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By Marwan Asmar

‘No stone is unturned’: The Israelis are determined to make the lives of the Palestinians of Gaza into a living hell

When the Israeli army left Hamad City, they totally destroyed it. A plush city, north of Khan Younis and built with hundreds of millions of dollars from Qatar starting 2015, it was raised to the ground.

Through Israeli bombardment its blocks of residential towers, shops, parks and recreational grounds were turned into rubble by vicious missiles.

It was a map of well-thought out and planned Israeli destruction as the videoclips amply demonstrate. The once-smart city was turned into a mass wreckage not fit for anybody.

When citizens came back after the Israeli army pulled out, they were shocked to find there was nothing left of their apartments. They have all been bombed and destroyed.

“Will anybody find me a tent?” one returning resident cried out. In reality, and even if a tent was found, there was no place to hoist it, because of the vast extent of the debris, wreckage and ruin.

According to UNRWA, the amount of concrete pulverized into rubble in Gaza today stands at 23,000 because of the extent of Israel bombing.

A lot of planning went into developing what was to become a smart city and probably the only one of its kind in Gaza.

One wrote: A smart sustainable city is one that uses the technology to transform its core systems and optimize the exploitation of limited resources based on a knowledge-based system that provides real-time insights to stakeholders.

It was built this way because of the challenges facing the cities of the Gaza including factors of population growth, lack of resources and limited space, he added.

💢 Destruction after withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Hamad neighbourhood of Khan Younis city in Gaza Strip pic.twitter.com/euXKz8g3F0

— AboSalem (@emad_salem21) March 14, 2024

Hamad City was developed in phases. Its first phase become operational in 2016 when over 1000 families were housed in a new state-of-the art 3000-apartment complex. These are of course now, destroyed.

The Israeli war machine destroyed these and the 40-plus towers that were subsequently built, proudly called the Hamad towers.

Bissan Oweda, a blogger in Gaza, wrote these were supposed to be the safest in the entirety of the 365-kilometer Strip but no more.

“As we enter Hamad City we find, great, great destruction around us,” said Mohammad Salameh, a blogger. In the videoclip we see people entering the city on foot with total destruction around underpinned by gouged debris.

“The enemy is still on the outskirts of the city, but as we look around us, there is nothing that can be said is inhabitable, its total destruction, we can now see the sound of gunfire in an intense manner suggesting there might still be Israeli bulldozers,” he added.

The mounts of debris, rubble and wreckage of buildings gets not only worse but is also horrific.

In one video an ambulance is shown trying to drive through the roads of the city trying to pick up the martyrs shot by the Israelis, few here, few there. Where do you start and where do you end?

In one case, the Palestinian ambulancemen picked up 15 bodies scattered throughout the city after they were shot by Israeli snipers. They were seen being put in the ambulance to be transported to the Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Dier Al Balah in central Gaza.

This is the second time the city had been targeted. This time, the Israeli army really destroyed everything around.

The first time was in early December 2023 when Israeli planes began to destroy the city and take down its towers one-by-one. “Bombs slammed into the pale apartment blocks one by one, reducing them largely to rubble and sending a huge pall of black smoke into the sky, as people fled and cries of ‘help!’ and ‘ambulance!’ rang out,” AFP reported.

The once beautiful housing project was turned into a bloody nightmare.

Marwan Asmar is a writer based in Amman, focusing on Middle East affairs

23 March 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Andre Damon

On Friday, the United Nations Security Council failed to pass a resolution sponsored by the United States that was absurdly proclaimed by the US media as a “ceasefire” resolution.

In fact, the resolution would have given the UN’s imprimatur to the US-Israeli genocide in Gaza, specifying conditions for “ongoing and future operations” by the Israeli military.

The resolution linked any “ceasefire” with the achievement of Israel’s stated war aims, effectively restating the declaration by US President Joe Biden during the State of the Union address earlier this month that a ceasefire could be achieved by Hamas “laying down arms.”

Indeed, in motivating the resolution, US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said its aim was to “put pressure on Hamas,” not Israel.

In explaining Algeria’s vote against the resolution, Amar Bendjama, Algeria’s representative to the UN, said the resolution “implies a license for continuing bloodshed.”

He noted, “The text presented today does not convey a clear message of peace. It tacitly allows for continuing civilian casualties and lacks clear safeguards to prevent further escalation.

“It is a laissez-passer to continuing killing of Palestinian civilians,” Bendjama explained. “The emphasis on measures to reduce civilian harm from ongoing and future operations implies a license for continuing bloodshed.”

Algeria was joined by China and Russia, which both vetoed the resolution.

The Israeli government, which has repeatedly denounced the United Nations for its officials’ criticism of the genocide, fully endorsed the United States’ resolution.

“The American resolution, should it have passed, would have marked a moment of morality for the UN,” Israeli UN envoy Gilad Erdan said, praising the US’s willingness to “condemn the Hamas monsters.”

He added, “Yet sadly, for purely political reasons, this resolution did not pass, and terrorists can continue benefiting from this Council whitewashing their crimes.”

Erdan then launched into a tirade of genocide denial, absurdly proclaiming that universally-recognized statistics about the civilian death toll are made up and that no one is starving in Gaza.

The Israeli delegate condemned the “libelous narrative of famine in Gaza,” proclaiming absurdly, “There is absolutely no limit that Israel places on humanitarian aid entering Gaza.”

He claimed the allegations by the UN of mass deaths in Gaza were a fraud, declaring that “Numbers [of civilian casualties] supplied by the terrorists are thrown around and quoted as if they are [the] Word of God. Yet, in essence, these numbers are merely the lies of Hamas that the UN is so quick to parrot.

“Israel has taken steps that no other military in any other conflict has ever taken, all in order to mitigate civilian casualties,” he said.

He concluded by reiterating Israel’s determination to assault the southern Gazan city of Rafah, where over 1 million Palestinian refugees are sheltering. “The fire will grow again and spread. This is what will happen without an operation in Rafah. Israel sees no alternative. The road to a permanent ceasefire passes through Rafah.”

In response to the veto of its resolution by Russia and China, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield used language essentially identical to that of Israel, claiming that those countries “refuse to condemn Hamas.”

“Russia and China refuse to condemn Hamas, from burning people alive to gunning down innocent civilians at a concert, to raping women and girls, to taking hundreds of people hostage.”

Thomas-Greenfield expressed her determination to veto any call for a genuine ceasefire, declaring, “So if that alternative resolution comes up for a vote and does not support the diplomacy happening on the ground, we may once again find this council deadlocked.”

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Friday with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during his latest visit to Israel. Following the meeting, Netanyahu doubled down on his declaration that Israel will assault Rafah.

“We have no way to defeat Hamas without going into Rafah and eliminating the rest of the battalions there,” Netanyahu said in a statement. “And I told him that I hope we will do it with the support of the US. But if we must, we will do it alone.”

The discussions on the next stage of the genocide between Netanyahu and Blinken took place amid ongoing famine and mass murder in Gaza. Earlier this week, Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, implied that Israel is deliberately starving the population.

“The extent of Israel’s continued restrictions on the entry of aid into Gaza, together with the manner in which it continues to conduct hostilities, may amount to the use of starvation as a method of war, which is a war crime,” he said.

A separate report published Tuesday by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) partnership, the official global body designating starvation, found that “famine is imminent,” with a “major acceleration of deaths and malnutrition.”

The IPC assessment notes that 1.1 million people are expected to face catastrophic levels of hunger and risk famine in Gaza, the highest number of people in that category ever recorded since the beginning of the current classification system.

Israel’s siege of Al-Shifa Hospital continued for a fifth day, with more than 160 people killed and 600 arrested, including medical staff. Earlier this week, the Euro-Med Monitor human rights organization reported that Israel has been carrying out mass summary executions at the hospital.

On Friday, Gaza’s Health Ministry said the official death toll from the genocide stands at 32,070; once the missing are added to that toll, the number increases to over 40,000.

The same day, Al Jazeera published video footage of one of the daily massacres that occur in Gaza, showing a group of four young unarmed men walking down a road being blown up by a series of drone strikes.

Al Jazeera reported that Israeli drones have been hovering over Rafah non-stop, leading to panic as the 1.2 million refugees crowded into the city expect an imminent attack.

23 March 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr Ramzy Baroud

When the foreign policy of a country as large and significant as the United States is governed by a case of cognitive dissonance, terrible things happen.

These terrible things are, in fact, already taking place in the Gaza Strip, where well over 100,000 people have been killed, wounded or are missing, and an outright famine is currently ravaging the displaced population.

From the start of the war on October 7, the US mishandled the situation, although recent reports indicate that Biden, despite his old age, has read the overall meaning of the October 7 events correctly.

According to the Axios news website, Biden had argued in a meeting with special counsel, Robert Hur, on October 8 that the ‘Israel thing’ – Hamas attack and the Israeli war on Gaza – “has changed it all”.

By ‘change it all’, he was referring to the fact that the outcome of these events combined will “determine what the next six, seven decades look like”.

Biden is not wrong. Indeed, everything that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government and war council have done in Gaza point to a similar Israeli reading of the significance of the ‘world-altering’ events.

Netanyahu has proven his willingness to carry out genocide and starve millions of Palestinians because he still feels that the superior firepower of the Israeli army is able to turn back the clock, and restore Israel’s military standing, geopolitical influence and global position.

He is wrong, and over five months of war and senseless killing continue to demonstrate this claim.

But the American political gamble in the Middle East and the global repercussions of Washington’s self-defeating foreign policy makes far less sense.

Considering Washington’s historic support for Israel, the US’ behavior in the early days of the war was hardly a surprise.

The US quickly mobilized behind Netanyahu’s war cabinet, sent aircraft carriers to the eastern Mediterranean, indicating the US is ready for a major regional conflict.

Media reports began speaking of US military involvement, specifically through the Delta Force, although the Pentagon claimed that the 2,000 US soldiers were not deployed to fight in Gaza itself.

If it was not obvious that the US was a direct partner in the war, US mainstream media reports ended any doubt. On March 6, The Washington Post reported that “the United States has quietly approved and delivered more than 100 separate foreign military sales to Israel since the Gaza war began”.

With time, however, US foreign policy regarding Gaza became even more perplexing.

Though in the early weeks of the war-turned-genocide, Biden questioned the death toll estimates produced by the Gaza Ministry of Health, the casualties count was no longer in doubt later on.

Asked on February 29 about the number of women and children killed by Israel during the war, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin answered without hesitation: “It’s over 25,000”.

Yet, the numbers are in constant growth, as well as US shipments of weapons to Israel. “We continue to support Israel with their self-defense needs. That’s not going to change,” John Kirby, US National Security Advisor, told ABC News on March 14.

This particular statement is worth a pause, since it came after many media leaks regarding Biden’s frustration, in fact, outright anger in the way that Netanyahu is handling the war.

ABC News reported early February that Biden has been “venting his frustration” over his administration’s “inability to persuade Israel to change its military tactics in Gaza”. Netanyahu, the outlet quoted Biden as saying, is “giving him hell”.

This is consistent with other recent reports, including one by Politico, claiming that Biden has privately “called the Israeli prime minister a ‘bad f*cking guy’”, also over his Gaza war stance.

Yet, Netanyahu remains emboldened to the extent that he appeared in a Fox News interview on March 11, openly speaking about ‘disagreements’, not only between Biden and Netanyahu’s governments, but between the US President “and the entire Israeli people.”

It is glaringly obvious that, without continued US military and other forms of support, Israel would have not been able to sustain its war on the Palestinians for more than a few weeks, thus sparing the lives of thousands of people.

Moreover, the US has served as Israel’s vanguard against the vast majority of world governments who, daily, demand immediate and unconditional ceasefire in the Strip. If it were not for repeated US vetoes at the UN Security Council, a resolution demanding a ceasefire would have been surely passed.

Despite this unconditional support, the US is struggling to stave off a wider regional conflict, which is already threatening its political standing in the Middle East.

Therefore, Biden wants to regain the initiative by renewing discussions – though without commitment to real action – about a two-state solution and the future of Gaza.

Netanyahu is disinterested in these matters since his single greatest political achievement, from the viewpoint of his rightwing constituency, is that he has completely frozen any discussions on a political horizon in Palestine. For Netanyahu, losing the war means the unceremonious return to the old American political framework of the so-called “peace process”.

The embattled Israeli Prime Minister also knows that ending the war would constitute an end to his own government coalition, mostly sustained by far-right extremists like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. To achieve these self-serving goals, the Israeli leader is willing to sustain a clearly losing war.

Though Biden has completely “lost faith in Netanyahu”, according to the Associated Press, he continues to support Israel without openly questioning the disastrous outcomes of the war, not just on the Palestinian people, but also on the region and the world, including his own country.

Americans, especially those in Biden’s Democratic Party, must continue to increase their pressure on their administration so that it resolves its cognitive dissonance in Palestine. Biden must not be allowed to play this deadly balancing act, privately demanding for the war to stop, while openly funding the Israeli war machine.

Though the majority of Americans already feel that way, Biden and his government are yet to receive the message. How many more Palestinians would have to die for Biden to hear the chants of the people, ‘Ceasefire now’?

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

21 March 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

 

By Dr Marwan Asmar

The world waits in shock and awe as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu makes good on his promise to enter the beleaguered Rafah. 

With his incessant insistence, he keeps repeating not entering the city means Israel has lost the war in Gaza. But this is gross simplification because Israel has destroyed and wrecked about 80 percent of the Strip, killed under 32,000, injured over 72000 civilians and displaced 1.9 million of its people.

But despite international and White House uproar about that, fearing there would be a civilian bloodbath, Netanyahu is not listening. He says Israel has destroyed three quarters of Hamas and there is still the last quarter in Rafah.

Delusional

Two things stand out here: The man is clearly delusional. According to American intelligence only 35 percent of Hamas infrastructure has been destroyed despite the mass bombing that equal four times the size of the Hiroshima bomb. The other point is that Netanyahu is facing domestic and international pressure.

This is indeed an understatement for US president Joe Biden has tried all things to put the brakes on the Israeli military onslaught termed as genocide and ethnic cleansing under the eyes of the international community. Biden is now increasing the pressure on Netanyahu, mildly threatening him not to send in troops to Rafah because of the 1.4 million civilians already assembled there as ordered by Israeli military firepower from the air.

Dual role

But on the face of it, Netanyahu doesn’t appear to be listening for the White House is stocking up Israel with military procurement and naval shipments and has been doing so for the last six months with hundreds of thousands of tons of military hardware. Biden is seen as a conspirator in this genocide on Gaza. If he really wants to have any teeth he must stop supplying these arms.

But to placate everyone in the international community and just maybe the Arab and Muslim worlds, however, he and his White House officials are seeking of what can be termed a ‘dual role’ that include portraying themselves as peacemakers who want a “genuine” deal on Gaza.

And the heat is still on. The Democrats majority leader Chuck Schumer in the US Senate, has expressed Washington’s annoyance with Netanyahu clearly, effectively saying the Israeli government has outstayed itself and must go.

Domestic pressure 

Netanyahu is also facing two types of domestic pressure from the relatives of the hostages – with 136 remaining – although the number could be dwindling because of the ongoing Israeli bombing of the Palestinian enclave. The relatives say he must reach a deal with Hamas for the release of the hostages but Netanyahu is foot-dragging, speaking of Israeli security as vital with the illusive goal of crushing Hamas.

The relatives feel the current bombing of Gaza, including the expected military onslaught on Rafah will only lead to dangerous escalation and ruin the chances of getting the hostages alive. Hamas has already stated about 70 of the hostages have been killed through deadly Israeli fire.

Domestic pressure is also coming from the military members of the Israeli war cabinet, principally from the chief of staff Herzi Halevi and military-general-turned-politician Gadi Eisenkot. They are not happy with Netanyahu for different reasons. While Eisenkot fears for the hostages Halevi has military reasons.

Army fatigue

He is concerned that the Israeli military needs more time to make a strategic move on Rafah. He fears the army is experiencing fatigue because its soldiers and officers have been fighting Palestinian resistance fighters right across the Gaza Strip. They are being battered by the Palestinian resistance, losing lots of infantry and military hardware including 1000s of troop carriers, tanks and bulldozers at astronomical costs in the billions of dollars.

Off course, the number of troop losses is being played down with Israeli army PR men messaging the figures and drastically reducing the number of deaths and injured in their ranks. But nevertheless, the real losses are far higher according to American military intelligence and echoed willingly in the Israeli media.

Such figures were reiterated recently by Jordanian Major-General Abdullah Shdeifat, an ex-deputy chief of staff. He said the real Israeli army losses stand at 14,500 officers and soldiers killed since 7 October, adding these are based on US intelligence while the number of injured stand at 45600 including 15000 with amputated limbs.

Huge losses

Shdeifat added these figures – in addition to the tens of thousands seeking psychological help in public hospitals – are forcing Netanyahu back to the negotiating table where there is presently an Israeli team in Doha, Qatar trying to reach a deal with Hamas over the hostages.

But such prospects are said to be dim for Hamas want a permanent ceasefire while the Israelis want a temporary arrangement to get their hostages freed. Hamas members are saying a permanent ceasefire or no deal; they won’t be trapped and the Israeli military machine has to stop.

So, all these issues may be forcing Netanyahu’s hand to delay waging a ground troops onslaught on Rafah and/or backing down from the expected invasion altogether. But Netanyahu doesn’t want to lose the extremists Smotrich/Ben Gvir axes lest his government is certain to fall. But at the same time, he is paying lip service to the army generals and the Americans.

After all, the Israeli army is daily striking the neighborhoods of Rafah, different parts of the south as well as different areas of the enclave in the center and the north of Gaza. They are going ahead with their genocide without necessarily having to wage another deadly war on Rafah.

Marwan Asmar is a writer based in Amman covering Middle East affairs.

21 March 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Andre Damon

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) engaged in summary mass executions of civilians during a raid on Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza this week, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said Wednesday.

The raid has killed at least 100 people, “many of whom were victims of extrajudicial executions after their arrest,” the human rights group said. Dozens more were detained, beaten and tortured.

Based on interviews with survivors who were detained and tortured at the hospital, Euro-Med said that Israeli forces had been carrying executions for three days in a row.

One detainee, identified as MK, told Euro-Med, “The soldiers detained me and handcuffed me in the hospital courtyard; I was left undressed for more than nine hours.” He reported that soldiers repeatedly took prisoners into the morgue, then gunshots were heard, and the soldiers returned without the prisoners.

“About four times during that period, I saw soldiers lead groups of detainees—[always] at least three people and [never] more than 10—into the hospital buildings, particularly the morgue building where bodies had previously been kept,” he said. “Gunshots were heard, with the soldiers then leaving the area to bring another group there.”

Another witness, who asked to remain completely anonymous, said, according to Euro-Med, that he “witnessed Israeli forces taking eight or 10 Palestinian civilians at a time towards the morgue area. He then heard heavy gunfire, and the Israeli forces later left without the civilians.”

Commenting on the victim’s account, Euro-Med said, “These civilians were likely subjected to unlawful killings and executions.”

The Israeli military claimed to have “eliminated” 90 “terrorists” during the raid on Al-Shifa Hospital, the Gaza Strip’s largest medical facility. “Over the past day, the troops have eliminated terrorists and located weapons in the hospital area,” the IDF said in a statement.

Among those detained, tortured, and stripped naked were medical personnel at the hospital.

Emergency surgeon Mads Gilbert, who previously worked at Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital, said colleagues described torture by Israeli forces.

“Medical staff have been arrested and left for hours in the cold,” Gilbert said. “Some were forced to leave the hospital and taken to unknown places. Others were displaced to the south half naked.”

He concluded, “One doctor was shot in the chest when he followed the orders to leave the hospital and later went into surgery at Al-Ahli Arab Hospital.” He added that the Israeli military does not differentiate “between fighters and medical staff, patients and refugees.”

As a result of the raid, Al-Shifa Hospital was again taken out of commission, further threatening the lives of the population of northern Gaza, where epidemic disease is running rampant amid the absence of food and drinking water, which is being blocked by Israel.

Journalists were also tortured at the hospital. CNN reported that IDF forces detained, blindfolded and stripped journalists from Al Jazeera and left them in the hospital yard in the cold.

Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Ismail al-Ghoul and his team were arrested for 12 hours and “severely beaten” by Israeli forces.

Al Jazeera journalist Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Rafah, said al-Ghoul was “tortured, beaten and detained by the Israeli military along with his crew member on the ground.”

Since October 7, there have been 410 attacks on healthcare facilities in Gaza, according to the World Health Organization. “Attacks have resulted in 685 fatalities, 902 injuries, damage to 99 facilities and affected 104 ambulances,” the WHO said in a statement on Twitter.

Meanwhile, famine continues to spread throughout the Gaza Strip. A report by the World Bank published Wednesday found that 1.1 million people in Gaza are at the highest risk of famine—classified as a “catastrophe”—while another 854,000 are facing an “emergency.”

“The situation in the Gaza Strip has reached catastrophic levels,” according to the World Bank’s report.

None of the population of Gaza falls into the lower two categories of food insecurity.

“Household surveys reveal alarming trends, with virtually all households skipping meals daily and a significant portion of children under two suffering from acute malnutrition,” the report concluded.

In a statement Wednesday, Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of UNRWA, the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees, said, “Siege, hunger & diseases will soon become the main killer in #Gaza.”

Between March 19 and March 20, 104 Palestinians were killed in Gaza, bringing the official death toll to 31,923. Once the missing are added, the effective death toll since October exceeds 40,000.

A critical element of Israel’s deliberate mass starvation of the population of Gaza has been the deliberate targeting of aid workers. Gaza’s government media office said Wednesday that over 100 aid workers had been killed over the past week in eight separate attacks. The aim of these attacks was, according to Gaza’s government media office, to “perpetuate the policy of starvation and deepen famine on a broader scale.”

Meanwhile, the Israeli government continues to openly advocate for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. In a statement to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Israeli parliament, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speculated that the port being constructed by the United States in Gaza, nominally to provide food aid, could be used to deport Palestinians.

“There is no obstacle for the Gazans to leave, maybe even the port they are building could be used for this, but there are no countries in the world that are ready to receive them,” Netanyahu said, according to a report by a journalist for the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation.

Despite verbal criticism of Netanyahu by President Joe Biden, the United States continues to insist that there are “no red lines” for the types of war crimes that Israel is allowed to commit, and continues to provide funding and weapons for the ongoing genocide as part of its broader military offensive throughout the region targeting Iran.

21 March 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Michel Chossudovsky

Moscow’s Terror Explosion, Macron’s NATO Troops to Ukraine

Peter Koenig

Automatic gun-shooting by five men in black took place Friday evening 22 March in the Crocus City Concert Hall, attached to a shopping mall, at the outskirts of Moscow. The terror attack preceded a concert. The hall was therefore crowded with people, panicking for leaving it. The assault was followed by a massive explosion.

The official fatality as of 23 March stands at 133. Dozens of people were injured.

The Islamic State (IS) – a CIA creation – claimed credit for the attack.

However, the political end of this attack is more complex.

On March 7, 2024, the US Embassy in Russia warned Moscow that a terror attack may take place in Moscow within the next few weeks. No further details.

Is it one of the now fashionable “predictive planning” stunts?

On the same day, the same US Embassy in Moscow warned US citizens in Moscow not to visit shopping malls. How much did the US know?

Speculations abound. Was this an empty warning to destabilize Russia and Russian elections?

Or was it one more provocation to pull Russia into a larger conflict?

On the day of the attack, John Kirby, spokesman for National Security at the White House said in a Press Conference that there were no indications that Ukraine had anything to do with the attack. In early March Washington just had some indications that a terror assault may hit Moscow.

“Some indications”? Why then the warning on the same 7 March to US citizens in Moscow not to visit any shopping malls?

It could not be more obvious that a hidden agenda is being played by Washington – and, may be added, by NATO and Europe?

Whether the Islamic State (ISIL), Al Qaeda or another CIA / MI6 terror creation – or even Kiev directly — was involved in this mass-killing is irrelevant, because whoever acted, did so on behalf of US / NATO and the West’s “Classe politique”. 

It is no coincidence that French President Macron practically simultaneously sends officially 2,000 French NATO troops to Ukraine. “Officially”, because western / NATO military advisers, trainers and coaches for Kiev’s Nazi-military have been in Kiev for quite a while.

Polish Foreign Minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, has called it an open secret that Western soldiers are in Ukraine. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said, “there are already some troops from big countries in Ukraine.” See this.

133 dead in Moscow concert attack, 4 arrested

Crossing Russia’s Redline

This is clearly the crossing of President Putin’s Red Line. Mr. Macron knows it, those who mandate the crossing of the Red Line, like the WEF and those dark Deep State Cult forces behind the WEF, know it – and Moscow knows that they know it.

Is it a provocation to pull Moscow into a hot war?

And the Moscow Concert Hall assault being a doubling-up of the Red-Line crossing?

This happening in the Ides of March, and just ten days after the confirmed landslide re-election of President Putin on 17 March 2024.

The Ides of March

Ides of March is the day in the ancient Roman calendar that falls approximately on Mid-March and is associated with misfortune and doom.

The date is also known as the date on which Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC.

Most US wars were initiated in March. Has it become a symbolic cult ritual of the west?

“With the exception of the War on Afghanistan (October 2001) and the 1990-91 Gulf War, all major US-NATO and allied led military operations over a period of more than half a century –since the invasion of Vietnam by US ground forces on March 8, 1965– have been initiated in the month of March.”

(See: The Pentagon’s “Ides of March 2024”: Best Month to Go to War?, by Michel Chossudovsky, March 01, 2024

It would perfectly fit into the Death Cult of the Great Reset (WEF) and the UN Agenda 2030, which are currently plaguing humanity – worldwide.

There are other “non-coincidences”: Yugoslavia

The 24 March 2024 is the 25^th anniversary of the 1999 US-NATO assault on Yugoslavia (Ides of March) – currently being commemorated by a two-day Conference 23-24 March 2024, in Belgrade.

The destruction and dismembering of Yugoslavia were also planned by a long hand.

After Josip Tito’s death in May 1980 (he served in several leadership positions of Yugoslavia from 1943-1980), there were some lesser communist successors, who were vulnerable to western / NATO “pressures”, and let what was a solid Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) deteriorate, western-style.

In 1990 Slobodan Milošević, President of Serbia became de facto President of the SFR Yugoslavia attempting to hold the federation together – which in the ten years after President Tito’s departure was financially destabilized by the west. In the 1990s the SFR Yugoslavia was one of the first “cases” where the World Bank, IMF Washington Consensus was applied full-scale – indebting to destabilize, create internal unrest – and divide.

Mr. Milošević was captured, detained at the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) prison in The Hague. He was poisoned on March 11, 2006 in his prison cell – shortly before his scheduled appearance at the International Criminal Tribunal on Yugoslavia (ICTY).

Once divided with constant civil unrest, there was “justification” for western rescue, i.e., bombing Yugoslavia literally into bits and pieces – leaving what we have today, numerous so-called independent former Yugoslavian Federal States – being economically and with “sanctions” controlled by the west.

Yugoslavia: “Dress Rehearsal”?

Imagine: The world’s biggest riches in the world’s largest country, absorbed or subdued by the (still) wannabe US Empire – and its European vassals.

It looks like the West wants a hot war with Russia, come hell or high water.

Yes, it would be hell for Europe – for the third time in just over 100 years, and three-times for the same purpose – taking control of Russia, WWI, WWII and now WWIII?

A war – possibly nuclear – of which nobody can predict the outcome. As President Putin repeatedly said – there will be no winners, just absolute destruction.

Under no circumstances will Russia allow a take-over by an arrogant, criminal west. With Russian military’s far-superiority over US and NATO forces, this will not happen.

In the current Middle-East scenario, western leaders are supporting and funding the Israeli-Zionists, literally destroying and mass-killing – wiping out – Palestine, depicting an arrogance blinded by the zest for illimited might, possibly driving humanity into a bottomless abyss.

A cleansing of this genocidal western “superiority” may bring birth of a new civilization – an evolution to a more spiritual and less material humanity.

Peter Koenig, March 25, 2024

Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).

Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.

What is the Islamic State (ISIL, ISIS-Daesh)? Who is Behind It?

As outlined by Peter Koenig, five Islamic State gunmen (ISIL) waged a brutal terror attack on Moscow’s Crocus City Concert Hall attached to a shopping mall, at the outskirts of Moscow, followed by an explosion.

“The Islamic State (IS) claimed credit for the attack.”

The Islamic State or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) happens to be a creation of the CIA, affiliated to Al Qaeda.

The Islamic State (ISIL) was originally an Al Qaeda affiliated entity created by US intelligence with the support of Britain’s MI6, Israel’s Mossad, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Saudi Arabia’s General Intelligence Presidency (GIP), Ri’āsat Al-Istikhbārāt Al-’Āmah ( رئاسة الاستخبارات العامة‎). (Michel Chossudovsky)

The US has supported Al Qaeda and its affiliated organizations including ISIL for almost half a century since the heyday of the Soviet Afghan war. 

The ISIL brigades were involved in the US-NATO supported insurgency in Syria directed against the government of  Bashar al Assad.

Obama’s 2014 “War” against ISIL-ISIS-Daesh

The counter-terrorism mandate was FAKE. America is the Number One “State Sponsor of Terrorism”.  

It was an outright act of war in disguise. It consisted  in providing a justification for the extensive bombing of Iraq and Syria, largely targeting residential areas and civilians.

In turn, ISIS-Daesh was covertly supported and funded by the U.S. and its allies including Israel.

Israel was directly involved in President Obama’s “counter-terrorism” bombing raids directed against Syria, while also supporting Al Qaeda and ISIS mercenaries out of the Golan Heights.

Going after ” Islamic terrorists”, carrying out a worldwide pre-emptive war to “Protect the American Homeland” are used to justify a military agenda.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is a creation of US intelligence. Washington’s “Counter-terrorism Agenda” in Iraq and Syria consists in Supporting the Terrorists.

The incursion of the Islamic State (IS) brigades into Iraq starting in June 2014 was part of a carefully planned military-intelligence operation supported covertly by the US, NATO and Israel.

The counter-terrorism mandate is a fiction. America is the Number One “State Sponsor of Terrorism” 

The Islamic State is protected by the US and its allies.

See Video. Michel Chossudovsky at 8’36’’ pertaining to the Toyota ISIL-ISIS-Daesh Convoy

International Conference The “New World Order” – Session 1

If they had wanted to eliminate the Islamic State brigades, they could have “carpet bombed” their convoys of Toyota pickup trucks when they crossed the desert from Syria into Iraq in June 2014

It could not have been undertaken without the unbending support of  the Western media which has upheld Obama’s initiative as a counter-terrorism operation rather than “an act of war” 

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.

Source: michelchossudovsky.substack.com

The United States, after vetoing earlier resolutions, abstained.

The resolution passed after the United States abstained from voting. The cease-fire would last for the month of Ramadan. Andrew Kelly/Reuters

The United Nations Security Council on Monday passed a resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, breaking a five-month impasse during which the United States vetoed several calls for ending the war, while the humanitarian toll of Israel’s military offensive climbed higher.

The resolution passed with 14 votes in favor. The United States abstained, allowing the resolution to pass. The chamber broke into applause after the vote.

By YOUSEF ALJAMAL

Ahmad Alhaaj, a 90-year old Palestinian, was displaced from his village of Al-Sawafir Al-Sharqiya at gunpoint by a Zionist militia in 1948. He lived his entire life in a rental house in the hope that he would one day return, but passed away on January 17 in the north of Gaza under Israel’s siege.

Alhaaj was among the 70% of Palestinians, including my family, who remain refugees of the 1947 – 1948 war. The UN created the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in 1949 to support those refugees, after Israel refused to implement UN Resolution 194 mandating Palestinian refugees’ return and it became clear to the world that the their plight would not end soon. Today, 4.7 million refugees like Alhaaj turn to the UNRWA for basic necessities like shelter, food and education. I attended UNRWA schools, and without the free access to schooling and healthcare UNRWA gave me and my family, I would not be holding a PhD today.

The agency is now under a fierce attack by the Israeli government, which aims to dismantle it based on allegations that Israeli intelligence has so far failed to prove.

It is no surprise that the Israeli government launched this latest attack on UNRWA, an agency it has long smeared as an arm of Hamas. It wants to eradicate UNRWA because it sustains millions of refugees who are living on Israel’s doorstep and demanding the right to return — or, in the words of the Israeli foreign minister to the UN, because UNRWA ​“perpetuates the refugee problem.”

The Israeli government claims that a dozen UNRWA employees played a role in Hamas’ October 7 attacks. Once Israel officially announced the accusations on January 26, countries such as the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom rushed to suspend their funds to UNRWA. These countries didn’t stop their arms to Israel, however, when the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled on the same day that Israel is plausibly engaging in genocide in the Gaza Strip.

The way these countries jumped to cut UNRWA aid, even before investigating the Israeli government’s claims, suggest that they did so under Israeli pressure. According to news outlets that obtained copies of an Israeli intelligence dossier shared with donor nations, the dossier contained no evidence, only allegations. UNRWA says some of its employees were forced to confess to taking part in the attacks. A UN investigation has released no findings yet.

YOUSEF ALJAMAL holds a doctorate in Middle Eastern Studies. He is a Palestinian refugee from Gaza and is a senior non-resident scholar at the Hashim Sani Center for Palestine Studies, University of Malaya, Malaysia.

21 March 2024

Source: inthesetimes.com

By Israel Shahak and Prof Michel Chossudovsky

Update and Analysis

On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm” which was led by its Military Chief Mohammed Deif.  On that same day, Netanyahu confirmed a so-called “State of Readiness For War.” Israel has now (October 7, 2023) officially declared an illegal war on Palestine. 

The current Netanyahu government is committed to the “Greater Israel” and the “Promised Land”, namely the biblical homeland of the Jews.

Benjamin Netanyahu is pressing ahead to formalize “Israel’s colonial project”, namely the appropriation of all Palestinian Lands.

His position defined below consists in total appropriation as well as the outright exclusion of the Palestinian people from their homeland:

“These are the basic lines of the national government headed by me: The Jewish people have an exclusive and unquestionable right to all areas of the Land of Israel. The government will promote and develop settlement in all parts of the Land of Israel — in the Galilee, the Negev, the Golan, Judea and Samaria.”

The Nakba

With an economy in free fall, 70 per cent youth unemployment, widely contaminated drinking water and a collapsed health care system, Gaza has become “unliveable”, [in 2018] according to the Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian Territories”

The above UN assessment dates back to 2018. Under Netanyahu, Israel is currently proceeding with the plan to annex large chunks of Palestinian territory “while keeping the Palestinian inhabitants in conditions of severe deprivation and isolation.“

Creating conditions of extreme poverty and economic collapse constitute the means for triggering the expulsion and exodus of Palestinians from their homeland.  It is part of the process of annexation.

“If the manoeuvre is successful, Israel will end up with all of the territories it conquered during the 1967 war, including all of the Golan Heights and Jerusalem and most of the Palestinian Territories, including the best sources of water and agricultural land.

The West Bank will find itself in the same situation as the Gaza strip, cut off from the outside world and surrounded by hostile Israeli military forces and Israeli settlements.” (South Front)

Human rights ended at the Palestinian border. The bought and paid for US Congress couldn’t genuflect enough:

“On July 19, 2023 the US Congress convened a special joint session for Israeli President Isaac Herzog. Both Democrats and Republicans bobbed up and down to applaud him 29 times.”

”Watching Palestine Disappear”, Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, September 12, 2023

“Greater Israel would create a number of proxy states. It would include parts of Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, the Sinai, as well as parts of  Iraq and Saudi Arabia.”

“Palestine Is Gone! Gone! راحت فلسطين . The Palestinian plight is savagely painful and the pain is compounded by the bafflingly off-hand dismissal and erasure by Western powers of that pain, Rima Najjar, Global Research, June, 7, 2020

Michel Chossudovsky, September 19, 2023, October 8, 2023

Introductory Text on “The Greater Israel Project” 

by Michel Chossudovsky 

The following document pertaining to the formation of “Greater Israel” constitutes the cornerstone of powerful Zionist factions within the current Netanyahu government,  the Likud party, as well as within the Israeli military and intelligence establishment.

President Donald Trump had confirmed in January 2017 his support of Israel’s illegal settlements (including his opposition to UN Security Council Resolution 2334, pertaining to the illegality of the Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank). The Trump administration expressed its recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. And now the entire West Bank is being annexed to Israel.

Under the Biden administration, despite rhetorical shifts in the political narrative, Washington remains supportive of Israel plans to annex the entire Jordan River valley as well the illegal settlements in the West Bank.

Bear in mind: The Greater Israel design is not strictly a Zionist Project for the Middle East, it is an integral part of US foreign policy, its strategic objective is to extend US hegemony as well as fracture and balkanize the Middle East.

In this regard, Washington’s strategy consists in destabilizing and weakening regional economic powers in the Middle East including Turkey and Iran. This policy –which is consistent with the Greater Israel–  is  accompanied by a process of political fragmentation.

Since the Gulf war (1991), the Pentagon has contemplated the creation of a “Free Kurdistan” which would include the annexation of  parts of Iraq, Syria and Iran as well as Turkey.

According to the founding father of Zionism Theodore Herzl, “the area of the Jewish State stretches: “From the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates.”  According to Rabbi Fischmann,  “The Promised Land extends from the River of Egypt up to the Euphrates, it includes parts of Syria and Lebanon.”

By Priti Gulati Cox and Stan Cox

It’s been almost two months since the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to stop killing Gazans and destroying their means of subsistence. So let’s look back and ask (1) how Israel has responded to its “orders,” and (2) how hard the Biden administration has pushed Israel to abide by those orders. Spoiler alert: the short answers are (1) not well and (2) not very.

The American government has provided most of the armaments and targeting technologies being used to kill Gazans by the thousands while turning many of the rest of them into refugees by destroying their homes, offices, schools, and hospitals. Nor did the Biden administration threaten to withdraw that support when Israel blocked shipments of crucial food and fuel to the 25-mile-long Gaza Strip. It also keeps vetoing U.N. Security Council resolutions that would hold Israel accountable. And President Biden, despite an increasing amount of rhetorical shuffling, continues to back Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), even though they have ignored the International Court’s orders and continue committing atrocities.

Flouting the Order to Stop the Killing

On January 26th, the International Court of Justice handed down a ruling in a case brought by the Republic of South Africa accusing Israel of genocide. It ordered that Israel must “ensure with immediate effect that its military does not commit any acts described” in the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

The court’s first order prohibited “killing members” of the Palestinian population or “causing serious bodily or mental harm” to them. How did Israel respond? Consider that, between late December 2023 and January 21st of this year, the IDF had killed about 5,000 Palestinians, already pushing the death toll in the Gaza Strip past 25,000. The court’s order, issued days later, would have essentially zero effect. Another 5,000-plus Palestinians would be killed by late February, raising the death toll to more than 30,000.

During the month after the ruling, Israeli troops repeatedly killed or injured civilians fleeing to, or taking shelter in, areas the IDF had advertised as “safe zones.” Typically, when, on February 12th, Israeli aircraft attacked 14 homes and three mosques in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, killing 67 Palestinians, some of the survivors told reporters that they’d been inside tents in a refugee camp. Similarly, on February 22nd, Israeli warplanes struck a residential area in central Gaza, killing 40 civilians, mostly women and children, and wounding more than 100.

Worse yet, the Biden administration has enabled that ongoing killing spree by approving 100 separate military sales to Israel since the conflict began in October. As a former administration official told the Washington Post, “That’s an extraordinary number of sales over the course of a pretty short amount of time, which really strongly suggests that the Israeli campaign would not be sustainable without this level of U.S. support.”

In other words, the backbone of the war on Gaza comes with a label: “Made in USA.” In the decade leading up to October 7th, as the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute has reported, two-thirds of Israel’s arms imports came from the United States. (From 1950 to 2020, the U.S. share was a whopping 83%!)

In just the first couple of months of the war, the Biden administration sent 230 cargo planes and 20 ships full of military goods to Israel, a trove that included 100 BLU-109 bombs (2,000-pounders designed to penetrate hardened structures before exploding), 5,400 MK84 and 5,000 MK82 bunker-busters, 1,000 GBU-39 bombs, 3,000 JDAM bomb-guidance kits, and 200 “kamikaze drones.”

Such powerful bombs, reported Al Jazeera, “have been used in some of the deadliest Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, including a strike that leveled an apartment block in the Jabalia refugee camp, killing more than 100 people.” And yes, such bunker-busters were widely used in the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but not in places as densely populated as Gaza’s cities. Israeli sources tried to justify that particular death toll by insisting it was necessary to kill one of Hamas’s leaders. If so, we’re talking about a 100-to-1 ratio, or a kind of collective punishment being supported by our tax dollars.

Worse yet, our military seems to have been participating directly in the IDF’s operations. According to the Intercept’s Ken Klippenstein and Matthew Petti, the Defense Department has been providing satellite intelligence and software to help the IDF find and hit targets in Gaza. An “Air Defense Liaison Team,” they report, even traveled to Israel in November to offer targeting help, adding that “for the first time in U.S. history, the Biden administration has been flying surveillance drone missions over Gaza.”

And even then, some members of Netanyahu’s government felt it wasn’t enough. Far right-wing Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich put it this way when it came to President Biden’s warning not to send the IDF into the southern Gazan city of Rafah where hundreds of thousands of refugees were gathered: “American pressure or fear of harming civilians should not deter us from occupying Rafah and destroying Hamas.”

The Israeli hostages held by Hamas are the excuse for so much of this, but the way to free them would be to negotiate, as Israel did successfully last fall, not try to “wipe Hamas off the face of the earth.” The Israelis are mostly bombing civilian sites in that campaign, because they’re reluctant to fight their way through the vast fortified network of tunnels from which the military wing of Hamas, the Qassam Brigades, mounted a formidable resistance to the invasion, largely with weaponry they manufactured themselves, along with ammunition recycled from unexploded ordnance dropped in past Israeli attacks.

Conditions of Life (and Death)

In the second of its orders, the International Court of Justice prohibited “deliberately inflicting… conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part [or] imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.”

The Netanyahu government and the IDF blew off this directive as well. In the month that followed the ruling, Israeli troops continued to besiege hospitals across Gaza, thoroughly crippling, if not destroying, its healthcare system, especially two of its most important facilities: al-Shifa Hospital in the north and Nasser Hospital in the south. Before it was put out of service in mid-February, Nasser was one of the last hospitals still operating there in any capacity whatsoever. Not surprisingly, the World Health Organization has since reported a striking rise in respiratory infections, diarrhea, chickenpox, jaundice, skin rashes, and scabies, among other horrors.

Israel’s military has also been making conditions unlivable by restricting the food aid entering the territory and destroying local fishing boats, greenhouses, and orchards. It’s a formula for mass starvation. As Michael Fakhri, the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food, told the Guardian in late February, “The speed of malnourishment of young children is also astounding. The bombing and people being killed directly is brutal, but this starvation — and the wasting and stunting of children — is torturous and vile.” Around the same time, UNICEF announced that 90% of children under five in Gaza were consuming “two or fewer food groups a day,” the functional definition of “severe food poverty.” About the same percentage were suffering from infectious diseases, most commonly diarrhea, which only exacerbated their malnutrition.

The world’s top group tracking food emergencies reported on March 17th that famine “is now projected and imminent” in northern Gaza within six weeks, and that “half of the population of the Gaza Strip (1.11 million people) is expected to face catastrophic conditions,” with starvation and death expected to be widespread. Keep in mind that, under the Geneva Conventions, it’s a war crime to starve civilians or “attack, destroy, remove, or render useless any items necessary for civilians’ survival.” Attacking a hospital can also be a war crime. In that context, here’s a thought experiment: What would President Biden and his top officials do if they suspected any other country of committing acts it knew could potentially lead to mass civilian deaths from starvation and disease? Would they shower it with more weaponry?

In defiance of the International Court’s orders — and undeterred by mild tut-tutting from Washington — the Israeli military is also inflicting intolerable “conditions of life” with its approach to Gaza’s water supply. With fuel shipments blocked by the Israelis, Gazans are unable to keep running the desalinization plants that produce a significant amount of the Strip’s water. As a result, by late February, the water supply had dropped to 7% of its prewar level. In desperation, many Gazans, especially children, have been forced to turn to polluted water sources, putting them at risk of severe gastrointestinal disease with no functional hospitals to help them.

Israel is also, in effect, violating the International Court’s bar on “measures intended to prevent births,” since pregnant women are considered especially vulnerable to the food deprivation that is now the essence of life in Gaza. At the Deir al Balah clinic in central Gaza, one out of five maternity patients were being treated for malnutrition in February, causing doctors deep concern, since any malnourished mother will be carrying a malnourished fetus (with awful health prospects for both of them). Meanwhile, the U.N. Population Fund reports that women are miscarrying at a higher rate than before the war, while doctors are being forced to perform emergency caesarian sections without anesthetics, posing a high risk to both mother and child.

Smoke and Parachutes

The International Court of Justice’s third order was to “enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.” Israel’s leaders are ignoring that as well — or maybe they’ve just reinterpreted “enable” to mean “thwart.”

In January, before the court order, the IDF had been allowing approximately 140 aid trucks through their checkpoints into Gaza daily, instead of the 500 of the prewar period. If Gazans’ needs were to be fully satisfied, that flow of aid should have been steeply increased. Instead, the Israelis reduced the number of trucks allowed into Gaza to only 96 per day in February, all too literally feeding fears of starvation.

To make matters worse, groups of Israeli civilians have been blocking aid convoys, some by lying on the ground in front of the trucks. On a single day in February, 130 trucks were blocked and the IDF made no effort to deter the demonstrators. The Association of International Development Agencies reported that, even when their trucks were getting through the southern border crossings, most of them weren’t managing to reach the central or northern parts of the Strip, including Gaza City, because they were “hindered by Israeli military operations, including constant bombardment and checkpoint closures.”

The most notorious aid-denial incident occurred on February 27th, when at least 118 Palestinians were killed after Israel forces opened fire on a crush of people in Gaza City trying to get food from a truck convoy. Most of the victims of this “Flour Bag Massacre” seem to have been killed either by IDF troops firing from tanks or to have died in the crush of people desperately trying to escape being shot.

The Biden administration did not respond to such incidents as it should have — by threatening to cut off war funding and supplies to Israel, as it had earlier suspended financial support for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), Gaza’s biggest prewar supplier of food, water, and shelter. The reason: allegations that some Palestinian UNRWA staff had, in the past, aided Hamas. Now, however, Reuters and the Times of Israel suggest that several agency staff members released from Israeli detention were coerced into falsely “admitting” to Hamas affiliations through physical beatings, waterboarding, and threats to their family members. (U.S. aid is still being withheld from UNWRA.)

Instead of pushing the Netanyahu government ever harder to allow more aid, the Biden administration decided to put on an airshow by dropping pallet-loads of packaged food into Gaza from military aircraft. Aid organizations panned the airdrops as little more than empty “gestures,” or a “theater of cruelty.” Even a hulking C-130 cargo plane can carry only the equivalent of one or two aid trucks. And despite similar expenditures, such airdrops can deliver only one-eighth to one-tenth as much food as a truck convoy. Worse yet, tons of cargo dropped from the sky can itself prove deadly. During an airdrop over a refugee camp along the northern Gaza coast on March 8th, a parachute failed to open, and the heavily loaded pallet attached to it plummeted into a group of adults and children who had been watching the drop from a rooftop. Five of them were killed, and 10 injured.

To Netanyahu & Co., the orders issued by the International Court of Justice have had about as much impact as a mosquito bite. And the United States, which could put more pressure on Israel than any other nation, has shied away from substantive action of any sort. President Biden and other officials continue to act largely as if they were just bystanders and the carnage in Gaza was being caused by some random natural disaster.

We aren’t policy experts, but it seems to us that any national leader with a strong sense of justice, of right and wrong, would do whatever was necessary to stop a genocide like the one now unfolding in Gaza. He or she would at least threaten to end all military support to Israel and press other supplying nations to do the same. He or she would put real effort into forcing Israel to let the aid trucks roll in and allowing Palestinians to decide their own fate.

Sadly, those aren’t our leaders. For now, Palestinians remain trapped in a nightmare vividly evoked by a recent photo that shows pallets of food aid parachuting earthward into Gaza as plumes of smoke from Israeli airstrikes rise to meet them — with both the food and the munitions courtesy of the United States of America.

Priti Gulati Cox, (@PritiGCox), a TomDispatch regular, is an artist and writer.

Stan Cox, a TomDispatch regular, is the author of The Path to a Livable Future: A New Politics to Fight Climate Change, Racism, and the Next Pandemic, The Green New Deal and Beyond: Ending the Climate Emergency While We Still Can, and the current In Real Time climate series at City Lights Books.

20 March 2024

Source: countercurrents.org