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By Michael Brenner

I. Europe-Jews-Muslims

18 Nov 2024 – Europe has an obsession about Jews. For nearly 2 millennia, it shunned them, despised them and persecuted them. Now, after a respite of a few decades, it condemns and abuses Muslims in a similar way – in the name of supporting Jews.

Israel’s inhumane treatment of the Palestinians – culminating in their massacre and mass eviction from Gaza – leaves Europeans unmoved. European political elites above all.  Instead, they cheer on the Israelis, outdo themselves in effusive displays of solidarity, in the quick dispatch of weapons so that the IDF can better carry out their odious campaign, in providing instant validation for the most outrageous lies in the wake of the most outrageous atrocities.  Propinquity has accentuated their moral support. Leaders scurry to Tel Aviv to get as close to the action as possible and to steal a photo of themselves embracing Bibi Netanyahu – a copy for the evening news, a copy for the next campaign brochure, a copy for the eventual memoir.

The West generally clearly has a big problem with matters of religion, race and ethnicity. It is multiform, it mutates, it waxes and wanes, it shifts focus and fixation – but it remains lodged in the collective psyche. While this obviously is not universal among Europe’s population of 400 million, it is manifestly prevalent and deep-seated. When the stimulus is strong and acute, it flares like a gas field when the drill hits paydirt. The entire panoply of institutions – public and private – rise up as if choreographed to vent the same emotions, make the same harsh, unqualified judgments, use the same crude slogans, drape themselves in the same banners of self-righteousness and self-proclaimed moralism. Government leaders, politicos, media, pundits, make the same cacophonous noises, aggressively impose the same uniformity of opinion, and punish the few dissenters.

Thus, the exaltation of the Jews of Israel – honored and cosseted – is matched by the dehumanization of Palestine’s Muslims.

Of course, it is not just the long-suffering Palestinians who are at once denied – in principle – the right to the privileged status of victimhood and collectively are condemned as guilty of the most heinous crimes committed by al-Qaeda, the Islamic State or Hamas. Men, women, children – without exception. It is all Muslim communities – Islamophobia.

What are the sources of this psychopathology?

Some are immediately identifiable. 1) The residual, latent desire to absolve Europe of the sins committed against the Jews ever since they were stigmatized as the killers of the Christians’ Lord & Saviour. It took roughly 1,900 years for the truest Jew-haters to take the final, macabre act of revenge. Volunteers from 16 European countries formed SS divisions that participated – directly or indirectly (the largest contingents made up of Ukrainians). That holocaust had a powerful sobering effect on the contemporary soul of European Christians whether believers, practicing or nominal. The fears, wounds and pangs of conscience associated with it gradually have faded into the background and discrimination of Jews largely has gone away  – despite the attempts in recent years to inflate every minor incident as part of an campaign to conflate criticism of Israel with old-fashioned anti-Semitism. As a consequence of the campaign’s success, antipathy toward Israel aroused by its actions in Gaza, the number of those incidents has risen. The confected identity of Judaism with a rogue Israeli state is a boon for the die-hard anti-Semites.

The very words ‘Jewish’ and ‘Israel’ have the power to paralyze European minds and consciences. Again, most strikingly among the political class.

Hence, Britain’s most erudite commentator renowned for his frankness and rare skill at cutting through official cant and mendacity, declares himself unable to pronounce on who destroyed the hospital in Gaza – hiding behind the weasel words ‘we should await the outcome of an impartial United Nations investigation.’ Who did the evil deed? The people who already had dropped 1,500 bombs on Gaza City or Ali Baba & the 40 Thieves? Make your choice – personal preference. Hence, French President Emmanuel Macron bans all protests that express sympathy for the Palestinians on the grounds that they cause Jews/Israel emotional distress. He then makes a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to urge the Israelis to pursue Hamas “without mercy” – adding, for the record, “within the law.” (His recent conversion ‘On The Road To Damascus/Berlaymont/Turtle Bay’ lifts the ban only on himself).  One is reminded of Peter O’Toole (aka T.E. Lawrence) shouting the command “no prisoners!” as he drives his Arab army to throw themselves on a retreating Turkish column. Without the hypocrisy of adding “within the law”.

Hence, German authorities ruthlessly enforce their own ban on Gaza-sympathy protests and threaten criminal prosecution of participants. Foreign Minister Braebock uses a Tel Aviv platform to inform the world that “Israel cares about the welfare of Gazans.”  Hence, the Prime Minister-designate of the U.K., Keir Starmer, conducts Stalinist-style purges from the Labour ranks of anyone who utters a word critical of Israel – that includes Corbyn now obliterated from party annals.   No surprise that he now demands explicitly, and in a public interview, that the party’s official position is to give license to the Israelis to continue their bombing; to cut off all food, water, electricity; to expel the Gazans into the Sinai desert where Qatar is pressed to finance a tent city for a million or two.

Hence, on November 11 2023, the EU Foreign Ministers’ issued an official statement that “[the] EU condemns the use of hospitals and civilians as human shields in Gaza” – in what amounts to an eerie resemblance to the holocaust deniers. Hence, Joe Biden struck the same note in declaring that civilian casualties have been exaggerated by Hamas. This was the starkest evidence at that we had left the realm of reasoned and reasonable discourse for the nether world of psychopathology.

Second, relations between Europeans and Muslim communities have become increasingly fraught. Above all, the growth of large immigrant communities, settled mainly in Western Europe, has generated a host of social problems arising from the complications of imperfect cultural assimilation and the intrusions of influences from the external Muslim world. They are all too familiar: the rapid spread of intolerant, fundamentalist Islam; the threats posed by violent jihadist groups whose tentacles have reached into European cities; the turbulent state of politics across the Middle East; the periodic oil crises that made the region a tense arena for great power politics; and – by no means least – the lingering effects of Western colonialism that never have been expunged.

The two most striking features of that 450-year experience are:

1) the profound superior-inferior relationship on which it was grounded and which it entrenched in European minds; and

2) it was the ‘whites’ who were dominant and the ‘colored’ peoples who were subordinate. That too readily devolved into the racist belief that the latter were inherently inferior – somehow not quite fully human.

Tho enduring psychic scars never have entirely faded – on both sides. Let’s recall that it is within our lifetime that the imperial dependents liberated themselves from thralldom – with much blood-shedding – in North Africa, Indochina, Kenya, Angola, Indonesia, Mozambique, Iraq. More recently, wars between the West and Muslim societies have been fought in several places: Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Libya, the Sahel. All on Muslim soil. Domestic terrorists across Western Europe cite as their immediate motivation those attacks on Muslims – rather than their devotion to a Quranic jihadist creed per se.

II. The Biggest External Factor: United States of America

More specifically, Europeans’ enduring dominant/subordinate relationship. European countries have been denatured by America, in the sense that they are shed of sovereign status and its attendant political will. That perverse trans-Atlantic bond has been cultivated by both sides. It’s significance for understanding the European attitude towards Israel/Palestine is two-fold.

One, there is an eerie inversion of roles for European polities who participate in dominant-subordinate relations with both America and Arab Muslims.  It matches the classic profile of the “Authoritarian Personality.” Toward the superior one is docile, obedient, obsequious; toward the inferior one is arrogant, demanding and patronizing. The latter compensates for the former in terms of maintaining a positive sense of self.

A variation of this psychological pattern is visible in the attitude of Western government leaders toward their own populace. In effect, they assume the dominant role in treating their citizens as subordinates from whom deference is expected on matters of state. Strikingly, today we see overwhelming and growing popular advocacy of a ceasefire in Gaza while the political elites – those holding official positions, the media and the punditry – vigorously suppress the dissent. Example: London has seen an unprecedented demonstration of half a million, a reflection of public opinion that favors the ceasefire by a 3:1 margin (roughly the same in the U.S.) That in the face of bitter, slanderous denunciation from both Prime Minister Sunak and Labour leader Keir Starmer who vies to surpass him in passionate embrace of Bibi Netanyahu and who ruthlessly purges anybody who is disobedient to his hard line. Hence, not a single Labour or Tory M.P. joined an historic march on a Saturday at the risk of losing access to the Members’ Bar at Westminster.  [The dramatic event was all but ignored by the Establishment print media. By Sunday, all had airbrushed the story out of existence; no photo showing the massive crowd].

In more concrete ways, Europe’s vassalage to the United States obliges it to follow Washington down whatever policy road the seigneur takes – however reckless, dangerous, unethical, and counter-productive. In predictable fashion, they have walked (or run) like lemmings over whatever cliff the United States chooses next under its own suicidal impulses. So it’s been in Iraq, in Syria, in Yemen, in Afghanistan, in regard to Iran, in Ukraine, on Taiwan and on all matters involving Israel. The string of painful failures and heavy costs produces no change in loyalty or mindset. It cannot – for the Europeans have assimilated totally the habit of deference, the Americans’ worldview, their skewed interpretation of outcomes, and their shamefully fictitious narratives. The Europeans no more can throw this addiction than a life-long alcoholic can go cold-turkey.

That condition impels them to downplay the ominous trends in American politics and foreign policy.

The choice of mentally unstable and/or incompetent leaders, erratic actions by unhinged political forces, high risk ventures abroad, the baiting of designated rivals – none of it moves Europeans to throw off the yoke placed on their minds, their emotions, and their morals.

Moreover, we should bear in mind that contemporary US has become hysteria prone. First came the Global War On Terror that for twenty-odd years had it rampaging around the globe on the hunt for jihadis from the Hindu Kush to the Sahara desert while shredding its Constitutional guarantees of individual rights and due process. Then, the manic Russo-phobia: Dostoevsky removed from literature courses, Anna Netrebko summarily cancelled in all Western opera houses on the grounds that she once accompanied Putin to a fundraiser for refugees from Donetsk who fled Ukrainian artillery strikes that killed 14,000 of their fellows, boycotts of Russian goods including sewing needles, etc. etc. Simultaneously, the conjured China ‘menace’ has been stoking our fevered imaginings. That hysteria triggered the ‘spy’ balloon psychodrama. Congruent with this psychopathological syndrome, America today is a culture where draconian measures are taken, by all manner of institutions under pressure from braying militants, to rid themselves of persons who as much as suggest that gender identity is not just a matter of personal preference.

The Europeans, for their part, are no less hysteria prone. It spreads from the United States at epidemic speed. Imagine a convent circa 1623.

The most emotionally flammable young woman loses it in declaiming that she is possessed by a lecherous demonic agent. Soon, the other nuns are infected and mass hysteria breaks out. Today, when a whole society is dissociated from reality, there are no Mothers Superior or exorcists around to contain the ensuing bedlam. Indeed, the universal hysteria serves the purpose of those who calculatingly promote and use that hysteria to draw a “line of blood” between the collectivity and responsible, humane behavior. For once one has demonized Palestinians in general as guilty, thereby justifying gruesome acts, it becomes almost impossible to retreat into a position of condemning those selfsame acts of criminal revenge that you previously blessed since that means inculpating oneself. Even those prominent public figures who simply have kept silent in the face of atrocity thereby fall into this trap.

The stunning, frightening truth is that Western societies – US & European – are behaving mindlessly. 

For the Senate in Washington to pass a near unanimous resolution condemning what it called “anti-Israel, pro-Hamas student groups” is a clear sign of abnormality. It is unmistakable from statements by supporters that the label is applied to anyone who protests the onslaught in Gaza or expresses support for the Palestinian people. Widespread denunciations and purges of individuals who voice those sentiments confirm that. Some might question how one can describe as hysterical the actions of private institutions and governments as well as individuals of being part of an irrational mass psychosis – and on a matter that does not concern them directly.

After all, these countries are composed of educated, autonomous, diverse members schooled in civic ethics – the majority secular and unattached to any dogmatic creed or movement. We are not speaking of medieval cloisters or theocracies or totalitarian societies. That is exactly the point. The observed phenomenon meets all of the criteria for a diagnosis of mass hysteria – speaking objectively.  Manifest hysteria where you do not expect to see it at once underscores the psychopathology and raises the most profound questions as to what species of social entity we have become. The few, very rough historical analogies are not ones we want to contemplate.

Collective hysteria does have predictable effects. One is that participants cease to think independently – some, including leaders, are unable to think at all. That is to say, to interpret reality in ways other than that dictated by the fixed, unqualified and simplistic narrative of what is happening, why it is happening, as well as with whom the rights and wrongs lie. Uniformity of outlook impervious to observed facts is what we have seen in the impassioned Russo-phobia, and now regarding the Palestinians. This phenomenon, orchestrated at the top by leaders who themselves are prey to dogmas and irrational emotions, stifles critical thought and judgment even when faced with the most stark, most bloody and gross sins against the very principles that we celebrate as underlying our morally superior Western societies.

A related effect is that deception and self-deception blend into a homogenous mindset. It is insulated from encroachments by a mental Hepa filter which keeps out anything – even the smallest particle of truth – that could stimulate doubt or self-awareness. Consider the likes of Biden, Trudeau, Sunak/Starmer, Schulz, Macron, Rutte, von der Leyen et al. Their endorsement, and thereby encouragement, of mass murder in Gaza – once expressed – becomes imprinted. Thus, if you were to probe for justification in a quiet one-on-one exchange, you would get the same canned, elusive sloganeering that marks their public statement. The mental faculty has become paralyzed. Sustaining this unnatural state is helped by the systematic suppression of dissent. Doing so serves two purposes: it keeps at bay any dissonant, reality-based idea or evidence challenging the fixed mindset, and unjust suppression/punishment of dissenters creates an additional disincentive to critical reflection since that threatens to evoke feelings of shame for those revealed misdeeds.

What this tells us is that the phenomenon that we are describing is most pronounced among Western political elites. There: hysteria, mutually reinforcing collective emotion, uniform attitudes and entrenched reference points combine to produce perverse behavior. The extremity of callousness toward the genocide of Palestinians, the enthusiastic cheer leading for the Israeli atrocities, the tangible support for this most grotesque campaign, the deaf ear to desperate pleas for humanitarian aid, inflicting additional pain by the summary defunding of UNHCR – together form a pattern of behavior that borders on the sadistic. It obliges us to ask a painful question: are we witnessing the final playing out of the West’s long felt (and more recently sublimated) compulsion to abuse ‘other’ peoples in order to affirm their own superiority and prowess? A contemptuous, ruthless Parthian shot as Westerners sense the turn of the historical wheel of fortune?

[The one aspect of the situation that shows a measure of conscious cerebration is the political – in particular, the electoral. It is Biden’s worries about his faltering Presidential campaign that led him to the surprise declaration that Israel was at risk of exceeding its (generous) quota in killed Palestinians. That is accompanied by a cavalier rewriting of the earlier record of when Washington promoted unrestricted Israeli retaliation and lobbied neighboring governments to accept the expelled Gazan population. Accommodating media are only too happy to go along with the mendacity since it erases memory of their own cheer-leading for those draconian actions.

We should understand Emmanuel Macron’s sudden advocacy of a ceasefire in the same vein. It is a mistake to imagine that this shift was the outcome of a somber reflection on the moral and diplomatic issues involved. Macron is another one of those self-designated messiahs without message or mission – like Barack Obama – whose sole concern is self-promotion and self-advancement. In Macron’s case, he has his eye on an even bigger position than President of France – Secretary-General of the United Nations or President of the European Union. Preferably the former. So, presenting himself as a Gaza humanitarian could win him votes in the global South and also make him more palatable to Russia and China. The rest of the French political elite are still insisting that protesting crimes against humanity in Gaza is tantamount to an act of antisemitism.]

Back to Europe. In the Middle East, the net effects are 1) that Europe is burdened with the heavy baggage of interventions that inflame Muslim hostility toward the West, and 2) to create the psychological imperative to find some way to assuage their own sense of guilt by finding, and magnifying, the sins of their victims. That dubious enterprise acquires a thick veneer of contrived virtue by making a tight embrace of Jewish Israel the ultimate symbol of their good intentions and by blinding themselves to the transference of their accumulated guilt for historical abuse of the Jews into empathy for their former victims’ abuse of Arab Muslims.

PS: The internal dynamics of the United States are very similar to those of Europe – with three exceptions.

One, guilt regarding historical mistreatment of Jews is largely absent. Yes, individuals may feel something about the Christian scapegoating of ‘Christ-killers,’ but generally speaking it is far more abstract. The empathy for Israel has arisen, and intensified, mainly from an instinctive sympathy for the underdog threatened by people you view negatively (1956, 1967) – a heart-wrenching narrative that has been vastly strengthened by vivid accounts, cinematic and written, of the tragic 20th Century Jewish saga. Moreover, there is the exceptional influence exerted by the powerful pro-Israel lobby.

Two, the dramatic growth in the influence of a politicized Evangelical movement has added a significant factor to the equation. The Book of Revelation is their guide and inspiration. Therein, they are told that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ and Armageddon will be signaled by the restoration of the Jews in their Hebrew homeland. What happens next, of course, is blurred by both Israelis and the Evangelicals.

Three, the United States’ rededicated project to entrench its global dominance has spurred American assertiveness around the world. Its long-time focus on the Middle East for multiple reasons inclines Washington to secure what it sees as prized assets. That strong impulse is accentuated by its declining influence elsewhere in the region – especially the Gulf.

With creeping doubts as to its prowess, and of its presumed calling to be the prophet of progress for all the world’s peoples, America compulsively grasps every occasion in order to confirm that it is Destiny’s child and to be reassured that its national mythology is inscribed in the heavens.

Michael Brenner is professor of international affairs at the University of Pittsburgh; a senior fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations, SAIS-Johns Hopkins (Washington, D.C.), contributor to research and consulting projects on Euro-American security and economic issues.

25 November 2024

Source: transcend.org

By Jeffrey D. Sachs,

Ultimately, this is the story of how the Israel lobby undermined the US, wrecked the Middle East, and set a series of international crimes against humanity in motion.

21 Nov 2024 – It’s official now. America’s closest ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the one accorded more than 50 standing ovations in Congress just months ago, is under indictment by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity and war crimes. America must take note: the U.S. Government is complicit in Netanyahu’s war crimes and has fully partnered in Netanyahu’s violent rampage across the Middle East.

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky

Statements of NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg

Author’s Update

A NATO Summit Meeting in Montreal

The smoking gun: Who Started the War. Was it Russia or US-NATO?

The answer comes from the Horse’s Mouth.  NATO STARTED THE WAR IN 2014, following the U.S sponsored 2014 Coup d’Etat 

TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/

Of utmost significance:  On September 7, 2023, NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg  in a presentation to the European Parliament, formally acknowledged that:

“the war didn’t start in February last year [2022]. It started in 2014.”

This far-reaching declaration confirms his earlier statement in May 2023 to the effect that the Ukraine War

“didn’t start in 2022”, “The war started in 2014”.

Stoltenberg’s Interview with the Washington Post: (emphasis added, complete text of Washington Post Interview in Annex)

Speaking on behalf of NATO, what this statement implies is that US-NATO was already at war in 2014.

It also tacitly acknowledges that Russia did not “initiate the war” on Ukraine in February 2022. 

MICHEL CHOSSUDOVSKY – WHO STARTED THE WAR? RUSSIA or US/NATO?

By Ellen Isaacs

In our previous article at multiracialunity.org,, US and Israel Ironclad, we briefly discussed US ties to Israel, but it has become clear that many wish to explore this matter in greater depth. Indeed, we must understand that the US ruling class is dependent on Israel’s military power and political loyalty in order to maintain its hold on the entire Middle East, its resources and trade routes, and to continue to hold sway as a major imperialist power. Without this understanding, we might think that a moral argument against genocide would suffice. It will not.

A Few Historical Facts

Although founded in the late 1800s, Zionism only gained the support of Western Imperialism in the early 20th century because oil had become the main fuel of industry and military machinery and all of this resource was in the Middle East. Britain, then the West’s major imperialist, also wanted to assure that the Suez Canal and Egypt remained under its influence. Thus, Britain promised to sponsor a Zionist homeland in the area, knowing that the Zionists’ European background would make them a regional ally, and the Balfour Declaration of 1917 was signed. After their WW1 victory, Britain and France divided the Ottoman Empire into six new countries – Palestine, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Kuwait – and Zionist immigration to Palestine accelerated.

As of 1895, there were about 400,000 Arabs living in what is now Palestine, but the Zionist plan was to expel them all. This sentiment was expressed by Zionism’s founder, Theodor Herzl – “I am for compulsory transfer; I do not see anything immoral in it.“¹ – and every leader of Israel since. Jewish immigration vastly accelerated as Nazism grew in Europe, and after WW2 the United Nations established the state of Israel. The Jews were given 55% of the land, including the best water supplies, although they owned only 6% at the time and comprised about 30% of the population. Needless to say, the Arab population was unhappy, and so were the Zionists, who wanted it all.

The Zionist blueprint for the ouster of Palestinians, which had been in development since 1940, was put into effect in 1948. Hundreds were killed, as in the mass murder in the village of Deir Yassin, over 750,000 (6/7 of all Palestinians in Israel) fled in terror and 500 villages were destroyed. The refugees ended up in what are now the Occupied Territories (OT), nearby countries or farther afield. Any who tried to return to their homes were killed. To Palestinians this ethnic cleansing is known as the Nakba, or catastrophe, while most Israelis are still led to believe that Palestinians left voluntarily because they hated Jews.

In1967 Israel launched a victorious war, with US support, to defeat the pan-Arab movement being built by Nasser in Egypt. Egypt was driven out of Gaza, Jordan out of the West Bank and Jerusalem, Syria out of the Golan Heights, and the longest military occupation in modern history began. By 1969, the last British troops had left the Middle East, and the US became the greatest supporter of Israel with a policy called Qualitative Military Edge to guarantee Israel’s permanent military and technological superiority. As of 1980, US aid to Israel had become greater than that to the rest of the world combined.²  As Nixon’s Secretary of State Alexander Haig said: “Israel is the largest American aircraft carrier in the world that cannot be sunk, does not carry even one American soldier, and is located in a critical region for American national security.”³ Or as Biden said more recently, “If Israel didn’t exist, we would have to invent it.”⁴

After WW2, when the US had become the main western imperialist, Israel was part of its triple base of support of in the Middle East, which also included Saudi Arabia and Iran. With the fall of the US-installed Shah of Iran in 1979, the US lost one critical ally in the region. Saudi Arabia has recently been waffling in its loyalties between the West and China. They now sell oil to China, receive weapons and technical aid from China and signed a pact with Iran in March, 2023 at China’s behest. As of yet, they have refused to sign the U.S. sponsored Abraham Accords with Israel and, like Jordan, the UAE, and Qatar have said they do not want their military infrastructure or air space used by the US.⁵ Only Israel remains as a politically reliable and militarily strong US ally in the Middle East.

Can the US Divorce Israel?

The short answer is no. The US would much prefer that Israel did not act in such a murderous way toward Palestinians, infuriating millions in the US and around the world, but it still must enable Israeli policy. If the US withdrew weapons, Israel would be weakened, defeated or possibly even destroyed. And why can’t the US allow this?

Climate change notwithstanding, fossil fuels still account for 80% of the world’s energy use and remain the crucial fuel for the militaries and industries of all capitalist economies, and 79% of this resource is in the Middle East. After the US, five of the six biggest oil producers in the world are in the Middle East – Saudi Arabia, Iraq, UAE, Qatar and Oman. There are thought to be huge undeveloped oil reserves in Yemen, the West Bank, and there are known to be large gas fields in the sea west of Gaza and Israel.³

Trade routes in the area are also of critical importance. Twenty percent of the world’s petroleum passes through the Persian Gulf. 30% of all container ships, 40% of all Asia to Europe trade and 15% of all international trade passes through the Suez Canal. Just the Houthi attacks on shipping at the southern end of the Red Sea caused a 50% decrease in the volume of trade through the Suez Canal in the first two months of 2024 and a 74% increase in shipping around the Horn of Africa, at a great cost in time and money.⁶ As of July, $200 billion worth of goods had to be diverted away from the Canal.

Since the 1980s, the US has constructed deals offering various carrots with neighboring Arab states so as to mitigate their enmity and actions against Israel. Egypt and Jordan were labeled Qualifying Industrial Zones, receiving duty free access to the US, as long as their exports were partially made in Israel. Free Trade pacts were signed with Bahrain, Morocco, Jordan and Oman, which forbade them from boycotting Israel. Most recent and most important are the Abraham Accords of 2021, which demand normalization of relations with Israel in exchange for losing the designation of terrorist state or receiving other trade benefits with the US. So far, the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco have signed. Saudi Arabia was to be the biggest prize, but has so far refused to sign on.³

Other Functions of Israel

It has also been possible for the US to carry out unpopular foreign policies by conducting business in Israel. During apartheid in South Africa, the US funneled its support to the white government through Israel. While supporting the rightwing Contras in Nicaragua, US aid also went via Israel.

Israel is also a developer, producer and exporter of military weapons and surveillance equipment such as drones, especially those designed to quell revolt in an urban environment. To this end they have trained thousands of police around the world, including those from most US cities.

Competition with China

At the moment, China has many and growing interests in the Middle East, which amplifies the US interest in maintaining its own foothold there. By 2020, Chinese oil consumption had risen to 14% of the world’s oil, up from 6% in 2000. The Gulf states are now providing almost half of China’s imports, and 70% of Gulf oil is headed to Asia. In 2022, the five leading Western oil companies had a combined $200 billion in profits. However, Aramco of Saudi Arabia earned $161 billion, making it the largest profit ever recorded ever by a single company. Other companies in Abu Dhabi and Kuwait have also taken over much oil extraction and exporting in the Gulf. Oil refining, once a totally Western enterprise, is also increasingly shifting eastward, with only one third remaining in North America and Europe. ⁷

Meanwhile Saudi Arabia is receiving technology and weapons from China. China is the Saudis largest trading partner and has received $10 billion in technological investments.⁸ Although the Saudis still receive 78% of their weapons from the US, Chinese arms exports have increased fourfold over the past 5 years.⁹

China is also massively extending its worldwide influence through the Belt and Road initiative to boost trade, diplomatic relations and exports. There are now cooperation agreements with over 150 countries, including Egypt, and 18 other countries in the Middle East and North Africa. Maritime trade routes connect China with south east and south Asia, the South Pacific, the Middle East and Eastern Africa, and Europe.

Whereas US dollars once dominated international trade, the BRICS banking alliance of Brazil, Russia, India and China now includes six new countries – Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – and a growing list of partner countries. Altogether their economies account for 37.3% of world GDP.¹¹

What Happens Next?

We face a continuation of genocide in Gaza and land seizures and killing in the West Bank, with no good end in sight. There is no possibility of two states as we consider a state to have the right and possibility to defend itself and Israel would never allow this. Nor is there enough territory left under Palestinian control to make up a contiguous state. Israel cannot bear the current situation in which Palestinians in the overall territory outnumber Jews. In Gaza the population will be decimated and maybe forced into exile or confined to a much smaller area under some form of Israel-friendly control. Or maybe massive general conflict will ensue. Without a unified class-conscious movement among Palestinians and unity with such movements in other countries, I see no chance their lot will be improved,

Overall, the main dynamic that will determine the world’s fate over the next decades is the competition between the two main imperialist rival camps, China and its Russian and Iranian allies and the US with its NATO allies. It is impossible to predict just when or how, by accident of design, this rivalry will erupt into major conflict. But we can be sure that it will happen at some time, as has been the pattern of inter-imperialist rivalry for the last century. Certainly the current conflict, now involving Lebanon and Iran, may expand, or perhaps wider war will grow from fighting over Taiwan or the South China Sea or some other unknown quarter. And when this war occurs, there is a good chance that the conflict will ultimately be nuclear, few nations holding back their strongest weapon if desperate.

The question is what can we do? I would say that our duty is to weaken the power of US and European imperialism as much as we can. That does not mean relying on influencing or changing politicians but building ever wider movements on campuses and in industries and communities that strike at the heart of capitalist power and indoctrination. We must organize our fellow students, workers and soldiers to fight against imperialist wars, against racism, against deficiencies in social services. That could mean fighting racism and police brutality, demanding better wages and social services, passing professional society resolutions, bans on investments or military support by universities, organizing soldiers to resist orders to fight fellow workers – in whatever way we can unite, build leadership from below, expose the nature of capitalism and ready ourselves to lead the eventual struggle to end capitalism, with our fellow students and workers around the world. We have many ongoing and recent struggles to inspire us and a world that needs to be won.

Ellen Isaacs is a physician, anti-racist and anti-capitalist activist and co-editor of multiracialunity.org. She can be reached at eisaacs66@gmail.com

References

1.    Pappe, Ilan, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Oneworld  Publications,2006, p.xi

2.    https://www.theleftberlin.com/israel-the-us-and-imperialism/

3.    https://www.tni.org/en/article/framing-palestine

4.    https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/10/18/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-october-7th-terrorist-attacks-and-the-resilience-of-the-state-of-israel-and-its-people-tel-aviv-israel/

5.    https://tcf.org/content/report/the-saudi-iranian-detente-has-proved-vital-for-de-escalation-but-regional-war-could-still-break-it/

6.    https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/the-economic-and-social-costs-of-the-war-in-gaza/

7.    https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/the-economic-and-social-costs-of-the-war-in-gaza/

8.    https://www.spa.gov.sa/en/N2163494

9.    https://gulfif.org/the-saudi-sino-military-partnership-ambitious-or-overhyped/

10.(https://www.weforum.org/stories/2023/11/china-belt-road-initiative-trade-bri-silk-road/

11.https://www.weforum.org/stories/2024/11/brics-summit-geopolitics-bloc-international/

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22 November 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Jeffrey D Sachs

It’s official now. America’s closest ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the one accorded more than 50 standing ovations in Congress just months ago, is under indictment by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity and war crimes. America must take note: the U.S. Government is complicit in Netanyahu’s war crimes and has fully partnered in Netanyahu’s violent rampage across the Middle East.

For 30 years the Israel Lobby has induced the U.S. to fight wars on Israel’s behalf designed to prevent the emergence of a Palestinian State. Netanyahu, who first came to power in 1996, and has been prime minister for 17 years since then, has been the main cheerleader for U.S.-backed wars in the Middle East. The result has been a disaster for the U.S. and a bloody catastrophe not only for the Palestinian people but for the entire Middle East.

These have not been wars to defend Israel, but rather wars to topple governments that oppose Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people. Israel viciously opposes the two-state solution called for by international law, the Arab Peace Initiative, the G20, the BRICS, the OIC, and the UN General Assembly. Israel’s intransigence, and its brutal suppression of the Palestinian people, has given rise to several militant resistance movements since the beginning of the occupation. These movements are backed by several countries in the region.

The obvious solution to the Israel-Palestine crisis is to implement the two-state solution and to demilitarize the militant groups as part of the implementation process.

Israel’s approach, especially under Netanyahu, is to overthrow foreign governments that oppose Israel’s domination, and recreate the map of a “New Middle East” without a Palestinian State. Rather than making peace, Netanyahu makes endless war.

What is shocking is that Washington has turned the U.S. military and federal budget over to Netanyahu for his disastrous wars. The history of the Israel lobby’s complete takeover of Washington can be found in the remarkable new book by Ilan Pappé, Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic (2024).

Netanyahu repeatedly told the American people that they would be the beneficiaries of his policies. In fact, Netanyahu has been an unmitigated disaster for the American people, bleeding the U.S. Treasury of trillions of dollars, squandering America’s standing in the world, making the U.S. complicit in his genocidal policies, and bringing the world closer to World War III.

If Trump wants to make America great again, the first thing he should do is to make America sovereign again, by ending Washington’s subservience to the Israel Lobby.

The Israel Lobby not only controls the votes in Congress but places hardline backers of Israel into key national security posts. These have included Madeleine Albright (Secretary of State for Clinton), Lewis Libby (Chief of Staff of Vice President Cheney), Victoria Nuland (Deputy National Security Advisor of Cheney, NATO Ambassador of Bush Jr., Assistant Secretary of State for Obama, Under-Secretary of State for Biden), Paul Wolfowitz (Under-Secretary of Defense for Bush Sr., Deputy Secretary of Defense for Bush Jr.), Douglas Feith (Under-Secretary of Defense for Bush Jr.), Abram Shulsky (Director of the Office of Special Plans, Department of Defense for Bush Jr.), Elliott Abrams (Deputy National Security Advisor for Bush Jr.), Richard Perle (Chairman of the Defense National Policy Board for Bush Jr.), Amos Hochstein (Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State for Biden), and Antony Blinken (Secretary of State for Biden).

In 1995, Netanyahu described his plan of action in his book Fighting Terrorism. To control terrorists (Netanyahu’s characterization of militant groups fighting Israel’s illegal rule over the Palestinians), it’s not enough to fight the terrorists. Instead, it’s necessary to fight the “terrorist regimes” that support such groups. And the U.S. must be the one to lead:

The cessation of terrorism must therefore be a clear-cut demand, backed up by sanctions and with no prizes attached. As with all international efforts, the vigorous application of sanctions to terrorist states must be led by the United States, whose leaders must choose the correct sequence, timing, and circumstances for these actions.

As Netanyahu told the American people in 2001 (reprinted as the 2001 foreword to Fighting Terrorism):

The first and most crucial thing to understand is this: There is no international terrorism without the support of sovereign states. International terrorism simply cannot be sustained for long without the regimes that aid and abet it… Take away all this state support, and the entire scaffolding of international terrorism will collapse into dust. The international terrorist network is thus based on regimes—Iran, Iraq, Syria, Taliban Afghanistan, Yasir Arafat’s Palestinian Authority, and several other Arab regimes, such as the Sudan.

All of this was music to the ears of the neocons in Washington, who similarly subscribed to U.S.-led regime change operations (through wars, covert subversion, U.S.-led color revolutions, violent coups, etc.) as the main way to deal with perceived U.S. adversaries.

After 9/11, the Bush Jr. neocons (led by Cheney and Rumsfeld) and the Bush Jr. insiders of the Israel Lobby (led by Wolfowitz and Feith), teamed up to remake the Middle East through a series of U.S.-led wars on Netanyahu’s targets in the Middle East (Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Syria) and Islamic East Africa (Libya, Somalia, and Sudan). The role of the Israel Lobby in stoking these wars of choice is described in detail in Pappe’s new book.

The neocon-Israel Lobby war plan was shown to General Wesley Clark on a visit to the Pentagon soon after 9/11. An officer pulled a paper from his desk and told Clark: “I just got this memo from the Secretary of Defense’s office. It says we’re going to attack and destroy the governments in 7 countries in five years—we’re going to start with Iraq, and then we’re going to move to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.”

In 2002, Netanyahu pitched the war with Iraq to the American people and Congress by promising them that “If you take out Saddam, Saddam’s regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region[…] People sitting right next door in Iran, young people, and many others, will say the time of such regimes, of such despots is gone.”

A remarkable new insider account of Netanyahu’s role in spearheading the Iraq War also comes from retired Marine Command Chief Master Sargent Dennis Fritz, in his book Deadly Betrayal (2024). When Fritz was called to deploy to Iraq in early 2002, he asked senior military officials why the U.S. was deploying to Iraq, but he got no clear answer. Rather than lead soldiers into a battle he could not explain or justify, he left the service.

In 2005, Fritz was invited back to the Pentagon, now as a civilian, to assist Under-Secretary Douglas Feith in the declassification of documents about the war, so that Feith could use them to write a book about the war. Fritz discovered in the process that the Iraq War had been spurred by Netanyahu in close coordination with Wolfowitz and Feith. He learned that the purported U.S. war aim, to counter Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, was a cynical public relations gimmick led by an Israel Lobby insider, Abram Shulsky, to garner U.S. public support for the war.

Iraq was to be the first of the seven wars in five years, but as Fritz explains, that follow-up wars were delayed by the anti-U.S. Iraqi insurgency. Nonetheless, the U.S. eventually went to war or backed wars against Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Lebanon. In other words, the U.S. carried out Netanyahu’s plans—except for Iran. To this day, indeed to this hour, Netanyahu works to stoke a U.S. war on Iran, one that could open World War III, either by Iran making the breakthrough to nuclear weapons, or by Iran’s ally, Russia, joining such a war on Iran’s side.

The neocon-Israel Lobby teamwork has marked one of the greatest global calamities of the 21st century. All of the countries attacked by the U.S. or its proxies—Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Syria—now lie in ruins. Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s genocide in Gaza continues apace, and yet again the U.S. has opposed the unanimous will of the world (other than Israel) this week by vetoing a UN Security Council ceasefire resolution that was backed by the other 14 members of the U.N. Security Council.

The real issue facing the Trump Administration is not defending Israel from its neighbors, who call repeatedly, almost daily, for peace based on the two-state solution. The real issue is defending the U.S. from the Israel Lobby.

Jeffrey D Sachs is a University Professor and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, where he directed The Earth Institute from 2002 until 2016.

22 November 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Quds News Network

Netherlands (Quds News Network)- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant face an unprecedented challenge following the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) issuance of arrest warrants against them for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

The warrants, issued on Thursday, mark a pivotal moment in international justice and restrict their travel to 124 countries that are signatories to the Rome Statute, obligating them to cooperate with ICC rulings.

Here are some of the key reactions to the ICC decision:

Israel
Netanyahu’s office rejected the decision and described the move as “anti-Semitic” in a statement.

“Israel rejects with disgust the absurd and false actions leveled against it by ICC,” his office said, adding Israel won’t “give in to pressure” in defense of its citizens.

In separate comments, Netanyahu’s office claimed the decision was comparable to “the modern-day Dreyfus trial – and it will end in the same way,” referring to Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish army captain who was wrongly convicted of treason in France.

Israel’s ambassador to the UN Danny Danon called the ICC warrants “a shameful and political decision”.

“We need to speak with our allies and move forward with a decision to boycott the ICC and anyone who cooperates with it,” said Danon.

Palestine
Hamas welcomed the decision to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, calling it an “important step towards justice”.

“[It’s] an important step towards justice and can lead to redress for the victims in general, but it remains limited and symbolic if it is not supported by all means by all countries around the world,” Hamas political bureau member Basem Naim said in a statement.

Hamas also called on the ICC to expand its scope to other Israeli officials.

The Palestinian Authority, which governs the occupied West Bank, said “the ICC’s decision represents hope and confidence in international law and its institutions”.

It urged ICC members to enforce “a policy of severing contact and meetings’ with Netanyahu and Gallant.

Jordan
Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said the ICC’s decision must be respected and implemented. “Palestinians deserve justice,” he said.

United States
“The ICC issuance of arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous,” President Joe Biden said in a statement.

“Let me be clear once again: whatever the ICC might imply, there is no equivalence – none – between Israel and Hamas. We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security.”

The White House also expressed concern over “the Prosecutor’s rush to seek arrest warrants and the troubling process errors that led to this decision”.

“The United States has been clear that the ICC does not have jurisdiction over this matter,” a National Security Council spokesperson said.

Canada
“It’s really important that everyone abide by international law,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, adding Canada would abide by rulings of international courts.

South Africa
In a statement, the government welcomed the ICC decision and said it marked a “significant step towards justice for crimes against humanity and war crimes in Palestine”.

“South Africa reaffirms its commitment to international law and urges all state parties to act in accordance with their obligations in the Rome Statute,” it said.

“We call on the global community to uphold the rule of law and ensure accountability for human rights violations.”

European Union
Foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the ICC warrants were not political and should be respected and implemented.

“This decision is a binding decision and all states, all state parties of the court, which include all members of the European Union, are binding to implement this court decision,” he said.

The Netherlands

Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp said that his country “respects the independence of the ICC”.

“We won’t engage in non-essential contacts and we will act on the arrest warrants. We fully comply with the Rome Statute of the ICC,” he added.

France
France would act “in line with the ICC’s statutes”, said Christophe Lemoine, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

However, he declined to say whether France would arrest Netanyahu if he came to the country, saying it was “legally complex”.

Norway
Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said, “It is important that the ICC carries out its mandate in a judicious manner. I have confidence that the court will proceed with the case based on the highest fair trial standards.”

Ireland
Prime Minister Simon Harris said the warrants “an extremely significant step”.

He added that Ireland respects the ICC’s role and that anyone in a position to assist it in carrying out its vital work must do so “with urgency.”

Italy
Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said Rome would consider with allies how to interpret the decision and act together. “We support the ICC … the court must play a legal role and not a political role,” he added.

Sweden
Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard said Sweden and the EU “support the court’s important work and protect its independence and integrity”.

Swedish law enforcement authorities decide on the arrest of subjects of ICC warrants on Swedish territory, she added.

Hungary
Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto condemned the ICC decision, calling it “shameful and absurd”, presidential spokesperson Zoltan Kovacs reported on X.

“This decision disgraces the international judiciary by equating leaders of a country attacked by a heinous terror attack with the leaders of the terrorist organization responsible,” Szijjarto said, adding, “Such a decision is unacceptable.”

United Kingdom
Britain respects the independence of the ICC, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Keir Starmer said without confirming whether Britain would uphold the warrants.

Belgium
“The fight against impunity wherever crimes are committed is a priority for Belgium, which fully supports the work of the [ICC]”, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on X.

“Those responsible for crimes committed in Israel and Gaza must be prosecuted at the highest level, regardless of who committed them.”

Austria
Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg called the warrant incomprehensible and ludicrous, but his office also said as a party to the Rome statutes Austria was obliged to implement ICC arrest warrants.

Switzerland
The Swiss Federal Office of Justice said it is obliged to cooperate with the ICC under the Rome Statute and would therefore have to arrest Netanyahu and Gallant if they entered Switzerland and initiate extradition to the court.

Argentina
President Javier Milei said on X that his country “declares its deep disagreement” with the decision.

He wrote that the warrant “ignores Israel’s legitimate right to self- defense against the constant attacks by terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah”.

Turkey
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said the ICC arrest warrant was a “hopeful” and crucial step in bringing to justice Israeli authorities who committed “genocide” against Palestinians.

“We will continue to work to ensure that international law is implemented to punish genocide,” Fidan added.

Amnesty International
The human rights organization said on X that the “wheels of international justice have finally caught up with those alleged to be responsible for war crimes & crimes against humanity in Palestine and Israel”.

“There can be no ‘safe haven’ for those alleged to have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity,” it added.

Human Rights Watch
“The ICC arrest warrants against senior Israeli leaders and a Hamas official break through the perception that certain individuals are beyond the reach of the law.”

22 November 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Andre Damon

On Thursday, the International Criminal Court (ICC) formally charged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Secretary Yoav Gallant with war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

The court charged Netanyahu and Gallant with “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”

In May, ICC prosecutor Karim Khan accused the Israeli leaders of presiding over the “murder” and “extermination” of Palestinians, as part of a “common plan to use starvation as a method of war and other acts of violence against the Gazan civilian population as a means to … collectively punish the civilian population of Gaza.”

In its document charging Netanyahu and Gallant, the ICC accepted the allegations by Khan that Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war and declared that the “alleged crimes against humanity were part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Gaza.”

The charges against Netanyahu and Gallant are fully justified. But Israel is acting at the behest of US imperialism, together with the other imperial powers, in its genocidal war against the people of Gaza, which is part of the drive by the imperialist powers to reorganize the Middle East under their own domination. The response of US officials expresses the acknowledgement that they are guilty of aiding and supporting all the crimes with which Netanyahu is charged.

Republican Senator Tom Cotton responded to the ruling by making a veiled threat to attack the Netherlands or any country that cooperates with the warrants. “Woe to him and anyone who tries to enforce these outlaw warrants. Let me give them all a friendly reminder: The American law on the ICC is known as The Hague Invasion Act for a reason. Think about it.”

Senator Lindsay Graham wrote in a statement on X:

The Court’s actions against Israel sets the foundation for the ICC to come after the United States one day. We must respond forcefully to the Court for our own good.

In another tweet, he added, “If you aid and abet the ICC after their action against the State of Israel, you can expect consequences from the United States.”

A joint statement by senators from both parties, including Graham and Democrat John Fetterman, stated, “Acquiescing to the Court’s jurisdiction over Israel is to agree, in theory, they have jurisdiction over the United States.”

US President Joe Biden responded to the ICC’s arrest warrants by declaring, “The ICC issuance of arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous. Let me be clear once again: Whatever the ICC might imply, there is no equivalence—none—between Israel and Hamas. We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security.”

Asked to comment on Graham’s calls to sanction the ICC, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said that the US expressed openness to the proposal. “We are discussing … with partners, including Israel” the possibility of sanctioning the ICC, she said.

The United States, the world’s leading perpetrator of war crimes, is not a signatory to the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court and does not recognize its authority to prosecute US war crimes or those of Israel, its proxy in the Middle East.

On September 2, 2020, the United States government imposed sanctions on ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, in response to an investigation by the court into US war crimes in Afghanistan. Despite this, the Biden administration publicly welcomed a war crimes investigation by the ICC against Russian President Vladimir Putin over the war in Ukraine.

Early last month, Israel initiated the so-called “Generals’ Plan” in northern Gaza, and Israeli officials directly stated their intention to stop all food and water from entering into northern Gaza in an effort to force the population out through starvation. As part of the plan, anyone who remains would be treated as an enemy combatant and subject to being killed.

Later in October, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Israel to meet with Netanyahu. During their meeting, the two sides explicitly discussed the so-called “Generals’ Plan.” After the discussion, Blinken issued a blanket endorsement of Israel’s war aims, in an effective approval of the plan.

Since then, the amount of food entering northern Gaza has fallen to the lowest level since the start of the invasion, with a UN panel warning that famine is imminent in northern Gaza. Earlier this month, the State Department explicitly declared that Israel was not committing human rights abuses in Gaza by withholding food, despite the fact that just a tenth of the food the State Department said was adequate is getting into Gaza.

The ruling by the International Criminal Court has demonstrated, once again, the complete criminality of US imperialism. Having funded, armed and politically supported a genocide, the US government is threatening to sanction, and even attack, the institutions of international law.

It likewise vindicates the mass demonstrations all over the world against the Gaza genocide, which governments around the world have claimed are “antisemitic,” as a pretext for carrying out arrests and banning demonstrations.

No one should be under any illusion, however, that this ruling will stop the genocide or even hold Netanyahu and Gallant to account. The imperialist powers backing the genocide will abide no legal control over their acts of mass murder.

Stopping the genocide, alongside the broader eruption of world war, requires the building of a mass movement of the working class armed with a socialist perspective.

22 November 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Amit Sengupta

They are blocking food. Essential needs. Medicine. They are using food as pressure tactics. A freezing winter is coming. It is going to be tough. Thousands have vanished. Refugee camps are bombed. Universities have been fully destroyed. There were 34 hospitals in Gaza. All destroyed 

Dr Abed Elrazeg Abu Jazer, Chargé d’Affaires at the Embassy of the State of Palestine in Delhi, is a seasoned India hand. He has done his PhD from Jamia Millia Islamia central university in Delhi in political science. His subject was: ‘India and the question of Palestine — 1980-93’. He has worked as a professional journalist since 1995 and  has been a media advisor to the Palestinian Authority. He was posted to India as a senior diplomat in 2014. “I miss journalism,” he says, wistfully. In conversation with Amit Sengupta, Editor, timesheadline.in, and a seasoned journalist, who has been writing on Gaza since last October.

Yesterday, the Security Council passed a resolution seeking ceasefire in Gaza. This is maybe the fourth or fifth time they have done it. As many as 14 countries have supported it, including France and Britain; but, yet again, America has vetoed the resolution: 14-1. They said the resolution does not have a reference to the hostages. However, the final resolution does have a reference to the hostages. What is your opinion on this?

This is not our first experience with the Americans. It has happened so many times in the history of the occupation, and our freedom struggle. You know, they always use the veto against our rights and aspirations. Almost the entire world, including India, has called for a ceasefire, but, no, the US will not allow a ceasefire and always back Israel to the hilt. Through these decisions, they are going against the collective global voice against the genocide currently happening in Gaza, the world’s biggest open air prison. Basically that means that nothing has improved on the ground. America has given a green signal to the Israeli aggression — politically and militarily. They simply don’t seem to care for all the other voices in the world.

Both Joe Biden and and Kamala Harris have said that the people of Gaza are suffering. Harris has used this rhetoric many times. But they have done nothing on the ground. Instead, they have pumped in bombs, weapons and billions into Israel which has been used to kill the people of Gaza. 

This is not a political speech. There are figures and media reports. American reports. Statements from the Pentagon and the State Department in Washington. The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and others, they have all published the facts and figures. They published these stories with all of the details about the continuous supply of military equipment to Israel, the big bombs, including bombs which were being used and tested for the first time. On our people. On civilians. There is continuous military support. These are reports coming from America. This is type of the leadership in the rich countries.

Your wife and children were trapped in Rafah at the border with Egypt for a very long time, even while the killings continued relentlessly. All communication systems were dismantled. Thankfully, they are now in India. In recent times, Israel has started evacuating the refugee camps, like the Jabalia camp at the Israeli border, which is the largest refugee camp with more than 100,000 displaced people. They have been bombing shelters, hospitals and schools. Almost 250,000 people were reportedly forced to move from Northern Gaza at gun-point. There is no food. Aid has been stopped by the Israeli military. Many young boys and men have been taken in vehicles to unknown destinations.

This is a one-sided war. A strategic war. It is not war. It is a genocide. It is not between two soldiers, or two armies. Here, there is one strong country with a strong army, backed by the biggest military power in the world, and some Western countries. Gaza has 2.5 million unarmed people. Yes, most of them are refugees; they live in refugee camps. Majority of the people are extremely poor. They get basic food with UN support — wheat or sugar. Now, bombs are targeting them in tents. People are living on the beach, in tattered tents, in the open. In big houses, more than 100 people are taking shelter. One bomb destroys all of them. Civilians. Israel knows about them, uses its technology for serveillance, and then they bomb them. So this is the target and this is their war. You can see videos which are evidence.

Almost 90 per cent of Gaza is fully destroyed. I am from Rafah in the south. It’s in the border with Egypt. Almost 90 per cent of Rafah has been totally destroyed. Included my house. My brothers and father’s house as well — we are neighbours. Their homes too have been destroyed. We have lost everything. My father is 90 — now he is a displaced refugee. Many others are like him now.

Some people have lost everyone in their families. Thousands of children have turned orphans, including seriously wounded children. Consider their trauma.

They are blocking food. Essential needs. They are using food as pressure tactics. Jordon, Emirates, other countries are sending food. But they are blocking it — using food against the people.

It’s extremely difficult for the survivors.

Now, a freezing winter is coming. It is going to be really tough. Thousands of people have vanished. There are other types of suffering. No schools. Universities have been fully destroyed. There were 34 hospitals in Gaza. All destroyed. There was the Abu Yusuf hospital in Rafah, one of the main hospitals. This is the latest hospital they have bombed. Fully destroyed.

Apparently, there are only three hospitals, damaged or otherwise, which are still there. Scores of doctors and nurses (and patients) have been killed. Even doctors have been arrested and taken to unknown destinations. There are epidemics and diseases. How are the people coping with it? 

Health care has been severely hit. Minimal primary health care is available. They are not allowing medicine or medical aid from outside. They are not allowing doctors, specialists or volunteers to enter Gaza. Surgeries are urgently required for many patients. But where are the doctors?

Nobody can enter Gaza. It’s totally controlled by them. Even the international media is not coming.  Only Israel media is coming with their  soldiers. They are the spokespersons of the Israeli government. They publish the Israeli agenda. For example, we have lost 188 journalist since October 7, 2023. Many of them were killed as targeted assassinations. Local civilians are now working as journalists. They too are being targeted. There is no internet or connectivity. Nobody’s coming from outside to report. No big channels like CNN or NBC or the New York Times, Washington Post,  etc.  They are targeting journalists because they don’t want ground reports to reach to the world. They want to wipe out the truth from the world’s consciousness. Hence, you will not see, for instance, stories about the human beings trapped or buried under the rubble. Or similar stories.

If there is a ceasefire, and journalists can enter, you will see that thousands of buried or forgotten stories will emerge from the ravaged landscape of Gaza. That is also why they don’t want a ceasefire.

Several men and young boys have been picked up recently and taken to unknown places by the Israeli army. And how many Palestinian children and women and others are in prison in Israel? 

They have arrested several people from the north and the south of Gaza, and also from the West Bank. They have built new prisons. The prisoners are treated with cruelty. This is their policy. They catch the people for no rhyme or reason, and they take them to the prisons. They punish them. It’s very bad. They torture them. And this has been going on much before this one-sided war started last October.

They treat the 2.5 million people like prisoners in a gated society. They control everything. Nobody can travel without their permission. Nobody can go out of Gaza. There is no education, no employment, no food security. The economic condition is abysmal. They are not only killing the people physically, it’s a daily and endless mental torture. Everyday existence is hell.

What is happening in the West Bank?

In the West Bank, large areas have been forcibly taken over by Israeli settlers. Most of them are armed, patronised by their ,government and have full impunity to do whatever they want with the locals. They have taken over our homes and houses. Lot of people have been killed in West Bank too in recent times.

Plus, there are other types of war. There are assassinations. Raids. Arrests. Special operations. There are military invasions. They enter Ramallah, other towns. There are 80 check points. They have divided the land according to their security and other needs. You can’t go from one point to another without their permission. If you travel, a 30 minutes journey will take more than three hours. They can arrest anyone any time. Stop anyone anytime. You can’t cross the King Hussein border with Jordan without their permission. They refuse to refund our tax, agreed as per the Paris agreement. They make it economically unfeasable to run the administration and cater to civil society needs. With a meagre budget, it becomes extremely difficult for the Palestinian authority in West Bank to operate. People get 60 or 70 per cent of their salaries only. They control the banks. It is like they have actually annexed the West Bank, and now Gaza. This is the original Israeli dream.

Western media reports have stuck to a figure of 43,000 people dead, and around 17,000 children dead. This figure remains unchanged despite the daily killings in Gaza since weeks now. Plus, those who are buried under the rubble. Unofficial sources say the toll could be many times more. 

I think the number is  much higher than these media reports. I presume the ministry of health also thinks the same. No one knows the number of people buried under the rubble across Gaza.

Among the dead, the number of children and women are many times high.

Indeed, they particularly target women and children, especially mothers. They want to eliminate the children en masse because they are the future of Palestine. They kill mothers and young women because they will bring children to this world. That is why the number of women who have been murdered by Israeli army is very, very high.

They know everything. They use technology to spy on women. They scan everything. Drones can come in at home, anytime. If I am a peaceful and quiet citizen, and sitting quietly at home, they can come and kill me. They know that there is a civilian family, perhaps one hundred of them are living in the four floors of a building. They know. Like a game in a play station, they play this game of death.

They especially choose to kill the mothers because they will give birth to children. Entire families have been wiped out. That is why they kill children in the hospital. Nurses and doctors have been murdered. Even new-born children die because of lack of medical facilities. They need special care. Hence, all medical aid is cut of the little ones. This is the government policy of the Isreali government in Tel Aviv.

A young Abed Elrazeg Abu Jazer (in blue shirt) interviewing Yasser Arafat in 1996

23 November 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Quds News Network

Occupied West Bank (Quds News Network)- A disturbing surge in violence against Palestinian children has emerged in the occupied West Bank since October 7, 2023. According to United Nations data, 171 children have been killed by Israel in this period, averaging the death of a child every two days. Over 1,000 more have been injured, many with live ammunition.

The youngest victim was a 4-year-old girl killed near a checkpoint in January while sitting in a taxi with her mother, reported The Guardian. Despite the absence of an official war in the West Bank, children there are being killed at a rate not seen since the second intifada in 2002.

UNICEF Sounds the Alarm

Jonathan Crickx, a UNICEF spokesperson, expressed grave concern, telling the Guardian that “In the course of last year there was an extremely concerning increase in children killed in conflict-related violence in the West Bank, and we already see the trend is continuing.”

The United Nations only counts verified cases with confirmed names, ages, and causes of death. However, no Israeli soldier has been charged in connection with these killings. The Israeli military often attributes such incidents to alleged participation in “combat activities.”

Victims Denied Justice

Advocates say accountability for these killings is almost nonexistent. Ayed Abu Eqtaish, from Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCIP), told the Guardian that over the past decade, only one Israeli soldier was convicted for killing a Palestinian child. Even in that case, the soldier received a minimal sentence.

DCIP has shifted its focus from pursuing justice through Israel’s military courts to documenting these tragedies due to the systemic lack of accountability.

The report mentions eyewitness’ accounts confirming that Israeli soldiers prevented locals from assisting wounded children after they were shot while playing.

21 November 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor

Beirut – Since early November, the Israeli army has ramped up its military assaults in Lebanon and carried out multiple massacres there, killing dozens of civilians, the majority of whom were women, children, and the elderly.

The Israeli occupation army conducted over 35 raids on the Baalbek-Hermel district on Friday 1 November, killing 53 people and injuring at least 83 others.

At least 15 more people were killed and injured in an Israeli army raid on an abandoned building in the Semaan Gallery neighbourhood, which is located at the eastern entrance to a southern suburb of Beirut, on Saturday 2 November.

Three additional people were killed and nine others—including a child who was rescued from beneath the debris by ambulance crews—were injured when the Israeli army attacked an apartment in a residential building in the Saida neighbourhood on Sunday 3 November. On the same day, the Lebanese Red Cross recovered the bodies of 20 Lebanese and one Syrian from rubble in the Wata al-Khiam area; the victims had been buried under the debris for days.

The Israeli army then booby-trapped and blew up several homes in the town of Mays al-Jabal on Monday 4 November, and destroyed entire neighbourhoods in the town of Maaroub, nearly 20 kilometres inside the Lebanese border in the Tyre district.

Families have lost contact with five elderly people in their 80s who require medical attention and medication due to Israeli incursions into southern Lebanese villages, booby-trapping, and bombing of neighbourhoods and homes. These individuals are Ghadina Al-Suwaid, from the town of Al-Dahra, and Mohammad Shartouni, Nimr Hamadi, Sabah Rizk, and Hassan Qablan, all from the town of Mays Al-Jabal.

A woman was killed and 15 others were injured when Israeli forces bombarded the area of Al-Jiyeh on Tuesday 5 November. Students were evacuated from the Mar Charbel School as a result of the material damage caused by the bombardment, which occurred during school hours. In Wata al-Khiam and Bayut al-Sayad, 19 bodies were recovered from the debris of two earlier massacres that occurred on the same day. In southern Lebanon, also on 5 November, 40,000 housing units in 37 towns were completely destroyed. Twenty people were killed and at least 18 others were injured when the Israeli army committed a massacre at a residential building in the town of Barja that same day.

The Israeli army continued to attack southern villages in Lebanon on Wednesday 6 November, focusing on homes and stores in the Tyre district. They also carried out more massacres in the Bekaa Valley region, conducting more than 20 raids on the Baalbek-Hermel area, which killed at least 50 people and wounded 63 more. The Israeli army also killed 24 people by attacking the cities of Baalbek and Hermel, as well as the towns of Ain and Al-Mishrifeh. One of these raids on Baalbek caused damage to the archaeologically significant neighbourhood of Al-Manshiyeh.

Israeli raids also targeted Tyre’s archaeologically significant neighbourhood on Thursday 7 November, prompting the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) to convene a meeting to discuss bolstering temporary protection for cultural heritage sites in Lebanon. On the same day, an Israeli drone targeted a car at the Awali checkpoint in Sidon, just as a UNIFIL convoy was passing by. As a result, three civilians were killed and three Lebanese army soldiers and four UNIFIL personnel were injured.

Two Israeli army bulldozers and an excavator demolished a UNIFIL building that same day (7 November) in Ras al-Naqoura and took out two of the blue barrels used as physical markers to indicate the “Blue Line”, which delineates the UN-established withdrawal line between Israel and Lebanon—established to confirm the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon in the year 2000.

Nine more people were killed, and at least 46 were injured, when the Israeli army targeted three buildings in Tyre on Friday 8 November. Israel also directly targeted an ambulance centre in Naqoura on Friday and Saturday (8-9 November), as well as paramedic gathering places in Deir Qanoun Ras al-Ain and Ain Baal in Tyre. Between the start of October 2023 and 9 November, Israel killed 187 paramedics in Lebanon.

Israeli raids on Sunday 10 November killed over 20 people and injured at least 14 more in the towns of al-Kanisa, Hadath Baalbek, al-Jamaliya, al-Nabi Sheet, and Majdaloun. Israeli raids also reached the Jbeil district, where the occupation army killed a large number of people, mostly women and children, by attacking a two-storey house in the town of Almat that was being used by 30 displaced people as a shelter. An additional Israeli attack occurred against a first aid facility in the Sidon district during a raid on the town of Adloun; the occupation army targeted a facility run by the Islamic Health Authority, killing three paramedics and increasing the death toll to 190.

Throughout this week, the Israeli army has launched several raids on the southern suburbs of Beirut, issuing evacuation warnings just 30 minutes to two hours before striking. As a result, many buildings in these suburbs have been destroyed.

Several civilians, mostly women and children, were killed on Monday 11 November in fresh massacres carried out by the Israeli army in Al-Saksakiyeh, Akkar, and Baalbek. Although 81 dead and 60 wounded individuals have been found, the exact number of victims is still unknown because some of the dead have been reduced to pieces. According to the initial toll, 25 people were killed and seven wounded in the Alamat massacre; eight people were killed and five wounded in the Baal Shamiya massacre on Tuesday 11 November, while 20 people were killed and 12 wounded in the John massacre that same day; eight people were killed and 17 wounded in the Dohat Aramoun massacre on Wednesday 13 November; and 20 people killed and 19 wounded in the Deir Qanoun Ain al-Ras massacre.

In addition, the Israeli army killed 19 paramedics in the Doris and Arabsalim massacres, between Thursday and Friday (14-15 November). The occupation army targeted a paramedic gathering place in Nabatieh and a civil defense centre in Baalbek while 20 paramedics were inside. Two more paramedics were then killed in two separate Israeli attacks on Saturday 16 November, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health. The first of these attacks occurred in Tyre’s town of Burj Rahhal, while paramedics were rescuing an injured person, and the second occurred in the town of Kfar Tibnit, when an Israeli vehicle targeted a Health Authority vehicle, injuring four additional paramedics as well.

On the same day (16 November), Israeli forces killed a family of six, including four children, in a raid on the town of Al-Khariba. Another Israeli raid on a home in the town of Arabsalim killed seven members of the same family.

The Israeli army then attacked three Health Authority centres on Sunday 17  November in Houmin al-Tahta, Hanaweya, and Al-Bazouriyeh, killing two paramedics and injuring two more. On the very same day, two members were killed and two others were injured when the Israeli army attacked a Lebanese army centre in the town of Al-Mari in Hasbaya. An additional Israeli attack on the Tyre district villages that same day claimed 11 lives and injured 48 people, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health.

The Israeli army then launched three raids on Ras al-Nabaa, Mar Elias, and Zakat al-Blat, in the centre of the capital city of Beirut, without prior warning on Sunday and Monday (17-18 November), killing at least 10 people and injuring over 35 more.

Over the past two days, the densely populated Beirut neighbourhoods of Shiyah and Ghobeiry have been violently targeted by the occupation army, resulting in a large number of forcibly displaced people.

Respect and commitment should be shown with regard to international humanitarian law, which stipulates that killing civilians is a war crime—even when it is done under the guise of targeting military leaders—and which requires warring parties to always distinguish between civilians and combatants during armed conflicts.

Even if Israel’s claims of targeting military leaders are accurate, it is unacceptable to target them while they are among civilians and in civilian areas without considering any of the principles of international humanitarian law. Therefore, Israeli is committing serious violations of international humanitarian law.

While international humanitarian law permits the targeting of combatants who are directly involved in hostilities, as well as within certain limits under the principles of military necessity and proportionality, i.e. taking the necessary precautions during the implementation of each military operation, the law (which Israel has adopted, and is bound to) forbids political assassinations.

An attack that “is expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life or injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, and is excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated” is prohibited by the principle of proportionality, even when it comes to military targets. Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor emphasises that such attacks are considered full-fledged war crimes.

A UN investigation committee must be established to look into the transgressions and international crimes that have been committed in Lebanon since 8 October 2024.

In order to bring about justice for the victims and stop additional civilian casualties, the international community must fulfill its obligations to monitor and enforce international humanitarian law, stop violations that constitute war crimes, punish those responsible, and stop impunity.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor is a Geneva-based independent organization with regional offices across the MENA region and Europe

21 November 2024

Source: countercurrents.org