Archives: Articles

By Jonathan Cook

Claims of systematic rape on October 7 appeal to a racist trope of the savage, predatory Arab. Which is why western politicians and media are so unconcerned by the dearth of evidence.

18 Dec 2023 – This article is intended as a follow-up to my last article, on the western media’s refusal to investigate what happened on October 7.

As I argued there, journalists are suppressing evidence from credible sources, including the Israeli military, suggesting that Israel was responsible for many of the deaths of its citizens that day, including those whose charred remains are regularly cited as proof of barbarism by Hamas – and by implication, all Palestinians.

My previous article makes the point that these allegations against Hamas are being used to justify a genocidal bombing campaign that it is known to have killed so far more than 19,000 Palestinians, a majority of them women and children, as well as an ethnic cleansing campaign that has driven some 2 million Palestinians from their homes and left them exposed to disease and starvation in a tiny area, pressed up against the short border with Egypt.

The goal is obvious: to push Palestinians out of Gaza and into Sinai.

But here I want to address another, more specific part of what amounts to an Israeli and media psy-op against western publics: the claim that Hamas leaders ordered their fighters to carry out mass rape against Israelis, and that those fighters indeed used sexual assault systematically, as a weapon of war.

If true, this would count in international law as a crime against humanity.

Gaza breakout

The veracity of this claim is now treated as axiomatic by western media and politicians, even though there appears to be no meaningful evidence for it.

Remember the argument being made by those justifying the genocidal bombing campaign in Gaza is not that isolated instances of rape or sexual assault occurred.

Given that Palestinians flooded out of Gaza that day after Hamas fighters broke through the prison fence, only a fool would argue with certainty that no rapes or sexual assaults occurred.

But it should not be incumbent on those questioning the Israeli narrative – the one contending that there was planned, systematic, mass rape on October 7 – to prove that no sexual violence occurred.

Rather, it is the responsibilty of those making the accusation – Israel, western politicians, the western media – to back up their claim with solid evidence. Otherwise they are simply rationalising the far graver and greater crimes now being committed in Gaza against Palestinians.

Producing a few photos that may, or may not, show evidence of sexual violence is not evidence that Hamas ordered, and its fighters carried out, mass rape.

Relaying testimony that a witness saw a gang rape is not evidence that Hamas ordered, and its fighters carried out, mass rape.

And the claims of the highly ideological and unreliable leaders of Zaka’s first responders unit do not count as evidence either – unless they can be substantiated with other kinds of evidence.

The evidential bar in international law is high for a reason: because the charge is so grave.

But in this case, the bar needs to be high for an additional reason: because Israel’s response – the mass slaughter of civilians in Gaza premised on the supposed savagery of Hamas’ crimes – is graver still by an order of magnitude.

Absence of evidence

Two long articles in the respected Haaretz newspaper – Israel’s version of the New York Times – purportedly providing the evidence for mass rape are worth picking apart because they form the backbone of claims being recycled by western politicians and the western media.

The first is a kind of evidential overview. The other is a profile of Cochav Elkayam-Levy, who founded the “Civil Commission on October 7 Crimes by Hamas against Women and Children” which has been at the forefront of making allegations of mass rape by Hamas.

The profile article concludes: “The aggregation of the evidence presents a horrifying picture that leaves no room for doubt: Under cover of the massacre, Hamas carried out a campaign of rape and sexual abuse.”

Having made this bold assertion, however, the article and its companion piece then spend a great deal of time setting out the many and varied reasons why there is little evidence that Hamas carried out systematic, mass rape.

Doubtless, as these articles state, the Israeli military and police were too busy fighting Hamas to record and collect evidence. Doubtless, some bodies were too burned – most likely by Israeli shelling and missile strikes, as my previous article highlighted – for forensic examination to be possible. Doubtless, many potential witnesses were killed that day.

But the absence of evidence cannot be treated as evidence, as it is by Haaretz and the western media. Only those reading these two articles through an entirely ideological lens – one seeking to play on a racist trope of the primitive, savage, predatory Arab male so as to rationalise the mass slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza – can fail to notice that lack of meaningful evidence.

Regarding the claim that the Hamas leadership ordered its fighters to carry out rape, the main overview article cites David Katz, an Israeli police commander investigating the October 7 attack. According to Haaretz, he says “it’s premature to determine whether Hamas terrorists received specific instructions to commit rape”.

In other words, there is no evidence for such an order.

The actual evidence that mass rape was carried out cited in the two articles essentially amounts to this:

“According to a police source, so far, they have one witness account of a rape. The witness’ account was recently revealed in the media. She attested to seeing a woman being gang raped, mutilated and murdered…

“Senior security officials say that some of the terrorists from Hamas’ elite Nukhba Force unit and other Gazans held by the Shin Bet security service and the police have accused their comrades of sexual violence…

“The police also have dozens of accounts from Zaka volunteers and soldiers about women’s bodies being found inside homes without underwear. Those accounts also describe physical signs of sexual abuse on bodies at the crime scenes.”

Fabricated claims

That this amounts to the sum of evidence for the claim that Hamas carried out systematic, mass rape should be shocking to anyone other than the most fanatical Israel defenders.

The idea that the testimonies of Hamas fighters – or of anyone else in Israeli detention – can be treated as credible evidence is patently absurd. As has been well documented, torture is standard practice in interrogations of Palestinians, and is even used against children.

No one can seriously argue that Hamas fighters interrogated by Israel following the October 7 atrocities were not subjected to the most extreme “pressure” techniques. Is it likely that none were willing to falsely “confess” to witnessing rapes to ease that pressure?

Such “testimonies” would be worthless in any court of law outside Israel.

As for the allegations from male Zaka volunteers, a hardline religious organisation best known for collecting Jewish remains for burial, they are best treated with the utmost scepticism.

These are the same male volunteers already caught inventing or relaying the most lurid, fabricated claims against Hamas, such as that it beheaded 40 babies, put a baby in an oven, hung other babies from a clothes line, and ripped a foetus from its mother’s womb.

According to Israel’s own figures, two infants were killed that day.

The Zaka volunteers appear to have an ideological agenda: to fuel as much hatred against Palestinians as possible to justify the kind of genocidal response we have been witnessing over the past two months.

Fearful witnesses

That leaves an anonymous witness testimony, that may or may not be credible, and a handful of photos whose contents are ripe for interpretation and dispute.

Assuming that all of this evidence can be taken definitively at face value, that would still not show that Hamas ordered rape or that Hamas fighters carried out systematic rapes, or even conclusively that Hamas fighters carried out any rapes.

It would at most demonstrate that there were isolated, opportunistic instances of rape, and that they were carried out by a few of the people who broke out of Gaza that day, not necessarily Hamas fighters.

What’s TRUE About Israel’s 10/7 Sexual Assault Claims? (w/ Heidi Matthews)

The reason why Israel’s apologists for genocide need to inflate their claim is because, sadly, opportunistic rape would be entirely unremarkable in any violent, militarised situation – and indeed unremarkable in behaviours towards women in western societies in general.

It would mean that any sexual violence against Israeli women that occurred on October 7 was as representative of a general Palestinian savagery as sexual violence by Israeli soldiers against Palestinian women – examples can be found here and here – is of a general Israeli savagery. Which is not at all.

The same Israelis and westerners who express concern that Israeli women are fearful of coming forward to tell of their experiences on October 7, as Elkayam-Levy stresses, have in the past shown precisely zero concern that Palestinian women, who live under a belligerent military occupation, have been fearful for decades of telling of their experiences at the hands of unaccountable Israeli soldiers.

However, unlike the lack of evidence that Hamas ordered rape as a weapon of war, we do have evidence – from the Israeli media – that an Israeli military leader encouraged Israeli soldiers to rape Palestinian women to “boost morale”.

So how have we reached a point where it is taken as “self-evident” in the West that Hamas ordered systematic, mass rape, and that this forms part of the basis for Israel’s right to wage a genocidal campaign against Palestinians masquerading as “self-defence”?

Burden of proof

Significantly, the claim of systematic rape made against Hamas is being enthusiastically embraced by some Israeli and western feminists as the latest MeToo moment – but on a far greater scale than ever before.

That seems to be the case with Elkayam-Levy, founder of the October 7 civil commission and a former spokeswoman for the Israeli military. She views the issue of Hamas rapes entirely through an ideological lens – and one designed to silence critics of her project, including women.

While claiming victimhood for herself and her commission, she celebrates the fact that its campaigning helped pressure the University of Alberta to sack Samantha Pearson, the head of the university’s sexual assault centre, for requiring evidence of the rape allegations against Hamas.

She names Reem Alsalem, a special rapporteur at the United Nations Human Rights Council on protecting women from violence, as their next target for dismissal. She states: “Our intention is to expose the world to a figure who is just abusing – I have no other word for it – global public funds.”

Elkayam-Levy worries that October 7 is being made to “vanish from the timeline”, even as she recounts the intense interest from western journalists in amplifying the commission’s evidence-lite claims.

And of course, she calls out as “antisemites” those who advise caution and believe evidence is important, especially when a genocide is being rationalised in Tel Aviv and western capitals on the basis of the mass rape allegations.

Faced with the demands for evidence from UN bodies, she expresses outrage: “Am I the one who needs to provide the evidence for the terrorists’ deeds? What kind of travesty is it that they are imposing the burden of proof on me?”

The answer, of course, is that Elkayam-Levy imposed that burden on herself, by founding the commission at the centre of the campaign to accuse Hamas of carrying out systematic, mass rape.

‘Believe women’

The dangerous consequences are all too clear. Crying “Believe women” – or largely in this case, “Believe Hamas torture victims and proven male fabulists from Zaka” – is being weaponised to mean “Kill Palestinians”.

Simply accepting these claims as self-evident when the evidence is absent is to participate in the abuse of rape allegations to justify subjecting Palestinians in Gaza – including many, many thousands of women and children – to atrocities on an even greater scale.

Yes, in theory it might be possible to give the benefit of the doubt to those claiming Hamas committed systematic, mass rape while still opposing the mass slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza as a response. But that is not the world our politicians and media inhabit, or allow us to inhabit.

Which is why the evidential bar has to be high. But in Israel’s case, the evidence is thin indeed.

That high bar is not just relevant for jurists and the law courts. It must apply to those reporting right now on events in Israel and Palestine. Yet, once again, the western media has failed in its most basic duties.

Like doctors, journalists should strive to do no harm. We should record and explain, not smooth the path to genocide by peddling minsinformation.

We should seek to hold the powerful to account, not make the commission of their crimes easier.

And at our best, we should want to strengthen society’s democratic impulses through the dissemination of accurate information, not trade in incitement and defamation.

None of this is happening. The same western media that has suppressed testimonies showing that Israel carried out crimes against its own citizens on October 7 is inflating the number and extent of Hamas atrocities, unsupported by evidence.

The only reasonable conclusion to draw is that the media are willing and active participants in the ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza. Those crimes are not just willed by Israel; they are willed by western elites who view Israel as a projection of their power into the oil-rich Middle East.

Jonathan Cook is an award-winning British journalist based in Nazareth, Israel, since 2001.

25 December 2023

Source: transcend.org

By UN News

22 Dec 2023 – The UNSC has adopted a resolution on the ongoing crisis in Gaza, with 13 votes in favour, and the US and Russia abstaining. The resolution, among other points, demands immediate, safe and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance at scale directly to the Palestinian civilian population throughout the Gaza Strip.

In the resolution, the Security Council reaffirmed the obligations of the parties to the conflict under international humanitarian law, especially regarding the protection of civilians and civilian objects, safety of humanitarian personnel, and the provision of humanitarian assistance.

The Council demanded that the parties “allow, facilitate and enable” the immediate, safe and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance at scale directly to the Palestinian civilian population throughout the Gaza Strip.

It also requested the UN Secretary-General to appoint a Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator with responsibility for “facilitating, coordinating, monitoring, and verifying” in Gaza, as appropriate, the humanitarian nature of all relief consignments to the enclave provided through States that are not party to the conflict.

It also called for the “expeditious” establishment of a UN mechanism to accelerate aid consignments to Gaza through States that are not party to the conflict, to expedite, streamline and accelerate assistance while continuing to help ensure that aid reaches its civilian destination.

The Resolution

In the resolution, the Security Council reaffirmed the obligations of the parties to the conflict under international humanitarian law, especially regarding the protection of civilians and civilian objects, safety of humanitarian personnel, and the provision of humanitarian assistance.

The Council demanded that the parties “allow, facilitate and enable” the immediate, safe and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance at scale directly to the Palestinian civilian population throughout the Gaza Strip.

It also requested the UN Secretary-General to appoint a Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator with responsibility for “facilitating, coordinating, monitoring, and verifying” in Gaza, as appropriate, the humanitarian nature of all relief consignments to the enclave provided through States that are not party to the conflict.

It also called for the “expeditious” establishment of a UN mechanism to accelerate aid consignments to Gaza through States that are not party to the conflict, to expedite, streamline and accelerate assistance while continuing to help ensure that aid reaches its civilian destination.

Full Text of the Resolution

By UN News

21 Dec 2023 – There are no functioning hospitals in the north of Gaza and injured patients who need surgery and cannot be moved are “waiting to die”, the UN health agency said today, in a plea for a ceasefire to allow more aid into the shattered enclave.

By Alfons Pérez and Nicola Scherer

Will Egypt agree to take in the Palestinian population expelled from Gaza in exchange for the cancellation of its external debt?

18 Dec 2023 – A leaked document written by Gila Gamaliel, the Israeli intelligence minister, came to light in late October amid the devastating war in Gaza.

It set out a proposal to relocate the residents of Gaza to Sinai (Egypt) as a solution “which will produce positive long-term strategic results”. But how could Egypt accept such a solution when most of its population appears to be pro-Palestinian?

The answer can be found in the world of macroeconomics: debt.

After being revealed by the Israeli newspaper Calcalist and WikiLeaks, the proposal is getting attention in the Israeli and Egyptian critical press. Tel Aviv appears to be in talks with Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi about Egypt taking in Gazans and settling them in Sinai, in exchange for the cancellation of all its debts to the World Bank.

This could mean the Israeli government would take on the debts Egypt owes to multilateral creditors (such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund etc.) or that (with the support of the United States) it would convince allied Western countries to write off Egyptian debts to national institutions.

Meanwhile, potential financial aid for specific measures is being negotiated, such as US secretary of state Anthony Blinken’s proposal to fund a tent city (later to be upgraded to residential buildings), which he proposed to the Egyptian government on his October tour of the region.

Opening Egypt’s doors to the Palestinian population under the pretext of humanitarian relief veils the real objective of the Israeli government’s “solution to the crisis”: ethnic cleansing and the colonisation of territory in return for financial favours, in this case writing off the debt of a neighbouring country.

Egypt, a country suffocated by debt

From a macroeconomic perspective, the proposal could be a godsend for Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s government. Egypt, a nation of 105 million people, is currently facing a historic debt crisis barely noticed by the West. Bloomberg Economics ranks Egypt in second place worldwide behind Ukraine in terms of its vulnerability to becoming unable to repay its debts. Two of Egypt’s principal sources of revenue, tourism and Suez Canal transit fees, have increased, but not sufficiently to repay its external debts, which total $164.7bn as of June 2023. Part of this debt is owed to local creditors, such as Egypt’s Gulf allies, the United Arab Emirates. The rest is owed to less forgiving creditors: Egypt needs to pay $2.95 billion to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and $1.58 billion to foreign bond holders by the end of 2023.

Egypt, which is one of the world’s largest wheat importers and also relies on imports of other basic foods and fuel, continues to face the impacts of the war in Ukraine, growing inflation, unprecedented price increases and limited access to affordable finance. As a result, the country is completely reliant on international loans from the IMF and the rich Gulf states. This dependency limits Egypt’s foreign policy options, making it difficult and unlikely that Egypt would act independently of the United States which, along with European countries, dominates decision-making in multilateral institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank.

There had been speculation that Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s government yielding to the far-right Israeli government’s proposal for the forced displacement of the Palestinian people in exchange for the cancellation of its debts, would harm its popularity even further and al-Sisi’s chances at the ballot box. But he was announced winner of the elections today, although this “solution” clashes with the largely pro-Palestinian stance of the Egyptian population, which took to the streets on the 18th October in solidarity with the Palestinian people, shouting “No displacement, no resettlement, the land is the land of Palestine”.

The opposition and the Egyptian population are well aware that Egypt is an ally of the United States, and that the United States’ support of the authoritarian Egyptian government and its repressive measures largely comes down to the existence of Israel. The US counts on the Egyptian government acting as a containing dam against its overwhelmingly anti-Zionist population. If the country’s economic circumstances do not improve and Israel continues to bombard the Palestinian population in Gaza with the brutality it has shown over the past weeks – killing thousands of children and civilians – it is possible that Egypt will have no other choice than to accept de facto the displacement of refugees into its territory in exchange for financial aid and partial relief from its debts.

Debtocracy, a (not very) new colonial tactic

The principles behind the Israel government’s proposal – to offer debt cancellation in exchange for political favours – are not new. Sadly, this is an example of a practice frequently used by the rich countries of the Global North in a world characterised by neo-colonial financial power structures. This means that the impoverished countries which take out loans with the Global North and multilateral financial institutions (such as the IMF, World Bank etc.) are still largely identical to the ex-colonies. This means that debt is not merely a financial issue but can also be used as a tool of oppression and extortion: the creditor is able to wield power over the debtor, influencing their political decisions.

Taking Egypt as an example, this would not be the first time that the United States has used debt cancellation as a lever to make Egypt comply with the US’ political demands. In 1991, the US and its allies – rich governments from the Paris Club – wrote off half of the $20.2 billion that Egypt owed to them in exchange for Egypt’s participation in the second Gulf War as part of the anti-Iraq coalition.

Many social movements (starting with the Jubilee movement in the 2000s) began to denounce “debtocracy” and say that debt is a mechanism for subjugation and for spreading neoliberal policies which are severely harmful to the environment and human rights. As people living in rich Western countries, we should not stay silent in the face of financial proposals which support ethnic cleansing and the colonisation of Palestinian territories by the far-right Israeli government.

Luckily, not everyone in the international community is staying silent in the face of the massacre in Palestine.

Countries including Bolivia, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico, South Africa and Algeria have taken robustly critical positions against the Israeli attacks. Bolivian President Luis Arce has broken off diplomatic relations with Netanyahu’s government, and Colombia, and Chile and South Africa have recalled their ambassadors from Israel. This has accompanied Argentina and Mexico’s condemnation of the attack on Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza. Furthermore, Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced on November 9 that Colombia would support Algeria’s case in the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Israel. There are also critical voices inside the European Union. Three weeks ago, Spain’s president Pedro Sanchez and Belgium’s Prime Minister Alexander De Croo spoke up during their visit to the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza, against Israel’s killing of innocent civilians, including thousands of children, which led to an ongoing diplomatic crisis.

Belatedly, the UK, Germany and France have also joined calls for a ceasefire in Israel. On 12 December, the United Nations passed a non-binding resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, with 153 countries voting in favour, 23 abstaining and 10 against. Ukraine, a country at war, fighting Russian invasion abstained from the vote. Israel and the United States, were among the countries who voted against ceasefire.

25 December 2023

Source: transcend.org

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