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By Amira Hass

Fall 2023 – The Gaza Strip is gradually being erased, along with its families, its people, its children, their smiles and laughter. What enables the majority of Jewish Israelis to support this systematic and mass erasure?

What enables them to see it as the only suitable response to the massacre that Hamas and its accomplices perpetrated, to the military humiliation of Israel and to the indescribable suffering of the hostages, the wounded, the survivors, their families and the families of the hundreds killed?

Israel’s military is erasing the streets of Gaza’s cities and the alleys of its refugee camps.

Israel’s military is erasing the streets of Gaza’s cities and the alleys of its refugee camps. It’s erasing Gaza’s beach promenades, villages and its unexpected yet existing agricultural areas. It’s erasing its cultural institutions, universities and archaeological sites.

Hamas’ military infrastructure is being destroyed and may be destroyed entirely. Thousands of its armed men are being killed and will be killed. But the organization will be rebuilt; it and its leaders will flourish in every community and place where the erasure of Gaza continues.

What enables the majority of Jewish Israelis to remain unshocked by the fact that in about two months we’ve killed around 7,000 children (a provisional figure) with the help of America’s improved bombs?

We’ve chosen not to look at the unbearable pictures of trembling Palestinian children, faces gray with dust, being rescued from between bombed concrete walls.

What enables most of the Jews not to gasp in horror at the crowding of 1.8 million or 1.9 million people into about 120 square kilometers (46 square miles), a “safe area” that’s constantly being bombed? What’s preventing those Jewish Israelis from screaming when they hear about the thirst and hunger of 2.2 million Palestinian civilians and the diseases spreading due to the crowding, the water shortage and the out-of-action hospitals?

What enables this erasure and the slaying of children with both our active and passive participation? Here are some answers:

• For decades we’ve been educated to believe that only military force can ensure the state’s survival and ability to flourish, while denying rights to the Palestinian people.
• We’ve erased any “context” – incitement has made this word a synonym for support of Hamas and justification of its horrors.
• We Jews have assumed a monopoly on the suffering caused by the cruelty of the Other.
• • We’ve chosen not to look at the unbearable pictures of trembling Palestinian children, faces gray with dust, being rescued from between bombed concrete walls. And there’s no way of knowing who’s more fortunate: those children or the ones who were killed.
• Every mass or gradual killing that we’ve been carrying out against the Palestinians for years, every theft, humiliation and abuse passes through thousands of media, psychological and academic filters. The sifted product is our conviction that the Palestinians are better off than the Somalis or Syrians, so they shouldn’t complain.
• We remember every massacre of Israelis by Palestinians. We forget every massacre of Palestinians by Israelis.
• For decades we’ve gotten used to living in comfort while five minutes away Israel (in other words, us) demolishes Palestinian homes and builds for Jews, channels water to Jews and makes Palestinians go thirsty. All the rest is written in the reports of the rights groups HaMoked, B’Tselem and Adalah.
• For decades we’ve been ignoring the “moderate” Palestinians’ warning that the continuous grab of freedom and land and the settlers’ violence – assisted by the state and inspired by its violence – narrow their children’s horizons and generate despair and faith in arms only and revenge.
• We’ve embraced an essentialist worldview: The Palestinians are terrorists because that’s the way they are. They were born with genes for hating us – the offspring of Roman Emperor Titus and the pogromists of East Europe’s Khmelnytsky Uprising of the 17th century.
• We’re convinced that we’re a democracy, even though for 56 years we’ve been ruling over millions of subjects without civil rights, controlling their land, money and economy.
• We have profound racist contempt for the Palestinians, which we developed to justify, both cognitively and psychologically, our trampling over them.
• We’ve been in denial of Palestinian history and the rootedness of Palestinian existence between the river and the sea.
• The erasure of Gaza is possible because since 1994 we have deliberately missed the opportunity – offered to us by the Palestinians – to shed some of our traits as a dispossessing and settling entity and let them have a state on 22 percent of the area west of the Jordan River (including Gaza). I wrote in July 2021 that “in all the heat of the talk about apartheid, a dynamic, active and dangerous dimension of it – the Jewish settler colonialism – has become dulled and blunted.

“According to the ideology and policies of Jewish settler colonialism, the Palestinians are superfluous. In short, it is possible, worthwhile and desirable to live without the Palestinians in this country between the river and the sea. Their existence here is conditional, dependent on our wishes and our goodwill – a matter of time.

“The ideology of ‘superfluousness’ is a poison that spreads especially when the process of settler colonialism is at its height. … Settler colonialism is a continuous process of grabbing land, distorting historical borders, reshaping them and then expelling indigenous peoples.”

I referred to the “superfluousness” of the Palestinians in the West Bank and warned about the intentions to expel them. I assumed then that the viewing of Gazans as superfluous sufficed with severing them from their people and their families on the other side of the Erez checkpoint that separates Gaza from the rest of the land (Israel and the West Bank).

But now the “superfluousness” is being reflected in expulsion, disguised as voluntary under the shelling. It’s being reflected in the physical erasure of the Gazans, and in plans to return Jewish settlers to Gaza. Woe to them and woe to us.

Amira Hass is the Haaretz correspondent for the Occupied Territories.

25 December 2023

Source: transcend.org

By Jörg Luyken

23 Dec 2023 – Iran has threatened to close the Strait of Gibraltar and the Mediterranean Sea unless Israel stops bombing Gaza, as the US warned Tehran was “deeply involved” in attacks on shipping.

“They shall soon await the closure of the Mediterranean Sea, [the Strait of] Gibraltar and other waterways,” Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi, a senior member of the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said today.

The general did not explain how Iran, which does not border the Mediterranean, intended to make good on its threat.

Iran’s proxy militias in southern Lebanon and Syria do have access to the sea, through which about a fifth of global maritime trade passes.

The Houthis in Yemen, which are backed by Iran, have already forced several major shipping companies to reroute their vessels to avoid the Red Sea by targeting merchant craft with drones and missiles.

Today, a Liberian-flagged tanker was struck by a drone while it was sailing in the Arabian Sea off the coast of India, setting it on fire.

“Some structural damage was also reported and some water was taken onboard. The vessel was Israel-affiliated. She had last called at Saudi Arabia and was destined for India at the time,” British maritime security firm Ambrey said.

The fire was extinguished without any casualties being suffered by the crew.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the attack came amid a wave of drone and missile attacks carried out by the Houthis.

“Yesterday, the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz became a nightmare for them, and today they are trapped … in the Red Sea,” Brig Gen Naqdi said, describing “the birth of new powers of resistance”.

The Houthi leadership have described the attacks as retribution for Israel’s invasion of Gaza, which was run by another Tehran ally, Hamas.

They claim that the attacks are targeted against shipping headed for Israel; however, several ships which have been struck have no connection with Israel or the war.

On Friday [22 Dec], US intelligence accused Tehran of being “deeply involved” in the operational planning of the Red Sea attacks.

US intelligence suggests that Iran has been providing a monitoring system which is essential for the attacks, the National Security Council spokesman Adrienne Watson told US broadcaster CNN.

“Iran has the choice to provide or withhold this support, without which the Houthis would struggle to effectively track and strike commercial vessels navigating shipping lanes through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden,” Ms Watson said.

Houthi attacks

“Iranian-provided tactical intelligence has been critical in enabling Houthi targeting of maritime vessels since the group commenced attacks in November,” she added.

Iran’s deputy foreign minister rejected the accusations that the country was involved in the Houthi attacks, saying the group was acting on its own.

“The resistance (Huthis) has its own tools… and acts in accordance with its own decisions and capabilities,” Iran’s deputy foreign minister Ali Bagheri told the country’s Mehr news agency.

“The fact that certain powers, such as the Americans and the Israelis, suffer strikes from the resistance movement… should in no way call into question the reality of the strength of the resistance in the region,” he added.

War on Israel

The Houthis, who have been fighting against Yemen’s government in a civil war since 2014, are part of an Iran-led “axis of resistance” against Israel, the US and the West.

The group’s leaders declared war on Israel last month, launching a salvo of drones and ballistic missiles at the southern Israeli city of Eilat more than 1,000 miles away.

Iran has repeatedly warned of a widening conflict, and last month, its foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said the intensity of the war has rendered its expansion “inevitable”.

Iran’s president Ebrahim Raisi has said Iran sees it as “its duty to support the resistance groups” but insisted that they “are independent in their opinion, decision and action”.

Last month, Tehran dismissed as “invalid” Israel’s accusations that Houthi rebels were acting on Tehran’s “guidance” when they seized a Red Sea ship owned by an Israeli businessman.

25 December 2023

Source: transcend.org

By Maziar Motamedi

The Houthis say they won’t stop attacking ships unless Israel stops its attacks on Gaza. So far, the shipping industry doesn’t appear convinced the task force can halt them.

19 Dec 2023 – The United States has announced the establishment of a new multinational maritime security force in response to attacks on ships launched by Iran-aligned Houthi rebels in Yemen.

By Huseyin Vodinali

21 Dec 2023 – The genocide committed by Israel in Palestine continues to break our hearts every day.

Zionazis massacre children, women, babies, elderly journalists and doctors without showing the slightest sign of humanity. 70 days have passed since the war started on October 7.

At least 25 thousand people were killed by the Israeli army, at least 22 thousand of them were civilians and most of the civilians were children and babies.

Not only Muslims, but the whole world is standing up, Christians, Atheists, Buddhists and even Jews are in outrage against this Zionazi genocide.

So, if you ask what Arabs are doing, the answer will be nothing.

Jordan, which said at the beginning of the movie, “If you sweep Gaza, we will fall apart,” is now capturing and destroying the weapons going to the resistance axis on behalf of Israel.

There is no feeling from Egypt either.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE are concerned about opening a new trade corridor to Israel.

You ask why?

Because of the Bab El Mandeb strait closed by the Yemenis, who understand the suffering of the Palestinian people best.

We are talking about the Yemeni Houthis, who have been fighting for years with Saudi Arabia, supported by the USA, Israel and the UK, and which caused at least 150 thousand children to die from hunger and disease during the embargoes imposed.

These men, fighting with slippers on their feet, hit Saudi refineries and shot down F-16s, Eurofighters and Reapers.

A ceasefire was reached after China intervened by reconciling Tehran and Riyadh and Saudi Arabia made a geopolitical move.

Those Yemenis are now dealing a blow to Israel that no one else has dealt.

They stop and confiscate merchant ships going to Israel, and shoot down those that do not stop with missiles (they even have their own missiles called Burkan).

That’s why the four major logistics companies, which provide 53 percent of the world maritime trade, changed their routes and turned to Africa towards the Cape of Good Hope.

This means a delay of at least 3 weeks and a 120 percent increase in freight prices.

That’s why the port of Eilat, which is key in Israel’s supply chain, was disabled.

When Israel started to cry, the USA had to use its navy, which it deployed in the region after October 7, against Yemen this time. US Defense Secretary Austin Lloyd rushed to Israel and then to Bahrain.

In Manama, Bahrain-based American Naval Task Force CTF 153 announced the multinational “Prosperity Guardian” operation to prevent Yemeni attacks on Israel-bound ships in the Bab El Mandeb Strait and the Red Sea.

He also shamelessly said:

“If Iran does not stop the Houthis, world peace will be disrupted.”

Shameless man, you should first stop the genocide of your child Israel!

We have been watching images of babies being dismembered on live broadcast for 70 days, and we see Zionists rejoicing about this.

We read about Zionazis on social media saying ‘Let’s turn Gaza into Aushwitz’ and shouting ‘Palestinians are not human beings’.

All of the USA’s democracy and human rights literature went to the wastebasket of history with Israel.

USA is now not only for people like me! It is a fascist state that wears Hitler’s boots in the eyes of the whole world.

Meanwhile, there were also important developments.

As you know, Vladimir Putin’s last visit to the UAE and Saudi Arabia was very spectacular.

In both countries, Putin was welcomed with grand and magnificent ceremonies.

The Russian leader has also been in intense telephone traffic not only with the Iranian Leadership but also with Egyptian President Sisi since the beginning of the crisis.

I think these attempts bore fruit, and Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE refused to participate in the US “Guardian of Prosperity” operation. (Although Yemenis’ threat to destroy oil and gas fields if the Saudis and the UAE get involved may also have been effective.)

Although oil continues to flow from Ceyhan, Turkey has not participated in the American operation (for now).

The countries participating in the US operation are listed as follows: England, Israel, France, Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles, Canada, Italy and Bahrain.

If we look at the countries other than Bahrain, we can say that a Crusader Navy has been established.

Europe has already shown that it is a vassal of the USA and its neo-Nazis from the beginning of the Ukraine war. Now he serves the Zionazis.

Bahrain is a British colonial country and 60 percent of its population is Shia, like the Houthis in Yemen.

There had already been some uprising attempts before.

Following these developments, the Houthi leadership also called on Shiites and Sunnis in Bahrain to revolt.

Ret. Admiral Cem Gürdeniz, one of Turkiye’s rare geopolitical experts, commented on these developments and warned that they could turn into a war that would engulf the world.

He said:

“This crisis, which emerged as a reaction to Israel’s massacre in Gaza, is a result of activities on land rather than at sea. Therefore, it is impossible to solve it without intervening on land, that is, on the coasts of Yemen under Houthi control. A US-led air or land attack on Yemen would suddenly escalate the Israeli-Palestinian war into the Iran-USA crisis. In a conjuncture where major maritime trade and giant oil companies such as BP have given up on Suez and Bab El Mandeb, the world economy cannot handle such a crisis that will cause the Strait of Hormuz to be closed.”

This time, there are no poor gangs with rifles against USA, there is a strong and organized army.

The resistance axis led by Iran; It consists of the Islamic Jihad in Gaza, various resistance groups in Syria and Iraq (such as Hashd al-Shaabi), the Lebanese Hezbollah, and the Yemeni Houthis.

The militia will reportedly consist of 55,000 volunteer forces with 33,000 ships and will carry 107 mm rockets.

Russia and China also provide serious political, economic and military support to Iran.

The fact that the USA is (once again) stuck in the Middle East quagmire gives Russia’s hand in Ukraine and China’s hand in Taiwan.

These are the geopolitical consequences of the event.

But from a humanitarian perspective, the “Che Guevaras in Slippers” in Yemen became the heroes who saved the crumbling honor of the Arab and Muslim world.

Three days ago, the Ansarullah (Houthi) movement managed to hit an MSC ship traveling at a speed of 25 knots with an anti-ship ballistic missile with a range of 300 km and a speed of Mach 8.

The Houthis told all ships,

“If you are not going to Israel, there is no problem, but we will continue our attacks against those going to Israel until Israel establishes a ceasefire and allows medicine and food to enter Gaza.”

The men do not step back an inch.

Ansarullah Defense Minister said the following about the US-led Operation Prosperity Guardian:

“The Red Sea will be your graveyard. We have weapons that will sink your aircraft carriers and destroyers.”

As we enter 2024, we will be watching a crisis in which the USA plays the leading role turn into a regional war.

By the way, the Houthis’ Slipper Resistance against the genocide will go down in history, after the mother’s slipper, which is the most effective punishment tool!

25 December 2023

Source: transcend.org

By Aaron Maté

As the death toll in Gaza tops 20,000, Israeli-US lies about Al-Shifa hospital are newly exposed.

22 Dec 2022 – In a news conference this week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken lashed out at global criticism of US support for Israel’s mass murder campaign in Gaza.

“I hear virtually no one saying, demanding of Hamas that it stop hiding behind civilians, that it lay down its arms, that it surrender. This is over tomorrow if Hamas does that,” Blinken complained.  “How can it be that there are no demands made of the aggressor, and only demands made of the victim?”

Blinken’s statement is an outright endorsement of state terrorism. Its underlying logic affirms that Israel is free to massacre Palestinian civilians until the armed resistance in their midst offers up a “surrender.”

The chief US diplomat’s indigitation at the supposed absence of any “demands” on Hamas is also based on a false premise. As Blinken is well aware, the multiple UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions that his government has vetoed demanded that Hamas grant the unconditional release of all hostages. But because these resolutions also demanded that Israel end its attack on Gaza and allow the unfettered delivery of humanitarian aid, the US has blocked them.

Committed to defending Israeli violence at all costs, Blinken is accordingly willing to cast Hamas as the “aggressor” and Israel – an occupying power that has now reportedly murdered a well over 20,000 people in Gaza – as the “victim.”

Even if we were to pretend that history began on Oct. 7^th, and forget that the Hamas militants who attacked Israel on that day were caged inside the world’s largest concentration camp under the world’s longest-running military occupation, Blinken’s statement would be just as mendacious. Hamas’ atrocities came in a one-day guerilla operation against Israel. That does not give Israel the right to wage a nearly-three month military campaign that is causing historic levels of carnage and destruction.

With Israel routinely blocking life-saving aid, a new United Nations report finds that more than 500,000 people in Gaza – one-quarter of the entire population – are starving. “It doesn’t get any worse,” says Arif Husain, chief economist for the World Food Program. “I have never seen something at the scale that is happening in Gaza. And at this speed.”

Israel has drastically reduced aid by insisting that it inspect every shipment going into Gaza, even goods that arrive through Egypt. This means that before entering Gaza at Egypt’s Rafah crossing, aid trucks must first drive for an inspection in the Israeli border town of Kerem Shalom before returning to Rafah. While claiming to be working strenuously on the aid deliveries, the Biden administration has played its traditional role of enforcing Israel’s dictate. As one US official told the New York Times of the Biden administration’s latest stonewalling of a UNSC resolution, “Washington would not approve a measure that removed Israel from the inspection process.”

When it comes to military tactics, Israel’s wanton recklessness was newly underscored when its forces killed three unarmed Israeli hostages after mistaking them for being Palestinian civilians. Had they been the latter, as Israeli troops believed when they shot them, the murders would have been routine and likely unnoticed.

Meanwhile, even President Biden has been forced to admit that Israel is carrying out an “indiscriminate bombing” of the besieged enclave. “By some measures, destruction in Gaza has outpaced Allied bombings of Germany during World War II,” the Associated Press reports. Whereas the Allies destroyed about 10% of buildings across Nazi Germany between 1942 and 1945, in Gaza that figure stands at 33%.

“Gaza is one of the most intense civilian punishment campaigns in history,” US military historian Robert Pape observes. “It now sits comfortably in the top quartile of the most devastating bombing campaigns ever.” The campaign has relied on the steady provision of US weapons. According to a recent US intelligence assessment, almost half of the munitions that Israel has dropped on Gaza have been unguided or “dumb” bombs, which are known for their inaccuracy and wholesale destruction.

In the war’s first weeks, “Israel routinely used one of its biggest and most destructive bombs in areas it designated safe for civilians,” a New York Times analysis concludes. Although Washington has given free rein to use its 2,000-pound bombs, they “are almost never dropped by U.S. forces in densely populated areas anymore.” Their lethality extends to 1,000 feet from impact, a large-scale death sentence for what CNN notes is a Gaza population “packed together much more tightly than almost anywhere else on earth.”

Under Israel’s US-backed indiscriminate bombardment, Gaza’s official death toll has passed 20,000, an unusual if not unprecedented figure for a 21^st century war that is less than three-months old. Given that only one side has a military and air power, it was also entirely predictable. The 20,000 figure is also assuredly an undercount. “We don’t know how many are buried under the rubble of their homes,” notes the World Health Organization’s Director General. Health data expert Benjamin Q. Huynh adds that there is “no evidence” that Gaza’s health ministry has inflated the Palestinian death toll. Beyond those buried under the rubble, an additional reason why the “true death toll is probably higher than what’s being reported,” he observes, is a “diminished capacity from the hospital system.”

The Israeli attacks on Gaza’s hospital system have targeted more than two dozen health facilities in Gaza, another milestone in the conduct of modern warfare.

When it comes to last month’s Israeli assault on Gaza’s largest hospital, al-Shifa, a new report in the Washington Post concludes what was obvious from the start: Israeli-US claims of a Hamas “command and control” center there were yet another pro-war fabrication.

After seizing the hospital, Israel claimed that five buildings were used by Hamas, and sat above tunnels that were used to direct the group’s militant activity. But according to the Post, rooms that were connected to the tunnel network underneath the hospital “showed no immediate evidence of military use by Hamas.” Additionally, neither al-Shifa’s hospital wards or the five hospital buildings were accessible to the tunnels. Accordingly, the Post concludes, “the evidence presented by the Israeli government falls short of showing that Hamas had been using the hospital as a command and control center.”

The Biden administration was equally complicit in Israel’s al-Shifa deception, aided as usual by reliable media stenographers. Before Israel attacked al-Shifa on Nov. 15^th, White House spokesperson John Kirby assured reporters that he could “confirm” that Hamas and Islamic Jihad were using al-Shifa’s tunnels “to conceal and to support their military operations and to hold hostages.” One day after Israel launched the assault, President Biden doubled down. “Here’s the situation: You have a circumstance where the first war crime is being committed by Hamas by having their headquarters, their military hidden under a hospital,” Biden said on Nov. 16th, “And that’s a fact. That’s what’s happened.”

Biden’s grasp of this “fact” is as reliable as his false claim to have seen photographs of beheaded babies, which he nonetheless continues to repeat despite Israeli and US admissions that no such photographs exist.

Anonymous US officials also informed the New York Times that “they are confident that Hamas has used tunnel networks under hospitals, in particular Al Shifa, for command and control areas as well as for weapons storage.” The Times additionally cited “senior Israeli intelligence officials,” who “allowed the Times to review photographs that purported to show secret entrances to the compound from inside the hospital.” In other words, these Israeli officials “allowed” the Times to launder their lies.

As Israeli forces attacked al-Shifa, anonymous US intelligence officials informed the Wall Street Journal that they had “independently” obtained “intercepted communications of fighters inside the compound.” Predictably, the Journal’s sources “declined to provide more details about the U.S. intelligence on Al-Shifa,” citing the familiar excuse of protecting “sources and methods.” The claim of sourcing “intercepted communications” happens to be a tried and tested method of US war propaganda, deployed to sell the fabrications about Iraq WMDs or claims of chemical weapons attacks by the Syrian government.

Although the Journal acknowledged that the US “hasn’t been able to determine details of Hamas’s alleged operations at Al-Shifa,” it left room for even more Israeli attacks by claiming that the US “has also picked up intelligence about other hospitals.” When reporters pressed Kirby to provide even a shred of evidence, the White House spokesperson refused. But not to worry: yet another anonymous “knowledgeable source” emerged to inform Reuters that the intelligence “is definitive.”

The Israeli siege of al-Shifa caused the deaths of several dozen patients in intensive care, as well at least four premature babies. In heralding the operation, an Israeli official even dispensed with the pretext about a Hamas command post or rescuing hostages. “The entrance to Shifa is first of all a symbol that there is no place we will not reach,” the official said. “We did not think we would find hostages, but we will definitely locate and dismantle Hamas capabilities.”

For its part, the Biden administration still defends the al-Shifa assault. “This was a very precise and targeted military operation that Israel carried out with a range of efforts to reduce any civilian casualties,” a senior U.S. administration official told the Post.

The operation was indeed targeted. In attacking Gaza’s largest hospital with US assistance, Israel laid the foundation to destroy and disable even more health facilities across the besieged enclave. This unprecedented barbarism can only have one goal: to maximize civilian casualties, and destroy the basic institutions of a functioning society.

The assault on al-Shifa is also perfectly in line with Israeli officials’ open calls for genocide and ethnic cleansing, and the high-level effort undertaken for those goals.

According to the newspaper Israel Hayom, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s top aide, cabinet member Ron Dermer, has been tasked to “thin” the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip “to a minimum.” A new account in the Washington Post claims that in the days after Oct. 7^th, Netanyahu even personally asked President Biden to pressure Egypt into accepting a massive influx of Palestinian refugees. Aides claims that Biden rebuffed Netanyahu, but evidence suggests otherwise. On Oct. 20^th, the White House submitted a Congressional budget request that included funding for the “potential needs of Gazans fleeing to neighboring countries,” given that the “crisis could well result in displacement across border and higher regional humanitarian needs.”

Resistance from Egypt and Jordan has thwarted, for now, Israel’s effort to enlist their help in trying to “thin” out Gaza. Accordingly, the Israeli army is settling for exterminating as many Palestinians as possible, and making the death camp uninhabitable for those who survive.

White House support for Israel’s war on Palestinian civilians goes beyond any act of US barbarism in recent memory. Complicit in mass murder, Biden and his principals are also engaging in unprecedented levels of deceit, from lying about civilian hospitals to pretending that the perpetrator of a genocide is in fact the victim.

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

25 December 2023

Source: transcend.org

 

By Alia Chughtai, Marium Ali and Delaney Nolan

15 Dec 2023 – From Jakarta to San Francisco, hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets over the past two months to protest Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza, which has killed more than 18,700 people, including more than 7,700 children.

According to the Armed Conflict Location & Events Data Project, a nongovernmental organisation specialising in conflict data collection, from October 7 to November 24, there were at least 7,283 pro-Palestine protests that took place in more than 118 countries and territories.

Many more have chosen to express their condemnation using their purchasing power, opting to boycott products and services that support Israel, in turn fueling the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement that was set up in 2005 by a coalition of Palestinian civil society groups.

Censoring voices on campus

In the United States, students at several universities, including Columbia University in New York City, have said their attempts to speak out against Israel’s bombardment of Gaza have met intimidation and censorship.

Mateescu said there’s a Colombia-specific boycott list that’s being shared on social media to make local consumer choices.

Across the Atlantic in the United Kingdom, a group of students at the University of York have also been holding events to raise awareness about the events in Palestine.

The students requested their identities be concealed due to the backlash for publicly supporting Palestine.

“I do find that a lot of people don’t want to take a stance on it and are sort of sitting in the middle and a lot of people that I know don’t really understand what’s going on very much because there’s quite a lot of misinformation. I would say it’s your duty to uplift voices that aren’t necessarily being heard,” one of the society members said.

“I think for me to take the small action of not buying a coffee at a certain chain, it’s very easy to take small actions to make sure that there’s less money being directed towards violence,” she said, explaining the steps she is taking.

Another member said they are focused on educating people who may not be equipped with information to form an opinion on the conflict and the conditions of the Palestinian people.

What is BDS?

TO CONTINUE READING THE REPORT Go to Original – aljazeera.com

25 December 2023

Source: transcend.org

By Richard Falk

20 Dec 2023 – Declaration of Conscience of Global Intellectual on Gaza Genocide prepared by Ahmet Davutoglu and myself, with the assistance of Abudllah Ahsan and Hilal Elver, to enlist signatories from around the world. We invite others to join by sending their endorsement to <change.org> listed under the heading of Declaration of Conscience. I will post a link as it is available. We view the virtual annihilation of Gaza as a societal grouping and its people as an imminent possibility. As of 20 Dec 2023, it is reported that 88% of the population has insufficient food and potable water is 90% less than minimum needs for sustainable health.

On 30 Nov, the Government of Israel resumed the genocidal onslaught it indicted on Palestinians in Gaza after a much overdue but brief “humanitarian pause.” In doing so, Israel has ignored the worldwide protests of people as well as the fervent pleas of moral, religious, and political authority figures throughout the world to convert the hostage/prisoner exchange pause into a permanent ceasere. The overriding intention was to avert the worsening of the ordeal of the Gazan population. Israel was urged to choose the road to peace not only for humanitarian reasons but also for the sake of achieving real security and respect for both Palestinians and Israelis. Yet now the bodies are again piling up, the Gaza medical system can no longer offer treatment to most of those injured, and threats of widespread starvation and disease intensify daily.

Under these circumstances, this Declaration calls not only for the denunciation of Israel’s genocidal assault but also for taking effective action to permanently prevent its repetition. We come together due to the urgency of the moment, which obliges global intellectuals to stand against the ongoing horrific ordeal of the Palestinian people and, most of all, to implore action by those who have the power, and hence the responsibility, to do so. Israel’s continuing rejection of a permanent ceasefire intensifies our concerns. Many weeks of cruel devastation caused by Israel’s grossly disproportionate response to the October 7 attack, continues to exhibit Israel’s vengeful fury. That fury can in no way be excused by the horrendous violence of Hamas against civilians in Israel or inapplicable claims of self-defense against an occupied population.

Indeed, even the combat pause seems to have been agreed upon by the Israeli government mainly to ease pressures from Israeli citizens demanding greater efforts to secure the release of the hostages. The United States government evidently reinforced this pressure as a belated, display to the world that it was not utterly insensitive to humanitarian concerns. Even this gesture was undercut before the pause started by the deant public insistence of Prime Minister Netanyahu to resume the war immediately after the pause. It is more appropriate to interpret these seven days without combat as a pause in Israel’s genocidal operations in Gaza rather than as a humanitarian pause. If truly humanitarian, it would not have crushed hopes of ending the genocide and conjointly resuming efforts to negotiate the conditions for an enduring and just peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

The revival of this military campaign waged by Israel against the civilian population of Gaza amounts to a repudiation of UN authority, of law and morality in general, and of simple human decency. The collaborative approval of Israel’s action by the leading liberal democracies in the Global

West, particularly the United States and the United Kingdom, accentuates our anguish and disgust. These governments pride themselves on adherence to the rule of law and yet have so far limited their peacemaking role to PR pressures on Israel to conduct its exorbitant actions in a more discreet manner. Such moves do little more than soften the sharpest edges of Israel’s genocidal behavior in Gaza. At the same time continuing to endorse Israel’s false rationale of self-defense, which is inapplicable in a Belligerent Occupation framework established by the UN in the aftermath of the 1967 War, shielded this brazenly criminal conduct from legal condemnation and political censure at the UN and elsewhere.

We deplore the reality that these governments continue to lend overall support to Israel’s announced intention to pursue its combat goals, which entail the commission of severe war crimes that Tel Aviv does not even bother to deny. These crimes include the resumption of intensive bombing and shelling of civilian targets, as well as reliance on the cruel tactics of forced evacuation, the destruction of hospitals, bombings of refugee camps and UN buildings that are sheltering many thousands of civilians and the destruction of entire residential neighborhoods. In addition, Israel has been green-lighting settler-led violence and escalating ethnic cleansing efforts in the West Bank. Given these developments we urge national governments to embargo and halt all shipments of weapons to Israel, especially the United States and the United Kingdom, which should also withdraw their provocative naval presences from the Eastern Mediterranean; we urge the UN Security Council and General Assembly to so decree without delay.

We also support the Palestinian unconditional right as the indigenous people of the land to give or withhold approval to any proposed solution bearing upon their underlying liberation struggle.

The deteriorating situation poses an extreme humanitarian emergency challenging the UN system to respond with unprecedented urgency. We commend UNICEF for extending desperately needed help to wounded children as well as to children whose parents were killed or seriously injured every continuing effort. We also commend WHO for doing all in its power to help injured Palestinians, especially pregnant women and children, and to insist as effectively as possible on the immediate reconstruction and reopening of hospitals destroyed and damaged by Israeli attacks. We especially commend UNRWA for continuing the sheltering of many thousands of Palestinians in Gaza displaced by the war and for providing other relief in the face of heavy staff casualties from Israeli repeated bombardment of UN buildings. Beyond this, UNESCO should be implored to recognize threats to religious and cultural sites and give its highest priority to their protection against all manner of violation, especially the Masjid al-Aqsa; the Israeli government should be warned about its unconditional legal accountability for protecting these sites.

We also propose that the UN Human Rights Council should act now to establish a high-profile expert commission of inquiry mandated to ascertain the facts and law arising from the Hamas attack and Israel’s military operations in Gaza since October 7, 2023. The commission should offer recommendations in its report pertaining to the responsibility and accountability of principal perpetrators for violations of human rights and humanitarian norms that constitute war crimes and genocide.

We also view the desperation of the situation to engage the responsibility of governments, international institutions, and civil society to act as well as to speak, and use their diplomatic and economic capabilities to the utmost with the objective of bringing the violence in Gaza to an end now!

As signatories of this Declaration, we unequivocally call for an immediate ceasefire and the initiation of diplomatic negotiations under respected and impartial auspices, aimed at terminating Israel’s long and criminally abusive occupation of Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. This process must be fully respectful of the inalienable right to self-determination of the Palestinian people and take proper account of relevant UN resolutions.

SIGN THE PETITION

Declaration of Conscience and Concern of Global Intellectuals on Gaza Genocide

Signatories:

1. Ahmet Davutoğlu, Former Foreign Minister and Prime Minister, Türkiye;
2. Richard Falk, UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Occupied since 1967 (2008-2014), Professor of International Law Emeritus, Princeton University;
3. Dr. Moncef Marzouki, Former President of Tunisia;
4. Mahathir Mohamed, Former Prime Minister of Malaysia;
5. Georges Abi-Saab, Professor Emeritus, Graduate Institute Geneva and Cairo University, Former UN Advisor to the Secretary Generals of the UN; Former Judge of the International Court of Justice, Egypt;
6. Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate (1976), Member of Russell Tribunal, Northern Ireland;
7. Amr Moussa, Former Secretary General of the Arab Leauge, Former Foreign Minister, Member of the UN’s High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change for International Peace and Security, Egypt;
8. M. Javad Zarif, Professor, University of Tehran, Former Foreign Minister, Iran;
9. Hamid Albar, Former Foreign Minister, First Chancellor of the Asia e University, Malaysia;
10. Brigette Mabandla, Former Minister of Justice and anti-Apartheid Activist, South Africa;
11. Judith Butler, Professor, University of California at Berkeley; Feminist Studies, USA;
12. KamalHossein,FormerForeignMinister,Bangladesh;
13. PauloSergia,ProfessorofPoliticalScience(USP)andFormerMinisterofHuman Rights, Brazil;
14. ChrisHedges,Pulitzer-prizeWinningReporterandFormerMiddleEastBureau Chief for The New York Times, USA;
15. TuWeiming,MemberofUNGroupofEminentPersonsfortheDialogueAmong Civilizations, Professor Emeritus, Harvard University, USA; Founding Director of the Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies, Peking University, China;

16. JohnEsposito,ProfessorofInternationalRelationsandtheFoundingDirectorofthe Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University; Member of High Level Group of the UN Alliance of Civilizations, USA;
17. Arundhati Roy, Author of God of Small Things, Human Rights Activist, India;
18. SusanAbulhawa,PalestinianNovelist,AuthorofMorningsinJenin,USA;
19. HansvonSponeck,FormerUNAssistantSecretary-General,FacultyMemberat Conict Research Center, University of Marburg, Germany;
20. Angela Davis, Berkeley, USA;
21. HilalElver,ProfessorofInternationalLaw,UNSpecialRapporteuronRighttoFood (2014-2020), Türkiye;
22. Abdullah Ahsan, Professor of History International Islamic University Malaysia and Istanbul Şehir University, USA;
23. Phyllis Bennis, Journalist, Author and Social Activist, Institute of Policy Studies, USA;
24. Noura Erakat, Activist and Professor, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, Co-founder of Jadalliyah, USA;
25. Jomo Kwame Sundaram, Former UN Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development; Deputy Director UN FAO, Malaysia;
26. Victoria Brittain, Former Foreign Editor of the Guardian, worked closely with anti-Apartheid Movement, Founder of the annual Palestine Festival of Literature, UK;
27. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak FBA, Professor, Columbia University, received Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy 2012, India;
28. Ali Bardakoğlu, Professor of Theology, Former President of Directorate of Religious Affairs, Türkiye;
29. Mustafa Ceric, Grand Mufti Emeritus of Bosnia, President of the World Bosniak Congress, co-recipient UNESCO Felix Houphouet-Bougny Peace Prize, Bosnia and Herzegovina;
30. Maung Zarni, Human Rights Activist, Member of the Board of Advisors of Genocide Watch, Co-founder of Free Burma Coalition, Free Rohingya Coalition and Forces of Renewal Southeast Asia, Myanmar;
31. JosephCamilleri,EmeritusProfessor,LaTrobeUniversity,Co-ConvenerofSHAPE Melbourne, Australia;
32. Mahmood Mamdani, Herbert Lehman Professor of Government Columbia University, Chancellor of Kampala University, Uganda;
33. Dayan Jayatilleka, Former Ambassador to UN (Geneva), France; Journalist, Sri Lanka;

34. Elisabeth Weber, Professor of German Literature and Philosopy, University of Califor-nia at Santa Barbara, Germany/USA;
35. Marjorie Cohn, Dean of the Peoples Academy of International Law, Professor Emerita, Thomas Jefferson School of Law, USA;
36. Jan Oberg, Chairman of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, Sweden;
37. Ramzy Baroud, Author, Academic, Editor of The Palestine Chronicle, Palestine/ USA;
38. Saree Makdisi, Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of California, Author of Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, USA;

39. Roger Leger, Retired Professor of Philosophy at the Military College of Saint-Jean, Québec, Canada;
40. Usman Bugaje, Professor, Former Adviser to the Vice President of Nigeria, Nigeria;
41. ChandraMuzaffar,President,InternationalMovementforaJustWorld(JUST), Malaysia;
42. Avery F. Gordon, Professor Emerita University of California Santa Barbara, USA;
43. Arlene Elizabeth Clemesha, Professor of Contemporary Arab History at the University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil;
44. Ömer Dinçer, Professor, Former Minister of Education, Former President of Şehir University, Türkiye;
45. Fethi Jarray, Former Education Minister, current Chairperson of the National Mechanism on Torture Prevention, Tunisia;
46. Alfred de Zayas, Former UN Independent Expert on the Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order, USA;
47. Walid Joumblatt, Member of Lebanese Parliament, Leader of the Progressive Socialist Party, Lebanon;
48. Elmira Akhmetova, Professor at the Institute of Knowledge Integration in Georgia, Russia;
49. Sami Al-Arian, Professor, Director of Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) at Istanbul Zaim University, Türkiye;
50. George Sabra, Signatory of the Damascus Declaration (2005), Former President of the Syrian National Council, Syria;
51. RayMcGovern,Activist,VeteransforPeace,Supporteroftheanti-wargroupNotin Our Name, USA;
52. Juan Cole, Professor of History, The University of Michigan, Former Editor of The Internatioanl Journal of Middle East Studies, USA;

53. Penny Green, Professor of Law and Globalization, Director, International State Crime Initiative Queen Mary University of London, UK;
54. Bishnupriya Ghosh, Professor of English and Global Studies, UC Santa Barbara, USA/India;
55. Nader Hashemi, Professor, Director of the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University, USA;
56. Ahmed Abbes, Mathematician, Director of Research at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientiques Paris, France, Tunisia;
57. Bhaskar Sarkar, Professor of Film and Media, UC Santa Barbara, USA/India;
58. AkeelBilgrami,ProfessorofPhilosophyatColumbiaUniversity,USA,India;
59. Assaf Kfoury, Mathematician and Professor of Theoretical Computer Science, Boston University, USA;
60. Helena Cobban, Journalist, Author, President of Just World Educational, USA;
61. BilijanaVankovska,ProfessorandHeadoftheGlobalChnagesCenter,Cyriland Mehtodius University, Skopje, Macedonia;
62. David Swanson, Author, Executive Director of World BEYOND War, USA;
63. Radmila Nakarada, Professor, Faculty of Political Science, University of Belgrade; Spokesperson of the Yugoslav Truth and Reconciliation Committee, Serbia;
64. Fredrick S. Heffermehl, Lawyer and Author, Norway;
65. Anis Ahmad, Emeritus Professor and President Riphah International University Islamabad, Pakistan;
66. Lisa Hajjar, Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA;
67. Dr. Sayyid M. Syeed, President Emeritus , Islamic Society of North America, USA;
68. Muhammed al-Ghazzali, Professor, Judge Supreme Court of Pakistan, Pakistan;
69. Syed Azman Syed Ahmad, Former Member of Malaysia Parliament, Chairman of Asia Forum for Peace and Development (AFPAD), Malaysia;
70. Osman Bakar, Al-Ghazali Chair of Epistemology and Civilisational Renewal, International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization, Malaysia;
71. IbrahimMZein,ProfessorofIslamicStudies,QatarFoundation,Qatar;
72. Engin Deniz Akarlı, Professor of History Emeritus, Brown University, Türkiye;
73. Francesco Della Puppa, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice; Italy;
74. Julio da Silveira Moreira, Professor, Federal University of Latin-American Integration, Brazil;

75. Nabeel Rajab, Founder and former president of the Gulf Center for Human Rights; Former Deputy Secretary-General of the International Federation for Human Rights, Recipient of the Ion Ratiu Award for Democracy and Human Rights, Bahrain;
76. Feroz Ahmad, Emeritus Professor of History and Internatiıonal Relations, Harvard University, USA, India;
77. Serap Yazıcı, Professor of Constitutional Law, MP, Turkish Parliament, Türkiye;
78. Natalie Brinham, Genocide and Statelessness Scholar, UK;
79. Ayçin Kantoğlu, Author, Türkiye;
80. Dania Koleilat Khatib, ME Scholar and President of RCCP TrackII Organisation, UAE;
81. Imtiyaz Yusuf, Assoc. Prof. Dr., Non-Resident Research Fellow Center for Contemporary Islamic World (CICW), Shenandoah University, USA/Vietnam;
82. Kamar Oniah Kamuruzaman, Former Professor of Comparative Religion, International Islamic University, Malaysia;
83. Ümit Yardım, Former Ambassador of Türkiye to Tehran, Moscow and Vienna, Türkiye;
84. Ahmet Ali Basic, Professor, University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina;
85. Kani Torun, Former Ambassador of Türkiye to Somalia, Former Head of Doctors Worlwide, Member of Parlament, Türkiye;
86. Ermin Sinanovic, Center for Islam in the Contemporary World at Shenandoah University, USA/ Bosnia and Herzegovina;
87. Nihal Bengisu Karaca, Journalist, Türkiye
88. Alkasum Abba, Emeritus Professor of History, Abuja, Nigeria;
89. Hassan Ahmed Ibrahim, Professor of History and Civilization, Former Dean, Faculty of Arts, University of Khartoum, Sudan;
90. Anwar Alrasheed, Khiam Rehabilitation Center, The victims of Torture (KRC), Representative of the International Council for Fair Trials and Human Rights in the State of Kuwait and the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries, Kuwait;
91. MohdHishamMohdKamal,Assoc.Prof.Dr.,AhmadIbrahimKulliyyahofLaws, Malaysia/ Indonesia;
92. Syed Arabi Bin Syed Abdullah, Former Rector, International Islamic University, Malaysia;
93. Yusuf Ziya Özcan, Former President of Council of Higher Education, Türkiye;
94. Mohamed Jawhar Hassan, Former Chairman and Chief Executive, Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) Malaysia;
95. Shad Faruqi, Professor of Law, University of Malaya, Malaysia;

96. Mohammad Ahmadullah Siddiqi, Professor Emeritus of Journalism and Public Relations, Western Illinois University, Macomb IL USA/India;
97. Mohamed Tarawna, Judge at the Cassation Tribunal, Jordan;
98. Etyen Mahcupyan, Author, Former Chief Advisor to Prime Minister of Türkiye;
99. Khawla Mattar, the Director of the United Nations Information center in Cairo, Former UN Deputy Special Envoy for Syria, Bahrain;
100. Aslam Abdullah, Senior Journalist, USA/India;
101. Stuart Rees, Professor Emeritus, University of Sydney, Australia;
102. Hatem Ete, Academic, Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University, Department of Sociology, Türkiye;
103. Karim Makdisi, Professor of Political Science, American University of Beirut, Lebanon;
104. Camilo Pérez-Bustillo, National Taiwan University, Taiwan;
105. Bridget Anderson, Professor of Migration, Mobilities and Citizenship, University of Bristol, UK;
106. William Spence, Professor of Theoretical Physics, Queen Mary University of London, UK;
107. Mohammad Hashim Kamali, Professor of Law, Founding CEO of the International Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies, Malaysia/Afghanistan;
108. Ferid Muhic, Prof of Philosophy, Krill Metodius University, Macedonia;
109. Frej Fenniche, Former Senior Human Rights Ofcer/UN, OHCHR, Switzerland;
110. Sevinç Alkan Özcan, Associate Professor, International Relations Department, Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University;
111. Sigit Riyanto, Professor, Faculty of Law Universitas, Indonesia;
112. Khaled Khoja, Former President of Syrian National Coalition;
113. Tarık Çelenk, Former Chairman of Ekopolitik, Türkiye;
114. M. Bassam Aisha, Human Rights Expert, Libya;
115. Naceur El-Ke, Academician and Human Rights Activist, Tunisia;
116. Jean-Daniel Biéler, Former Ambassador, Special Advisor, Human Security Division, Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, Switzerland;
117. Fajri Matahati Muhammadin, Faculty of Law, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia;

118. Ahmet Okumuş, Chairman of The Foundation for Sciences and Arts (BİSAV), Türkiye;
119. Khan Yasir, Dr., Director In-Charge, Indian Institute of Islamic Studies and Research, India;
120. Mahmudul Hasan, Md., Professor, International Islamic University Malaysia/ Bangladesh;
121. Tara Reynor O’Grady, General Secretary for Human Rights Sentinel, USA;
122. NurullahArdıç,ProfessorofSociology,IstanbulTechnicalUniversity,Türkiye;
123. PharKimBeng,FounderandCEOofStrategicPan-PacicArena,Malaysia;
124. Dinar Dewi Kania, M.M, .M.Sos, Trisakti Institute of Transportation and Logistics. Jakarta, Indonesia
125. MulyadhiKartanegara,ProfessorofIslamicphilosophyat,UniversitasIslamNegeri Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta, Indonesia;
126. Habib Chirzin, Academic and Human Rights activist, IIIT, Indonesia

__________________________

Richard Falk is a member of the TRANSCEND Network, Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University, Chair of Global Law, Faculty of Law, at Queen Mary University London, Research Associate the Orfalea Center of Global Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Fellow of the Tellus Institute.

25 December 2023

Source: transcend.org

By Edward Curtin

20 Dec 2023 – Jesus was a Palestinian Jew born in Bethlehem.  He grew up in Nazareth and was executed as a criminal in Jerusalem. It is because of him that we celebrate Christmas.  But it is in spite of him that what we celebrate is the opposite of what he stood for.

The different stories of his birth, told by Mathew and Luke in the New Testament, which are the bases for Christmas, are not filled with sugar plum fairies and sleighs filled with useless, unnecessary consumer goods.  There’s nothing about a Jolly Old St. Nicholas or baked ham or candy canes.  No gifts to return in a frenzied rush that replicates their purchase.  No credit card bills that come due in the new year.  No “Jingle Bell Rock” with Brenda Lee or “White Christmas” with Bing Crosby.

Just a poor child’s birth to fulfill a prophecy that out of life would come death and out of death would come life.  That hope was improbable but possible with faith.

These birth narratives, which tell of a nativity that concludes with the grown child’s suffering, public crucifixion, death, and Resurrection – a story that lives on with the suffering of so many innocents – are, as Gary Wills puts it in What the Gospels Meant, “. . . far from feel-good stories.  They tell of a family outcast and exiled, hunted and rejected.  They tell of children killed, of a sword to pierce the mother’s heart, of a judgment on the nations.”  They are stories of rejection, massacre, and a desperate flight from death at an early age.  They are not what most people now consider to be the essence of Christmas since a radical Palestinian Jew’s story has been almost totally erased by the glitz and greed of getting and spending to fuel an economy geared for war and killing.

Mathew and Luke’s birth narratives are replicated again and again throughout history, presently and most conspicuously in Gaza and the West Bank, as the massacre of the innocents continues under today’s King Herod, Benjamin Netanyahu, the client king of Washington, not Rome, while U.S. politicians, including Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who claims to be a defender of children and opposed to U.S. war policies, support this genocide with rhetorical justifications that the Trappist monk Thomas Merton called the unspeakable:

It is the void that contradicts everything that is spoken even before the words are said; the void that gets into the language of public and official declarations at the very moment when they are pronounced, and makes them ring dead with the hollowness of the abyss. It is the void out of which Eichmann drew the punctilious exactitude of his obedience . . .

To the shock of so many of Kennedy’s early supporters, he claims, among other unspeakable assertions, that the Israelis have been the innocent victims of the Palestinians for 75 years, and they “could flatten Gaza” if they chose to, but instead have kindly used high-tech explosives “to avoid civilian casualties”; that they are not committing genocide intentionally. Indeed, his defense of the indefensible Israeli war crimes is widely shared by the compromised political leadership of both parties in Washinton, D.C., a place Kennedy is hoping to reach as the top of the heap, but he is contradicting all his talk about spiritual renewal and healing the divide, and it is especially galling and hypocritical as we try to celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace.

While the genocide of Palestinians is being documented every ongoing day now, the Gospel stories are different in that they were written after the fact and were not based on eyewitness testimony but are narratives of deep symbolic faith significance, historically wrong in places, but told to signify religious truths of the early Christian faith community.

Once there was a mother and father with their child on the run to safety in Egypt; today there are millions of Palestinian refugees on a bombed-out unarmed road of flight to nowhere but a dead-end.

A few days ago my wife and I were caring for our son’s two dogs.  Down the hill as night came on, the town set off fireworks – those bombs bursting in air (Oh how lovely is war!) – to celebrate and encourage people to buy holiday gifts, what can only fairly be described as acquisitive consumer madness that many realize yet have accepted as an essential part of the Christmas message.  As the fireworks exploded loudly, the dogs started to quake uncontrollably and we had to hold them tight to comfort them.

Yes, they are animals, but sentient animals with deep feelings; and yes, they are not children in Gaza quivering in fear as the Israelis bomb them night and day in savage attacks.  But as we held those frightened dogs, feeling their hearts beat fast as they gasped for breath, the visceral sense of what those Palestinians must be feeling, as they hold their trembling children who are butchered as useless objects, overwhelmed me.  As they are “thinned out,” as Netanyahu is reported to have said, I felt sick at heart to be living safely in a country that finances and supports such slaughter.  A country in which buying and selling is the real religion, people have become commodities, and Christmas has become the celebration of such grotesqueries.

I keep thinking of the difference between human beings and things; life and death; money and power; acquisitiveness and poverty; and, as Norman O. Brown puts it in Life Against Death, “an economy driven by a pure sense of guilt, unmitigated by any sense of redemption.”

In his classic study, Brown makes clear that it is erroneous to think that the secular and the sacred are exclusive opposites, as if the secular has replaced the “irrational” beliefs of religion with clean science and logical thinking; has banished irrational superstitions with abstract, objective, quantitative, and impersonal thinking.  On the contrary, he argues that the whole modern secular money complex – the spirit of capitalism – is rooted in the psychology of guilt and the secular sacred.  He writes:

The psychological realities here are best grasped in terms of theology, and were already grasped by Luther. Modern secularism, and its companion Protestantism, do not usher in an era in which human consciousness is liberated from supernatural manifestations; the essence of the Protestant (or capitalist) era is that the power over this world has passed from God to God’s negation, God’s ape, the Devil. And already Luther had seen in money the essence of the secular, and therefore of the demonic. The money complex is the demonic, and the demonic is God’s ape; the money complex is therefore the heir to and substitute for the religious complex, an attempt to find God in things.

Things, just like money, beyond a certain minimum necessary for a simple life of use, do not, as everyone knows, bring happiness.  This is because they are dead – excrement – the Devil’s favorite toy.

Take all those useless and superfluous objects people exchange during the holiday season.  The disposable gifts that are purchased to ease the guilt of giving and receiving.  Or such “objects” as an autograph of a famous person, an art work such as Andy Warhol’s Shot Sage Blue Marilyn that sold at auction last year for $195 million, Babe Ruth’s bat, Princess Diana’s evening dress ($1,148 million at auction), antlers over a fireplace and trophies of all sorts – the examples are manifold – they serve to confer on their owners a sacred prestige (etymology = deception, illusion) that is pure magic.  Like vast piles of money, they are talismanic protectors against death.  Their magical properties are irrational and rarely acknowledged, for to do so would reveal the absurdity of their acquisition and the pathetic nihilistic core of their owners.  They are outward signs of inward barrenness, yet for those who possess these useless objects they are magic ordure.

The more expensive the objects the more social power they mystically confer, since the message is that the owner can always give it up for a pot of gold but doesn’t have to since they are sitting on a lot more gold, which is really a pot of shit.  In other words, wealth, its possession and the avid desire for it, signifies power over people and that power includes using them in many ways, including their labor, and killing them if one chooses, quickly or slowly, overtly or deviously, directly or indirectly, for some people are useless objects, inferior people.

Such power is central to politics and warfare, as a quick glance at the wealth of war-promoting politicians will reveal.

It is central to the widespread thinking today that the world is filled with useless people who must be disposed of one way or the other.

It is a fundamental tenet of the World Economic Forum, the Gates-Rockefeller et al. crowd, and the racist eugenics promoters today and yesterday.

It is behind the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) biological weapons gain-of-function research, the Covid-19 propaganda, and the CIA’s and Defense Department’s distribution of the mRNA countermeasures (“vaccines”).

It is central to the hideously obscene profits of the medical military-industrial complex and the world-wide arms industry.

It is central to the genocide taking place in Gaza.  For the Israeli rulers, the problem is that the Palestinians exist, so they must be exterminated.

It’s still the same old story told differently down through the ages.

Hitler enacted it against the Jews.

Once long ago, it was a Palestinian Jewish boy born in a manger destined to make trouble for the rulers of the empire who had to be eliminated one way or another.  Today that child of God is any Palestinian child, destined, we are told by the rulers of Israel, to grow into a terrorist animal.

Christmas is about a birth, the birth of a boy who would become a man who sided with the outcasts, the poor, the forsaken, the gentle, and the peacemakers.  His birth and life was a rebuke to the powerful and the rich who lord it over the innocent, the killers, those who profit at the expense of others, who amass wealth and useless possessions to parade their power, a show of power which, unknown to their self-obsessed minds, is a sign of their spiritual nullity.

I have nothing against Santa.  I once sat on his lap and he seemed nice to my four year-old mind.  He was fat and jolly.  He told me I would get what I wanted for Christmas.  But he forgot to tell me what Christmas was really about.

That is what I want.  To remember.

Edward Curtin, Ph.D. is a widely published author and a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment.

25 December 2023

Source: transcend.org

By Anwar Fazal

Last Saturday, I gave a keynote address and declared open a Tribal Art Exhibition at the Wawasan Open University in Penang,Malaysia,and drew the attention of the audience to the mostly unknown UNITED NATIONS DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES.

The Declaration provided the world with a framework for reconciliation,healing and peace as well as harmony and cooperation based on the principles of justice, democracy, respect for human rights,non-discrimination and good faith!

It was finally adopted on 23 September 2007 , 16 years ago, after two decades ,I repeat ,two long decades of negotiations.

Not well known is the shocking fact that 4 countries (in alphabetical order)- AUSTRALIA, CANADA , NEW ZEALAND and the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.. opposed the Declaration. Shockingly also, a dozen other countries of mostly ex colonial powers even abstained!

HYPOCRISY AT ITS WORST!

Over the next few years, however,feeling the shame and the pressure of people with conscience most of them acceded to the Declaration.

SADLY ,AND UNCONSCIONABLY,HYPOCRISY AT IT WORST CONTINUES WITH THE MASSACRE AND GENOCIDE OF PALESTINEANS

We have to keep on fighting these evil forces.

We must never give up.

Anwar Fazal, Penang, Malaysia, Right Livelihood Awardee (popularly known as the ” Alternative Nobel Prize’

25 December 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr Binoy Kampmark

Julian Assange’s wife, Stella, is rarely one to be cryptic. “Day X is here,” she posted on the platform formerly known as Twitter.  For those who have followed her remarks, her speeches, and her activism, it was sharply clear what this meant.  “It may be the final chance for the UK to stop Julian’s extradition.  Gather outside the court at 8.30am on both days. It’s now or never.”

Between February 20 and 21 next year, the High Court will hear what WikiLeaks claims may be “the final chance for Julian Assange to prevent his extradition to the United States.”  (This is qualified by the prospect of an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.)  Were that to take place, the organisation’s founder faces 18 charges, 17 of which are stealthily cobbled from the aged and oppressive US Espionage Act of 1917.  Estimates of any subsequent sentence vary, the worst being 175 years.

The WikiLeaks founder remains jailed at His Majesty’s pleasure at Belmarsh prison, only reserved for the most hardened of criminals.  It’s a true statement of both British and US justice that Assange has yet to face trial, incarcerated, without bail, for four-and-a-half years.  That trial, were it to ever be allowed to take place, would employ a scandalous legal theory that will spell doom to all those who dive and dabble in the world of publishing national security information.

Fundamentally, and irrefutably, the case against Assange remains political in its muscularity, with a gangster’s legality papered over it.  As Stella herself makes clear, “With the myriad of evidence that has come to light since the original hearing in 2018, such as the violation of legal privilege and reports that senior US officials are involved in formulating assassination plots against my husband, there is no denying that a fair trial, let alone Julian’s safety on US soil, is an impossibility were he to be extradited.”

In mid-2022, Assange’s legal team attempted a two-pronged attempt to overturn the decision of Home Office Secretary Priti Patel to approve Assange’s extradition while also broadening the appeal against grounds made in the original January 4, 2021 reasons of District Judge Vanessa Baraitser.

The former, among other matters, took issue with the acceptance by the Home Office that the extradition was not for a political offence and therefore prohibited by Article 4 of the UK-US Extradition Treaty.  The defence team stressed the importance of due process, enshrined in British law since the Magna Carta of 2015, and also took issue with Patel’s acceptance of “special arrangements” with the US government regarding the introduction of charges for the facts alleged which might carry the death penalty, criminal contempt proceedings, and such specialty arrangements that might protect Assange “against being dealt with for conduct outside the extradition request”.  History shows that such “special arrangements” can be easily, and arbitrarily abrogated.

On June 30, 2022 came the appeal against Baraitser’s original reasons.  While Baraitser blocked the extradition to the US, she only did so on grounds of oppression occasioned by mental health grounds and the risk posed to Assange were he to find himself in the US prison system.  The US government got around this impediment by making breezy promises to the effect that Assange would not be subject to oppressive, suicide-inducing conditions, or face the death penalty.  A feeble, meaningless undertaking was also made suggesting that he might serve the balance of his term in Australia – subject to approval, naturally.

What this left Assange’s legal team was a decision otherwise hostile to publishing, free speech and the activities that had been undertaken by WikiLeaks.  The appeal accordingly sought to address this, claiming, among other things, that Baraitser had erred in assuming that the extradition was not “unjust and oppressive by reason of the lapse of time”; that it would not be in breach of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (inhuman and degrading treatment)”; that it did not breach Article 10 of ECHR, namely the right to freedom of expression; and that it did not breach Article 7 of the ECHR (novel and unforeseeable extension of the law).

Other glaring defects in Baraitser’s judgment are also worth noting, namely her failure to acknowledge the misrepresentation of facts advanced by the US government and the “ulterior political motives” streaking the prosecution.  The onerous and much thicker second superseding indictment was also thrown at Assange at short notice before the extradition hearing of September 2020, suggesting that those grounds be excised “for reasons of procedural fairness.”

An agonising wait of some twelve months followed, only to yield an outrageously brief decision on June 6 from High Court justice Jonathan Swift (satirists, reach for your pens and laptops). Swift, much favoured by the Defence and Home Secretaries when a practising barrister, told Counsel Magazine in a 2018 interview that his “favourite clients were the security and intelligence agencies”.  Why? “They take preparation and evidence-gathering seriously: a real commitment to getting things right.”  Good grief.

In such a cosmically unattached world, Swift only took three pages to reject the appeal’s arguments in a fit of premature adjudication.  “An appeal under the Extradition Act 2003,” he wrote with icy finality, “is not an opportunity for general rehearsal of all matters canvassed at an extradition hearing.”  The appeal’s length – some 100 pages – was “extraordinary” and came “to no more than an attempt to re-run the extensive arguments made and rejected by the District Judge.”

Thankfully, Swift’s finality proved stillborn.  Some doubts existed whether the High Court appellate bench would even grant the hearing.  They did, though requesting that Assange’s defence team trim the appeal to 20 pages.

How much of this is procedural theatre and circus judge antics remains to be seen.  Anglo-American justice has done wonders in soiling itself in its treatment of Britain’s most notable political prisoner.  Keeping Assange in the UK in hideous conditions of confinement without bail serves the goals of Washington, albeit vicariously.  For Assange, time is the enemy, and each legal brief, appeal and hearing simply weighs the ledger further against his ailing existence.

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

22 December 2023

Source: countercurrents.org