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By Mazin B. Qumsiyeh–Pluto Press (London & Sterling, Virginia), 2004

There is no more compelling and dramatic unfolding story with more profound international ramifications than the conflict in the Middle East. Over five million Palestinian refugees were created and almost an equal number of new immigrants and settlers came under the banner of Zionism.  The unrest and injustices created have ramifications for all humanity as seen in recent events.  This book brings a critical documentation of these events and the core issues of the conflict with the view that human rights are key to any plans for a lasting peace.  There is a growing interest in a vision and a roadmap for peace based on Human Rights among Israelis, Palestinians, and human rights activists around the world.  A shared future is increasingly recognized as far more realistic than separation and continued injustice. This book examines facts on the ground and articulates future directions based on the logic of equality and human rights rather than apartheid.  The advocated solutions are not only moral, ethical, and humane but can actually achieve a lasting and just peace. People who now live in this land of Canaan and those dispossessed from it will find the roadmap presented here compelling. This book examines evolution of the conflict in Israel/Palestine and articulates future directions based on the logic of equality and human rights rather than apartheid.  The advocated moral, ethical, and humane solutions can achieve a lasting and just peace. People who now live in this land of Canaan and those dispossessed from it will find the text compelling. Another issue addressed in the book is such things as sustainable development and impossibility of separating resources for two countries in the same area.  Recent plans confirm this as shown in this report on Water in Palestine.

“An erudite work of extensive scholarship, enormous scope, searing honesty, and intellectual audacity. Mazin Qumsiyeh, once again, is challenging the prevailing misconceptions, facile generalizations, and downright ignorance that have long served to obscure Palestinian realities, and, consequently, to prevent the articulation of a just solution. Breathtaking!” Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, previous Palestinian Minister of Higher Education, Bir Zeit University and http://miftah.org

“Mazin Qumsiyeh brings to light many forgotten and willfully buried facts about the origins of the Israel-Palestinian conflict.” Dr. Norman Finkelstein

“A tour de force by a brilliant scientist who debunks  entrenched  myths standing in the way of the only logical and compassionate  peace based on sharing,integration, co-existence,and equality rather than separation and ghettoization.  It is a welcome addition to the growing literature on one of the most complex issues of our times.” Dr. Naseer Aruri, Professor Emeritus and author of “Dishonest Broker”

[http://qumsiyeh.org/sharingthelandofcanaan/onetoone.jpg]

Figure 2 from Book: This is the first depiction of the shrinking map of Palestine which was developed by Prof. Qumsiyeh and his son (based on shrinking map of USA) and then was adopted and used widely around the world.

Errata on the first edition

pg. 28 First full sentence: change “are not challenged” to “are now challenged”

pg. 53 Line 9: change “greater” to “lesser”

pg. 59, Line 20: “by the Maccabees.”  should read “by the Hasmoneans.”

pg.69 second paragraph, 4th line should read “after whom a town in Australia is named.)”

pg. 212 4th line: change “Romanian Christians” to “Armenian Christians”

Source: qumsiyeh.org

By Dr. Ramzy Baroud

If one is to visit the Mahal website, a pop-up reminder, reading ‘Apply online’, keeps appearing. It is as if the repeated beep is a reminder of the state of emergency, if not outright panic, in the Israeli military.

Mahal is one of several recruiting agencies that aim to entice mercenaries from all around the world to fight Israel’s dirty wars, in Gaza and on all fronts.

As soon as the Israeli war on Gaza was launched last October, rumors began circulating of a low turn-out among Israeli reserves. This was coupled with an unprecedented political crisis in Israel, where the military was insistent on the recruiting of Ultra-Orthodox Jews which, until recently, has been a taboo topic among Israeli politicians.

Even when the draft orders went out for thousands of Haredim in July, only a small fraction of the summoned men answered the call, according to Israeli media.

The crisis is yet to be resolved, and most likely will not be resolved as the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu continues to expand the war fronts. To understand the degree of Israel’s military crisis, compare the hyped statements of Israeli officials at the start of the war, where they promised a total victory, to the latest statements.

Last July, for example, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that “the army needs 10,000 more soldiers immediately.” The number 10,000 is particularly interesting when we consider an Israeli army revelation that at least 10,000 of its soldiers have been seriously or moderately wounded since the start of the war.

The number is likely to be much higher, based on media leaks and information provided by Israeli hospitals. Additionally, thousands of Israeli soldiers have been declared ‘disabled’ due to psychological trauma suffered during the war, according to Israel’s defense ministry.

Thus the state of urgency in an army, which according to Israeli Major General Reserve Yitzhak Brik, has become “small and weak, with no surplus of forces”.

So, where does Israel go from here? Instead of ending its war-turned-genocide in Gaza, Israel has decided to turn to the very people who have been told that they are the most unwanted elements of Israeli society: African refugee asylum seekers.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on September 15 that Israeli recruiters have been quietly working to enlist as many African asylum seekers as possible in the Israeli military.

To entice them, the recruiters are promising permanent residencies though, according to the paper, not a single African soldier is yet to receive the coveted documents.

“Defense officials (..) say the project is conducted in an organized manner, with the guidance of defense establishment legal advisers,” the report said. The paper also confirmed that “the ethical considerations of recruiting asylum seekers have not been addressed”.

By ‘ethical considerations’, both Haaretz and the cited defense officials are not referring to the killing of unarmed Palestinian civilians in Gaza at the hands of poor, desperate refugees from Africa, but to the rights of the asylum seekers themselves.

Israel is known to mistreat not only African asylum seekers but its own dark-skinned population as well.

This racism has manifested itself in the clearest ways against African asylum seekers, whose number is estimated to be around 30,000.

Thousands of Africans have already been deported from the country, not to be repatriated to their original homes but to other African countries, where human rights violations are widespread.

In 2018, Amnesty International said that the Israeli government is forcefully returning the refugees “to persecution or indefinite detention”. The group chastised Israel’s “ill-thought-out policies” and “reckless abandonment of responsibility”.

Expectedly, Israel’s mistreatment of its asylum seekers and refugees received muted responses from western governments and rights groups that often react strongly to reports of mass abuse or unlawful deportations of refugees anywhere else in the world.

And, as is often the case, failure to hold Israel accountable to international and humanitarian laws emboldens the latter to continue with its “ill-thought-out policies”.

Imagine the cruelty of using desperate refugees, who have no political or historical affiliations with the war in Palestine, to kill other refugees in displacement camps across Gaza.

In doing so, Israel has crossed every moral, ethical and legal boundary that governs state and army behavior during times of war. This, however, cannot mean that the international community is incapable of deterring these Israeli practices, through concrete actions and direct sanctions.

Many countries throughout Africa have already raised their voice in solidarity with Gaza and the Palestinian people. The bond between Africa and Palestine should now be strengthened by Israel’s utter disregard, not only for the lives of the Palestinians but for that of Africans as well.

The African Union should take the leadership on this issue, dissuading its citizens from joining the Israeli military under any circumstances, and pursuing the matter of recruiting African asylum seekers at the highest legal institutions.

While the moral stance taken by many African countries regarding the Israeli genocide in Gaza deserves the utmost respect, it is also incumbent on African governments to take an equally strong stance so that Israel ceases its practice of using Africans to kill and die in Gaza.

Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle.

26 September 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Kevin Reed

Top Israeli army officers have told soldiers to prepare for a ground invasion of Lebanon as the air assault on the country to the north continued for a third day. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the aerial bombardment included attacks on more than 280 targets that it claimed were tied to Hezbollah.

Israeli air strikes killed 81 people across the country on Wednesday, according to the Lebanese health ministry. The strikes killed 38 people in southern Lebanon, 12 in the eastern Bekaa region, and 22 in three towns north and south of the capital, Beirut. Nearly 400 people were wounded.

The latest air assault expanded the zones in Lebanon that Israel has been targeting, including the beach resort of Jiyyeh, just south of Beirut. The total death toll in Lebanon is approaching 650 people from the relentless air assault of the past three days.

In Beirut, thousands of people displaced from southern Lebanon are sheltering in schools and other buildings.

Lebanon’s health minister, Dr. Firass Abiad, told Sky News that there will be “easily” half a million people displaced in Lebanon due to the bombings. Dr. Abiad said he expects the number to surpass that of the 2006 Lebanon war, during which between 600,000 and 800,000 people were displaced.

A report from the Associated Press included an eyewitness account of a strike in the Bekaa Valley:

“At Dar Al Amal hospital in the city of Baalbek in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, Soumaya Moussawi was lying in bed with her head bandaged and face bruised Wednesday. She had been sitting outside with family members when warplanes started striking in the distance,” she said.

“Then suddenly it hit next to us—we were all thrown in different directions,” she said. “My two cousins and my father were killed, and my other cousin is in a dangerous condition.”

Moussawi insisted that there was no military site near them. She said she is trying to “remain strong” in her father’s memory.

The United Nations reported that two of its staff members in Lebanon were killed during the ongoing air assault. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) identified the individuals in a statement as Dina Darwiche and Ali Basma.

Darwiche was killed with her young son after their home was “hit by an Israeli missile.” She had worked for the UNHCR for 12 years in its Bekaa office. Basma worked as a cleaner in the organization’s Tyre office for seven years, but the statement did not specify how he was killed.

UNHCR said it was “outraged and deeply saddened” by the deaths and called for “urgent de-escalation” and the protection of “civilians, including aid workers, in line with obligations under international humanitarian law.”

Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, chief of staff of the IDF, told soldiers on Wednesday to prepare for a possible ground invasion of Lebanon. He said they would “go in, destroy the enemy there and decisively destroy” Hezbollah’s infrastructure. Israel also called up two reservist brigades.

Addressing troops on Israel’s northern border, Halevi said, “You hear the jets overhead; we have been striking all day. This is both to prepare the ground for your possible entry and to continue degrading Hezbollah.”

The lieutenant general added, “Today, Hezbollah expanded its range of fire, and later today, they will receive a very strong response. Prepare yourselves.” He said, “we are preparing the process of a maneuver.”

During a visit to Israeli soldiers carrying out exercises near the Lebanese border, the head of Israel’s northern command also said the war has “entered a new phase.” Major General Ori Gordin said, “We need to change the security situation, and we must be fully prepared for maneuvers and action,” according to a statement released Wednesday.

The threat to invade Lebanon followed Hezbollah’s launching of a long-range missile toward Tel Aviv. Israel said its air defense system intercepted the missile before impact.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the IDF will continue “inflicting blows on Hezbollah” until displaced Israeli citizens can return to their homes. In a video statement released on Wednesday, Netanyahu said, “I cannot detail everything we are doing, but I can tell you one thing: We are determined to return our residents in the north safely to their homes,” adding, “we will not rest until they come home.”

The statement by Netanyahu echoes similar statements he has made throughout the genocide against Palestinians in Gaza regarding the pursuit of “total victory” and cynically using the Israeli hostages as justification.

Meanwhile, the murderous assault on Gaza continued on Wednesday with Israeli air strikes on Rafah. The Washington Post reported that Palestinian Civil Defense workers screamed into pockets of rubble, searching for survivors following an Israeli strike on a multi-story building in the southern-most city in Gaza.

According to Gaza’s Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Basal, at least three people were killed and several injured in the attack. Basal told the Post in a phone call that more than 50 people died on Tuesday in strikes across Gaza. He said that as Israeli forces turned their attention to Lebanon, the pace of Israeli attacks on Gaza has intensified.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken sought to disguise the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s assault on Lebanon by claiming that Tel Aviv and Hezbollah needed to pull back and avoid all-out war as disastrous for the region and its people.

During a visit to New York for the UN General Assembly, Blinken claimed on Wednesday that the US was working to “de-escalate tensions” and allow tens of thousands of Israelis and Lebanese to return to homes they have had to evacuate due to the intensifying assault.

However, in an appearance on NBC’s “Today” program, Blinken endorsed the Israeli terrorist pager attack on Lebanon that maimed thousands. When asked whether the pager bombs were “a form of terrorism and it went too far,” Blinken said, “It’s very legitimate that Israel do something about Hezbollah.”

When the CBS News reporter asked Blinken about a report by ProPublica that two US government agencies concluded that Israel is deliberately and illegally blocking aid to Gaza, that the Secretary of State ignored them and falsely told Congress otherwise, Blinken shrugged it off. He said it was a “pretty typical” episode where he had to “sort through” some “different assessments” and “draw some conclusions.”

26 September 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Hafiz Rashid

Earlier this year, two U.S. government authorities determined that Israel was deliberately blocking food and medicine deliveries into Gaza during its brutal massacre in the territory.

But even after the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department’s refugees bureau shared their findings with senior diplomats in late April, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Congress almost the exact opposite days later, ProPublica reported Tuesday, citing leaked reports.

In a statement to Congress on May 10, Blinken said, “We do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance.”

Before his statement to Congress, Blinken received a 17-page memo from USAID on Israel’s conduct, obtained by ProPublica, which described instances of Israel killing aid workers, bombing hospitals and ambulances, tearing down agricultural structures, regularly turning away trucks of food and medicine, and sitting on supply depots.

Food for Gaza, including flour that could have fed nearly 1.5 million Palestinians for five months, was stockpiled less than 30 miles from the Gazan border in an Israeli port, the memo stated. In February, however, Israel stopped allowing flour into the territory, accusing the recipient, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, or UNRWA, of having ties to Hamas. An independent investigation would find no evidence for Israel’s claims.

On its own, the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration also concluded that Israel was blocking humanitarian aid, recommending that nearly $830 million in weapons and bombs to Israel, paid by U.S. taxpayers, should be frozen under the Foreign Assistance Act. USAID echoed the recommendation, writing in its memo that the U.S. should pause additional arms sales to the country.

These findings appear to have been either overlooked or ignored by Blinken and other leading Biden administration officials. The United Nations has declared a famine in Gaza, saying that many Palestinians in the territory go days without food and that many children have starved to death. The war also has created a health emergency in Gaza, including the territory’s first confirmed case of polio in 25 years.

The State Department issued a statement in response to questions from ProPublica, claiming that it had pressured Israel to allow more aid into Gaza.

“As we made clear in May when [our] report was released, the US had deep concerns during the period since October 7 about action and inaction by Israel that contributed to a lack of sustained delivery of needed humanitarian assistance,” the statement read. “Israel subsequently took steps to facilitate increased humanitarian access and aid flow into Gaza.”

The U.S. government’s handling of USAID’s memo led to internal conflict, with one official in the State Department, Stacy Gilbert, resigning in May over Blinken’s statement to Congress.

“There is abundant evidence showing Israel is responsible for blocking aid,” Gilbert wrote in a statement at the time. “To deny this is absurd and shameful. That report and its flagrant untruths will haunt us.”

There are no signs that Blinken or the Biden administration plan to change their policies toward Israel or its war in Gaza, even as the war has killed more than 41,467 Palestinians, including 16,500 children, almost certainly undercounts and not including death tolls from Israel’s military attacks in the West Bank and southern Lebanon. Even in the face of evidence collected by U.S. agencies themselves, the Biden administration refuses to consider an arms embargo against Israel or acknowledge Israel’s many war crimes.

25 September 2024

Source: newrepublic.com

By Jordan Shilton

One day after its devastating bombardment of Lebanon that killed over 550 people, Israel struck the capital Beirut as the imperialist-backed onslaught in the Middle East continues to escalate. The third strike on the Lebanese capital since Friday, coming as the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) pledged to “accelerate” its attacks, claimed at least six lives and injured 15.

At a situation briefing Tuesday morning, IDF head Herzi Halevi emphasised that Monday’s bloody attack was the opening shot in an expanding war, declaring, “We must not give Hezbollah a break. We will continue to operate at full strength. We will accelerate offensive actions today and reinforce all units. The current situation requires continued intensive operations across all fronts.”

Subsequent hours saw “waves” of strikes on southern Lebanon and the Beqaa Valley, as well as the Beirut bombing. An airstrike on the southern suburbs killed Hezbollah rocket commander Ibrahim Muhammad Kabisi.

The death toll in Lebanon since Monday has risen to 569, with over 1,800 reported injured. Hezbollah responded by firing over 300 rockets into northern Israel Tuesday and launching drones targeting military sites.

A senior Israeli Air Force officer stated that the bombardment of Lebanon since Monday was the most extensive ever carried out in the air force’s history, according to the Times of Israel. Over 1,600 sites were struck using over 2,000 munitions.

The scale of Israel’s indiscriminate assault, which also targeted vehicles carrying fleeing residents, and rescue and emergency services teams, demonstrates that Israel has the full backing of the United States. The huge shipments of weaponry dispatched by the Biden administration to Israel since the onset of the genocide in Gaza have not only allowed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government to lay waste to the enclave, but bring the entire Middle East to the brink of a region-wide war. US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke to his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant twice within 24 hours between Saturday and Sunday to make clear Washington’s backing for Israel to “defend itself.”

Nevertheless, the imperialist powers are seeking with sickening hypocrisy to present themselves as a stabilizing force in the region working for “deescalation” and “peace.” US President Joseph Biden asserted at the UN General Assembly that he was “determined to prevent a wider war that engulfs the entire region,” while German Foreign Minister Analena Bearbock commented, “We must not slide into another war, we must rather do everything to bring about deescalation, especially with regard to the situation in Lebanon.”

Coming from the two imperialist powers that have supplied Israel with the most weapons, while clamping down ruthlessly on all forms of domestic opposition to the Gaza genocide, such statements ring hollow. Their aim is to cover up the fact that American imperialism and its European allies backed the genocide, which has officially claimed the lives of more than 41,000 Palestinians, as a means to prepare for a region-wide war with Iran. This war has moved significantly closer to becoming reality following the events of the past week.

On September 17, Israel launched a criminal terror attack by blowing up sabotaged pagers and other electronic devices across Lebanon, killing 37 people and injuring thousands, including many children. Then on Friday, it used a high-powered bomb to strike a suburb in southern Beirut, killing over 50 people, including high-ranking Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil. There followed the ongoing onslaught, which has in two days claimed more than half the number of lives lost during Israel’s month-long war on Lebanon in 2006. Some 27,000 people have fled their homes, with at least 500 fleeing across Lebanon’s eastern border into war-torn Syria.

The imminent danger of a further spread of the war throughout the region, drawing in regional powers like Iran and the imperialist powers together with their rivals Russia and China, cannot be overstated. In Syria, Russia maintains a large contingent of troops, air capabilities, and ships at its naval base in Tartus on the Mediterranean. Late Tuesday, Reuters reported that Syria’s air defence system was activated after Israeli missiles targeted locations in Tartus, with eye witnesses reporting loud explosions.

The US and Turkey also have a military presence in Syria. Additionally, thousands of American troops are located at bases in Iraq and throughout the Gulf sheikdoms, and a large armada of American warships are either already in the Gulf, or standing by in the eastern Mediterranean.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov said of Israel’s attack on Lebanon at a press briefing Tuesday, “This is an event that is potentially extremely dangerous when it comes to the expansion of the conflict, to the complete destabilisation of the region. Of course, this is of extreme concern to us.”

China, which cut across US interests in the region by brokering a deal in early 2023 aimed at easing tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran, has clearly positioned itself alongside Lebanon in the face of Israel’s bombardment.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi, following a meeting with his Lebanese counterpart on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, commented, “We pay close attention to developments in the region, especially the recent explosion of communications equipment in Lebanon, and firmly oppose indiscriminate attacks against civilians.”

Tensions were already high throughout the Middle East prior to this week’s onslaught. In April, Israel bombed Iran’s consulate in Syria, killing seven high-ranking Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps members. Iran responded by firing hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel, but provided advanced notice to avoid a major escalation. Israel intensified its provocations in July, when it carried out the targeted assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh while he was in Tehran attending the inauguration of Iranian President Mesoud Pezeshkian.

Israel is determined to intensify the war in Lebanon, even at the risk of a region-wide bloodbath. Netanyahu could well launch a ground invasion to enforce Israel’s demand that Hezbollah forces retreat north of the Litani River.

Speaking at a military drill Tuesday simulating a ground incursion into Lebanon, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said that the IDF has “additional blows already prepared” against Hezbollah. Referring to the troops’ experience exterminating Palestinians in Gaza, Gallant added, “Any Hezbollah force that encounters you will be destroyed, they are troubled by the experience you have gained in combat.”

National Unity leader Benny Gantz, who was part of Netanyahu’s war cabinet until his withdrawal in June, declared his support for the onslaught on Lebanon Tuesday and called for troops to be sent in if necessary. “If [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah does not stop the fire, we will also have to enter [Lebanese] territory to allow the return of our residents.”

The Zionist regime is continuing its genocide in Gaza as the war in Lebanon intensifies. At least 37 people were killed in air raids across Gaza Tuesday, including a family of five in Rafah. The Guardian reported Monday that Netanyahu, who has delayed his departure to New York where he is due to address the General Assembly, is considering a plan proposed by members of his Likud party to forcibly expel civilians north of the Gaza River to create a “closed military zone” where the IDF can kill anyone who remains. If the plan is implemented, it would entail the expulsion of between 300,000 and 500,000 people, almost all of whom have already been displaced multiple times.

Israel’s unrestrained lawlessness also continues in the West Bank. On Sunday, IDF soldiers raided the Ramallah offices of Al Jazeera, seizing documents and ordering the Qatar-funded broadcaster to suspend its operations in the occupied West Bank for 45 days. The soldiers tore down a banner on a balcony displaying an image of Shireen Abu Akleh, the Palestinian-American journalist shot dead by Israeli soldiers in May 2022.

25 September 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr Marwan Asmar

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his military establishment led by Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi are determined to separate the Lebanese and the Gaza fronts.  To do that the Israelis are bombing Lebanon in all sorts of directions  right, left and center, in the south of the country, its east and of course, southern Beirut – considered the prime Hizbollah stronghold – as hard as they can to achieve their illusive objectives which are nowhere near to being realized.

Israeli air raids, bombings, killing of civilians and murder of claimed Hezbollah fighters have increased in the last 48 hours with death knocking on the door of the Lebanese. Last Monday alone Israeli warplanes killed 274 people and injured 1024 in 1100 air raids all over Lebanon with the number of those killed rising daily.

But in contrast, Hezbollah attacks – through missiles and drones – have been tough on northern Israel including its cities like Haifa, Tel Aviv, in the Galilee, Safad, Jewish colonies/settlements  and military bases have continued non-stop where reports of fires, deaths and hundreds of thousands hiding in underground shelters.

Secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah has been very clear in his approach. In this escalation which started last week through the so-called pager and wireless massacre when Israeli killed around 3000 people in the southern neighborhood of Beirut, Hezbollah quickly regrouped and started firing on the north and center of Israel in unexpected moves.

He said there will be no separation between the Lebanese and Gaza fronts until the Israeli military machine stops bombing Gaza once-and-for-all. Hezbollah and Gaza has long become an unparalleled equation, he maintains. The war must stop in Gaza so that Fadi I, Fadi II and more recently Fadi III as well as more missiles stop landing on the different and sensitive areas of Israel.

However he tried to be reasonable saying that if a settlement is reached within the Palestinian groups and be acceptable to them his party would stop firing on Israel. Nasarallah couldn’t be more clearer than that.

Meanwhile the ‘trading over the border escalation’ between Hezbollah and the Israeli warplanes continues with missile swaps and bombs continuing. Despite the war utterings from certain quarters, Israel doesn’t want a northern front as their leaders keep saying and is not expected to start a ground troop offensive into southern Lebanon because of what is being termed as their ‘debilitating’ ability and exhaustion of their soldiers after their nearly 12 months of fighting in Gaza.

But in this respect too, Nasrallah has been clear too saying if the Israeli army wants to enter south Lebanon, Hezbollah would be ready for them, going all the way of inviting them to invade and see the real force of the resistance in Lebanon that had been fighting Israel, albeit on a ‘low level’ since Israel started its war and onslaught on the Gaza Strip soon after 7 October, 2023.

All indications suggest Israeli will not be able to separate this front from the Gaza one. Though Israeli planes are in a state of bombing momentum believing if they bomb certain regions of Lebanon fiercely enough, and aim to kill their top caders by bombing south Beirut, Hezbollah will eventually give up by themselves and wrap up the war.

But the situation is particularly fluid, neither side is budging from their positions. With Hezbollah termed to be recruiting 40,000 fighters from Iraq, Syria and Yemen, it insists that this front is their to support Gaza while Netanyahu refuses to accept a ceasefire deal on the enclave.

Both parties are in “military deadlock”, while a third party, the Biden administration, is walking in the middle. Its officials right from US president Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other lowley staff stated many times they want a deal on Gaza, and don’t want the war to spread to the region, to Lebanon, possibly Iraq, Syria and even Yemen which have been up till now low key operators.

In this war first on Gaza, and now developing into Lebanon, the US has been a constant behind-the-scene player, politicking in Lebanon through its special envoy and Qatar and Egypt acting as mediators in the past months to work a ceasefire that didn’t work mainly through Israeli intransigence, Washington must take much of the blame.

This is because Washington has been a constant supplier of weapons to the Israelis in this war right after 7 October, 2023 through an active air and sea bridge to Tel Aviv. It has, till this day, been providing Israeli with technical advice on the conduct of the war with at least 2000 US military personell and many would argue, the United States has not been forceful enough with Netanyahu who worked to disrupt the talks and make sure the war on Gaza continues.

With the war switching to the Lebanese-Israeli border, it seems that the US would continue to supply Israel with weapons, increase its intransigence even further, keep up the Hamas-Hezbollah ante up and suck the region into an even bigger regional war.

Dr Asmar is an Amman-based writer on https://crossfirearabia.com/

25 September 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Atul Chandra and Vijay Prashad

On September 22, 2024, the Sri Lankan election authority announced that Anura Kumara Dissanayake of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)-led National People’s Power (NPP) alliance won the presidential election. Dissanayake, who has been the leader of the left-wing JVP since 2014, defeated 37 other candidates, including the incumbent president Ranil Wickremesinghe of the United National Party (UNP) and his closest challenger Sajith Premadasa of the Samagi Jana Balawegaya. The traditional parties that dominated Sri Lankan politics—such as the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) and the UNP—are now on the back foot. However, they dominate the Sri Lankan Parliament (the SLPP has 145 out of 225 seats, while the UNP has one seat). Dissanayake’s JVP only has three seats in the Parliament.

Dissanayake’s triumph to become the country’s ninth president is significant. It is the first time that a party from the country’s Marxist tradition has won a presidential election. Dissanayake, born in 1968 and known by his initials of AKD, comes from a working-class background in north-central Sri Lanka, far from the capital city of Colombo. His worldview has been shaped by his leadership of Sri Lanka’s student movement, and by his role as a cadre in the JVP. In 2004, Dissanayake went to Parliament when the JVP entered an alliance with Chandrika Kumaratunga, the president of the country from 1994 to 2005 and the daughter of the first female prime minister in the world (Sirimavo Bandaranaike). Dissanayake became the Minister of Agriculture, Land, and Livestock in Kumaratunga’s cabinet, a position that allowed him to display his competence as an administrator and to engage the public in a debate around agrarian reform (which will likely be an issue he will take up as president). An attempt at the presidency in 2019 ended unsuccessfully, but it did not stop either Dissanayake or the NPP.

Economic Turbulence

In 2022, Colombo—Sri Lanka’s capital city—was convulsed by the Aragalaya (protests) that culminated in a takeover of the presidential palace and the hasty departure of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. What motivated these protests was the rapid decline of economic possibilities for the population, which faced shortages of essential goods, including food, fuel, and medicines. Sri Lanka defaulted on its foreign debt and went into bankruptcy. Rather than generate an outcome that would satisfy the protests, Wickremesinghe, with his neoliberal and pro-Western orientation, seized the presidency to complete Rajapaksa’s six-year term that began in 2019.

Wickremesinghe’s lame duck presidency did not address any of the underlying issues of the protests. He took Sri Lanka to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2023 to secure a $2.9 billion bailout (the 17th such intervention in Sri Lanka from the IMF since 1965), which came with removal of subsidies for items such as electricity and a doubled value-added tax rate to 18 percent: the price of the debt was to be paid by the working class in Sri Lanka and not the external lenders. Dissanayake has said that he would like to reverse this equation, renegotiate the terms of the deal, put more of the pain on external lenders, increase the income tax-free threshold, and exempt several essential goods (food and health care) from the increased taxation regime. If Dissanayake can do this, and if he earnestly intervenes to stifle institutional corruption, he will make a serious mark on Sri Lankan politics which has suffered from the ugliness of the civil war and from the betrayals of the political elite.

A Marxist Party in the President’s House

The JVP or the People’s Liberation Front was founded in 1965 as a Marxist-Leninist revolutionary party. Led by Rohana Wijeweera (1943-1989), the party attempted two armed insurrections—in 1971 and again from 1987 to 1989—against what it perceived as an unjust, corrupt, and intractable system. Both uprisings were brutally suppressed, leading to thousands of deaths, including the assassination of Wijeweera. After 1989, the JVP renounced the armed struggle and entered the democratic political arena. The leader of the JVP before Dissanayake was Somawansa Amerasinghe (1943-2016), who rebuilt the party after its major leaders had been killed in the late 1980s. Dissanayake took forward the agenda of building a left-wing political party that advocated for socialist policies in the electoral and social arenas. The remarkable growth of the JVP is a result of the work of Dissanayake’s generation, who are 20 years younger than the founders and who have been able to anchor the ideology of the JVP in large sections of the Sri Lankan working class, peasantry, and poor. Questions remain about the party’s relationship with the Tamil minority population given the tendency of some of its leaders to slip into Sinhala nationalism (particularly when it came to how the state should deal with the insurgency led by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam). Dissanayake’s personal rise has come because of his integrity, which stands in stark contrast to the corruption and nepotism of the country’s elite, and because he has not wanted to define Sri Lankan politics around ethnic division.

Part of the refoundation of the JVP has been the rejection of left-wing sectarianism. The party worked to build the National People’s Power coalition of twenty-one left and center-left groups, whose shared agenda is to confront corruption and the IMF policy of debt and austerity for the mass of the Sri Lankan people. Despite the deep differences among some of the formations in the NPP, there has been a commitment to a common minimum program of politics and policy. That program is rooted in an economic model that prioritizes self-sufficiency, industrialization, and agrarian reform. The JVP, as the leading force in the NPP, has pushed for the nationalization of certain sectors (particularly utilities, such as energy provision) and the redistribution of wealth through progressive taxation and increased social expenditure. The message of economic sovereignty struck a chord amongst people who have long been divided along lines of ethnicity.

Whether Dissanayake will be able to deliver on this program of economic sovereignty is to be seen. However, his victory has certainly encouraged a new generation to breathe again, to feel that their country can go beyond the tired IMF agenda and attempt to build a Sri Lankan project that could become a model for other countries in the Global South.

Atul Chandra works at Tricontinental Research Services (New Delhi).

Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor, and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter.

25 September 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Laurence Tubiana and Ana Toni

NEW YORK – It has been nearly ten years since countries came together in Paris and agreed finally to get serious about averting a climate disaster. But while there is an emerging consensus on the structural economic reforms needed to transform sectors such as energy, transportation, and agriculture, the necessary investments are not being made fast enough.

Instead, our governance systems are struggling to muster an adequate response to what is an increasingly obvious and severe climate and ecological crisis. Although many governments have proposed robust climate measures, these often trigger a social backlash, because they are perceived as unjust and inequitable. Many see policies that pit the old against the young, the city against the country, or the Global North against the Global South. Such controversies are tailor-made for social media, where they ripen and then rot in a hothouse of misinformation, incendiary rhetoric, and polarization.

Although the argument for the necessity of major reform has been won, the argument for how to do it fairly has not. This challenge will become only more difficult the deeper we get into the net-zero transition. Most people care deeply about addressing the climate crisis: in a survey conducted across 18 G20 countries, 71% of respondents agreed that major action is needed immediately to reduce carbon emissions. But trust in government action is lacking, with only 39% believing that their own government will act effectively.

One way to address this gap is to allow citizens participation in the elaboration and implementation of climate policies and measures designed by governments. Instead of having climate policies imposed by technocrats from above, governments should embrace approaches that combine “top-down” with “bottom-up” methods, with the latter bringing together ordinary people who are tasked with shaping a shared vision of the future.

Successful examples of those participatory methods already exist. Citizens’ assemblies in France are decision-making bodies composed of randomly selected, demographically representative individuals who deliberate on a specific issue of public concern and provide policy recommendations.

In addition to fostering consensus on divisive topics, citizens’ assemblies educate the public about complex policy issues and give citizens a direct role in decisions that affect their lives. These elements are especially important for issues like the net-zero transition, which entails major economic changes that can leave communities feeling divided. Unlike politicians, assembly members make decisions free from electoral pressures and lobbying. Notable examples include Ireland’s assemblies on marriage equality and abortion, which led to national referenda and breakthrough legislation; and France’s climate assembly, which helped shape its most ambitious climate bill to date.

Brazil’s long standing participatory approach to policymaking has also proved successful. For example, its Climate Plan is being developed through a governance structure that includes several ministries of the federal government together with representatives from the scientific community, subnational governments, the private sector, and civil society.

Moreover, a climate participatory platform (involving both digital and in-person exchanges) has been launched to invite all Brazilian citizens to propose solutions. The National Environmental Conference and the National Social and Economic Development Council, by prioritizing the Climate Plan, have further contributed to strengthening this bottom-up process.

Such methods can steer climate policy proposals away from sources of polarization, and toward opportunities for collaboration and deliberation. Among G20 countries, 62% of people favor using citizens’ assemblies for decision-making, and that number has risen above 70% in countries like Brazil, India, Indonesia, Mexico, and South Africa, and to over 80% in Kenya. More than 170 citizens’ assemblies have been held in more than 30 countries, each with the goal of accelerating climate action in ways that support a fair and just transition for all.

Drawing on the model of the World Social Forum, what we need now is a Global Social-Climate Forum, or a Global Citizens’ Assembly for People and Planet, to bring citizens together from every country, not just to chart a collective path forward, but to reimagine our politics and encourage a global ethical stock-take. This would be an opportunity for humanity to come together, to understand each other’s aspirations and anxieties, and to co-create a green transition that benefits everyone. Rather than leaving anyone behind, we can forge a new social contract rooted in solidarity, equity, and fairness.

In 2015, France and Peru established a new mechanism, the Action Agenda, because they recognized that the scale of change needed to tackle the climate crisis requires more than just government action. It also depends on the wealth of ideas that civil society – including businesses, cities, and communities – has to offer.

As countries prepare to announce their next climate commitments in 2025, we must acknowledge the critical role that ordinary citizens have to play, both individually and collectively, in addressing the climate crisis. At COP30 and beyond, we must provide a dedicated space to hear every voice, and to ensure that the transition is not only fast but fair. Failing that, we will not achieve our common goals. That is why Brazil is committed to making COP30 (in November 2025) the People’s COP, and to giving every person on Earth the opportunity to participate in shaping our common future.

Laurence Tubiana, a former French ambassador to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, is CEO of the European Climate Foundation and a professor at Sciences Po.

Ana Toni is National Secretary for Climate Change at the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change of Brazil.

24 September 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By M K Bhadrakumar

It came as a disappointment that the Supreme Court bench led by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud dismissed a joint petition filed by a distinguished group of intellectuals that the supply of arms from India to the Israeli military during the Gaza war is in violation India’s obligations under international law coupled with Articles 14 and 21 read with 51(c) of the Constitution.

The petitioners pleaded that the court had on previous occasions held that India is under obligation to interpret domestic law in the light of the obligations under the conventions and treaties that it has both signed and ratified. However, the apex court took note that this is an issue of foreign policy. The government is off the hook.

But an even more explosive issue devolves upon the reports that pucca Indians or people of Indian origin have been recruited by the Israeli army to fight in the war. At a minimum, the government is obliged to ascertain from the Israeli government the veracity of such reports. It is a huge issue since over 40,000 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 100,000 injured in Israel’s military operations so far.

Doesn’t the government realise that this is adding to the growing perception internationally that the current government is ‘Islamophobic’ and ‘anti-Muslim’? Governments come and go but such stigmas eventually become the burdens of history once the West Asian region’s oligarchies disappear and get replaced by representative governments going forward.

Anyone who is a believer in the forces of history would sense that without a radical rethink of national policy, Israel faces a dismal future of strategic defeat. To be sure, the West Asian region is on the cusp of change. Last week, Saudi Arabia’s embassy in Damascus officially resumed its mission after a 12-year hiatus of wasted time as financier and mentor of the jihadi forces who spearheaded the Western project for regime change in Syria. The reintegration of Syria into the Arab world, the Saudi-Iranian rapprochement, the BRICS membership of Iran, the Persian Gulf countries and Egypt, the diminishing influence of the United States in the West Asian region, the isolation of Israel — these are emblematic of the winds of change sweeping the region.

In such a transformative period, how could India possibly cling to the world of yesterday with a regional policy anchored on its special relationship with Israel? On the one hand, we are moralising that ‘this is not an era of wars’ while on the other hand, the government is giving robust support to Israel in its horrific war against the Palestinian people.

Again, the religious dimension to the fratricidal strife in Manipur is already drawing the attention of Christian countries, although this is the first time that the Meitei, who are predominantly Hindu, live mostly in and around the state’s capital city Imphal, and the Kuki — who are mainly Christian and inhabit the surrounding hills — clashed against each other… Many have pointed out that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is yet to visit the state or make a comprehensive statement. In a devastating article that neatly overlapped the high-profile visit of External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to Germany, the Deutsche Welle — a national broadcasting station, by the way — continued that apart from the militarisation of that tiny state, the Indian government has no policy.

What do we do with such brutal criticism? We either stomach it when it originates from powerful Western countries such as Germany or the US (or the United Nations), or become hysterical when Iran compares the situation in J&K with Gaza. Perhaps, India is the only country in the Global South which behaves so cynically. When the aristocrats in our political class wax eloquently that ‘India matters’ as a world power, they overlook that we live in a veritable glass house in the age of the Internet in which information travels around the world in seconds. One can hear the derisive suppressed laughter in the Western world when we strut around on the global stage as ‘Vishwaguru’.

Suffice to say, India’s policy during the past 11 months of the Gaza war has become a mystery wrapped in an enigma. The only plausible explanation is that Israelis who are adept at the art of political blackmail are exploiting the government’s Achilles’ heel, that is Haifa Port, which is in the eye of the storm in the region, to manipulate our foreign policy.

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar served the Indian Foreign Service for more than 29 years. He introduces about himself thus:“Roughly half of the 3 decades of my diplomatic career was devoted to assignments on the territories of the former Soviet Union and to Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan.

24 September 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Andre Damon

Israel launched a massive attack on Lebanon on Monday killing 492 people, including 35 children, 58 women and two medics in over a thousand separate airstrikes.

Monday’s mass killing far outstripped the intensity of Israel’s 2006 invasion of Lebanon, during which 1,000 people were killed during an entire month.

Israel’s bombings followed its mass terror attack last week, in which thousands of pagers and other communication devices exploded throughout Lebanon, killing 37 people and injuring thousands.

In language echoing that used to justify the ongoing Gaza genocide, which has already officially killed more than 41,000 people, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Daniel Hagari declared, “Hezbollah uses the civilian population and civilian homes as a human shield for its terrorist activity.”

Israel’s massacre in Lebanon prompted mass evacuations from Southern Lebanon to the capital city of Beirut. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the population of Southern Lebanon to evacuate, claiming that they would be allowed to return to their homes.

But the real plans of the Netanyahu government and its imperialist backers were spelled out by Amichai Chikli, Israel’s Minister of Diaspora and Combating Antisemitism, who called for Israel to carry out a land grab in Southern Lebanon.

“Lebanon, even though it has a flag and even though it has political institutions, does not meet the definition of a country,” he said. “The drawing lines of Sykes and Picot, which were based on the distribution of areas of influence and resources between Great Britain and France, did not survive the test of time.”

In a testament to the scale of the military operation now being conducted, Israel’s National Unity Party Chairman MK Benny Gantz declared, “We must act not only against Hezbollah but also against the sovereign state of Lebanon, which bears responsibility for terrorism emanating from its territory.”

This massive escalation is being coordinated in real time with the United States, which is funding, arming and politically supporting it.

In a press briefing Monday, Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder reported that “Secretary [of Defense Lloyd] Austin spoke with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Saturday and Sunday evenings Eastern Time.

“During both calls, Secretary Austin reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to Israel’s right to defend itself,” said Ryder. “The Secretary also made clear that the United States remains postured to protect US forces and personnel in the region.”

Ryder announced that the United States would be sending additional US troops to the region. Currently, about 40,000 US troops are deployed throughout the Middle East, including in Iraq and Syria. The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier is currently deployed in the region, while the USS Harry S. Truman is currently underway to the area.

While the Biden administration has publicly claimed that it is seeking a de-escalation of tensions and a “ceasefire,” the reality is that it is funding, enabling and encouraging Israel’s role in both the Gaza genocide and its wider attacks in the Middle East.

In July, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received a standing ovation from Democratic and Republican members of both houses of Congress, followed by separate meetings with US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. After her meeting with Netanyahu, Harris, the Democrats’ candidate for president, declared, “I will always ensure that Israel is able to defend itself, including from Iran and Iran-backed militias, such as Hamas and Hezbollah”—an effective green light to expand the war beyond Gaza.

The US press, moreover, is beginning to give a hint about the scale of Israel’s plans. In an article published Monday, New York Times chief Washington correspondent David Sanger wrote, “Netanyahu is no longer satisfied with carrying out periodic brush-backs of Hezbollah’s power. In his view, Oct. 7 changed everything and the time has come to solve the problem once and for all—both in Gaza and in Lebanon.”

In other words, Israel and its imperialist backers have seized upon the October 7 attacks to carry out not only their “final solution” of the Palestinian question but to completely reorganize the Middle East under imperialist domination by provoking a region-wide war.

US imperialism sees this war as one front in a global struggle targeting Russia and China, aimed at securing US domination all over the globe.

Just days after launching his massacre in Lebanon, Netanyahu will address the United Nations General Assembly in New York City, which is being turned into a war summit by the imperialist powers.

Ahead of the summit, a group of UN officials issued a statement condemning the catastrophe created by the Israeli siege and bombardment of Gaza. It declared:

More than 41,000 Palestinians in Gaza—the majority of them civilians, including women, children, older persons, and at times entire families—have reportedly been killed, and more than 95,500 have been injured, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza. … More than 2 million Palestinians are without protection, food, water, sanitation, shelter, healthcare, education, electricity, and fuel—the basic necessities to survive. Families have been forcibly displaced, time and time again, from one unsafe place to the next, with no way out.

With the expansion of the war into Lebanon, not only the people of Gaza but broad sections of the population of the Middle East risk a similarly catastrophic fate.

24 September 2024

Source: countercurrents.org