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By Raqif Makhdoomi

It has been more than 100 days since Israel has unleashed a history of horror. Killing thousands of Palestinians especially Children & making millions homeless, making them refugees in their own land . In past 100 days At least 23,700 people in Gaza have lost their lives. Which means  1 in every 100 has lost his Or her life. 60 thousand people in Gaza have been injured in these 100 days. These include at least 8,663 children and 6327 women , which means 3 out of every hundred people in Gaza. More than 1000 children have lost their one or both legs. 2.2 million people in Gaza are suffering from crisis level food insecurity. 9 out of every 10 goes without food for 24 hours or more. 359000 Houses have been damaged or destroyed. Which means 6 out of every 10 houses in Gaza are damaged or destroyed. 1.9 million people have been internally displaced . Which means more than 8 out of every 10 people in Gaza. Nearly 1.72 million are sheltering in 155 UNRWA facilities. 100 journalists and media workers have been killed. Which means nearly one journalist everyday. This war on Gaza is proving to be deadliest for journalists. 625000 students are out of school. With 7 out of every 10 schools have been damaged in Israeli attack. 15 out of 36 hospitals in Gaza function partially. Israel’s bombardment have destroyed most of the hospitals. The hospitals face a dire shortage of Doctors ,  medical supplies , medicines and urgently needs fuel for life saving equipment. 5,500 women are due to give birth. More than 180 babies are born every day. Both mother and new born doesn’t receive proper care.

By Dr. A. K. Merchant

In a voice choked with sadness and emotion, two hours after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi on 30^th January 1948, Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, first Prime Minister of India, while announcing the dastardly act to the nation through All India Radio, inter alia said: “…The light that has illumined this country for these many years will illumine this country for many more years, and a thousand years later, that light will be seen in this country and the world will see it and it will give solace to innumerable hearts…”

Seventy-six years ago, Mahatma Gandhi’s life was abruptly terminated.  Surely, he would have never thought that his end would be so unexpected, less than six months after he and the whole band of freedom fighters, many of whom had suffered greatly and sacrificed their lives, for India’s freedom from the colonial yoke.

Those who sacrifice their life and endure persecution for the benefit of humankind have a very high station in the sight of God. While none of us can fully fathom the mysteries of martyrdom and why so much innocent blood is shed, the history of humankind is replete with soul-stirring episodes of supreme sacrifice, such as that of Jesus Christ and his apostles; Imam Husayn and his entire family, massacred on the plain of Karbila; Guru Tegh Bahadur, who at the urging of his minor son, later Guru Gobind Singh, willingly offered his life, refusing to yield to the diktat of a tyrant; the assassination of Gandhiji, Father of the Nation, are just a few examples.

Today let’s reflect on the life of Gandhiji. What was the message of his death? What does he have to teach the world? With so much violence everywhere today, what is so significant about Bapu’s killing?  We can answer these questions with the word “yagna”. Yagna was the spirit of his life and the message of his death. Every breath of his life, including the last, was an oblation to his country, his principles and his faith in God. The theme of his life was truly sacrifice. He could have been a wealthy attorney. He could have had a life of relative ease and prosperity. However, he was man devoted to his country and to its freedom. Through his tireless effort and his simple piety, he showed the world how through principles of satyagraha, ahimsa and sarvodaya his fellow-country men and women could be inspired and motivated to achieve greatness.  However, in spite of national and international acclaim, he never lost his humility, his dedication and his spirit of sacrifice. Rather, the flames of his true yagna to Bharat mata seemed to only to grow until he, himself, was the poornahuti, or final offering.

Gandhiji’s spirit of nonviolence and sacrifice did not only pertain to overt actions. It was a quality of the spirit—a quality of humble love for all human beings. There is a story of a man travelling by train to Porbandar in the same coach as Gandhiji. However, the man did not know that the skinny old man in his coach was Mahatma Gandhi. So, all night long this man lay down on the seat, occupied the entire berth and pushed Gandhiji and put his feet on him and left Gandhiji with barely enough room to sit upright. However, Gandhiji did not fight, nor complain. How easy it would have been to shout and say, “I am Mahatma Gandhi; give me room in the coach.” But Gandhiji’s ahimsa was an ahimsa of the tongue and an ahimsa of the heart. So, he simply let the man use as much of the seat as he desired.

As the train pulled into Porbandar the man mentioned that he was going to see the famous Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhiji still remained silent. He had no need to stray from divine humility and disclose his identity. As Gandhiji descended from the train to a welcoming crowd of thousands, the man fell at his feet, begging for forgiveness. Gandhiji, of course, blessed and forgave him, telling him only that he should be more respectful of others, regardless of who they are. He taught the man the true lesson of sarvodaya, for the man learned that everyone must be treated with dignity and respect even those who are less fortunate.

Fully aware of his shortcomings, Gandhiji tenaciously clung to truth and virtue all his life. The Bhagavad-Gita was his closest companion and source of guidance. How unfortunate it is that today so many people claim that their lives and their work are “God’s”. Yet, they use this as an excuse to lie, to cheat and even to kill. And, at the end it is clear that they merely used God’s name in the service of themselves. Gandhiji remained pure and his death is the clearest example. Due to his commitment to ahimsa and complete surrender in God he refused to have bodyguards. Hence, on that fateful day as he climbed the four sandstone steps where people had gathered for the evening prayer meeting, a ‘stout young man in khaki dress’ made obeisance to him and the very next moment fired three shots from his pistol that was hidden in his pocket. Gandhiji collapsed on the ground and gasping for breath uttered “hey Ram,” “hey Ram.” It was 17 minutes past 5:00 pm.

Gandhiji would not have wanted to be only remembered in history books. He would not want to be remembered only as the freedom fighter who led India to independence. He would want his message to live on; he would want his yagna to continue burning, to continue bringing light and warmth to all the world. He was steadfast in his commitment to the law of nonviolence which he believed was the law of love and fervently wanted to make it the law of our species.

It is within the power of everyone, just as Gandhiji showed through his life to bring about positive change. When enough of us prioritize the well-being of future generation above our own instant gratification, the country will progress rapidly and every citizen will benefit greatly from positive and sustainable development. To this end, the words of Martin Luther King Jr., also a martyr, are so pertinent: “If humanity is to progress, Gandhi is inescapable…We may ignore him at our own risk.”

Dr. A. K. Merchant is a social worker, independent researcher working with some non-governmental organizations in the fields of education, environment and the interfaith movement.

30 January 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By The Chris Hedges

Joe Biden relies on advisors who view the world through the prism of the West’s civilizing mission to the “lesser breeds” of the earth to formulate his policies towards Israel and the Middle East.

21 Jan 2024 – Joe Biden’s inner circle of strategists for the Middle East — Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan and Brett McGurk — have little understanding of the Muslim world and a deep animus towards Islamic resistance movements. They see Europe, the United States and Israel as involved in a clash of civilizations between the enlightened West and a barbaric Middle East. They believe that violence can bend Palestinians and other Arabs to their will. They champion the overwhelming firepower of the U.S. and Israeli military as the key to regional stability — an illusion that fuels the flames of regional war and perpetuates the genocide in Gaza.

In short, these four men are grossly incompetent. They join the club of other clueless leaders, such as those who waltzed into the suicidal slaughter of World War One, waded into the quagmire of Vietnam or who orchestrated the series of recent military debacles in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Ukraine. They are endowed with the presumptive power vested in the Executive Branch to bypass Congress, to provide weapons to Israel and carry out military strikes in Yemen and Iraq. This inner circle of true believers dismiss the more nuanced and informed counsels in the State Department and the intelligence communities, who view the refusal of the Biden administration to pressure Israel to halt the ongoing genocide as ill-advised and dangerous.

Biden has always been an ardent militarist — he was calling for war with Iraq five years before the U.S. invaded. He built his political career by catering to the distaste of the white middle class for the popular movements, including the anti-war and civil rights movements, that convulsed the country in the 1960s and 1970s. He is a Republican masquerading as a Democrat. He joined Southern segregationists to oppose bringing Black students into Whites-only schools. He opposed federal funding for abortions and supported a constitutional amendment allowing states to restrict abortions. He attacked President George H. W. Bush in 1989 for being too soft in the “war on drugs.” He was one of the architects of the 1994 crime bill and a raft of other draconian laws that more than doubled the U.S. prison population, militarized the police and pushed through drug laws that saw people incarcerated for life without parole. He supported the North American Free Trade Agreement, the greatest betrayal of the working class since the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act. He has always been a strident defender of Israel, bragging that he did more fundraisers for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) than any other Senator.

TO CONTINUE READING PLEASE Go to Original – chrishedges.substack.com

29 January 2024

Source: transcend.org

By Anthony J. Marsella

Whose Child is This?  Whose child is this?  Is this child an Iraqi . . . an Israeli . . .  a Chechnyan . . . an Afghani . . . a Kurd . . . a Nigerian?   Is she or he English, Indonesian, Spanish, Lebanese, Turkish, Congolese, Bosnian, Persian?   Does it matter?  Is this child not a daughter or son to each of us?

Is this child not a human being born of a union of a man and woman whose intimacy, whose passion, whose very breathe yielded a life that sought only to live . . . to enjoy some moments of laughter and delight, some moments of comfort and calm . . . to make yet another life.

Now this child rests amidst the dust and debris of war . . . lifeless . . . torn and shattered . . . killed by someone whom she or he never knew, and would likely never meet.  Death from a distance. . . a bomb from a plane, a shell from a mortar, a strap of explosives . . .  intentional and willing, calculated and planned, a measured effort to destroy.

The Source:  an agent of death and destruction, a pilot or soldier, an insurgent or terrorist . . . does it matter? They have killed their own child . . . they have killed our child.  And in doing so, they have diminished each of us as human beings, each of us as creatures of consciousness and conscience, each of us as reflections and carriers of life.  Words cannot console her or his parents, if they, indeed, survived this horror. They are left with only endless pain . . . memories of a child eating, sleeping, playing . . . a reminder of a tragic moment inscribed in mortar and blood.

Enough!  Enough!  Stand, speak, write, act against those who advocate violence and hate no matter the source — be they presidents, prime ministers, generals, terrorists, mullahs, rabbis, dictators, ministers, true believers . . .  tell them that we do not share their quest for power and greed.   Tell them we do not share their hate, nor their blindness and indifference to suffering.  Tell them we do not share their empty post-tragedy rhetoric designed to keep us mired in the fulfillment of their selfish needs. We are not pacified and contented by their explanations and assurances. We challenge and contest their motives!  We resent and resist their excuses. How shallow their words in the face of dying or dead child.

THIS IS OUR CHILD!  Today, we claim this child as our own, too late to keep her or him alive, too late to know her or his hopes and dreams, too late to know the promise and possibilities of their life had it been given the chance to be lived free of oppression, abuse, and indignity.

But we are not too late to affirm to all living children that we will try to protect you, to guard you, and to shelter you from the terror of war and violence, and from an untimely, painful, and meaningless death, by choosing peace over war, compassion over violence, voice over silence, and conscience over comfort.

Note:  I first wrote this brief appeal in July, 2005, following a conference in Savannah, Georgia, in which Dr. Amer Hosin shared photos of death and suffering in the Middle East.  I emailed this appeal in the December holiday season, when the poignant holiday carol, “What child is this?” is played endlessly on radio and television, testimony to Christian faith, but indirectly testimony to the consequences of violence against children, and the reality our hope for recovery and redemption reside in children – all children!

Today, as I viewed the now iconic photo of the stalwart Syrian boy, covered in dust, his mind and body shattered by bombs he could never fathom, and I recalled the iconic photo of the naked Vietnamese girl escaping napalm.  I decided I must share this appeal today.  It is upon all of us. What can we do to stop the destruction of life? What can we do end the reflexive response of violence and hate toward those we deem enemies.

I say to you, I plead with you now: “Hate begets violence, and violence begets hate, and always innocents become the victims.” We use the word “hate” daily, casually expressing our so often disgust or revulsion with something as benign as broccoli, or an athletic team.  “I hate __________!

The powerful emotion of “hate” has escaped our conscious awareness! We “hate” too much, too often, too easily; the consequences of the word and the behaviors it implies are lost to us.  Ask: Do I have a right to “hate?” Is “hate” a choice? What do I mean when I say I “hate”!  Stare at the image of a dead Iraqi child? Embed the image of the struggling shocked Syrian boy in your mind. Make room for it!  It is more important than so many other images you hold. Ask: Whose child is this? He or she is your child! If you deny this reality, then await the day the face returns to remind you of your failure, to haunt your minds as you look at your child.

Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D., a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment, is a past president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility, Emeritus Professor of psychology at the University of Hawaii’s Manoa Campus in Honolulu, Hawaii, and past director of the World Health Organization Psychiatric Research Center in Honolulu.

29 January 2024

Source: transcend.org

By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies

In the topsy-turvy world of corporate media reporting on U.S. foreign policy, we have been led to believe that U.S. air strikes on Yemen, Iraq and Syria are legitimate and responsible efforts to contain the expanding war over Israel’s genocide in Gaza, while the actions of the Houthi government in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Iran and its allies in Iraq and Syria are all dangerous escalations.

In fact, it is U.S. and Israeli actions that are driving the expansion of the war, while Iran and others are genuinely trying to find effective ways to counter and end Israel’s genocide in Gaza while avoiding a full-scale regional war.

We are encouraged by Egypt and Qatar’s efforts to mediate a ceasefire and the release of hostages and prisoners-of-war by both sides. But it is important to recognize who are the aggressors, who are the victims, and how regional actors are taking incremental but increasingly forceful action to respond to genocide.

A near-total Israeli communications blackout in Gaza has reduced the flow of images of the ongoing massacre on our TVs and computer screens, but the slaughter has not abated. Israel is bombing and attacking Khan Younis, the largest city in the southern Gaza Strip, as ruthlessly as it did Gaza City in the north. Israeli forces and U.S. weapons have killed an average of 240 Gazans per day for more than three months, and 70% of the dead are still women and children.

Israel has repeatedly claimed it is taking new steps to protect civilians, but that is only a public relations exercise. The Israeli government is still using 2,000 pound and even 5,000 pound “bunker-buster” bombs to dehouse the people of Gaza and herd them toward the Egyptian border, while it debates how to push the survivors over the border into exile, which it euphemistically refers to as “voluntary emigration.”

People throughout the Middle East are horrified by Israel’s slaughter and plans for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, but most of their governments will only condemn Israel verbally. The Houthi government in Yemen is different. Unable to directly send forces to fight for Gaza, they began enforcing a blockade of the Red Sea against Israeli-owned ships and other ships carrying goods to or from Israel. Since mid-November 2023, the Houthis have conducted about 30 attacks on international vessels transiting the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden but none of the attacks have caused casualties or sunk any ships.

In response,  the Biden administration, without Congressional approval, has launched at least six rounds of bombing, including airstrikes on Sanaa, the capital of Yemen. The United Kingdom has contributed a few warplanes, while Australia, Canada, Holland and Bahrain also act as cheerleaders to provide the U.S. with the cover of leading an “international coalition.”

President Biden has admitted that U.S. bombing will not force Yemen to lift its blockade, but he insists that the U.S. will keep attacking it anyway. Saudi Arabia dropped 70,000 mostly American (and some British) bombs on Yemen in a 7-year war, but utterly failed to defeat the Houthi government and armed forces.

Yemenis naturally identify with the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza, and a million Yemenis took to the street to support their country’s position challenging Israel and the United States. Yemen is no Iranian puppet, but as with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran’s Iraqi and Syrian allies, Iran has trained the Yemenis to build and deploy increasingly powerful anti-ship, cruise and ballistic missiles.

The Houthis have made it clear that they will stop the attacks once Israel stops its slaughter in Gaza. It beggars belief that instead of pressing for a ceasefire in Gaza, Biden and his clueless advisers are instead choosing to deepen U.S. military involvement in a regional Middle East conflict.

The United States and Israel have now conducted airstrikes on the capitals of four neighboring countries: Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen. Iran also suspects U.S. and Israeli spy agencies of a role in two bomb explosions in Kerman in Iran, which killed about 90 people and wounded hundreds more at a commemoration of the fourth anniversary of the U.S. assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in January 2020.

On January 20th, an Israeli bombing killed 10 people in Damascus, including 5 Iranian officials. After repeated Israeli airstrikes on Syria, Russia has now deployed warplanes to patrol the border to deter Israeli attacks, and has reoccupied two previously vacated outposts built to monitor violations of the demilitarized zone between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Iran has responded to the terrorist bombings in Kerman and Israeli assassinations of Iranian officials with missile strikes on targets in Iraq, Syria and Pakistan. Iranian Foreign Minister Amir-Abdohallian has strongly defended Iran’s claim that the strikes on Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan targeted agents of Israel’s Mossad spy agency.

Eleven Iranian ballistic missiles destroyed an Iraqi Kurdish intelligence facility and the home of a senior intelligence officer, and also killed a wealthy real estate developer and businessman, Peshraw Dizayee, who had been accused of working for the Mossad, as well as of smuggling Iraqi oil from Kurdistan to Israel via Turkey.

The targets of Iran’s missile strikes in northwest Syria were the headquarters of two separate ISIS-linked groups in Idlib province. The strikes precisely hit both buildings and demolished them, at a range of 800 miles, using Iran’s newest ballistic missiles called Kheybar Shakan or Castle Blasters, a name that equates today’s U.S. bases in the Middle East with the 12th and 13th century European crusader castles whose ruins still dot the landscape.

Iran launched its missiles, not from north-west Iran, which would have been closer to Idlib, but from Khuzestan province in south-west Iran, which is closer to Tel Aviv than to Idlib. So these missile strikes were clearly intended as a warning to Israel and the United States that Iran can conduct precise attacks on Israel and U.S. “crusader castles” in the Middle East if they continue their aggression against Palestine, Iran and their allies.

At the same time, the U.S. has escalated its tit-for-tat airstrikes against Iranian-backed Iraqi militias. The Iraqi government has consistently protested U.S. airstrikes against the militias as violations of Iraqi sovereignty. Prime Minister Sudani’s military spokesman called the latest U.S. airstrikes “acts of aggression,” and said, “This unacceptable act undermines years of cooperation… at a time when the region is already grappling with the danger of expanding conflict, the repercussions of the aggression on Gaza.”

After its fiascos in Afghanistan and Iraq killed thousands of U.S. troops, the United States has avoided large numbers of U.S. military casualties for ten years. The last time the U.S. lost more than a hundred troops killed in action in a year was in 2013, when 128 Americans were killed in Afghanistan.

Since then, the United States has relied on bombing and proxy forces to fight its wars. The only lesson U.S. leaders seem to have learned from their lost wars is to avoid putting U.S. “boots on the ground.” The U.S. dropped over 120,000 bombs and missiles on Iraq and Syria in its war on ISIS, while Iraqis, Syrians and Kurds did all the hard fighting on the ground.

In Ukraine, the U.S. and its allies found a willing proxy to fight Russia. But after two years of war, Ukrainian casualties have become unsustainable and new recruits are hard to find. The Ukrainian parliament has rejected a bill to authorize forced conscription, and no amount of U.S. weapons can persuade more Ukrainians to sacrifice their lives for a Ukrainian nationalism that treats large numbers of them, especially Russian speakers, as second class citizens.

Now, in Gaza, Yemen and Iraq, the United States has waded into what it hoped would be another “US-casualty-free” war. Instead, the U.S.-Israeli genocide in Gaza is unleashing a crisis that is spinning out of control across the region and may soon directly involve U.S. troops in combat. This will shatter the illusion of peace Americans have lived in for the last ten years of U.S. bombing and proxy wars, and bring the reality of U.S. militarism and warmaking home with a vengeance.

Biden can continue to give Israel carte-blanche to wipe out the people of Gaza, and watch as the region becomes further engulfed in flames, or he can listen to his own campaign staff, who warn that it’s a “moral and electoral imperative” to insist on a ceasefire. The choice could not be more stark.

Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies are the authors of War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, published by OR Books in November 2022.

29 January 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Andre Damon

US Central Command claimed Sunday that three US soldiers were killed and 25 injured in a drone strike against a US base in Jordan near the Syrian border. US officials told the New York Times that the strike hit a barracks housing troops at a US base known as Tower 22.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a group for Iranian-linked militias, claimed credit for the attack, stating it was retaliation for US support for the genocide in Gaza.

US politicians seized upon the deaths of the American soldiers to call for a direct US attack on Iran, which would greatly intensify the sprawling war throughout the Middle East triggered by Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham called on the United States to strike “targets of significance inside Iran.”

“Hit Iran now, hard,” Graham declared. “The only thing the Iranian regime understands is force,” said Graham, adding, “Until they pay a price with their infrastructure and their personnel, the attacks on US troops will continue.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, called on the administration to impose “serious crippling costs” on Iran.

Republican Senator Dan Sullivan called for “a clear, lethal and overwhelming response.”

Republican Senator Tom Cotton called for a “devastating military retaliation against Iran’s terrorist forces, both in Iran and across the Middle East.”

Some Democrats also joined the clamor for war. Retired US General and former NATO Commander Wesley Clark, once a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, said, “The US should stop saying ‘we don’t want to escalate.’ This invites them to attack us. Stop calling our strikes ‘retaliation.’ This is reactive. Take out their capabilities and strike hard at the source: Iran.”

President Joe Biden, in announcing the deaths, declared, “We will hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner of our choosing.”

Bloomberg News reported, citing unnamed sources, that the US was contemplating direct attacks inside Iran. “One possibility is covert action that would see the US strike Iran without claiming credit for it but sending a clear message regardless,” the news service wrote. “The Biden administration could also target Iranian officials directly, as former President Donald Trump did when he ordered the killing of General Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad in 2020.”

A direct US attack inside Iran would massively inflame what is already a regional shooting war throughout the Middle East.

In an article headlined “The Ever-Expanding Middle East War,” The Economist explained:

If you drew a diagram of who is shooting at whom in the Middle East, it would look increasingly like a bowl of spaghetti. What began in October as a war between Israel and Hamas has now drawn in militants from four other Arab states. In addition, Iran, Israel, and Jordan all bombed Syria this month. Iran also unexpectedly bombed Pakistan, which must have wondered how it got dragged into this mess.

In the past two weeks, the United States has carried out strikes inside Syria, Iraq and Yemen, while its ally Israel is exchanging daily fire across its northern border with Lebanon, struck at alleged Iran-linked targets in Syria, and had military clashes with the Egyptian armed forces. Two US Navy SEALs were killed earlier this month during a raid on a ship the US alleged was carrying weapons to be used by Houthi rebels in Yemen.

The escalating war throughout the Middle East takes place as the United States is deepening its complicity in the genocide in Gaza.

On Friday, the Biden administration announced that it would suspend funding for United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). The organization is the main lifeline for food and medical aid getting into Gaza, whose population is facing widespread starvation due to a deliberate Israeli blockade. The UK, Finland, Australia, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland also announced that they would suspend funding for the organization.

The US claimed that the action, which would only further mass death throughout Gaza, was in response to allegations that a dozen UNRWA employees took part in the October 7 attack on Israel. UNRWA employs 13,000 people in Gaza.

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared, “We appeal to donors not to suspend their funding to @UNRWA at this critical moment. Cutting off funding will only hurt the people of #Gaza who desperately need support.”

Last week, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to suspend its blockade of Gaza in response to a case brought by South Africa alleging Israel was carrying out genocide in Gaza.

Agnes Callamard, the secretary-general of Amnesty International, condemned the move in a statement on Twitter. “Sickening heartless decision of the richest countries in the world to punish the most vulnerable population on earth because of the alleged crimes of 12 people. Right after the ICJ ruling finding risk of genocide. Sickening.”

Israel has responded to the ICJ ruling by intensifying its forcible displacement of Palestinians. In a statement published Sunday, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor warned,

Less than two days after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel would be subject to temporary measures as a result of its military operations infringing upon its obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, including mass forced displacement to unsafe locations, thousands of people were forcibly evacuated from the Khan Yunis refugee camp and several other parts of the governorate to the Strip’s western coastal areas.

To date, 32,000 Gazans have been killed, including those both confirmed dead and who have been missing for more than two weeks, according to the monitor. These include 115 journalists, 675 healthcare workers and 165 civil defense workers. The vast majority of the dead are either women or children; 1.95 million people have been internally displaced.

29 January 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr Marwan Asmar

Israel is in mourning. It’s a catastrophic, devastating, painful day for the country – a black Monday filled with trepidation and fear.

The day of 23 January 2024 will be printed on the Israeli psyche as a bloody event for decades to come and a turning point in its deadly conflict with the Palestinians of Gaza and in which it’s trying to erase their national identity but with little success.

By Dr Ramzy Baroud

The first and the last time I met John Pilger in person was in 2018.

I was invited to deliver a speech at the NSW Parliament in Sydney, Australia. Among the large crowd were many that I knew and respected – a former foreign minister, socially conscientious MPs, morally driven intellectuals and activists, and so on.

As I stood at the podium, glancing at the crowd, I saw John Pilger. He had a big smile on his face, as if he was in great anticipation to hear me talk.

The reality was entirely different. I would have rather listened to John than to lecture before him.

As I expressed my many “thank yous”, I made a point of emphasizing that I have modeled my journalism around that of John Pilger.

The painful truth is that, growing up in a refugee camp in Gaza, we rarely affiliated Western media, intellect or journalists with truth-telling, in general. Though, with time, I realized that this wholesale assumption was hardly fair, associating bias with everything Western had its own justification, if not logic.

Aside from the typical corporate biased media narrative on Palestine, the Middle East, the Arab and Muslim world – in fact, the entirety of the Global South – there were those who were identified as part of the ‘left’.

We were told that those supposed leftist are the exception to the norm. But experience has taught me that, aside from ideological nuances, even the so-called left still saw the non-Western world based on a different set of unique biases. They perceived the rest of the world through judgmental eyes, as if they, and they alone, had access to a moral code according to which the rest of us must be filtered.

Those ‘leftists’ are only against certain kinds of wars, especially if they perceive military interventions to be channeled by imperialist agendas. For them, so-called humanitarian intervention is morally justified, although there is no evidence that Western interventions of that kind ever bode well for any country.

Ultimately, that reasoning tends to have little impact on the outcome of international conflicts. Worse, some leftists often find themselves siding with the very imperialist powers they supposedly loathe, whenever it is convenient.

And then, there are the John Pilgers of this world: Principled to the core, and able to understand, dissect and convey the political, cultural and historical complexities of conflicts to millions of people around the world.

“We are beckoned to see the world through a one-way mirror, as if we are threatened and innocent and the rest of humanity is threatening, or wretched, or expendable,” Pilger said at his Sydney Peace Prize acceptance speech, in 2009.

For the Australian-born journalist, whose impact on our understanding of major global conflicts is arguably unparalleled in modern history, these were not mere words but principles to which he adhered to throughout his life, until his passing on December 30.

In his book, and documentary, ‘The New Rulers of the World’, Pilger brilliantly connects the dots of major global issues – social injustice, inequality, the so-called war on terror and more – demonstrating the powerful maxim that “injustice everywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”.

Pilger’s enemies were never a certain race, a nation or even an ideology. He simply served as the sharp critic and, at times, the mobilizer against all sorts of government-orchestrated injustices, whether within national boundaries or internationally.

He challenged imperialism in all of its forms, colonialism wherever it may be. This put him on a crash course with Washington, Canberra, London and other Western capitals.

His dedication to the causes of indigenous people, from Australia to Palestine to Indonesia were all reflected in great volumes and documentaries, such as ‘Utopia’, ‘Palestine is Still the Issue’ and the ‘New Rulers of the World’.

Pilger’s powerful texts as an academic, an author and a journalist, must not distract from his equally powerful and hard-hitting documentaries as a filmmaker. More important than the many awards he had achieved as a filmmaker, starting with ‘The Quiet Mutiny’, was the impact of these films on the way that millions of people around the world perceived issues, conflicts and wars that had only been communicated through non-critical eyes.

“Many journalists now are no more than channelers and echoers of what George Orwell called the ‘official truth’. They simply cipher and transmit lies,” he said during an interview with David Barsamian in 2007.

Though, at times, some intellectuals of Pilger’s caliber may have deviated from their commitment to the uncompromising moral code of principled journalism and intellect, Pilger’s legacy suggests otherwise.

He stood firmly on the side of oppressed people, spoke strongly against the injustices meted out by the powerful, and uncompromisingly defended free speech whenever it is threatened.

Indeed, Pilger was one of the most stalwart supporters of Julian Assange in his war against censorship in all of its forms.

“This is not about the survival of a free press. There is no longer a free press. (…) The paramount issue is justice and our most precious human right: to be free,” Pilger wrote in an article in July 2023.

Before our meeting, I exchanged many messages with John. The first time he responded to my request for an endorsement of a book, I was truly thrilled. I was also moved by his kind response to a young author who was merely starting his own quest for a just world.

Many messages and years later, we finally met in person. I quickly made my way to him through the crowd to thank him for all that he has done for Palestine and for all the oppressed people of this world.

His death, especially during these difficult times, is a major loss for humanity. But I know that, deep down, John must have known that things would eventually get better. He did his part, and much more.

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

20 January 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr Binoy Kampmark

Israel has been given enormous license to control the security narrative in the Middle East for decades.  This is not to say it is always in control of it – the attacks of October 7 by Hamas show that such control is rickety and bound, at stages, to come undone.  What matters for Israeli security is that certain neighbours always understand that they are never to do certain things, lest they risk existential oblivion.

For instance, no Middle Eastern state will be permitted to acquire nuclear weapons on the Jewish State’s watch.  Nuclear reactors and facilities will be struck, infected, or pulverised altogether (Osirak at Tuwaitha, Iraq; the Natanz site in Iran), with, or without knowledge, approval or participation of the United States.

This is a signature mark of Israeli foreign and defence policy: the nuclear option remains the greatest, single affirmation of sovereignty in international relations.  To possess it, precisely because of its destructive and shielding potential, is to proclaim to the community of nation states that you have lethal insurance against invasion and regime change.  Best, then, to make sure others do not possess it.

Israel, on the other hand, will be permitted to develop its own cataclysmic inventory of weapons, platforms, and doomsday options, all the while claiming strategic ambiguity about the whole matter.  In that strangulating way, Israeli policy resembles the thornily disingenuous former US President Bill Clinton’s approach to taking drugs and oral sex: he did not inhale, and oral pleasuring by one by another is simply not sex.

The latest remarks from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on January 18 suggest that the license also extends to ensuring that Palestinians will never be permitted a sovereign homeland, that they will be, in a perverse biblical echo, kept in a form of bondage, downtrodden, oppressed and, given what happened on October 7 last year, suppressed.  This is to ensure that, whatever the grievance, that they never err, never threaten, and never cause grief to the Israeli State.  To that end, it is axiomatic that their political authorities are kept incipient, inchoate, corrupt and permanently on life support, the tolerated beggars and charity seekers of the Middle East.

At the press conference in question, held at the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv, Netanyahu claimed that, “Whoever is talking about the ‘day after Netanyahu’ is essentially talking about the establishment of the Palestinian state with the Palestinian Authority.”  (How very like the Israeli PM to make it all about him.)  The Israel-Palestinian conflict, he wanted to clarify, was “not about the absence of a state, a Palestinian state, but rather about the existence of a state, a Jewish state.”

With monumental gall, he complained that “All territory we evacuate, we get terror, terrible terror against us”.  His examples, enumerated much like sins at a confessional, were instances where Israel, as an occupying force, had left or reduced their presence: Gaza, southern Lebanon, parts of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank).  It followed that “any future arrangement, or in the absence of any future arrangement,” Israel would continue to maintain “security control” of all lands west of the Jordan River.  “That is a vital condition.”

As such lands comprise Israeli territory, Gaza and the West Bank, Palestinian sovereignty can be assuredly ignored as a tenable outcome in Netanyahu’s policed paradise.  He even went so far as to acknowledge that this “contradicts the idea of sovereignty” as far as the Palestinians are concerned.  “What can you do?  I tell this truth to our American friends.”

As to sceptical mutterings in the Israeli press about the country’s prospects of defeating Hamas decisively, Netanyahu was all foamy with indignation.  “We will continue to fight at full strength until we achieve our goals: the return of all our hostages – and I say again, only military pressure will lead to their release; the elimination of Hamas; the certainty that Gaza will never again represent a threat to Israel.  There won’t be any party that educates for terror, funds terror, sends terrorists against us.”

This hairbrained policy of ethno-religious lunacy masquerading as sane military strategy ensures that permanent war nourished by the poison of blood-rich hatred and revenge will continue unabated.  In keeping such a powder keg stocked, there is always the risk that other powers and antagonists willing to have a say through bombs, rockets and drones will light it.  Should this or that state be permitted to exist or come into being? The answer is bound to be convulsively violent.

It is of minor interest that officials in the United States found Netanyahu’s comments a touch off-putting.  US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had, it is reported, dangled a proposal before the Israeli PM that would see Saudi Arabia normalise relations with Israel in exchange for an agreement to facilitate the pathway to Palestinian statehood.  Netanyahu did not bite, insisting that he would not be a party to any agreement that would see the creation of a Palestinian state.

Blinken, if one is to rely on the veracity of the account, suggested that the removal of Hamas could never be achieved in purely military terms; a failure on the part of Israel’s leadership to recognise that fact would lead to a continuation of violence and history repeating itself.

In Washington, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller stated in the daily press briefing that “Israel faces some very difficult choices in the months ahead.”  The conflict in Gaza would eventually end; reconstruction would follow; agreement from various countries in the region to aid in that effort had been secured – all on the proviso that a “tangible path to the establishment of a Palestinian state” could be agreed upon.

For decades, administrations in Washington have fantasised about castles in the skies, the outlandish notion that Palestinians and Israelis might exist in cosy accord upon lands stolen and manured by brutal death.  Washington, playing the Hegemonic Father, could then perch above the fray, gaze paternally upon the scrapping disputants, and suggest what was best for both.  But the two-state solution was always encumbered and heavily conditioned to take place on Israeli terms, leaving all mediation and interventions by outsiders flitting gestures lacking substance.

Now, no one can claim otherwise that Palestinian statehood is anything other than spectral, fantastic, and doomed – at least under the current warring regime.  Netanyahu’s own political survival, profanely linked to Israel’s own existence, depends on not just stifling pregnancies in Gaza but preventing the birth of a nationally recognised Palestinian state.

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

20 January 2024

Source: countercurrents.org