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By Ramzy Baroud

An Israeli invasion of Rafah will not alter the battlefield in favor of the Israeli army, but it will be horrific for the displaced Palestinians.

5 Mar 2024 – The Palestinian city of Rafah is not just older than Israel, it is as old as civilization itself.

It has existed for thousands of years. The Canaanites referred to it as Rafia, and Rafia has been almost always there, guarding the southern frontiers of Palestine, ancient and modern.

As the gateway between two continents and two worlds, Rafah has been at the forefront of many wars and foreign invasions, from ancient Egyptians to the Romans, to Napoleon and his eventually vanquished army.

Now, it is Benjamin Netanyahu’s turn. The Israeli prime minister has made Rafah the jewel of his crown of shame, the battle that would determine the fate of his genocidal war in Gaza — in fact the very future of his country.

“Those who want to prevent us from operating in Rafah are essentially telling us: ‘Lose the war,’” he said at a press conference on Feb. 17.

Currently, there are anywhere between 1.3 to 1.5 million people in Rafah, an area that, before the war started, had a population of merely 200,000 people.

Even before the start of this genocidal war, Rafah was still considered crowded. We can only imagine what the situation is right now, where hundreds of thousands of people are scattered in muddy refugee camps, subsisting in makeshift tents that are unable to withstand the elements of a harsh winter.

The mayor of Rafah says that only 10 percent of the needed food and water is reaching the population in the camps, where the people are suffering from extreme hunger, if not outright starvation.

These families are beyond traumatized as they have lost loved ones, homes, and have no access to any medical care. They are trapped between high walls, the sea, and a murderous military.

An Israeli invasion of Rafah will not alter the battlefield in favor of the Israeli army, but it will be horrific for the displaced Palestinians. The slaughter will go beyond everything we have seen, so far, anywhere in Gaza.

Where will up to 1.5 million people go when the Israel tanks arrive? The closest so-called safe area is al-Mawasi, which is already overcrowded and too small, to begin with. The displaced refugees there are also experiencing starvation due to Israel’s prevention of aid and constant bombing of convoys.

Then, there is northern Gaza, which is mostly in ruins; it has no food to the extent that, in some areas, even animal feed, which is now being consumed by humans, is no longer accessible.

If the international community does not finally develop the will to stop Israel, this horrific crime will, by far, prove worse than all the crimes that have already been committed, resulting in the death and wounding of over 100,000 people.

Even with the invasion of Rafah, Israel would achieve no military or strategic victory. Netanyahu simply wants to satisfy the calls for blood emanating from throughout Israel. After all of this, they are still seeking revenge.

“I am personally proud of the ruins of Gaza,” Israel’s Minister of Social Equality and Women’s Advancement May Golan, said at a Knesset session on Feb. 21.

But, still, there will be no victory in Rafah, either.

At the start of the war, Israel said Hamas was concentrated mostly in the north. The north was duly destroyed, though the resistance carried on unabated.

Then they claimed that the resistance headquarters was under al-Shifa Hospital, which was bombed, raided, and destroyed. Then they claimed Bureij, Maghazi, and central Gaza were the main prize of the war.

Then, Khan Younis was declared the “capital of Hamas.” And on and on…

Aside from the mass destruction and the killing of hundreds of civilians daily, Israel has won nothing; the resistance has not been defeated, and the alleged “Hamas capital” has conveniently shifted from one city to another, even from one neighborhood to another.

Now, the same ridiculous claims and unsubstantiated allegations are being made and leveled against Rafah, where most of Gaza’s population ran to, in total despair, to survive the onslaught.

Israel had initially hoped that Gazans would rush in their hundreds of thousands to the Sinai Desert. They did not. Then Israeli leaders, like far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, began speaking of “voluntary migration” as the “right humanitarian solution.”

Still, the Palestinians stayed. Now, they have all agreed on the invasion of Rafah, a last-ditch effort to orchestrate another Palestinian Nakba.

But another Nakba will not happen. Palestinians will not allow for it to happen.

Ultimately, Netanyahu and Israel’s political madness must come to an end.

The world cannot persist in this cowardly inaction.

The lives of millions of Palestinians are dependent on our collective push to bring this genocide to an immediate end.

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

11 March 2024

Source: transcend.org

By Global News Service

8 Mar 2024 – The major sponsors of Israel in the U.S. and Europe continue to support the slaughter and the escalation of the conflict in the entire West Asia region.

The European Parliament was able to call for a permanent, immediate, and unconditional ceasefire in Gaza only on 28 Feb, more than 140 days after the genocidal war began.

On that day, at the initiative of the Left, the European Parliament’s plenary in Strasbourg, France, called for an “immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, allowing uninterrupted access to food and water for its inhabitants.”

The change in policy was supported by 265 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). 253 MEPs voted against it while 10 MEPs abstained from voting. But the plenary overwhelmingly voted down the Left’s call to impose an arms embargo on Israel.

Following the vote, the Left bloc stated, “Four months of constant bombing, 30,000 deaths, famine, no access to basic needs, and an ongoing genocide… For this reason, we demanded an arms embargo, but almost 400 MEPs voted against it.”

Marc Botenga, MEP from the Workers’ Party of Belgium (PTB/PVDA), hailed the call for an unconditional ceasefire as a win. “Let’s not give up,” he said. “Let’s force Israel into a ceasefire. Let’s impose an embargo on arms. Let’s end the privileged partnership between Europe and Israel.”

Source: Peoples Dispatch / Globetrotter News Service

Join the BDS-BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT, SANCTIONS campaign to protest the Israeli barbaric siege of Gaza, illegal occupation of the Palestine nation’s territory, the apartheid wall, its inhuman and degrading treatment of the Palestinian people, and the more than 7,000 Palestinian men, women, elderly and children arbitrarily locked up in Israeli prisons.

DON’T BUY PRODUCTS WHOSE BARCODE STARTS WITH 729, which indicates that it is produced in Israel. DO YOUR PART! MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

7 2 9: BOYCOTT FOR JUSTICE!

11 March 2024

Source: transcend.org

 

By Aaron Maté

The White House unveils a new PR stunt for Gaza aid while hiding US arms transfers to Israel.

8 Mar 2024 – At his State of the Union address yesterday, President Biden announced that the US military will install a temporary pier off the coast of Gaza to deliver emergency aid to the besieged enclave, where more than 2.2 million Palestinians face a humanitarian crisis, including starvation. The pier, which will take weeks if not months to complete, will be built by US soldiers.

The US, Biden claimed, “has been leading international efforts to get more humanitarian assistance into Gaza” and believes that “protecting and saving innocent lives has to be a priority.”

In reality, the emergency project underscores Biden’s real priority: to prolong Israel’s rampage in Gaza, the US is even willing to deploy its own military for face-saving public relations stunts.

With criticism of Biden’s Gaza complicity increasing inside the Democratic Party, and threatening him at the ballot box, the pier is the latest in a series of token gestures aimed at feigning concern for Gazans while providing unfettered support to the Israeli government that is indiscriminately attacking them.

The White House has carried out air drops over Gaza that amount to a few trucks’ worth of aid – compared to the thousands of trucks that Israel is blocking with US support. “The food, water, and medical supplies so desperately needed by people in Gaza are sitting just across the border,” Doctors Without Border said Friday. “Israel needs to facilitate rather than block the flow of supplies.”

Even those trucks that can enter Gaza have been unable to make safe deliveries after Israel attacked their Hamas police escorts and crowds of desperate civilians lining up to receive aid. One air drop has even killed five Palestinian civilians and wounded others when a parachute failed to open.

The US military pier, Biden claimed, “will enable a massive increase in the amount of humanitarian assistance getting into Gaza every day.” His own aides acknowledge that this is a ruse. According to the Washington Post, administration officials quietly concede that “only by securing the opening of additional land crossings would there be enough aid to prevent famine.” And given that the pier will take at minimum 30 days to complete, that “[raises] questions about how famine in Gaza will be staved off in the critical days ahead,” the New York Times notes.

The White House has given the answer: rather than compel Israel to open those land crossings and prevent famine, it is instead adopting the Israeli position that the land crossings can be used as a tool of leverage against Hamas — and that Israel can control everything that gets in. In ceasefire talks, Israel has demanded that Hamas release hostages in exchange for, at best, a six-week pause to the massacre.

As one US official told the Post, such a deal would allow for a “significant surge” in aid delivery. The choice of words is striking: for months, US officials have been promising to “surge” aid into Gaza. The fact that such a “surge” is now explicitly conditional underscores that those prior vows were a lie, and a cynical cover for the actual policy of helping Israel block aid to the people of Gaza.

In a Selma, Alabama speech that was widely mischaracterized as a call for a ceasefire, Vice President Kamala Harris explained the White House stance. “Given the immense scale of suffering in Gaza, there must be an immediate ceasefire,” Harris told a crowd, drawing effusive applause. But after a pause, she added the qualifier: “– for at least the next six weeks, which is what is currently on the table.” The onus, she added, is entirely on Hamas, which “needs to agree to that deal.” If they do, then the agreement “will get the hostages out and get a significant amount of aid in.”

The very fact that the delivery of “a significant amount” of aid is conditional on Hamas accepting Israeli demands underscores that Israel, with US backing, is using that aid as a tool of coercion. This directly contradicts Biden’s claim, in his State of the Union address, that such assistance cannot be “a bargaining chip.”

While backing Israel’s blockade, the White House continues to expedite weapons transfers to Israel while hiding them from the public footing the bill.

According to the Washington Post, the US has made more than 100 sales of weaponry to Israel since Oct. 7^th. Only two of those transfers were made public – and in both of those cases, the White House invoked emergency powers to bypass Congressional review.

To avoid standard disclosures, the administration sent the weapons “in smaller batches that fall below a dollar threshold that requires the administration to notify Congress,” the Wall Street Journal reports, a method that comes as part of “a broader pattern in which the Biden administration has sought to avoid scrutiny from Congress.” And there are far more sales to come: according to the Journal, the US has “600 active cases of potential military transfer or sales worth more than $23 billion between the U.S. and Israel.”

“There’s nothing that Israel can say that it has not gotten,” an Israeli military official noted. “Israel got basically what it needed.” And Biden is committed to meeting Israel’s needs. Asked about his critics on Gaza, Biden told the New Yorker: “I think they have to give this just a little bit of time.”

Biden is devoted to ensuring more “time” for Israeli mass murder even though it directly threatens his re-election chances, as illustrated by the more than 140,000 “uncommitted” votes in the Michigan and Minnesota primaries.

In a bid to save his chances in Michigan, the White House deployed top aides to meet with Arab-American voters ahead of the vote. According to a recording of one such meeting,  Deputy National Security Jon Finer relayed his regrets as follows: “We have left a very damaging impression based on what has been a wholly inadequate public accounting for how much the president, the administration and the country values the lives of Palestinians.” Therefore, according to the White House, the problem is not that Biden is helping Israel exterminate Palestinian lives, the problem is that voters are unaware how much he secretly “values” the people he’s helping to exterminate.

Finer went on to demonstrate the limitations on that valuation. Yes, he acknowledged, Israeli leaders have compared “residents of Gaza to animals.” But rather than condemn this genocidal rhetoric and stop arming the government spouting it, the White House had no choice but to continue arming them. “Out of a desire to sort of focus on solving the problem and not engaging in a rhetorical back-and-forth with people who, in many cases, I think we all find somewhat abhorrent,” Finer explained, “we did not sufficiently indicate that we totally rejected and disagreed with those sorts of sentiments.”

Indeed, it would be incongruent for the Biden administrating to publicly rebuke the Israeli government while privately rushing it weapons to help exterminate the Gazan “animals.”

Which explains why, five months into Israel’s genocidal campaign, the White House’s empty gestures have extended beyond mere empty words to costly, empty stunts by sea and air.

Aaron Maté is a journalist with The Grayzone, where he hosts “Pushback.” He is also a contributor to Real Clear Investigations and the temporary co-host of “Useful Idiots.” In 2019, Maté won the Izzy Award for outstanding achievement in independent media for Russiagate coverage in The Nation.

11 March 2024

Source: transcend.org

By Dr Binoy Kampmark

The town hall meeting is the last throbbing reminder of the authentic demos.  People gather; debates held.  Views converge; others diverge.  Speakers are invited to stir the invitees, provoke the grey cells.  Till artificial intelligence banishes such gatherings, and the digital cosmos swallows us whole, cherish these events.

And there was much to cherish about Night Falls in the Evening Lands: The Assange Epic, part of a global movement to publicise the importance of freeing WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, who remains in the forbidding confines of Belmarsh Prison in London.  Held on March 9 in Melbourne’s Storey Hall, it was a salutatory minder that the publisher’s plight has become one of immediate concern.  Worn down by judicial process and jailed by a US surrogate power, he faces a vicious political indictment of 17 charges focused on the Espionage Act of 1917 and one on computer intrusion.  A UK High Court appeal on the matter of extradition hangs in the balance.

The thematic nature of such events can be challenging.  One should never be too gloomy – and in Assange’s case, be it in terms of health, torture, injustice and pondered attempts by US intelligence officials to take his life or kidnap him – there is much to be gloomy about.  Bleakness should be allowed, but only in modest, stiff doses.  Try, as far as you can, to inject a note of encouraging humour into proceedings.  Humour unsettles the tyrannically inclined, punctures the ideologue’s confidence.  Then reflect, broadly, on the astonishing legacy on the subject and ask that vital question: Where to now?

The sessions, superbly steered through by Mary Kostakidis (“Try to avoid lengthy preambles to your questions, please”), covered a fanned out universe: the nature of “imperial law” and extra-territorial jurisdiction; the stirring role of WikiLeaks in exposing state atrocities; the regenerative tonic Assange had given to an ungrateful, envious Fourth Estate; the healthy emergence of non-mainstream media; and the tactics necessary to convince politicians that the publisher’s release was urgently warranted.

Two speakers were spear-sharp on both the legacy of Assange and what had to be done to secure his release.  The Greek former finance minister and rabble-rousing economist, Yanis Varoufakis, was encouraging on both scores.  A picture of pugilistic health, Varoufakis pondered “what Julian had taught” him.  People forget, Varoufakis reminded his audience, Assange’s genius as one of the original cypherpunks, able to build a website that has managed to weather hacking storms and stay afloat in treacherous digital waters.  Whistleblowers and leakers could be assured of anonymous contributions to the WikiLeaks website.

He was also impressed by the man’s towering, almost holy integrity.  As much as they disagreed, he recalled, “and as much as I wanted to throttle the man”, he brimmed with intellectual self-worth and value.  On the subject of revealing his sources, quite contrary to the spirit and substance of the US indictment, Assange was scrupulous to a fault.  To betray any would endanger them.

Most movingly, Varoufakis reflected on his own intellectual awakening when reading Assange’s meditations on the internet; how it might, just might, fracture the imperium of information guarded so closely by powerful interests.  Finally, the common citizenry would have at their disposal the means of returning the serve on spying and surveillance.  The digital mirror would enable us to see what they – the state operatives, their goons and their lickspittle adjutants – could see about us.  This was as significant to Varoufakis as George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, books he read with some anxiety during the days of Greece’s military junta.

On the nature of power – in this case, the menace posed by the US imperium – Australia had to be break free and embrace non-alignment.  With characteristic flavour, Varoufakis characterised Washington’s exertion of influence over its satellite states as that of a mafia gang: “They manufacture insecurity in order to sell protection.”  It was a brilliant formulation and goes to the centre of that infantile desire of Australian policy makers to endorse AUKUS, a dangerous military compact with the US and the UK that will mortgage the country to the sum of A$368 billion.

Even assuming that this arrangement would remain in place, those in the nation’s capital, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, had to ask the fundamental question on Assange.  “Make it a condition of AUKUS that Assange returns to Australia,” insisted Varoufakis.  “And the powerful will respect you even if you disagree with them.”  To date, the PM had been a sore disappointment and hardly likely to be respected, even by the near comatose US President Joe Biden.

Virility, however, may be returning.  That theme was evidenced in the sharp address from Greg Barns, a seasoned barrister and campaign strategist who has been involved in the WikiLeaks journey since 2012.  While drawing attention to the outrageous assertion of extra-territorial jurisdiction by Washington to target Assange, he saw much promise in the political dawn in Canberra.  A few years ago, he would never have envisaged being in a room where the Australian Greens leader, Adam Bandt, would be seated next to a fossil fuel advocate and Nationals senator, Matthew Cannavan.  “Beside Mr Green sat Mr Coal.”  Their common purpose: Assange’s release and the termination of a state of affairs so unacceptable it is no longer the talk of academic common rooms and specialist fora.

For the audience and budding activists, Barns had sound advice.  Pester local political representatives.  Arrange meetings, preferably in groups, with the local member.  Remind them of the significance of the issue.  “Make it an alliance issue.”  There is nothing more worrying to a backbencher than concerned “traffic” through the electoral office that suggests a shift in voter sentiment.  “I will bet good odds that the treatment of Assange has made it into party room discussions,” declared Barns with certitude.

In closing, Assange’s tireless father, John Shipton, washed his audience with gentle, meditative thoughts.  Much like a calming shaman, he journeyed through some of the day’s themes, prodding with questions.  Was AUKUS a bribe?  A tribute?  A payment for knowledge?  But with optimism, Shipton could feel hope about his son: “Specks of gold” had formed to stir consciousness in the executive.  Those in power were at long last listening.

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

10 March 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr Marwan Asmar

Top American-Palestinian novelist Susan Abulhawa talks about her harrowing recent two-week trip to Rafah and the southern part of Gaza. Besides her activism, Abulhawa has written three acclaimed novels, the first being Mornings in Jenin which was translated into 32 languages and sold over a million copies. She also writes poetry and is a director of the Playgrounds For Palestine. She recently talked about her visit to war-torn Gaza to Democracy Now. Excerpts of her slightly edited interview follow about the catastrophic situation she experienced and saw.

Intentional starvation

“…trying to venture into the north [of Gaza] is a suicide mission, [Israeli] tanks and snipers [are] positioned [there] and anyone trying to get there is basically killed…aid trucks are not getting in either, they are intentionally stopped, and it’s an intentional starvation… I was in south Gaza, in Rafah, I was able to go to Khan Younis, to Nuseirat [Camp] and few other places…but that became increasingly more dangerous.

I want to say the reality on the ground is infinitely worse than the worst videos and photos we are seeing in the West. There is as you know, a beyond, people buried alive en masse, in their homes, their bodies shredded to pieces…there is this massive daily degradation of life…a total denigration of a whole society that was once high-functioning and proud and has been reduced to the most primal of ambitions like being able to get enough water for the day or flour to bake bread.

And this is even in Rafah, and the people [here] will tell you they feel privileged because they are not starving to death like their families in the north, the ones they can reach because Israel [has] basically cut off 99 percent of communications – what remains there, are basic communications by people who set up some ingenious ways to keep the internet [going].

‘Total darkness’

But most people in the north have no idea of what is happening. As a matter of fact, at one point, [Gaza blogger] Bissan Odeh explained to me – as she often goes up to the border between Khan Younis and the middle area of the north where you can’t go beyond – an aid truck that sort of pushed its way through but was eventually fired upon had people coming up to it, thinking the war is over and people were returning to the north. So, most in the north are in total darkness and hunger and really have no way of communicating, no way of figuring out where to get food from.

What we are hearing on the ground is surreal, dystopic, what I witnessed personally in Rafah and some of the middle areas is incomprehensible, and I will call it a Holocaust, and I don’t use that word lightly but it is absolutely that.

I mean that’s how much people have been reduced to…the ceiling of their hope at this point, is for the bombs to stop. Everybody wants to go back. They talk about pitching a tent on their homes and figuring things out. But a lot of people are trying to leave. There is a brain drain, those who can afford it, those who can raise the money, or those who are able to get jobs elsewhere and who have professional skills, are trying to leave, they have children, all the schools have been destroyed, college students have nowhere to go.

Total denigration

What is happening to people isn’t just death, dismemberment and hunger, it is a total denigration of their personhood, of their whole society. There are no universities left, Israel intentionally bombed schools and blew them up, presumably to ensure that rebuilding them couldn’t take place, that reestablishing a society can’t take place without the infrastructure of education, of healthcare and basic foundational structures for buildings.

One of the things Israel has been keen to do in Gaza is to erase remanence of people’s lives. So, you have on an individual level homes complete with memories and photos and all the things of living. I am sure you know, Palestinians typically live in multi-generational homes, [now] these homes have several generations of the same family completely wiped out.

Israeli barbarity

On a societal level, Israel targeted places of worship like mosques, ancient churches, ancient mosques, they have targeted museums, cultural centers, libraries, any place that has records of peoples’ lives, has remanence and traces, their roots in the land, have been intentionally wiped away.

It’s really frustrating for us to read western media talk about Israel is targeting Hamas…This is not the case. When you are on the ground you, understand this has always been about displacing Palestinians, taking their place and wiping them off the map. That has been Israel’s stated goal, even in this instance and before in 1948. It has always been their aim to destroy us, remove us, kill us and take our place and that’s what’s happening now in Gaza. Its what happened in 1948, in 1967 and every new Nakba is greater than the one before, and here we now arrive at the moment of genocide and holocaust because the world has allowed Israel to act with such barbarity and impunity.”

Marwan Asmar is a writer based in Amman, Jordan and writes on Middle East Affairs

10 March 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Melissa Garriga

President Biden’s State of the Union address made one thing clear: war, genocide, and militarism remains the Amercian way. From Gaza to Ukraine, from the Middle East to the borders of our own nation, the toll of violence from militarism is immeasurable. Will we ever see an end to the cycle of destruction fueled by capitalism and U.S. imperialism?

Firstly, let’s address the white elephant in the war. Before the speech started, Democratic women leaders were shown wearing white in honor of women and feminism. But let’s be very clear, whether it’s women sending bombs or men, the result remains the same: women and children are being murdered, communities shattered, and futures erased. There’s no feminism in complicity with war and genocide, nor is there honor in turning a blind eye to the cries of the oppressed who are very loudly asking us to quit sending the bombs that are murdering their people.

Biden started the speech with an appeal for more money to fund the War in Ukraine. Yet in the two years since Russia invaded Ukraine with over a hundred billion dollars spent and countless lives lost Ukrainians are no closer to peace. Peace cannot be found in the endless military packages but in the corridors of diplomacy and peace talks, where dialogue and negotiation pave the way for lasting solutions.

He then moved on to taunt the need to protect democracy yet the White House and Congress continuously ignore the majority of the country who want an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, specifically Biden’s own voter base. A true democracy happens not just at the ballot box but beyond it. Yet, Biden chooses to ignore the very people who put him in office.

Along with “protecting democracy,” Biden also vowed to protect the environment. However, the contribution to militarism cannot be ignored. The U.S. military ranks as one of the largest consumers of oil globally, contributing significantly to greenhouse gas emissions. Instead of investing in renewable energy and supporting a just transition, precious resources are squandered to war and conflicts that ravage the planet and accelerate climate change.

President Biden’s support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza and occupation of Palestine is a stain on the moral fabric of our nation. And he leaned into that support in his address. Using lies and unsubstantiated claims he attempted to legitimize Israel’s genocidal response to Oct. 7. However no matter how he tries to spin it – the death and destruction that innocent people are enduring on a daily basis, mostly women and children, cannot be justified in the name of political alliances or strategic interests. Nothing, absolutely justifies genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Biden’s latest response to Israel’s countless war crimes is to build a “temporary” port off the shores of Gaza to allow for humanitarian aid to enter the besieged land. But a temporary port does nothing to stop the permanent death and destruction from U.S. made bombs. It’s time to halt the flow of weapons to Israel or quit pretending to care about the lives of Palestinians.

Biden made it clear that war, genocide, and militarism are all still on top of the U.S. agenda. This will cost us all dearly. He must heed the demands of the public: stop the bombs, stop the militarization of our borders, stop the inhumane blockades that are starving people to death. The media will paint Biden’s speech as strong and positive but make no mistake – a  country that relies on the death and destruction of others is a weak one. We desperately need leaders who will prioritize diplomacy over destruction, compassion over conflict, and humanity over hubris. Only then can we truly claim to be a nation committed to justice, equality, and the pursuit of peace for all. Until then, we will continue to be a country committed to war and genocide and never find lasting peace.

Melissa Garriga is media relations manager of Code Pink

9 March 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Andre Damon

The United States will deploy 1,000 troops off the coast of Gaza for the nominal purpose of building a floating pier for humanitarian aid, the Pentagon said Friday.

President Joe Biden announced the construction of the pier during his State of the Union address on Thursday. “I’m directing the US military to lead an emergency mission to establish a temporary pier in the Mediterranean on the Gaza coast that can receive large ships carrying food, water, medicine and temporary shelters,” Biden said, adding, “No US boots will be on the ground.”

The claim that the construction of the floating pier is motivated by humanitarian concerns is a transparent pretext. The entire population of Gaza could be fed within a matter of days if not for Israel’s blockade of food into the besieged enclave. While US officials declare that Israel should “do more” to allow food into Gaza, the US is enabling Israel’s genocidal policy of starving the Palestinian people by continuing to surge weapons and funding to Israel.

This week, US press reports indicated that the Biden administration has sent over 100 separate arms shipments to Israel since October 7, breaking them up into smaller tranches to avoid congressional oversight.

At best, the building of the floating dock is a massive public relations exercise, designed to distract attention from the United States’ ongoing support for the Gaza genocide. Moreover, the dock will not be operational for two months, during which time 2 million Gazans will continue to starve.

But it has other, more ominous connotations as well. One thousand US troops will be deployed in Gaza in all but name, increasing the level of participation of the US military in the war. The Pentagon sees the genocidal war as a chance to rehearse its amphibious landing and logistics capabilities, which it plans to put to use in future wars throughout the region and the wider world.

To date, US airdrops of food into Gaza have been a pittance, with Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder saying that approximately 11,000 meals are being delivered per day—to feed a starving population of over 2 million. On Friday, three more children died of malnutrition at Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital, bringing the confirmed death toll from the famine to 23.

In his State of the Union address on Thursday, which took the form of a warmongering diatribe against Russia, Iran and China, Biden endorsed Israel’s actions in its onslaught against Gaza. He declared that “Israel has a right to go after Hamas” and that the conflict should end with the total capitulation of the resistance to Israel. “Hamas could end the conflict by surrendering,” he said.

Biden absolved Israel of targeting the civilian population by saying that “Hamas hides and operates among the civilian population like cowards, under hospitals, daycare centers and all the like.” Israeli officials have made it clear that they intend to launch a full-scale attack on Rafah before the start of Ramadan, which begins in less than a week. With negotiations over a ceasefire having broken down, Biden said Friday that it was “looking tough” to reach to a ceasefire agreement before Ramadan—effectively admitting that an invasion of Rafah will take place.

As Israel enforces famine conditions on Gaza, the meager aid that does get through often turns deadly. Five children were killed when a parachute malfunctioned during an airdrop of humanitarian aid on Friday, while Israeli forces once again opened fire on people at a food distribution center in Gaza City the same day. Last month, Israeli forces fired on people lining up to receive flour, killing over 100 people in what came to be known as the “flour massacre.”

In a briefing, Michael Fakhri, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, told reporters in Geneva that the US airdrops of food and plans to build a floating port were “absurd” and “cynical.” He said they “will do very little to alleviate hunger, malnutrition, and do nothing to slow down famine.”

He added, “The time when countries use airdrops and these maritime piers is usually, if not always, in situations when you want to deliver humanitarian aid into enemy territory.” But Gaza is completely besieged by Israel, Washington’s closest ally in the region and its largest recipient of military aid.

The director of communications for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), Juliette Touma, said:

There is an easier and cheaper way to bring much-needed supplies into the Gaza Strip. … That is via the road, including sending more trucks from Israel into the Gaza Strip. … It shouldn’t be this difficult. There are several crossing points that connect Israel to the Gaza Strip, and this is what we used before the war started.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) told Al Jazeera, “A temporary pier that could take weeks to construct or airdrops is not a solution.” Instead, it called on Israel to lift “its siege of Gaza, [reopen] its crossings, including the Karni (Al-Muntar) and Erez (Beit Hanoon) crossings in the north, and [allow] the safe and unimpeded movement of humanitarian workers and aid—including fuel, food and medical supplies.”

Palestinians quoted in the US media condemned the plan. “Instead of telling us they will build a port to help us, stop [providing] the weapons they fire at us,” Hassan Maslah, a displaced Gazan sheltering in Rafah, told Reuters.

9 March 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Phil Pasquini

For the past ten days at the Israeli Embassy, peaceful human rights activists have erected and maintained a presence 24/7 outside of the compound bedecked with numerous Palestinian flags, signs, banners and a memorial dedicated to Aaron Bushnell who last month immolated himself in protest over the war in Gaza whose last words were “Free Palestine.”

Calling their presence “Kibbutz Israel” along with a subtitle, “Since they think settlements are cool,” the activists have refused to leave knowing that if they do, the embassy will remove their “Kibbutz” along with the memorial. Standing by are several uniformed Secret Service officers to keep the peace in the area to eliminate any violence between the two sides.

Visuals employed along two sides of the embassy compound’s sidewalk “Kibbutz” stand in front of and obstruct the original display of large Israeli flags, portraits of kidnapped victims and smaller flags in memory of those killed in Israel on the October 7th incursion.

The most horrific visuals displayed are those of children wounded and killed in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. Under one such photo titled “Israel Starves Children” the emaciated skeletal body of ten-year-old Yazan Kafarna is shown, which is reminiscent of a WWII Holocaust victim. The image begets the question of how and why any child should be subjected to such a horrific and inhumane death and why so many children must be made to suffer.

The resolute activists have also utilized a settler’s tactic in making life for those inside the embassy difficult by employing twelve megaphones aimed at the building while set on siren mode at full volume. The annoying shrill sound occurring at different intervals, results in a nerve-wracking and discordant acoustical annoyance for all those within hearing distance. This obnoxious clangor can be heard inside other nearby embassies and for a short distance across the adjoining area calling attention to the protest to all passersby.

The group also periodically employs chanting and music to keep things dramatic and always shifting. While at night the sound is turned off, the unwavering activists have maintained their presence steadfastly regardless of what Washington’s everchanging and unstable weather sends their way and have avowed to maintain their presence.

Report and photo by Phil Pasquini

8 March 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr Marwan Asmar

https://t.me/s/QudsNen/97965

The recent comments on 7^th October made by American philosopher Judith Butler may now be landing her in “hot water” among the Israelis and White House.

In an open platform in France and carried on the social media, she refused to label the 7^th October attack as an of terrorism. On the contrary, she said it was an act of armed resistance that had nothing to do with antisemitism.

“We can have different views about Hamas as a political party. We can have different views about armed resistance,” she told a French TV political program.

“I think, it is more honest, and historically correct, to say the uprising of October 7^th was an act of armed resistance…not a terrorist attack and it’s not an anti-Semitic attack, she said.

She clarified however, although she considered the attack on Israelis as “anguishing” and “terrible” which she made public, she added “I would be very foolish if I then decided the only violence in the scene was the violence done to Israeli people she said on Paroles D’Honneur in Paris.

Armed resistance 

The violence done to Palestinians has been happening for decades,” she emphasized.

Dr Butler termed October 7 as “an uprising that comes out from a state of subjugation and against a violent state apparatus,” saying in reference to the Israeli state and its occupation of Palestinian lands.

“…you can be for or against armed resistance. You can be for or against Hamas but let us at least call it armed resistance, and then we can have a debate about whether we think it’s right or whether they did the right thing, or whether there were different strategies” that could have been followed she told the French program on immigration issues and post-colonialism.

“But the problem is if you call it armed resistance, you are immediately thought to be in favor of armed resistance and in favor of that armed resistance and that tactic,” whilst concluding this is an open debate open for discussion.

Marwan Asmar is a journalist from Amman specializing on Middle East affairs.

8 March 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Jordan Shilton

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu restated Thursday the intention of his fascistic government to unleash a bloody onslaught of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, where some 1.5 million Palestinians are enduring horrendous conditions. As Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians enters its sixth month, the impending ground invasion will further deepen an already catastrophic humanitarian situation for the enclave’s 2.3 million inhabitants, with widespread starvation and deaths from preventable diseases a daily reality.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) will operate against “all of Hamas’ battalions throughout the Strip,” Netanyahu told a graduation ceremony for army cadets. “Whoever tells us not to operate in Rafah is telling us to lose the war—and that will not happen,” he added ominously. Threatening to instigate a wider regional conflict, he continued, “At the same time, we will take vigorous action in the other sectors, against whoever seeks to destroy us, including on the northern front. Whoever has not yet been convinced by our strength would do well to look at what is happening to the enemy strongholds in Gaza.”

Underscoring his threats, Netanyahu’s remarks came the same day as several Israeli air strikes hit targets in southern Lebanon and Syria. Meanwhile, the grinding slaughter continued in Gaza, with the Health Ministry reporting another 83 deaths from IDF attacks in the previous 24 hours.

Netanyahu’s aggressive remarks came on the heels of a visit by War Cabinet Minister Benny Gantz to Washington, where he held consultations with Vice President Kamala Harris, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier this week. While media coverage of his trip was dominated by Netanyahu’s opposition to it, above all due to their domestic political rivalry, readouts of the meetings make clear that discussions focused on Israel’s planned onslaught. Just over two weeks ago, Gantz warned that a ground invasion would be launched at the beginning of Ramadan on 10 March if the remaining hostages under Hamas’ control were not released.

The White House stated after a meeting between Harris and Gantz Monday that the Vice President “reiterated US support for Israel’s right to defend itself in the face of ongoing Hamas terrorist threats and underscored our unwavering commitment to Israel’s security.” The following day, Politico reported, based on the comments of three US officials, “The Biden administration is not planning to punish Israel if it launches a military campaign in Rafah without ensuring civilian safety.”

No doubt emboldened by these unconditional assurances of support, Netanyahu’s government confirmed the approval Wednesday of 3,500 illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, where Palestinians have been terrorised by IDF raids and vigilante violence by far-right settlers.

Reports Thursday indicated that negotiations mediated by Egypt and Qatar to secure a six-week “ceasefire” in exchange for the release by Hamas of 40 hostages have broken down. The Hamas delegation left Cairo and declared in a statement that they would resume talks next week after consulting with their organisation’s leadership. Washington has claimed publicly that it believes an agreement in the coming days remains possible.

CIA Director William Burns is travelling to the region, where he will visit Cairo and Israel for consultations with the Netanyahu government, according to Israel’s Channel 12. His visit is ostensibly aimed at finalizing the agreement, but the preparations for the IDF’s assault on Rafah will undoubtedly be discussed.

The Biden administration has been deeply implicated in every stage of Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians. Netanyahu, Ganz and the IDF leadership have felt able to proceed so ruthlessly and in flagrant violation of international law because they know that they enjoy the unrestrained support of Washington and its European allies.

The imperialists have seized on the Gaza genocide as an opportunity to put long-standing plans for the restructuring of the entire Middle East into practice by targeting Iran and its allies throughout the region. American imperialism is determined to consolidate its dominance over the energy-rich Middle East against its rivals, above all, China and Russia. All methods, genocide included, are considered legitimate by the ruling class in pursuit of this agenda.

The prospect of a further intensification of Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians looms as the humanitarian disaster across the enclave deepens. Over a quarter of Gaza’s population is “one step” away from famine, according to the United Nations. Just six out of 24 planned aid convoys for the northern Gaza Strip in February were approved by Israel.

UNICEF reports that one in six children in the north of the Strip is acutely malnourished, which poses both an imminent risk of death and long-term health issues for those who survive. As Omar Abdel-Mannon, co-founder of the Health Workers for Palestine organisation, told al-Jazeera, periods of starvation for young children in particular can result in permanent and irreversible damage to organs, including the heart, liver and kidneys.

Israel’s systematic and deliberate use of starvation as a weapon of war is well documented. Netanyahu’s far-right government has massively restricted the flow of aid into Gaza to a fraction of what it was prior to 7 October. Less than 100 trucks have reached Gaza on a daily basis, compared to 500 prior to Israel’s onslaught. Israeli officials have openly discussed the benefits of restricting food aid and allowing disease to spread to facilitate Israel’s ultimate goal of ethnically cleansing Gaza to set the stage for Israeli settlements.

UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons, Paula Gaviria Betancur, issued Wednesday a searing critique of Israel’s total disregard of the rights of civilians since the bombardment began, noting, “Israel’s evacuation orders have not made the people of Gaza safer; on the contrary, they have been used to forcibly transfer and confine the civilian population in unliveable conditions…

“Although Rafah has already come under periodic attack by Israeli forces, a full-scale ground assault would lead to unimaginable suffering. Any evacuation order imposed on Rafah under the current conditions, with the rest of Gaza lying in ruins, would be in flagrant violation of international humanitarian and human rights law, forcing people to flee to conditions of certain death—deprived of food, water, healthcare and shelter.”

Citing the “flour massacre” in Gaza City, in which at least 115 Palestinians died after IDF soldiers opened fire on a crowd waiting for aid, she concluded, “I am horrified by the depravity of killing civilians while they are at their most vulnerable and seeking basic assistance. These constitute atrocity crimes of the highest order.”

The aid organisation Refugees International reported that Israel has “consistently and groundlessly” blocked aid into Gaza, while conducting “persistent attacks on Gaza’s humanitarian, health, food, power, and other critical infrastructure.”

Jean-Pierre Delomier, deputy director of Handicap International—Humanity & Inclusion, criticised the hypocrisy of the much publicised air drops of tiny amounts of aid into northern Gaza by US aircraft, which carried out the second drop in a week Thursday. “I saw kilometres of trucks queueing on four lanes, all waiting to get into Gaza,” he commented after an eight-day mission to the enclave. “Planes fly over to drop a few pallets, whereas just behind [the border fence] there are kilometres of pallets waiting that could just be let in.”

In a widely reported development Thursday, US President Joe Biden announced in his State of the Union address that the US will construct a temporary port on the Gaza coast to allow ships with humanitarian aid to dock. Compared to the numerous shiploads and planeloads of high-powered weaponry that have made their way from Washington to Israel since October, this gesture amounts to nothing more than a slap in the face for Gaza’s desperate population. Moreover, reports indicate that it will take several weeks to make the facility operational, by which time many more preventible deaths will have occurred and Israel will likely have launched its onslaught on Rafah.

One of the ways Israel has sought to cover up its brutal massacre and starvation of the Palestinians in Gaza has been through the targeted killing of journalists and media workers, well over 100 of whom have been slaughtered since October. In a report released Thursday into Israel’s 13 October killing of a Reuters journalist on the Israel-Lebanon border, the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research observed, “It is considered a likely scenario that a Merkava tank, after firing two tank rounds, also used its machine gun against the location of the journalists.”

AFP’s Global News Director Phil Chetwynd stated in response, “If reports of sustained machine gun fire are confirmed, this would add more weight to the theory this was a targeted and deliberate attack.”

8 March 2024

Source: countercurrents.org