whose tickets have not been cancelled were told to bring photo identification and to expect increased levels of security. The British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (Brismes) recently warned that health and safety regulations are being increasingly misused to restrict academic freedom.

Gargi Bhattacharyya, a professor at another London university, told THE that Ms Albanese’s work has made her a “target” for those wishing to defend Israel.

“Those people are agitating in such a way and threatening disruption in a way that is making universities and other organisations very anxious,” she said, claiming the “weak-willed” QMUL had overreacted and caved in to external pressures – which is not the role of the university.

“There’s been a long history of UK universities succumbing to pressure to not platform pro-Palestinian voices.

“I think in the light of the events of the last months, I don’t think it was ever acceptable, but I think it’s bordering on criminal at this point in this genocide for QMUL to do that.”

QMUL was approached for comment.

patrick.jack@timeshighereducation.com

12 November 2024

Source: archive.ph

By Jonathan Kuttab

A moral fatigue and paralysis seems to have overtaken much of the world. Individuals, organizations and institutions seem to have reached the end of their credulity and ability to be outraged at the ongoing genocide in the Middle East. We protest, hold sit-ins, challenge politicians, appeal to international tribunals, yet it seems nothing works. Every single day we hear of another massacre: 100, or 60, or 90 Palestinian men, women and children killed in a school or shelter, and more are asked to evacuate. A recent report by the United Nations found that:

“Israel’s warfare in Gaza is consistent with the characteristics of genocide, with mass civilian casualties and life-threatening conditions intentionally imposed on Palestinians there.” It went on to say “through its siege over Gaza, obstruction of humanitarian aid, alongside targeted attacks and killing of civilians and aid workers, despite repeated UN appeals, binding orders from the International Court of Justice and resolutions of the Security Council, Israel is intentionally causing death, starvation and serious injury, using starvation as a method of war and inflicting collective punishment on the Palestinian population.”

Yet even in this horrible atmosphere, what is happening in the North of Gaza seems to be of a qualitatively deeper level of immorality:

A plan, publicly known as “the Generals’ Plan,” is being implemented in the Northern part of Gaza. According to that plan, the entire area is to be declared hostile. The population is to be forcibly evicted, and those who remain or refuse to leave will be “presumed to be Hamas terrorists.” Not only will the area be incessantly bombed, but no food, water, medical supplies, or fuel would be allowed into that area.  Buildings will be systematically leveled, and the population will not be allowed to return. Those who remain will die of starvation, dehydration, and disease until no one is left. The hospitals will be evacuated, then bombed as well. While the Israeli government, officially, has not endorsed the plan, it has been acting specifically according to each of its elements. They seem to move with total impunity. All the protests, marches, decisions of the international tribunals, and worldwide outcries seem to count for nothing.

The last obstacle to full implementation of this demonic plan may have been  the ultimatum given by the Biden administration to Israel in a letter issued over 30 days ago, which described with great specificity the actions that Israel needed to take to allow food, water and supplies into the North of Gaza (numbers of trucks, etc…). Otherwise, the letter warned, under US law, the Biden administration will be forced to cut military aid to Israel specifically because it failed to allow US aid agencies to carry out their humanitarian tasks in that area.

Whatever hopes existed that such a step would be actually taken by the administration in its lame duck months has now been officially smashed. The White House has just announced that even though Israel has failed to fulfill its obligations, the Biden administration will not consider any such cutoff of military supplies.

Most of us were not actually holding our breath, but this step seems to be the final nail in the coffin of Joe Biden’s legacy as an enabler of Genocide and as the President who failed to follow his own statements or to apply the minimal requirements of US law in preventing the genocide.

Meanwhile, the “Generals’ Plan” is in full swing. No food has been allowed to those remaining in the North for a whole month. The hospitals have been vacated and made inoperable, the remaining population corralled and pushed out, being ordered never to return. Almost all buildings have been leveled to the ground, and the entire area is being prepared to be a military base, and maybe a new Jewish settlement.

One could say that those who put their trust in Washington politicians were doomed to be disappointed. Not that Trump offers any greater basis for optimism. Under the incoming administration, we already have hints, based on the appointments Trump has made, that worse things may yet come to pass. Mike Huckabee, an avowed Christian Zionist, has just been tapped as new US Ambassador to Israel. He has publicly stated that Israel has a biblical title to “Judea & Samaria,” has indicated there is no such thing as “occupation,” and said that “settlements” are just perfectly legal Israeli neighborhoods and towns. For him, Palestinians do not exist as a people and should move out of the way for Israel to fulfill its divinely mandated destiny. Other significant appointments seem equally dismissive of Palestinian rights or international law.

It is important for those of us who believe in justice not to abandon hope and to continue to work for justice and peace. Our hope is not built on politicians, or the results of presidential elections, but on the assurance and faith in God’s sovereignty and in the eventual victory of good over evil. Perhaps this is an opportunity to better appreciate our prophetic voice, of “speaking truth to power,” as we also raise our lament and prayers for God’s intervention, even as we increase our efforts, however meager, to sustain hope and diminish the suffering involved.

15 November 2024

Source: fosna.org

By Mike Whitney

“Trump’s hawkish lineup is starting to look like a reunion for the worst of US interventionists. The man who said ‘no wars’ hired a cabinet that’s clearly thirsting for the next one.” —@ghida_fakhry

“It’s not Trump’s pro-Israel cabinet. It’s Israel’s pseudo-American cabinet.” —Alon Mizrahi @alon_mizrahi

“Awww fuck! It’s over before it even started!” —Nick@NickJ132388

If George W. Bush was elected to a third term in office, this is what his cabinet would look like. Rubio, Waltz, Stefanik, Hegseth. Not a peacenik among them. Not an antiwar candidate among them. Not even a non-interventionist among them. Every single pick is a hard-boiled, right-wing war-hawk that is committed to marching in lockstep with the world’s most notorious pariah-state, Israel.

Let’s start with Trump’s pick for Secretary of Defense, the man whose job it is to oversee the War Department and act as the principal defense policymaker and adviser. Trump chose Fox television host Pete Hegseth, “a decorated Army veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as Guantanamo Bay.” Hegseth has no administrative skills or experience, but he is a Trump loyalist who shares the president’s views on “woke” policies in the military. More importantly, Hegseth is dyed-in-the-wool Israel aficionado who thinks the interests of the Jewish state are inextricably linked to those of the United States. Check out this short excerpt from Pete Hegseth’s book, “American Crusade, Our Fight to Stay Free” (2020) that was posted on Michael Tracey Twitter site:

“Simply put: if you don’t understand why Israel matters and why it is so central to the story of Western civilization—with America being its greatest manifestation—then you don’t live in history. America’s story is inextricably linked to Judeo-Christian history and the modern state of Israel. You can love America without loving Israel—but that tells me your knowledge of the Bible and Western civilization is woefully incomplete…..

If you love America, you should love Israel. We share history, we share faith, and we share freedom. We love free people, free expression, and free markets. And whereas America is blessed with two big, beautiful oceans to protect it, Israel is surrounded on all sides by countries that either used to seek, or still seek, to wipe the nation off the map.

The battle wages on Israeli soil as well. With each trip I take to Israel for FOX Nation, and on my personal time, I discover a new way in which Islamists and their leftist enablers seek to deny Jewish history and heritage. Today, Islamists in Jerusalem are attempting to claim that the Holy Temple built by King Solomon and rebuilt by Herod never existed. Apparently, they want us all to believe that Jews—from Abraham to Jesus—never sacrificed, built, or worshipped on that particular piece of real estate. “Temple denial” is yet another tool by which they seek to erase the Jews and the Jewish state. If that isn’t delusional enough, on a recent trip to Bethlehem—the birthplace of Jesus—I discovered that Palestinians now claim that Jesus was not in fact Jewish but instead a Palestinian. Try that one on for size—or watch my two FOX Nation documentaries on the subject: Battle in the Holy City and Battle in Bethlehem.” Michael Tracey@mtracey

A Secretary of Defense doesn’t have to be impartial to fulfil his responsibilities to the president and the American people, but it does make one wonder how Hegseth’s pro-Israel zealotry will impact the way he implements US policy. If, for example, Hegseth was ordered to stop the delivery of all bombs and lethal weaponry to Israel while ceasefire negotiations with Hamas took place, would a Christian Zionist like Hegseth obey such an order or act according to his own deeply-felt religious convictions?

I can’t answer that, but the obvious conflict of interest should have been a red flag for Trump if his goal was actually “America First”.

Oh, and did we mention that Hegseth is also an Iran hawk, which appears to be a basic requirement for any position on the Trump team. This is from Axios:

Alongside his strong support for Israel, Hegseth has also expressed strong positions regarding Iran… He had called the Iranian revolutionary government an “evil regime”, and in 2020 said that if Iran wanted “to come back to the table for talks on their nuclear capabilities” it should do so “limping and begging.”…

“Sometimes we have moments, and I happen to believe we can’t kick the can down the road any longer in trying to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb,” Hegseth said in an appearance on Fox & Friends.

“What better time than now to say ‘we’re starting the clock, you’ve got a week, you’ve got X amount of time before we start taking out your energy production facilities. We take out key infrastructure, we take out your missile sites, we take out nuclear developments, we take out port capabilities.’” Trump appoints pro-Israel, Iran hawk Pete Hegseth for secretary of defense, Axios

Does that sound like a reasonable approach to you or the fast-track to a regional war?

And how does this fit with all the non-interventionist gobbledygook that Trump was spewing before the election? Was it all for show? And, please, don’t tell me that Hegseth wasn’t fully vetted or that Trump was unaware of his political views before he picked him. That’s nonsense. Hegseth is a hard-nosed, prowar jingoist who recently dismissed public demands for a ceasefire as “extortion on behalf of Hamas” (say what??) and who thinks the only problem with Biden’s Middle East policy was that it wasn’t tough enough.’ And so it is with all Trump’s picks. They’re all ferociously devoted to Israel and they’re all gung-ho for a war with Iran.

Pete Hegseth on dual loyalty—Wow.

Here’s how the typically temperate Daniel McAdams summed up Hegseth:

President-elect Donald Trump’s designated Secretary of Defense is a certifiable lunatic. A cultist in the manner of Manson. Literally someone who needs to be in a mental hospital. Who craves an apocalyptic war to end all of mankind so that his twisted understanding of God will come down and slaughter all (including Jews) who do not convert to his cult’s beliefs. This is a truly dangerous person. This is the person running our military machine. The madmen have taken the asylum. Daniel McAdams @DanielLMcAdams

Yikes. Looks like Don Rumsfeld won’t be our worst Sec-Def after all.

Then there’s Marco Rubio or “Little Marco” as Trump used to affectionately call him during the 2016 campaign. Rubio—who Trump picked as Secretary of State—is another shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later warhawk whose views veer only slightly from those of John Bolton and Lindsay Graham. In a recent video by peace activist Medea Benjamin, Benjamin—who is shown standing outside Rubio’s senate office next to a giant flag of Israel—says the following:

We are here outside Marco Rubio’s office. You have probably heard that he has been picked by Trump to be the next Secretary of State. We have been to his office before, and we were always curious that there was an Israeli flag outside. And I thought maybe he would take the flag down to show his allegiance is 100% to the US government and not to the Israeli government. But, no, lo and behold, the flag is still here, which gives you a pretty good indication of where his allegiance is going to be as Secretary of State. Medea Benjamin@medeabenjamin

Imagine if Rubio placed a Russian flag outside his office, or a Palestinian flag? What do you think the reaction would be? Is it really appropriate for a US senator to display the banner of a foreign power in front of his taxpayer-provided office? Here’s more background on Rubio from Michael Tracey:

Marco Rubio would arguably be the most hardcore interventionist Secretary of State for an incoming administration in decades, perhaps rivaling Hillary Clinton. Definitely outpaces Colin Powell, who was in the relatively more “realist” faction of the G. W. Bush Administration

And here’s more on Rubio from the horse’s mouth, The Jewish Telegraphic Agency:

President-elect Donald Trump is filling out his national security team with pro-Israel hawks who favor maximum pressure on Iran… Reports Monday said Trump planned to name two Floridian allies to top jobs: Sen. Marco Rubio will be tapped to be secretary of state, and Rep. Michael Waltz will be his national security adviser.

Both men have said Israel should not be prevented from staging a direct attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons program. That stance echoes Trump who, before the election, urged Israel to “​​Do what you have to do.” Trump had criticized President Joe Biden for confining Israel to only hitting military sites, but not nuclear ones, in a retaliatory strike….

Trump has yet to formally name Rubio, but his pending appointments has been widely reported and the Republican Jewish Coalition, which has a longstanding relationship with Rubio, congratulated him.

“President Trump’s choice of Senator Rubio for this critical role sends a message loudly and clearly: The days of weakness and appeasement are over,” the RJC said in a statement on Monday night. “We know that with Senator Rubio leading the State Department, America will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our allies and confront our enemies.”

Rubio came up in Florida politics in part because of the backing of billionaire auto dealership magnate Norman Braman, a past president of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation. He is known to be close to Miriam Adelson, the pro-Israel casino magnate who funneled $100 million into Trump’s campaign this year.….

In October, after Iran barraged Israel with missiles, and as Israel’s conflict with the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah was escalating, he tweeted, “Israel should respond to Iran the way the U.S. would respond if some country launched 180 missiles at us. And they should do in Lebanon what we would be demanding our leaders do if terrorists were launching anti-tank rockets at us from a neighboring country, forcing 60000 Americans to evacuate their homes and farms for almost a year.”

In the 2016 election, she and her late husband, Sheldon Adelson, were close to deciding whether they would back Rubio or Texas Sen. Ted Cruz as the Republican nominee. Then Trump pulled ahead of the pack and Sheldon Adelson decided to endorse the reality TV star.

Rubio has said for years that the United States should not stand in the way of an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear program. Trump taps Iran hawks Marco Rubio, Mike Waltz for top national security role s, The Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Funny how much influence people like Adelson have when it comes to selecting who is going to lead the country. And, it doesn’t stop there either because—as we can see—a hundred million bucks not only buys you a president but everyone in the president’s cabinet as well. Sounds like a bargain to me, although seriously corrupt too. It is convenient, however, when publications, like the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, explain exactly how the system works and then boast about how it serves their overall interests. What’s that saying about “the tail wagging the dog”?

Then there’s Mike Waltz, Trump’s pick for national security advisor who is—surprise, surprise—another warmongering neocon who, in Trump’s words, will be “a strong champion of my America First Foreign Policy agenda, and a tremendous champion of our pursuit of Peace through Strength!”

Peace?? Not bloody likely!

In a nutshell: Waltz opposed leaving Afghanistan, he thinks we haven’t been supportive enough of Ukraine, and he also thinks that Iran needs a good “punch in the nose”; which I would interpret as tacit support for military action. Here’s Michael Tracey’s take:

At the “America First” summit in DC, Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL) says he just returned from Ukraine and is now calling for the deployment of US military “advisors” directly into the war to operate US weapons systems alongside Ukrainian forces. “Let’s win this damn war!” he proclaims Michael Tracey @mtracey

Troops on the ground?? Is that what Waltz wants?

Sure sounds like it, but how does that fit with Trump’s elusive peace agenda? Here’s more from Tracey:

Mike Waltz, the incoming National Security Advisor, worked for Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. Remember like a week ago when everybody was absolutely convinced there was some giant ideological chasm between Trump and the Cheneys? Michael Tracey @mtracey

Waltz says “punch Iran in the nose”

[https://twitter.com/mtracey/status/1717566648624849222]

Here’s more from Caitlin Johnstone:

Like (John) Bolton, Waltz is a warmongering freak. Journalist Michael Tracey has been filling up his Twitter page since the announcement with examples of Waltz’s insane hawkishness, including his support for letting Ukraine use US weapons to strike deep into Russian territory, criticizing Biden for not escalating aggressively enough in Ukraine, advocating bombing Iran, opposing the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan, and naming Iran, North Korea, China, Russia and Venezuela as “on the march” against the United States toward global conflict. The mainstream press are calling Waltz a “China hawk”, but from the look of things he’s a war-horny hawk toward all the official enemies of the United States. The Incoming Trump Administration Is Already Filling Up With War Sluts, Caitlin Johnstone@caitoz

And here’s more from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency:

Waltz has been among Israel’s most robust backers in the U.S. House of Representatives and has also said Israel should not hesitate to hit Iran’s nuclear sites and oil fields. Biden had discouraged such actions, fearing such attacks would trigger a full-scale regional war which would draw in the United States.

“So far…it’s important to note what hasn’t been hit in Iran,” Walz said in an Oct. 25 tweet, listing an Iranian oil facility and a nuclear facility. “This might be Israel’s last best chance to diminish Iran’s nuclear program and shut down their cash. Did Biden/Harris pressure Israel once again to do less than it should? Jewish Telegraphic Agency

What this excerpt shows, is that Trump’s picks are looking for an opportunity to attack Iran. The prevailing view seems to be that Biden was “soft” on Iran and that now is the time to take more assertive “muscular” action to ensure Israel’s security. As we noted earlier, all of Trump’s picks appear to share this view.

Still think Trump wants to end the foreign wars?

Trump also picked fiery Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (NY) as US ambassador to the United Nations

Here’s Tracey:

Elise Stefanik, Trump’s new pick for UN Ambassador, is in some ways more ideologically zealous than Nikki Haley, Trump’s previous occupant of that role. Stefanik was integral in launching the crusade to whip up the confabulated anti-Semitism panic over the past year, and was showered with Adelson awards for her services —all while successfully insinuating herself into the Trump political operation. Stefanik and Haley have no discernible substantive differences; Stefanik has vehemently denounced the Biden-Harris administration for insufficiently arming Ukraine and Israel, and allegedly kowtowing to China —she also denounces the Afghanistan withdrawal on principle. Nor are there any discernible policy differences between Stefanik and Liz Cheney, her predecessor as Chairwoman of the House GOP conference Michael Tracey

Looks like Adelson was a player in Stefanik’s career as well. Isn’t it amazing how much power Israeli billionaires have over American politics? The whole system is awash in the filthy money of foreign donors. We are a Third-world sh**hole country; no doubt about it. Here’s Caitlin Johnstone again:

Stefanik is best known for her congressional efforts to stomp out free speech on college campuses, making a lie of Trump’s lip service to the importance of First Amendment rights. She’s a hawkish swamp monster whose political career was primed in some of the most odious neoconservative think tanks in Washington, and opposes placing any limits on US military support for Israel. Earlier this year Stefanik actually flew to Israel to give a speech before the Israeli Knesset vowing to help stop the “antisemitism” of protesters against Israel’s genocidal atrocities at American universities. Caitlin Johnstone

Here’s a congratulatory note Stefanik got from the ADL’s Jonathan Greenblatt after she was picked by Trump:

Mazel Tov to @EliseStefanik on her nomination to be the next US Ambassador to the
@UN Rep. Stefanik has been a critical partner and absolutely fearless in fighting campus antisemitism. I’m excited to work with her to combat anti-Jewish hate & anti-Israel bias on the world stage. @JGreenblattADL

Naturally, if you are getting love letters from Jonathan Greenblatt, you’re playing on the wrong team, in this case, Team Genocide. Stefanik appears to be solidly in that camp.

Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg, but there’s enough here for readers to chew on for a while. What’s clear is that the much-ballyhooed announcement that Trump would not pick either Mike Pompeo or Nikki Haley for cabinet positions was an obvious head-fake aimed at misleading his supporters. Trump’s backers were led to believe that ‘things had changed’ when in fact, the only thing that’s changed is that Trump has officially joined the family of Swamp creatures he pledged to remove.

We’ll let Caitlin Johnstone have the last word:

The only intellectually honest reason to support Trump is because you’re a garden variety Republican and you support standard Republican agendas like lower taxes on the rich and low tolerance for human diversity. There is no honest basis to support Trump on antiwar grounds, or because you want the swamp of corruption to be drained from Washington. This was obvious to anyone who paid attention the last time he was president, but it is glaringly obvious now from all the warmongering swamp monsters he’s been packing his cabinet with. This narrative so-called “MAGA Republicans” have about themselves as some new special breed of Republican who are meaningfully different from the Republicans of the past simply is not born out by any kind of material evidence. They’re not draining the swamp. They’re not fighting the deep state. They’re not ending the wars.They’re doing all the gross stuff Republicans have always tried to do while LARPing as brave rebels. I despise the entirety of the Republican Party; it’s one of the most evil things humanity has ever produced. Caitlin Johnstone@caitoz

Wish I’d said that!

15 November 2024

Source: globalresearch.ca

By Jonathan Cook

There has never been a harder time to do political and media analysis than right now. Each day, the western establishment unmoors itself further from reality. Its priorities are so inverted, so obscene, that the most appropriate response is ridicule.

The latest example was the reaction late last week to violent clashes in Amsterdam before and after a match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and the local team Ajax.

The ridiculous framing from western politicians, assisted by mainstream media outlets, was that the visiting Israelis were “hunted down” in what supposedly amounted to a “pogrom” by Dutch street gangs, comprising mainly youths of Arab and Muslim heritage.

According to this official narrative, the violence on Amsterdam’s streets was further proof of a rising tide of antisemitism sweeping Europe and imported from the Middle East. More, the attacks were presented as having disturbing echoes of Europe’s Nazi past.

Outgoing US President Joe Biden claimed the Israeli fans faced “despicable” attacks that “echo dark moments in history when Jews were persecuted”.

Israel, of course, helpfully stoked this idea by promising “emergency flights” to “rescue” its football fans – seeking to evoke memories of its airlifts in the 1980s of Ethiopian Jews to escape famine and reports of persecution, or possibly of the 1975 airlift of US embassy staff from Saigon.

Nazi comparisons

Dutch politicians with their own ugly, racist agendas, as well as the country’s king, rushed to join Israel in fuelling the hysteria. Geert Wilders, the racist, far-right leader of the largest party in the Dutch parliament, said “multicultural scum” had carried out a “Jew hunt”.

Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, gave her country’s official stamp of approval to portray events in Amsterdam as a potential “second Holocaust”, calling the scenes “horrific and deeply shameful”.

She added: “The outbreak of such violence against Jews crosses all boundaries. There is no justification whatsoever for such violence. Jews must be safe in Europe.”

This is the same Germany where videosdaily show Arab and Muslim demonstrators – in fact, anyone waving a Palestinian flag – being brutally assaulted by German police officers for protesting against Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Baerbock seems just fine with crossing those kinds of boundaries – whether it be eradicating the right to protest or fostering a political climate that authorises Islamophobic violence, not from random football hooligans but from functionaries of the German state.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu exploited the opening offered by Baerbock to compare the violence in Amsterdam to the Nazi pogroms against Jews in 1938 known as Kristallnacht.

And, of course, British Foreign Secretary David Lammy took his cue from Washington, declaring he was “horrified”. He wrote on X: “I utterly condemn these abhorrent acts of violence and stand with Israeli and Jewish people across the world.”

Celebrating genocide

It is not support for violence, let alone for antisemitism, to point out that this portrayal of events was utterly divorced from reality.

Videos on social media showed the visiting Israeli fans wilfully provoking confrontation as soon as they arrived in Amsterdam.

In the days leading up to the match, they had torn down and burned Palestinian flags in the city centre. They had hunted down Dutch taxi drivers and passers-by suspected of being Arab or Muslim. They had chanted genocidal death threats against Arabs.

At the game itself, they raucously disturbed a minute’s silence in the stadium for the victims of Spain’s floods by singing, “There are no more schools in Gaza because we killed all the kids.”

Spain is apparently reviled by Israeli fans because, in line with international law but against Israel’s wishes, it has recognised Palestine as a state.

Video of the Israeli fans arriving home at Tel Aviv airport showed them unbowed. They chanted the same genocidal songs: “Let the IDF win and fuck the Arabs. Ole ole, ole ole ole. Why is school out in Gaza? There are no children left there!”

Like Wilders, the Israeli fans had used their time in Amsterdam to vent their bigotry at “multicultural scum”.

Even after the match, when they felt the backlash from incensed local residents, it was clear that Israeli fans were initiating the violent clashes as much as getting caught up in them.

A video shot by a young Dutch Ajax fan following the Maccabi Tel Aviv hooligans as they rampaged through Amsterdam after the match went viral on social media. It shows a large gang of Israelis prowling through Amsterdam armed with batons, throwing stones and aggressively confronting local police.

Astonishingly, Dutch police are shown either absent or keeping their distance for much of the time as the Israelis look for trouble. Notably, not one Israeli fan has been arrested.

Islamophobic bile

The western media’s coverage of these events was as strangely deferential to these genocide-inciting thugs as the Dutch police’s handling of their violence.

Had visiting British fans behaved this way in Amsterdam, the police would have made mass arrests immediately.

Similarly, had British hooligans found themselves on the receiving end of violence in such circumstances, the British media would have shown little sympathy.

The clashes would rightly have been understood as ugly tribalism, a not-unfamiliar sight at football matches.

The difference here was that the clashes unleashed by the Israeli fans’ provocations had a much larger context than simple antipathy between rival teams. It was fuelled by tensions surrounding horrifying events taking place on the international stage.

There is nothing shocking or especially sinister about Dutch fans, especially those with Arab or Muslim heritage, responding with their own violence to Israeli youths – some of them presumably fresh from military service in Gaza – trying to export their own genocidal anti-Arab and anti-Muslim incitement to Amsterdam.

All the more so when the Israeli fans were amplifying the bigoted, Islamophobic bile of leading Dutch politicians.

It should have been even less surprising given the wider context: that Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were celebrating in someone else’s city the Israeli military’s genocide in Gaza, among Dutch citizens who don’t view Arab life as worthless or Muslims as “human animals”.

Sadly, that is exactly how the western establishment has viewed Palestinians over the past 13 months, as Israel has slaughtered them in the ever-shrinking concentration camp that is Gaza.

Paradoxically, it was left to an Israeli politician, Ofer Cassif, who belongs to the tiny Hadash party, the only joint Jewish-Arab party in the Israeli parliament, to bring some perspective.

He wrote on X: “[Israeli] fans go on a violent rampage, carry out beatings, tear up Palestinian flags in the streets as if they were an occupying force, and shout Nazi slogans in favour of the extermination of a nation [Palestinians], and then whine when the situation degenerates into complete chaos and violence returns to them like a boomerang.”

‘Victims of pogroms’

As ever, the establishment media dutifully regurgitated the official presentation of events in Amsterdam. Its reporting is best characterised as industrial-scale trolling.

Headlines like this one from the New York Times took it as read that the Israeli fans were victims of antisemitism who needed saving: “Antisemitic attacks prompt emergency flights for Israeli soccer fans.”

Other outlets uncritically reported unhinged statements from Dutch officials: “We failed Jewish community during football fan attacks as we did under the Nazis, says Dutch king.”

Or, as with this Reuters headline, the media used quotation marks to justify peddling disinformation: “Amsterdam bans protests after ‘antisemitic squads’ attack Israeli soccer fans.”

The BBC, which trumpets its dedication to accurate reporting with its Verify service, didn’t bother to verify images from Amsterdam it used to supposedly illustrate attacks on Israeli fans.

In fact, as the Dutch photographer who shot an image used by the BBC pointed out, it showed the exact opposite: Israeli youths beating up a local Dutch resident.

The misuse of these images – disinformation – was repeated by CNN, the Guardian, the New York Times and other major outlets, as all raced to bolster the fake news narrative being imposed by the western political class.

The photographer has since demanded apologies and corrections from media organisations that used her footage incorrectly and without authorisation. By Saturday, she had received only one – from the German news programme Tagesschau.

Wellspring of thuggery

The degree to which the establishment media intentionally sought to deceive audiences to promote a distorted official narrative was illustrated by Sky News’ coverage.

Initially, before the politicians had had a chance to frame events more conveniently for their agenda, Sky’s journalist in Amsterdam reported the violence as being initiated by the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans – a club already notorious for the aggressive anti-Arab racism of its supporters.

Her report was soon pulled, however, as Israel, Wilders, Baerbock, Biden and Lammy reformulated the narrative in terms of antisemitism and pogroms. A note from the channel’s editors claimed the video “didn’t meet Sky News’ standards for balance and impartiality”.

A new, heavily re-edited video was posted that played down the Israeli fans’ violence and foregrounded Dutch politicians claiming the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were victims of unprovoked, antisemitic attacks. A Maccabi fan was even given space to suggest the clashes recalled Hamas’ attack on Israel on 7 October 2023.

In fact, there was a parallel with 7 October but not in the sense suggested by the Israeli fan or western politicians.

Media coverage of Hamas’ attack 13 months ago has consistently scrubbed out any of the preceding context: decades of illegal, violent Israeli military occupation of Gaza; a 17-year Israeli siege that denied the Palestinian population there the essentials of life; and many months of Israeli snipers executing and crippling Palestinians who tried to protest against their imprisonment.

The Amsterdam violence was similarly decontextualised.

The media’s uncritical acceptance of this new, overtly politicised narrative paved the way for Amsterdam’s mayor to then impose a martial law-style crackdown on protest.

Predictably, the city’s police then used the ban as a pretext to arrest anti-genocide protesters en masse in Amsterdam on Sunday when residents came out to denounce the provocations and genocidal incitement by Israeli fans over the preceding days.

Conveniently for western politicians and their accomplices in the establishment media, they have provided themselves with yet another opportunity to present protests in the West against Israel’s genocide as inherently dangerous to the safety of Jews.

European antisemitism can be snuffed out, so their logic goes, only by stamping out the right to protest against Israel’s slaughter of Palestinian children.

There is a double deception being perpetrated here. That Jews were attacked in Amsterdam for being Jews rather than for being Israeli football thugs all too visibly trying to provoke confrontation.

And that the only proper response is to further accommodate not just Israeli football fans’ thuggery but the wellspring of that thuggery: Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza.

Israelis, not Jews

Western politicians and the establishment media, meanwhile, have made it all too evident that they share the racist sentiments of Israel and its proudly racist, thuggish football emissaries.

Contrary to what western politicians and the media would have us believe, “taking offence” isn’t something reserved only for Israelis and for Zionist Jews. Other groups have sensitivities, too, even if western politicians and media systematically denigrate those sensitivities.

Lost once again in the political and media frenzy is the fact that people can feel angry towards Israel and its citizens, especially when they glorify the mass slaughter of Palestinian children, without hating Jews.

Israel, after all, has been carrying out a live-streamed genocide for 13 months, backed by almost its entire population. Anyone opposed to genocide – sadly, not enough of us, it seems – probably isn’t feeling too warmly towards Israel right now. That is a moral position. Confusing it with antisemitism is pure sophistry.

The sophistry is dangerous, to boot. It creates the very reality it claims to be trying to stop. It suggests there is some connection between being Jewish and supporting genocide. That truly is antisemitism.

In echoing Israel’s own mischievous conflations of Israeliness and Jewishness, western politicians and the establishment media have helped to intensify tribalisms that can only lead to damaging polarisation, violence and repression.

Some Europeans fete Israel, and are willing to indulge its genocide, because they wrongly imagine that this is the best way to protect Jews. Other Europeans, though small in number, end up blaming Jews for Israel’s genocidal actions.

Both of those sides are living in an entirely false and anti-democratic reality, one created for them by the deceptions of western politicians and the establishment media.

Those who reject either position – a sane, embattled majority – suffer constant gaslighting and find themselves lumped in with the genuine antisemites.

The BBC’s reporter in Amsterdam replicated precisely this type of confused narrative on Friday night, arguing that Israeli fans had been attacked for their “nationality”, while also echoing her colleagues in arguing that this amounted to antisemitism.

But “Jewish” is very obviously not a nationality (whatever Israel may claim), and loudly cheering on Israel’s Zionist ideology of Jewish supremacism over Middle Eastern, Arab populations is a political act – and at the moment, complicity in a monstrous genocide. It is not victimhood or “innocence”.

Burying the story

There are two, related reasons why the media have been so ready to whip up yet another antisemitism furore out of thin air.

The media have blown up this football hooliganism story into a major international scandal, with front pages concerned for the welfare of violent Israeli football fans, at the same time as they ignore the latest chapter in Israel’s horrifying, 13-month genocide in Gaza.

Israel is currently carrying out the so-called “Generals’ Plan“: bombing and starving Palestinian men, women and children in northern Gaza to force out the 400,000 of them who have been living amid its ruins.

Israel has said this population will never be allowed to return home. In other words, it is formally announcing that these Palestinians are being ethnically cleansed.

Any Palestinian who refuses to move into the concentration camp Israel has made of southern Gaza – one constantly bombed too – faces being executed as a “terrorist”.

One might imagine these horrors upon horrors would be a major news story. Not so. Nowadays, there is always some other story, however unimportant, to take precedence.

On Friday night the BBC dedicated not one second to the genocide in Gaza because the corporation, like the rest of the media, was too busy focusing on the suffering in Amsterdam of Israeli football hooligans. Those fans, remember, had threatened to murder Arabs and Muslims in Europe, to replicate what has been happening in Gaza.

The media’s priorities here are beyond obscene.

Stoking hatred

What the coverage is seeking to do is not just bury the Gaza genocide and turn Israel and Israelis into the victims even as they commit genocide.

It is also intended to stoke Islamophobic hatred towards Arabs and Muslims for being present in Europe, and for insisting that we not forget about Gaza. It is to import into the West the same racist assumptions and discourse that led to Israel’s genocide.

Western establishments have willed this outcome. They are enabling it through their rhetoric and actions.

What possible justification can there be for banning Russian teams and sportspeople from international competitions the moment Moscow invaded Ukraine, when Israeli teams like Tel Aviv Maccabi are still being welcomed in Europe after 13 months of genocide?

How is it possible that fans of Israeli teams not only find themselves embraced by western leaders but treated as victims when they parade their anti-Arab, anti-Muslim bigotry – and their glorification of genocide – in European cities?

The Israeli national team is due to play France in a Uefa Nations League match in Paris on 14 November. Clashes are all too predictable. They could be easily averted by imposing a ban – similar to the Russian one – on Israeli involvement in international competitions.

What the coverage demonstrates so clearly is that the aim of leading western politicians, aided by the establishment media, is to recast Europe’s Arab and Muslim populations as a threat, as barbaric, as antisemitic, as impossible to integrate into a supposed western “civilisation”.

In other words, the transparent goal is to turn Europe’s Arab and Muslim communities into Europe’s Jews of the 1930s – reviled, distrusted and seen as a menace.

By supporting every monstrous Israeli crime, by pandering to Israel’s genocide-inciting football hooligans, western politicians and the media know they are bound to inflame tensions, especially with domestic populations of Arab and Muslim heritage. That is what they wish to do.

The aim is to promote the demonisation of Europe’s Arab and Muslim minorities.

Worthless lives

We know where European bigotry towards Jews led. To the gas chambers.

And increasingly we can see precisely where western politicians and the establishment media want to take their publics in endlessly promoting Israeli-style bigotry towards Arabs and Muslims.

Already western establishments have rationalised their active complicity in the genocidal murder of Palestinians in Gaza, and the destruction of south Lebanon, by supplying weapons and diplomatic immunity.

Already they have cast Israel’s blockade of aid and the mass starvation of the 2.3 million people of Gaza as “self-defence”, and as a “legitimate war” to eliminate Hamas.

Already they have insisted that the lives of Palestinians are so worthless, so insignificant, that they can be butchered in their tens of thousands – or, more likely, hundreds of thousands – in revenge for the deaths of just over 1,000 Israelis on 7 October 2023.

Already they have inverted reality to depict genocidal Israel as the innocent victim and the tens of thousands of Palestinian children killed and maimed in its slaughterous rampage as the guilty party.

None of this has happened by accident. A mood is being cynically cultivated in the West, just as it was in parts of Europe in the 1930s, to suggest that some groups are sub-human, that some minorities must be expelled, or rounded up and disappeared.

That is the proper context for understanding what really happened in Amsterdam last week, as the police treated violent Israeli hooligans with kid gloves and the politicians and media recast the villains as victims.

If our politicians and media are really worried about Europe’s not-too-distant Nazi past, they would be far better advised to stop stoking an all-too-real new antisemitism: incitement against Arab and Muslim minorities.

The darkest days in Europe’s history are indeed back with us. But not because a bunch of Israeli football hooligans ended up receiving as much violence as they tried to dish out.

It is back because the West is all too ready to embrace Israel’s anti-Arab, anti-Muslim bigotry. Day by day we inch ever closer to renewed pogroms.

Not against Jews or Israelis, who enjoy the support and protection of western politicians, media and police. Rather those in most danger are the “new Jews”, the Middle Eastern populations those same politicians, media and police constantly vilify, insult, incite against and assault.

Western racism never went away. Europe’s ruling class just found a new target, and a new scapegoat.

The dark clouds from Amsterdam are gathering across Europe. Authoritarianism and fascism are once again in the ascendant. It is those trying to keep us tethered to reality who will be first in the firing line.

Jonathan Cook is a British writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel.

15 November 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By M K Bhadrakumar

The election victory of Donald Trump in the November 5 election is being perceived in the West Asian region with growing anxiety as presaging the US aligning one hundred percent with the Zionist project for Greater Israel.

Although Trump has kept out vociferous neocons from his government positions, the same cannot be said for pro-Zionist figures. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claims he has spoken three times with Trump already since the election and they “see eye-to-eye regarding the Iranian threat and all of its components.”

The “components” implies that Netanyahu hopes to get a blank cheque from Trump to accelerate the ethnic cleansing in Gaza, for annexation of West Bank, violent reprisals against Palestinians and, most important, to carry the war right into Iranian territory.

Three events in as many days this week show the first signs of a backlash building up. On Monday, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei gave Tehran’s first official reaction to Trump’s election victory. Baqaei took a nuanced line saying, “What matters to us in this region is the United States’ actual behaviour and policies regarding Iran and the broader West Asia.”

Notably, Baqaei expressed “cautious optimism that the new [Trump] administration might adopt a more peace-oriented approach, reduce regional hostilities, and uphold its commitments.” (Tehran Times) Baqaei also refuted the recent allegation by Washington that Iran was involved in plots to assassinate Trump. He called the Biden Administration’s allegation as “nothing more than an attempt to sabotage relations” between Tehran and Washington by “laying traps to complicate the path for the next administration.”

Baqaei also held out an assurance to the incoming US administration that Tehran firmly adheres to a nuclear programme for peaceful purposes. He announced that Rafael Grossi, head of International Atomic Energy (IAEA) was due to arrive in Tehran  on Wednesday night.

Taken together, Baqaei’s remarks suggest that Iran hopes there’s still daylight possible between Trump and Netanyahu. The clincher here would have been the remark that Trump slipped into his victory speech with great deliberation on November 6 that “I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars.”

Trump was on record during his election campaign that “I don’t want to do damage to Iran but they cannot have nuclear weapons.” Tehran’s consultations with Grossi responds to Trump’s concern. This is smart thinking. Iran’s non-provocative stance would mean there is no alibi for attacking Iran.

That said, however, the “known unknown” still remains — namely, Iran’s retaliation to the Israeli attack on October 26. On November 2, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a video released by Iranian state media, promised “a crushing response” to Israeli attack. Conceivably, the period till January 20 when Trump is sworn in, is going to be critical.

Meanwhile, this week witnessed that Iran and Saudi Arabia have given verve to their detente, which is now manifesting as Riyadh’s solidarity and open support for Iran in its growing confrontation with Israel.

Amidst the growing tensions in the region, the chief of staff of Saudi Arabia’s armed forces, Fayyad al-Ruwaili, visited Tehran on November 10 and met with his Iranian counterpart General Mohammad Bagheri. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian spoke on the phone with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on the phone in the context of a summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) – Arab League in Riyadh on November 11-12. Iran has extended an invitation to MbS to visit Tehran!

Two hugely significant highlights of the Riyadh summit have been, first, the Saudi prince’s inaugural address where he warned Israel against hitting Iran. This marked a historic turn by Riyadh toward Tehran-Israeli conflict, and away from US-supported normalisation with Jerusalem.

MbS told the summit that the international community should oblige Israel “to respect the sovereignty of the sisterly Islamic Republic of Iran and not to violate its lands.”

Again, Saudi Arabia accused Israel for the first time of committing “genocide” in Gaza. MbS told the leaders who gathered in Riyadh, that the kingdom renewed “its condemnation and categorical rejection of the genocide committed by Israel against the brotherly Palestinian people…”

Trump has been put on notice that he’s meeting a radically different geopolitical landscape in West Asia compared to his first term as president. The Trump transition team is keeping its cards close, offering NatSec Daily a boilerplate statement that Trump will take “necessary action” to “lead our country” and “restore peace through strength.” But warning bells are ringing.

The key pillars of Trump’s “maximum pressure” strategy against Tehran — isolating Iran and ramping up economic pressure while  maintaining a credible threat of military force as deterrent — have become wobbly.

On the other hand, the massive Iranian ballistic missile attack on Israel on October 1 and the colossal failure of the Israeli air strike on Iran twenty-six days later convey a loud message all across West Asia that Israel is no longer the dominant military power it used to be — and there is a new sheriff in town. Trump will have to navigate the fallout of both sides of this issue with diminished US diplomatic and geopolitical capital at his disposal.

Meanwhile, Tehran is also deepening its cooperation with Russia, which adds a giant new Ukraine-sized complexity to Trump’s Iran policy. While in Eurasia, the US has allies, Trump is navigating in West Asia pretty much alone.

The US’ stark isolation comes home dramatically by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s announcement on Wednesday that Turkey, a NATO member country, has severed all ties with Israel. Erdogan disclosed this to journalists aboard his plane after visiting Saudi Arabia. A regional trend to ostracise Israel is visible now and it is destined to expand and deepen.

The summit in Riyadh witnessed the African Union joining hands with the Arab League and OIC to sign a tripartite agreement on Tuesday to establish a mechanism to support the Palestinian cause, which will be coordinated through the three organisations’ secretariats as a game changer to strengthen their influence in international forums. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan noted that the three organisations will now onward speak with one voice internationally.

Even as the summit concluded in Riyadh, Crown Prince Salman had a call on Wednesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin readout stated that the two leaders “reaffirmed their commitment to continue the consistent expansion” of Russian-Saudi ties and specifically “stressed the importance of continuing close coordination within OPEC Plus and stated the effectiveness and timeliness of the steps being taken in this format to ensure balance on the global energy market.”

On the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the Kremlin readout noted with satisfaction that “the principled approaches of Russia and Saudi Arabia with regard to the Middle East settlement are essentially identical.”

MbS’ initiative to re-invigorate his conversation with Putin can only be seen against the backdrop of the profound misgivings in Riyadh regarding the Trump-Netanyahu bromance and the spectre of a possible regional war haunting the region stemming out of Israel drawing encouragement from the seamless US support expected through the coming 4-year period for the Zionist cause.

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar served the Indian Foreign Service for more than 29 years. He introduces about himself thus: “Roughly half of the 3 decades of my diplomatic career was devoted to assignments on the territories of the former Soviet Union and to Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan.

15 November 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor

Palestinian Territory – In a new ‘flour massacre’, the Israeli occupation army has killed dozens of Palestinians who were gathering in the Sudanese roundabout area, northwest of Gaza City. The victims were waiting for the arrival of humanitarian aid after roughly 50 consecutive days of a complete denial of aid.

Israeli army forces opened fire on dozens of Palestinian civilians waiting for aid trucks on the sea road northwest of Gaza City on Wednesday 13 November at around 10:00 am. The Israeli forces killed and injured dozens of them when they attempted to seek refuge inside a nearby house, and then bombed the building, destroying it. Many more individuals are now missing and presumably trapped beneath the debris.

According to an eyewitness, the Israeli army targeted a group of civilians who had been enduring weeks of famine as a result of the occupation army blocking the entry of food and aid supplies into the Gaza City and North Gaza. When they went to get flour, the army opened fire on them with shells and bullets, forcing them to take cover in a two-storey residential house nearby. As soon as they reached the building, the Israeli army bombed it. Screams from those still inside the targeted house were heard, but the victims’ cries for help could not be answered, as the area was inaccessible to ambulance and civil defence personnel.

Initial reports indicate that there were around 200 people gathered in the area at the time of the attack, 70 of whom were killed and injured. Many more are still unaccounted for and likely stuck beneath the rubble, and no rescue efforts have been conducted as the Israeli army has effectively shut down Palestinian civil defense and ambulance services after threatening, confiscating, shelling, and burning fire trucks and ambulances in the northern Gaza Strip for 23 days now.

The international community must take immediate action to ensure that rescue and civil defense teams can safely work and transport victims to hospitals, since there may be survivors of yesterday’s attack.

After 41 days of Israel’s ground invasion of northern Gaza, the situation has descended into an unprecedented catastrophe, with the occupation army still bombing and destroying hundreds of homes, killing and injuring thousands, and forcing 10s of thousands to flee the area.

The ongoing Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip, which uses starvation as one of its main tools of implementation, must be stopped. Additionally, efforts must be made to quickly and efficiently bring in life-saving supplies via land routes and crossings to the entire Gaza Strip, particularly Gaza City and the northern part of the Strip. This will allow municipal crews to repair and restore water, sanitation, and health services, as well as provide safe and sufficient food for the entire population, including baby formula, which is nearly nonexistent in the northern Strip. The restoration of local production systems and the entry of commercial goods must also be allowed. The international community is both legally and morally obligated to take swift action to preserve the lives of the Gaza Strip’s roughly 2.3 million residents.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor is a Geneva-based independent organization with regional offices across the MENA region and Europe

15 November 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Human Rights Watch

• Israeli authorities have caused massive, deliberate forced displacement of Palestinian civilians in Gaza since October 2023 and are responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
• There is no plausible imperative military reason to justify Israel’s mass displacement of nearly all of Gaza’s population, often multiple times. Rather than ensuring civilians’ security, military “evacuation orders” have caused grave harm.
• Governments should adopt targeted sanctions and other measures, and halt weapons sales to Israel. The International Criminal Court prosecutor should investigate Israel’s forced displacement and prevention of the right to return as a crime against humanity.

(Jerusalem) – Israeli authorities have caused the massive, deliberate forced displacement of Palestinian civilians in Gaza since October 2023 and are responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The report is being published at the time of an ongoing Israeli military campaign in northern Gaza that has most likely created a new wave of forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of civilians.

The 154-page report, “‘Hopeless, Starving, and Besieged’: Israel’s Forced Displacement of Palestinians in Gaza,” examines how Israeli authorities’ conduct has led to the displacement of over 90 percent of the population of Gaza—1.9 million Palestinians—and the widespread destruction of much of Gaza over the last 13 months. Israeli forces have carried out deliberate, controlled demolitions of homes and civilian infrastructure, including in areas where they have apparent aims of creating “buffer zones” and security “corridors,” from which Palestinians are likely to be permanently displaced. Contrary to claims by Israeli officials, their actions do not comply with the laws of war.

“The Israeli government cannot claim to be keeping Palestinians safe when it kills them along escape routes, bombs so-called safe zones, and cuts off food, water, and sanitation,” said Nadia Hardman, refugee and migrant rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Israel has blatantly violated its obligation to ensure Palestinians can return home, razing virtually everything in large areas.”

Human Rights Watch interviewed 39 displaced Palestinians in Gaza, analyzed Israel’s evacuation system, including 184 evacuation orders and satellite imagery confirming the widespread destruction, and verified videos and photographs of attacks on designated safe zones and evacuation routes.

The laws of armed conflict applicable in occupied territory permit displacement of civilians only exceptionally, for imperative military reasons or for the population’s security, and require safeguards and proper accommodation to receive displaced civilians. Israeli officials claim that, because Palestinian armed groups are fighting from among the civilian population, the military has lawfully evacuated civilians to attack the groups while limiting civilian harm. Human Rights Watch research shows this claim to be largely false.

There is no plausible imperative military reason to justify Israel’s mass displacement of nearly all of Gaza’s population, often multiple times, Human Rights Watch found. Israel’s evacuation system has severely harmed the population and often served only to spread fear and anxiety. Rather than ensure security for displaced civilians, Israeli forces have repeatedly struck designated evacuation routes and safe zones.

Evacuation orders have been inconsistent, inaccurate, and frequently not communicated to civilians with enough time to allow evacuations, or at all. The orders did not consider the needs of people with disabilities and others who are unable to leave without assistance.

As the occupying power, Israel is obliged to ensure adequate facilities to accommodate displaced civilians, but the authorities have blocked all but a small fraction of the necessary humanitarian aid, water, electricity, and fuel from reaching civilians in need in Gaza. Israeli attacks have damaged and destroyed resources that people need to stay alive, including hospitals, schools, water and energy infrastructure, bakeries, and agricultural land.

Israel is also obliged to ensure the return of displaced people to their homes as soon as hostilities in the area have ceased. Instead, it has left swathes of Gaza uninhabitable. Israel’s military has intentionally demolished or severely damaged civilian infrastructure, including controlled demolitions of homes, with the apparent aim of creating an extended “buffer zone” along Gaza’s perimeter with Israel and a corridor which will bifurcate Gaza. The destruction is so substantial that it indicates the intention to permanently displace many people.

Israel should respect the right of Palestinian civilians to return to the areas in Gaza from which it has displaced them. For almost eight decades, Israeli authorities have denied the right to return of the 80 percent of Gaza’s population who are refugees and their descendants who were expelled or fled in 1948 from what is now Israel, in what Palestinians call the “Nakba,” or the catastrophe. This ongoing violation looms over the experience of Palestinians in Gaza, with many of those interviewed speaking of living through a second Nakba.

From the first days of the hostilities, senior officials in the Israeli government and the war cabinet have declared their intent to displace the Palestinian population of Gaza, with government ministers stating that its territory will decrease, that blowing up and flattening Gaza is “beautiful,” and that land will be handed to settlers. In November 2023, Israeli Minister of Agriculture and Food Security Avi Dichter said, “We are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba.”

Human Rights Watch found that forced displacement has been widespread, and the evidence shows it has been systematic and part of a state policy. Such acts also constitute crimes against humanity.

The Israeli authorities’ organized, violent displacement of Palestinians in Gaza, who are members of another ethnic group, is likely planned to be permanent in the buffer zones and security corridors. Such actions of the Israeli authorities amount to ethnic cleansing.

Victims of serious abuses in Israel and Palestine have faced a wall of impunity for decades. Palestinians in Gaza have been living under an unlawful blockade for 17 years, which constitutes part of the continuous crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution that Israeli authorities have been committing against Palestinians.

Governments should publicly condemn Israel’s forced displacement of the civilian population in Gaza as a war crime and crime against humanity, and pressure it to immediately halt those crimes and comply with the International Court of Justice’s multiple binding orders and with the obligations laid out in its July advisory opinion.

The International Criminal Court prosecutor should investigate Israel’s forced displacement and prevention of the right to return as a crime against humanity. Governments should also publicly condemn efforts to intimidate or interfere with the court’s work, officials, and those cooperating with the institution.

Governments should adopt targeted sanctions and other measures, including reviewing their bilateral agreements with Israel, to press the Israeli government to comply with its international obligations to protect civilians.

The United States, Germany, and other countries should immediately suspend weapons transfers and military assistance to Israel. Continuing to provide arms to Israel risks complicity in war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other grave human rights violations.

“No one can be in denial about the atrocity crimes the Israeli military is committing against Palestinians in Gaza,” Hardman said. “Transfer of additional weapons and assistance to Israel by the United States, Germany, and others is a blank check for further atrocities and increasingly puts them at risk of complicity.”

14 November 2024

Source: countercurrents.org