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By Seyed Hossein Mousavian

Dr. Mousavian is a Middle East Security and Nuclear Policy specialist at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs.

Turmoil domestic and foreign has roiled Iran over the past year. The government has faced widespread waves of protest after the death of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, at the hands of the police. And negotiations with the world powers failed to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), resulting in a ramping up of international sanctions.

In this article, I explain Iran’s calculations with respect to the costs and benefits of its membership in the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. If Iran abandons that accord, then the goal of establishing a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in the Middle East will be undermined. I present an Iranian perspective on a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East region and propose a strategy to overcome decades of disputes between Iran and the western powers on weapons of mass destruction.

Last year, in response to a new round of US-EU sanctions, Iran started to enrich uranium to 60 percent, a level that could be used to make a nuclear weapon.¹ Some reports indicate that inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have found traces of uranium-235 enriched to 84 percent—the highest discovered to this point.² However, in the past, Iranian officials have emphasized that possession of nuclear weapons would not increase the country’s security.³

Complicating the situation is Iran’s assistance to Russia’s war in Ukraine. The Islamic Republic has acknowledged that it supplied a limited number of drones to Russia in the months before the start of its invasion.

Given these domestic and international pressures, the chance of reviving the JCPOA seems remote.⁴ Indeed, these events have had consequences for Iran’s foreign policy calculations—particularly, its involvement in international treaties like the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT).

The establishment of a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone (NWFZ) is a regional approach to strengthening non-proliferation and disarmament norms. Article VII of the NPT states, “Nothing in this Treaty affects the right of any group of States to conclude regional treaties in order to assure the total absence of nuclear weapons in their respective territories.”⁵ The UN secretary-general and the high representative for disarmament affairs work with member states to create, strengthen, and consolidate NWFZ that are free of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).⁶

A central issue is that, while Iran remains a party to the NPT and to the chemical- and biological-weapons bans, it has not benefited from the access to peaceful technologies associated with membership in those conventions.

International efforts to build a Middle East free from WMD began in the 1960s and led to a joint declaration by Iran and Egypt in 1974 and a UN General Assembly resolution.⁷ In parallel, the 1995 Review and Extension Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons adopted a resolution calling for “the establishment of an effectively verifiable Middle East zone free of weapons of mass destruction, nuclear, chemical and biological, and their delivery systems.” Subsequent NPT review conferences continued to emphasize the importance of the 1995 resolution with a view to applying IAEA safeguards to all nuclear installations in the region.⁸

Following the 1995 conference, the IAEA held a series of meetings of experts and academics to consider ways to advance this process.

Centrality of the Non-Proliferation Treaty

The NPT is a landmark international treaty designed “to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons,” “promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy,” and further the goal of nuclear disarmament. It contains the only binding commitment by the first five nuclear-armed states to realize the goal of nuclear disarmament. A total of 191 states have joined the accord.

The three primary goals of the NPT are

1. nonproliferation
2. nuclear disarmament
3. sharing the benefits of peaceful nuclear technology.

Similar goals have been set for the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Biological Weapons Convention.

The concept of “rights vs. commitments” is at the core of these international agreements. There has been little progress by the nuclear states toward disarmament. While Russia and the United States have reduced their nuclear weapons, actual disarmament is nowhere in sight. Instead, the world powers have decided to modernize and upgrade their nukes. The United States plans to spend up to $1.5 trillion over 30 years rebuilding each leg of its nuclear triad (arms deployed by land, sea, and air) and its nuclear-weapons infrastructure.⁹ The United Kingdom, France, and China also continue to possess nuclear weapons, while Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea have joined the club since the NPT came into force.¹⁰ On February 21, President Vladimir Putin pulled Russia back from its participation in the New START treaty with the United States, the last deal limiting the two sides’ strategic offensive arsenals.¹¹

There are major differences in the policies of the United States toward countries in the developing world that possess nuclear weapons. North Korea, because it is not a US ally, is under tremendous economic sanctions by the world powers. The American allies Israel, India, and Pakistan are treated differently.

With the exception of Israel, the only nuclear state in the Middle East, regional states have expressed their desire to build a NWFZ.¹² This effort has failed so far due to the differing perceptions of states toward such a zone.

Iran’s Failure to Achieve Its Rights under International Conventions

When it comes to the Iran’s nuclear program, the principle of rights vs. commitments has been applied in a vastly disproportionate way. Israel, which has about a hundred nuclear warheads, enjoys the unconditional support of the United States and other world powers, while, Iran, which does not possess a nuclear weapon, is under tremendous pressure from the western powers.¹³

In addition to its membership in the NPT, Iran has signed the additional protocol as part of the JCPOA, the world’s most comprehensive nuclear transparency agreement.¹⁴ The additional protocol entails a number of obligations, including providing the IAEA access to any facility, declared or not, on short notice to investigate suspicious nuclear activity.

The JCPOA is a landmark accord. Iran agreed to dismantle part of its nuclear program and open its facilities to more extensive international inspections in return for the lifting of crippling economic sanctions.¹⁵ US experts estimated at the time that if Iran had decided to make a bomb, it would have taken two to three months until it had enough 90 percent-enriched uranium to build a nuclear weapon. The JCPOA significantly increased Iran’s breakout time to more than one year.

Moreover, Iran agreed not to engage in research and development that would contribute to the development of a nuclear weapon. In December 2015, the IAEA’s board of governors voted to end the agency’s decade-long investigation into the possible military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program. The IAEA’s director general concluded that, until 2003, Iran had conducted “a coordinated effort” on “a range of activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device.” Iran had continued with some of these activities until 2009, but after that there were “no credible indications” of weapons development.¹⁶ Iran’s ratification of the additional protocol underscored its agreement to enhanced transparency beyond that required by the NPT.¹⁷

Despite Iran’s full implementation of the JCPOA for more than three years, the Trump administration unilaterally withdrew and imposed the most stringent economic sanctions on Iran—in total violation of the deal. The Islamic Republic has faced the same problem with regard the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), which “prohibits the development, production, acquisition, transfer, stockpiling and use of biological and toxin weapons. It was the first multilateral disarmament treaty banning an entire category of weapons of mass destruction.”¹⁸ Iran has fully complied with these two international conventions but has not received the benefits to which it is entitled. In fact, the country was a victim of chemical weapons during war Iraq’s invasion in the 1980s. CIA files show that the United States helped Saddam Hussein launch some of the worst chemical attacks in history against Iran.¹⁹ European countries such as Britain, France, and Germany also supplied Iraq with such weapons. Some 80 German companies supplied Saddam’s regime with equipment for its weapons program. An 11,000-page report sent to the UN in 2002 detailed how German companies “actively encouraged” the Iraqi government to develop weapons.²⁰

Iran signed the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) in 1993. When I was Iran’s ambassador to Germany, the former chancellor, Helmut Kohl, asked me to personally deliver an important letter to then-President Hashemi Rafsanjani. Kohl proposed that Iran ratify the CWC as soon as possible in order to open the way for Germany and Europe to export peaceful chemical technologies to the Islamic Republic. The Iranian parliament ratified the convention, but the combination of US sanctions and pressure prevented the European companies from delivering the Western side of the bargain.²¹ 

The CWC’s implementation body, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, declares that it provides these benefits:

• training, on-site assistance, and help with legislation;
• “economic and technological development” through the “spin-offs” of the technologies;

• financial support for scientific exchange and research projects;
• and “audits of national laboratories to support the establishment of quality assurance systems.²²

Iran has received no fiscal or logistical support on any of these fronts.

Just as with the chemical-weapons pact, the BWC also comes with incentives and commitments. Article I of the convention includes the right of parties to items that can be justified for “prophylactic, protective, or other peaceful purposes”: “For example, States Parties can develop medicines and vaccines to combat naturally occurring outbreaks of diseases as well as defensive measure to combat the effects of biological weapons.”²³ The distinction between which items are prohibited and those that are allowed is a matter of purpose. Article X of the BWC clearly states the convention is to “facilitate the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and information for peaceful purposes.”²⁴ The convention also notes that it should be implemented in a way that would “avoid hampering” economic and technical development as well as international cooperation of peaceful projects.²⁵

Iran has not been able to benefit from the rights to which it is entitled under the BWC. While the Islamic Republic has made scientific and technological advances in biotechnology and nanotechnology, its advances in these fields have been due to its own domestic efforts, in isolation from the broader international community of researchers. Such constraints have been created by the United States.

Inside the government since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, there have been supporters of membership in these WMD treaties, as well as detractors. I have witnessed this debate since joining the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1986. The most serious discussions occurred during my tenure on the Foreign Policy Committee of the Secretariat of the Supreme National Security Council between 1997 and 2005. During that period, I got to know well the arguments of those opposing membership in the treaties: These conventions are a tool in the hands of arrogant global powers. Member states are obliged to allow the inspectors to not only inspect and control all the nuclear-chemical-biological facilities of the country, but also to surveil their technological capabilities and obtain information about sensitive military and security centers.

Thus, there is a strong belief among part of the political-security-military wings in Iran that these international conventions are one-way streets toward restrictions, intrusive inspections, political pressures, and allegations—without any benefits. There have also been numerous cyber and physical attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities, and assassinations of its nuclear scientists from 2010 onward.²⁶ This has given rise to the belief that such conventions, including extensive access for the IAEA, have enabled the activities of malicious forces against the state.²⁷

Since the Trump administration’s ill-advised withdrawal from the JCPOA, this belief that Iran’s membership in the NPT and disarmament conventions is actually harmful to the country’s national interests has gained momentum. Iran fully implemented the JCPOA for three years. However, once in office, Trump rewarded this behavior by imposing the most stringent sanctions ever on any nation-state. There is now a strong anti-JCPOA faction in Iran. Mohammad-Javad Larijani—a well-known politician and former diplomat—recently said that the JCPOA “is dead but unfortunately not buried, and it smells.”²⁸ He added that the agreement “is a crooked [instrument] and we should never pin hopes on it.”²⁹ 

John Kirby of the US National Security Council has made it clear that the United States is looking to make progress on the JCPOA. “The president has always said, while he would prefer a diplomatic, peaceful way to achieve an outcome of Iran not having a nuclear weapon, he isn’t going to take other options off the table,” he said.³⁰ For its part, Iran’s Foreign Ministry has raised the possibility of withdrawing from the NPT as a countermeasure against Western sanctions and pressures. For instance, the European Union has the snapback at its disposal. If the union refers the Iranian nuclear file to the UN Security Council in order to reinstate sanctions, Iran may withdraw from the NPT. And in the event of potential US or Israeli military attacks, Iran may start building a nuclear bomb.³¹

I must caution against moving down this road. The absence of a nuclear deal and the intensification of US and Western pressures on Iran will make its withdrawal from the NPT more likely. It would then gradually leave all other WMD treaties. That will serve no one’s interests. There is a better solution:

1. Revive the JCPOA.

2. The five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany and Iran should form a working group on WMD and finalize the details of a broad agreement based on the following principles:
   1. Iran would pledge its full commitment and adherence to the international nuclear, chemical, and biological conventions;
   2. the world powers would guarantee Iran’s access to the associated peaceful technologies and abolish the relevant sanctions.
3. The principles of the JCPOA should be regionalized to all Gulf countries to facilitate, at the very least, a nuclear-weapons-free zone in that subregion.

 

This would be a diplomatic achievement and an important step forward toward a WMD-free world.

¹ Simon Henderson, “Iran enriched uranium to 84 percent — but can it make a nuclear bomb?” The Hill, February 20, 2023, https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/3865793-iran-enriched-uranium-to-84-percent-but-can-it-make-a-nuclear-bomb/.

² Lauren Sforza, “Nuclear inspectors in Iran find uranium enriched to 84-percent purity: reports,” The Hill, February 19, 2023, https://thehill.com/policy/international/3865880-nuclear-inspectors-in-iran-find-uranium-enriched-to-84-percent-purity-reports/.

³ Islamic Republic News Agency, “Zarif: Nuclear bomb cannot augment Iran security,” July 17, 2019, https://en.irna.ir/news/83400216/Zarif-Nuclear-bomb-cannot-augment-Iran-security.

⁴ Adam Pourahmadi and Sophie Tanno, “Iran acknowledges providing drones to Russia before Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine,” CNN, November 5, 2022, https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/05/middleeast/iran-drones-russia-intl/index.html.

⁵ United Nations Office of Disarmament Affairs, “Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT),” n.d., https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/npt/text/.

⁶ Ibid.

⁷ Nabil Fahmy, “Egyptian Concerns on the P5+1/Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,” NUPI, September 28, 2015, https://www.nupi.no/en/news/egyptian-concerns-on-the-p5-1-iran-joint-comprehensive-plan-of-action.

⁸ Arms Control Association, “WMD-Free Middle East Proposal at a Glance,” updated December 2018, https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/mewmdfz.

⁹ Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, “Fact Sheet: U.S. Nuclear Weapons Modernization: Costs & Constraints,” updated January 2023, https://armscontrolcenter.org/fact-sheet-u-s-nuclear-weapons-modernization-costs-constraints/.

¹⁰ Seyed Hossein Mousavian and Emad Kiyaei, A Middle East Free of Weapons of Mass Destruction: A New Approach to Nonproliferation (London: Routledge, 2022).

¹¹ Rob Picheta, Anna Chernova, Nathan Hodge, Lauren Kent, and Radina Gigova, “Putin pulls back from last remaining nuclear arms control pact with the US,” CNN, February 21, 2023, https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/21/europe/putin-russia-new-start-nuclear-pact-intl/index.html.

¹² Mousavian and Kiyaei, A Middle East Free of Weapons of Mass Destruction.

¹³ Ibid.; Gawdat Bahgat, “Israel and nuclear proliferation in the Middle East,” Middle East Policy 13, no. 2 (Summer 2006).

¹⁴ Seyed Hossein Mousavian and Mohammad Mehdi Mousavian, “Building on the Iran Nuclear Deal for International Peace and Security,” Journal for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament 1, no. 1 (2017): 169-192.

¹⁵ Masoud Movahed, “Rebooting Iran’s Economy: What Tehran Needs to Do to Fix its Finances,” Foreign Affairs, November 22, 2015; Masoud Movahed, “Industrializing an Oil-Based Economy: Evidence from Iran’s Auto Industry,” Journal of International Development 32, no. 7 (October 2020).

¹⁶ For more details, see BBC News, “Iran nuclear deal: What it all means,” November 23, 2021, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-33521655.

¹⁷ See the text of the JCPOA through the website of the European Parliament: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/122460/full-text-of-the-iran-nuclear-deal.pdf.

¹⁸ United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs, “Biological Weapons Convention,” n.d., https://www.un.org/disarmament/biological-weapons. 

¹⁹ Shane Harris and Matthew M. Aid, “Exclusive: CIA Files Prove America Helped Saddam as He Gassed Iran,” Foreign Policy, August 26, 2013, https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/26/exclusive-cia-files-prove-america-helped-saddam-as-he-gassed-iran/.

²⁰ Morning Star, “Iran pursues German companies that gave Saddam Hussein chemical weapons,” People’s World, January 29, 2021, https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/iran-pursues-german-companies-that-gave-saddam-hussein-chemical-weapons/.

²¹ Seyed Hossein Mousavian, The Iranian Nuclear Crisis: A Memoir (Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2012).

²² Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, “Achieving Universality: Ensuring a truly global treaty,” n.d., https://www.opcw.org/our-work/achieving-universality-convention.

²³ Jenni Rissanen, “The Biological Weapons Convention,” NTI, February 28, 2003, https://www.nti.org/analysis/articles/biological-weapons-convention/.

²⁴ United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs, “The Biological Weapons Convention: An Introduction,” June 2017, https://s3.amazonaws.com/unoda-web/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/BWS-brochure.pdf.

²⁵ Ibid.

²⁶ Mark Saunokonoko, “How Stuxnet worm took out key Iranian nuclear facility in 2010,” 9News, April 12, 2021, https://www.9news.com.au/world/how-stuxnet-cyberattack-took-out-natanz-…;

²⁷ Ronen Bergman and Farnaz Fassihi, “The Scientist and the A.I.-Assisted, Remote-Control Killing Machine,” The New York Times, October 26, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/18/world/middleeast/iran-nuclear-fakhrizadeh-assassination-israel.html.

²⁸ Iran International, “Iran Hardliner Says Nuclear Deal ‘Dead But Not Buried,’” January 20, 2023, https://www.iranintl.com/en/202301204594, accessed February 2, 202

²⁹ Ibid.

³⁰ Tom O’Connor, “With No Nuclear Deal, U.S. Eyes ‘Other Options,’ Iran Says JCPOA ‘Only’ Way,” Newsweek, January 27, 2023, https://www.newsweek.com/no-nuclear-deal-us-eyes-other-options-iran-says-jcpoa-only-way-1777205.

³¹ Seyed Hossein Mousavian, “What Losing the Iran Deal Could Mean for the Region,” The Cairo Review of Global Affairs, Fall 2022/Winter 2023, https://www.thecairoreview.com/essays/what-losing-the-iran-deal-could-mean-for-the-region/.

Seyed Hossein Mousavian From 2003 to 2005, he was Iran’s spokesman the nuclear negotiations with the European Union and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

11 April 2023

Source: mepc.org

Palestine Update 639
_Comment_

Israel’s obstinate malice and Palestinian’s obdurate resistance
Israeli forces have developed a new habit of beating up Palestinian
worshipers at the Al-Aqsa mosque recurrently. Any pretext will do as
long as it is punitive and damaging physically and psychologically to
the Palestinians. A UN expert has condemned these brutal attacks by
Israeli forces on Palestinians praying at AlAqsa. Francesco Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur has urged the international community to step up efforts to hold the occupying power accountable before the situation spirals further out of control.

An Israeli [1] foreign ministry tweet scolding Palestinian [2] children
for playing football on the grounds of Al-Aqsa Mosque has been condemned and branded hypocritical on social media. The Israeli ministry posted a video [3] with the caption: “Meanwhile, soccer matches are being held just next to the mosque. Is this how the sanctity of the place is being maintained?” The retorts came thick and fast: “The irony is so thick! You talk about sanctity while disregarding Palestinian lives”.

International opinion remains prejudiced against the Palestinians thanks to outlets such as the BBC whose reportage ‘propagandises’ for
Israel and, in fact, enables Israeli violence. Francesca Albanese has
also called out the BBC’s awful reporting.

A Middle East Monitor reports how, in the midst of Ramadan, despite
warnings multiple sources; Jewish settler groups announced its menu for conflict and political tension. They asserted they would celebrate
Passover in Al-Aqsa Mosque, where thousands of Muslims will be spending their days and nights in various acts of worship.

Palestinians refuse to be cowed down by all these threats The
Palestinian resistance factions affirmed “that the threats of the
leaders of the defeated and deterred Zionist enemy will not frighten the
Palestinian people and their valiant resistance but will be met with an
escalation of resistance, revolution and uprising in all its forms
against the criminal enemy entity and its settlers. The factions called
for the continuation of the journey to al-Aqsa Mosque and the
intensification of crowds from all cities, villages and camps of the
homeland in order to defend its Islamic sites in the face of the
Zionist-Talmudic attack, especially in the ten days of the blessed month
of Ramadan”. This threat has carried weight because it is expected
that Netanyahu will not allow settlers to enter the mosque complex durng the period.  Netanyahu has to cope with variance from the extreme far-right Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, who believes that stopping the settlers, is “surrendering to terrorism”.

The struggle remains tense with the ongoing Nakba and the ongoing
‘Intifadas’ happening in tandem.

On behalf of MLN Palestine Updates

Ranjan Solomon
————————-

Al-Aqsa: Israeli tweet scolding Palestinian children for playing
football ‘hypocritical’
_Israeli foreign ministry hit out at Palestinian children for disturbing
‘sanctity’ of holy site by playing football_
An Israeli [4] foreign ministry tweet scolding Palestinian [5] children
for playing football on the grounds of Al-Aqsa Mosque has been condemned and branded hypocritical on social media. The Israeli ministry posted a video [6] on Saturday night of teenagers playing football with the caption: “Meanwhile, soccer matches are being held just next to the mosque. Is this how the sanctity of the place is being maintained?”

Hundreds of social media users hit out at the use of the word
“sanctity”, given that Israeli forces stormed the site [7] over two
successive nights last week. “Is this your lame excuse to beat the
worshippers up violently, during the holy month of #Ramadan? The irony is so thick! You talk about sanctity while disregarding Palestinian
lives,” one wrote.
Source [8]

————————————————————————————————————————
Special Procedures @UN_SPExperts
#Israel: UN expert condemns brutal attacks by Israeli forces on
Palestinians praying at #AlAqsa on Wednesday. @FranceskAlbs urges intl community to step up efforts to hold the occupying power accountable before the situation spirals further out of control:
Full statement: [9]
—————————————————————————————————-
John Minto: Israeli attacks on Al Aqsa mosque – and the failings of
media

The last fortnight has seen a series of brutal, deliberately provocative
Israeli attacks on Palestinian worshippers at Al Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Needless to say, Israel had no business interfering in Muslim worship at Al Aqsa, the third holiest shrine for Muslims after Mecca and Medina, and an area which is not under their authority or control. Despite this, Israeli attacks on Al Aqsa have intensified in recent years as the apartheid state strives to undermine all aspects of Palestinian life in Jerusalem. It is applying ethnic cleansing in slow motion. Inevitably missile attacks on Israel from Gaza and Southern Lebanon followed and Israel has reveled in once again trying to portray itself to the world as the victim.

Initially reporting here in New Zealand was reasonable and clearly
identified Israel as the brutal racist aggressors attacking Palestinian
civilians at worship. However, within a couple of days media reporting
deteriorated dramatically with the “normal” appalling reporting
taking over — painting Palestinians as terrorists and Israel as simply
enforcing “law and order”. At the heart of appalling reporting for a
long time has been the BBC which slavishly and consistently screws the
scrum in Israel’s favour. The BBC does not report on the Middle East
– it propagandises for Israel. Journalist Jonathan Cook describes how
the BBC coverage [10] is enabling Israeli violence and UN Special
Rapporteur on the Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, called
out the BBC’s awful reporting in a tweet. There is an excellent
10-minute video in which former Palestinian spokesperson Hanan Ashrawi more than held her own against a hostile BBC interviewer here [11].

Source [12]: [13]

Israel is in a downward spiral of self-destruction
The sight of Israeli police storming the holy mosque of Al-Aqsa with
their boots and batons, beating worshippers amid clouds of tear gas, was appalling. Hundreds of Palestinians were bound and driven away like cattle in the most inhumane way.

Yes, the holy month of Ramadan is here and what everyone was warning about happened in the worst possible way. “Everyone” includes the Israeli media, the Israeli government, the Israeli security forces, the Palestinians, the Arab states, the Europeans and the Americans, who all anticipated a wave of violence during the fasting month, not least because it coincides with the Jewish Passover (and, this year, Easter). Jewish settler groups announced that they were going to celebrate Passover in Al-Aqsa Mosque, where thousands of Muslims will be spending their days and nights in various acts of worship.

One of the reasons for the Aqaba Summit between the Israelis and the
Palestinians on 26 February was to de-escalate the tension in the
occupied West Bank prior to Ramadan starting. Representatives from
Jordan, Egypt and the US also took part. The US proposed a plan to
de-escalate and stop Palestinian resistance in the West Bank. According
to the US State Department, the Joint Communique following the meeting in Aqaba on 26 February said that Israel and the Palestinian Authority reaffirmed the necessity of committing to de-escalation on the ground and to prevent further violence; Israel committed to stop discussions about any new settlement units for four months and to stop the authorisation of any settlement outposts for six months; and the historic status quo at the holy sites in Jerusalem is to be upheld and
unchanged in word and practice, with an emphasis on the Hashemite
Kingdom’s custodianship and special role in this regard.
Read full article in Middle East Monitor [14]

Resistance factions: Enemy will pay price for any attack, its threats
will not frighten Palestinian people and their resistance The Palestinian resistance factions affirmed on Tuesday that the threats of the leaders of the defeated and deterred Zionist enemy will not frighten the Palestinian people and their valiant resistance but will be met with an escalation of resistance, revolution and uprising in all its forms against the criminal enemy entity and its settlers. The factions called for the continuation of the journey to al-Aqsa Mosque and the intensification of crowds from all cities, villages and camps of the homeland in order to defend its Islamic sites in the face of the Zionist-Talmudic attack, especially in the ten days of the blessed month of Ramadan. It considered that the battle with the Zionist enemy has become fierce and requires concerted efforts to achieve victory over the enemy and thwart all its plans and conspiracies.

The factions saluted the Palestinian people in all squares and fronts,
headed by the steadfast and worshipers in al-Aqsa Mosque, adding that
the steadfastness and painted pictures of glory will remain engraved in
the Palestinian memory, confirming that Al-Aqsa Mosque belongs to
Muslims and Arabs despite the arrogant Zionist enemy. They stressed that this entity will pay the price for any attack and the Palestinian people will continue to teach the enemy lessons in resistance, adherence to rights, and defense of al-Aqsa Mosque, regardless of the sacrifices.

The resistance factions addressed the peoples of the Arab and Islamic
nation and the axis of resistance, headed by the Islamic Republic of
Iran, with salutations, pride, and pride for the effort and active role
in supporting the Palestinian cause and supporting the Palestinian
resistance and the Palestinian people. The resistance factions called on
all the people of the nation to be strong and impenetrable in the face
of all conspiracies and schemes that seek to plunder the nation’s
resources, fragment its unity, and divert its compass from the real and
central enemy of the nation and its people.
Source: [15]

‘Mesaharati’ wakes Gaza’s residents for early Ramadan meal

Every year during Ramadan, Gaza’s residents are woken up by mesaharatis, who drum and sing to make sure people rise in time for suhoor, the pre-dawn meal. Most people now have digital alarm clocks on their mobile phones, but mesaharatis such as Ammar Rajeh are keeping this tradition alive, bringing excitement and joy to children in his neighbourhood every morning before fasting begins.
View images [16]

Al-Aqsa: settlers await Netanyahu nod to storm mosque during last 10
nights of Ramadan

“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is holding discussions
with the heads of the security agencies and police, as well as ministers, regarding Jewish settlers storming Al-Aqsa Mosque during thelast ten nights of Ramadan, which hold particular significance for Muslims. According to Haaretz, he is expected to announce his decision later today.

Observers believe that he will not allow settlers to enter the mosque
complex from tomorrow, Wednesday, which is the final day of the Jewish Passover. However, some security officials are also opposed to allowing the settlers to enter Al-Aqsa today. A compromise is likely, making today the last day that they can do so until after Ramadan. Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported that Netanyahu has held four meetings so far on the issue. It said that these disagreements arise from the opposition of extreme far-right Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, who believes that stopping the settlers is “surrendering to terrorism”.

Source [17]

Palestine Updates from Movement for Liberation from Nakba is a clearing house for historical and current information about happenings in the colonised Palestinian territories. It covers news and analysis as well as global campaigns, reports from Israeli peace movement initiatives, and critiques of Israel’s colonialist apartheid policies in Israel and Palestine which impair peoples lives.

13 April 2023

nakbaliberation.com

By Dennis Kucinich

President Biden’s own statements predicting the end of Nord Stream , preliminary to  the devastating attack on its infrastructure, point to the necessity of determining whether or not the president was speaking from his singularly informed position of the Chief Executive, as Hersh indicated.

As a former chair of a Government Oversight congressional investigative subcommittee, I am calling on Congress to investigate whether or not the Biden Administration initiated the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline, near Denmark’s Bornholm Island, on September 26, 2022.

Veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh’s comprehensive account of the Biden Administration’s role in the bombing of Nord Stream has provided a road map for a series of congressional inquiries necessary to confirm or disconfirm Administration culpability.

President Biden’s own statements predicting the end of Nord Stream, preliminary to  the devastating attack on its infrastructure, point to the necessity of determining whether or not the president was speaking from his singularly informed position of the Chief Executive, as Hersh indicated.

A deconstruction of Hersh’s detailed narrative, (published two months ago on Substack), makes possible the development of a stream of subpoenas to determine the details of the planning and execution of the dismantling of Nord Stream by explosives.

This is a proper subject for a investigation, under Congress’ Article One, Section 8, Clause 18, constitutional powers to gather information, including to inquire on the administrative conduct of office.

The bombing of Nord Stream was an unconstitutional Act of War, involving the destruction of billions of dollars of energy infrastructure and wreaking havoc on the energy markets of Europe. The destruction of this major energy pipeline has affected over 80 million people, threatened the viability of continent’s manufacturing base and its overall economic stability.

The Administration did not have congressional approval, required under Article I, Section 8; nor did they consult with congressional leaders regarding the use of military assets for an attack on Nord Stream.

The President cannot cling to “Executive Privilege.”   The President takes an oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution (Article II, Section 1, U.S. Constitution)…and to “take care the laws be faithfully executed.” (Article 2, Section 3, U.S. Constitution.) Executive privilege cannot be invoked to cover up violations of domestic or international law.  Production of presidential records relating to Nord Stream can be compelled.

Several foreign governments have investigated the undersea demolition. They have, however,  withheld information from not only their constituents, but also from members of their parliaments, further necessitating the exercise of United States’ congressional authority.  Last week, the U.N. Security Council turned down a Russian request for an investigation of the Nord Stream bombing.

The American people have a right to know if their government, as has been reported, was involved in secretly perpetrating an Act of War, using US military personnel and the expenditure of US tax dollars, without the people’s knowledge and without the assent of their elected representatives.

In order to be of assistance to my former colleagues, based on my experience in guiding subcommittee investigations (with the assistance of congressional staff), and with express appreciation for Seymour Hersh’s diligent investigation, I offer an example of (but by no means all-inclusive)  congressional subpoena:

Subpoena

By Authority of the House of Representatives of the Congress of the United States of America

To the Secretary of the Navy:  You are hereby commanded to be and appear before (name of committee) at the time and the date (specified below) to produce the things identified in the attached schedule, touching matters of inquiry committed to said committee….

Schedule A

You, the Secretary of the Navy, in accordance with the attached schedule instructions, are required to produce in unredacted form all records described below:

1. All records in the possession, custody, or control of the United States Department of the Navy or the Office of General Counsel of the Department of the Navy, with the terms “Nord Stream 1,” “Nord Stream 2,” “Baltic Sea,”  “Norway,” “Bornholm Island, Denmark,” “Navy Divers,” “Diving and Salvage Center,” “C-4 explosives,” “timing device,“ “sonar buoy,” “NATO,” BALTOPS 22,” “Congress,” and “Congressional Investigation,” that were generated between January 20, 2021 to the present date.

2. All records indicating the listing of employees operating out of the Diving and Salvage Center in Panama City, Florida.

3. All records indicating the training, tasks and missions of the members of the U.S. Navy Diving Team.

4. All records indicating contracts let by the Diving and Salvage Center.

5. All records indicating C-4 explosives, the chain of custody, the manner in which the explosives are secured, stored, inventoried, requisitioned, transported and used.

6. All records indicating timing devices for purposes of detonating C-4 explosives; the storage, inventory, requisition, transportation and use of same.

7. All records indicating the planning, practice for, the initiation of, or the coordination with, other agencies to advise, conduct, execute or otherwise inform the preparation for and the placement of C-4 explosive devices upon the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines in the Baltic Sea.

8. All records indicating the planning of and the coordination with the NATO operation known as Operation BALTOPS 22.

9. All records indicating meteorological assessments for use in planning actions in the Baltic Sea.

10. All records indicating oceanographic mapping, wave studies, visual and sonar studies of the movement and timing of maritime traffic and the transit of marine mammals in the Baltic Sea.

11. All records indicating US submarine monitoring of the Nord Stream pipelines off Bornholm Island, Denmark.

12. All records indicating meetings, communications, planning sessions, and coordination with, any division or asset of the Department of the Navy, with the Norwegian Navy.

13. All records indicating forecasts of, or assessment of, post-attack damages to the Nord Stream pipelines.

Definitions:

The following definitions apply both to terms within the Subpoena, Schedule A, these instructions and these definitions:

1. The term “record” means any written, recorded, or graphic matter of any nature whatsoever, regardless of how recorded, and whether original or copy,  but not limited to, the following: memoranda, reports, expense reports, books, manuals, instructions, financial reports, working papers, records, notes, letters, notices, confirmations, receipts, appraisals, pamphlets, magazines, newspapers, prospectuses, intra-office and inter-office communications, electronic mail (emails) text messages, instant messages, contracts, cables, notations of any type of conversation, telephone calls, call logs, voicemail, meeting or other communication,  bulletins, printed matter, computer printouts, invoices, transcripts, diaries, analyses, returns, summaries, minutes, bills, accounts, estimates, projections, comparisons, messages, correspondence, press releases, circulars, financial statements, reviews, opinions, offers, studies and investigations, questionnaires and surveys, and work sheets and all drafts, and amendments of any of the foregoing, as well as any attachments or appendices thereto, and graphic or oral records or representations of any kind in the possession of your department.

Similar congressional subpoenas can be sent to the White House, the National Security Agency, the State Department, the Energy Department, the Treasury Department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency.

Congress must investigate the bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines.  Listed above are some of the documents that must be obtained, and the list is by no means exclusive.

If the Administration, as has been charged by a veteran investigative journalist, did indeed conspire to blow up the Nord Stream pipelines, it marks a radical shift in the use of the presidential war power, a usurpation of the role of Congress and, unless checked, could lead to further reckless decisions that put us on an irrevocable path toward World War III.

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A note to our readers in the U.S.:

The bombing of Nord Stream was an unconstitutional Act of War, ordered by President Joe Biden

Contact your member of Congress, with a view to filing a subpoena   

Global Research, April 12, 2023

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Dennis Kucinich is a former Congressman and presidential candidate. Kucinich represented Cleveland, OH in the US Congress for 16 years.

10 April 2023

Source: www.globalresearch.ca

Palestine Update 638
Comment

Subjugation and growing prisoners is how the Israel regime occupation is packaged
The New Arab has reported that this year alone 95 Palestinians have been killed in occupied West Bank by Israel. This includes 17 minors and two elderly, during a military raid on Nablus.  The Palestine Red Crescent Society said 12 people were treated in the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, a location sacred to both Muslims and Jews, after police used beatings, stun grenades and metal-tipped rubber bullets to clear the area. Armed Israeli soldiers smashed their batons and guns down on cowering Palestinian worshippers in Al-Aqsa Mosque’s Al-Qibli prayer hall during Ramadan sparking outrage worldwide. Tens of thousands of worshipers had amassed at the holy site, like on every Ramadan night. Upon the conclusion of the prayer, hundreds remained – mostly youths, but also women and older men – who barricaded themselves within the Al-Qibli Mosque (also known as Al-Aqsa, although the Palestinians use that term for the entire mountaintop compound.)…The police breached the mosque with stun grenades and batons. 350 people were arrested and sent by bus to a Border Police base outside Jerusalem, where they were released with restraining orders barring them from the mosque.
According to Israeli Prison Service (IPS), as of 31 March 2023, there were 4,747 Palestinians (West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza) held as “security prisoners” in detention facilities including 151 children (12-17 years) (150 boys / 1 girl). In the case of children there was a 1 percent increase in the number compared with the previous month and an annual increase of 11 percent compared with 2022. Ten children were held in administrative detention. According to the IPS, 70 percent of child detainees and 80 percent of adults were unlawfully transferred to prisons in Israel in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.”

Over the last few years, the space for Palestine advocacy in Germany has shrunk. Pro-Palestinian speech is reflexively labeled as antisemitic and, following the passage of the anti-BDS resolution in the German parliament in 2019; federal institutions have begun declaring all actions that support the boycott movement as antisemitic. This has allowed universities, state governments, and public institutions to deny Palestinians the right to free speech and assembly.

On behalf of MLN Palestine Updates

Ranjan Solomon

_____________________________________________________

Israeli police raid al-Aqsa Mosque; 37 people injured 

Palestinians inside al-Aqsa Mosque, sparking rocket fire from the Gaza Strip and retaliatory Israeli airstrikes. The Palestine Red Crescent Society said 12 people were treated in the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, a location sacred to both Muslims and Jews, after police used beatings, stun grenades and metal-tipped rubber bullets to clear the area. An additional 25 people received medical attention after being released from Israeli custody, the organization said. Israeli police, who control access to the site in Jerusalem’s Old City and routinely clear its plaza after nightly prayers, said they carried out the raid after a group of worshipers locked themselves inside…The night of violence at the al-Aqsa compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, adds fuel to an already combustible situation.”
Read more in Washington Post

Al-Aqsa Mosque raid: How a night of worship became a night of Israeli brutality

 “Footage of heavily armed Israeli soldiers smashing their batons and guns down on cowering Palestinian worshippers in Al-Aqsa Mosque’s Al-Qibli prayer hall during Ramadan sparked outrage worldwide on Wednesday morning…“They kept us on the ground, handcuffed, for a long time, and anyone who raised his head was hit with a gun,” Jaber told Middle East Eye…Speaking after his release, Jaber described the terrifying moment the Israelis forced their way into the holy site in occupied East Jerusalem, where Palestinians were practising the contemplative prayer of Itikaf. Stun grenades and teargas were fired into the thousand-year-old building, before soldiers threw Palestinians to the ground, stamped on them, and bound their hands forcefully behind their backs…Around 400 Palestinians were detained on Tuesday night.”
For more read Middle East Eye

Jewish Activists Fueled the Flames, but Israel Police Sparked the Temple Mount Fire  

“Until Tuesday night at 23:30, Jerusalem was experiencing its most quiet Ramadan in years. The first nine days passed almost without incident, save for the death of Mohammed Khaled Alasibi on the Temple Mount last week. There were record-breaking numbers of Muslim worshipers at the Al-Aqsa compound, and thousands gathered nightly at the Damascus Gate without clashes…This blessed routine was disrupted in recent days, due to the growing efforts of Temple activists seeking to slaughter a goat on the Temple Mount, performing the Passover sacrifice… By Tuesday evening, tens of thousands of worshipers had amassed at the holy site, like on every Ramadan night. Upon the conclusion of the prayer, hundreds remained – mostly youths, but also women and older men – who barricaded themselves within the Al-Qibli Mosque (also known as Al-Aqsa, although the Palestinians use that term for the entire mountaintop compound.)…The police breached the mosque with stun grenades and batons. 350 people were arrested and sent by bus to a Border Police base outside Jerusalem, where they were released with restraining orders barring them from the mosque. According to the Red Crescent, 19 people were wounded, but the most significant result from the police’s operation was a series of TikTok videos uploaded by worshipers – which showed grenades and fireworks exploding on the mosque floor, police officers striking people with batons, a fire breaking out by one of the doors, shattered windows, and screams. These sights moved Hamas to greenlight its rocket launches and have threatened to ignite the region.”
Read more in Haaretz

Israeli Supreme Court rules against eviction of east Jerusalem family
Israel’s top court has ended a 32-year battle, ruling that the Jewish National Fund cannot evict the Palestinian Sumarin family from their home in the Silwan neighborhood of Jerusalem.

“Israel’s Supreme Court ruled on Monday against a petition by the Jewish National Fund supported by the City of David Foundation, also known as Elad, which works to increase the Jewish presence in the city, to evict the Palestinian Sumarin family from their home at the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan. The ruling overturned an earlier ruling by the Jerusalem District Court. The legal struggle over the Sumarin family home has been going on for 32 years. The house is located in an area of the Silwan neighborhood that forms part of the City of David archeological site, which is managed by the Elad organization…On Monday the Supreme Court criticized the state’s previous registration of the house as absentee property while the owner was alive and a resident of Jerusalem. Human rights activists now hope the legal precedent will help halt other eviction orders affecting Palestinian families in Silwan. The Elad group is working to buy properties inside the Palestinian Silwan neighborhood in order to bring in Jewish families.”
Read more: 

Germany’s anti-Palestinian censorship turns on Jews
Anti-Zionist Jews in Germany are increasingly being targeted with accusations of antisemitism, a charge usually directed at Palestinians.

 “Over the last few years, the space for Palestine advocacy in Germany has shrunk. Pro-Palestinian speech is reflexively labeled as antisemitic and, following the passage of the anti-BDS resolution in the German parliament in 2019, federal institutions have begun declaring all actions that support the boycott movement as antisemitic. This has allowed universities, state governments, and public institutions to deny Palestinians the right to free speech and assembly. Moreover, the 2019 resolution also dramatically expanded the scope of what is deemed antisemitic — and, while it is not legally binding, many officials use it as the standard by which they determine what is and is not antisemitism. And while this policy was previously deployed almost exclusively against Palestinian Germans, Germany’s attempt to preserve its allegiance to the State of Israel has moved it to target a new and unexpected group: Jews in Germany who are critical of the apartheid state.”
Read full narrative from 972 Mag

10 April 2023

Source: nakbaliberation.com

By John Perry

While the United States pays little regard to the human rights of many of its own citizens, it manifests intense interest in those of countries that it regards as its enemies.

Nicaragua, designated by both Trump and Biden as a “strategic threat,” is seen as one of those enemies. Of the countries selected for their own annual human rights assessment by the U.S. State Department, Nicaragua merited special attention in 2022, with a 43-page report compared with, for example, only a 36-page analysis of neighboring El Salvador, where 66,000 people have been subjected to mass arrests in the past year. This is part of a highly selective approach in which human rights violations by U.S. allies are downplayed or ignored.

Worse, the U.S. exerts extraordinary influence on international bodies to follow suit, producing their own reports in the same ilk. The Organization of American States (OAS), largely financed by Washington, will readily scrutinize the performance of left-wing governments in Latin America at its bidding, while of course never threatening to monitor human rights in the U.S. itself. Perhaps more alarming, the United Nations human rights apparatus has been similarly instrumentalized to serve Washington’s agenda, as former UN rapporteur Richard Falk has argued.

This was evident again in March when the UN Human Rights Council released a new report by a “group of human rights experts on Nicaragua.”

The report claimed that President Daniel Ortega’s government had “executed” 40 people, disregarding the context of violent opposition attacks using firearms. The report also claimed that the government ordered hospitals not to treat wounded demonstrators, when the then health minister had made clear that anyone injured should receive treatment. It goes on to detail a range of other alleged government human rights abuses, including torture, where the evidence is contested.

The aim of demonizing Nicaragua was apparent at the press conference to launch the report: One of the “experts,” Jan-Michael Simon, a senior researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law in Germany, likened conditions in Nicaragua to those in Nazi Germany (the Sandinista government’s actions are “exactly what the Nazi regime did”).

Given that the group had not even visited the country, this was not only absurd but grossly irresponsible. Yet it enabled The New York Times, never slow to criticize the Sandinista government, to come up with the headline “Nicaragua’s ‘Nazis’: Stunned Investigators Cite Hitler’s Germany.”

However it is the damaging content of the report itself that led the Nicaraguan Solidarity Coalition to launch a petition demanding that it be with withdrawn, already co-signed by human rights experts Alfred de Zayas and Professor Falk.

The report’s focus is on the violence in 2018, which Dan Kovalik has characterized in his new book as bringing Nicaragua “to the verge of civil war, with hundreds killed and many more injured.” The group of experts was charged with examining “all alleged human rights violations and abuses committed in Nicaragua since April 2018” and they claim to have adopted a “victim-centered” approach to their task.

It is extraordinary, then, that the report focuses almost entirely on the human rights of the perpetrators of what became a violent coup attempt, rather than on the rights of the huge numbers of ordinary Nicaraguans who suffered the consequences of their violence.

It is as if the experts had produced a report focusing on, say, the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2020, or the recent attack on Brazil’s presidential palace, and focused on the behavior of those repelling the attacks instead of on the injuries and mayhem caused by the attackers.

Image: Leonel Morales lying in a hospital bed. [Source: photo courtesy of Max Blumenthal]

Because it took this stance, the experts’ 300-page report found no space for incidents such as the attempted murder of student leader Leonel Morales, who was kidnapped, shot and left for dead in a drainage ditch. Or the burning down of Radio Ya, whose 21 workers only narrowly escaped death.

Or the sacking of the municipal depot in the city of Masaya, in which all the vehicles were destroyed and the workers so badly beaten or tortured that one later had his arm amputated. Or the attack on the police station of Morrito, that left five dead and nine kidnapped and beaten.

Or countless other crimes by “protesters” whom the report describes as largely peaceful, despite the gruesome scenes of torture and humiliation they filmed and then posted on social media. It contains not a single reference to any of these victims, let alone quoting from testimony (as it does in the cases of alleged victims of government violence).

The Nicaraguan government refused to take part in this exercise, having participated in similar ones in the past and found that its evidence was largely ignored. It has produced detailed evidence to show the steps it took to facilitate access by one set of international investigators, and how its cooperation was then abused.

As a result of past experiences, it denied permission for the group to visit the country, so the experts were reliant on evidence collected remotely. In these circumstances, the group might have been expected to balance carefully the sources and material it used.

In practice the opposite happened: Its preferred sources were opposition media or NGOs, in most cases ones that had received U.S. “democracy promotion” (meaning “regime-change”) funding in the years prior to the 2018 coup attempt, as Nan McCurdy has previously described.

The experts themselves are opaque about how their work was done. Requests for the names of the other team members assembling the report were refused, a lack of transparency which inevitably leads to the suspicion that its researchers might well have been drawn from opposition-supporting “human rights” groups or think tanks.

The report’s bias is obvious from the fact that it makes no reference at all to independent examinations of previous human rights reports, which have shown them to be unbalanced and to contain key omissions.

For example, I was part of a group who prepared the the 2019 report Dismissing the Truth, which identified dozens of inaccuracies and omissions in a report on Nicaragua by Amnesty International.

I also helped compile an open letter from the Alliance for Global Justice to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, about the errors in a previous “expert” report that it published.

I have shown the bias and manipulation in the work of Nicaragua’s so-called independent human rights groups, several of which are now based in Costa Rica. The new UN report uses all of these questioned or discredited sources, while ignoring the various detailed, published criticisms of them.

How does a report focused on events five years ago pretend to justify new sanctions on the Nicaraguan government?—by claiming that the government has been engaged “since April 2018 and up to the time of writing this report…[in] a widespread and systematic attack…against a part of the Nicaraguan population.”

Image: Anti-Ortega demonstrator brandishing gun. [Source: photo courtesy of Nan McCurdy]

In making this assertion, the experts not only discount evidence of crimes by those arrested since 2018, but also ignore or downplay the many acts of clemency that took place, culminating in a general, conditional amnesty in 2019 that covered even the organizers of fatal attacks on police stations. The strong implication is that abuses such as “extrajudicial killings” which it alleges—on highly questionable grounds—occurred in 2018, still take place now in a country which is entirely at peace.

The fundamental problem is that the expert group pretends that the opposition forces in 2018 were either unarmed or had only homemade weapons. It said that “acts of violence [were] perpetrated by some demonstrators in the context of the protests, including stone throwing, the use of homemade weapons—mainly ‘mortars,’ and some ‘contact bombs’ and Molotov bombs.”

They also “documented the use of conventional weapons in some cases.” These acts “allegedly” resulted in the deaths of 22 police officers and injuries to more than 400 more from gunfire.

Given that almost all these deaths and injuries were the result of firearm injuries, there is a very obvious disparity between the group’s assessment of the behavior of the opposition groups and what actually happened. If they had also taken into account the widespread kidnappings, torture, arson attacks, robberies and other crimes, they might have come closer to producing a report which reflected the real experience of Nicaraguans in 2018.

Instead, the UN report is clearly intended to be a whitewash of the violence which (as Kovalik says) brought the country “to the verge of civil war,” just as so-called “human rights” bodies were used to whitewash the violence of the “Contras” in the U.S.-directed war of the 1980s. The opposition explicitly aimed to overthrow the Nicaraguan government: At the start of the violence and during the national dialogue that began in May 2018, opposition activists and their leaders openly stated that their objective was the removal of President Daniel Ortega.

There is nothing surprising about the line taken by the new report, as a litany of official reports since 2018 have done the same. The danger of the UN’s latest attack on Nicaragua is that it comes at a time when Washington is clearly deliberating new sanctions.

Indeed, not failing to step up to the task, the group explicitly calls for additional sanctions in one of its recommendations. In doing so, it ignores the UN Human Rights Council’s own assessments of sanctions issued without its authority (known as “unilateral coercive measures”), which conclude that their legality is highly questionable.

Given that the “experts” who wrote this latest report are international lawyers, this is remarkably unprofessional. But it is even more extraordinary that the United Nations would publish such an unbalanced report attacking one of its own member countries, promoted in such a sensational manner. It could be tailor-made to give Washington the go-ahead to continue with the illegal measures against Nicaragua that it has already taken, and which it might now decide to strengthen still further.

John Perry is based in Masaya, Nicaragua and writes for the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, London Review of Books, FAIR and elsewhere.

7 April 2023

Source: www.globalresearch.ca

By Timothy Alexander Guzman

There is a worldwide movement to stop using what is considered a toxic currency, the US dollar.  The concept of de-dollarization is accelerating, now India, the “I” in the BRICS Coalition has also made significant moves to bypass US dollars.

Livemint.com published an interesting article that is a testament to what is taking place in regards to the US dollar reserve currency status, ‘Union Bank becomes first to open special vostro account for India-Malaysia trade settlement in rupee’ reported that the development of a new trading option between India and Malaysia was to begin with the implementation of using rupees as the “Union Bank of India becomes the first bank in the country to open a Special Rupee Vostro Account through its corresponding bank in Malaysia i.e. India International Bank of Malaysia. This means that trade between India and Malaysia can now be settled in the Indian rupee, in addition to the current modes of settlement in other currencies.” The article mentions the Reserve Bank of India’s recommendations following a publication from last July on how to settle international trade using rupees, Union Bank’s officials said that “this measure is aimed at facilitating the growth of global trade and to support the interests of the global trading community in Indian Rupee” they added that “the mechanism will allow the Indian and Malaysian traders to invoice the trade in Indian Rupee and therefore achieve better pricing for goods and services traded.”  On July 11^th, 2022, the Reserve Bank of India published ‘International Trade Settlement in Indian Rupees (INR)’ which recommended that global trade should involve INR’s (Indian Rupee):

In order to promote growth of global trade with emphasis on exports from India and to support the increasing interest of global trading community in INR, it has been decided to put in place an additional arrangement for invoicing, payment, and settlement of exports / imports in INR. Before putting in place this mechanism, AD banks shall require prior approval from the Foreign Exchange Department of Reserve Bank of India, Central Office at Mumbai

The recommendations include Invoicing exports and imports that “may be denominated and invoiced in Rupee (INR).” It also involves a new exchange rate between trading partners and settlement of trade transactions, all in rupees.

The next G20 meeting will be hosted in New Delhi, a venue where India can push rupees for international trade settlements as another report by Livemint.com, ‘India to use G20 gathering to push rupee trade’ said that “India will use the G20 platform to push international trade settlement in rupees, especially with countries that are facing currency issues, commerce secretary Sunil Barthwal said on Monday.”  Barthwal said that “we are interested in improving the trade with respect to the currencies of the countries which are trading (with India).”  In a statement from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, they made it clear that the intentions under India’s leadership is “to build a shared understanding of the challenges being faced in accelerating global trade and investment, and how existing opportunities can be harnessed to formulate human-centric concrete outcomes and deliverables.” The Reserve Bank of India has moved forward with authorizing dealer banks to open Special Rupee Vostro Accounts (SRVAs) to correspond with banks in more than 18 countries so far:

As per data presented in the Parliament on 14 March, RBI has approved domestic and foreign authorized dealer banks in 60 cases for opening of special rupee vostro accounts (SRVAs) of correspondent banks from 18 countries. These include Botswana, Fiji, Germany, Guyana, Israel, Kenya, Malaysia, Mauritius, Myanmar, New Zealand, Oman, Russia, Seychelles, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Uganda, and United Kingdom, junior finance minister Bhagwat Karad said in the Rajya Sabha

The acceleration of de-dollarization is taking place on every continent, India is just one country on board that seeks to enhance its growing economy by using their own currency, the Indian Rupee (INR).

There is no stopping this trend, many countries see this as an opportunity to ditch the US dollar before Washington can impose some sort of sanctions on their respective economies especially if they were to decide on doing business with Russia, China, or Iran.  Besides the fact that when the US receives its imports, they export its dollars in exchange thus resulting in inflationary pressures for those on the receiving end, Washington has weaponized their world reserve currency status to impose their will on sovereign countries for a long time, just ask those who suffered thru sanctions or embargoes such as Iran, Russia, China, Cuba, and others who has defied Washington.

The US dollar has been used as a weapon against those who are not obedient, but times are changing for the US establishment and their ambitions to continue their hegemonic objectives, therefore undermining its currency can end its global dominance.  The US dollar was one of their main weapons of choice, and it has clearly backfired. but a serious question remains, what will Washington, its banker class, the Pentagon, and its Military-Industrial Complex do to stop or slow-down the global rush to de-dollarize their economies? Perhaps start another war with another global power who is leading the charge to abandon the US dollar?  Maybe they will release another virus? One of these scenarios will take place in the foreseeable future because the globalists who are in charge in Washington and elsewhere will do anything to remain in power even if it means starting a new world war.

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Timothy Alexander Guzman writes on his own blog site, Silent Crow News, where this article was originally published.

7 April 2023

Source: www.globalresearch.ca

By Timur Fomenko

Ditching the American currency in trade will diminish Washington’s ability to impose its will.

1 Apr 2023 – China and Brazil have secured a deal to conduct bilateral trade in their own respective currencies, eliminating the US dollar as an intermediary.

The agreement between the two BRICS countries, which have $150 billion in annual trade, would probably have been signed in Beijing this week had Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s scheduled visit not been postponed due to illness. At around the same time, China also conducted its first-ever trade of liquified natural gas settled entirely in yuan with France’s TotalEnergies.

The decision by Brazil and China to pursue non-dollar trade is a huge geopolitical moment, and a sign that countries are seeking to move away from using the US currency, in direct response to Washington’s abuse of the global reserve currency for its own hegemonic aims. Although the greenback will of course remain a prominent force in global trade and economics, the Americans’ ability to use it as a tool with which to bully and quash other countries is diminishing.

The hegemony of the dollar

Since the end of World War II, the United States dollar has been the global reserve currency and a standard for international trade following the establishment of the Bretton Woods system of monetary management by the US and its allies in 1944. Global commodities are priced according to the US dollar, while Washington has positioned itself as the nexus of the global financial system, where most capital is concentrated. As such, banks borrow and lend in terms of dollars, thus making the greenback the lifeblood of the interwoven global economy.

Having consolidated such great power over the global financial system, the US has subsequently been able to utilize the dollar as an overt geopolitical weapon in order to enforce its will on other countries, both directly and indirectly. This has been done through actions or threats of cutting off targeted individuals, entities and even countries at will. These measures are genuinely effective, because being blacklisted from the US dollar can see a serious business lose everything, and not just the American market. This can have such significant influence that third-party entities, including those not even based in the US, may choose to avoid dealing with sanctioned entities due to the risks it brings.

To be fair, such measures can serve worthy purposes. For example, US sanctions can cut off funding for terrorist groups and tackle organized crime, and therefore have a genuine security benefit. However, US sanctions in recent years have increasingly become a means of unilaterally attempting to impose America’s will on third-party countries, and with the intention to serve geopolitical ends. Washington has become obsessed with sanctions and has distributed thousands of them, often with the goal of comprehensively isolating and impoverishing smaller countries, such as Syria, North Korea and Iran. Although the US will always claim it doesn’t sanction food or humanitarian aid deliveries to these countries, the sanctions are often so broad and extensive that all legitimate means of doing business with the target country are closed off.

Currency multipolarity

It is no surprise, given Washington’s industrial-scale abuse of sanctions as a political weapon, that there is growing pushback from other countries that increasingly see the dollar as arbitrary and unreliable. As a result, political momentum for alternative payment systems is growing, which is seen as a sign of defending national sovereignty in an uncertain world increasingly defined by geopolitical competition. For China, a mammoth trading nation that is being subjected to increasing hostility by the US, this is a growing priority as it faces a potential scenario of a war over control of the US-backed island of Taiwan.

If such a war broke out, the US would likely respond in a similar manner to how it did with Russia, and attempt to blacklist thousands of Chinese firms from the US dollar in an attempt to cripple the country’s economy. Therefore, developing dollar-less currency and financial systems outside US control is a priority, especially with like-minded countries that have a vested interest in multipolarity (which is pretty much anyone outside of the collective West). As such, these are not just countries designated as “adversaries” by Washington. As President of Indonesia Joko Widodo told the media: “Be very careful. We must remember the sanctions imposed by the US on Russia.” He urged the development of domestic payment methods, noting “offshore settlements and dependence on foreign payment networks such as US Visa or Mastercard will no longer be necessary.”

In conclusion, the growing traction for alternative currency and payment systems is a political reaction to the increasing politicization and weaponization of the US dollar as a means to control other countries. Additionally, the US Federal Reserve, through decisions such as interest rate hikes, may also make economic choices which benefit America at the expense of the rest of the world. As a result, many nations increasingly see the US dollar as an obstacle to their own economic sovereignty and development, and this is why nations such as those in BRICS are acting now to de-dollarize their economies. Of course, the gravity of the dollar will always be strong, but the days of it being used to abuse and impoverish others are fading as multipolarity arrives.

Timur Fomenko is a political analyst.

3 April 2023

Source: www.transcend.org

By M. K. Bhadrakumar

US Is Stirring Up Syrian Cauldron

Washington is worried about a peace between Damascus and its estranged Arab neighbors — as well as Turkey — that is marginalizing the U.S. and its allies, the “collective West”.

27 Mar 2023 – The circumstances surrounding the flare-up in Syria between the US occupation forces and pro-Iranian militia groups remain murky. President Biden claims that the US is reacting, but there are signs that it is likely being proactive to create new facts on the ground.

The US Central Command claims that following a drone attack on March 23 afternoon on an American base near Hasakah, at the direction of President Biden, retaliatory air strikes were undertaken later that night against “facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.”

However, this version has been disputed by the spokesman of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council who accused Washington of “creating artificial crises and lying.” The Iranian official has alleged that “Over the past two days, American helicopters have carried out several sorties with the aim of increasing instability in Syria and transferred Daesh (Islamic State) terrorists in the territory of this country.”

He said Washington must be held accountable for such activities. The official warned that Tehran will give a prompt response to any US attack on whatever false pretext against Iranian bases that exist on Syrian soil at the request of Damascus for fighting terrorism.

Is the US deliberately ratcheting up tensions in Syria even as the China-brokered Saudi-Iranian rapprochement is radically changing the security scenario in the West Asian region in a positive direction?

There is optimism that Syria stands to gain out of Saudi-Iranian rapprochement. Already, the Saudi Foreign Ministry revealed on Thursday that talks are going on with Syria for resuming consular services between the two countries, which will pave the way for the resumption of diplomatic relations and in turn make it possible to reinstate Syria’s membership of the Arab League.

Saudi Arabia has established an air bridge with Syria to send relief supplies for those affected by the devastating earthquake in February.

The backdrop is that the normalization of relations between Syria and its estranged Arab neighbors has accelerated. It must be particularly galling for Washington that these regional states used to be active participants in the US-led regime change project to overthrow the government of President Bashar al-Assad. The Saudi-Iranian rapprochement badly isolates the US and Israel.

From such a perspective, it stands to reason that the US is once again stirring up the Syrian cauldron. Lately, Russian aircraft have been reported as frequently flying over the US’s military base At Tanf on the Syrian-Iraqi border where training camps for militant groups are known to exist.

Israel too is a stakeholder in keeping Syria unstable and weak. In the Israeli narrative, Iran-backed militia groups are increasing their capability in Syria in the last two years and the continued US occupation of Syria is vital for balancing these groups. Israel is paranoid that a strong government in Damascus will inevitably start challenging its illegal occupation of Golan Heights.

A key factor in this matrix is the nascent process of Russian mediation between Turkey and Syria. With an eye on the forthcoming presidential and parliamentary election in Turkey in May, President Recep Erdoğan is keen to achieve some visible progress in improving the ties with Syria.

Erdoğan senses that the Turkish public opinion strongly favours normalization with Syria. Polls in December showed that 59% of Turks would like an early repatriation of Syrian refugees who are a burden on the Turkish economy, which has an inflation rate of 90%.

Evidently, Turkey is ending up as a straggler when the West Asian countries on the whole are coasting ahead to normalize their relations with Damascus. But the catch is, Assad is demanding the vacation of Turkish occupation of Syrian territory first for resuming ties with Ankara.

Now, there are growing signs that Erdoğan may be willing to bite the bullet. The consummate pragmatist in him estimates that he must act in sync with the public mood. Besides, the main opposition party CHP always maintained that an end to the Syrian conflict needs to be anchored firmly on the principles of Syria’s unity and territorial integrity.

The influential Beirut newspaper Al-Akhbar has reported citing sources close to Damascus that Erdoğan is weighing options that would meet Assad’s demand with a view to restore relations. The daily reported that one possibility is that Turkey may propose a timetable for the withdrawal of its troops in Syria.

Significantly, Erdoğan telephoned Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday and the Kremlin readout mentioned that amongst “topics concerning Russian-Turkish partnership in various fields,” during the conversation, “the Syrian issue was touched upon, and the importance of continuing the normalization of Turkish-Syrian relations was underlined. In this regard the President of Türkiye highlighted the constructive mediatory role Russia has played in this process.”

Earlier, on Wednesday, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar held telephone talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu to discuss developments in Syria where he underscored that the “sole purpose” of its deployment in northern Syria is to secure its borders and fight terrorism.

It is entirely conceivable that Erdoğan has sought Putin’s help and intervention to reach a modus vivendi with Assad quickly. Of course, this is a spectacular success story for Russian diplomacy—and for Putin personally—that the Kremlin is called upon to broker the Turkish-Syrian normalization.

The China-brokered Saudi-Iranian normalization hit Washington where it hurts. But if Putin now brokers peace between two other rival West Asian states, Biden will be exposed as hopelessly incompetent.

And, if Turkey ends its military presence in Syria, the limelight will fall on the US’ illegal occupation of one-third of Syrian territory and the massive smuggling of oil and other resources from Syria in American military convoys.

Furthermore, the Syrian government forces are sure to return to the territories vacated by Turkish forces in the northern border regions, which would have consequences for the Kurdish groups operating in the border region who are aligned with the Pentagon.

In sum, continued US occupation of Syria may become untenable. To be sure, Russia, Turkey, Iran and Syria are on the same page in seeking the vacation of US occupation of Syria.

Thus, an alibi is needed for the US to justify that although dialogue and reconciliation is in ascendance in West Asian politics, Syria is an exception as a battleground against “terrorism.” The US is vastly experienced in using extremist groups as geopolitical tools.

The US’ real intention could be to confront Iran on Syrian soil—something that Israel has been espousing—taking advantage of Russia’s preoccupations in Ukraine. The Russian-Iranian axis annoys Washington profoundly.

The specter that is haunting Washington is that the stabilization of Syria following Assad’s normalization with the Arab countries and with Turkey will inexorably coalesce into a Syrian settlement that completely marginalizes the “collective West.”

In retrospect, the unannounced visit by General Mark Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff to northern Syria, in early March falls into perspective. Milley told reporters traveling with him that the nearly eight-year-old US deployment to Syria is still worth the risk!

The time may have come for the militants, including ex-Islamic State fighters, who were trained in the US’s remote At Tanf military base to return to the killing fields for “active duty.”

Tass reported that on Friday, the terrorist group known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham tried to break into the Aleppo region which has been under Syrian government control and relatively stable in recent years.

M. K. Bhadrakumar: I was a career diplomat by profession. For someone growing up in the 1960s in a remote town at the southern tip of India, diplomacy was an improbable profession.

3 April 2023

Source: www.transcend.org

By Leonard Eiger

1 Apr 2023 – April 4^th is a day of remembrance – the day the USA lost a great prophet and truth teller, and a leader in the ways of nonviolence. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on that day in 1968 at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.

On April 4, 1967, exactly one year before he was assassinated, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered an extraordinary and prophetic speech titled “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence” at Riverside Church in New York City.

Dr. King is known for many powerful speeches and sermons, and yet Beyond Vietnam was a watershed moment in which he articulated – with the help of Vincent Harding, who drafted the speech – a far-reaching and prophetic vision and warning to our nation, speaking to the deep-seated racism, greed, militarism and hubris that was driving – and continues to do so today – an out-of-control empire to inflict unspeakable violence both at home and around the world.

Beyond Vietnam speaks to us as clearly today as it did 56 years ago. One need only change the names of the wars – from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan – to bring it up to date. And therein lies the tragedy of our failing empire – we have not been able to shake the bonds of hatred, greed and xenophobia that make our nation what King called, “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.”

When we hear about Dr. King – generally once a year around the time of his birthday, January 15th – the corporate news media has often referred to him as “the slain civil rights leader.” But Dr. King was so much more than that. The TV images the media convey are always the same ones – battling segregation in in 1963; reciting his dream of racial harmony in 1963; marching for voting rights in 1965; and lying dead on the motel balcony in 1968.

In the early 1960s when Dr. King was challenging rampant, legalized racial discrimination in the South, most major media seemed to be his allies, showing graphic footage of police dogs, bullwhips and cattle prods used against southern African Americans who sought the right to vote or eat at a public lunch counter.

After the passage of the Civil Rights Acts in 1964 and 1965 Dr. King began challenging our nation’s fundamental priorities. He maintained that the civil rights laws meant nothing without human rights, including economic rights. He spoke out against the huge gaps between rich and poor, and called for “radical changes in the structure of our society” to redistribute wealth and power.

Dr. King did not suddenly become an opponent of war (and nuclear weapons) once the major civil rights struggle was over. As early as 1954 he said in one of his sermons that “the great danger facing us

today is not so much the atomic bomb that was created by physical science. Not so much the atomic bomb that you can put in an airplane and drop on the heads of hundreds and thousands of people – as dangerous as that is. But the real danger confronting civilization today is that atomic bomb which lies in the hearts and souls of men, capable of exploding into the vilest of hate and into the most damaging selfishness – that’s the atomic bomb we’ve got to fear today.”

Dr. King understood that the overt manifestations of violence – war and nuclear weapons – were deadly symptoms of a much deeper malady of the human heart. He understood violence all too well, both through experiencing it firsthand and through a deep study of Christian and Gandhian nonviolence.

By 1967 Dr. King had become one of the country’s most prominent opponents of the Vietnam War as well as a staunch critic of overall foreign policy. He spoke of the difficulty of working for peace in an atmosphere of mass conformity. “Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government’s policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one’s own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexing as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty. But we must move on.”

He went on to say that, “the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak.” There is no other choice for us, because, “silence is betrayal.”

Dr. King saw the connection between war and the evisceration of social programs in this country. He “knew that we would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men [sic] and skills and money like some demonic, destructive suction tube. So, I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.”

Dr. King spoke of “a far deeper malady within the North American spirit” that is greed. He said that it is our “refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments” that governs our foreign policy, and makes the United States the “greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” He called for a “radical revolution of values” wherein we “shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society.” He said that playing “the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside…will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”

As a true modern-day prophet Dr. King was not afraid to warn people in the U.S. that, “a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” He hammered away at the need for everyone to speak out and use the most creative methods of protest possible, not just against the war, but also for “significant and profound change in U.S. life and policy.” He believed that, “Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.”

I work with Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, which has, for 46 years, worked to recapture that revolutionary spirit as we too seek “to keep the world from committing the suicide of nuclear war.” In a grand experiment in truth we “explore the meaning and practice of nonviolence from a perspective of deep spiritual reflection, providing a means for witnessing to and resisting all nuclear weapons” (from Ground Zero’s mission statement).

Michael Honey, a professor at University of Washington,who teaches African-American and labor history and Martin Luther King Studies, in his book “Going Down the Jericho Road,” spoke clearly to King’s commitment to nonviolent direct action in a passage about James Lawson, who worked closely with King. “Like King, he [Lawson] spoke of ‘soul force’ or satyagraha, as the crucial ingredient needed to keep the world from committing the suicide of nuclear war and to defeat racism. For him, pacifism meant: ‘We will make the choice according to the methods that we use, not according to the ends that we seek.’”

That quote goes to the heart of Ground Zero – although we seek an end to nuclear weapons, the ends do not justify just any means. We understand the dangers of compromising the spirit of nonviolence in order to hasten the process. We understand that we may not see the fruits of our labors in our lifetime(s), yet we continue speaking out and resisting nonviolently, unabated in the struggle, knowing that the alternative is unspeakable. There is no other choice for us because “silence is betrayal” (to future generations).

We live in an unparalleled time in human history – While we have developed and refined the very means of our own extinction, we have yet to learn the key lessons necessary for our survival. So it seems fitting to let Dr. King have the final word:

“It is no longer a choice, my friends, between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or nonexistence. And the alternative to disarmament, the alternative to a greater suspension of nuclear tests, the alternative to strengthening the United Nations and thereby disarming the whole world, may well be a civilization plunged into the abyss of annihilation, and our earthly habitat would be transformed into an inferno that even the mind of Dante could not imagine.”

– Martin Luther King, Jr., Remaining Awake Through A Great Revolution

Click Here to read the entire text of Dr. King’s Beyond Vietnam speech.

Author’s Note: The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research & Education Institute is a valuable resource on Dr. King. Two books that I have found indispensable as references are A Call to Conscience: The Landmark Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. and A Knock at Midnight: Inspiration from the Great Sermons of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Leonard Eiger is an activist and coordinates communications and outreach for Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action (gzcenter.org).

3 April 2023

Source: www.transcend.org