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By Countercurrents Collective

The world’s richest people got even richer over the past year, Bloomberg’s top-500 billionaire list, published on Wednesday, shows. Some 77% of the billionaires who made it on the list saw their fortunes grow even larger, while others experienced certain losses.

Elon Musk remains at the top, with an estimated net worth of $235 billion. The South African-born billionaire first dislodged Amazon owner Jeff Bezos from the pedestal in mid-2021, retaining first place ever since.

This year, Musk saw his fortune grow by nearly $98 billion, according to Bloomberg. While his social media platform X, formerly Twitter, has been in turmoil, locked into back-and-forth with advertisers and battered by various scandals, Musk’s flagship asset, Tesla, has enjoyed steady growth, further solidifying his position.

Bezos himself is currently in third place with $178 billion, narrowly outmatched by Bernard Arnault, the CEO of the LVMH (Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton), whose wealth grew to some $179 billion this year.

Musk’s arch-rival and Meta owner, Mark Zuckerberg, enjoyed the second-largest absolute growth in wealth this year, with his net worth surging by nearly $83 billion. The two have long engaged in an open public rivalry and even planned to stage a fighting match, but the idea was ultimately scrapped. The growth, enabled by surging shares of his social media empire after the 2022 collapse, put Zuckerberg in sixth place with $128 billion.

Among the top-15, in fact, only a single billionaire saw his fortune shrink. Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, the chairman of the Adani Group, saw his net worth decrease by a massive $36.3 billion to some $84.3 billion, with the development putting him out of the top-10 list.

The massive loss – which actually became the largest one in absolute terms this year – was prompted by a large scandal around Andani’s empire, which erupted early this year. Namely, the businessman was accused of “pulling the largest con in corporate history” and “brazen stock manipulation.” The company, however, has firmly denied all the allegations.

Mark Zuckerberg Building Doomsday Bunker

Another media report said:

Billionaire Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly started work on a $100 million family compound in Hawaii that will include a 5,000-square-foot underground bunker featuring an escape hatch and a tunnel leading to two connecting mansions.

The project is located on the Hawaiian island of Kauai and is so secretive that carpenters, electricians and other contractors are muzzled by nondisclosure agreements, according to a report this week by U.S. media outlet Wired. “It is fight club, we do not talk about fight club,” one former employee told Wired. “Anything posted from here, they get wind of it right away.”

The compound stretches across about 1,400 acres, on land that Zuckerberg began buying in August 2014. A spokeswoman for the billionaire told Wired that he and his wife, Priscilla Chan, spent $170 million to purchase the property, which they view as their family home.

Known as Koolau Ranch, the compound reportedly produces its own energy and water supplies, and onsite ranching and farming can provide the food. The property will include more than a dozen buildings with at least 30 bedrooms and 30 bathrooms combined, said Wired, citing property records and interviews with unidentified contractors.

Two mansions at the center of the compound will total about 57,000 square feet of living space, and 11 disk-shaped treehouses will be connected by rope bridges. The property will be dotted with guest houses and will include a large building with a gym, pools, sauna, hot tub and tennis court.

The bunker will have living space, a mechanical room and a metal door filled with concrete. Many of the compound’s doors will be soundproofed and operated by keypads. Some of the passages, such as a “blind” door in the library, will be designed to resemble walls. Dozens of cameras will be stationed around the property. Just one small operations building will have more than 20 cameras.

Wired based its $100 million cost estimate on building permits, saying the actual figure will likely be higher. “The cost rivals that of the largest private, personal construction projects in human history,” the outlet said.

A six-foot wall reportedly blocks views of the property, as well as the ocean, from a road fronting the compound. Security guards are stationed at the entrance gate and patrol the nearby beaches on all-terrain vehicles.

28 December 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Jim Miles

The tree lights shine, the decorations sparkle, the delicious smells of baked goods and roasting food fills the room.  The evening of Christmas Day, the presents are all unwrapped and momentarily coveted, the family has now gone home.  Outside all is calm, bright with the coloured lights of Christmas.   But I feel no joy, perhaps the satisfaction of seeing my family safe and far from the agonies that are destroying other parts of the world, but no joy, nothing festive.

I turn on the computer and review the geopolitical news of the day, and not even for one day is there peace in the land that is holy to three of the world’s major religions.  My stomach knots, my nerves tighten as I read and see the massacres of the people of Gaza, the women and children struck down by the maniacal violence of Israel, the United States, indeed the ‘western’ world.  They have no warm homes, no solid meals, nothing but piles of rubble, the immediate grief of lost family members, and the never ending threat of destruction falling from the skies.

As part of this world I am ashamed…but no, ashamed is not the right word, more of a cold anger against the perpetrators of such violence, the politicians, manufacturers, and financiers who support mass destruction, genocide, death, and ethnic cleansing for their own profit and power.  It goes beyond words yet words at the moment are all I have.

I usually try to abstract myself from the situation I am writing about, to be factual, observant, and while I advocate, I try to do so using the reasoning of history and international laws.  That is beyond me at the moment, partly because there are – fortunately – many others reporting on the unfolding disasters against humanity in the Middle East, not just Gaza, but throughout the West Bank, up into Lebanon, and out onto the Mediterranean Sea and Red Sea and beyond.   It is beyond me, mainly because what is happening is so stunning against my core beliefs about the common sensibilities of people wanting to live essentially simple lives in peace and harmony with their families, friends, and community.

History does not bode well for thoughts of peace:  the Versailles Peace of 1919 was a disaster setting the stage by way of the Balfour Letter and the British Palestine Mandate for today’s problems;  the end of World War II, the last battle of World War I,  did not bring global peace but a falsely constructed military struggle against a falsely perceived enemy creating wars around the world; and the settlement of the Jewish people because of Europe’s – mostly Britain’s – history of neocolonialism set the stage for today’s genocidal massacres.  Peace under these conditions has only come about from the slaughter of hundreds of millions of people.

Amazingly, the Israelis do not seem to care that their slaughter is taking place under the global scrutiny of modern media.  They defy the world blatantly and openly, daring the world to do something, knowing that the political powers that be are either too weak – vis a vis their own people’s anger at them – or are very much on their side while exposing the double standards and hypocrisy of nations claiming morality but demonstrating only criminality and violence against humanity.

I watch, I listen, I wait – hoping that somewhere, somehow, someone in power with enough humane sanity left, stands up and says enough…yet knowing there are only a few people in the world with that power, and they appear to be applying the throttle to the momentum of war.   The lies, the manipulations, the self-satisfied morality of a chosen people, of an indispensable nation, both carrying nuclear weapons as backups to the madness of their militarily saturated egos and desires makes it difficult to feel other than an underlying anger at the society that engenders them.

I sit, not comforted by my own ease, but very ill at ease with the daily recurrence of the genocide that I know is in part perpetuated by my own government.   I can speak out for peace – wondering at the same time if my speaking is having any effect – perhaps as it joins in with hundreds, thousands, of other voices.  A peace not just the cessation of hostilities for a momentary prisoner exchange, nor a truce allowing both sides time to re-arm and re-equip themselves, but a peace that will allow all the people of the Middle East – and the world beyond – to live together in harmony, sharing their cultures and creating a full community beyond the narrow confines of militaristic power authorized by some strange false narrative of supremacy.

Jim Miles is a Canadian educator

28 December 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Phil Pasquini

To commemorate the deaths of 100 journalists and media workers along with over 20,000 Gazans who have been murdered by the Israeli military with weapons supplied by the US, an action calling attention to the ongoing genocide along with the targeted killings of journalists took place in San Francisco. Outside of the Chronicle newspaper building journalists, media workers and supporters of journalism gathered to demand a permanent ceasefire now and an end to all US aid to Israel.

The commemoration was organized by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) Palestine Solidarity Campaign saying “the Israeli government has, since the beginning of the war in Gaza, continued its organized attack and murder of journalists as part of the efforts of the Israeli forces to stop the documentation and recording of their war crimes and the genocidal slaughter.” The union “strongly condemns the killing of journalists in Gaza, Israel and from Lebanon and calls on all parties to ensure the safety of journalists in the region to work without threat or interference.”

Comments made by Benny Gantz, a minister in the Israeli government and former defense minister, who compared journalists to “terrorists” was condemned by the union by noting “Journalism is not terrorism, and covering violence is not the same thing as condoning it. Journalists document tragedy as it unfolds and shine a light on a dark world. Our job is to seek truth and report it, especially during a war.”

The members of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign have called on their Executive Council to stand with Palestine demanding, “Our union must stand on the right side of history. Our union must pressure the U.S. government to stop funding and supporting Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians. The billions spent on weapons and war should instead be put towards life-affirming systems such as healthcare, education, and infrastructure that benefits the working class.”

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign is also calling upon the union to honor the foundational commitment outlined in its constitution: “To raise the standards of journalism and ethics of the industry; to foster friendly cooperation with all workers. Living up to those words requires nothing less than demanding a ceasefire and an end to our government’s aid to Israel.”

Speaking to those gathered, union activist Steve Zeltzer spoke to the subject by saying “Not only have the journalists been killed, but their families have been killed by Israeli forces as they have actually bombed their homes in Gaza.” After posing the question of why so many journalists are being killed in Gaza, Zeltzer answered “The reason is that Israel does not want what they are doing in Gaza to get out. We believe that the labor movement and CWA International need to take a strong stand along with that of the United Auto Workers (UAW) and the American Postal workers Union who have already taken a strong stand against US support for Israeli’s war. The bombs, the bullets that are killing Palestinian journalists are coming from US weapons which our tax dollars pay for. That is a war crime and why are we paying for war crimes?’

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has characterized the war in Gaza on journalists and media workers, killed, injured, or missing “as the deadliest for journalists since they began gathering data in 1992.” Journalism is a dangerous profession and those who are willing to put their lives on the line to report from war zones are heroes in every sense of the word. All journalists deserve respect and support as they report on issues and conditions so the public in turn can be informed with relevant factual information and news about their communities and the world, to better understand for themselves the circumstances affecting their lives. Only demagogs and dictators fear the public being thus informed and are afraid to allow for the free exchange of information and ideas between journalists and the public, knowing full well that knowledge and Information is power.

Zeltzer went on to note that it’s not just journalists in Gaza who are being attacked but that here in the US journalists and media workers who support a ceasefire have been singled out, sanctioned and retaliated against to which the Palestine Solidarity Campaign has declared that “We defend their democratic rights and the rights of all journalists here and abroad.”

He went on to explain how several journalists at the LA Times “…who signed a statement for a ceasefire as a result of which the LA Times said they could no longer cover wars in the Middle East.” He pointed out how management at the paper has taken a position on a ceasefire in a November 16^th editorial titled “Cease-fire now. The killing in Gaza must stop” in part saying that “It is time for a cease-fire. It is time for the Biden administration to assert strong and sustained pressure on the government of Benjamin Netanyahu to stop attacks that have reportedly already killed more than 11,000 Gazans. The world cannot stand by to witness more slaughter of civilians.” Evidently, as Zeltzer pointed out, while “Management can take a position on a ceasefire, workers at the newspaper cannot take a position.”

“We believe that journalists in the newspaper industry have a right to take sides, to take a position.” He noted, too, while standing under the watchful eye of the building’s security cameras and by the private security officers observing the protest, that the San Francisco Chronicle has banned journalists from marching on May Day and on Women’s Day” so this type of suppression on free speech is industry wide. He closed by declaring that “Journalists have a right to have their own voices.”

Phil Pasquini is a freelance journalist and photographer. His reports and photographs appear in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Pakistan Link and Nuze.ink.

28 December 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Andre Damon

On Wednesday, Gaza’s Government Media Office reported that the number of Gazans killed has hit 28,110, including 21,110 bodies identified at hospitals and approximately 7,000 additional people missing, most buried under the rubble.

In a separate report, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reported, “The majority of those killed in the Israeli air and artillery attacks on the Gaza Strip were civilians, including 11,422 children, and 5,822 women.”

The organization asserted, “Israel has deliberately targeted civilian infrastructure in order to cause as many casualties, material losses, and destruction as possible … as a form of retaliation and collective punishment.”

The organization concluded, “This is against international humanitarian law and the 1949 Geneva Convention, and amounts to war crimes according to the Rome Statute, which governs the International Criminal Court.” It added, “Israel has flagrantly broken the terms of international humanitarian law, which forbids property damage as a ‘preventive means’ and property destruction as a means of deterrence, even for military purposes.”

In its own report, the Gaza Government Media Office asserted that 310 medical personnel and 97 journalists have been killed. It reported that 65,000 residential units have been completely destroyed, with another 290,000 damaged. The government media office reported that Israel has “targeted more than 23 hospitals, 53 health centres, 140 health facilities, and 102 ambulances.”

In a separate report, Gaza’s education ministry said that over 4,037 students and 209 educational staff have been killed since the start of Israel’s attack on Gaza. It added that more than 7,259 students and 619 teachers were injured since October 7.

On Wednesday, more than 30 people were killed after Israel bombed a building near the al-Amal Hospital. In its daily report on the genocide, the United Nations asserted, “On 27 December, heavy Israeli bombardment from air, land, and sea, continued across most of the Gaza Strip. In the north, Gaza City and Jabalya were most affected; in the Middle Area, hostilities continued in the four refugee camps—Al Bureij, An Nuseirat, Deir Al Balah and Al Maghazi. Simultaneously, Israeli forces struck multiple targets in the southern cities of Khan Yunis and Rafah.”

As the death toll soars, Israeli politicians are openly advocating the ethnic cleansing of Gaza through the forcible displacement of the entire Palestinian population.

On Wednesday, Avigdor Liberman, a member of Israel’s parliament who previously served as defense minister, became the latest Israeli politician to openly advocate the ethnic cleansing of Gaza through the displacement of the population into the Sinai Desert. Liberman called on the Israeli military to “tear down the fences” between Gaza and Egypt. He continued, “As soon as there is no obstacle there, I estimate one-and-a-half million Gazans will leave for Sinai and we will not disturb anyone.”

This echoed a statement in parliament Monday by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu , who declared, “Regarding voluntary immigration … we are working on it. This is the direction we are going in.”

Earlier this month, Liberman published an op-ed in the Times of Israel entitled “Innocents in Gaza? Don’t be naïve,” in which he called for collective punishment against the entire civilian population of Gaza.

As the ferocity of the genocide increases, Israel is making preparations to massively expand the war throughout the Middle East.

Earlier this week, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant claimed that Israel is at “war” with multiple countries. “We are in a multi-front war. We are being attacked from seven fronts—Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), Iraq, Yemen and Iran,” he said. “We have already responded and acted on six of those fronts,” in a clear threat to Iran.

On Wednesday, Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz threatened Lebanon at a press conference, declaring, “The situation on Israel’s northern border demands change. The stopwatch for a diplomatic solution is running out. If the world and Lebanese government don’t act in order to prevent the firing on Israel’s northern residents, and to distance Hezbollah from the border, the [Israeli military] will do it.” He concluded, “the war will continue and expand.”

The United States, which is funding and arming the genocide, is coordinating its own military escalation in the Middle East with that of Israel. On Christmas Day, the US military carried out attacks on three locations in Iraq, targeting what it called Iranian proxy forces.

In a letter to Congress on Wednesday, US President Joe Biden wrote, “On the night of December 25, 2023, at my direction, United States forces conducted discrete strikes against three facilities in Iraq used by Iran-affiliated groups for training, logistics support, and other purposes… The strikes were intended to degrade and disrupt the ongoing series of attacks against the United States and our partners, and to deter Iran and Iran-backed militia groups from conducting or supporting further attacks on United States personnel and facilities.”

Biden threatened, “The United States stands ready to take further action, as necessary and appropriate, to address further threats or attacks.”

With every passing day, it is becoming clear that the Israeli-US genocide and ethnic cleansing of the population of Gaza is a critical component of a major new military offensive being carried out by the imperialist powers in the Middle East. With the new year just days away, the imperialist powers are seeking to make 2024 another year of endless war and military barbarism.

Originally published in WSWS.ORG

28 December 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Countercurrents Collective

Citing U.S. and Saudi officials the New York Times reported:

Saudi Arabia has no interest in taking part in the new U.S.-led coalition to safeguard commercial traffic in the Red Sea from Houthi attacks, prioritizing domestic security and economic development instead,.

The kingdom views the prospect of peace on its southern border “a more appealing goal” compared to joining any naval action after eight years of war with the rebel movement that drained Saudi coffers and helped drive Yemen into one of the world’s most acute humanitarian crises, the newspaper reported on Monday.

Yemen has been engulfed in an armed conflict between the government forces and the Houthi rebels since 2014. The situation exacerbated in March 2015, when the Saudi-led coalition, working in cooperation with the internationally-recognized Yemeni government, began conducting air, land and sea operations against the Houthis. The latter have retaliated by attacking Saudi forces and firing missiles into Saudi Arabia.

After the armed conflict between Israel and Palestinian movement Hamas escalated in October, the Houthis have intensified their attacks on cargo ships linked to Israel in the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea, vowing to continue them until Israel ends its military actions in the Gaza Strip.

Last week, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced the establishment of a multinational operation to secure the Red Sea amid the surge in Houthis’ attacks on cargo ships, saying that the UK, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, the Seychelles, and Spain would take part in the mission. The Houthis, for their part, vowed to attack any ships that join the US-led maritime coalition.

U.S.-led Red Sea Coalition

The U.S. has initiated Operation Prosperity Guardian, a multinational naval coalition to protect Red Sea commercial traffic from Houthi attacks. As of now, over 20 countries are on board.
The nascent U.S.-led coalition has already run into difficulties, with some allies committing just handfuls of ship-less seamen, and others deciding to sit out the U.S. military adventure altogether, preferring any naval assets they have in the region to go it alone.

The U.S.-led coalition comprises 20+ countries, including the UK, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles, Spain, Greece, and Australia.

Britain’s HMS Diamond is on board, operating as part of the U.S.-led Combined Maritime Forces.
Some participating countries, including at least eight, prefer not to be publicly named.

France supports navigation security, but will keep its ships under French command.

Italy is sending the frigate Virginio Fasan, but insists it is part of existing operations, not Prosperity Guardian.

Spain is opting for NATO-led or EU-coordinated missions, declining unilateral participation in Red Sea operations.

In the wake of the Israel-Hamas conflict that erupted on October 7, the Houthis, an armed group representing Yemen’s Shia Muslim minority, the Zaidis, have initiated a series of attacks in the Red Sea targeting ships heading towards Israel. Controlling a significant portion of Yemen, the Houthis declared solidarity with Hamas and announced their intention to target any ship heading towards Israel.

U.S. ‘Trapped’ In Red Sea, Should Prepare For Gibraltar Strait’s ‘Closure’, Says IRGC

The U.S. and its allies are “trapped” in the Red Sea and should prepare for the closure of waterways stretching all the way to the western gates of the Mediterranean Sea, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Chief of Staff Mohammad Reza Naqdi has warned.

“With the continuation of the crimes [in Gaza], the United States and its allies should await the birth of new powers of resistance and the closure of the rest of the waterways and roads to them,” Naqdi said at a ceremony commemorating Hasan Irlu, a late IRGC commander and former Iranian ambassador to Yemen.

“The Zionist regime and the United States have gone mad due to the severity of the crimes and brutality they have committed, and they cannot even recognize their own interests,” Naqdi suggested, saying the two powers seem incapable of “learning from past events.”

Naqdi did not elaborate on what kinds of operations specifically may be taken to close regional waterways to US forces and their allies. However, U.S. media and news agencies immediately interpreted the commander’s words as an explicitly Iranian “threat” to “close the Mediterranean.”

The Biden administration Friday accused Iran of being “deeply involved in planning the operations against commercial vessels in the Red Sea” as part of a “long-term material support and encouragement of the Houthis’ destabilizing actions in the region.”

Iran has been open about its political and moral sympathies for and support for the Houthis, but has consistently denied many years of claims by US officials of the provision of material or military support to the Yemeni militia since its rise to power over much of the country in late 2014.

The Houthis are often mentioned by Iranian leaders and commentators as members of the Axis of Resistance, a loose, informal and unofficial political and military coalition opposed to Israel and American imperialism in the Middle East. Syria, Hezbollah, and Palestinian militias in Gaza are also typically listed as members of the informal grouping.

Naqdi’s remarks come against the background of growing tensions in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden as the US works to assemble a multinational coalition consisting mostly of NATO nations to try to secure the waterways after a month of Houthi hijackings and missile attacks against Israeli-owned commercial ships, as well as vessels thought to be heading to or from the Jewish State. The attacks have had a severe impact on Israel’s southern ports, and have prompted a handful of powerful international shipping concerns to stop the transit of any commercial cargoes through the Red Sea.

27 December 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr Binoy Kampmark

The Bank of Israel Governor Amir Yaron is worried.  He is keeping an eye on the ballooning costs of his country’s war against Gaza and the Palestinians.  Initially, the Netanyahu government promised to increase its defence budget by NIS 20 billion (US$5.48 billion) per annum in the aftermath of the war.  But a document from the Finance Ministry presented to the Knesset Finance Committee on December 25 suggests that the number is NIS 10 billion greater.

The Finance Ministry is also projecting that the war against Hamas will cost the country’s budget somewhere in the order of NIS 50 billion (US$13.8 billion).  NIS 9.6 billion will go towards such expenses as evacuating residents close to the borders of the country’s north and south, buttressing emergency forces and rehabilitation purposes.

The increased military budget is predictable and in keeping with the proclivities of the Israeli state.  What is striking is that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has regarded Israeli defence expenditure as generally inadequate when looked at as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP).  Between 2012 and 2022, military expenditure as a percentage of GDP fell from 5.64% to 4.51%.   Doing so enables him to have two bites at the same rotten cherry: to claim he was blameless for that very decline in military expenditure, and to show that he intends to rectify a problem he was hardly blameless for.

Even in war time, Netanyahu is proving oleaginous in his policy making.  The mid-December supplementary budget for 2023, coming in at NIS 28.9 billion, was intended to cover the ongoing conflict with Hamas and Hezbollah.  But its approval was hardly universal.  Opponents of the budget noted the allocation of hundreds of millions of shekels towards “coalition funds” intended for non-war related projects relevant to parliamentarians and ministers.  Benny Gantz’s National Unity party, a coalition partner, would have nothing to do with it.  Intelligence minister Gila Gamliel was absent from the vote, while Yuli Edelstein of Netanyahu’s own Likud Party abstained.  Opposition leader Yair Lapid pointed the finger at the rising budget deficit.

On December 18, Yaron gave vent to some of his concerns.  “During this period, more than at any other time, and as investors, rating agencies, financial markets and the public as a whole are carefully examining policymaking in Israel, it is necessary to manage economic policy – fiscal and monetary – with great responsibility.”

Body counts interest Yaron less than budget figures and reputational damage in the markets, though killing Palestinians is proving an expensive business.  “The government will have to find the right balance between financing war expenses and the expected increase in the defence budget and the need to continue investing in other civilian budgets, which are already low, in particular in growth engines such as infrastructure and education.”

Yaron has every reason to assume that costs will continue to balloon.  For one thing, Netanyahu’s idea of peace in the current conflict reads like a blueprint for ongoing, lengthy massacre, accompanied by permanent mass incarceration: the destruction of Hamas itself, the demilitarisation of Gaza and a Palestinian society free of radical elements.  This is a nightmare to both humanitarians and the belt-tighteners in the Finance Ministry.

Notably, the plan says nothing about Palestinian statehood, which, in the scheme of Israel’s aims, has been euthanised.  Gaza, the designated monstrosity Israel nourished as a supposedly useful tool to keep Palestinian ambitions in check, is to be turned into a prison entity that seems awfully much like it was prior to the October 7 attacks by Hamas.  (The cruel, in such cases, lack imagination.)

A “temporary security zone on the perimeter of Gaza and an inspection mechanism on the border between Gaza and Egypt” will be established in accordance with “Israel’s security needs”.  The zone will also serve to prevent “smuggling of weapons into the territory”, which sounds much like the original blockade, lasting 14 years, that was meant to achieve the same purpose.

The Israeli PM is, however, promising that the destruction of Hamas will take place “in full compliance with international law”, begging the question what sort of international law he is consulting.  Given various official statements from Netanyahu’s cabinet and the Israeli Defence Forces, it must be either a law of jungle provenance or one applicable to animal kind.  That same standard of legal analysis has permitted the generously expansive massacre of over 20,000 Palestinians, a staggering number of them children, the ongoing flattening of Gaza, and the utter destruction of critical infrastructure.

Given that Israeli law, alongside military and administrative policy, does nothing other than encourage the radicalisation of Palestinians and the fertilising of the Jihadist soil, this is charmingly delusionary.  The current war will simply prove to be the same as previous ones, protean, adjustable, and shape changing.  Conflict will simply continue by other means, a continued growth of flowering hatreds, leaving Israel a butcher’s bill of shekels and casualties it is only now chewing over.

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

27 December 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Abdul Jabbar

It is the duty of everyone in the world and especially those who live in the United States to take action to stop the ongoing genocide of the besieged and helpless Palestinians in Gaza. This brutal slaughter of Palestinians started on October 7, 2023, when Israel retaliated against the horrific Hamas attack that killed 1200 Israelis. The Hamas terror attack deserves condemnation, but a hundred times more condemnable is Israel’s campaign of genocide of Palestinians. The Hamas attack was an isolated act. Not intended as genocide of Israeli Jews, it was in retaliation for the act of war that Israel has waged in the form of its seventeen-year old siege by land, air, and sea, that has made Gaza the world’s largest open-air prison (according to many U.N. observers) and resulted in 70% unemployment, stunted growth of children because of inadequate nutrition and many other related ills.

In its ongoing war on Gaza, Israel has been guilty of many war crimes. There are certain rules of war, such as the principle of proportionality to avoid using excessive force, avoidance of killing civilians, not targeting homes, hospitals, mosques, schools, ambulances, water and food supply. Israel has violated all those rules of war that civilized nations observe.  Israel has killed over 20,000 Palestinians; at least 70% of them were children and women. About 50,000 Palestinians have been injured. It was due to U.S. protection of Israel that even before October 7, 2023, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu openly defied the U.N. General Assembly by bringing before it a map of Israel in which Palestine did not exist. In its dishonest, two-faced policy, U.S. government has expressed, on the surface, its support for a two-state solution. However, it has never taken any action to stop Israel from continuing its settlement building on the land that is to become Palestine.

Israel’s war of genocide is already spreading into a much bigger war, with attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria, Lebanon’s Hezbollah firing rockets on Northern Israel, and Yemen’s Houthis attacking all ships going to Israel in the Red Sea. All hostilities will end if Israel stops its genocide of Palestinians. Instead of asking Israel to stop its crime against humanity, U.S. is unwisely preparing to attack all those who are attacking Israel. These wars will affect everyone, not just those living in the United States.

We Americans have a special obligation to act because it is with our tax dollars, freely and irresponsibly given to Israel by our government, that Israel is carrying out its genocide of Palestinians in full view of the world. This crime against humanity could have been stopped on December 8, 2023, with the U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire, but the U.S. vetoed it, thus giving Israel the green light to continue its barbaric genocide of Palestinians. Like Israel, the U.S. also wrongly thinks that with Palestine removed from the Middle East, the plundering of the region’s resources will become much easier.

Adding to U.S. complicity in this crime against humanity is its conduct in the context of the U.N. Security Council’s resolution of December 22, 2023. After delaying the UN Security Council’s vote by five days during which time Palestinians were being killed by Israel by the minute, the U.S. government agreed not to veto a very watered down UNSC resolution but has done nothing to help enforce the most critical part of delivering life-saving necessities to the people of Gaza. With Israel continuing its bombardment with U.S. aid and abetment, the U.N. personnel cannot deliver aid to the victims. The resolution calls for creating conditions for sustained cessation of hostilities in Gaza. This toothless wording gives Israel freedom to go on with its genocide of the people of Gaza. After the resolution, Israel stepped up its bombardment of many cities in Gaza and has no intention of honoring the resolution. The United States is the only country that can make Israel comply with the UNSC resolution. It can also veto any resolution that presses Israel to comply with the UNSC resolution. For that reason, U.S. carries maximum responsibility for Palestinians’ genocide because Israel has committed all of its heinous acts with full U.S. military, economic, and diplomatic support.

Israel’s leaders have it no secret that they are carrying out the genocide of Palestinians. An Israeli general said, “There will be no electricity and no water; there will only be destruction.” An Israeli minister admitted that the government has removed all restrictions on the Israeli army in its goal to reduce Gaza to rubble. They are bombing homes, hospitals, schools, mosques, churches, the entire infrastructure, and even those areas that Israel had declared safe havens for Gazans to move to. Israel’s President has said that Israelis do not make any distinction between the militants and civilians.

Steps that everyone can take

1. Wherever in the world you live, ask the government of your country to expel the ambassadors of the ten countries that voted on December 12, 2023, against the U.N. General Assembly’s resolution for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. Those countries are Austria, Czech Republic, Guatemala, Israel, Liberia, Micronesia, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, and the United States.  Their negative vote meant that they did not mind the ongoing genocide of Palestinians. In addition, your governments should cut off all ties and agreements with those countries.
2. The ambassadors of Israel and U.S. should be expelled right away. The diplomatic ties can be restored after the two offending countries respect the rule of law and comply with the UN Security Council’s and UN General Assembly’s resolutions calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, accompanied by the deployment of UN personnel to oversee the distribution of humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza.
3. If you are an American citizen, you can pressure your government to do the right thing by telling President Joe Biden and the Congress right away that you will not be voting for Biden and the Democratic Party in the next elections unless they bring about an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, followed by an unequivocal statement and action by our government that a viable Palestinian state will be created urgently.
4. If you are a taxpaying American, tell the President and your representatives in the Congress that since Israel is carrying on this genocide of Palestinians with American money, you are not going to bloody your hands in this genocide and will postpone paying federal taxes until after U.S. government’s unequivocal support of a ceasefire in Gaza and a clear statement endorsing the immediate creation of a viable Palestinian state.

Since our taxes are withheld from our pay checks, you can legally change the withholding by filing the required IRS form so that no taxes are withheld from your paycheck. If you are a business, you can devise a similar strategy. There is nothing illegal in this step. The deadline to pay taxes is April 15, 2024. The hostilities should end much before then and a clear and workable plan for a viable Palestinian state should be in place. We can all then pay our taxes by the deadline. It is a practical and effective strategy to pressure our government to change its destructive policies and protect American lives at home and abroad.

Abdul Jabbar has taught English and Interdisciplinary Studies for 36 years on a full-time basis at City College of San Francisco.

27 December 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr Marwan Asmar

In Gaza, the meaning of death and destruction has taken new levels because of the intense Israeli firepower. The killing of people has become a novelty for every one watching on their TV. There is a sense of accepted surrealism about death and corpses on roads with bits of flesh among wreckages and rubble. 

In this war, the concept of humanity and sanity has been removed from the Israeli mentality as soldiers continue on a mass killing spree all over the Gaza Strip from north to the south of the enclave.

Take Beit Hanoon, a town in the north of the Gaza Strip. Videos show decomposed bodies lying in the streets for weeks or even 40 and 50 days according to experts.

Israeli military operations should have been completed before now, as soldiers entered the area long ago, in fact, a week or two after 7 October when Israelis decided to launch its war on Gaza. Yet fighting continues between the Israeli army and the Palestinian resistance with no end in sight. This a real and unexpected war at least from the Israeli side.

The decomposed bodies appear to be part of the skirmishes that have been going on for the last 80 day or so, yet they also show these to be of civilians and children with small shoes scattered, here and there, and know way indicate they are part of the fighting force.

The bones, and some on scraps of clothing are found in desolate areas that have long been vacated.

Elsewhere, also bodies continue to be strewn on roads. Take the area of Shiekh Radwan which is part of Gaza city. Here as well, decomposing bodies were shown in the different parts of the neighborhood as if it was a normal state of affairs.

Bodies covered and/or wrapped in body bags huddled together are found all over the Strip and not only in hospital courtyards but on side-streets and alleyways as if people usually live with death on a daily basis.

This is not to mention the stench of decaying bodies and the sickness likely to arise from that. But this Gaza. The Israelis want their full pound of flesh to use a Shakespearean term.

What has happened to society and people. The Israelis must want revenge so much they are willing to forego their humanity or what’s left of it. They are blinded by hate!

According to eyewitnesses the bodies here, were more fresh, meaning they hadn’t been killed long ago. They appear to have been shot by Israeli soldiers as their tanks pulled back from certain parts of the neighborhood. These people were likely to have been targeted whilst moving around the destroyed neighborhood.

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he will leave no stone unturned in Gaza, he certainly seems to know what he is talking about for the level of destruction is mind-boggling, and incredulous by international standards.

Israeli tanks demolished this area, turning it into wreckage and rubble where once plush buildings were turned into ghost buildings of craters and wrecked homes by one-ton American bombs that are generously splashed, speaking of eyesores of destruction, mutilation and human waste.

As the Israeli tanks repositioned themselves from the Al Amin and Abu Iskandar areas of Sheikh Radwan people rushed to collect the blanketed bodies onto trucks in a bid to bury them in a mass grave in one of the destroyed houses. For here, there is no cemeteries. How could there be amongst the destruction, with news elsewhere that Israelis soldiers have been destroying or turning graves of other cemeteries through ostentatious bulldozers.

As Al Jazeera camera showed the people had to move very carefully in collecting the dead because the tanks only moved within 100 meters or so above and were within firing distance and thus had no problem in continuing to fire on people.

This had long become death country. Israeli soldiers have no qualms about shooting mothers, fathers, children, grandads, and grannies on site as numerous eyewitness reports testify to the fact.

In another scene, mainly in the Yarmouk stadium, groups of Palestinians, including some women and children, were stripped and told to squat in the field while Israeli soldiers looked on in deadly dazes of macabre surrealism.

What happened to humanity, even for those people, don’t they have mothers, fathers or kids of their own. Israeli bombers, and no doubt soldiers on the ground have killed over 20,000 innocent civilians. Most of these are women and children.

The figures keep rising. Over 55,000 people are now injured in Gaza. Well, there would be with the Israeli war machine striking at houses. About 10,000 bodies are estimated to be lying underneath the rubble if not more, no one can get to them because you need machines for that, and in Israel-besieged Gaza, they simply don’t exist.

If they do, the problem then becomes how to get there for roads have been bombed and neighborhoods no longer exist, completely gone through Israeli military might and American supplies. Why have their political and military establishments have become so vicious?

Maybe this is the age of sidestepping all things that are decent; thinking outside the mundane box and going for the bloody kill, every hour of the day and night.

Israel with the help of the Americans have been bombing Gaza for 80 days and likely to revel in that for a good while longer, their taste for blood is obviously yet to be satisfied.

Dr Marwan Asmar is a journalist from Amman, Jordan

27 December 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

On the surface, US foreign policy seems to be utterly irrational. The US gets into one disastrous war after another — Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Ukraine, and Gaza. In recent days, the US stands globally isolated in its support of Israel’s genocidal actions against the Palestinians, voting against a UN General Assembly resolution for a Gaza ceasefire backed by 153 countries with 89% of the world population, and opposed by just the US and 9 small countries with less than 1% of the world population.

In the past 20 years, every major US foreign policy objective has failed. The Taliban returned to power after 20 years of US occupation of Afghanistan. Post-Saddam Iraq became dependent on Iran. Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad stayed in power despite a CIA effort to overthrow him. Libya fell into a protracted civil war after a US-led NATO mission overthrew Muammar Gaddafi. Ukraine was bludgeoned on the battlefield by Russia in 2023 after the US secretly scuttled a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine in 2022.

Despite these remarkable and costly debacles, one following the other, the same cast of characters has remained at the helm of US foreign policy for decades, including Joe Biden, Victoria Nuland, Jake Sullivan, Chuck Schumer, Mitch McConnell, and Hillary Clinton.

What gives?

The puzzle is solved by recognizing that American foreign policy is not at all about the interests of the American people. It is about the interests of the Washington insiders, as they chase campaign contributions and lucrative jobs for themselves, staff, and family members. In short, US foreign policy has been hacked by big money.

As a result, the American people are losing big. The failed wars since 2000 have cost them around $5 trillion in direct outlays, or around $40,000 per household. Another $2 trillion or so will be spent in the coming decades on veterans’ care. Beyond the costs directly incurred by Americans, we should also recognize the horrendously high costs suffered abroad, in millions of lives lost and trillions of dollars of destruction to property and nature in the war zones.

The costs continue to mount. US Military-linked outlays in 2024 will come to around $1.5 trillion, or roughly $12,000 per household, if we add the direct Pentagon spending, the budgets of the CIA and other intelligence agencies, the budget of the Veteran’s Administration, the Department of Energy nuclear weapons program, the State Department’s military-linked “foreign aid” (such as to Israel), and other security-related budget lines. Hundreds of billions of dollars are money down the drain, squandered in useless wars, overseas military bases, and a wholly unnecessary arms build-up that brings the world closer to WWIII.

Yet to describe these gargantuan costs is also to explain the twisted “rationality” of US foreign policy. The $1.5 trillion in military outlays is the scam that keeps on giving—to the military-industrial complex and the Washington insiders—even as it impoverishes and endangers America and the world.

To understand the foreign-policy scam, think of today’s federal government as a multi-division racket controlled by the highest bidders. The Wall Street division is run out of the Treasury. The Health Industry division is run out of the Department of Health and Human Services. The Big Oil and Coal division is run out of the Departments of Energy and Interior. And the Foreign Policy division is run out of the White House, Pentagon and CIA.

Each division uses public power for private gain through insider dealing, greased by corporate campaign contributions and lobbying outlays. Interestingly, the Health Industry division rivals the Foreign Policy division as a remarkable financial scam. America’s health outlays totaled an astounding $4.5 trillion in 2022, or roughly $36,000 per household, by far the highest health costs in the world, while America ranked roughly 40th in the world among nations in life expectancy. A failed health policy translates into very big bucks for the health industry, just as a failed foreign policy translates into mega-revenues of the military-industrial complex.

The Foreign Policy division is run by a small, secretive and tight-knit coterie, including the top brass of the White House, the CIA, the State Department, the Pentagon, the Armed Services Committees of the House and Senate, and the major military firms including Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon. There are perhaps a thousand key individuals involved in setting policy. The public interest plays little role.

The key foreign policy makers run the operations of 800 US overseas military bases, hundreds of billions of dollars of military contracts, and the war operations where the equipment is deployed. The more wars, of course, the more business. The privatization of foreign policy has been greatly amplified by the privatization of the war business itself, as more and more “core” military functions are handed out to the arms manufacturers and to contractors such as Haliburton, Booz Allen Hamilton, and CACI.

In addition to the hundreds of billions of dollars of military contracts, there are important business spillovers from the military and CIA operations. With military bases in 80 countries around the world, and CIA operations in many more, the US plays a large, though mostly covert role, in determining who rules in those countries, and thereby on policies that shape lucrative deals involving minerals, hydrocarbons, pipelines, and farm and forest land. The US has aimed to overthrow at least 80 governments since 1947, typically led by the CIA through the instigation of coups, assassinations, insurrections, civil unrest, election tampering, economic sanctions, and overt wars. (For a superb study of US regime-change operations from 1947 to 1989, see Lindsey O’Rourke’s Covert Regime Change, 2018).

In addition to business interests, there are of course ideologues who truly believe in America’s right to rule the world. The ever-warmongering Kagan family is the most famous case, though their financial interests are also deeply intertwined with the war industry. The point about ideology is this. The ideologists have been wrong on nearly every occasion and long ago would have lost their bully pulpits in Washington but for their usefulness as warmongers. Wittingly or not, they serve as paid performers for the military-industrial complex.

There is one persistent inconvenience for this ongoing business scam. In theory, foreign policy is carried out in the interest of the American people, though the opposite is the truth. (A similar contradiction of course applies to overpriced healthcare, government bailouts of Wall Street, oil-industry perks, and other scams). The American people rarely support the machinations of US foreign policy when they occasionally hear the truth. America’s wars are not waged by popular demand but by decisions from on high. Special measures are needed to keep the people away from decision making.

The first such measure is unrelenting propaganda. George Orwell nailed it in 1984 when “the Party” suddenly switched the foreign enemy from Eurasia to Eastasia without a word of explanation. The US essentially does the same. Who is the US gravest enemy? Take your pick, according to the season. Saddam Hussein, the Taliban, Hugo Chavez, Bashar al-Assad, ISIS, al-Qaeda, Gaddafi, Vladimir Putin, Hamas, have all played the role of “Hitler” in US propaganda. White House spokesman John Kirby delivers the propaganda with a smirk on his face, signaling that he too knows that what he is saying is ludicrous, albeit mildly entertaining.

The propaganda is amplified by the Washington think tanks that live off of donations by military contractors and occasionally foreign governments that are part of the US scam operations. Think of the Atlantic Council, CSIS, and of course the ever-popular Institute for the Study of War, brought to you by the major military contractors.

The second is to hide the costs of the foreign policy operations. In the 1960s, the US Government made the mistake of forcing the American people to bear the costs of the military-industrial complex by drafting young people to fight in Vietnam and by raising taxes to pay for the war. The public erupted in opposition.

From the 1970s onward the government has been far more clever. The government ended the draft, and made military service a job for hire rather than a public service, backed by Pentagon outlays to recruit soldiers from lower economic strata. It also abandoned the quaint idea that government outlays should be funded by taxes, and instead shifted the military budget to deficit spending which protects it from popular opposition that would be triggered if it were tax-funded.

It has also suckered client states such as Ukraine to fight America’s wars on the ground, so that no American body bags would spoil the US propaganda machine. Needless to say, US masters of war such as Sullivan, Blinken, Nuland, Schumer, and McConnell remain thousands of miles away from the frontlines. The dying is reserved for Ukrainians. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) defended American military aid to Ukraine as money well spent because it is “without a single American service woman or man injured or lost,” somehow not dawning on the good Senator to spare the lives of Ukrainians, who have died by the hundreds of thousands in a US-provoked war over NATO enlargement.

This system is underpinned by the complete subordination of the U.S. Congress to the war business, to avoid any questioning of the over-the-top Pentagon budgets and the wars instigated by the Executive Branch. The subordination of Congress works as follows. First, the Congressional oversight of war and peace is largely assigned to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, which largely frame the overall Congressional policy (and the Pentagon budget). Second, the military industry (Boeing, Raytheon, and the rest) funds the campaigns of the Armed Services Committee members of both parties. The military industries also spend vast sums on lobbying in order to provide lucrative salaries to retiring members of Congress, their staffs, and families, either directly in military businesses or in Washington lobbying firms.

The hacking of Congressional foreign policy is not only by the US military-industrial complex. The Israel lobby long ago mastered the art of buying the Congress. America’s complicity in Israel’s apartheid state and war crimes in Gaza makes no sense for US national security and diplomacy, not to speak of human decency. They are the fruits of Israel lobby investments that reached $30 million in campaign contributions in 2022, and that will vastly top that in 2024.

When Congress reassembles in January, Biden, Kirby, Sullivan, Blinken, Nuland, Schumer, McConnell, Blumenthal and their ilk will tell us that we absolutely must fund the losing, cruel, and deceitful war in Ukraine and the ongoing massacre and ethnic cleansing in Gaza, lest we and Europe and the free world, and perhaps the solar system itself, succumb to the Russian bear, the Iranian mullahs, and the Chinese Communist Party. The purveyors of foreign policy disasters are not being irrational in this fear-mongering. They are being deceitful and extraordinarily greedy, pursuing narrow interests over those of the American people.

It is the urgent task of the American people to overhaul a foreign policy that is so broken, corrupted, and deceitful that it is burying the government in debt while pushing the world closer to nuclear Armageddon. This overhaul should start in 2024 by rejecting any more funding for the disastrous Ukraine War and Israel’s war crimes in Gaza. Peacemaking, and diplomacy, not military spending, is the path to a US foreign policy in the public interest.

Jeffrey D. Sachs is a University Professor and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University.

26 December 2023

Source: www.commondreams.org

By Daniel Medina | Racket Cartoons

12 Dec 2023 – IDF in Gaza

Daniel Medina – My cartoons stand up firmly against racism, xenophobia, hate bigotry, and ignorance.