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By Andre Damon

Israel has begun an assault on Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza, where over one million people are seeking shelter, unable to go anywhere safe.

Footage published by AFP showed widespread strikes throughout the city on the Egyptian border Tuesday. Last week, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant pledged: “We are achieving our missions in Khan Younis, and we will also reach Rafah and eliminate terror elements that threaten us.”

On Tuesday, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) spokesperson Jens Laerke warned that the assault on Rafah could constitute a war crime. “Intensified hostilities in Rafah in this situation could lead to large-scale loss of civilian lives, and we must do everything possible within our power to avoid that,” he stated.

“We, as the UN and member states of the UN, can bear witness,” Laerke said. “We can make clear what the law says: under international humanitarian law, indiscriminate bombing of densely populated areas may amount to war crimes.”

As Israel continued its push into Rafah, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Israel Tuesday, in his fifth visit to Israel in the past three months. As part of his visit to the region, Blinken met with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, with the aim of “normalizing” relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

The United States is fully complicit in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. In the face of clear evidence of systematic war crimes and openly genocidal rhetoric by Israeli officials, Blinken and other US officials have declared their unlimited support for “Israel’s right to defend itself” and have insisted that there are “no red lines” for the number of civilians Israel will be allowed to kill.

Approximately half of Gaza’s population has been forced into the city of Rafah, causing its population to swell. “Refugees facing acute shortages of food, water, shelter, and medicine are still pouring into Rafah as fighting worsens nearby,” UN News reported.

Between February 5 and 6, 107 Palestinians were killed, with 143 injured by Israeli attacks, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.

Since October 7, Israel has killed 35,096 Palestinians in Gaza, a number that includes 13,642 children and 7,656 women, according to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor. The vast majority of those killed are civilians, with 30,571 non-combatants having lost their lives. A further 67,240 people are reported to have been injured.

An estimated 2 million Palestinians have been displaced. Israel has destroyed 79,200 homes and damaged another 207,000, rendering the vast majority of the population homeless, even if they were allowed to return to their shattered homes.

The healthcare system in Gaza also has been devastated, with 309 healthcare professionals killed and 380 injured. Some 235 healthcare facilities, including 26 hospitals and 63 clinics, have been destroyed or damaged, along with 146 ambulances.

In a statement, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said “84 percent of health facilities in Gaza have been affected by attacks.” The agency added that only four of its 22 facilities in Gaza remain operational, amid relentless attacks targeting humanitarian workers by Israeli forces.

In a report published Tuesday, the Euro-Med monitor revealed widespread “forced nudity, sexual harassment, and threats of sexual torture” of detainees by Israeli forces.

The organization reported that “testimonies from a group of recently released detainees who spent varying lengths of time in Israeli jails and detention centers … confirmed that they were subjected to severe beatings, dog attacks, strip searches, and denial of food and bathroom access, among other cruel practices that amount to torture.”

The report continued: “The most concerning testimonies that Euro-Med Monitor received concern female detainees who were directly sexually harassed. The female detainees, who preferred to remain unidentified due to safety concerns, said that Israeli soldiers had harassed them by touching their genitals as well as making them remove their headscarves.”

Euro-Med “confirmed that the soldiers forced the female detainees and their families into providing information about others by threatening to indecently assault and even rape them.”

On Monday, a New York Times investigation compiled social media videos of Israeli forces filming themselves destroying civilian infrastructure in Gaza.

According to the Times, the videos “capture soldiers vandalizing local shops and school classrooms, making derogatory comments about Palestinians, bulldozing what appear to be civilian areas and calling for the building of Israeli settlements in Gaza, an inflammatory idea that is promoted by some far-right Israeli politicians.”

The UN warned that attacks on hospitals are continuing and intensifying. “For over two weeks, heavy fighting continues to be reported near Nasser and Al Amal hospitals in Khan Younis, jeopardizing the safety of medical staff, the wounded and the sick, as well as thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) seeking refuge at both hospitals.”

On February 6, the UN continued, the Ministry of Health in Gaza announced that Israeli forces have intensified their siege of Nasser Hospital, endangering the lives of 300 medical personnel, 450 wounded, and some 10,000 displaced people seeking shelter in the hospital compound.

Meanwhile, hunger is soaring throughout Gaza. According to the UN, screenings of 3,500 children aged 6 months to 59 months found that nearly 10 percent were facing acute malnutrition, a 12-fold increase since the start of Israel’s offensive. In northern Gaza, the figures are even higher, with 15 percent of children reporting severe malnutrition.

Even as the death toll from the Gaza genocide mounts, further questions are being raised about the role of Israeli forces in the killing of Israeli citizens.

On Tuesday, Haaretz reported that the Israeli military has opened an investigation into the deaths of 12 hostages in a house in Kibbutz Be’eri who were killed as a result of shelling by Israeli forces in the initial invasion by Hamas on October 7.

Haaretz reported on “suspicions that Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram, the commander of the army’s 99th Division who led the fighting in the kibbutz, ordered a tank crew to fire on Cohen’s house even though he knew hostages were being held there.”

7 February 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Abdulrahim P. Vijapur

Introduction

The Islamic concept of human rights contains numerous moral exhortations. Helping orphans, widows, wayfarers and the poor has been greatly stressed by the holy Quran and Sunnah (Prophetic traditions) which not only helps people overcome their economic problems but also inculcates a kind of fellow feeling among them. Its many injunctions have gone a long way in ameliorating human suffering and creating human rights obligations.

Muslim scholars also contend that the concept of human rights can be traced back to Quranic texts and prophetic traditions. Sultan H. Tabandeh, an Iranian Sufi scholar, writes that contemporary human rights doctrines merely give recognition to 1500 years old Islamic principles. In fact, these principles/doctrines existed in a better and more perfect form in Islam than in any document ever enacted by lawgivers. To him “Islam is a summit and nothing excels it”. Maulana Mawdudi also argues that “Islam has laid down universal fundamental rights for humanity as a whole which are to be observed and respected under all circumstances… fundamental rights for every man by virtue of his status as a human being”. The Sharia embodies the basic concepts and principles of human rights. In this regard, it is pertinent to note a comment made in 1927 by a Western scholar, Count Leon Ostrorog, long before the advent of modern human rights doctrine. In a series of three lectures delivered at the University of London. on the Angora Reform, he observed:

Considered from the point of view of its logical structure, the system (Islamic law) is one of rare perfection, and to this day it commands the admiration of the student. Once … the revelation to the Prophet is admitted as postulate, it is difficult to find a flaw in the long series of deductions; so unimpeachable do they appear from the point of view of Formal Logic and of the rules of Arabic Grammar. If the contents of that logical fabric are examined, some theories command not only admiration but surprise. Those Eastern thinkers of the ninth century laid down, on the basis of their theology, the principle of the rights of Man, in those very terms, comprehending the rights of individual liberty, and of inviolability of person and property; described the supreme power in Islam, or Califate, as based on a contract, implying conditions of capacity and performance, and subject to cancellation if the conditions under the contract were not fulfilled; elaborated a Law of War of which the humane, chivalrous prescriptions would have put to the blush certain belligerents in the Great War; expounded a doctrine of toleration of non-Moslem creeds so liberal that our West had to wait a thousand years before seeing equivalent principles adopted.

However, Orientalists criticize Islam saying that it does not establish complete equality of man and woman in many areas. For instance, the witness of two females is equivalent to one male witness. No doubt regarding testimony, the Quran enjoins (Chapter 2:282) that when one person lends money to another, two male witnesses should be taken but, if only one male witness is available, then two female witnesses should be taken in lieu of a second male witness. While interpreting this verse it may be noted that the real intent of the Quranic command to take two witnesses in the first place is to ensure the return of the loaned money, and that the stipulation of taking two witnesses may have been the best way possible, at that time to ensure the payment of the loan. Some modern Muslim Scholars have argued that the stipulation rests on the empirically verifiable fact that women in pre-Islamic Arabia generally had, relative to men, little experience of financial matters and likely to err in recalling the details of transactions.

Advanced Concept of Rights

Islam provides the most rational basis to ensure the primacy of the fundamental right to life, and to guarantee its protection. It prohibits female infanticide, a practice prevalent in Arabia and other parts of the world. By not strictly prescribing the death penalty for the crime of murder, an assassin can be pardoned by the victim’s family on receiving blood money (a kind of compensation). Islam introduced the principle of humane treatment of the individual 1500 years ago. This is a marked departure from the then prevailing Roman law which prescribed “an eye for an eye”. It may be recalled that only in the 20th century European nations have enacted laws abolishing the death penalty without any compensation to the family of the victim by the guilty. It may be noted that for many centuries under British and Scottish law, capital punishment was applicable to a variety of crimes, including, horse, sheep and cattle stealing, rape, house-breaking, stealing of letters by the staff of the Post Office, etc. In England, theft of property worth more than a shilling was classified as a felony and like every other felony, was punished with death, up to as late as 1861. In comparison to English law, the Muslim law prescribing cutting the hands of thieves appears less barbaric. Moreover, with the coming up of jails in modern times and the reinterpretation of Islamic penal law most Muslim states have discontinued the practice of cutting off the hands.

The Islamic concept of human rights was very advanced as it included an elaborate set of rights. Three points may be noted: (1) The Islamic concept of human dignity applied to all humans, irrespective of whether they were Muslims or not. Non-Muslim minorities had rights under Islamic law and directives, which no ruling majority could interfere with. (ii) women enjoyed inheritance and other rights much before the West could reform its laws on gender equality; (iii) the principles of universal brotherhood, equality and non-discrimination are significant bases of Islamic concept of rights. The farewell address of the Prophet Muhammad, which he delivered during his last pilgrimage, summarizes the Islamic precept. He said: “O men, truly your God is one God, and your father, too, is one; you are all born of Adam, and Adam is but dust. The noblest of you with Allah is the most dutiful. No man, whether he is an Arab or not and whatever his race and colour, is superior to any other man except in uprightness [Italics added].

Environment Rights

Another Islamic ethical norm prohibits the wasteful use of resources. Prophet Mohammad said that one must not waste water even if one is sitting by a stream, and one must take from the stream only as much water as needed. Islamic environmental law uses a “duty paradigm” in the sphere of the right to a healthy environment, as human beings must not destroy, deplete, or unwisely use natural resources but have an obligation to develop and enhance natural resources. In Islamic environmental law, the human is not the owner of nature, but a mere beneficiary. Islamic environmental safety is based upon the principle of “use” without “abuse”. Environmental protection under the Islamic legal scheme does not differ from any modern environmental legal system.

Humanitarian Law

The Islamic laws of war prohibit Muslim armies from cutting down fruit bearing trees in their path, which in fact amounts to a general rule that the beneficial resources of nature must be preserved. During war, the Muslim army is required to preserve natural vegetation, crops and livestock. This prohibition may be seen as an Islamic approach to environmental issues. Furthermore, these laws introduce many exemplary principles for ensuring that non-combatants like women, slaves, the old and sick, are spread as a target in armed conflicts. Moreover, it also introduced the principle of dignity and integrity of persons towards the enemy. There are many sayings by the Prophet forbidding the burning alive of enemy warriors. The Prophet one said; “No one is entitled to punish with fire except the one who created it, i.e., Allah”. He also prohibited the practice of giving enemy corpses in exchange for money. Giving burial for the bodies of the enemy was also ordered. Prisoners of war (POW) were released either in exchange for Muslim POWs or in exchange for ransom to be paid by the POW, or simply on his agreement that, if he is literate, he will teach some prescribed Muslim. These are some of the Muslim humanitarian laws.

Gender Justice and Empowerment of Women

With regard to gender equality Islamic precepts are worth commending. Marriage is made as a contract, which can be dissolved for reasons of incompatibility and other valid reasons and not on flimsy ground. Unlike in some other religions, it is not indissoluble. Women are given inheritance rights; their consent in marriage is essential.

Though there is no specific stipulation for women assuming leadership roles, the examples of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan and Khalida Zia in Bangladesh becoming Prime Ministers of their respective countries are encouraging. It is gratifying to note that even in Iran a woman was recently appointed Vice President of the country. It is a different matter that the position of women in Muslim Society today is generally far short of fulfilling Islamic ideals. But the model of a true Islamic society does exist in Islamic history. It is in this context that we attempt in the following pages the Islamic notion of human rights.

Muslim Contributions to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)

No Muslim member state of the United Nations voted against the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) as in their view human rights were not inconsistent with Sharia. Except Saudi Arabia (which abstained) the other five states (Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran, Iraq and Pakistan) voted in its favour besides playing a constructive role in its drafting.

A brief comparison of fundamental human rights enshrined in the holy Quran and Sunnah with the rights proclaimed in the Universal Declaration will dispel the popularly held view that human rights are of western construct. The European Islamic Council (an NGO composed of eminent Muslim scholars, jurists, and representatives of Islamic movements and thought) adopted the Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights on September 19, 1981. The Islamic Declaration has no inconsistency in general with the provisions of the Universal Declaration except on one or two issues related to freedom of religion and freedom of marriage (as Muslims are not allowed to renounce Islam and the Muslim women cannot marry non-Muslim men, although Muslim men are allowed to marry non-Muslim women, especially from People of the Book – Jews, Christians or Hindus without converting them to Islam).

Rights and Duties in the Quran

A birds’ eye view of the recognition of the responsibilities and rights in the Holy Quran confirms the view that Islam provided an elaborate list of rights (for reasons of space references to Hadith have been omitted). These are as follows:

(i)    Protection/security of human life (Chapter 5: 32-35; 6:151; 4:30; 17:31; 18:9-10; 17:33; 4:93)

(ii)   Freedom from slavery or servitude: (humane treatment of slaves or granting freedom to them (Chapter 4:36 & 92; 2:177, 9:60; 24:33; 47:4).

(iii)     Right to justice (4:58-59 and 148; 5:42 & 49; 5: 8-9; 4:135; 16:90; 53:38).

(iv) Right of fair trial (2:229; 17:15).

(v)     Right to protection against abuse of power (33:58)

(vi)   Protection of honour and reputation; respect for the chastity of women (49:11-12; 24: 16-19; 7:32).

(vii)  Rights concerning emigrants and refugees (4:98, 101; 16: 42-43; 111; 22:59-60; 59:10; 9:6; 3:97; 2:125 and 22:25).

(viii)            Freedom of conscience and conviction (Freedom of Religion of religious minorities) (18:29; 10:99-100; 2:256; 109:6; 88:21 & 22; 5:48-59; 29:46).

(ix) Equality before law (49:10 & 13; 9:11).

(x) Right and obligation to participate in the conduct and management of public affairs (42:38;

24:55).

(xi) Economic rights (41:10; 51:19; 76:8; 2:188; 46:19; 53:39).

(xii) Status and dignity of workers (9:105; 46:19).

(xiii) Liberty of work (67:10).

(xiv) Protection of property (2:188).

(xv) Right to privacy (24:27-28, 58; 33:53).

(xvi) Right to found a family and related matters (4:1; 2:228; 30:21; 65:7; 17:24).

(xvii) Rights of married women (2:229 & 237; 2:187; 4:4, 12, 19-21; 24:33; 9:71; 7:189; 30:21; 65:6).

(xviii) Principle of racial equality (30:22; 49:13).

Of all the human rights Islam recognizes, religious liberty and tolerance stands out as the most prominent freedom. The Holy Quran pronounces that “there shall be no compulsion in faith”, (Quran, 2:257). “Proclaim: ‘It is the truth from your Lord’: wherefore let him who will, believe, and let him who will disbelieve”, (Quran, 18: 30). At another place, it pronounces that: “To each among you we have prescribed law and a path: And if God had enforced his will, he would have made you one nation or people. But his plan is to test you in what he hath given you”, (Quran, 5:48-59). “You have your own religion and I have mine”, (Quran, 109:6). These Quranic verses reveal two important principles. First, Islam cannot be propagated and preached through force. Second, God has sent messengers or prophets to every people and every nation, thereby firmly believing in religious pluralism.

The Arab Charter on Human Rights

It is gratifying to note that the Arab Charter on Human Rights was adopted by the League of Arab States in 1994. However, none of the member states had ratified the Charter. The Charter was later updated and led to the amended version by the Arab summit in Tunis in 2004. The 2004 version of the Charter came as part of an effort to modernize the League of Arab States. The Arab Charter on Human Rights entered into force on 16 March 2008. The treaty body established to supervise its implementation is the Arab Human Rights Committee.

According to its Preamble, the Charter is based on principles established by the Islamic Shari’a and the other divine religions enshrined in brotherhood and equality amongst human beings. It cherishes the humanitarian values and principles which [the Arab Nation] had established throughout its long history, having had a major role in spreading centres of knowledge between East and West, and made it the destination of people from all over the world and of those seeking knowledge, culture and wisdom. And the Arab World aiming to preserving its belief, having faith in its unity, struggling for its freedom, defending the right of nations to self-determination and to preserve their wealth, and believing in the Rule of Law and that mankind’s enjoyment of freedom, justice and equal opportunity is the hallmark of the profound essence of any society. It rejects racism and Zionism, both of which constitute a violation of human rights and a threat to world peace. It also recognizes the close link between human rights and world peace. It reaffirms the principles of the UN Charter, the UDHR, the provisions of the two International Covenants on Human Rights, and the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam.

To sum up, human rights in Islam exist only in relation to human obligations. Individuals possess certain obligations toward God, fellow humans and nature – it is a much broader concept of rights indeed!

Abdulrahim P. Vijapur is Emeritus Professor of Political Science at the University of Science and Technology Meghalaya.

6 February 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By  Thambu Kanagasabai

Tamils in Sri Lanka, being the original inhabitants even before BC 500 according to legend, have ruled Sri Lanka before the arrival of Buddhism in BC 247 and formation of Sinhalese language during the 6^th century AD, which marked the beginning of Sinhalese race. Dutagamini, a Hindu Naga king turned Buddhist ruling the southern parts of Sri Lanka, desiring to rule the entire Sri Lanka, began his march towards Anuradhapura in BC 101. On his way, he encountered thirty-three Tamil Kings who were the local rulers in various regions. After overcoming them, he reached Anuradhapura and waged the epic battle with King Elara, a Chola Tamil King. From where King Elara entered Anuradhapura is still unclear as some say he came from South India while some say he was a King ruling Jaffna. The battle of Dutagamini was to capture territory and not a battle against Tamils as distorted by the Mahavamsa . However this battle and victory sowed the seeds of racism and chauvinism, to be exploited to serve the Sinhala politicians for electoral gains and initiation of the Buddhisisation and Sinhalisisation of Sri Lanka.

The hidden agenda of obliterating the Tamils, their history and identities like language, culture and traditions to make Sri Lanka a Sinhala Buddhist state, was set in motion as soon as independence from colonial British rule was granted in 1948.  The first target was the Indian Tamils who fell victim to this agenda when the Citizenship Act 1948 was passed and about 700,000 were denied citizenship. As a result their parliamentary representation of seven members in 1947 was wiped out.

As for the Eelam Tamils, the political program of Sinhala Governments included the land reclamation of huge projects such as the famous Gal Oya, Allai, Kantalai, Padaviya, Manalaru  [Now renamed in Sinhalese as Weli Oya] and the ongoing Mahaveli ‘L’ development schemes went hand in hand with settlements of Sinhalese which began in 1949. Time and time, Sri Lankan Governments carried out the Sinhalisiation and Buddhisiation agenda methodically, overtly and covertly with legislation and Government directives with the assistance of Security Forces in this scheme.

The Sinhala Only Act 1956 heralded the supremacy of Sinhala language paving the way for the gradual elimination of Tamils in Government appointments, the main form of non-agricultural employment. This was a double barreled gun to shoot down the Tamils to frustration and despair while shooting up Sinhalisiation and Sinhala nationalism.

The 1972 constitution brought Buddhism as the first and foremost religion to be protected and fostered by the state. This provision placed Buddhism as the supreme religion and statutorily bound the Government to foster it by building Buddhist Viharas and Buddhist statutes in selected places throughout the island whether Buddhist worshipers are residing or not.  The statutory protection given to minorities in the earlier constitution [29 -2] was removed as well.

At the end of 2012, 10,812 Buddhist Viharas have been built in the North and East while 413 Viharas were built in 2013 in North and East alone. Besides, hundreds of Buddha statutes have been erected along the side roads and highways so as to create the image of a Buddhist identity and image for Sri Lanka.[1]

The Sinhalisiation of Tamil areas is reinforced with the presence of about 140,000 security personnel in the north with about 60,000 personnel stationed in Mullaitivu for a population of 130,000. Almost 147 Camps are in the Jaffna peninsula for the security forces occupying about 269 individuals’ private lands.

Besides, the population of Tamils in the Northern Province has shown sharp decline due to migration and increased Sinhalese colonization. The table below reveals the truth.

Northern Province:

1921                1981                 2012+

Tamils                         356,801          1,021,006       993,741
Sinhalese                    3,795               35,128             32,331

Trincomalee
1921                1981                 2012
Sinhalese                     4.5%               33.6%             40.4%
Tamils                         54.5%              36.4%             32.3%

Jaffna

1981            2012                2018

Tamils                         734,474          583,071            577,246

Ampari
1963                2012

Sinhalese                     29.3%             38.7%
Tamils                         23.8%             17.4%

Tamils in 1981 constituted 12.7% of the total population, but in 2012 that percentage has declined to 11.2% The continued Sinhalese colonization sponsored by the Governments, and assisted with the involvement of security forces [99% Sinhala Buddhists] aim at the complete demographic changes in Tamil lands and eventually making the Tamils to become minorities in these areas, while reducing their parliamentary strength, which stands 9 in Jaffna peninsula when it was 11 in the 1989 general elections. It is feared that this number will be further reduced to 6 when a future population census is carried out.

The successive Sri Lankan governments have manipulated the initiatives of pogroms to subjugate the Tamils, to position them to live with permanent fear, insecurity, suspicion and mistrust.  The 1956, 1958, 1971, 1977, 1983 pogroms were all state planned, orchestrated and organized to indulge in the genocidal killings of Tamils.

The burning of the Public Library in Jaffna [One of the best libraries in Asia at that time] in May 1981 and the 1984 violence unleashed against the participants at the International Tamil Research Conference were pre-planned to strike at the heart and soul of Tamil Language, history and culture.

In addition, at least 196 massacres of Tamil civilians were executed by the security forces beginning from 12/6/1990 in Kalmunai up to 2009 in Mullivakkal. [Mass graves are now found in Mannar and other places while digging the ground for foundation for buildings etc.]  It is shocking that so far neither Tamil National Alliance [TNA] nor the Government has called for a full investigation into the circumstances of these violent deaths of civilians.

Sri Lanka’s culture of impunity is another lethal weapon of Governments and security forces which is generously facilitating the commission of all violence and crimes against the Tamil civilians.

GORDON WEISS: In his book ‘The Cage- 2012 – Page 141 stated the truth as follows:- ‘SRI LANKA’S JUDICIAL SYSTEM, THE PURPORTED BACKBONE OF DEMOCRACY IS CURENTLY A SHAM. THE CULTURE OF IMPUNITY ALLOWS THE LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES TO DO WHATEVER THEY LIKE, ARREST WITHOUT REASON, TORTURE AND DETAIN FOR LONG AND FABRICATE CHARGES.”

Interestingly, the Government has embarked on a program of development in the North and East to please the United Nations and the International Community. Even if this scheme is implemented in the North and East “erosion of Tamils hold on land through development has once again made possible the total domination of the narrative of state”, as stated by Gordon Weiss – The Cage – Page 225.

The presence of Army which is stationed in 153 Camps occupying more than 4000 acres of land in the North with permanent military installations is an indication as to how far the development will go without the involvement of security forces who are already running hotels, schools, restaurants farming etc. in the North from seized civilian lands.

Prevention of Terrorism Act of 1979 and the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution were draconian measures passed by the Sri Lankan Governments specially targeting and threatening the Tamils to silence their voice and freedom of expression to permanent subjugation.

Another menacing political force is the violence-prone group of Buddhist monks like the Bodu Bala Sena [BBS] and Jathika Hela Urumia [JHU] who function as part of the Government’s program to silence the Tamils and subvert and scuttle any offer of concessions to Tamils

It can be stated that the Tamils in Sri Lanka have been ignored by the International Community, United Nations and Security Council in spite of human rights violations and genocidal killings which have been committed systematically against them again and again in 1956, 1958, 1971, 1971, 1977, 1983 and from 2006-2009 by the security forces in furtherance of the goal of Sinhalisisation and Buddhisiation to make Sri Lanka a SINHALA BUDDHIST STATE.

On July 28, 1983, the then President J. R. Jayawardene Said that “TIME HAS COME TO ACCEDE TO THE CLAMOUR AND NATIONAL RESPECT OF SINHALESE PEOPLE”.

Former President Mahinda Rajapakshe underscored the target of eliminating the Tamils in Sri Lanka by stating in May 2009 after the GENOCIDAL WAR:- “WE HAVE REMOVED THE WORD MINORITIES FROM OUR VOCABULARY THREE YEARS AGO, NO LONGER TAMILS, MUSLIMS AND OTHER MINORITIES. THERE ARE ONLY TWO PEOPLES IN THIS COUNTRY, ONE WHO LOVES THE COUNTRY AND THE OTHER SMALL GROUPS WHO HAVE NO LOVE FOR THE LAND OF THEIR BIRTH’.

Former Prime Minister/President Chandrika Kumaratunge
She too emphasized this view with her slogan during the Presidental election: “AS ONE NATION, ONE PEOPLE “ and has in the past while in South Africa also stated that “THE TAMILS ARE NOT THE ORIGINAL INHABITANTS OF SRI LANKA, THEY DO NOT BELONG TO SRI LANKA’.

The above statements of Sinhalese leaders unequivocally confirm their sinister intention of decimating the identities of Tamils in Sri Lanka.

The struggle of Tamils for equality, justice, distinct identity and accountability as a nation in Sri Lanka commenced in 1956and is still continuing, and there is no hint of a political solution to remove the underlying causes and grievances of Tamils.

The non-violent struggles and resistance launched by late Tamil Leaders like Samuel James Velupillai Chelvanayagam [popularly known as Gandhi of Tamil Eelam] and former Leader of the Opposition A. Amirthalingam were crushed ruthlessly by force by the security forces and were handled by the Sri Lankan Governments with usual charming guiles and wiles leaving the Tamil leaders deceived and dejected. A frustrated Chelvanayagam’s last call “THAT GOD CAN ONLY SAVE THE TAMILS’ still remains un-responded and it is anybody’s guessing as to its fulfillment.

“Minorities in Sri Lanka Tamils and Muslims feel that they have a place in Sri Lanka as long as they are compelled to fall in line and be slaves within a Sinhalese identity and within the contour of Sinhalese nationalism”.

Tamil National Alliance [TNA] leader Mr. R. Sampanthan’s above statement in Parliament in 2008 summed up the plight of Tamils.

History is meant for learning and past lessons of political history of Tamils should be the guiding factors instead of frittering the energy and efforts chasing the mirage of promises appearing as a lasting solution to the 60 years old problems of Tamils.

In Short:

The following reasons and facts reveal the progress of Tamils in Sri Lanka towards a probable non-existence through assimilation and genocide including structural genocide.

1. Reduction of Tamil Representation in Parliament. The Jaffna district now elects 9 members which are expected to be reduced to 6 members in the next election.

2. Exodus and migration of Tamils from North and East. Out of 1.2 million Tamils in the North in 1983 about 700,000 Tamils have migrated to overseas after the Pogrom against the Tamils in 1983. Tamils were hunted and butchered, burnt alive and their houses, establishments, looted and set on fire. Added to this is the reduced growth of Tamil population through reduced birth which stands at 1.5% of the total population compared to 5.51% for Sinhalese.

3. Entrenched culture of impunity for security forces, Government officials and a judiciary which is politicized.

4. Permanent residence of security forces and their operational freedom. Civilians are now living with and among security forces.

5. Lack of International support and/or intervention. Past responses show only trickery and deceit for the 60 years sufferings of Tamils.

6. Sri Lanka’s disregard of International opinions, suggestions, blatant rejection, and refusal to comply with UNHRC Recommendations and United Nation’s muted response to rein in Sri Lanka for its non-compliance of international commitments.

7. Discrimination of Tamils in Government sector in employment and allocation of resources including neglect of development schemes in the North and East.

8. Nil prospect of constitutional guarantee of recognition of North and East as one unit. [As agreed in the Indo/Sri Lanka Accord of 1987] and also freezing the powers of the Provincial Councils to control land/police as agreed in the Accord.

9. Rejection of International Investigation into war crimes with dim prospects of Internal Judicial mechanism to be set up by Sri Lanka as promised.

10. Accelerated program of Sinhalisiation and Buddhisiation including neglect of Tamil language for official use and communication with Tamil civilians.

11. A limited Northern Provincial Council functioning at the mercy of the Centre

With no possibility of International Community and/or United Nations intervention, the gradual extinction of Tamils in Sri Lanka cannot be ruled out in the future.

The present President Ranil Wickramasinghe is not different from others as he appears to be a moderate leader but does not hesitate to seek refuge and exploit the Sinhala and Buddhist nationalism.

Thambu Kanagasabai, LLM {Lond.]  Former Lecturer in Law, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka

6 February 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark

Holding the foreign policy of a country accountable in court, notably when it comes to matters criminal, can be insuperably challenging.  Judges traditionally shun making decisions on policy, even though they unofficially do so all the time.  The Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York-based civil liberties group, was not to be discouraged, most notably regarding the Biden administration’s unflagging support for Israel and its war in Gaza.

In a filing in the US District Court for the Northern District of California last November, the CCR, representing a number of Palestinian human rights organisations including Palestinians in Gaza and the United States, sought an order “requiring that the President of the United States, the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of Defense adhere to their duty to prevent, and not further, the unfolding genocide of Palestinian people in Gaza.”  Such a duty, arising in the UN Genocide Convention of 1948, “is judicially enforceable as a peremptory norm of customary international law.”

The complaint alleged that the genocidal conditions in Gaza had “so far been made possible because of unconditional support given [to Israel] by the named official-capacity defendants in this case,” namely, President Joseph Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

At the time proceedings were initiated, the Israeli campaign in Gaza, launched in response to the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas, had already claimed the lives of 11,000 Palestinian civilians, “more than 4,500 of them children, as well as entire families, numerous journalists and UN workers.”  The bombardment had crippled critical infrastructure, led to the displacement of 1.6 million persons, and had been “accompanied by a total siege of Gaza, depriving Palestinians in Gaza the conditions of life necessary for human survival: food, water, medicine, fuel, and electricity.”  (Currently, the displaced number exceeds 2 million; the number of dead towers at 26,000.)

In reaching his decision to dismiss the case on jurisdictional grounds, Jeffrey S. White admitted it was the “most difficult” of his career.  He acknowledged South Africa’s action in the International Court of Justice against Israel, which argues that Israel’s conduct against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip satisfies the elements of genocide.

The January 26 interim order of provisional measures granted by the ICJ explicitly put Israel on notice to comply with the Genocide Convention, punish those responsible for directly and publicly inciting genocide, permit basic humanitarian assistance and essential services to the Gaza Strip, preserve relevant evidence pertaining to potential genocidal acts and submit a report to the ICJ on its compliance within a month.  In international law, these interim measures are accepted as binding.

The ICJ also showed some scepticism to arguments that Israel had taken adequate measures to minimise harm to Palestinian civilians and respond to instances where an incitement to genocide could be imputed.  None of the measures taken till that point had removed the risk of irreparable harm; to merely assert compliance was not sufficient evidence of it.

In White’s words, “the undisputed evidence before this Court comports with the finding of the ICJ and indicates that the current treatment of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by the Israeli military may plausibly constitute a genocide in violation of international law.”  Lawyers representing the government also chose not to cross-examine witnesses, bar one Holocaust scholar who testified that Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip could be classed as genocidal.  Unfortunately for the plaintiffs, the claims advanced in this case, involving disputes over foreign policy, raised “fundamentally non-justiciable political questions.”  To compel the US government to cease military and financial assistance to Israel were matters “intimately related to foreign policy and national security”.

The plaintiffs had encountered that great limitation articulated by Chief Justice Marshall in 1803: that ‘[q]uestions, in their nature political, or which are, by the constitution and laws, submitted to the executive, can never be made in this court”.  To do so would violate the separation of powers.  The judiciary was, according to White, “not equipped with the intelligence or the acumen necessary to make foreign policy decisions on behalf of the government.”

Despite being bound by weighty precedent and rulings in previous cases, White concludes with a plea.  The ICJ had found it “plausible that Israel’s conduct amounts to genocide.”  The judge implored the “Defendants to examine the results of their unflagging support of the military siege against the Palestinians in Gaza.”  Not bad for one lacking intelligence or the acumen necessary to make foreign policy decisions.

While disappointed in White’s ruling, Brad Parker, a senior advisor to one of the organisational plaintiffs, Defense for Children International Palestine, saw the thickest of silver linings.  Along with the ICJ decision, “and the increasing recognition that what Israel is carrying out is a genocide and the US is complicit in those genocidal acts, I think the strong language from a US federal court judge increasingly works to isolate Israel’s actions and also bring pressure on the Biden administration to change course.”

To date, the slaughter in Gaza continues.  Israeli politicians and military officials persist in claiming that murderously innovative approaches to killing Palestinian civilians are not, by definition, genocidal.  But the walls of justifiable impunity, so proudly claimed by Israel in its righteous mission of self-defence, are proving increasingly porous.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.

6 February 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr Marwan Asmar

It starts by the narrator “saying this is the scene in Camp Cinema; me and my friend Imad decided to bring a bit of color into the life of children and make a cinema in the refugee camp after 120 days of Israeli aggression and electricity blackout on the whole of the Gaza Strip.

Because of the fact that there is no television, we’ve decided to launch a cinema in one of the tents and call it Camp Cinema.”

He then showed the kids clapping happily, all gathering around a TV screen with the video clip turning on him while spraying the name of the cinema in black on the tent to tell other children to come and watch.

As the screen lit up everyone cheered. The narrator is then pictured with the happy children. “This is first time the children saw a television ever since 7^th October. We decided on this idea for the thousands of children who became displaced,” over the last four months.

Children were shown enjoying the colorful screen full of cartoon characters. One little girl said she saw the television one week before by a friend of her brother who brought chocolates with him but he was quickly martyred, she added.

Chaos then followed with the children moving about erratically and in a hurry. The narrator told them not to be afraid as they shuffled out of the tent. There was sound of bombing thuds. The narrator then said: “After the continual targeting and when the sounds become nearer the cinema, the kids felt afraid and runway because the attacks were intense.

We then couldn’t continue and really can’t continue with the cinema because of the daily Israeli targeting of the areas that were near this cinema tent and we had to drop the idea.”

The video clip made by Mashhad Media (@almashhad.com) ends with children leaving the tent with someone above ruining their watching.

One writes on the X platform: “This is a beautiful initiative and do you think the [Israeli] occupation would leave our children alone? But regardless Camp Cinema for the children of Gaza is injecting a breather about the meaning of life even if it’s only for an hour or so.”

Mindboggling

Figures are mindboggling and moving upwards alarmingly. The numbers of children killed during this 4-month war on Gaza stands at 11,500 out of a total of 27,100 people who were slaughtered up till now. Disturbing figures by UNICEF also show that 17,000 children have been left either unaccompanied and/or separated from their families which is one percent of the 1.7 million displaced people of Gaza whose population stands at around 2.3 million people.

Dr Marwan Asmar is a writer based in Amman, Jordan.

6 February 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Elizabeth West

I’ve a bee in my bonnet when it comes to the children of Gaza, and so far, have not found any means to swat it away. The buzzing is making me a little crazy. This may be a very good thing….

Here’s the background on that bee. The official death toll in Gaza is now nearing 28,000. Of that figure, accrued in just 122 days, about 70% were women and children, and a goodly portion of the rest were non-combatant males. Just under half the population of Gaza—prior to the current massacre—were kids. By my estimate, that would add up to these totals: about 20,000 individual women and children killed, of whom more than 11,000 would have been youths.

These numbers—28,000 dead, 20,000 women and children lost, 11,600 kids killed– are cyphers, little bits of fact that are supplied to us, but which fall profoundly short of describing the carnage. They are nothing more than snapshots of the Israeli-wrought destruction, devoid of any hint of the vast humanity lost, the complexity, the richness, the wisdom, the stories–small and large.

The tiny victims we see, white-shrouded, being lamented and then piled into mass graves, were children. They were not Hamas, nor were they PIJ. They never voted. For anyone. They never plotted against the Zionist occupiers. They were never in a position to participate in a coup against Hamas, as many Westerners seem to feel the Gazans ought to have done–and for which Israel insists they are culpable, deserving of their own deaths.

These juvenile fatalities are fairly well reported; it is no secret that the deaths point to massive war crimes.

THOSE WHO ARE LIVING

That said, here is the bee itself: there are other groups of kids whose plight is of equal and possibly even more pressing concern. To begin with, there are the children heartbreakingly labeled WCNSF, or ‘Wounded Child, No Surviving Family.’  Some of these kids have lost entire extended families along with their own eyes, legs, arms, hands, feet and voices. Next, there are those who have survived with bodies as-of-yet intact, but who are all alone in a world with little food or water or shelter, where bombs rain from the sky, and familiar landmarks are reduced to rubble each day.

The total death count to date–28,000– comprises innumerable mothers and fathers, uncles, grandparents, aunts, and older siblings. The very people who would naturally care for the most vulnerable, the children. The ones who would procure food and water and blankets for them, nurse them when they fall ill. The people who would help them locate a center of sanity in the midst of this complete madness. Who would love them–arguably the most essential element to meaningful survival–even while every other aspect of their lives is shattered. The Israelis are not just eradicating people, they are destroying the very vital social networks that we all count on to allow our young to survive and thrive, physically and emotionally.

I find myself wondering: what happens to these children?  According to UNICEF, there are now about 19,000 orphans in Gaza. The organization Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, chaired by Richard Falk, puts that number closer to 25,000. Cold hard figures again, but for some context, can we try to imagine the unimaginable? Think of every single child in Lansing, Michigan violently orphaned in a matter of just four months, and then consider the magnitude of that loss. Add in widespread displacement, homelessness, war and famine, and a sense of what the number really means begins to emerge.

Let’s start with the physical needs: where will they live? Who will care for them? Who will raise them? We are looking at a huge contingent of children who need places to live. Family, including extended family, are the universally preferred options for children who have lost their parents. But for many of these kids, all vestiges of family have been wiped out.

Not only are their families gone, but they are almost certainly traumatized in ways and to an extent we have limited experience in addressing. Given that some solution will at length be found to house and feed them, who, then, will help them find a way to get out of bed each morning, learn to sing again, play with others, swim without fear in their beautiful sea?

Children are resilient, it is frequently noted, and perhaps truly, but no one should just bounce back from what these kids have endured. The human mind and heart are not made to do that. These children, if they survive the genocide, are going to need great quantities of various kinds of support in order to keep on living with some sense of purpose and dignity. The buzzing says: I should be working on how to provide this help.

When I spoke recently with Zeiad Abbas Shamrouch, Executive Director at the Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA), he acknowledged the breadth of the challenge posed by needs of the orphans of Gaza, but expressed a position he said was shared by most organizations dedicated to the well-being of Palestinian children: Just let us do the first action to stop the genocide, and then we can discuss what is needed next. For now, he explained, MECA workers in Gaza are intent upon getting adequate food, water and shelter to all of Gaza’s children, as well as those who care for them. MECA, like so many NGOs concerned with Palestinian welfare, are very sensibly laser-focused on saving lives today. Only after the immediate and lethal threats are neutralized will they be at liberty to turn their attention fully toward helping Gazans heal and rebuild.

Most of us–myself and those reading this—are citizens of countries that have actively aided and abetted this slaughter. Our tax dollars have purchased the bombs, our elected leaders have winked and nodded at Netanyahu and his accomplices as they spew racist and genocidal hatred, meanwhile orchestrating the massacre. Biden—as we all know– went beyond the winking to commit that odious embrace. Just recently, a number of our governments defunded UNRWA (based on rock solid ‘evidence’ from the ever-mendacious IDF and Shin Bet), further endangering Gaza’s children at a critical moment when famine and disease are rampant.

It’s true, and worth noting, that many of us are doing what we can to stop or slow the killing. We are organizing, marching, getting arrested and clogging the courts, insisting that our voices be heard in the AIPAC-infiltrated halls of government. We are praying, we are shouting and we are writing and pleading, sending money as we are able, but …. as it was with the Iraq war, our voices and our bodies out on the street–so far–tend to be brushed off like a small swarm of gnats, annoying but little more. As we continue to rally and to do all we can to hold those responsible for this ongoing war crime accountable, the grim reality is that Palestinians continue to die.

That means not only more loss of life, but more orphans, more kids who desperately need universal, wrap-around care.

As we call for ceasefire, we can think concurrently about the kids, alive but without family, how we can do right by them both now and later, when the slaughter stops. I feel an obligation, foremost because of our shared humanity, but also because I live in the country most complicit in creating this catastrophe. In order to silence that bee, I must do something to counteract the obscene violence that has robbed these children of their families, their homes, their schools, their friends, their teachers, their pets, their ability to feel safe, and to an unknown–but surely considerable–extent, their capacity to grow into the beautiful multi-faceted humans their parents believed was their birthright.

This is a situation that requires solutions encompassing the needs of the whole child– spiritual, emotional and physical. It is one I have seen little discussion of, and yet there is no doubt that it is and will continue to be a complex and urgent issue.  As Zeiad noted, stopping the killing is first, but for those of us not living under Israeli assault, those of us with the luxury to simply turn on the tap to obtain water to boil for coffee, rummage in the fridge for something to eat, pick up our phones and computers at will to communicate, the capacity to contemplate possible answers exists right now.

A WELL-INTENDED (but likely) WRONG TURN

Some people are at work seeking these answers; I’ve encountered some mention of plans to resettle orphaned children in the US. Although this is a tempting idea in some regards, I have grave concerns. It seems quite transparently to be the case that the Zionist objective is and always has been to remove all Palestinians from the land of their ancestors and further, to dismantle their culture and identity such that they disappear into the diaspora. Transplanting Gaza’s children to the US, the UK or EU countries thus facilitates that criminal and illegal Zionist intention.

For the kids themselves, separation from the familiar sensory landmarks–the sounds, smells, foods, music, language—would be another huge and disorienting loss. Even placed with the most well-meaning and culturally aligned families in the West–and I know there are wonderful people who would open their hearts and homes without hesitation–I strongly suspect that the discordance, the loss of what little remains of ‘home,’ heaped on top of the trauma they are already carrying, would be insurmountable for many kids.

Adoption in the Islamic world, from what I understand, is not seen in the same way as it is in the US and Europe. While raising another’s biological child is not uncommon, particularly in the case of orphans, there is an emphasis placed upon maintaining that child’s birth ties, a tradition which would run counter to sending children to far-off places.

All kids deserve to be cared for and to have their needs met; after a trauma like the one suffered by the young people of Gaza; we must consider their intrinsic need to be Palestinian as one of the most paramount. The complete destruction of the lives they were leading on October 6^th is almost certain to be the defining event of their lives. For that reason alone, anything that might undermine their identity as Palestinian would, in my view, be a failure to meet those needs.

There are a host of reasons, then, not to go down the road of ‘resettling’ these kids outside of Palestine and the Middle East. While it might be a beautifully open-hearted reaction to the critical situation of these children (a family without kids for a kid without a family?), it is clearly not a plan that speaks to most of these children’s best interests.

Possibly of equal importance is the recognition that answers to the question ‘how can we help the orphans of Gaza?’ must come from Palestinians. And to my knowledge, no one in Palestine is yet asking for Americans or Europeans to rush in and scoop up their orphaned children. Even though I understand the attraction, the personal satisfaction it might offer to anyone who would open their home, it is almost certainly a wrong turn.

WHAT MIGHT REAL HELP LOOK LIKE?

So what can we do? How can those of us who feel compelled, help in a way that is actually… helpful?  Ram Dass and Paul Gorman wrote a book some decades ago titled How Can I Help?.  It is a wonderful compilation of anecdotes and clear thinking about helping, about that which underlies much of our helpfully- intended efforts. The book includes ideas and guidance about how to offer our love and support in ways that truly center the person or people we wish to show up for. One of the key messages I gleaned from it points to the profound power—and often, incredible challenge– of simply being fully present with someone else’s pain or fear. Opening and closing the shades, plumping the pillows, getting more ice for the water jug—these all may be, Ram Dass and Gorman suggest, more for our own benefit than for that of a loved one lying gravely ill in a hospital bed. The person who is in that bed is in fact more or less abandoned by the fussing and fixing of our ‘helping.’ Instead, they say—and I paraphrase–sit with the suffering, join in it, honor it. Be authentically with that person where they are, and in general, this will prove to be of far more actual help than doing a lot of stuff that hasn’t been asked for and isn’t particularly needed. Of course, when you are asked, respond. Getting more ice is indeed very helpful, when it is wanted.

The bee in my bonnet has a terrible time simply sitting with the suffering of Palestinians, orphaned or not. I want to act, to do my little bit to soften the horrors. I am not sure that ‘being present with’ Gazan distress is of much value at all. From what I read and hear, the people of Gaza are actually pleading for us to get more ice, to act on their behalf. So the bee drones on: where will these children best be served?  In orphanages within Palestinian refugee settlements?  Should I be raising the money to enable the Palestinian social workers, doctors, and therapists of all sorts who might provide the staffing for such facilities? Should I think about finding ways to make it possible for Palestinian or even other Arab families to foster or adopt, to take on sponsorship of individual kids?  What else can I do?

I have so much privilege and security, so much choice; these surely add to my obligation to act. Still, it is humbling to see how easy it is to identify a problem from my comfy living room, devise a solution that makes a lot of sense to me and charge ahead.  Being a ‘savior’ is another easy-to-make wrong turn.

So the buzzing continues—I’m sure I will keep searching for ideas about how to help, but against that backdrop, I will persist fiercely in doing the small things I can to stop the killing. This has to be primary, not only because it is a prerequisite for any reconstitution of somewhat normal life, but because this is what the Palestinians I have spoken with ask me to do. What funds I have, I will give to any of a number of incredible organizations that are feeding and sheltering Gaza’s kids. It is clearly not time yet for action on my concerns about the orphans. I will wait for Palestinian leadership on this issue, and I will do my best to show up when a direction is identified.

The pace of global collapse layers another challenge to the future of these children. The speed with which each new disaster captures our attention leaves us all at risk for inconstancy. It is not hard to believe that three months after the shooting stops in Gaza, most of us currently transfixed will have moved on to the next emergency. But this is one excruciating debacle for which we bear some direct responsibility, and we must not turn away from it. As Philippe Lazzarini of UNRWA said, “An entire generation of children is traumatized, and will take years to heal.”  Our bombs did that. Our winks, nods and hugs did that.

I hope that we will show up and stay present, do all we can to make healing a viable option for as many of the orphans of Gaza as possible. It may not be apparent just yet how that will best transpire, but the hard work of regenerating lives and country requires commitment, consistency, and a willingness to work in relative obscurity.

This may or may not call to you, but if it does, and if you have your own bee, let its buzzing serve to keep you from complacency. Let us be poised, then, to help in earnest, once the path is plotted. Let us resolve to do all we can to show up for Palestinian-led efforts to rebuild the networks that support life and love, those that have been ripped apart by Israeli-dropped US bombs. Let us not allow the next riveting train-wreck to distract us or to banish the orphans of Gaza from our hearts. These innocent and innately worthy children deserve—at a minimum– real help. They are our fellow humans and they must not be abandoned again.

Elizabeth West has a lifelong interest in exploring the interstices where love, truth, imagination and courage meet, sometimes igniting wild transformation.

6 February 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Andrew Mitrovica

Biden et al may claim, at least publicly, to ask Israel to stop the looming carnage. Netanyahu will not be deterred by their empty ‘warnings’.

I wanted to be wrong, but it turns out that I was right.

Since early October, I have been sure that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has had one aim all along: to erase Gaza.

Spurred on by a rabid cabinet that believes that Palestinians are worthless “vermin”, Netanyahu has done what I suspect he has always wanted to do: dispense with the incremental destruction of a people and a strip of land and, instead, engineer a genocide in Gaza with ruthless and oh so satisfying efficiency.

By now, this fact should be clear. That is the “victory” Netanyahu has and will continue to pursue until he has achieved it – to turn Gaza into dust and memory permanently.

There will be no “pause in fighting”, no “lasting” ceasefire, no truce, no end to the genocide because Netanyahu has no reason or incentive to stop.

And Netanyahu knows that no one inside or outside Israel is prepared, willing or able to stop him.

Hope has been extinguished.

Every day, Palestinians hope, in vain, that the horrors and outrages will end. Every day, we hope, in vain, for a faint sign that the murderous madness will end, that reason and diplomacy will prevail, that the captives – on both sides – will be reunited with their aching families.

Hope is a fantasy, snuffed out by men and forces who thrive on causing chaos and despair in their “killing rage”.

Netanyahu may be unpopular. Still, what he is doing and how he is going about doing it in defiance of proportionate scale, decency, and international law has the overwhelming support of Israelis who, apparently, would also be content to see Gaza reduced to dust and memory – permanently.

Polls show that most Israelis want Netanyahu to use more force, more “firepower” in Gaza and beyond. Damn decency, international law, and the mushrooming number of casualties day after dreadful day.

The pain and suffering of Palestinians is irrelevant. The right and duty of Israel to defend itself is the only thing that counts.

It’s hardly surprising then that polls show, as well, that despite the rampant hunger, disease, and desperate need, most Israelis want fellow Israelis to continue blocking trucks carrying food, water, and medicine from reaching Gaza until the Hamas-held captives are released.

Palestinians are expendable. Israelis are not.

As for the “future” of Gaza, 93 percent of Israelis reportedly agree with Netanyahu: the two-state “solution” is dead on arrival since all of the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River belongs to them. The intent is to have Israeli settlers take the place of Palestinians in Gaza. Another Nakba is already afoot – literally.

I am convinced most of Israel’s confederates abroad – whether they admit it publicly or not – also embrace these egregious beliefs and subscribe, wholeheartedly, to Netanyahu’s modus operandi and definition of “victory”.

So, far from being “damaged” or “weakened”, Netanyahu has been emboldened as a “wartime” prime minister and by an “international community” that has encouraged him to do what he has done in Gaza and the occupied West Bank without remorse or restraint.

Netanyahu will survive as prime minister for as long as Israel goes about doing what it is doing in Gaza and perhaps longer. Ever the calculating Machiavellian, he has rebuffed predictions of his imminent political demise or forced exit by wishful-thinking columnists, “experts”, and former presidential candidates.

Again and again, the “international community” has said it is “concerned” by what their man in Tel Aviv is doing in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Again and again, these expressions of “concern” have proven to be hollow bits of performative nonsense.

On reliable cue, US President Joe Biden described what Israel is doing in Gaza as being “over the top”.

“I’ve been pushing really hard, really hard, to get humanitarian assistance into Gaza. There are a lot of innocent people who are starving, a lot of innocent people who are in trouble and dying, and it’s gotta stop. Number one,” Biden told reporters earlier this week.

It won’t stop. How can it stop when Biden and his complicit allies in London, Paris, Berlin, and Ottawa keep arming Israel to the brim and refusing – even in the blatant face of Israel’s “over the top” onslaught and the deepening humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza – to demand an immediate ceasefire?

The calamitous course was set when Biden and the other presidents, chancellors, and prime ministers rushed to Tel Aviv in “solidarity” pilgrimages to “stand firmly” by Netanyahu’s side.

It’s too late to apply the stock, talking-point-ephemeral brake since Netanyahu isn’t listening.

He isn’t abiding by the International Court of Justice’s damning ruling which called on the Israeli government to stop what it is doing in Gaza after South African lawyers and diplomats made a persuasive and “plausible” case that Palestinians are victims of genocide and Israel is the perpetrator.

Rafah is in Netanyahu’s crosshairs. The so-called “safe haven” and the more than a million Palestinians who have taken refuge there in tents and makeshift “homes” will endure the inevitable lethal consequences of the major Western powers’ unconditional backing of Israel.

Exhausted and petrified Palestinians, including mothers, wives, and their sons and daughters, will not be spared Israel’s wrath. Their already precarious lives hang on the precipice of Netanyahu’s – for the moment and only for the moment – delayed designs.

Biden et al may claim, at least publicly, to ask Israel to stop the looming carnage. Netanyahu will not be deterred by their empty, delivered-behind-a-lectern “warnings”. He is calling the geopolitical shots, not Biden et al.

While America was preoccupied with a football game on Sunday night, Netanyahu gave Palestinians in Rafah a taste of the terror to come –  firing a shower of shells that killed and dismembered dozens of sleeping children, women and men.

Finally, a cocksure Netanyahu understands the value of patience. Biden looks and sounds like an old man who is poised to become yesterday’s man – gone, inconsequential and forgotten.

The November presidential election approaches just on the horizon. Another doddering old man, Donald Trump, has a better than even chance of returning to the Oval Office.

If that happens, Trump will enshrine Israel’s licence to commit genocide without his predecessor’s meaningless rhetorical “reservations”.

Either way, America has morphed, in effect, into Israel’s proxy. The dynamic has shifted.

Israel will decide what will happen in Gaza today and tomorrow and America will salute in approval and help pay for the pleasure of doing its captain’s bidding – happily, willingly, and enthusiastically.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Andrew Mitrovica is an Al Jazeera columnist based in Toronto.

12 February 2024

Source: aljazeera.com

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky

Copyright NATO

Update and Introductory Note

According to Joe Biden:

“The Russian military has begun a brutal assault on the people of Ukraine without provocation, without justification, without necessity. (Joe Biden’s, Press conference, February 24, 2022).

What is important to underscore is that NATO’s Secretary General in a formal statement to the European Parliament contradicts the official narrative. He unequivocally confirms that the War started in 2014

On September 7, 2023, NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg  in a presentation to the European Parliament, formally acknowledged that:

“the war didn’t start in February last year [2022]. It started in 2014.”

That was ten years ago.

This far-reaching declaration confirms his earlier statement in May 2023 in an interview with the Washington Post:

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg: The war in Ukraine has fundamentally changed NATO, but then you have to remember the war didn’t start in 2022. The war started in 2014. And since then, NATO has implemented the biggest reinforcement of our collective defense since the end of the Cold War. (Washington Post, May 9, 2023)

Speaking on behalf of NATO, what this statement (European Parliament, WP) unequivocally confirms is that US-NATO was already at war in 2014. It also tacitly acknowledges that Russia did not “initiate the war” on Ukraine in February 2022.

“The purpose of this is to prevent war”

In a twisted irony, in his presentation to the European Parliament, Stoltenberg portrays “the purpose” of the Ukraine war,  which has resulted in more than 300,000 casualties as a means “to prevent war”. 

Video

Transcript of Stoltenberg Statement to European Parliament

“Therefore, we have already increased our presence in eastern part of the Alliance, to send a very clear message to Moscow. To remove any room for misunderstanding, miscalculation. That NATO is there to defend every inch of NATO territory, one for all for one.

At the NATO summit, we agreed new plans for the defence of the whole Alliance. We also agreed to establish and identify more high readiness troops, 300,000 troops on different levels of high readiness, and also have more air and naval capabilities, ready to quickly reinforce if needed.

The purpose of this is to prevent war. The purpose of this is to ensure that NATO continues to be the most successful Alliance in history because we have prevented any military attack on any NATO Allies. And when there’s a full-fledged war going on in Europe, then it becomes even more important that we have credible deterrence and by strengthening our deterrence and defence, we are preventing war, preserving peace for NATO Allies, because there’s no room for miscalculation.

And the third thing was that NATO Allies have really now demonstrated that they are delivering on the commitment we made in 2014, because the war didn’t start in February last year. It started in 2014. The full-fledged invasion happened last year, but the war, the illegal annexation of Crimea, Russia went into eastern Donbas in 2014. (emphasis added)

What Stoltenberg fails to acknowledge is the US-NATO’s role in triggering the 2014 EuroMaidan massacre which was conducive “in the name of Western democracy” to a “regime change”: namely the instatement of a Neo-Nazi puppet regime in Kiev.

US-NATO is firmly embedded in the Kiev regime’s Neo-Nazi project the objective of which is to destroy Ukraine as well wage war on Russia. 

Ironically the head of State of this neo-Nazi government –hand-picked by US intel– is of Russian-Jewish descent, who prior to entering politics did not speak a word of Ukrainian:

Zelensky is Jewish. He supports the Nazi Azov Battalion, the two Nazi parties, which have committed countless atrocities against the Jewish community in Ukraine.  And now this Jewish-Russian proxy president wants to “ban everything Russian”, including the Russian language (his mother tongue), …

My thanks to Substack for their unbending commitment to Independent Media

Michel Chossudovsky, Substack, February 11, 2024

Introduction

This article addresses the implications of a controversial statement by NATO to the effect that the Ukraine War “didn’t start in 2022”, “The war started in 2014”

It’s a Bombshell: NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg confirmed (speaking on behalf of NATO) that the “war didn’t start in 2022”. 

In an interview with The Washington Post (May 9, 2023), Jens Stoltenberg unequivocally confirmed that “the war started in 2014″. 

Jens Stoltenberg’s bold statement (which has barely been the object of media coverage) has opened up a Pandora’s Box, or best described “A Can of Worms” on behalf of the Atlantic Alliance.

What he bears out is that the beginning of the Ukraine war coincided with a U.S. sponsored Coup d’état, confirmed by Victoria’s Nuland‘s “F**k the EU telephone conversation with U.S. Ambassador Pyatt  in February 2014. (see below)

Part I of this article examines the legal implications of Stoltenberg’s statement on behalf of the Atlantic Alliance. 

Of crucial significance: Having stated that “the war started in 2014”, NATO can no longer claim that Russia’s Special Military Operation (SMO) of February 24, 2022 constitutes, from a legal standpoint, “an invasion”. 

Part I also addresses the issue of The Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC). 

Parti II focuses on Stoltenberg’s twisted statement that Article 5 of the Atlantic Treaty could be invoked as means to declare war against Russia.

“Article 5 of the Atlantic Treaty – its collective defence clause” declaring that an attack on one member state is “to be an attack against all NATO members.” Article 5 is NATO’s doctrine of Collective Self-Defense. 

“The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all”.

In regards to the invocation of Article V in relation to Russia, a justification or fake “pretext” was mentioned by Stoltenberg in his interview with the Washington Post.

Were Article V to be invoked, this would inevitably precipitate the World into a WWIII scenario, consisting of a war whereby all 30 member states of the Atlantic Alliance, most of which are members of the European Union would be involved. 

Legal Implications

The legal implications of Stoltenberg’s statements are far-reaching. Speaking on behalf of NATO, he has acknowledged that Russia did not declare war on Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

“The war started in 2014“, which intimates that the war was launched in 2014, with US-NATO directly involved from the very outset:

Lee Hockstader, Washington Post Editorial Board: How has the war led NATO to recalibrate its defense posture and doctrine?

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg: The war in Ukraine has fundamentally changed NATO, but then you have to remember the war didn’t start in 2022. The war started in 2014. And since then, NATO has implemented the biggest reinforcement of our collective defense since the end of the Cold War. 

For the first time in our history, we have combat-ready troops in the eastern part of the alliance, the battle groups in Poland, Lithuania, the Baltic countries, actually the whole eight battle groups from the Baltic Sea down to the Black Sea. Higher readiness of our forces. And increased defense spending.

Stoltenberg also confirmed that US-NATO’s intent from the outset in 2014 was to integrate the Kiev Neo-Nazi regime as a full member of NATO.

Lee Hockstader, Washington Post Editorial Board: What does a plausible way forward to Ukraine’s eventual membership in NATO look like?

Stoltenberg: First of all, all NATO allies agree that Ukraine will become a member of the alliance. All allies agree that Ukraine has the right to choose its own path, that it is not for Moscow, but for Kyiv, to decide.

1. The Legality of Russia’s “Special Military Operation”

Inasmuch as the war started in 2014, Art 2(4) applies to both the Kiev Neo-Nazi regime and well as US-NATO which was  behind the February 2014 illegal Coup D’état.

What this implies is that from a legal standpoint, US-NATO on behalf and in coordination with the US sponsored Neo-Nazi  Kiev regime had initiated a de facto undeclared war against Luhansk and Donesk.

From a legal standpoint, this was not “An Act of War against Russia”. Led by US-NATO, this was an “Act of War against Ukraine and the People of Ukraine”. 

Putin’s February 24, 2022 Statement

As we recall President Putin had defined a Special Military Operation (SMO) in support of the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. The stated objective was  to “demilitarise” and “denazify” Ukraine.

Article 51 of the UN Charter which was referred to by President Putin in his February 24, 2022 speech confirms the following:

“Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, …

Russia’s SMO complies with the exercise of self defense. Putin in his speech (February 24, 2022) referred to:

“the fundamental threats which irresponsible Western politicians created for Russia consistently, rudely and unceremoniously from year to year.

I am referring to the eastward expansion of NATO, which is moving its military infrastructure ever closer to the Russian border.”

2. “NeoCons Endorse NeoNazis”: U.S. Sponsored 2014 EuroMaidan Coup d’état. An Illegal and Criminal Act Supported by US-NATO

What Stoltenberg intimated in his interview with the WP (no doubt unwittingly) is that the Ukraine War was a US-NATO Initiative, carried out in the immediate wake of the illegal US Supported February 2014 EuroMaidan Coup d’Etat which was then conducive to the instatement of a Neo-Nazi regime in Kiev.

The New York Times described the EuroMaidan as “a  flowering of democracy, a blow to authoritarianism and kleptocracy in the former Soviet space.” ( After Initial Triumph, Ukraine’s Leaders Face Battle for Credibility,  NYTimes.com, March 1, 2014, emphasis added)

The grim realities were otherwise. The forbidden truth was that US-NATO had engineered –through a carefully staged covert operation– the formation of a US-NATO proxy regime integrated by Neo-Nazis, which was conducive to the removal and brutal demise of the elected president Viktor Yanukovych. 

The staged EuroMaidan Protest Movement initiated in November 2013 was led by the two Nazi parties, with Dmytro Yarosh, of the Right Sector (Pravy Sector) playing a key role as leader of  the Brown Shirt Neo-Nazi paramilitary. He had called for disbanding the Party of the regions and the Communist Party.

The shootings of protesters by snipers were coordinated by Yarosh’s Brown Shirts and Andriy Parubiy leader of the Neo-Nazi Svoboda Party.

Of significance there was a  leaked telephone conversation (February 2014) between Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet and European Union Commissioner Catherine Ashton, which confirmed that “the snipers who shot at protesters and police in Kiev were  hired by Ukrainian opposition leaders [NeoNazis]”.

Video: Leaked Conversation: Urmas Paet and Catherine Ashton

(Starts at 1′.50″)

Estonia Foreign Minister Urmas Paet tells Catherine Ashton the following (excerpts):

“There is now stronger and stronger understanding that behind the snipers, it was not Yanukovych, but it was somebody from the new coalition [Parubiy  and Yarosh].”

“And second, what was quite disturbing, this same Olga [Bogomolets] told as well that all the evidence shows that the people who were killed by snipers from both sides, among policemen and then people from the streets, that they were the same snipers killing people from both sides.”

“[Dr. Olga Bogomolets] then also showed me some photos she said that as a medical doctor she can say that it is the same handwriting, the same type of bullets, and it’s really disturbing that now the new [Neo-Nazi] coalition, that they don’t want to investigate what exactly happened.” (quoted by Mahdi Nazemoroaya, Global Research, March 18, 2014, emphasis added)

Foreign Minister’s Urmas Paet’s statements (above) are corroborated by A Kiev Post (March 13, 2014) report:

Selected excerpts below, click here to access full Kiev Post report (March 13, 2014):

“Former State Security Head of Ukraine Oleksandr Yakimenko blames Ukraine’s current government [Neo-Nazi Kiev regime] for hiring snipers on Feb. 20, when dozens of people were killed and hundreds more wounded. The victims were mainly EuroMaidan Revolution demonstrations, but some police officers were also killed. This was the deadliest day during the EuroMaidan Revolution, a three-month uprising that claimed 100 lives.

Yakimenko also blamed the United States for organizing and financing the revolution by bringing illegal cash in using diplomatic mail.

Yankimenko says that Parubiy [leader of the Svoboda Neo-Nazi Party], as well as a number of other organizers of EuroMaidan, received direct orders from the U.S. government. …

“These are the forces that were doing everything they were told by the leaders and representatives of the United States,” he says. “They, in essence lived in the U.S. embassy. There wasn’t a day when they did not visit the embassy.”…

“From the beginning of Maidan we as a special service noticed a significant increase of diplomatic cargo to various embassies, western embassies located in Ukraine,” says Yakimenko. “It was tens of times greater than usual diplomatic cargo supplies.” He says that right after such shipments crisp, new U.S. dollar bills were spotted on Maidan. (emphasis added)

On a personal note, I lived through two of the most deadly U.S. military coups in Latin America: as Visiting Professor in Chile in 1973 (Gen. Augusto Pinochet) and then in Argentina in 1976 (Gen. Jorge Videla and “La Guerra Sucia”).

In comparison, the criminal acts and atrocities (Neo-Nazi sniper killings) committed by the US sponsored EuroMaidan are beyond description.

The Central Role of  the Svoboda Neo-Nazi Party 

As outlined above, Andriy Parubiy played a key role in the EuroMaidan massacre. Andriy Parubiy (image right) is the co-founder together with Oleh Tyahnybok of the Neo-Nazi Social-National Party of Ukraine (subsequently renamed Svoboda). Parubiy was first appointed Secretary of the National Security and National Defense Committee (RNBOU) by the Kiev regime. (Рада національної безпеки і оборони України), a key position which overseas the Ministry of Defense, the Armed Forces, Law Enforcement, National Security and Intelligence.

He subsequently (2015-2019) became Vice-Chair and Chair of the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine’s Parliament) shifting into the realm of international diplomacy on behalf of the Neo-Nazi regime.

In the course of his career, Parubiy developed numerous contacts in North America and Europe, with members of the European Parliament. He was invited to Washington on several occasions, meeting up (already in 2015) with Sen. John McCain (chair) of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He was also invited to Ottawa, meeting up with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Parliament Hill in 2016.

Victoria Nuland and Andriy Parubiy, 2018

The Role of Victoria Nuland

Victoria Nuland, acting on behalf of the US State Department was directly involved in “suggesting” key appointments.

While the Neo-Nazi leader Oleh Tyahnybok was not granted a cabinet position, members of the two neo-Nazi parties (namely Svoboda (Freedom Party) and The Right Sector (Pravy Sektor) were granted key positions in the areas of Defense, National Security and Law Enforcement.

The Neo Nazis also controlled the judicial process with the appointment of  Oleh Makhnitsky of the Svoboda Party (on February 22, 2014) to the position of prosecutor-general. What kind of justice would prevail with a renowned Neo-Nazi in charge of the Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine?

Video: F**k the EU. Nuland-Pyatt Leaked Phone Conversation

The controversial conversations between Victoria Nuland and US Ambassador Pyatt are recorded below. (See video and transcript below, YouTube version  (below).

(Leaked Online on February 4, 2014, Exact Date of Conversation Unconfirmed, Three weeks prior to the demise of President Yanukovych on February 21-22, 2014)

Transcript of Conversation between Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and the US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt,

on YouTube

“Warning: This transcript contains swearing” 

Voice thought to be Nuland’s: What do you think?

Voice thought to be Pyatt’s: I think we’re in play. The Klitschko [Vitaly Klitschko, one of three main opposition leaders] piece is obviously the complicated electron here. Especially the announcement of him as deputy prime minister and you’ve seen some of my notes on the troubles in the marriage right now so we’re trying to get a read really fast on where he is on this stuff. But I think your argument to him, which you’ll need to make, I think that’s the next phone call you want to set up, is exactly the one you made to Yats [Arseniy Yatseniuk, who subsequently became Prime Minister], another opposition leader]. And I’m glad you sort of put him on the spot on where he fits in this scenario. And I’m very glad that he said what he said in response.

Nuland: Good. I don’t think Klitsch should go into the government. I don’t think it’s necessary, I don’t think it’s a good idea.

Pyatt: Yeah. I guess… in terms of him not going into the government, just let him stay out and do his political homework and stuff. I’m just thinking in terms of sort of the process moving ahead we want to keep the moderate democrats together. The problem is going to be Tyahnybok [Oleh Tyahnybok], the other opposition leader] and his guys and I’m sure that’s part of what [President Viktor] Yanukovych is calculating on all this.

Nuland: [Breaks in] I think Yats is the guy who’s got the economic experience, the governing experience. He’s the… what he needs is Klitsch and Tyahnybok on the outside. He needs to be talking to them four times a week, you know. I just think Klitsch going in… he’s going to be at that level working for Yatseniuk, it’s just not going to work.

image: Tyannybok (leader of Neo-Nazi Svoboda Party (left), Yatseniuk (right)

Pyatt: Yeah, no, I think that’s right. OK. Good. Do you want us to set up a call with him as the next step?

Nuland: My understanding from that call – but you tell me – was that the big three were going into their own meeting and that Yats was going to offer in that context a… three-plus-one conversation or three-plus-two with you. Is that not how you understood it?

Pyatt: No. I think… I mean that’s what he proposed but I think, just knowing the dynamic that’s been with them where Klitschko has been the top dog, he’s going to take a while to show up for whatever meeting they’ve got and he’s probably talking to his guys at this point, so I think you reaching out directly to him helps with the personality management among the three and it gives you also a chance to move fast on all this stuff and put us behind it before they all sit down and he explains why he doesn’t like it.

Nuland: OK, good. I’m happy. Why don’t you reach out to him and see if he wants to talk before or after.

Pyatt: OK, will do. Thanks.

Nuland: OK… one more wrinkle for you Geoff. [A click can be heard] I can’t remember if I told you this, or if I only told Washington this, that when I talked to Jeff Feltman [United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs] this morning, he had a new name for the UN guy Robert Serry did I write you that this morning?

Pyatt: Yeah I saw that.

Nuland: OK. He’s now gotten both Serry and [UN Secretary General] Ban Ki-moon to agree that Serry could come in Monday or Tuesday. So that would be great, I think, to help glue this thing and to have the UN help glue it and, you know, Fuck the EU.

Pyatt: No, exactly. And I think we’ve got to do something to make it stick together because you can be pretty sure that if it does start to gain altitude, that the Russians will be working behind the scenes to try to torpedo it. And again the fact that this is out there right now,

I’m still trying to figure out in my mind why Yanukovych (garbled) that. In the meantime there’s a Party of Regions faction meeting going on right now and I’m sure there’s a lively argument going on in that group at this point. But anyway we could land jelly side up on this one if we move fast. So let me work on Klitschko and if you can just keep… we want to try to get somebody with an international personality to come out here and help to midwife this thing. The other issue is some kind of outreach to Yanukovych but we probably regroup on that tomorrow as we see how things start to fall into place.

Nuland: So on that piece Geoff, when I wrote the note [US vice-president’s national security adviser Jake] Sullivan’s come back to me VFR [direct to me], saying you need [US Vice-President Joe] Biden and I said probably tomorrow for an atta-boy and to get the deets [details] to stick. So Biden’s willing. (emphasis added)

Pyatt: OK. Great. Thanks.

3. U.S.-NATO Military Aid and Support (2014-2023) to a Full Fledged Neo-Nazi Proxy Regime is an Illegal and Criminal Act.

There is ample evidence of collaboration between the Kiev Neo-Nazi regime and NATO member states, specifically in relation to the continuous flow of military aid as well the training and support provided to the Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion.

Collaborating with a Neo-Nazi regime is criminal under international law. Anti-Nazi laws exist in a number of European countries.

“In the aftermath of World War II, the National Socialist Party (the Nazi party) of Germany was considered a criminal organization and therefore banned.

The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg in 1946 likewise ruled that the Nazi Party was a criminal organization.”

In a far-reaching initiative the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution on the “Glorification of Nazism” Click image too enlarge 

The Nazi Azov Battalion was from the outset integrated into Ukraine’s National Guard which is under the jurisdiction of Ukraine’s Ministry of  Internal Affairs.

The Azov battalion has (2015) been trained by the U.S. Canada and the UK. “

“The US contingent of instructors includes 290 specialists … Britain has dispatched 75 military personnel responsible for training “in command procedures and tactical intelligence”. (Los Angeles Times, April 20, 2015).

The training program was coupled with the influx of  military equipment under a program of so-called “non-lethal” military aid.

In turn, the Azov battalion –which is the object of military aid, has  also been involved in the conduct of Summer Nazi training Camps for children and adolescents

Recruitment of Child Soldiers

The Summer Camp training program constitutes the first stage of the recruitment of child soldiers in derogation of international law.

Invariably, the recruitment of child soldiers implies a training program which familiarizes young children with the use of light automatic weapons.

The military trainers are part of the Azov paramilitary dispatched to the Summer Camp (see the Nazi SS insignia on his uniform below):© vk.com/tabir.azovec

The Azov battalion’s Summer Camps are supported by US military aid channelled to the Ukraine National Guard via the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The MIA coordinates the “anti-terrorism operation” (ATO) in Donbass.

For further details See: Ukraine’s “Neo-Nazi Summer Camp”. Military Training for Young Children, Para-military Recruits, Michel Chossudovsky, July 08, 2023.

Media Propaganda 

The Sunday Times confirms that the children and adolescents are eventually slated to be recruited in the National Guard, which was integrated into the Ukrainian Military in 2016. The Guardian casually dismisses the criminal nature of the Azov Battalion’s Summer Camp for children (which bears the Nazi WolfAngel SS insignia):

“In Ukraine, the far-right Azov militia is fighting on the frontline – and running a summer camp for children. The Guardian visited the camp and followed 16-year-old Anton through his experiences. Is Azov really a modern Hitler Youth organisation, or is it trying to prepare young Ukrainians for the tough reality that awaits them?” (To view the video click here Guardian, emphasis added)

The following image is revealing, from Left to Right: the Blue NATO flag, the Azov Battalion’s Wolfangel SS of the Third Reich and Hitler’s Nazi Swastika (red and white background) are displayed, which points to collaboration between NATO and the Neo-Nazi regime.

4. The Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC)

Inasmuch as “the war started in 2014”, Stoltenberg’s statements confirm that US-NATO were supportive of Ukraine’s  artillery and missile bombardments of Donbass which resulted in more than 14,000 deaths of civilians, including children.

Stoltenberg’s admission on behalf of NATO that “the war started in 2014” would have required that from the very outset in February  2014 the warring parties including their allies abide by the Four Basic Principles of  The Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC) which consist in:

“….respect for and protection of the civilian population and civilian objects, the Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives.” [Additional Protocol 1, Article 48]

Civilian population (children) and civilian objects (schools, hospitals, residential areas) were the deliberate object of UAF and Azov Battalion attacks in blatant violation of the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC).

In accordance with the LOAC, Moscow took the decision starting in February 2014 to come to the rescue of Donbass civilians including children. Visibly the president of the I.C.C. Piotr Hofmanski in accusing President Putin of “unlawful kidnapping of Ukrainian children” hasn’t the foggiest understanding of Article 48. of the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC). Is this an issue of incompetence? Or has Piotr Hofmanski been co-opted into endorsing crimes against humanity?

In derogation of The Law of Armed Conflict, US-NATO bears the responsibility for having endorsed the Neo-Nazi Azov battalion, which was involved in the conduct of atrocities against civilians.

To consult Part II of this article (which was published by Global Research, click the link below:

Is NATO Intent upon Invoking Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty as a Means to Declaring War on Russia?

Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor of Economics (emeritus) at the University of Ottawa, Founder and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal, Editor of Global Research.

12 February 2024

Source: michelchossudovsky.substack.com

The Criminalization of International Law, Part II

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky

Introduction

From the outset on October 7, 2023, “A Tissue of Lies” has served to justify the killings in the Gaza Strip of more than 30,000 civilians, of which 70% are women and children. The atrocities committed against the People of Palestine are beyond description. At the time of writing, at least 13,000 children have been killed:

“That is one Palestinian child killed every 15 minutes… Thousands more are missing under the rubble, most of them are presumed dead.”

Military operations are invariably planned well in advance.

Had  Hamas’ “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm” been a “surprise attack” as parroted by the media, Netanyahu’s “State of Readiness For War” could not have been spontaneously carried out (at short notice) on that same day, namely October 7, 2023. The “State of Readiness” etiquette (revealed on October 7) points to a carefully prepared plan. 

It is now well established that Israel’s Operation “State of Readiness for War” which consisted in “Wiping Gaza Off the Map” was carefully coordinated with U.S. military and intelligence. It is part of a broader joint Israel-U.S. military agenda.

Washington not only supports the Genocide, it oversees the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Although South Africa’s legal initiative was directed against the State of Israel, the conduct of the genocide is a joint Israel-U.S. project, with U.S. military and intelligence operatives collaborating directly with their Israeli counterparts. 

This collaboration is also supported by an extensive flow of military aid. 

The Criminalization of International Law 

What is at stake is the criminalization of the international judicial process. The ICJ not only refused to propose a “Cease Fire”, which was part of South Africa’s demand, its January 26, 2024 Judgment failed to question the role of the Netanyahu coalition government, which was largely responsible for the planning prior to October 7 of a comprehensive military agenda directed against Palestine, with the support of Washington.

Although the Republic of South Africa’s ICJ accusation was directed against the State of Israel, it is now confirmed, amply documented that the Genocide against the People of Palestine was a joint Israel-U.S. operation.

In this regard, the ICJ President Joan Donoghue — former Legal Advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during the Obama administration– is in conflict of interest. The latter indelibly raises the issue of her Recusal.  (See:  Recusals of Arbitrators and Judges in International Courts and Tribunals, Chiara Giorgetti).

While Article 2 of the ICJ Statute (p.212) “provides that the court should be comprised of independent judges”, the practice of recusal of a judge, specifically with regard to the President of the ICJ is almost impossible. Nonetheless, the issue of “conflict of interest” must be raised. Judge Joan Donoghue takes her instructions from Washington.

“Escalate the Genocide”

The IDC’s January 26, 2024 Judgment has set in motion a new wave of atrocities directed against the People of Palestine. 

On that same day (January 26), Netanyahu confirmed that the genocide was ongoing and would continue.

“We will not compromise on anything less than total victory. That means eliminating Hamas, …” 

While rhetorical condemnations against Israel prevail, what the peace movement fails to acknowledge is that no legal obstruction or hindrance  was formulated  by the World Court in its January 26, 2024 Judgment.

The Occupied West Bank, Jewish Settlements in Gaza

In Gaza, IDF commanders have ordered soldiers to “Setting fire to homes belonging to non-combatant civilians, for the mere purpose of punishment”. 

Moreover, barely a few days after the January 26, ICJ Judgment, plans were announced to establish a cohesive network of Jewish settlements in Gaza.

Israel’s Plan: Mass Starvation

The Biden administration responding to Netanyahu has ordered to cut  funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which is indelibly slated to result in famine and the total collapse of social services:

UNRWA provides food, shelter, health care, education … for the 5.7 million UNRWA-registered Palestinian refugees in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

The curtailment of UNRWA funding is an integral part of the Netanyahu government’s carefully designed project to trigger mass starvation throughout the Gaza Strip. 

“Gaza is experiencing mass starvation like no other in recent history. Before the outbreak of fighting in October, food security in Gaza was precarious, but very few children – less than 1% – suffered severe acute malnutrition, the most dangerous kind. Today, almost all Gazans, of any age, anywhere in the territory, are at risk.

There is no instance since the second world war in which an entire population has been reduced to extreme hunger and destitution with such speed. And there’s no case in which the international obligation to stop it has been so clear.” 

These facts underpinned South Africa’s recent case against Israel at the international court of justice. The international genocide convention, article 2c, prohibits “deliberately inflicting [on a group] conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”. (Guardian)

Documentation of the Atrocities Committed against the People of Palestine

The atrocities are carefully documented in Sarah Abushaar’s courageous video production entitled 

click below to access video (YouTube)

More than 100 Days and 75 Years of Genocide.

Sarah Abushaar

Video

Since israel’s establishment through the ethnic cleansing and massacre of Palestinians from Palestine — persisting in its massacre, mass expulsion, abduction, torture and terror of indigenous Palestinians.

The theft of land, life and human rights.

Israel’s unconscionable slaughter of 13,000 children, extermination of 30,000 civilians, destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system as it wounds 60,000 and mass starvation of 2.3 million, part of what it’s been committing on Palestinian life for decades – continuing its ongoing genocide now on hyperdrive.

The elections in Pakistan today were much freer and fairer than I had expected. Hence, the preliminary results simply reflected the obvious for most of us: former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s political party, PTI (the movement for justice) – facing ruthless repression over the past year – have swept the elections in every single province of the country. Khan, surviving two assasination attempts and languishing in a supermax dungeon since last August, is more popular than ever. Among the youth, Gallup Pakistan surveys have consistently reported around 80-90 percent support for Khan and his party.

The tyranny of the generals in the military high command along with the kleptocratic and dynastic political parties entailed even the suppression of PTI’s symbol (a cricket bat) and virtually a ban, with horrific consequences if violated, on candidates running on a PTI ticket. Thus, all of these candidates ran as independents.

Of course, we have now become used to one criminal travesty after the next by Pakistan’s military-intelligence apparatus. So, we are cautious about any temporary victory for people’s democracy, triumphing over the Washington-backed totalitarian military and political elite. The latter are in full-blown panic mode, and are trying their best at tampering and rigging before announcing the final results.

The preliminary results, regardless of the fraudulent shenanigans of the national security state expected in the next few days, already represents a resounding defeat of the neo-colonial comprador oligarchy in Pakistan. One just needs to see how highly strung the spokesperson of the State Department was in addressing questions related to these elections.

There is one sign of both hope and danger. For the first time in Pakistan’s history, the normally unified and disciplined armed forces are now experiencing deep divisions. The majority of military officers and and 95 percent of soldiers are repulsed by the behavior of Wasington’s minions in the top brass. To the surprise of many of us, these divisions also exist within the intelligence agencies. We are witnessing in an unprecedented way a refusenik impulse within the military. Not to sound like the bogus alarmism we’re used to from Washington think tanks, it’s still worth remembering that Pakistan is a country of 240 million, nuclear-armed.

The Pakistani people badly need international solidarity at this point.

With much gratitude,
Junaid

13 February 2024