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By Phil Pasquini

In the severely hot and humid early evening here today in Washington, peace activists demonstrated and marched in a rally to end the war on the 70th anniversary of the signing of the Korean War Armistice on July 27, 1953 that called for a formal end to hostilities on the peninsula. The war that has never officially been ended continues to loom as a major obstacle in tensions between all parties involved as well as a threat to the entire world as the possibility of a nuclear war increases as escalating tensions continue.

The national rally at Lafayette Square across from the White House, according to organizers, included concerned people from across the country including peace activists, humanitarian aid organizations, and groups representing veterans, faith traditions along with members of the Korean American communities all calling on President Biden and Congress to officially end the Korean War and replace the armistice with a permanent peace agreement.

During the rally, speakers called upon the Congressional House on Foreign Affairs to pass H.R. 1369 the “Peace on the Korean Peninsula Act” that was introduced earlier this year by Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA). The act if passed would “…review current restrictions on travel to North Korea and call for a formal end to the Korean War.”

The bill also notes that “In its roll out of its policy towards North Korea, the Biden administration expressed support for the Singapore framework, which identifies peace on the Korean peninsula as an objective of any future negotiations between the United States and North Korea.” Thus, the White House rally called for President Biden to move aggressively forward on that premise in bringing hostilities to a close.

Also noted in the bill are the “compelling humanitarian considerations” of the ongoing stalemate respective to the divisions of families who are not able to visit each other due to the travel restrictions.

The proposed bill also references “the joint statement signed by the United States and North Korea in Singapore on June 12, 2018, which included an agreement to establish new U.S.-DPRK relations in accordance with the desire of the peoples of the two countries for peace and prosperity” as an inducement to act.

After the White House rally the demonstrators marched to the National Mall and the Korean War Memorial where they were greeted by heavy thunder and rain that caused them to disburse. While the ongoing extreme weather may have dampened their demonstration, the activists remain committed in their desire to finally see a united Korea.

The groups are convening tomorrow at George Washington University for an all-day conference titled, “70^th Anniversary of the Korean War Armistice: Prospects and Challenges of a Peace Agreement.” The all-day conference will open with a keynote speech by University of Chicago Korea historian, Bruce Cumings and include include a number of panel discussions addressing the conflict, the armistice and the threat of nuclear war.

Photo: Phil Pasquini

(This article has previously appeared in Nuzeink.)

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.

28 July 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Marcy Winograd

The ground-breaking movie Oppenheimer, despite its unsympathetic protagonist, packs a powerful anti-nuclear punch that makes it hard, if not impossible, to sleep after watching the film.

For this reason alone, the movie should be shown on the floor of Congress and in the White House as required viewing by all in DC bent on spending $1.7 trillion over the next decades to build new nuclear weapons to kill us all.

Only those with a global death wish or on the payroll of Northrop Grumman, the military contractor with the nuclear “modernization” contract, could watch this film and still root for US nuclear rearmament, a horror show now underway with the blessings of DC politicians. Unless people rise up in fury, unless this Hollywood movie sparks a second nuclear-freeze movement, a repeat on steroids of the 80’s nuclear weapons freeze, Congress and the White House will raid the treasury to expand our nuclear arsenal.

On the agenda is a new sea-launched nuclear cruise missile, a gravity bomb with two-stage radiation implosion, a long range strike bomber and the replacement of 400 underground nuclear missiles in the midwest with 600 new Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. These new ICBMS–The Sentinel–could each carry up to three warheads 20 times more powerful than the atomic bombs the US dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to incinerate 200,000 people in a span of three days.

Irish actor Cillian Murphy plays the role of J. Robert Oppeneheimer, a hand-wringing scientist, an unfaithful lackluster womanizer, a man with few convictions but lots of demons, who traverses an emotional landscape of ambition, doubt, remorse and surrender.

Oppenheimer oversees the Manhattan Project, the team of scientists hunkering down in the beautiful desert of Los Alamos, New Mexico, to build the hideous atomic bomb before the Germans or Russians crack the code.

In a scene reminiscent of the absurd 1950s, when pig-tailed school children scrambled under desks in mock nuclear drills, scientists don sunscreen and goggles to protect themselves during the blinding Trinity Test. This was the first atomic test conducted with no warning to the downwinders–the nearby indigenous people of the Southwest who developed cancer as a result of radioactive fall out. This was the test before President Truman ordered a 9,000 pound uranium bomb named “Little Boy’ loaded onto a B-29 bomber. This was the trial performance before the same President, depicted in the movie as unctuous and arrogant, orders Fat Boy, a second plutonium bomb– prototype for today’s nuclear weapon–dropped on Nagasaki.

Though the movie can be slow, a three hour endurance test, its historical insights and gut-churning imagery compensate for its lack of likable characters, save for Lt. General Leslie Groves, played by a fun-to-watch Matt Damon as Oppenheimer’s Pentagon handler.

One of the most haunting moments juxtaposes in living color celebrations of the bombings, applause and accolades for Oppenheimer standing at the podium with the guilt-consumed scientist’s black and white visions of irradiated souls, skeletal remains, flesh turned to ash–all amid a cacophony of explosions and pounding feet, the death march.

Even more disturbing are the questions that tug at the moviegoer, who wonders, “Where are the Japanese victims in this film? Why are they missing from this picture? Why are they never shown writhing in pain, their lives and cities destroyed?” Instead, the human targets are seen only through the lens of Oppenheimer who imagines faceless x-rayed ghosts torn asunder in the burning wreckage, their skin, their flesh falling off their bones, their bodies disappearing into nothingness. The omission of the real victims in the interest of maintaining a consistent point of view may make sense from a filmmaker’s perspective, but not from the standpoint of historians and truth tellers. Writer-director Christopher Nolan could have shown us photos, authentic aerial footage of the Japanese, blinded and burned, before the final credits roll to remind us the horror is real, not just a Hollywood movie bound for several Oscar nominations.

In the name of truth the movie does, however, smash the persistent myth that the US had no other choice but to drop the atomic bombs to end WWII. Through dialogue, we learn Japan was about to surrender, the Emperor simply needed to save face; the point of irradiating Hiroshima and Nagasaki, targeting civilians in far off cities, was not to save the world but to show the Soviets the US possessed the technology to destroy the world, so better not cross the aspiring empire.

In closed door sessions, all filmed in black and white, we watch as crusading anti-communist politicians–determined to stop Oppenheimer from advocating for arms control talks with the Soviets–crucify their atomic hero for his association with members of the Communist Party, leftist trade unions and a long ago anti-capitalist lover who threw his bourgeois flowers in the trash.

When the McCarthyites strip Oppenheimer of his security clearance, it’s a big “who cares” shrug for a movie audience weary of Oppenheimer’s internal conflicts over whether science can be divorced from politics, from the consequences of a scientist’s research. How can anyone with a heart want to continue this line of work? To hell with the security clearance.

The movie Oppenheimer is compelling and powerful in its timeliness, though one can’t help but think it would have been exponentially more powerful had it  been told from a different point of view, from the point of view of a scientist who opposed the death-march mission.

We see glimpses of a pond-staring fate-warning Albert Einstein, who in real life lobbied to fund the atomic bomb research only to later oppose the project. It could have been his story–or the story of one of the 70 scientists who signed a “Truman, don’t drop the bomb” petition that Oppenheimer squelched, persuading Edward Teller, the “father of the hydrogen bomb” not to present Truman with the petition drafted by Leo Szilard, the chief physicist at the Manhattan Project’s Chicago laboratory. The movie’s reference to the petition was so fast, so quiet, so mumbled, the audience could have missed it.

If we are not careful, more mindful, more awake, we might miss our moment, our moment to avert another nuclear holocaust, this one a far worse nightmare in which five billion of the Earth’s 8 billion people perish, either immediately from radiation burns and fire or in the months that follow during a famine in which soot blocks the sun.

The White House and a majority of Congress want to rush us, a sleepwalking populace into WWIII with Russia, a nation of 143 million people, 195 different ethnicities and 6,000 nuclear weapons. For those, like the shameful editors of the Washington Post, who insist we continue to forever fund the proxy war, for those in high places who refuse calls for a ceasefire, this movie reminds us of the existential danger we confront in a sea of denial, complicity and exceptionalism.

Despite campaigning on a platform of no first use of nuclear weapons, President Biden’s Nuclear Posture Review echoes his predecessor Trump’s approval of first use should our allies’ interests be threatened.

CODEPINK activists are distributing flyers outside showings of Oppenheimer to invite stunned movie goers leaving the theater in a daze to take action, to join our organization and amplify our peace-building campaigns, to ground the nuclear-capable F-35, to declare China is Not our Enemy and to partner with the Peace in Ukraine Coalition.

This is the movie, this is the moment, this is the time to challenge the euphemistic nuclear modernization program, to expose the madness of militarism that abandons urgent needs at home to line the pockets of military contractors gorging at the Pentagon trough.This is the time to demand a ceasefire and peace talks to end the war in Ukraine, to stop preparations for war with China, to finally pass legislation to ban first use, to take our ICBM’s off hair trigger alert, to abide by our disarmament obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and to campaign for the US to become signatories to the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

Opposed by NATO–a huckster for nuclear proliferation–the TPNW has been signed by 95 state parties wishing to outlaw the development, deployment and use of nuclear weapons.

Unlike Oppenheimer, we can make the right choice; the choice that saves the human race from immediate extinction.

Marcy Winograd of Progressive Democrats of America served as a 2020 DNC Delegate for Bernie Sanders and co-founded the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party.

26 July 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky

First published on February 7, 2023

Introduction 

My  long-standing commitment is to “the value of human life”,  “the criminalization of  war” , “peaceful co-existence” between nation states and “the future of humanity” which is currently threatened by nuclear war.

I have been researching nuclear war for more than 10 years focussing on its historical, strategic and geopolitical dimensions as well as its criminal features as a means to implementing what is best described as “genocide on a massive scale”.

What is presented below is the history of nuclear war: a succession of U.S. nuclear war plans going back to the Manhattan Project (1939-1945) leading up to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

Unknown to the broader public, the first U.S. Doomsday Blueprint of a nuclear attack directed against the Soviet Union was formulated by the US War Department on September 15, 1945 when the US and the Soviet Union were allies.

There is an element of political delusion and paranoia in the formulation of US foreign policy. The Doomsday Scenario has been on the drawing board of the Pentagon for almost 78 years.

Had it not been for the September 1945 plan to  “wipe the Soviet Union of the map” (66 urban areas and more than 200 atomic bombs), neither Russia nor China would have developed nuclear weapons. There wouldn’t have been a Nuclear Arms Race.

Numerous US nuclear war plans have been formulated from the outset, leading up to “The 1956  Strategic Air Command SAC Atomic Weapons Requirements Study” (Declassified in December 2015) which consisted in targeting 1200 urban areas in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and China.

The World is at a dangerous crossroads: it should be understood that the use of nuclear weapons in relation to the confrontation between US-NATO and Russia would inevitably lead to escalation and the end of humanity as we know it.

What is required is a Worldwide peace movement coupled with the banning of nuclear weapons.

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, August 2, 2023

***

90 Seconds to Midnight

90 Seconds to Midnight according to the Doomsday Clock.

The Nobel Peace Laureates are casually blaming Russia, without recalling the history of nuclear war, not to mention Joe Biden’s 1.3 trillion dollar program to develop “more usable”, “low intensity” “preemptive nuclear weapons” to be used on a “first strike basis” against both nuclear and non nuclear states as a means of “self defense”. This is the nuclear doctrine which currently prevails in US-NATO’s confrontation against Russia.

It is clearly outlined in the NeoCons’ Project for the New American Century (PNAC)

America’s Manhattan Project

Let us recall the history of  the “doomsday scenario” which was part of America’s Manhattan project launched in 1939 with the participation of Britain and Canada.

The Manhattan Project was a  secret plan to develop the atomic bomb coordinated by the US War Department, headed (1941) by Lieutenant General Leslie Groves.

Prominent physicist  Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer  had been appointed by Lt General Groves to head the Los Alamos Laboratory (also known as Project Y) which was established in 1943 as a “top-secret site for designing atomic bombs under the Manhattan Project”. Oppenheimer was entrusted in recruiting and coordinating a team of prominent nuclear scientists including Italian Physicist and Nobel Prize Laureate Dr. Enrico Fermi who joined the Los Alamos Laboratory in 1944.

Oppenheimer not only played a key role in coordinating the team of nuclear scientists, he was also engaged in routine consultations with the head of the Manhattan project Lieutenant General Groves, specifically with regard to the use of the first atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which resulted in more than 300,000 immediate deaths.

Below is the Transcript of an August 6, 1945 telephone conversation, declassified (Between Gen. Groves and Dr. Oppenheimer) hours after the Hiroshima bombing:

Gen. G. I am very proud of you and your people [nuclear scientists]

Dr. O. It went alright?

Gen. G. Apparently it went with a tremendous bang.

screenshot below, click link to access complete transcript )

The September 15, 1945 Blueprint to “Wipe the Soviet Union off the Map” 

Barely two weeks after the official end of World War II (September 2, 1945), the US War Department issued  a blueprint  (September 15, 1945) to “Wipe  the Soviet Union off the Map” (66 cities with 204 atomic bombs), when the US and the USSR were allies. This infamous project is confirmed by declassified documents. (For further details see Chossudovsky, 2017)

Below is the image of the 66 cities of the Soviet Union which had been envisaged as targets by the US War Department.

The 66 cities. Click image to enlarge 

The Hiroshima Nagasaki “Dress Rehearsal”

The preparatory documents (see below) confirm that the data pertaining to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks were being used to evaluate the viability as well as the cost of  a much larger attack against the Soviet Union. These documents were finalized 5-6 weeks after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings (6, 9 August 1945).

“To Ensure our National Security”

Note the correspondence between Major General Norstad and the head of the Manhattan Project, General Leslie Groves, who was in permanent liaison with Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, head of the Los Alamos team of nuclear scientists.

On September 15, 1945 Norstad sent a memorandum to Lieutenant Leslie Groves requesting an estimate of  the “number of bombs required to ensure our national security”  ( The First Atomic Stockpile Requirements )

Lieutenant General Groves no doubt in consultation with Dr. Oppenheimer responded to Major General Norstad in a Memorandum dated September 29, 1945 in which he refers to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

See section 2, subsections a, b and c.

“It is not essential to get total destruction of a city in order to destroy its effectiveness. Hiroshima no longer exists as a city even though the area of total destruction is considerably less than total.”

Read carefully. The text below confirms that Hiroshima and Nagasaki was “A Dress Rehearsal”.

Bear in mind the name of the country which is threatening America’s “national security” is not mentioned.

The 1949 “Dropshot Plan”: 300 Nuclear Bombs, Targeting More than 100 Soviet Cities

Numerous US war plans (under the Truman presidency) to attack the Soviet Union were “formulated and revised on a regular basis between 1945 and 1950”. Most of them were totally dysfunctional as outlined by J.W. Smith in his book entitled “The World’s Wasted Wealth 2”.

“The names given to these plans graphically portray their offensive purpose: Bushwhacker, Broiler, Sizzle, Shakedown, Offtackle, Dropshot, Trojan, Pincher, and Frolic.

The US military knew the offensive nature of the job President Truman had ordered them to prepare for and had named their war plans accordingly”

Dr. Michio Kaku and Daniel Axelrod in their book entitled: “To Win a Nuclear War: the Pentagon’s Secret War Plans,” provide evidence (based on declassified documents) that the September 1945 blueprint was followed by a continuous plan by USG to bomb the Soviet Union (as well as Russia in the post-Cold War era):

“This book [preface by Ramsey Clark] compels us to re-think and re-write the history of the Cold War and the arms race… It provides a startling glimpse into secret U.S. plans to initiate a nuclear war from 1945 to the present.”

The September 1945 Blueprint (66 Cities) was followed in 1949 by another insidious project entitled the Dropshot Plan:

According to Kaku and Axelrod, the 1949 DropShot consisted of  a plan directed against the Soviet Union to “drop at least 300 nuclear bombs and 20,000 tons of conventional bombs on 200 targets in 100 urban areas, including Moscow and Leningrad (St. Petersburg).

According to the plan Washington would start the war on January 1, 1957.

The Dropshot Plan was formulated prior to Russia’s August 1949 announcement pertaining to the testing of its nuclear bomb.

The Cold War List of 1200 Targeted Cities

The initial 1945 Blueprint to attack 66 cities, the subsequent 1949 Dropshot Plan (targeting 100 cities) were updated in the course of the Cold War. The 1956 Plan included some 1200 cities in the USSR, the Soviet block countries of Eastern Europe and China (see declassified documents below).

The bombs slated for the attack significantly more powerful in terms of explosive capacity than those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (see below)

We are talking about planned genocide against the Soviet Union, China and Eastern Europe .

Details pertaining to the “The SAC [Strategic Air Command] Atomic Weapons Requirements Study for 1959, produced in June 1956 were declassified on December 22, 2015 (Excerpts below, click to access full text).

According to the National Security Archive www.nsarchive.org, the SAC, 1956:

“…provides the most comprehensive and detailed list of nuclear targets and target systems that has ever been declassified. As far as can be told, no comparable document has ever been declassified for any period of Cold War history.

The SAC study includes chilling details. …  the authors developed a plan for the “systematic destruction” of Soviet bloc urban-industrial targets that specifically and explicitly targeted “population” in all cities, including Beijing, Moscow, Leningrad, East Berlin, and Warsaw.

The SAC document includes lists of more than 1100 airfields in the Soviet bloc, with a priority number assigned to each base. …

A second list was of urban-industrial areas identified for “systematic destruction.”  SAC listed over 1200 cities in the Soviet bloc, from East Germany to China, also with priorities established.  Moscow and Leningrad were priority one and two respectively.  Moscow included 179 Designated Ground Zeros (DGZs) while Leningrad had 145, including “population” targets.  … According to the study, SAC would have targeted Air Power targets with bombs ranging from 1.7 to 9 megatons.

Exploding them at ground level, as planned, would have produced significant fallout hazards to nearby civilians.  SAC also wanted a 60 megaton weapon which it believed necessary for deterrence, but also because it would produce “significant results” in the event of a Soviet surprise attack. One megaton would be 70 times the explosive yield of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.(emphasis added).

Read carefully:

Had this diabolical project been carried out against the Soviet Union and its allies, the death toll would be beyond description (ie. when compared to Hiroshima. 100,000 immediate deaths). The smallest nuclear bomb contemplated had an explosive yield of 1.7 megatons, 119 times more “powerful’ than a Hiroshima bomb (15 kilotons of TNT)

The 9 megaton bomb mentioned above was 630 times a Hiroshima bomb,The 60 megaton bomb:  4200 times a Hiroshima bomb.

The Bulletin: Founded by Manhattan Project Scientists in September 1945

In a bitter irony, in the immediate wake of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was founded in 1945 in Chicago by Manhattan Project scientists, who had been involved in the development of the atomic bomb.

Two years later, in 1947, The Bulletin devised the Doomsday Clock, “with an original setting of seven minutes to midnight”.

The initiative was formulated at a time when there was no arms race: There was only one nuclear weapons state, namely the USA, which was intent upon carrying out a Doomsday scenario (genocide) against the Soviet Union formulated in September 1945.

In 1947, when the Doomsday Clock was created, the “justification” which was upheld by The Bulletin was that:

“the greatest danger to humanity came … from the prospect that the United States and the Soviet Union were headed for a nuclear arms race.”

The underlying premise of this statement was to ensure that the US retain a monopoly over nuclear weapons.

While in 1947, “The Plan to Wipe the Soviet Union of the Map” was still on the drawing Board of the Pentagon, the relevant documents were declassified thirty years later in 1975. Most of the former Manhattan project scientists were not aware of the September 1945 blueprint against the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union emerged as a nuclear power in August 1949, two years after the launching of the Doomsday Clock, largely in view of applying what was later entitled “deterrence”, namely an action to discourage a nuclear attack by the US. At the height of the Cold War and the Arms Race, this concept eventually evolved into what was defined as “Mutually Assured Destruction”.

While several authors and scientists featured by The Bulletin have provided a critical perspective concerning America’s nuclear weapons program, there was no cohesive attempt to question the history nor the legitimacy of  the Manhattan Project.

The broader tendency has been to “erase history”, sustaining the “rightfulness” of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while also casually placing the blame on Russia, as well as China and North Korea.

Nuclear War versus the “Imminent Dangers of CO2”

In the last fews years, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists “seeks to provide relevant information about nuclear weapons, climate change, and other global security issues”.

According to Mary Robinson, Chair of The Doomsday Clock Elders and former President of the Republic of Ireland (2023 statement):

The Doomsday Clock is sounding an alarm for the whole of humanity. We are on the brink of a precipice. … From cutting carbon emissions to strengthening arms control treaties and investing in pandemic preparedness, we know what needs to be done. … We are facing multiple, existential crises. Leaders need a crisis mindset. (emphasis added)

This perspective borders on ridicule. CO2 is casually put forth as a danger to humanity comparable to nuclear war.

The Doomsday Clock is now said to “represent threats to humanity from a variety of sources” according to a collective of Nobel Prize Laureates.

What nonsense.

2023  January Statement, ScreenShot from WP

Presenting C02 or Covid as a danger comparable to nuclear war is an outright lie. Its intent is to mislead public opinion. It is part of a rather unsubtle propaganda campaign which provides legitimacy to the US doctrine of first strike “preemptive nuclear war”, i.e. nuclear war as a means of “self-defense” (formulated in the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review).

What is of concern is that U.S. decision makers including Joe Biden believe in their own propaganda, that a preemptive first strike nuclear war against Russia is “winnable”. And that tactical nuclear weapons are “instruments of peace”.

Meanwhile history is erased. America’s persistent role in developing “a Doomsday Agenda” (aka genocide) since the onslaught of the Manhattan Project in 1939 is simply not mentioned.

What is of concern is that there is a continuous history of numerous projects and WWIII scenarios consisting in “Wiping Russia off the Map” and triggering  a Third World War.

Nuclear war against Russia has been embedded in US military doctrine since 1945.

Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca .

2 August 2023

Source: globalresearch.ca

By Ranjan Solomon

Israel persists with murderous actions against civilian populations in areas that do not belong to Israel. Their occupation of these lands is multiplying with a severity that surpasses imagination. Israeli soldiers and settlers team up, many a time, to inflict unspeakable cruelties on the Palestinians. A major dimension of this tragedy is the acquiescence of the international community. While European governments, USA and Canada are co-opted in different ways by Israel, and western guilt prompts indifference to the Palestinian plight, it is important that civil society, religious and Lay Movements, social movements, trade unions, and student unions fuse to create powerful and visible protests against the continuance of Israel’s savage barbarities- until it gives up its colonial-apartheid policies. These movements must demand the dismantling of settlements and the eviction of settlers from spaces that they absolutely have no rights over. The silence of the international community is tantamount to complicity in accepting the Israeli Government’s systematic violation of international law. UN experts attest to this. They claim: “Israel’s continuous annexation of portions of the occupied Palestinian territory, now focusing on large swathes of the West Bank after unlawfully annexing east Jerusalem, suggests that a concrete effort may be under way to annex the entire occupied Palestinian territory in violation of international law.” UN experts have ceaselessly urged the international community to firmly oppose Israel’s plans for annexation of parts of the occupied West Bank. Palestinian and Israeli human rights defenders, who peacefully bring public attention to these violations, keep being slandered, criminalized or labeled as terrorists.

With the right winger-extremist, Bezalel Smotrich, a mere civilian official who functions as de facto governor of the occupied West Bank, it is visibly clear that he will solidify Israel’s annexation of occupied territory. Annexation or acquisition of territory by use of force or threat is unacceptable. In just the last five decades, Israel has confiscated or endorsed confiscation of Palestinian lands and resources, resulting in over 270 colonies housing 750,000 Israeli settlers.

The Palestinians know deep within themselves that the ultimate victory is theirs. The ‘Days of Palestine’ reports how the Palestinian Youth Movement in Jerusalem will organize a day of anger across the occupied city, with devotees and defenders standing firm against what is called the “Anniversary of the Temple’s Destruction. They have made clear that Israel’s attempts to take control of Jerusalem will only result in hard resistance.

Please read and disseminate.

Ranjan Solomon

28 July 2023

By T.Sh | DOP

Anger is sweeping through Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque today, Wednesday, July 26, 2023, in response to an alleged “Temple Organization” and a number of right-wing settler groups’ planned Flag March.

The march is expected to include ministers and Knesset members, amid calls from Palestinians to confront settlers’ intrusions, declaring it a night of anger and devotion to fend off the incursions.

The provocative march aims to target the gates of Al-Aqsa Mosque, including the New Gate, the Zahra Gate, the Column Gate, and the Asbat Gate, culminating in entering the Old City through the Moroccan Gate and reaching the Western Wall Plaza.

The Palestinian Youth Movement in Jerusalem has announced a day of anger across the occupied city, with devotees and defenders standing firm against what is called the “Anniversary of the Temple’s Destruction.”

In a statement, the movement called on all able individuals to be present at Al-Aqsa Mosque after the afternoon and evening prayers on Wednesday, July 26, 2023, to confront the settlers’ planned intrusion on Thursday, July 27.

It has been made clear by the Palestinians that Israel’s attempts to take control of Jerusalem will only result in resistance activities.

The extremist Temple groups are preparing for a wide-scale incursion into the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque on Thursday, July 27, 2023, marking the alleged “Temple’s Destruction” anniversary, preceded by a hostile flag march that has become recurrent in the holy city.

The Islamic-Christian Society for the Support of Jerusalem and its Holy Sites warned of “Israeli” plans to Judaize the occupied city and control all its neighborhoods through the so-called “Flag March.”

“Flag March” is a form of provocation and Judaization of the holy city, according to Nasser al-Hudmi, head of the society.

Al-Hudmi emphasized that this Judaization aims to control all Arab neighborhoods and eventually demolish the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque to erect a mythical “Temple” in its place.

He further stated that the “Flag March” is a traditional march carried out by the occupation every year, but it has now escalated to twice a month.

26 July 2023

Source: daysofpalestine.ps

By Motasem A Dalloul

Early this week, Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune said that his country’s independence would never be complete as long as Palestine is occupied. Echoing the words of the late South African freedom fighter and President Nelson Mandela, he also pointed out that this has been the position of his predecessors as well.

“Palestine’s strength can only be achieved through its unity,” he told CNN China. “The Palestinians know this very well.” He added that some Arab states, and China, are striving to get Palestine accepted as a full UN member state “even if it is still occupied.”

In fact, most free people around the world appear to support the Palestinians and wish to see the Israeli occupation ended as soon as possible. Only the corrupt elites who run the corrupt states or the so-called democracies, including the US and those in the West, deal with the Israeli occupation as a fully-fledged UN member state, even though it has never fulfilled one of the main conditions of its membership, namely allowing the Palestinians to exercise their legitimate right to return to their land.

The Arab people love Palestine and wish to see all Israeli aggression against the Palestinians stopped and the occupation ended. However, too many Arab leaders — brutal dictators almost to a man — are on the opposite side of the fence to their people.

This has been made very obvious in recent years with some Arab leaders normalising ties with Israel which their people reject. Due to brutal repression in the Arab countries, the people could not express their opposition to normalisation freely, but the world was given a glimpse of their real feelings when Israelis visited Qatar for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. It was made clear that they weren’t welcome.

So, if the Arab leaders are more interested in Israel than in Palestine and the Palestinians, why do they claim to support the Palestinian cause from time to time?

Palestine has played a hugely important part in Islamic history, and holds great significance for Muslims. It is the home of Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site for all Muslims on earth, and most Arabs are Muslims; Palestine and its people are in their hearts.

Arab leaders recognise this spiritual and historic connection between their people and Al-Aqsa so cannot easily ignore it. They use this connection when they want to conduct any immoral relations or communications with the Israeli occupation authorities, or when they want to suppress the freedoms of their people.

When they want to reinforce their authoritarianism, they highlight the issue of Palestine in their agenda. They use emotional language in their speeches and might invite Palestinian leaders to show up for a photocall, or host Palestinian patients or those wounded by Israeli soldiers or settlers.

This way, the Arab leaders get the sympathy of their people, who will forget their own troubles, as happened with the late Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. He was defeated by Israel in 1967, but would later become the figurehead of the pan-Arab project thanks in part to his alleged support for Palestine and the national Arab agenda, which included the boycott of Israel and the liberation of Palestine.

Despite Nasser’s mass arrests and execution of Egyptians who fought against the Israelis in 1948, when he died the Palestinians mourned him as a hero of Palestine and its people, and called him a national leader. This has been the situation with many other Arab leaders, who have not been interested in helping the Palestinians at all.

Algeria’s Tebboune hosted the Palestinian factions for a national dialogue in October last year. What happened afterwards? Nothing. He brought them together and they showed up for the obligatory photo opportunity, and that was it. He got the Algerians clapping for him and the Palestinian leaders ate well and slept well. The people of occupied Palestine, meanwhile, continue to live through exceptionally difficult times under Israel’s brutal military occupation.

The Algerian regime is an extension of the regime of the late dictator Abdulaziz Bouteflika, so when Tebboune told CNN China that Algeria’s independence is not complete, he was right. That’s the reality for the Algerian people, who do not enjoy freedom and independence. But Tebboune has done nothing for Palestine except condemn Israeli aggression or express support for the Palestinians with empty words.

Next week, Cairo is hosting a meeting for the Palestinian factions to discuss the latest Israeli violations and attacks as well as the challenges facing the people of occupied Palestine. Egypt is hosting this meeting which will look for mechanisms to help the Palestinians; at the same time, it will continue to help Israel to impose a siege on the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian traders in Gaza who import goods from Egypt say that the Egyptians do not sell them any of the goods banned by Israel. We can be sure, though, that next week’s faction meeting in Cairo — which comes in the middle of an escalation of Israeli aggression against the Palestinians — will be well publicised in Egypt, giving President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi the chance to show Egyptians that he is a supporter of Palestine and its people.

The reality is that Arab leaders have been suppressing legitimate Palestinian resistance against the Israeli occupation since the time of the British Mandate, which ended in 1948 with the creation of the apartheid state. Their function was to prepare for the creation of Israel and their role ever since has been to facilitate its growth and protect it from the Palestinians.

If proof is required for this, then we need look no further than the Arab League’s unanimous adoption of the Saudi Peace Initiative in 2002, which literally completes the occupation of Palestine. At the same time, look at the nationalistic remarks of the Arab leaders even as Israeli troops and settlers kill and wound Palestinians, and the Zionist state steals ever more Palestinian land while ties with the Arab world get warmer and warmer. Arab leaders use Palestine shamelessly to boost their own popularity, but do nothing to help its people.

Motasem A Dalloul The author is MEMO’s correspondent in the Gaza Strip.

26 July 2023

Source: middleeastmonitor.com

By MEE staff

Despite several months of protests across Israel, on Monday parliamentarians succeeded in passing legislation to remove a key judicial power, limiting the ability of the courts to override the government’s laws.

The so-called “reasonableness standard” had long been a thorn in the side of right-wingers in Israel and the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed its removal as a victory for parliament over an unelected body.

“Today we did a necessary democratic act, an act that is intended to return a measure of balance between the branches of government,” Netanyahu said in a televised address on Monday evening.

For anti-government demonstrators and opposition leader Yair Lapid, the move instead signals the “destruction of Israeli democracy”.

With international markets reacting negatively to the move and condemnation coming from foreign governments, Middle East Eye takes a look at why the “reasonableness standard” was such a point of contention.

Since the establishment of Israel in 1948, the “reasonableness standard” has been one of the Supreme Court’s key tools to limit the power of the executive.

It allowed the court to overrule what it considered unreasonable government decisions and appointments. The power, which was never enshrined in legislation, derives heavily from British common law, which was influential in the formation of the Israeli judiciary.

Israel does not have a written constitution – only a set of roughly defined Basic Laws – and has a heavily centralised executive, and so the Supreme Court’s rulings were the main check on overreach.

Critics have claimed that the “reasonableness” assessment is too vague and subjective, and has given too much power to unelected officials.

Supporters say that its integration into Israeli law over the decades has prevented the country sliding into authoritarianism.

What has been the reaction?

Following the passage of the new legislation, there was a massive outcry from the protesters who have been pushing back against the judicial reforms since January.

The law passed with 64 votes in the 120-seat chamber – opposition lawmakers stormed out, shouting “shame”.

Financial markets reacted sharply to the new measure. Tel Aviv share indices closed 2.3 percent lower, while the shekel lost 1.4 percent to reach 3.68 against the dollar.

Credit agency Moody’s warned on Tuesday about a “significant risk” likely to have “negative consequences for Israel’s economy and security situation”, while Morgan Stanley also predicted “increased uncertainty about the economic outlook”.

Despite previous warnings, however, the US State Department said there was “not going to be any cut or stoppage of military aid, and that is because our commitment to Israel and our commitment to Israel’s security is ironclad”.

“Our decades-long partnership with Israel is ironclad,” said spokesperson Vedant Patel on Tuesday.

What happens next?

A number of organisations, including the Israel Bar Association, have filed a petition with the Supreme Court against the legislation. Lapid said he would also be submitting a petition.

However, it is debatable as to whether the court can actually act to strike down the new legislation.

So far the court has never invalidated any Basic Law – striking down this act would therefore be unprecedented.

It would also be fraught with constitutional difficulty, but it is not impossible. It would, however, likely further inflame and polarise an already heated debate in Israel.

The rest of Netanyahu’s judicial reforms package will not be put before parliament until after the summer recess.

However, Netanyahu has promised to reach out to the opposition to discuss the future legislation.

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Middle East Eye delivers independent and unrivalled coverage and analysis of the Middle East, North Africa and beyond.

26 July 2023

Source: middleeasteye.net

By Middle East Monitor

As thousands of Israelis blocked roads and scuffled with police over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul, Arab citizens shared online memes of themselves watching the crisis unfold as unfazed spectators, Reuters reports.

They make up a fifth of Israel’s 9.7 million people and could be among those most impacted by the religious-nationalist government’s controversial push to curb the Supreme Court, but they point to deeper concerns than the debate over balance of powers.

“We are in a constant battle for our existence,” mused retired teacher, Adnan Haj Yahia, 67, in a coffee shop in Taybeh, a central Arab city abutting the Occupied West Bank.

Looking at a protest ad covering the front pages of leading Israeli newspapers with the words “a black day for democracy”, he said that described daily reality for his community.

Palestinians who stayed in the new Israeli state after the 1948 war. Largely self-identifying as Palestinian, they have long pondered their place in politics, balancing their heritage with Israeli nationality.

While others hotly debate the state’s identity as Jewish and democratic, Palestinian citizens “have no place in this formula,” said attorney, Hassan Jabareen, founder of the Haifa-based Adalah rights group.

Jabareen, who has more than two decades of experience petitioning the Supreme Court on minority rights cases, said the Court had traditionally been the last line of defence in cases of “extreme, unreasonable discrimination.” He cited protecting Arab participation in elections, fair allocation of budgets and rights to live in towns denying Arabs residence.

Still, he said Palestinians, whether they hold Israeli citizenship or live under military occupation, have little hope in an increasingly conservative court that has backed bills such as the 2018 Nation-State Law, which declares only Jews have a right to self-determination.

“Discrimination in Israel is official,” said Jabareen. “This is the only state in the world that rejects the idea that the state should be a state of all its citizens.”

‘Top priority is to live’ 

While Israel says it grants them equal rights, many Arabs say they face structural discrimination and hostile policies.

A 2021 report by the Israel Democracy Institute found significant social and economic gaps between Jewish and Arab citizens, with poverty among Arabs more than three times higher.

Arabs are mainly employed in low-income industrial jobs, the report said. They tend to live in overcrowded towns and villages with infrastructure deficiencies and poorer-funded schools.

The danger of weaker oversight on the executive is clear to Palestinian citizens, particularly under a government that has expanded illegal settlements in the Occupied West Bank and is made up of senior ministers who whip up sentiment against them, lawmaker Aida Touma-Sliman of the Arab-Jewish Hadash party told Reuters.

Earlier this year, the US condemned as incitement to violence comments by Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, that a Palestinian village in the West Bank must be “erased” by Israel.

But many are remaining on the sidelines, Touma-Sliman said, as they do not see themselves reflected in a protest movement infused with nationalist and militaristic symbols.

Instead, Palestinian citizens have, for months, been mobilising to address a different crisis: record levels of criminal violence rocking their communities.

At least 130 Arab citizens have been killed in crime-related shootings since January, twice the fatalities over the same period last year, according to data gathered by an advocacy group campaigning against the violence.

It is not only the climbing death toll but the paralysing effect organised crime groups have on local communities, who no longer feel safe, said Touma-Sliman.

Community leaders and members have urged the Prime Minister to take action, accusing the government and police of systemic neglect. Netanyahu, in a rare statement following the killing of five people on a single day in June, said the government “was determined to fight organised crime and restore quiet.”

“The Palestinian community is trying to fight for survival,” said Touma-Sliman. “The top priority for Palestinians at this point is to live. The top priority for the protesters, the Jewish protesters, is to live in democracy.”

26 July 2023

Source: middleeastmonitor.com

By Nora Barrows-Friedman

Inspired by the movement that helped dismantle the apartheid regime in South Africa, dozens of faith-based groups in the US this week launched an initiative to take action against Israeli apartheid.

The Apartheid-Free Communities initiative, convened by the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization, encourages faith groups to pledge “to step away from any and all support to Israeli apartheid, occupation, and settler colonialism.”

More than 80 groups have already signed the pledge, including three denominations: the United Church of Christ, South Central Yearly Meeting (Quaker) and the Alliance of Baptists.

Many other interfaith, Christian, Jewish and Muslim organizations have also signed on.

The initiative developed last year during an ecumenical gathering to assess “how to bring churches on board because of the particular need to educate and motivate churches to make a stand,” Reverend Allison Tanner, national organizer for the initiative, told The Electronic Intifada.

The campaign was born out of a response “to the direct request of Palestinian civil society to create apartheid-free zones,” she said, and from recognizing the need “to ignite congregations more fully in the work.”

For years, churches and other faith-based groups have participated in divestment campaigns while calls to stand against Israeli apartheid have grown.

Last year, the Presbyterian Church USA – which has more than a million members around the country – affirmed that “the government of Israel’s laws, policies and practices regarding the Palestinian people fulfill the international legal definition of apartheid.”

The church has worked since 2014 to divest from US companies that profit from Israel’s abuses of Palestinian rights.

The Presbyterian church recommended that its members and staff “seek appropriate ways to bring an end” to the racist policies of apartheid, containment and colonial violence.

Other Christian denominations across the US have taken similar steps to oppose Israel’s apartheid and occupation policies in Palestine.

Notably, Palestinian churches have played a key role in boosting support for divestment among North American congregations.

In 2009, Palestinian Christians issued the Kairos Palestine document, calling on churches around the world to take action for justice, including specifically support for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.

However, Tanner explained that the church-based divestment initiatives have reached a plateau.

“We wanted to fire up those groups again – but there is also a recognition that what happens at the denomination level doesn’t trickle down into the pews,” she said.

The Apartheid-Free Communities initiative, she noted, focuses on educating congregants in order to support collective action in order to have a material effect on Israeli policy.

The pledge that faith-based communities and individuals can take, Tanner explained, “was written very succinctly and very focused: if you’re against racism, if you’re against bigotry, then you ought to be against apartheid.”

It serves “not only to say you’re against apartheid, but to name Israeli apartheid, to commit to take action against Israeli apartheid and to become part of a network that helps you think through and live out these commitments.”

Tanner and other faith-based leaders recently returned from a delegation to Palestine, organized by the American Friends Service Committee.

What she saw, she said, “was the direness of the situation. And the starkness of what people are facing … that was really heavy. Our whole group is still grieving and dealing with some secondary trauma from witnessing that so intensely.”

In speaking with people she met across historic Palestine who are facing accelerated land theft, systemic violence and military occupation, there was a sense, on the one hand, that there is widespread hopelessness.

But on the other hand, she added, there was a feeling “that things are changing – and we don’t know what that change is going to look like. [But] it gave us an urgency in the work that we’re doing now.”

Nora Barrows-Friedman is a staff writer and associate editor at The Electronic Intifada, and is the author of In Our Power: US Students Organize for Justice in Palestine (Just World Books, 2014).

8 June 2023

Source: electronicintifada.net