By Glenn Greenwald
8 Mar 2024
Upending the “West’s Dictatorship” – System Update
Upending the “West’s Dictatorship.” New MP George Galloway on the Next Era of Politics
George Galloway has been a member of the British Parliament for nearly 30 years. He presents TV and radio shows and is a film-maker, writer and a renowned orator and activist.
18 March 2024
Source: transcend.org
By Stephen Knapp
Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of the Aikido method of martial arts said: “Above all, one must unite one’s heart with that of the gods. The essence of God is love, an all-pervading love that reaches every corner of the universe. If one is not united to God, the universe cannot be harmonized. Martial artists who are not in harmony with the universe are merely executing combat techniques, not Aiki (Ai–uniting harmony and love with ki–the universal energy).”
This understanding is very important even in ordinary, everyday life. If we are not working in harmony with love and universal energy, we are simply going through daily routines that are ineffectual and empty. We need to practice the methods which also awaken the connection we have with God, the universe, and each other. This is the way we can fully grow and develop. Then our life will have meaning and purpose. We will be guided by our own upliftment and will be able to assist in the upliftment of others. We will be able to recognize the all-pervasiveness of the Supreme Being.
The essence of this perception has been related in the ancient Vedic texts, as we find in the Svetasvatara Upanishad (6.11) which states, “He is the one God hidden in all beings, all pervading, the self within all beings, watching over all worlds, dwelling in all beings, the witness, the perceiver.” If one can truly understand this and become enlightened in this way, he will see that he is a part of the Supreme Reality and realize his union with all beings. Within that enlightenment one can reach Divine Love. This love is based on the spiritual oneness and harmony between all beings, which is sublime. It is a source of spiritual bliss. It is a love based not on bodily relations or mutual attraction, but it is based on being one in spirit, beyond the temporary nature of the body. This is the love for which everyone searches, from which springs forth peace, harmony, and unity, of which all other kinds of love are mere reflections. This state of being is reached only through spirituality. Therefore, a life without spirituality is a life incomplete. All have the need to fill their souls with spirituality, the presence of God, in order to feel fullness, peace, contentment, and unity.
As the Supreme says in the ancient Vedic text of Bhagavad-gita (6.30): “To him who sees Me in everything and everything in Me, I am never lost, and he is not lost to Me.”
To begin seeing how things really are, and to recognize the Divinity in each of us, we have to start adjusting our consciousness. This takes place by being trained in spiritual knowledge and by the practice of yoga which purifies the mind. When the mind becomes purified and the false ego no longer influences our vision, we become sensible people. As the Bhagavad-gita (13.31-32) says, when a sensible man ceases to see different identities due to different material bodies, he attains the spiritual conception. Those with the vision of eternity see that the soul is transcendental, eternal, and beyond the modes of nature. Despite being within the material body, the soul is above material contact.
As the son is a part and parcel of the father, similarly, we are all individual parts of the supreme spiritual Father. In fact, the whole creation displays different energies which are expansions of the Supreme Energetic. Thus, there is diversity within the variegated material energy which expands from the Supreme Being. These expansions manifest in millions of species of life, as explained in the Vedic literature. Therefore, although we are in different material bodies, we are all expansions of the same spiritual energy. This is oneness and unity in diversity. On the spiritual platform, which is absolute, we are all the same. We are all spiritual beings, servants of the Supreme Being, undergoing life in the material creation. That is real unity. This perception is the perfection of the spiritually conscious person. He sees all living entities as reflections of the One, the Supreme Being. Thus, in a broad sense, there is one interest. Spiritually there is no clash.
We are all but small reflections of the Supreme Consciousness. When we put the greater whole above ourselves, and realize that we all contribute to the condition of this planet, then uniting with a common cause and with that Supreme Consciousness will be easy.
This planet does not allow us to be isolated. We all must work together and interface with others on some level. One lesson that this school of existence on this planet forces us to learn is that when we come together willingly to communicate, with a positive purpose, or to pray together, and to unite for the good of the whole, then harmony and peace can exist. That peace forms and manifests when we focus on our spiritual nature, which brings between us our unity in the Supreme. Making this the center of our existence will easily bring peace, unity, and harmony in this world because it brings in the spiritual vibration that emanates from the Supreme. That vibration is one of spiritual love. It is all that is eternal. All else is temporary. Therefore, focusing on and using our energy on temporary emotions such as envy, jealousy, and anger, will only keep us far away from the Supreme, and from reaching any peace or unity between us.
We have to recognize how similar we are in order to expand our heart toward others we may have previously rejected. This is how love and understanding can dissolve the boundaries that keep us stifled as a society and individuals, and keep us from entering higher dimensions of consciousness. There is no other way to grow spiritually. A lack of love for each other is a reflection of a lack of love for God.
When we think in spiritual consciousness, we do not recognize others by their differences. We see our similarities. This is easy when we think in terms of being sons and daughters of the same Supreme Father. We all belong to the One. Only in this way can there be universal love among all living entities. Only in this way can we begin to think that we are all related to each other. Once we establish our relationship with the Supreme, then we can establish our true relationship with everyone else. Our spiritual nature is eternal, and our spiritual relation with the Supreme is eternal. Therefore, our spiritual relationship with each other is also eternal. It is not subject to time and circumstances. This central point has to be established in order for there to be universal peace, brotherhood, equality, and unity in the world.
In essence, we are all consciousness in material forms. Consciousness cannot be destroyed. It is the essence of God in each of us. We are all spiritual beings, reflections of the Divine. We are not our beliefs, our cultures, or our minds and bodies. We are all divine souls on a wondrous journey through Truth. We have all manifested from God, the Supreme Truth, and we are all evolving back to God. As the Manu-samhita (12.125) relates, “Thus, he who by means of Self sees the self in all created things, after attaining equality with all, enters into Brahman [spiritual consciousness], the highest place.” That is the ultimate goal.
Stephen Knapp (Sri Nandanandana dasa) has dedicated himself to spreading the deepest and most practical levels of spiritual knowledge about the soul–our real identity.
18 March 2024
Source: transcend.org
By Jeffrey D. Sachs
A US-funded laboratory origin of Covid-19 would certainly constitute the most significant case of governmental gross negligence in history. The people of the world deserve transparency and factual answers on vital questions.
16 Mar 2024 – The US government (USG) funded and supported a program of dangerous laboratory research that may have resulted in the creation and accidental laboratory release of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused the Covid-19 pandemic. Following the outbreak, the USG lied in order to cover up its possible role. The US Government should correct the lies, find the facts, and make amends with the rest of the world.
By UN News
The genocide in Gaza has left a staggering 23 million tonnes of rubble and unexploded weapons scattered across the enclave.
15 Mar 2024 – In a fresh alert about the disastrous humanitarian emergency still unfolding in the enclave, the UN agency for Palestinians, UNRWA, said on Friday that it will “take years” before the Strip is made safe again.
The lives of more than two million Gazans have been devastated by daily Israeli bombardment, since Hamas-led terror attacks in Israel on 7 October, the UN agency noted in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
As the largest relief agency in Gaza, UNWRA continues to provide lifesaving supplies and services to more than 1.5 million displaced people in the south of the enclave. The agency runs shelters for more than one million people, providing them with humanitarian relief and primary healthcare.
No let-up in violence
Lifesaving humanitarian work has continued amid intense Israeli bombardment and ground operations – as well as heavy fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups.
In its latest update on the emergency, the UN aid coordination office, OCHA, reported ongoing violence “across much of the Gaza Strip, particularly in the Hamad area of Khan Younis…The hostilities are causing further civilian casualties, displacement and destruction of houses and other civilian infrastructure.”
OCHA noted that mine action partners are now carrying out “assessments of explosive threats” and educating Gazans about the dangers.
“Larger-scale assessments are urgently required, but response efforts have been hampered by restrictions on the import of humanitarian mine action supplies and authorization requirements for the deployment of specialized personnel.”
Funding boost
The news came as Australia became the latest country to announce that it intended to resume funding UNRWA, which saw international donor support evaporate, amid Israeli allegations that some of the agency’s staff had participated in the 7 October Hamas-led terror attacks in Israel.
A high-level UN investigation continues into the claims, which UNRWA is also complementing with its own inquiry. Shortly after the allegations were made public, nine UNRWA staff were dismissed.
Seaborne aid contribution
Meanwhile, efforts to secure a new maritime aid route from Cyprus to Gaza continued on Friday as the NGO ship Open Arms moved closer to the Gaza coastline.
The vessel, which open-source satellites showed moored off the coast of Gaza City in the north of the enclave on Friday morning, left Larnaca in southern Cyprus on Tuesday with 200 tonnes of relief supplies. These are to be delivered ashore once a jetty is built south of Gaza City, according to reports.
The initiative involves UN-partner World Central Kitchen and the search-and-rescue charity Open Arms, reportedly in coordination with the Israeli authorities and international partners.
Malnutrition doubles in northern Gaza: UNICEF
One in three children under two in the Northern Gaza Strip suffer from acute malnutrition – double the rate of 15.6 per cent in January, UN Children’s Fund UNICEF said on Friday.
Malnutrition among children is spreading fast and reaching devastating and unprecedented levels.
At least 23 children in Northern Gaza Strip have reportedly died from malnutrition and dehydration in recent weeks, adding to the mounting toll of children killed in the Strip in this current conflict – about 13,450 reported by the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
Nutrition screenings conducted by UNICEF and partners in the north in February found that 4.5 per cent of the children in shelters and health centers suffer from severe wasting, the most life-threatening form of malnutrition.
“The speed at which this catastrophic child malnutrition crisis in Gaza has unfolded is shocking, especially when desperately needed assistance has been at the ready just a few miles away,” said Catherine Russell, UNICEF Executive Director.
“We have repeatedly attempted to deliver additional aid and we have repeatedly called for the access challenges we have faced for months to be addressed. Instead, the situation for children is getting worse by each passing day. Our efforts in providing life-saving aid are being hampered by unnecessary restrictions, and those are costing children their lives.”
Screenings conducted for the first time in Khan Younis, in the middle area of the Gaza Strip, found 28 per cent of children under two have acute malnutrition, more than 10 per cent of which have severe wasting.
18 March 2024
Source: transcend.org
By Feminist Solidarity Network for Palestine
The UN report on sexual violence on October 7 has found no evidence of systematic rape by Hamas or any other Palestinian group, despite widespread media reporting to the contrary. But there are deeper problems with the report’s credibility.
11 Mar 2024 – Over the past four months, a concerted propaganda campaign, mounted by the Israeli government and amplified across various Western media outlets, has accused Hamas of using rape as a weapon of war on October 7. Allegations that Hamas planned and carried out a systematic campaign of sexual violence (with acts ranging from the deeply grotesque to the outright fetishistic and bizarre) have been used to paint the Palestinian resistance as inhuman and to justify Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. Recently, analysis demonstrating the fallacious nature of these claims — the fabrications, factual errors, and journalistic malpractice, the non-credible witness and first responder testimonies, the Israeli military affiliations of key sources, as well as the absence of any forensic evidence or video or photographic proof — has broken through into the mainstream.
On March 4, United Nations Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict Pramila Patten issued a report based on a visit conducted from January 29 to February 14 to Israel and the occupied West Bank to “gather, analyze and verify allegations of conflict-related sexual violence reportedly committed during the brutal, Hamas-led terror attacks of 7 October 2023.” The report, which details the findings of Patten’s visit, has emerged at a crucial moment. At a time when Israel’s narrative that Hamas committed systematic sexual violence on October 7 is crumbling, and the media outlets that spun this narrative are under fire, the report is being widely heralded as a vindication of both.
Our analysis shows that this is not true. The report does not, in fact, reach many of the conclusions for which it is being lauded in Western media, and several of its findings undermine the Israeli narrative. While we point these out, we note that the report contains severe limitations and pitfalls in credibility. It is important that we understand why the report cannot be trusted, as it has given new life to the cycle of mass rape propaganda that is being used to justify Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
1. The non-investigation and problems with Patten’s methodology
Patten’s office has neither the means nor the mandate to investigate what happened on October 7, and its findings do not fulfill the legal standard of “evidence.” Rather, the office of the Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict exists to “gather information” and engage in “advocacy.”
Ironically, it is the absence of any ability or power to investigate that likely induced Israel to extend an invitation to Patten. This was despite Israel’s refusal to cooperate with the official UN investigation currently underway. While Patten has made no secret of the fact that her “main concern” in producing the report was to “do everything for the remaining hostages,” it is her complaisance and willful ignorance when it comes to not investigating the nexus of what happened on October 7 — its before and after, contextually and historically — that makes her mission useful to Israel. No wonder that Patten’s mission enjoyed the “full cooperation” of the government of Israel (Para 32), when they knew in advance that the mission could not — indeed, would not — probe too far.
Upon the release of her recent mission report, Patten argued that any conclusive finding regarding sexual violence on October 7 would require an official UN investigation.[1] [2] But it is exactly this UN investigation, chaired by Navi Pillay and already underway, that the Israeli government has repeatedly blocked. On January 15, for example, Israel instructed physicians who had treated October 7 survivors not to cooperate with UN investigators. Patten’s report itself cites “the lack of cooperation by the State of Israel with relevant United Nations bodies with an investigative mandate.” (Para 55) Yet, at the same time, Israel misleadingly parades Patten’s report as UN endorsement of its claim that Hamas committed systematic sexual violence on October 7.
To show how easy it is to co-opt the work of Patten’s office, we need only ask what constitutes “credible information” in the report’s context. During her briefing to journalists, Patten repeatedly justified the report as following “UN methodology.” But closer scrutiny reveals that when the “applicable standard of proof” used by UN investigative bodies — “reasonable grounds to believe” — is transferred to a setting where no investigation is possible, information can easily be distorted and weaponized (Para 26). Interviews with unnamed secondary witnesses constitute some of the main sources of “credible information” in the report, but their inclusion is based on the mission team’s “own assessment of the credibility and reliability of the witnesses it met.” (Para 26)
In other words, we are asked to trust Patten’s judgment and take her report at face value. Such trust would be more forthcoming had the report included any citations or references that explained the sources it relied on for its “credible information.” While we understand that “sensitive information” needs to be anonymized when dealing with witnesses (para 31), this crosses the line to obfuscation when the information in question comes from Israeli national institutions or civil society organizations; publications are not cited, nor is any government official or first responder identified (even if they have already spoken on the public record).
For example, we know that Patten spoke to ZAKA men like Yossi Landau (as she herself admitted in the press briefing). Landau (pictured below with Patten at Kibbutz Be’eri) has been a central figure in spreading false stories around October 7, all now discredited. While Patten’s report debunks one false story about “a pregnant woman [at Be’eri] whose womb had reportedly been ripped open before she was killed, with her fetus stabbed while still inside her” (para 65), a story that we can trace back to Landau, the report also repeats other claims made by Landau publicly but which it does not question. For instance, the report endorses the reasons given by Landau to the New York Times as to why “a limited number of photos were taken” by volunteer search and rescue groups — namely due to their “conservative religious background” and out of “respect for the deceased” (para 46) — all without ever naming Landau.
To convey this information in generic terms, without sourcing or attribution, gives that information an air of “objectivity” and “impartiality.” This lack of transparency makes it almost impossible to weigh and evaluate the information we receive in the report.
It is also problematic given that the small number of existing witnesses of sexual violence on October 7 have already been largely discredited. Several have been found to have lied explicitly in their testimony, the majority have direct or indirect ties with the Israeli military, all key witnesses have changed their testimony significantly enough to undermine their credibility, and several belong to the conservative zionist organization ZAKA, which, according to spokesperson Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, views itself as “an arm of the ministry of foreign affairs.”
We already know that Patten’s team, despite issuing a public call, did not meet with a single survivor of sexual violence from October 7 (para 48). Unless Patten, with few contacts on the ground and facing what she herself referred to as “extremely limited availability of victims/survivors and witnesses of sexual violence,” was somehow able to conjure an entirely new set of witnesses in a period of two weeks, we have to assume that Patten’s “credible witnesses” draw from this already-discredited pool. It is, therefore, highly unlikely that they are credible at all.
The absence of cited source material is even more problematic, given where much of the information in the report came from. The report itself states that the mission team was limited by the fact that the information it relied on was “in a large part sourced from Israeli national institutions.” (Para 55) These included: “the President of Israel and the First Lady, relevant line ministries…the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), the Israeli Security Agency (Shin Bet), and the Israeli National Police in charge of the investigation on the 7 October attacks (Lahav 433); [and] several working visits to the Shura military base, the morgue to which the bodies of victims were transferred, as well as one visit to the Israeli National Center of Forensic Medicine” (para 33).
In all, “the mission team conducted 33 meetings with representatives of Israeli national institutions.” (para 33) Rendering such information generic and communicating it in a passive voice that effaces sources gives the illusion of “objectivity,” even while the report remains highly dependent on Israeli sources. As such the report is not just methodologically flawed but dangerous.
Patten admitted in the press briefing on March 4 that, “unlike an investigation … we looked at sexual violence pretty much in a vacuum” (Minute 20:36, our emphasis). This decontextualization allows the pretense that stories of mass rape on October 7 have not had an enduring role in justifying the genocide in Gaza. In this vein, the act of delegitimizing two widely circulated alleged instances of sexual violence (both thoroughly debunked long before the report’s publication) in the report worked to validate the judgments of credibility made in the rest of the report and confound critics. [3] The report can thus appear to accord “with the principles of independence, impartiality, objectivity, transparency, integrity” (Para 30), even as it presents a one-sided picture of October 7.
Patten claims that she understands the risks of her report being instrumentalized. Given this, we may wonder why she accepted the invitation to Israel when she knew that the Israelis were refusing access to the UN Commission of Inquiry, the agency with investigatory powers. As we show in our analysis of the uptake of Patten’s report in Western media, the report has already been cited as an official UN endorsement of Israel’s claims and used to revitalize the mass rape propaganda, just when that propaganda had been publicly debunked. This essentially makes Patten a willing accomplice in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
2. Unraveling the mass rape narrative
In spite of its own complicity in the Israeli narrative, Patten’s report undermines several of that narrative’s fundamental tenets. Western mass media is currently engaged in a concerted campaign to ignore this, as it spins the report as a vindication of claims that Hamas committed systematic rape on October 7. In fact, the report explicitly does not reach this conclusion. Here, we list several findings in the report and explain how and why they undermine Israel’s narrative.
2.1 The UN report does not find a ‘pattern’ of sexual violence on October 7
This was the central claim of Jeffrey Gettleman, Anat Schwartz, and Adam Sella in their now thoroughly discredited article, “‘Screams Without Words’: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7,” which argued that Hamas fighters did not carry out rogue or isolated acts of rape, but rather engaged in “a broader pattern of gender-based violence,” using rape as a weapon of war. However, when, 52 minutes into Patten’s March 4 press conference, Farnaz Fassihi from the Times asks, “Would you say that you found a pattern of sexual violence that was a strategy of Hamas, both in the October 7 attacks and in regards to the hostages?” Patten answers definitively in the negative.
Later in the press conference, when she is asked by Haaretz journalist Liza Rozovsky, “Am I correct that you cannot conclude that the sexual violence was of a systematic character?” Patten reiterates her answer, stating: “No…the distinguishing factor from the exercise that we set out to do, the gathering and verification of information for the purpose of its inclusion in the annual report of the Secretary-General versus an investigation, that’s where you would…go into elements of widespread or systematic. We did not go into that.” (Minute 57:53)
Patten’s report could neither “establish the prevalence of sexual violence” (para 86), nor “draw conclusions on attribution of alleged violations to specific armed groups.” (para 78) Later in the March 4 briefing, Patten reiterates this when she explains:
“I do not go into prevalence, I do not have numbers in the report. Because for me one case is more than enough. It’s not about…I didn’t go on a bookkeeping exercise. The first letter that I received from the government of Israel talked about hundreds if not thousands of cases of brutal sexual violence perpetrated against men, women and children. I have not found anything, anything like that.” (emphasis added)
Here, it is worth clarifying that while prevalence is not within the scope of the work of the mission, finding patterns is. To wit, “the mandate of the SRSG-SVC encompasses the gathering, analysis, and verification of existing, as well as independently received information on incidents and patterns of conflict-related sexual violence” (para 25, our emphasis).
That there was no “finding in fact” of a pattern of sexual violence on October 7 is thus significant. This comes despite the clear bias in sourcing (“from Israeli national institutions”) from which the report suffers. Even at the much lower standard of “credible information” (below evidence, but above circumstantial), Patten is clear at the briefing that there was no finding of a pattern of sexual violence.
Indeed, the most the UN report can be understood to claim is “credible information” for disparate incidents. Potentially to compensate for the absence of a pattern, the report distributes the information regarding rape and gang rape into multiple locations. It lists “at least three” distinct locations for which it claims there is credible information of acts of sexual violence: “the Nova music festival and surrounding areas”; “road 232 and other ‘escape routes’”; and Kibbutz Re’im. This multiplicity of locations is deceptive. Upon closer scrutiny, at least two of the locations prove to be indistinguishable: the Nova music festival took place in a field that borders route 232, and so pretending that the festival “and surrounding areas” would not already include route 232 is a sleight of hand that leads to some of the report’s worst inconsistencies. In the report, we are told:
“Other credible sources at the Nova music festival site described seeing multiple murdered individuals, mostly women, whose bodies were found naked from the waist down, some totally naked, with some gunshots in the head and/or tied including with their hands bound behind their backs and tied to structures such as trees or poles.” (Para 58, our emphasis)
Yet the executive summary puts these bodies that are “tied to structures including trees and poles, along Road 232.” (para 13) This error is telling since it gives the impression of multiple testimonies and a repetition of circumstantial indications of sexual violence, when they are, in fact, describing the same incidents. In other words, the report’s conclusions go beyond and inflate even the minimal claims it can make from the so-called credible information it has gathered.
Moreover, almost all the cases of sexual violence that the report covers are familiar to us from previous reports and media articles, be it the New York Times, the Physicians for Human Rights Israel position paper, the more recent report of the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel, or a slew of other outlets. There is only one new case of rape that the UN report attempts to add to the already very limited list of alleged cases that have been circulating and recirculating in the public sphere since the mass rape propaganda began in earnest in November. This case is at the third location, Kibbutz Re’im (2 km southwest of the Nova music festival site). It is described as “the rape of a woman outside of a bomb shelter at the entrance of kibbutz Re’im, which was corroborated by witness testimonies and digital material.” (para 61) It is based almost exclusively on this case that the report judges there to be “reasonable grounds to believe that sexual violence occurred in kibbutz Re’im, including rape.” (para 61)
Yet the description “outside of a bomb shelter at the entrance of kibbutz Re’im” is misleading, because that bomb shelter is outside the kibbutz on route 232. While this case is classified in the UN report under the heading of kibbutz Re’im, it could just as well have been classified under “road 232”; indeed, it is part of the surrounding areas to the Nova festival site. The reason this is important is that this is the only case of supposed credible information of rape in a kibbutz. So far, in all the reports and media stories, very few alleged rapes have been localized to the kibbutzim, and all of those have been debunked. The UN report itself judges other allegations of sexual violence at kibbutzim to either be unverified (kibbutz Kfar Aza) or unfounded (three allegations at kibbutz Be’eri, which is the only kibbutz that the mission team visited).
Given that Hamas did not know that the Nova Music Festival was taking place in the field next to Re’im on October 7 (the rave was scheduled to end on October 6), had they been planning to use rape or sexual violence as a weapon of war against civilians, they would have been targetting the kibbutzim. Yet we have not been presented with credible information of sexual violence at any of the kibbutzim. [4]
Despite appearances to the contrary, the UN report has not changed that. This sheds further doubt on claims that the Palestinian resistance committed systematic rape on October 7.
2.2 The report does not attribute any act of sexual violence to Hamas or other Palestinian resistance groups
Despite Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s triumphant declaration that the report “substantiates with moral clarity and integrity the systematic, premeditated, and ongoing sexual crimes committed by Hamas terrorists against Israeli women,” the report explicitly does not find that Hamas in particular committed any crime. In the press conference, Patten explains that:
“Given the multiple actors, it was Hamas, it was Palestinian Islamic Jihad, there were other armed groups, there were civilians, armed and unarmed, I did not go into attribution given the time and given the fact that I was not conducting an investigation.”
The mission report itself notes that Hamas has formally denied claims that it committed rape on October 7, and reiterates that it does not find any group responsible for possible instances of sexual violence:
“Given the mission was not investigative, it did not gather information and/or draw conclusions on attribution of alleged violations to specific armed groups.” (Para 78)
Various news media headlines have chosen to ignore this, with CBS News reporting, “U.N. says ‘reasonable grounds to believe’ Hamas carried out sexual attacks on Oct. 7,” and Associated Press and Time that “U.N. Envoy Says ‘Reasonable Grounds’ to Believe Hamas Committed Sexual Violence on Oct. 7.” Headlines claiming that Patten’s report attributed sexual violence to Hamas also appeared in The Guardian, The Financial Times, and The Washington Post.
2.3 The report does not locate a single piece of audiovisual or photographic evidence confirming rape
This is despite the fact that a forensic pathologist and digital analyst in the mission team reviewed:
“over 5,000 photos, around 50 hours and several audio files of footage of the attacks, provided partly by various state agencies and through an independent online review of various open sources, to identify potential instances and indications of conflict-related sexual violence. The content encompassed the actual attacks and their immediate aftermath, captured through militants’ bodycams and dashcams, individual cellphones, CCTV, and traffic surveillance cameras.” (Para 34)
In the conclusions section of the report, Patten writes that “In the medicolegal assessment of available photos and videos, no tangible indications of rape could be identified.” (Para 74)
Moreover, the report adds in a footnote that:
“The mission team took note of the averments of the Israeli authorities that some of the incriminating online materials, including those specifically depicting acts of sexual violence, had been removed…it is the view of the mission team that, had clear digital evidence of sexual violence or orders to commit sexual violence been circulated in the mainstream, it would have likely been discovered given the volume of the information posted online and further recirculated, making the removal of all trace of such material unlikely.” (Para 77)
2.4 The report confirms that witnesses circulated false stories about sexual violence on October 7
Confirming what independent journalists and activists have shown now for months, the report went out of its way to note the manipulation of evidence and testimony, stating that:
“It must be noted that witnesses and sources with whom the mission team engaged adopted over time an increasingly cautious and circumspect approach regarding past accounts, including in some cases retracting statements made previously.” (Para 64)
And:
“inaccurate and unreliable forensic interpretations by some non-professionals also represented a challenge.” (Para 10)
Such inaccurate interpretation included widely-circulated reports (reprinted by BBC, NBC News, The New York Post, Unherd, and others) that a woman had been found at Kibbutz Be’eri with “objects like knives inserted in the genitalia.” However, when the mission team reviewed the photos, they “did not find anything like that.” (Minute 55:10)
In her press conference, Patten hints that the erroneous interpretations of first responders may have been intentional: “They may not have been in bad faith, I don’t know, but it is a fact that we found many instances of unreliable, inaccurate forensic interpretation by untrained people.” (Minute 56:20)
Allusions to “untrained people” or first responders are almost certainly referring to ZAKA, an ultra-orthodox conservative religious organization that functioned as a group of first responders in the wake of October 7. Mondoweiss has already extensively documented the organization’s unreliability and implication in fabricating evidence of atrocities on October 7.
The Israeli government recognizes ZAKA as the only group responsible for dealing with deaths due to “terrorist” attacks within Israel. By now, we have ample evidence that ZAKA members, who hold a radical religious position against autopsies and forensic procedures, “used their imagination” to fabricate elaborate stories of sexual brutality in the wake of October 7. Patten’s report points to ZAKA’s unreliable practices, but conveniently ignores ZAKA’s close relationship with the Israeli government — the organization receives government funding and coordinates with key government ministries, all while posturing as a neutral non-governmental organization. ZAKA spokesperson Yehuda Meshi-Zahav has claimed that the organization acts “as an arm of the ministry of foreign affairs,” and on November 23, 2023, Benjamin Netanyahu met with ZAKA members, telling them: “You have an important role in influencing public opinion, which also influences leaders. We are in a war; it will continue.”
Patten’s report functions as a distraction from genocide
Despite the fact that Patten’s report does not find any credible information supporting a pattern of rape on October 7, that it has no investigative powers, and that it sustains glaring gaps in credibility that it cannot address within its mandate, Western media has been following the lead of the Israeli government in framing the report as a vindication of Israel’s narrative that Hamas committed systematic sexual violence on October 7.
At the same time, these media groups are ignoring Israel’s blanket refusal to cooperate with the official UN investigation into said claims. We must see Patten’s report for what it is: an attempt to give a veneer of legitimacy to claims that have been roundly debunked by recycling anonymous witness testimony under cover of “UN methodology” — but without the investigative mandate required to legitimize that methodology. Patten’s report explicitly does not find a pattern of sexual violence, gives no indication of its prevalence, and does not name any possible perpetrators. This does not appear to trouble Patten, who continuously reiterates that she is acting in her role as an advocate for victims of conflict-related sexual violence, and not as an investigator.
But an advocate for whom? Ultimately, one of the biggest problems with this report is that it serves as a distraction — a distraction from the plight of thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children who continue to be subjected to verified sexual abuse and torture in occupation prisons; from the current fate of those women whose underwear Israeli soldiers took photographs in after bombing their families and homes; from people forced to identify their sons, husbands and fathers stripped down to their own underwear, sexually humiliated and tortured.
It is a distraction from the agony of mothers who are now being forced to watch their children starve to death; from the terror of more than 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza with no food, water, or medical assistance, and no safe place to give birth; from the pain of Palestinian women mourning the 30,000 martyrs already slaughtered in Israel’s ongoing genocide.
As feminists, we adamantly refuse the weaponization of charges of sexual violence to justify these atrocities and join feminists around the world in calling for those echoing this propaganda to be held accountable for complicity in — indeed, for manufacturing consent for — genocide.
Notes:
[1] The first and primary recommendation of Patten’s report is that an investigation take place. (Para 88).
[2] This is not the first time Patten has hidden behind her lack of investigative mandate to spread dubious claims without evidence. In October 2022, when asked if she had any evidence for her assertion that Russian soldiers had committed mass gang rape using Viagra (a claim first circulated online), Patten appeared affronted. “It’s not the role of my office to go and investigate,” she retorted, “I have an advocacy mandate…I sit in New York, in an office in New York, and I have an advocacy mandate.” The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), which does have a mandate to investigate, made no mention of the viagra claims in its own extensive report.
[3] By debunking already falsified fabrications regarding Kibbutz Be’eri (para 65), discrediting ZAKA (already a convenient target in Haaretz), and providing alternative interpretations of postmortem photos and videos of “destructive burn damage,” the UN report positions itself as self-correcting and hence renews the mass rape narrative in more credible form.
[4] Moreover, some of the survivors at the kibbutzim have testified that they were treated humanely by the Palestinian fighters who took them captive (as in the oft-cited example of Yasmin Porat).
The Feminist Solidarity Network for Palestine is an international collective of anti-imperialist, anti-colonial feminist academics, lawyers, and organizers working against zionist settler colonial propaganda and towards a free Palestine.
18 March 2024
Source: transcend.org
By Phyllis Bennis
The airdrops are not designed to save lives, but to salvage the consciences of those who could—and should—be doing so much more.
14 Mar 2024 – There’s lots of talk underway about airdropping food to the 2.3 million people struggling to survive under Israeli bombardment in the ruins of the Gaza Strip. Many humanitarian aid experts say that the plan is expensive, inefficient and insufficient to deal with the level of famine and death by starvation and dehydration now raging across Gaza.
It is also dangerous. On Friday, five Gazans were killed and 10 injured after provisions that were airdropped onto the Strip fell on top of them, underscoring the very real risks that come with the practice.
Experts in public relations and good television, on the other hand, have long recognized the value of video footage of Air Force personnel crouched at the open hatch of low-flying planes pushing out pallets of food, and the graceful lines of parachutes floating to earth, with grateful refugees running across the beach to claim them.
All that talk makes it easy to avoid discussing Gaza’s true urgent need — an immediate and lasting ceasefire, and unhindered access on the ground for unlimited truckloads of humanitarian assistance.
Some of the dangers of airdrops are obvious. Parachutes blow off course. Sometimes, like on Friday, heavy pallets can come loose from their parachutes and crash down on individuals merely hoping for a bit of food for starving babies or a sip of water for dehydrated elders.
And with such small amounts arriving relative to need, airdrops are ready-made for chaos and injury. Hostile military forces add to the instability. In Gaza, chaos during the flour massacre of Feb. 29 ensued as Palestinians seeking food aid were targeted and killed by Israeli forces.
Since the first weeks after Israel’s assault began on Oct. 7, it has been clear that there is no safe place in Gaza, and that means no safe place for airdrops, including the beachfront of the coastal Strip.
Beyond the dangers that any airdrop faces in conflict or famine areas, sometimes particular risks make such a plan life-threatening. The U.S. military should know those risks all too well.
On Oct. 7, 2001, just three weeks after the horrific crimes of 9/11, Washington began its invasion of Afghanistan with a massive bombing assault on Kabul and other cities. Desperate Afghans fled to the mountains to escape. They faced the early winter cold with nothing, and the U.S. insisted, against the advice of experienced humanitarian organizations, that an airdrop was the best solution. Of course, the made-for-TV visuals of U.S. planes dropping food to impoverished refugees had nothing to do with it.
But it got worse. The food packets were wrapped in yellow plastic to protect the pallets when they hit the ground. It turned out the wrapping was identical to the yellow-wrapped cluster bombs the Pentagon was dropping nearby. As a result, children were reportedly killed running to pick up what they thought was food.
Word got out, and journalists started asking questions. In response, the U.S. beganradio broadcasts in Persian and Pashto, announcing that “the Partnership of Nations is dropping yellow Humanitarian Daily Rations, and “In areas far from where we are dropping food, we are dropping cluster bombs.”
“Although it is unlikely, it is possible that not every bomb will explode on impact. These bombs are a yellow color,” it warned. “Please, please exercise caution when approaching unidentified yellow objects in areas that have been recently bombed.”
The warning came too late for some Afghan civilians. On Oct. 22, 2021, nine civilians were killed and 14 more injured when the U.S. dropped cluster bombs on the village of Shaker Qala near Herat in western Afghanistan.
On Nov. 1, 2021,the Pentagon announced it would change the food packet wrapping to blue — eventually.
While the situation is different for Palestinians, there’s one danger particular to Gaza today. The 2.3 million Palestinians there have lived under a crippling siege for 16 years in which there was never enough access to food and clean water. In the last several months, virtually the entire population lacked enough food, and children are especially vulnerable.
The United Nations World Food Program says about 1 in 6 children under the age of two in northern Gaza are already suffering from acute malnutrition and wasting — “the worst level of child malnutrition anywhere in the world.” Many of those children need specially designed therapeutic food supplements if they are to survive.
The Pentagon is dropping meals-ready-to-eat (MREs), processed food designed for healthy adult soldiers,most of which require clean water and fuel to prepare. A child who hasn’t had a piece of bread in weeks, desperate for food, wolfing down unfamiliar rations from the sky, is likely to get sick immediately — or worse.
Between the distraction, the potential of confusing food with weapons and the potential for malnourished children and elders to eat items dangerous to their bodies, food airdrops are not the answer. At worst, they can be fatal.
We still need a ceasefire and full access to unlimited truckloads of humanitarian aid. The airdrops are not designed to save lives, but, as an Oxfam America official described, they “mostly serve to relieve the guilty consciences of senior U.S. officials whose policies are contributing to the ongoing atrocities and risk of famine in Gaza.”
Phyllis Bennis is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies and serves on the national board of Jewish Voice for Peace.
18 March 2024
Source: transcend.org
By Vijay Prashad
In the face of looming famine, Biden’s promise to build a ‘temporary pier’ to allow aid into Gaza is hollow and hypocritical, undermined by his country’s complicity in Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians.
14 Mar 2024 – On 4 March, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA) Philippe Lazzarini presented his startling report on the situation in Gaza (Palestine) to the UN General Assembly. In just 150 days, Lazzarini said, Israeli forces have killed more than 30,000 Palestinians, nearly half of them children. Those who survive continue to face Israel’s attacks and are afflicted with the traumas of war. The four horsemen of the apocalypse described in the Bible’s Book of Revelation – Conquest, War, Famine, and Death – are now galloping from one end of Gaza to the other.‘Hunger is everywhere’, Lazzarini said. ‘A man-made famine is looming’. A few days after Lazzarini made his blunt assessment, Gaza’s Ministry of Health reported that child malnutrition levels in the northern part of the strip are ‘particularly extreme’. The UN’s Humanitarian Coordinator for Palestine Jamie McGoldrick said that ‘hunger has reached catastrophic levels’ and ‘children are dying from hunger’. By the end of the first week of March, at least twenty children had died due to starvation. Among them was ten-year-old Yazan al-Kafarna of Beit Hanoun (northern Gaza), who died in Rafah (southern Gaza) on the same day that Lazzarini spoke at the UN. The image of Yazan’s emaciated body tore into the already battered conscience of our world. Story upon ugly story pile up alongside the rubble produced by Israeli bombing. Dr Mohammed Salha of Al-Awda hospital, where Yazan died, says that many pregnant women suffering from malnutrition have birthed stillborn foetuses or have required caesarean operations to remove them – without anaesthetics.
A ceasefire is nowhere on the horizon. Nor is any real commitment to get aid into Gaza, particularly in the north where hunger has taken the greatest toll (on 28 February, UN World Food Programme Deputy Executive Director Carl Skau told the Security Council that there is a ‘real prospect of famine [in northern Gaza] by May, with over 500,000 people at risk if the threat is allowed to materialise’). Around 155 trucks of aid are entering Gaza per day – well below the 500-truck daily capacity at the crossing – with only a few of them going to northern Gaza. Israeli soldiers have been ruthless. On 29 February, when aid trucks arrived at the Al-Nabulsi roundabout (on the southwestern edge of Gaza City, in northern Gaza) and desperate people rushed to them, Israeli troops opened fire and killed at least 118 unarmed civilians. This is now known as the Flour Massacre. Airdrops of food are not only inadequate in volume, but they have resulted in their own heartbreaks, with some parcels landing in the Mediterranean Sea and others crushing at least five people to death.
As if from nowhere, US President Joe Biden announced in his State of the Union address on 7 March that his country would build a ‘temporary pier’ in southern Gaza to facilitate the entry of aid through the sea. The context for this decision, which Biden omitted, is clear: Israel is not permitting the bare minimum of humanitarian aid to pass through land crossings, Israel destroyed the Gaza harbour on 10 October, and Israel pulverised the Gaza airport at Dahaniya in 2006. This decision is certainly not from nowhere. It also comes in the midst of the campaign for democrats in the US to vote ‘uncommitted’ in the ongoing primaries to make it clear that the US’s complicity in the genocide will negatively impact Biden’s re-election effort. Although one loaf of bread is better than none, these loaves of bread will come to Gaza stained in blood.
There is a hollowness to Biden’s pronouncement. Once aid arrives at this ‘temporary pier’, how will it be distributed? The main institutions in Gaza capable of any mass-scale distribution are UNRWA – now defunded by most Western countries – and the Hamas-led Palestinian government – which Western countries have set out to destroy. Since neither will be able to distribute humanitarian aid on the ground (and, as Biden said, ‘no US boots will be on the ground’), what will become of the aid?
UNRWA has been at work since shortly after UN resolution 302 (IV) was passed in 1949, since which time it has been the main organisation to provide relief to Palestinian refugees (of which there were 750,000 when UNRWA began its operations and of which there are 5.9 million today). UNRWA’s mandate is precise: it must ensure the well-being of Palestinians but cannot operate to permanently settle them outside their homes. That is because UN resolution 194 affords Palestinians the ‘right to return’ to their homes from which they were ejected by the Israeli state. Although UNRWA’s main work has been in the field of education (two thirds of its 30,000 staff work for UNRWA schools), it is also the organisation most equipped to handle aid distribution.
The West allowed for the creation of UNRWA not because of any particular concern for Palestinians, but because – as the US Department of State noted in 1949 – the ‘conditions of unrest and despair would provide a most fertile hotbed for the implantation of Communism’. That is why the West provided funds for UNRWA (although, since 1966, this has come with severe restrictions). In early 2024, most Western countries cut their funding to UNRWA based on an unsubstantiated accusation tying UNRWA employees to the 7 October attack. Though it has recently come to light that the Israeli army tortured UNRWA employees, such as through waterboarding and beatings, and forced them to make these confessions, most of the countries that cut their funding based on these grounds have failed to reinstate it (with the exception of Canada and Sweden, which have recently resumed their funding). Meanwhile, several Global South countries – led by Brazil – have increased their contributions.
Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees who ran UNRWA from 2010 to 2014, recently said that if ‘UNRWA is not permitted to work, or is defunded, I can hardly see who can substitute [it]’. No humanitarian relief programme for Palestinians in Gaza is possible in the short run without UNRWA’s full partnership. Anything else is a public relations sham.
Reading about the famine in Gaza, I remembered a poem written by Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) about the Szebnie concentration camp in Jasło (southern Poland), which held Polish Jews, Romani people, and Soviet prisoners of war from 1941 until the camp was liberated by the Red Army in September 1944. Brutal, horrible violence was inflicted by the Nazis at Szebnie, particularly against the thousands of Jews who were killed there in mass executions. Szymborska’s poem, ‘Starvation Camp Near Jasło’ (1962), does not flinch from the wretchedness surrounding her, nor from the possibility of humanity for which she yearned.
Write it down. Write it. With ordinary ink
on ordinary paper: they weren’t given food,
they all died of hunger. All. How many?
It’s a large meadow. How much grass
per head? Write down: I don’t know.
History rounds off skeletons to zero.
A thousand and one is still only a thousand.
That one seems never to have existed:
a fictitious foetus, an empty cradle,
a primer opened for no one,
air that laughs, cries, and grows,
stairs for a void bounding out to the garden,
no one’s spot in the ranks.It became flesh right here, on this meadow.
But the meadow’s silent, like a witness who’s been bought.
Sunny. Green. A forest close at hand,
with wood to chew on, drops beneath the bark to drink –
a view served round the clock,
until you go blind. Above, a bird
whose shadow flicked its nourishing wings
across their lips. Jaws dropped,
teeth clattered.At night a sickle glistened in the sky
and reaped the dark for dreamed-of loaves.
Hands came flying from blackened icons,
each holding an empty chalice.
A man swayed
on a grill of barbed wire.
Some sang, with dirt in their mouths. That lovely song
about war hitting you straight in the heart.
Write how quiet it is.
Yes.
****************************************
The paintings and photograph were created by Palestinian artists killed in Gaza during the ongoing Israeli genocide. They have died, but we must live to tell their stories.
Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter.
18 March 2024
Source: transcend.org
By Mustafa Abu Sneineh
17 Mar 2024 – Netanyahu has vowed to invade Rafah despite the international red line. Meanwhile, the U.S. has sanctioned two illegal settler outposts in the West Bank for the first time.
Casualties:
*Gaza’s Ministry of Health confirmed this figure on Telegram channel. Some rights groups put the death toll number closer to 35,000 when accounting for those presumed dead under the 23 million tonnes of rubble and debris.
** The death toll in West Bank and Jerusalem is not updated regularly. According to PA’s Ministry of Health on March 17, this is the latest figure.
*** This figure is released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.”
Key Developments
Netanyahu vows to invade Rafah despite international red line
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have spent their first week of Ramadan under Israeli bombardment and with little food and drink, which has led to the death of dozens of children from malnutrition and dehydration.
In the past 24 hours, Israeli forces committed nine massacres in various areas of the Gaza Strip, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health on Telegram, killing at least 92 people and injuring 130. Thousands remain under the rubble of bombed buildings.
For the 1.2 million Palestinians in Rafah, an Israeli ground invasion of the southernmost town of the Gaza Strip is imminent.
Israeli forces had expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, under heavy bombardment and fire, from areas in the north and central Gaza to Rafah, which at one point was designated by Israel as a “safe zone”. Many in Rafah have been left to sleep in UN school shelters and in tent cities.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is adamant that he will press ahead with an offensive on Rafah, despite alleged tensions with the US administration over such a plan. Still, the U.S. has refused to draw a hard red line when it comes to an invasion of Rafah, with the Biden administration saying Israel must only ensure“the protection of Palestinian civilians.”
“There is international pressure to prevent us from entering Rafah and completing the work. As prime minister of Israel, I reject this pressure,” Netanyahu told soldiers at the Ofer military base last week.
On Sunday morning, Netanyahu told ministers in the “war cabinet” that the army “will operate in Rafah. This is the only way to eliminate the rest of Hamas’s murderous battalions, and this is the only way to apply the military pressure necessary to release all our abductees.”
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the chief of the World Health Organization (WHO), said on Saturday evening that “further escalation of violence in this densely populated area would lead to many more deaths and suffering, especially with health facilities already overwhelmed.”
Ghebreyesus added that the 1.2 million Palestinians in Rafah “do not have anywhere safe to move to” and that they cannot reach fully functioning health facilities in the Gaza Strip, as most of them are partially operational or out of service due to Israeli aggression.
“Many people are too fragile, hungry, and sick to be moved again,” Ghebreyesus wrote on X.
Israel said that it is planning to move the 1.2 Palestinians in Rafah to “humanitarian islands” it is creating in central Gaza ahead of an offensive on Rafah, with Netanyahu saying on Sunday that he approved a plan to move Palestinian civilians out of the “battle zones” in Rafah.
Several UN officials warned of a bloodbath in Rafah if Israel launched an assault on the area.
Aid deliveries reach north Gaza
Overnight, aid deliveries arriving in north Gaza were unloaded in a center belonging to the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) to distribute it to people.
According to Al-Jazeera Arabic, local clan chiefs in Gaza and UN officials managed to deliver the aid following a directive issued by Hamas security agencies asking Palestinians not to gather near Kuwait roundabout or Salah El-Din Street, where aid trucks typically arrive.
Israeli forces have routinely targeted Palestinians who gathered to get food in these areas in recent weeks, killing hundreds. Due to immense food shortages and a crippled aid distribution system,crowds of starving Palestinians have been forced to to climb on trucks to get their share while risking Israeli bullets or being crushed by crowds.
Rami Abdullah, the chairman of the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor in Geneva, wrote on X platform that for the past 160 days “the [Israeli] occupation army has been targeting members of the police and civil services in Gaza to create a state of chaos and cast doubt on its control.”
He added that instruction from Gaza police to people to back off when aid deliveries arrive “was met with full commitment from the population… these agencies succeeded, for the first time, in securing the entry of some humanitarian needs to reach the northernmost point” of the Gaza Strip.
“We all realize that there is no party capable of controlling security except the youth of Gaza and its free men who are committed to serving their people and preserving their blood and sacrifices,” he added.
The news of a successful coordination between local clans and UN agencies comes amidst reports that Tel Aviv is reportedly trying to create an authority in the Gaza Strip in place of Hamas. One of Israel’s means of achieving this, reports say, is by using the food and aid deliveries as a tool to strengthen and push some clan leaders to the front seat and put them in charge of handling the aid, coordinating with Israel and the international agencies.
Last week, several Palestinian clans in the Gaza Strip affirmed their position that they refuse to be “an alternative political regime” in the Gaza Strip, and coordinate humanitarian missions with Israel.
EU says Israel did not present evidence against UNRWA
UNRWA has been vital in providing humanitarian services to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, but the agency was stripped of nearly $450 million of funding after top donors including the U.S. suspended payment in January in the wake of Israeli allegations against the agency.
Israel has accused the UN agency of employing over 450 “military operatives” from Hamas and other resistance groups, alleging that a dozen of them took part in the October 7 attack on Israel — a claim Israel has yet to back up with concrete evidence.
Since the initial withdrawal of funding, several countries, including Australia, Sweden and Canada have resumed their donation pledges to UNRWA as they have not seen any evidence backing Israel’s accusations.
UNRWA’s initial investigations have also found that some of its staff in Gaza were severely tortured and abused by Israeli forces and were forced into making false confessions to support Israel’s claims that the agency’s staff have ties to Hamas.
The EU’s top humanitarian aid official, Janez Lenarcic, has confirmed that Israel did not present any evidence of the claims against UNRWA to him or any official at the EU executive or to any other donor.
The EU said early in March that it is going to pay $55 million in donation to UNRWA but will hold back nearly $35 million until the investigation into Israel’s allegations is resolved.
“Even if those allegations, at the end of the day, prove to be true, that doesn’t mean that UNRWA is the perpetrator,” Lenarcic said.
“UNRWA has reacted properly, immediately, effectively. It took several measures. There is an investigation. There is a review. We are satisfied so far with all this,” Lenarcic added.
UNRWA has already fired nine of those employees, and is investigating the case of one. The remaining two staff members included in Israel’s allegations, were killed during the October 7 attack.
“UNRWA has of course a critical role to play here because it has unmatched infrastructure, warehouses, shelters, logistical capacities,” he said.
Lenarcic said more aid needs to enter the Gaza Strip by lorries and Israel should open additional land crossing points.
He added that the U.S. maritime corridor set from Cyprus to Gaza is “although a welcome addition, can only complement the land routes.”
“You cannot in current circumstances provide sufficient supplies by maritime routes or airdrops because there is no real port [in the Gaza Strip],” he added.
Israel bombs central Gaza, clashes with fighters in the north
Israel has continued its aerial campaign on the Gaza Strip, bombing several areas across the besieged enclave overnight. In Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, an Israeli airstrike on a house of the Thabet family in the Bishara neighborhood killed at least 11 people, Wafa news agency reported.
Israeli forces also bombed the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis, north of Rafah, and Gaza City’s Al-Shejaiya neighborhood in the north.
In al-Zahraa City in north Gaza, footage of armed clashes between Palestinian resistance fighters and Israeli forces were released by the Hamas armed wing Izz El-Din Al-Qassam Brigades. Palestinian fighters shot several Israeli tanks and armored vehicles with Al-Yaseen 105mm anti-tank shells.
Al-Zahraa is a highly symbolic city as it was built in 1997 in response to Israel’s plan to build an illegal settlement on Abu Ghoneim mount near Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank.
It is among the first and few projects built by the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the Gaza Strip as hopes ran high for establishing a Palestinian state in the 1990s. It is located south of Gaza City and is the home for the supreme court, two universities and several municipal departments.
Armed clashes escalated in the past week as Israel is finishing building a fortified highway, south of Al-Zahraa City, which now reaches to the Mediterranean coast. The corridor will split the Gaza Strip into two, between the north and south, and would further cement Israeli military control in the Strip and restrict the movement of Palestinians and the ability of Gazans to return to their homes in the north.
Israeli forces kill Palestinian in Hebron; U.S. sanctions West Bank settlers
In the occupied West Bank, Mahmoud Abdel Hafez Youssef Nofal, 42, succumbed to his wounds after an armed clash with Israeli soldiers stationed near al-Shuhada street in Hebron.
Nofal was the imam of Al-Qasim Mosque in the city. He approached Israel soldiers from the Islamic cemetery of Hebron, near the Karantina area and Al-Shuhada street before being shot.
Israeli authorities are still detaining his body. On Saturday, Israeli forces set up military checkpoints on the main roads leading to Hebron, and later raided Nofal’s home in the al-Shaaba neighborhood. Since October, Israeli forces and settlers have killed 435 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, according to the PA’s Ministry of Health.
Israel has also arrested 7,605 Palestinians in the West Bank since October. On Saturday, it arrested 65 workers in Yaffa (Jaffa) and 36 of them remain under investigation, according to Wafa. Israeli forces also arrested Palestinians from Jenin, Hebron, Qalqilya and Bethlehem overnight.
Israeli settlers launched two attacks on Palestinians near Nablus. In Burin, south of Nablus, they threw stones on Palestinian houses and fired bullets in the air with no injuries reported, while in Ain Duma, they threatened Palestinians of expelling them from the area, Wafa reported.
Some of those settlers have been put under U.S. Department sanctions, which also put two illegal outposts, Moshes Farm and Zvis Farm, on the list. This is the first time the U.S. punishes an entire Israeli outpost with economic restrictions. In occupied Jerusalem, 60,000 Palestinians performed Ramadan’s Al-Tarawih prayer in Al-Aqsa Mosque on Saturday night. Israeli authorities are still limiting the numbers of Palestinians from the West Bank to enter Jerusalem. Wafa reported that Israeli forces set up at least 30 makeshift checkpoints in the outskirts of the Old City, at the city’s gates and the entrances of Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Mustafa Abu Sneineh is a journalist, poet and writer from the city of Al-Quds in Occupied Palestine.
18 March 2024
Source: transcend.org
By Arundhati Roy
The Palestinians, facing down the most powerful countries in the world, left virtually alone even by their allies, have suffered immeasurably. But they have won this war.
8 Mar 2024 – The richest, most powerful countries in the Western world, those who believe themselves to be the keepers of the flame of the modern world’s commitment to democracy and human rights, are openly financing and applauding Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The Gaza strip has been turned into a concentration camp. Those who have not already been killed are being starved to death. Almost the entire population of Gaza has been displaced. Their homes, hospitals, universities, museums, and infrastructure of every kind has been reduced to rubble. Their children have been murdered. Their past has been vaporized. Their future is hard to see.
Even though the highest court in the world believes that almost every indicator seems to meet the legal definition of genocide, IDF soldiers continue to put out their mocking “victory videos” celebrating what almost looks like fiendish rituals. They believe that there is no power in the world that will hold them to account. But they are wrong. They and their children’s children will be haunted by what they have done. They will have to live with the loathing and the abhorrence the world feels for them. And hopefully one day everybody – on all sides of this conflict – who has committed war crimes will be tried and punished for them, keeping in mind that there is no equivalence between crimes committed while resisting Apartheid and Occupation, and crimes committed while enforcing them.
They and their children’s children will be haunted by what they have done. They will have to live with the loathing and the abhorrence the world feels for them.
Racism is of course the keystone of any act of genocide. The rhetoric of the highest officials of the Israeli state has, ever since Israel came into existence, dehumanized Palestinians and likened them to vermin and insects, just like the Nazis once dehumanized Jews. It is as though that evil serum never went away and is now only being recirculated. The “Never” has been excised from that powerful slogan “Never Again”. And we are left only with “Again”.
Never Again.
President Joe Biden, head of state of the richest, most powerful country in the world, is helpless before Israel, even though Israel would not exist without US funding. It’s as though the dependent has taken over the benefactor. The optics say so. Like a geriatric child, Joe Biden appears on camera licking an ice-cream cone and vaguely mumbling about a ceasefire, while Israeli government and military officials openly defy him and vow to finish what they have started. To try and stop the hemorrhaging of the votes of millions of young Americans who will not stand for this slaughter in their name, Kamala Harris, US vice-president, has been tasked with the job of calling for a ceasefire, while billions of US dollars continue to flow to enable the genocide.
And what of our country?
It is well known that our prime minister is an intimate friend of Benjamin Netanyahu and there is no doubt where his sympathies lie. India is no longer a friend of Palestine. When the bombing began, thousands of Modi’s supporters put up the Israeli flag as their DP on social media. They helped spread the vilest disinformation on behalf of Israel and the IDF. Even though the Indian government has now stepped back into a more neutral position – our foreign policy triumph is that we manage to be on all sides at once, we can be pro- as well as anti-genocide – the government has clearly indicated that it will act decisively against any pro-Palestine protestors.
President Joe Biden, head of state of the richest, most powerful country in the world, is helpless before Israel, even though Israel would not exist without US funding. It’s as though the dependent has taken over the benefactor.
And now, while the US exports what it has in abundant surplus – weapons and money to aid Israel’s genocide – India too is exporting what our country has in abundant surplus: the unemployed poor to replace the Palestinian workers who will no longer be given work permits to enter Israel. (I’m guessing there will be no Muslims among the new recruits.) People who are desperate enough to risk their lives in a war zone. People desperate enough to tolerate overt Israeli racism against Indians. You can see it expressed on social media, if you care to look. US money and Indian poverty combine to oil Israel’s genocidal war machine. What a terrible, unthinkable, shame.
The Palestinians, facing down the most powerful countries in the world, left virtually alone even by their allies, have suffered immeasurably. But they have won this war. They, their journalists, their doctors, their rescue teams their poets, academics, spokespeople, and even their children have conducted themselves with a courage and dignity that has inspired the rest of the world. The young generation in the Western world, particularly the new generation of young Jewish people in the US, have seen through the brainwashing and propaganda and have recognized apartheid and genocide for what it is. The governments of the most powerful countries in the Western world have lost their dignity, and any respect they might have had. Yet again. But the millions of protestors on the streets of Europe and the US are the hope for the future of the world.
Palestine will be free.
Arundhati Roy, born Nov 24 1961, is an Indian novelist and political activist. She studied architecture in New Delhi, where she now lives.
18 March 2024
Source: transcend.org
By Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan
14 Mar 2024 – Haiti and Honduras have made headlines in the last few weeks. Honduras’ former president, Juan Orlando Hernández, was just convicted in a US court of drug trafficking. He faces life in prison. Haiti is a nation without a government, as armed groups have united against the US-backed, unelected Prime Minister installed after the assassination of their president in 2021. In both cases, what is missing from mainstream news coverage is the role of US intervention that brought them to this point.
“The crisis in Haiti is a crisis of imperialism,” University of British Columbia Professor Jemima Pierre, a Haitian American scholar, explained on the Democracy Now! news hour. In her NACLA Report article headlined, Haiti as Empire’s Laboratory, she describes her home country as “the site of the longest and most brutal neocolonial experiment in the modern world.”
Haiti was the world’s first Black republic, founded in 1804 following a slave revolt. France demanded Haiti pay reparations, for the loss of slave labor when Haiti’s enslaved people freed themselves. For more than a century, Haiti’s debt payments to France, then later to the US, hobbled its economy. The United States refused to recognize Haiti for decades, until 1862, fearful that the example of a slave uprising would inspire the same in the US.
In 1915, the US invaded Haiti, occupying it until 1934. The U.S. also backed the brutal Duvalier dictatorships from 1957 to 1986. Jean-Bertand Aristide became Haiti’s first democratically-elected president in 1991, only to be ousted in a violent coup eight months later. The coup was supported by President George H.W. Bush and later by President Bill Clinton. Public pressure forced Clinton to allow Aristide’s return in 1994, to finish his presidential term in 1996. Aristide was reelected in 2001.
“In 2004…the U.S., France and Canada got together and backed a coup d’état against the country’s first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide,” Jemima Pierre continued. “The U.S. Marines…put him on a plane with his security officials, his wife and aide, and flew them to the Central African Republic.”
Democracy Now! traveled to C.A.R. in 2004 covering a delegation led by Transafrica founder Randall Robinson and U.S. Congressmember Maxine Waters who defied US policy and escorted the Aristides back to the Western Hemisphere. Aristide confirmed to Democracy Now! then that he had been ousted in a coup d’état backed by the United States. Aristide then went to live in exile in South Africa for the next seven years.
In response to allegations that gangs are currently controlling Haiti, Professor Pierre said, “The so-called gang violence is actually not the main problem in Haiti. The main problem in Haiti is the constant interference of the international community, and the international community here is, very explicitly, the U.S., France and Canada.”
The Biden administration is reportedly now considering the transfer of Haitian asylum seekers to the controversial U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba – a repeat of some of the worst U.S. policies in its long history of exploitation of Haitians.
Honduras, meanwhile, currently has a democratically-elected president, Xiomara Castro. Her husband, Manuel “Mel” Zelaya, was elected president in 2006, then ousted in a US-backed coup in 2009. In the following years, Honduras descended into a narco-state, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee violence, seeking asylum in the United States and elsewhere.
In 2013, Juan Orlando Hernández was elected president amidst allegations of campaign finance violations, then again in 2017 in an election widely considered fraudulent. Shortly thereafter, his brother Juan Antonio Hernández was arrested in Miami for drug trafficking. Then, following Xiomara Castro’s election, Juan Orlando Hernández himself was arrested and extradited to the US for cocaine trafficking. On March 8th, he was convicted in US federal court, and is currently awaiting sentencing.
“The evidence was chilling,” history professor Dana Frank, who was in the courtroom, said on Democracy Now! “This litany of assassinations of prosecutors, assassinations of journalists, corruption of the police, the military, politicians, the president, his brother, you name it. And it was like the curtain was drawn back, and you could see the day-to-day workings of this tremendous violent, corrupt mechanism that was the Juan Orlando Hernández administration…this was what happened after the 2009 coup that opened the door for the destruction of the rule of law in Honduras.”
US intervention in Haiti, Honduras and other countries is one of the principal drivers of people seeking asylum in the United States, as they flee violence, poverty and persecution at home. This point is almost never mentioned in the US press. To understand and ultimately solve the “immigration crisis,” Americans need to understand what their government has long done in their name, with their tax dollars–arming and propping up brutal regimes abroad.
Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 900 stations in North America.
Denis Moynihan is the co-founder of Democracy Now! Since 2002, he has participated in the organization’s worldwide distribution, infrastructure development, and the coordination of complex live broadcasts from many continents.
18 March 2024
Source: transcend.org