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By Aaron Maté

While rushing weapons to the Israeli government’s assault on Gaza, the Biden administration embraces Israeli allegations about UNRWA without bothering to investigate them.

1 Feb 2024 – In early November, as the Biden administration faced growing outcry over its partnership with Israel’s mass murder campaign in Gaza, Secretary of State Antony Blinken turned to UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, for an attempted face-saving photo opportunity.

“I spoke with UNRWA staff in Gaza,” Blinken wrote on Twitter, sharing a photo of himself in a virtual meeting with four agency workers. “I heard about the extraordinary lifesaving work they are doing in the face of extremely difficult conditions. We are working to expedite assistance to them so that they can get it to the Palestinian people.”

While claiming to expedite aid to UNRWA, Blinken’s State Department has in fact helped enforce Israel’s blockade of the Gaza death camp, all while expediting US weapons shipments for a relentless bombing campaign that has left it largely destroyed.

The Biden administration’s commitment to Israeli savagery is so extreme that not even the “extraordinary lifesaving work” of UNRWA, which provides essential services to millions of Palestinians in Gaza and other regions, can be spared. The US, along with Germany, France, Japan, Switzerland, Canada, Netherlands, Italy, Australia and Finland, has suspended aid to UNRWA in response to Israeli claims that 12 of the agency’s 13,000 employees took part in the Hamas-led Oct. 7^th attack.

The Israeli government unveiled its allegations against UNRWA on Friday just as the International Court of Justice found plausible grounds to accuse of Israel of genocide in Gaza, and ordered it to cease blocking aid. By embracing Israel’s allegations against UNRWA, the White House and its allies not only helped deflect attention from the ICJ ruling, but make clear that Israel has their blessing to ignore it.

According to the Washington Post, the Biden administration’s decision to suspend UNRWA’s funding was made so quickly that it came “in a matter of hours” after receiving a so-called “dossier” from Israeli intelligence. The US rushed to support Israel’s allegations despite acknowledging that it hadn’t bothered to scrutinize them. “We haven’t had the ability to investigate [the allegations] ourselves,” Secretary Blinken told reporters. “But they are highly, highly credible.” Blinken did not explain how he has developed the ability to vouch for “highly, highly credible” allegations that he has not investigated.

The “credibility” of the allegations was soon illuminated by Israeli officials, who admitted that “a lot” of their so-called “intelligence” about UNRWA was “a result of interrogations of militants,” Axios reported. Anyone familiar with Israeli practice understands that such “interrogations” are a euphemism for torture. Perhaps for that reason, a New York Times article laundering the Israeli claims omitted any mention of the interrogations that produced them.

Rather than inform its audience that Israel’s “intelligence” about UNRWA came via army interrogators that routinely practice torture, the Times reported that Israel relied on intercepted phone calls and text messages from Gaza. Just like brutalizing detainees, this also is standard Israeli practice: when establishment outlets like the Times were laundering Israeli claims – now long-forgotten – about a supposed Hamas command center under Al-Shifa and alleged militant activity at other hospitals, US and Israeli intelligence officials also claimed to have obtained the “intercepted communications” of Hamas fighters. Israel even released supposed “recordings” of calls between Hamas fighters that were widely mocked as transparent forgeries.

Days after the Times’ report, the Wall Street Journal followed up with an article even more subservient to the Israeli narrative. According to Israeli intelligence, the Journal declared, “around 10% of all of [UNRWA’s] Gaza staff have ties to Islamist militant groups,” including “23% of Unrwa’s male employees… indicating a higher politicization of the agency than the population at large.”

The Journal did not detail the evidence for its Israeli sources’ extraordinary figures, nor explain what these UNRWA workers’ supposed militant “ties” entail. By contrast, the story’s lead reporter, Carrie Keller-Lynn, has amply documented ties to politicization and militancy — specifically, that of the Israeli army. Before becoming a journalist, Keller-Lynn served in the Israeli Defense Forces and even boasted that a close friend “literally created social media for the IDF.” She has also worked as a research assistant for former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at the Hoover Institution, a leading neoconservative think tank. In since-deleted Twitter activity, Keller-Lynn was found to have liked posts mocking the deaths of Palestinians in Gaza.

The mere act of scrutinizing Israel and its media stenographers’ allegations obscures a more fundamental point: even if every torture-derived claim about a small group of UNRWA workers were true, nothing can justify cutting off a lifeline for millions of Palestinian refugees, even if they weren’t currently enduring a genocide. After all, no one alleges that UNRWA was aware of or involved in its employees’ alleged actions. As Sky News reports, based on a review of Israel’s purported evidence, “Israeli intelligence documents make several claims that Sky News has not seen proof of and many of the claims, even if true, do not directly implicate UNRWA.”

The suspension of aid also could not be any more hypocritical: while immediately cutting off UNRWA funding based on evidence-free allegations about a tiny number of employees, the Biden administration has refused to cut off any of its massive weapons shipments to an Israeli government whose leaders openly incite genocide as its military carries one out.

The White House insists that its funding pause is a “temporary” measure until UNRWA can “begin to restore donor confidence.” But just as he has openly rejected the Biden administration’s stated commitment to a Palestinian state, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also clear that he aims to shutter UNRWA for good. “The time has come for the international community and the U.N. itself to understand that UNRWA’s mission must be ended,” Netanyahu declared on Wednesday. “UNRWA is perpetuating itself. It seeks to preserve the issue of Palestinian refugees.”

Indeed, in punishing UNRWA, the US is servicing a long-time Israeli goal of destroying Palestinian nationalism.

As Jonathan Cook writes, UNRWA “has provided a lifeline” to Palestinians in Gaza by offering food and jobs “in a place where unemployment rates are among the highest in the world.” UNRWA has also maintained vital infrastructure that makes “life in Gaza more bearable, when Israel’s goal has long been to make the enclave uninhabitable.” UNRWA’s schools, “staffed by local Palestinians, teach the children their own history, about where their grandparents once lived, and of Israel’s campaign of dispossession and ethnic cleansing against them.” UNRWA “is the sole agency unifying Palestinians wherever they live, even when they are separated by national borders and Israel’s fragmentation of the territory it controls,” – thereby helping to preserve Palestinian national identity and the attendant hope for self-determination, an aspiration that Israel seeks to crush. And not least, “UNRWA keeps alive the moral case for a Palestinian right of return – a principle recognised in international law but long ago abandoned by western states.”

The Israeli government openly identifies UNRWA as an obstacle to its hopes of ethnically cleansing Gaza and destroying the Palestinian struggle for freedom. “It will be impossible to win the war if we do not destroy UNRWA, and this destruction must begin immediately,” former Israeli Foreign Ministry official Noga Arbell told a Knesset hearing earlier this month. “They must be abandoned. Or they must go to hell.”

In late December, a classified Israeli Foreign Ministry report detailed a multi-stage plan to permanently shutter UNRWA’s operations in Gaza after the current assault comes to an end. The report complained that Israel’s main patron, the US, sees UNRWA “as a positive player in the humanitarian efforts in the Strip.” In embracing Israel’s allegations, the Biden administration has clearly shifted its thinking. It undoubtedly helped Israel’s cause that the United Nations’ top court has just advanced a genocide case in which the US is clearly implicated. For White House officials anxious about their recognized complicity in genocide, what better distraction than changing the subject to an allegedly compromised United Nations agency which serves the very population that the US is helping to exterminate.

The Biden administration’s transition from using UNRWA for image-laundering photo opportunities to cutting off its funding also exemplifies its embrace of Trump administration policies that it previously renounced. Long before Biden cut funding to the Palestinian refugee agency, Donald Trump did it first.

On his way out of government service in January 2021, Trump’s openly anti-Palestinian ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, reflected on his legacy: “There’s no going back on what we’ve been able to do. I’m frankly somewhere between addicted and intoxicated with what I’ve been able to do, and how much joy it gives me. We’ve changed the narrative dramatically.”

If Friedman has come down from his prior intoxication, he can undoubtedly experience new joy today. His successors are not only abetting Israel’s genocide in Gaza, but targeting the main agency that helps keep surviving Palestinian refugees, and their hopes for a decent future, alive.

Aaron Maté is a journalist with The Grayzone, where he hosts “Pushback.” He is also a contributor to Real Clear Investigations and the temporary co-host of “Useful Idiots.”

5 February 2024

Source: transcend.org

By Kyle Anzalone

Biden ordered over 100 bombs dropped on dozens of targets across Iranian-linked targets in Iraq and Syria. No Iranians are reported to be among the dead.

3 Feb 2024 – A massive US bombing campaign struck scores of targets in Iraq and Syria with over 100 bombs, leaving about 40 people dead, including civilians. President Joe Biden ordered the strikes as tensions in the Middle East are rapidly escalating.

On Friday, US Central Command announced the “military forces struck more than 85 targets, with numerous aircraft to include long-range bombers flown from United States. The airstrikes employed more than 125 precision munitions.”

On Saturday, Baghdad reported that 16 Iraqis, including civilians, were killed. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claimed that the Syria strikes had killed 23 militia fighters. The Syrian Defense Ministry said militants and civilians were killed without providing a figure.

Baghdad and Damascus issued statements blasting Washington over the strikes. Last week, three American soldiers were killed in Jordan near the Syrian border with a drone. Biden vowed to respond to the deaths of the American troops by striking Iranian-linked targets in the Middle East.

The White House did not seek Congressional authorization for starting the war. Additionally, the White House admitted it could not directly link Tehran to the strike in Jordan. It does not appear that any Iranians were killed by US forces on Friday. In a separate incident, one Iranian officer was reported killed in Syria, likely by an Israeli air strike that took place before the American attack.

National Security Council Spokesman John Kirby said the strikes were aimed at de-escalating tension in the regions. However, The Islamic Resistance of Iraq conducted retaliatory strikes the next day against bases housing US soldiers.

The Islamic Resistance of Iraq and other Shia militias that operate in the region began targeting bases housing US soldiers in mid-October in response to the Israel onslaught in Gaza. The White House is fighting a war with similar roots against the Houthis in Yemen. While Israel has used American weapons to unleash widespread destruction and massive death on Gaza, the White House has continued to defend Tel Aviv’s rampant war crimes in the Strip.

Kyle Anzalone is the opinion editor of Antiwar.com, news editor of the Libertarian Institute, and co-host of Conflicts of Interest.

5 February 2024

Source: transcend.org

By BRICS Info Portal

1 Feb 2024 – At the dawn of 2024, from January 1, five more countries became full members of the BRICS, a transnational association, which until then consisted of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, and thus became BRICS+ (BRICS Plus), totaling ten countries.

Egypt which is located in northeast Africa and partly on the Sinai Peninsula, which is an isthmus to southwest Asia, thus making it a transcontinental country, it is considered a major power in North Africa, the Mediterranean Sea, the Islamic world and the Red Sea. A populous – with 104.5 million inhabitants – historical Arab country with a long and very rich cultural heritage and at the same time the most powerful military country in Africa that controls the strategic Suez Canal. Egypt also has huge reserves of natural gas, estimated at 2,180 cubic kilometers and Egyptian liquefied natural gas is exported to many countries.

Ethiopia is a country located in the Horn of Africa, at the eastern end of the continental African. With a population of 107.5 million inhabitants, according to an official estimate for 2023, it is the most populous mediterranean state-i.e. that has no sea- in the world. A poor but rapidly developing country with great geostrategic weight in Africa, which apart from its agricultural production which contributes 41% of GDP, also has the largest water resources in the entire continent. Ethiopia is the largest producer of coffee in Africa and the second largest producer of corn.

Iran is a Middle Eastern country in Southwest Asia. It has a population of 88.5 million according to the United Nations average estimate for 2022. Iran is considered a major regional power and occupies a prominent position in matters of global energy policy and economics, mainly as a result of its large oil and natural gas reserves. Iran was the eighth largest oil producing country in the world in the year 2022 with 3,822,000 barrels per day. At the same time. it has strong armed forces and a large scientific staff, which are stationed in key parts of the planet such as the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf.

Saudi Arabia is a country on the Arabian Peninsula, occupying most of it, about 80%, and which is washed by the Persian Gulf to the northeast and the Red Sea to the west. According to an official estimate for 2022 its population is 32.2 million inhabitants, 30% of whom are non-Saudi citizens (2013 estimate). Saudi Arabia’s economy is based on oil, from which approximately 75% of budget revenues and 90% of exports come. Saudi Arabia in the year 2022 came second in the world after the USA with a production of 12,136,000 barrels per day and holds 17% of the total proven oil reserves on a global scale.

The United Arab Emirates UAE, is a federal state consisting of seven emirates, at the southeastern tip of the Arabian Peninsula. The UAE is washed by the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, and borders Saudi Arabia and the Sultanate of Oman. They have a population of 9.3 million according to an official estimate for 2020. The country is rich in oil and natural gas deposits and its people enjoy an income comparable to that of developed western countries. The UAE was the seventh largest oil producing country in the world in the year 2022 with 4,020,000 barrels per day.

As for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which are among the wealthiest countries by GDP per capita, they have continued to post economic growth despite global uncertainties, including high interest rates, inflation and geopolitical tensions, as they focus on diversifying their economies.

Saudi Arabia’s economy grew according to the IMF by 8.7% in 2022 – the highest annual growth rate among the world’s 20 largest economies – and by just 0.8% for all of 2023. On the other hand, the economy of United Arab Emirates grew by 3.4% in 2023, with oil GDP growing at 0.7% and non-oil GDP at 4.5%, supported by strong performances in tourism, real estate, construction, transport, manufacturing and increasing capital expenditure.

With this entrance, therefore, the group, which appears as the rival force in the G7, now expands in the Middle East and includes within its bosom the countries, traditional allies of the West, which now manifest tendencies towards autonomy and of course control a large part of the world’s production of hydrocarbons, further increasing the group’s financial strength.

Thus, the BRICS+ countries collectively now represent 45% of the world’s population with approximately 3.5 billion people, a third of the Earth’s solid surface, 44% of total global oil production as well as almost 1/3 of global GDP, amounting to approximately 29 trillion dollars, having surpassed in purchasing power parity terms the G7, the group of the seven most powerful economies of the developed world.

At the same time there are at least thirty other developing world nations that have already expressed a keen interest in joining the group. Among these countries are Algeria, Congo, Bolivia, Venezuela, Indonesia and Kazakhstan, which are not rich countries, but possess enormous mineral wealth, and would very much like to break free from the noose of Western multinational corporations and dollar.

So, in this direction, the countries of the BRICS group have created the New Development Bank (NDB) since 2014, while a large part of the trade between them is done in national currencies and not in dollars. They are also moving forward with discussions and elaborations on the creation of a common currency (slowed down, however, by Indian objections). And they are still looking for solutions alternatives of international transaction to SWIFT. As a result, all these unfolding movements gradually lead to a de-dollarization of the global economic system.

At the next BRICS+ summit to be held in October 2024 in Kazan, capital of Tatarstan, a Russian city located at the confluence of the Volga and Kazanka rivers in central European Russia, other countries – energy giants – may join the group and this will have as the effect of increasing the control of the global energy market from the 40% that it is today to a higher percentage.

In closing, I would like to emphasize that the expansion of the BRICS group is causing a turmoil in the countries of the West and above all in the USA, which are proceeding with knee-jerk reactions, with the mere idea only of the definitive loss of their global leadership, and is a real milestone towards inevitable historical course of formation of a new intercontinental world order, a polycentric world.

BRICS is an intergovernmental organization comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates-UAE.

5 February 2024

Source: transcend.org

By Jeffrey D. Sachs

29 Jan 2024 – It is easy to be cynical about the international rule of law. No sooner had the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that Israel is plausibly committing genocide against the Palestinian people than the U.S. State Department declared, “We continue to believe that allegations of genocide are unfounded and note the court did not make a finding about genocide or call for a ceasefire in its ruling…” Israeli leaders declared the case to be “outrageous” and “antisemitic.” Yet the risks for Israel of the ICJ ruling, and its follow-up in the next year or two, are profound. If Israel spurns the Genocide Convention, it imperils its place within the community of nations.

True, the ICJ provisional ruling by itself will not end Israel’s war in Gaza or perhaps the mass killing of the Palestinian people, already at 26,000 and rising (with 70 percent women and children). The ruling by itself will not end America’s complicity in Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians. Israel could not fight the war in Gaza one more day without the U.S. providing the munitions and other military support.

Yet the ruling has started the clock on Israel’s future. If Israel continues to act with impunity and finds itself declared as genocidaire in the ICJ’s final ruling, Israel will become a pariah state. Young Americans in particular will pull the plug on U.S. backing for Israel. Israel will stand utterly alone, condemned by the world.
Most of the 193 governments in the United Nations already disdain Israel’s behavior. Most see a country that has occupied the neighboring territories of Palestine for 57 years (since the 1967 war), that has scorned and failed to act on dozens of votes by the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly, and illegally and blatantly settled more than 700,000 Israelis in the occupied territories.

Most UN member states hear clearly the expressions of visceral hatred by many Israeli leaders toward the people of Palestine. For example, the statement by Israeli President Herzog blaming all of the people of Gaza, as cited by the ICJ; and they understand clearly the intention of today’s Israeli government to occupy Palestine and rule over the 7 million Palestinian Muslims and Christians living in Israel and Palestine today. South Africa brought the ICJ case against Israel in part because it knows murderous apartheid rule when it sees it, and it sees apartheid rule in Israel’s ongoing domination over the Palestinian people.

Israel has so far not been deterred by global opinion because of its nuclear weapons, its messianic zeal, and most importantly, the military, financial, and public backing of the United States, including its votes in the UN Security Council and General Assembly. Moreover, the U.S. and Israel have acted on the belief that the offer of American money and weapons systems to the Arab nations would induce them to turn their backs on Palestinian people. Israel and the U.S. act with supreme arrogance, believing that military might makes right and that money talks. Yes, Israel also acts out of fear of the Palestinians, but that is the overbearing and grossly unjustified fear of the underdog, the conquered, and the displaced. By recognizing and making peace with an independent state of Palestine, Israel would remove the hate and humiliation that fuels support for Hamas, and thereby diminish the threats that lead to Israel’s own fears.

Israelis should understand that the U.S. cannot—and will not—save Israel in the long run. It will not do so any more than America has “saved” South Vietnam; Iran after the U.S.-U.K. coup in 1953; Afghanistan after 2001; Iraq after the U.S. overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003; Syria after the U.S. attempted overthrow of Bashar al-Assad in 2011; Libya after the NATO overthrow of Moammar Qaddafi in 2011; or Ukraine since the U.S.-led coup in 2014. American military force is useless or worse in sustaining regimes that lack broad international support and legitimacy. America tires of each misguided military adventure and moves on, and will eventually do so vis-à-vis Israel if Israel becomes a pariah and outlaw state.

Nor will U.S. money and weapons systems carry the day with the Arab neighbors. The U.S. is at the end of its financial largesse. The U.S. public debt is already 122.9 percent of GDP and rising rapidly. There is no consensus in Washington, D.C. on how to stabilize the U.S. budget, but one point is clear: large support for foreign countries will not be part of the bargain. The cutoff of U.S. financing for Ukraine, despite the intense lobbying by the politically powerful military-industrial complex, is a vivid case in point. Even access to advanced U.S. weapons systems will not persuade Arab nations to abandon the cause of a Palestinian state. In any event, Russian, Iranian, North Korean, Chinese, and other advanced weapons systems will be on highly competitive offer in future years, and with better financing terms.

At the moment, the Israeli public ardently backs Israel’s brutality and slaughter in Gaza. The public is gripped by a combination of overwhelming fear, religious zealotry, and state propaganda. Israelis widely believe that the Arab nations are implacably out to destroy Israel. They do not travel in the Arab countries and do not know or understand the attitudes and policies of those neighboring societies. They do not attend to the statements of Arab and Islamic leaders calling for peace based on the two-state solution because Israeli mainstream media, like U.S. mainstream media, is in the grips of relentless state propaganda, brain-deadening patriotism, and relentless war-mongering.

Israeli society is immeasurably traumatized by the Nazi Holocaust, which remains the central fact of modernity and memory of every Jewish family of European roots in any part of the world. An eventual finding by the world’s highest court that Israel itself has now become a perpetrator of genocide will therefore shake Israeli society to the roots and will rupture Israel’s social contract with world Jewry. At that very painful and very dire stage, Israeli public opinion may begin to reconsider its current assumptions.

Yes, despite the ICJ ruling Israel’s killing goes on, but under greatly heightened legal and political scrutiny. Every Israeli murder in cold blood, every bombing of a hospital, every destruction of a Palestinian school or university, every Israeli denial of food and water for Gazans, will be meticulously recorded by South Africa’s superb legal team, and by highly respected legal institutes around the world, including the Center for Constitutional Rights and Law for Palestine. All will be duly conveyed to the ICJ.

Palestine will survive the current horrific ordeal, deeply wounded but with strong worldwide backing. Israel’s future, by contrast, hangs in the balance, as it could soon find itself banished by the community of nations as a stark violator of international law. Israel urgently requires leaders who embrace international law over military force, humility over arrogance, and peacemaking over brutality. And Israel—no less than the United States—must come to understand the self-destructive futility of deploying military force to deny justice and political rights for the Palestinian people.

Jeffrey D. Sachs, Professor of Sustainable Development and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University, is Director of Columbia’s Center for Sustainable Development and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

5 February 2024

Source: transcend.org

By Mustafa Abu Sneineh

4 Feb 2024– Israeli forces bomb Rafah, where thousands of Palestinians are displaced in shelters near the Egyptian border, as an Israeli minister wishes to “encourage voluntary emigration” from Gaza. In West Bank, settlers attack Palestinian villages.

Casualties

• 27,365+ killed* and at least 66,630 wounded in the Gaza Strip.
• 380+ Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem
• Israel revises its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,147.
• 562 Israeli soldiers killed since October 7, and at least 3,221 injured.**

* This figure was confirmed by Gaza’s Ministry of Health on Telegram channel. Some rights groups put the death toll number at more than 35,000 when accounting for those presumed dead.

** This figure is released by the Israeli military.

Key Developments

• Israeli far-right National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, says his plan is to “encourage Gazans to voluntarily emigrate to places around the world” by offering them cash incentives.
• Ben-Gvir says he looks forward to Donald Trump’s return to the Oval Office; believes that Tump will give Israel free hand in Gaza, while President Joe Biden is “hampering Israel’s war effort”.
• Israeli forces bomb kindergarten housing hundreds of displaced Palestinian in Al-Salam neighborhood, east of Rafah, which borders Egypt.
• Israeli forces lay siege for day six over Al-Shifa Hospital in north Gaza, preventing people from accessing the facility.
• Israeli airstrikes bomb two inhabited houses in Rafah and kill at least 26 Palestinians.
• Hamas military wing, Izz El-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, releases video of attack in Al-Maghazi that killed 21 Israeli soldiers last month.
• Hamas also releases video of its fighters shooting an Israeli command officer in Gaza City; fighters firing direct and close hit on D9 Bulldozer in Khan Yunis.
• US and UK bomb 48 targets of Yemeni Armed Forces, led by the Ansar Allah group (unofficially known also as “Houthis”).
• Yemeni Armed Forces spokesperson says: “These attacks will not deter us from our moral, religious, and humanitarian stance in support of the steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, and will not pass without response and punishment.”
• Israeli authorities and forces kill five Palestinians, demolish 22 properties, detain 163 people, and put 13 under house arrest in occupied Jerusalem in January, according to the Al-Quds Governate report.

Israeli minister wants to ‘encourage Gazans to voluntarily emigrate’

Israel has killed more than 1,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling last week, ordering Tel Aviv to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza.

The Israeli forces have not ceased to bomb the Gaza Strip since October, except for a temporary pause in November to allow for the exchange of captives.

Gaza’s Ministry of Health said on Sunday morning that Israel killed 127 Palestinians and injured 178 others, committing 14 massacres in the past 24 hours.

The number of Palestinians killed in the Israeli aggression on Gaza now stands at 27,365 martyrs, and 66,630 were injured since October.

Meanwhile, some Israeli government ministers and Knesset members are making it clear that their wish is to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza.

The far-right National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, told the Wall Street Journal that his plan is to “encourage Gazans to voluntarily emigrate to places around the world” by offering them cash incentives.

Ben-Gvir’s position aligns with the Religious Zionism political alliance, one of the core blocs that makes up Netanyahu’s government. Last week, members of Religious Zionism held a conference in occupied Jerusalem, dubbed “Return to Gaza Conference”, in which they called for building 21 Israeli settlements on top of recently destroyed Palestinian neighbourhoods.

Ben-Gvir is also looking forward to the day Donald Trump would sit in the Oval Office, believing that he will give Israel a free hand in Gaza, while President Joe Biden is “hampering Israel’s war effort”.

Ben-Gvir made these statements despite the fact that the Biden administration has stood firmly behind Israel since October 7, authorizing the sale of thousands of munition rounds, rejecting calls for a ceasefire, and supporting Tel Aviv diplomatically and in the UN Security Council.

The U.S. also called Hamas to free all the Israelis captured during the Operation Al-Aqsa Flood cross-fence attack on October 7. However, Hamas had refused these calls before an agreement on a permanent ceasefire is reached.

Currently, Hamas is still deliberating over a proposed truce for 45 days and the release of 35 Israeli captives in return for the freeing of thousands of Palestinian prisoners in the Israeli jails. The deal is yet to be confirmed.

But releasing Israeli captives is not a top agenda item for some Israeli politicians. Amichai Elhaho, the Israeli Minister of Heritage, who called for nuking Gaza, pleaded to Israelis who protested against Netanyahu to release hostages, to think outside the box.

“We must get out of mental stagnation that the deal is the only way to free the hostages,” Elhaho told army radio on Sunday. “The Jewish morality does not hold us fully responsible for the release of the captives,” he added.

Israeli forces bomb kindergarten sheltering Palestinians in Rafah

Overnight, Israeli forces bombed a kindergarten housing hundreds of displaced Palestinian in Al-Salam neighborhood, east of Rafah, the southern city which borders Egypt.

Wafa news agency reported that two girls were killed in the Israeli airstrike and dozens injured. Another Israeli airstrike on an apartment in Hassan Salama Tower in Al-Geneina neighbourhood, east of Rafah, killed a child and wounded two others.

An Israeli airstrike on the house of the Abu Safar family killed seven Palestinians, including children, in the Al-Hakar area in Deir Al-Balah city, in central Gaza. Wafa also reported that several Israeli airstrikes and artillery shelling were launched on Khan Yunis overnight.

An airstrike on the house of Masran family in Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza injured several Palestinians as Israeli forces continued to bomb north Gaza neighbourhoods, killing at least eight Palestinians in an airstrike on the Al-Rimal area.

Wafa reported that in north Gaza, medical teams transferred the bodies and the injured to the Kamal Adwan Hospital, while for the sixth day in a row, Israeli forces are laying siege over the Al-Shifa Hospital, preventing people from accessing the facility.

Last week, Israeli tanks approaching the Al-Shifa Hospital and Al-Rimal neighborhood, forced thousands of Palestinians to flee in panic and fear to the eastern areas of Gaza City. Despite being one of the first hospitals attacked by the Israeli military in its ground offensive campaign, Al-Shifa is one of the few remaining hospitals that are still partially operating in Gaza.

In Rafah, Israeli airstrikes on two inhabited houses killed at least 26 Palestinians, according to Wafa, and injured dozens. Rafah, the southernmost district of the Gaza Strip, has seen the influx of nearly half of Gaza’s 2 million residents, who were forcibly displaced by Israeli forces. Thousands of Palestinian families are living in tents in Rafah and lack sufficient food, fresh water and heating sources.

In the past weeks, Israel has been mulling a plan to invade the Philadelphia Axis, a zone which separates the Gaza Strip from Egypt.

Palestinians are concerned that Israel will use the military operation in the area to push thousands of people out to the Sinai Peninsula under the threat of bombardment and airstrikes. Israel claims that the border area is still a breathing lung for Hamas fighters and has tunnels running underneath it.

Hamas releases video of attack that killed 21 Israeli soldiers

Hamas’ military wing, Izz El-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, released a video of the attack that killed 21 Israeli soldiers last month.

The attack was the heaviest combat loss the Israeli military has suffered since December, when eight soldiers from the Golani Brigade were killed in Al-Shuja’iya refugee camp, east of Gaza City.

Since October, at least 562 Israeli soldiers have been killed in the Gaza Strip or during armed clashes with Palestinian fighters, according to the Israeli military. The 562 identified soldiers are, according to the military’s website, the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.”

In the video released by Hamas, fighters fired a 105mm Al-Yaseen anti-tank shell on a two-story building in Al-Maghazi in central Gaza, while another one fired another Al-Yaseen on an Israeli tank, followed by detonating a minefield.

The Israeli force were preparing mines and explosives to demolish a building 600 meters away from Kissufim, an Israel kibbutz to the east of the Gaza Strip’s fence.

The Israeli military said one of Hamas’s anti-tank grenades hit the explosives and mines being set up by the Israeli unit inside the building, which led to a massive explosion, killing the 21 soldiers and the collapse of the building, Haaretz reported.

Since December, the Israeli military demolished several houses and residential buildings along the Gaza fence in a bid to create a “buffer zone” and further push Palestinian neighborhoods to the west away from Israeli towns.

Hamas also released a video of shooting an Israeli command officer west of Gaza City, with a sniper fire, while in Khan Yunis, it attacked several Israeli tanks and military vehicles, including the D9 Bulldozer with a direct and close hit, while it was destroying Palestinian homes.

U.S. and U.K. bomb dozens of targets in Yemen

Overnight, the U.S. and U.K. said that they bombed 48 targets of the Yemeni Armed Forces, led by Ansar Allah group (unofficially known also as “Houthis”).

These strikes are the second to be carried out by the US in the region in less than 24 hours, following more than 80 strikes in Iraq and Syria.

Ansar Allah spokesperson said that the US and UK launched 13 airstrikes on Sana’a, nine on Hodeidah on the Red Sea, 11 raids on Taiz, seven on Al-Bayda town, while it struck one target in Saada and seven in Hajjah.

“These attacks will not deter us from our moral, religious, and humanitarian stance in support of the steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, and will not pass without response and punishment,” he added.

Yemen’s Ansar Allah vowed to target any Israel-bound or Israeli-owned ships in Bab Al-Mandab Strait as long as Israeli aggression continues on the Gaza Strip. It added the U.S. and U.K. to the list of targeted ships following a joint U.S.-U.K. airstrikes on Yemen early in January.

The U.S. Central Command (Centcom) wrote on X platform that it targeted Ansar Allah’s “multiple underground storage facilities, command and control, missile systems, UAV storage and operations sites, radars, and helicopters.”

On Sunday morning, Centcom said that it shot down an anti-ship cruise missile launched from Yemen against its forces in the Red Sea.

The U.S. strikes in Yemen, Iraq and Syria are endangering a full-blown war in the region.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said on Sunday that U.S. attacks are “in clear contradiction with the repeated claims of Washington and London that they do not want the expansion of war and conflict in the region.”

Kanaani accused the U.S. and U.K. of “fuelling chaos, disorder, insecurity and instability” by supporting the Israeli war on Gaza.

Israeli settlers rampage Palestinian villages in West Bank 

Israeli forces arrested a total of 6,512 Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem since October, some of them were released later, according to the Commission for Ex-Prisoners’ Affairs and the Prisoners’ Club.

In occupied Jerusalem, Israel killed five Palestinians since January, demolished 22 properties, detained 163 people, and put 13 under house arrest, according to a comprehensive report by Al-Quds Governate affiliated with the Palestinian Authority (PA).

A total of 3,405 Israeli settlers stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque in the old city of Jerusalem in January.

In the past 24 hours, Israeli forces raided several Palestinian towns, including Husan, Anabta, Khirbet Tuba, Jericho and Ein Al-Sultan refugee camp, Nablus and Balata refugee camp, Deir Jreer and the Jalazon refugee camp.

In Ain al-Auja, north of Jericho, Israeli settlers stole ten sheep from a Palestinian Bedouin community, according to Wafa.

Wafa also reported that Israeli settlers stormed Farasin village, south of Jenin, and vandalized security cameras of shops a poultry farm in the village, and tore down greenhouses.

The Wall and Settlement Resistance Committee said in January, Israeli settlers, protected by soldiers on most occasions, launched 1,593 attacks against Palestinian towns and properties.

5 February 2024

Source: transcend.org

By The Cradle

Half a brigade was released from duty after complaining of poor training and lack of weapons before deployment to Gaza.

18 Jan 2024 – About half the soldiers of an Israeli reserve battalion refused to fight in the Gaza Strip and were released from duty by their commander, Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed reported yesterday.

By Oren Ziv

24 Jan 2024 – Since 7 Oct, Israel’s police have systematically banned, restricted, and attacked protests against the army’s assault on Gaza, instilling a sense of fear among Jewish and Palestinian citizens alike.

On the evening of Jan. 16, several dozen activists gathered in front of the Kirya in Tel Aviv, home to Israel’s Defense Ministry and army headquarters. It was one of the first Jewish-Israeli demonstrations explicitly condemning the military’s assault on the Gaza Strip since the war began, and the police acted swiftly to suppress it: dozens of officers were deployed in advance, and they refused to allow the protest to take place in its intended location. They confiscated signs reading “Stop the massacre” on the grounds that these offended public sentiment. One activist was arrested, and several others were assaulted by police.

This sequence of events is far from exceptional. Since October 7, Israel’s police have been implementing a consistent policy of preventing or limiting any protest against the war — in contrast to protests in solidarity with the hostages and their families, which have been permitted in certain areas. This policy is still in effect despite Israel’s Supreme Court issuing an interim injunction earlier this month prohibiting National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir from interfering with the policing of demonstrations; in large part, police appear nonetheless to be enforcing the minister’s desired crackdown on freedom of expression during the war.

Anti-war activists across the country — Palestinian citizens as well as Jews — who were interviewed for this article all mentioned one word: “fear.” Even veteran political activists say they have never been so fearful of protesting. They are afraid of being arrested, which for Palestinian citizens could spell months in prison. More than ever, they said, it is dangerous to show solidarity with the people of Gaza, and they feel that politicians’ belligerent rhetoric is directly impacting police behavior.

“From the early days of the war, it was clear that this was the policy,” Maysana Mourani, an attorney with the Haifa-based human rights and legal center Adalah, told +972 and Local Call. “The police have taken on new powers to immediately repress protests, even when a protest permit isn’t required, because of their supposed ‘lack of manpower.’”

Adalah has petitioned the Supreme Court several times since October 7 to challenge such police bans on the right to protest. Despite the Court’s intervention earlier this month, however, it has repeatedly failed to intervene on numerous other occasions, meaning the police have had broad discretion to decide which protests to permit. “It depends on the identity of the demonstrators and the slogans,” Mourani said.

5 February 2024

Source: transcend.org

By Chris Hedges

Our leading humanitarian and civic institutions, including major medical institutions, refuse to denounce Israel’s genocide in Gaza. This exposes their hypocrisy and complicity.

31 Jan 2024 – There is no effective health care system left in Gaza. Infants are dying. Children are having their limbs amputated without anesthesia. Thousands of cancer patients and those in need of dialysis lack treatment. The last cancer hospital in Gaza has ceased functioning. An estimated 50,000 pregnant women have no safe place to give birth. They undergo cesarean sections without anesthesia. Miscarriage rates are up 300 percent since the Israeli assault began. The wounded bleed to death. There is no sanitation or clean water. Hospitals have been bombed and shelled. Nasser Hospital, one of the last functioning hospitals in Gaza, is “near collapse.” Clinics, along with ambulances – 79 in Gaza and over 212 in the West Bank – have been destroyed. Some 400 doctors, nurses, medics and healthcare workers have been killed — more than the total of all healthcare workers killed in conflicts around the world combined since 2016. Over 100 more have been detained, interrogated, beaten and tortured, or disappeared by Israeli soldiers.

Israeli soldiers routinely enter hospitals to carry out forced evacuations – on Wednesday troops entered al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis and demanded doctors and displaced Palestinians leave – as well as round up detainees, including the wounded, sick and medical staff. On Tuesday, disguised as hospital workers and civilians, Israeli soldiers entered Jenin’s Ibn Sina Hospital in the West Bank and assassinated three Palestinians as they slept.

The cuts to funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) — collective punishment for the alleged involvement in the Oct. 7 attack of 12 of its 13,000 UNRWA workers  —  will accelerate the horror, turning the attacks, starvation, lack of health care and spread of infectious diseases in Gaza into a tidal wave of death.

The evidence-free charges, which include the accusation that 10 percent of all of UNRWA’s Gaza staff have ties to Islamist militant groups, appeared in the Wall Street Journal. The reporter, Carrie-Keller Lynn, served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Given the numerous lies Israel has employed to justify its genocide, including “beheaded babies” and “mass rape,” it is reasonable to assume this may be another fabrication.

The allegations, of which details remain scant, are apparently based on confessions by Palestinian detainees — most certainly after being beaten or tortured. These allegations were enough to see 17 countries including the U.S., Canada, U.K., Germany, France, Australia and Japan cut or delay funding to the vital U.N. agency. UNRWA is all that stands between the Palestinians in Gaza and famine. A handful of countries, including Ireland, Norway and Turkey, maintain their funding.

Eight of the UNRWA employees accused of participating in the Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel, where 1,139 people were killed and 240 abducted, were fired. Two have been suspended. UNRWA has promised an investigation. They account for 0.04 percent of UNRWA’s staff.

Israel is seeking to destroy not only Gaza’s health care system and infrastructure, but UNRWA which provides food and aid to 2 million Palestinians. The object is to make Gaza uninhabitable and ethnically cleanse the 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza. Hundreds of thousands are already starving. Over 70 percent of the housing has been destroyed. More than 26,700 people have been killed and over 65,600 have been injured. Thousands are missing. Some 90 percent of Gaza’s pre-war population has been displaced, with many living in the open. Palestinians have been reduced to eating grass and drinking contaminated water.

Noga Arbell, a former Israeli foreign ministry official, during a discussion in the Israeli parliament on Jan. 4, stated: “It will be impossible to win the war if we do not destroy UNRWA, and this destruction must begin immediately.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, saying UNWRA was “totally infiltrated by Hamas,” reiterated the call to shut UNRWA down.

If UNWRA is abolished it puts into question the Palestinian’s status as refugees, imperiling the “Right of Return,” the demand, long rejected by Israel, that Palestinians be allowed to go back to their homes in what is now Israel.

“It’s time for the international community and the UN itself to understand that UNRWA’s mission must be terminated,” Netanyahu told visiting UN delegates, according to a statement from his office. “It seeks to preserve the issue of Palestinian refugees. We must replace UNRWA with other UN agencies and other aid agencies, if we want to solve the Gaza problem as we plan to do.”

More than 152 of UNRWA’s employees in Gaza — including school principals, teachers, health workers, a gynecologist, engineers, support staff and a psychologist — have been killed since the Israeli attacks began. Over 141 UNRWA facilities have been bombed into rubble. The death toll is the largest loss of staff during a conflict in the U.N.’s history.

The destruction of healthcare facilities and targeting of doctors, nurses, medics and staff is especially repugnant. It means the most vulnerable, the sick, infants, the wounded and elderly, and those who care for them, are often condemned to death.

Palestinian doctors are pleading with doctors and medical organizations from around the world to decry the assault on the healthcare system and mobilize their institutions to protest.

“The world must condemn the acts against medical professionals happening in Gaza,” writes the director of Al-Shifa hospital, Muhammad Abu Salmiya, who was arrested along with other medical personnel by the Israelis in November 2023 while evacuating with a World Health Organization (WHO) convoy, and who remains in custody. “This Correspondence is a call for every human being, all medical communities, and all health-care professionals around the world to call for these anti-hospital activities inside and around the hospitals to stop, which is a civilian obligation according to international law, the UN, and WHO.”

But these institutions — with a few notable exceptions such as The American Public Health Association that has called for a ceasefire — have either remained silent or, as with Dr. Matthew K. Wynia, the director of the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Colorado, attempted to justify Israeli war crimes. These doctors — who somehow find it acceptable that in Gaza a child is killed every 10 minutes on average — are accomplices to genocide and stand in violation of the Geneva Convention. They embrace death as a solution, not life.

Robert Jay Lifton in his book “The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide” writes that “genocidal projects require the active participation of educated professionals — physicians, scientists, engineers, military leaders, lawyers, clergy, university professors and other teachers — who combine to create not only the technology of genocide but much of its ideological rationale, moral climate, and organizational process.”

A group of 100 Israeli doctors in November 2023 defended the bombing of hospitals in Gaza, claiming they were used as Hamas command centers, a charge Israel has been unable to verify.

The deans of U.S. medical schools and leading medical organizations, especially the American Medical Association (AMA), have joined the ranks of universities, law schools, churches and the media to turn their backs on the Palestinians. The AMA shut down a debate on a ceasefire resolution among its members and has called for “medical neutrality,” although it abandoned “medical neutrality” to denounce Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

There is a cost to denouncing this genocide, a cost they do not intend to pay. They fear being attacked. They fear destroying their careers. They fear losing funding. They fear a loss of status. They fear persecution. They fear social isolation. This fear makes them complicit.

And what of those who do speak out? They are branded as antisemites and supporters of terrorism. George Washington University clinical psychology professor Lara Sheehi was pushed out of her job. The former head of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth, was denied a fellowship at Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy because of his alleged “anti-Israel bias.” San Francisco professor Rabab Abdulhadi was sued for supporting Palestinian rights. Shahd Abusalama was suspended from Sheffield Hallam University in the U.K after a vicious smear campaign, although the institution later settled her discrimination claim against it. Professor Jasbir Puar at Rutgers University is an ongoing target for the Israel lobby and endures constant harassment. Medical students and faculty in Canada face suspension or expulsion if they publicly criticize Israel.

The danger is not only that the Israeli crimes are denounced. The danger, more importantly, is that the moral bankruptcy and cowardice of the institutions and their leaders are exposed.

This brings me to Dr. Rupa Marya, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), whose call to halt bombing hospitals and to examine the impact of Zionism as a racist ideology unleashed a torrent of vitriolic attacks against her, attacks tacitly endorsed by the medical school where she works.

She has been slandered as an antisemite and targeted by the Canary Mission, a Zionist organization that seeks to defame and destroy the careers of students and faculty that criticize Israel and defend Palestinian rights. She has had speaking engagements rescinded and received death threats and messages such as: “kill yourself you retarded grifting n*gger,” “Jew baiting c*nt,” and “White people are the greatest people on Earth. You know this.”

You can see her statement on the campaign against her here.

There is a striking contrast between the treatment of Dr. Marya and the physicians who cheer on the genocide. UCSF physician Matt Cooperberg, who is the Helen Diller Family Chair in Urology, ‘liked’ social media posts such as “REMOVE Palestinians FORM [sic] MAP” and a quote by former Israeli prime minister Golda Meir: “We are able to forgive the the [sic] arabs for killing our children. We are unable to forgive the arabs for forcing us to kill their children.”

“Cooperberg’s endowed chair comes from the Helen Diller Family Foundation, UCSF’s largest donor, which to date has gifted some $1.15 billion dollars to the health campus,” Dr. Marya writes. “In 2018, due to a mistake on a tax form, the Helen Diller Family Foundation was exposed as a funder of the Canary Mission. The Foundation attempted to erase its connection after this exposure.”

She continues:

As a faculty member at UCSF, disgraced dermatologist Howard Maibach exposed and injected over 2,600 imprisoned Black and brown people with chemicals in experiments that echoed the experiments put on trial at the Doctors’ Trial just a few years before he went to medical school in Pennsylvania. There he studied under Albert Kligman, who taught him how to exploit Black people for medical experimentation, documented extensively in the horror nonfiction book, Acres of Skin.  Maibach also advanced notions of racial differences in skin, furthering racist ideas from the pseudoscience of eugenics. Race is a social construct that enshrines supremacism. It is not a biological reality.

Most of Maibach’s experiments were conducted without informed consent, and while UCSF issued an apology, Maibach is still employed by the University of California. His family supports the Friends of the IDF, and he is represented by Alan Dershowitz, who also argued for the bombing of hospitals in Gaza. Dershowitz attempted to prevent me from speaking at the AMA’s first National Health Equity Grand Rounds, where scholar Harriet Washington, who studies medical experimentation on Black people, highlighted Maibach’s racist practices. In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, UCSF faculty, trainees and students of color brought Maibach’s story to light, and many have expressed their horror that they have to continue to sit in the same room as this man during Dermatology Grand Rounds. But the problem is not just one man. It is a system that allows someone with these values and actions to continue to be present in our learning and practicing community.

The dehumanization of Palestinians is lifted from the playbook of all settler colonial projects, including our own. This racism, where people of color are branded as “human animals,” is coded within the DNA of our institutions. It infects those chosen to lead these institutions. It lies at the core of our national identity. It is why the two ruling parties and the institutions that sustain them side with Israel. It feeds the perverted logic of funneling weapons and billions of dollars in support to sustain Israel’s occupation and genocide.

History will not judge us kindly. But it will revere those who, under siege, found the courage to say no.

Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief.

5 February 2024

Source: transcend.org

By Palestinian BDS National Committee

Below is a detailed guide to our targeted consumer boycotts, divestment and pressure campaigns. Help us spread the word to maximize our impact!

The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the largest coalition in Palestinian society that is leading the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, salutes activists, organizations and institutions worldwide that have expressed meaningful solidarity with our urgent struggle to stop Israel’s unfolding genocide in Gaza by escalating boycott and divestment campaigns. The spreading boycotts of complicit Israeli and multinational corporations can be effective if done strategically.

Ending all state, corporate and institutional complicity with Israel’s genocidal regime is more urgent than ever. Our lives and livelihoods literally depend on it.

Targeted Boycotts vs. Non-Targeted Boycotts:

People of conscience around the world are rightfully shattered, enraged, and sometimes feeling powerless about Israel’s #GazaGenocide. Many feel compelled to boycott any and all products and services of companies tied in any way to Israel. The proliferation of extensive “boycott lists” on social media is a result of this. The question is how to make boycotts effective and actually have an impact in holding corporations accountable for their complicity in the suffering of Palestinians?

The BDS movement uses the historically successful method of targeted boycotts inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement, the US Civil Rights movement, the Indian anti-colonial struggle, among others worldwide.

We must strategically focus on a relatively smaller number of carefully selected companies and products for maximum impact. We need to target companies that play a clear and direct role in Israel’s crimes and where there is real potential for winning, as was the case with, among others, G4S, Veolia, Orange, Ben & Jerry’s and Pillsbury. Compelling large, complicit companies, through strategic and context-sensitive boycott and divestment campaigns, to end their complicity in Israeli apartheid and war crimes against Palestinians sends a very powerful message to hundreds of other complicit companies that “your time will come, so get out before it’s too late!”

Many of the prohibitively long lists going viral on social media do the exact opposite of this strategic and impactful approach. They include hundreds of companies, many without credible evidence of their connection to Israel’s regime of oppression against Palestinians. Many do not have clear demands to the companies as to what we expect them to do to end the boycott, making them ineffective.

That being said, all peaceful popular efforts, including boycott and divestment, to hold all genuinely complicit corporations (and institutions) accountable for supporting Israel’s grave violations of Palestinian rights are justified and called for. It is perfectly legitimate, for instance, to boycott companies whose Israeli branch or franchisee has supported Israel’s unfolding genocide in Gaza, some of which we mention below in the grassroots organic boycott targets section.

Also, a company or product may make perfect sense as a boycott target in one context or city but not another. This context-sensitivity is a key operational principle of our movement. Regardless, we all have limited human capacity, so we’d better use it in the most effective way to achieve meaningful, sustainable results that can truly contribute to Palestinian liberation. We therefore call on our supporters to strengthen our targeted campaigns and boycott the complicit companies named on our website to maximize our collective impact.

As an intersectional movement that connects Palestinian liberation with racial, indigenous, social, gender and climate justice struggles, we also recommend boycotting companies that are involved in oppressing other communities as well. We also recommend adopting a universal human rights investment screen, to prevent investments in all companies complicit in human rights violations.

For more information on the selection criteria for new campaigns used by the BDS movement click here. The following are the current top priority boycott targets of the global BDS movement.

We have split these targets into four sections:

1. Consumer boycott targets – The BDS movement calls for a complete boycott of these brands carefully selected due to the company’s proven record of complicity in Israeli apartheid.

2. Divestment and exclusion targets – The BDS movement works to pressure governments, institutions, investment funds, city councils, etc. to exclude from procurement contracts and investments and to divest from, as the case may be, as many complicit companies as practical, especially arms companies and banks. We rely on the following authoritative sources:

• AFSC list of companies that have provided Israel with weapons and other military equipment used in its #GazaGenocide.

• AFSC Investigate database of companies enabling the occupation.

• UN database of businesses involved in Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise.

• WhoProfits database of Israeli and international corporations profiting from the ongoing Israeli occupation.

• Don’t Buy Into Occupation list of businesses involved in the illegal Israeli settlement enterprise in the OPT in which European financial institutions have investments.

3. Pressure targets – The BDS movement actively calls for pressure campaigns against these targets. This includes boycotts when reasonable alternatives exist, as well as lobbying, peaceful disruptions, and social media pressure.

4. Organic boycott targets – The BDS movement did not initiate these grassroots boycott campaigns but supports them due to these brands’ complicity in Israel’s genocide and apartheid against Palestinians.

1. Consumer boycott targets:

Hewlett Packard Inc (HP Inc)

HP Inc (US) provides services to the offices of genocide leaders, Israeli PM Netanyahu and Financial Minister Smotrich. HPE, which shares the same brand, provides technology for Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority, a pillar of its apartheid regime.

Chevron (including Caltex and Texaco brands)

US fossil fuel multinational Chevron is the main corporation extracting gas claimed by apartheid Israel in the East Mediterranean. Chevron generates billions in revenues, strengthening Israel’s war chest and apartheid system, exacerbating the climate crisis and Gaza siege, and is complicit in depriving the Palestinian people of their right to sovereignty over their natural resources. Chevron has thousands of retail gas stations around the world under the Chevron, Caltex, and Texaco brand names.

Siemens

Siemens (Germany) is the main contractor for the Euro-Asia Interconnector, an Israel-EU submarine electricity cable that is planned to connect Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory to Europe. Siemens-branded electrical appliances are sold globally.

PUMA

Since 2018, we have called for a boycott of PUMA (Germany) due to its sponsorship of the Israel Football Association (IFA), which governs teams in Israel’s illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land. In a major BDS win in December 2023, PUMA leaked news to the media that it will not be renewing its IFA contract when it expires in December 2024. Until then, it is still complicit, so we continue to #BoycottPUMA until it finally ends its complicity in apartheid.

Carrefour

Carrefour (France) is a genocide enabler. Carrefour-Israel has supported Israeli soldiers partaking in the unfolding genocide of Palestinians in Gaza with gifts of personal packages. In 2022, it entered a partnership with the Israeli company Electra Consumer Products and its subsidiary Yenot Bitan, both of which are involved in grave violations against the Palestinian people.

AXA

Insurance giant AXA (France) invests in Israeli banks financing war crimes and the theft of Palestinian land and natural resources. When Russia invaded Ukraine, AXA took targeted measures against it. Yet, Axa has taken no action against Israel, a 75-year-old regime of settler-colonialism and apartheid, despite its ongoing genocidal war on Gaza.

SodaStream

SodaStream is an Israeli company that is actively complicit in Israel’s policy of displacing the indigenous Bedouin-Palestinian citizens of present-day Israel in the Naqab (Negev) and has a long history of racial discrimination against Palestinian workers.

Ahava

Ahava cosmetics is an Israeli company that has its production site, visitor center, and main store in an illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied Palestinian territory.

RE/MAX

RE/MAX (US) markets and sells property in illegal Israeli settlements built on stolen Palestinian land, thus enabling Israel’s colonization of the occupied West Bank.

Israeli produce in your supermarkets

Boycott produce from Israel in your supermarket and demand their removal from shelves. Beyond being part of a trade that fuels Israel’s apartheid economy, Israeli fruits, vegetables, and wines misleadingly labeled as “Product of Israel” often include products of illegal settlements on stolen Palestinian land. Israeli companies do not distinguish between the two, and neither should consumers.

2. Divestment & exclusion targets:

Though the BDS movement calls for divesting from and excluding from procurement/investment all the companies in the four authoritative databases listed above, we are focusing on the following targets:

Elbit Systems

Elbit Systems is apartheid Israel’s largest arms company. It “field-tests” its weapons on Palestinians, including in Israel’s ongoing genocidal war in Gaza. On top of building killer drones, Elbit makes surveillance technology for Israel’s apartheid wall, checkpoints and Gaza fence, enabling apartheid. The US and EU use Elbit’s technology to militarize their borders, violating refugee and indigenous peoples’ rights.

Intel

Intel has announced that it will invest $25 billion in apartheid Israel as Israel’s #GazaGenocide continues, signaling its commitment to bolstering apartheid. The company’s first development center outside the US was opened in Haifa in 1974. For decades, Intel has invested in apartheid Israel. Its plant at “Qiryat Gat” is built on Palestinian land within the boundaries of the Palestinian village of Iraq al Manshiya, which was ethnically cleansed and razed to the ground and then replaced by the Israeli settlement of Qiryat Gat.

HD Hyundai/Volvo/CAT/JCB

Machinery from HD Hyundai (South Korea), Volvo (Sweden/China), CAT (US), and JCB (UK) has been used by Israel in the ethnic cleansing and forced displacement of Palestinians through the destruction of their homes, farms, and businesses, as well as the construction of illegal settlements on land stolen from them, a war crime under international law.

Barclays

Barclays Bank (UK) holds more than £1 billion in shares of, and provides more than £3bn in loans and underwriting to nine companies whose weapons, components and military technology have been used in Israel’s armed violence against Palestinians.

CAF

Basque transport firm CAF builds and services the Jerusalem Light Rail (JLR), a tram line that serves Israel’s illegal settlements in Jerusalem. CAF benefits from Israel’s war crimes on stolen Palestinian land.

Chevron and Chevron-owned Noble Energy

US fossil fuel multinational Chevron is the main international corporation extracting gas claimed by apartheid Israel in the East Mediterranean. Chevron and Chevron-owned Noble Energy generate billions in revenues, strengthening Israel’s war chest and apartheid system as well as exacerbating the climate crisis.

HikVision

Amnesty International has documented high-resolution CCTV cameras made by Hikvision (China) installed in residential areas and mounted to Israeli military infrastructure for surveillance of Palestinians. Some of these models, according to Hikvision’s own marketing, can plug into external facial recognition software.

TKH Security

Amnesty International has identified cameras made by TKH Security (Netherlands) used by Israel for surveillance of Palestinians. TKH provides Israeli police with surveillance technology that is used to entrench apartheid.

3. Pressure targets:

The BDS movement calls for pressure against these companies, including boycotts, if reasonable alternatives exist.

Google and Amazon (US)

In May 2021, as the Israeli military bombed homes, clinics, and schools in Gaza and threatened to push Palestinian families from their homes in occupied Jerusalem, Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud signed a $1.22 billion contract to provide cloud technology to the Israeli government and military. By supporting Israeli apartheid with vital technologies, Amazon and Google are directly implicated in its entire system of oppression, including its unfolding genocide in Gaza. Join the #NoTechForApartheid campaign.

Airbnb/Booking/Expedia

Airbnb (US), Booking.com (Netherlands) and Expedia (US) all offer rentals in illegal Israeli settlements built on stolen Palestinian land.

Disney

The Disney-owned Marvel Studios (US) is promoting in the next Captain America film a “superhero” that personifies apartheid Israel. Both companies are therefore complicit in “anti-Palestinian racism, Israeli propaganda, and the glorification of settler-colonial violence against Indigenous people,” as Palestinian cultural organizations have stated.

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries

Teva is an Israeli pharmaceutical company and the world’s largest generic drug manufacturer. Teva benefits from Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian lands allowing the company to exploit the captive Palestinian market.

4. Grassroots organic boycott targets:

McDonald’s (US), Burger King (US), Papa John’s (US), Pizza Hut (US), WIX (Israel), etc. are now being targeted in some countries by grassroots organic boycott campaigns, not initiated by the BDS movement. BDS supports these boycott campaigns because these companies, or their branches or franchisees in Israel, have openly supported apartheid Israel and/or provided generous in-kind donations to the Israeli military amid the current genocide. If these grassroots campaigns are not already organically active in your area, we suggest focusing your energies on our strategic campaigns above.

Recently, McDonald’s franchisee in Malaysia has filed a SLAPP lawsuit against solidarity activists, claiming defamation. Instead of holding the Israel franchisee to account for supporting genocide, we are now witnessing corporate bullying against activists. For both these reasons, we are calling to escalate the boycott of McDonald’s until the parent company takes action and ends the complicity of the brand.

Remember, all Israeli banks and virtually all Israeli companies are complicit to some degree in Israel’s system of occupation and apartheid, and hundreds of international corporations and banks are also deeply complicit. We focus our boycotts on a small number of companies and products for maximum impact.

5 February 2024

Source: transcend.org

By Moncef Khane

Cutting funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees at this time means furthering the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

31 Jan 2024 – On January 26, the very day the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an interim ruling on South Africa’s case accusing Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinian people, the Israeli government dropped a bomb. It was not the usual 900kg US-made bunker buster, but a much more lethal one: it accused 12 employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) of having ties to Hamas or being involved in its October 7 operation. This immediately resulted in over a dozen countries cutting their financial support for the agency and UNRWA’s chief, Philippe Lazzarini, firing nine of the accused (of other three – one is dead and two are unaccounted for).

Given the meagre aid trickling into Gaza and the looming starvation of its people, particularly in northern Gaza, defunding UNRWA now is worse than collective punishment –  it could be a death sentence for many destitute and hungry Palestinians.

UNRWA was established by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1949 to provide relief to all Palestine refugees originally defined as “persons whose place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as the result of the 1948 war”. The definition was broadened to include persons displaced by the “1967 and subsequent hostilities”.

Today, UNRWA has 30,000 staff, mainly Palestinian physicians, nurses, educators, relief workers, drivers, engineers, logisticians, etc who provide humanitarian relief, healthcare, education and other assistance to millions of Palestine refugees throughout the Middle East. In Gaza, UNRWA’s 13,000 staff have supported almost all aspects of Palestinian life, especially after Israel imposed a blockade of the Gaza Strip in 2007 with Egypt’s support.

Critics have pointed out that the UN has delegated to UNRWA important international legal obligations that would otherwise be incumbent on Israel as the occupying power. Under the Geneva Conventions, basic services such as shelter, healthcare and education in occupied territories are the responsibility of the occupying state. Thus, in effect, the UN has subsidised, and possibly prolonged, Israel’s occupation of Palestinians.

From Israel’s perspective, UNRWA is another enemy that has prolonged Palestinian resistance to its occupation. It is a “barrier” to solving the Palestinian refugee question by simply resettling Palestinian refugees in other countries, as it is now openly advocates. For all Israeli governments, implementing UN Security Council resolutions and international law on the inalienable “right of return” of Palestinians forced by Zionist militias and subsequently the Israeli army to leave their homes in 1948 is anathema to Israel’s existence.

The accusations against the 12 UNRWA staff should be seen in this context; it is also important to remember who is making them. Israel is an occupying power facing allegations of genocide deemed plausible by the ICJ. Israeli forces have repeatedly attacked UN-protected facilities including schools and hospitals, killing thousands of civilians, mainly children and women seeking refuge on UNRWA premises, as well as 152 UNRWA staff. Israel also has a long history of unsubstantiated accusations against UNRWA employees and within the context of the current conflict, it has been caught lying repeatedly about alleged crimes by Palestinians (eg, the beheading of 40 babies on October 7).

Bolstered by the UN’s hasty decisions taken without establishing through an investigation a prima facie case, Israel now claims that 10 percent of Gaza-based staff have links to “militant groups”.

Under the UN’s internal rules, due process is compulsory when misconduct is alleged. When serious allegations backed by incontrovertible evidence against UN personnel are put forward, the UN’s secretary-general has the authority to order the summary dismissal of the accused staff. Such extreme cases are rare.

In all other cases, typically, a board of inquiry is established to investigate the most serious cases, or accusations are picked up by the UN’s internal investigatory department that may initiate a formal inquest based on preliminary evidence. In the interim, the staff member facing allegations of misconduct may be suspended.

In the case of the 12 UNRWA employees accused by Israel, summary dismissal is a surprising decision not least as the circumstances of the cases – an all-out war and possibly a genocide –  and the credibility of the accusing party should compel a cautionary approach.

Yet the UN leadership was quick to jettison the presumption of innocence of their staff. On January 28, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a statement to advise that of the “12 people implicated, nine were immediately identified and terminated by the Commissioner-General of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini; one is confirmed dead, and the identity of the two others is being clarified. Any UN employee involved in acts of terror will be held accountable”. In his statement, Guterres further states that “the abhorrent alleged acts of these staff members must have consequences”.

Already, the secretary-general has seemingly adjudicated the case and promised “consequences”. He has shown no such outrage or made calls for accountability for the murder by the Israeli military of his own staff – as if such war crimes are not abhorrent acts that call for consequences.

Firing staff at will based solely, as Guterres admits, on “allegations” is troubling and should be of concern to all staff members and staff unions of the United Nations.

But more alarming and consequential is the swift decision of the United States, Austria, Australia, Canada, Finland, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Iceland, Sweden, Switzerland, Romania and the United Kingdom to suspend their funding to UNRWA during an all-out war on the people it was established to protect.

Worse, when Israel is in the dock of the ICJ facing plausible allegations of perpetrating a genocide, such decisions may even be deemed a breach by these states of their obligations under the 1948 Genocide Convention. But this shouldn’t come as a surprise since some of the same governments choose to overlook the many war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated by Israel and continue their military support for its onslaught on Gaza, now in its fourth month.

In the end, even if the 12 accused staff are found guilty of grave crimes, this hardly justifies starving UNRWA of funding when it tries to save from starvation Palestinians in Gaza. Cutting down a septuagenarian olive tree because it might have 12 “bad” olives on it is not only collective punishment – it is furthering a genocide.

Moncef Khane is a former United Nations official who served as political director of the Office of the Joint Special Envoy for Syria (2012-2014), as liaison officer with the Party of Democratic Kampuchea (Khmer rouge) (1992-1993) and in the Executive Office of Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

5 February 2024

Source: transcend.org