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By Bharat Dogra

On May 26 farmers in India observed the completion of six months of their protest dharna (sit-in) at Delhi borders. This was observed as a protest day against the union ( central) government, symbolized by waving of black flags, as the government has all through refused to accept their main demand of taking back three highly controversial farm laws of year 2020. These laws, the protesting farmers have said, move farming in India rapidly towards corporate control while moving away from a system of independent farmers supported by government purchase of farm produce at a fair price. The existing system, they argue further, has enabled India to produce plenty of staple grain (wheat and rice), leaving enough for subsidized public distribution (PDS) as well as nutrition schemes.

These arguments of farmers have received support from a wide section of activists, workers, scholars and most opposition parties. This support is the widest in the so-called green revolution (G.R.) belt of North-West India including Punjab, Haryana and Western Utter Pradesh, fertile areas which received special support of the union government to promote them as granaries of the country by concentrating technology based on abundant irrigation , chemical fertilizers, pesticides and exotic seeds here. From here the protests have travelled to many other parts of the country including Haryana , Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, W.Bengal etc. but the protests remain the strongest in this belt of North-West India ,which is also very influential in political terms.

The protest has been peaceful, strong and resilient, refusing to vacate ground in the face of repression, threats and adverse weather conditions. A significant number of farmers, now called martyrs, have died in the various strenuous activities relating to the movement in conditions of often adverse weather and an ongoing pandemic. In fact if one looks at not just the protest sit-in at the Delhi borders but the various scattered but strong protests which preceded it, then the protests have completed around 10 months or more. In the process, several wider problems of the farmers have also been highlighted and their issues have come more to the centre-stage.

Most farmers in India are small farmers and traditionally their problems related to low incomes and small resource base, the resulting resort to debts taken at exploitative high rates, a cycle of interest payments and debt resulting in mortgage of crops and eventually land in many cases. The response of the government, supported to the extent of even being pushed rather heavily by several important western aid agencies, has been to promote higher yields based on heavy doses of chemical fertilizers and pesticides used on exotic seeds. But this also brought ecological ruin and adversely affected natural fertility based on organic content of soil, also destroying earthworms, other soil organisms and natural pollinators like bees and butterflies on a massive scale, while also hugely increasing repeated expenditure of small, low-resources farmers on expensive external inputs. At the same time as the new technology came, farmers took, or in fact were cajoled to take, new loans for tractors and other farm machinery. While debts of farmers increased hugely, the farm-related businesses of big industrialists increased as never before. Some of the subsidies meant for farmers were in fact given to agribusiness interests.

As debts of farmers increased, the more distressed among them lost their land and status as independent farmers, instead becoming tenants or farm workers, or pushed more towards migrant work. Comparison of census data reveals that farmers have been losing their land at the rate of 100 farmers becoming landless per hour. Today India’s villages on the whole are likely to have more landless ( or almost landless) households compared to land-owning farmer households. This sorry situation has been aggravated by the government increasingly giving more attention to finding land for corporate interests, while going back on its commitments of providing land to landless peasants, which was a fairly strong commitment for the first three decades after independence and had also led to a non-violent campaign by Gandhian activists for obtaining voluntary gifts of land ( bhoodan) for the landless.

Hence despite the much flaunted farm development claims of the government, in reality the costs, debts, tensions and crisis of most farmers have been rising, aggravated by the fact that the support systems provided by the government to lessen the difficulties of the expensive technology can at best reach only a limited number of farmers ( particularly those outside the main green revolution belt may be left out more).

In these conditions the three laws brought by the government with undue hurry in 2020 would have further strengthened corporate control over farming, an ongoing process which has been accelerated by the present government’s excessive closeness to some chosen billionaires, and so the farmers movement has been right in opposing these laws, as confirmed by the support for this demand by several senior scholarly persons, including those with a long and distinguished record of serving in government or government-supported institutions.

However the last six months of the movement have also brought forth some of its limitations. Its main demand of repeal of three laws, as well as other demands of a better price for more crops and some other reliefs, while justified, do not go far enough in the direction of resolving the crisis of farmers and for ensuring longer-term conditions of sustainable livelihoods in conditions of protected environment. There is a compelling need for widespread adoption of those farming methods which protect environment and hence sustainability; which protect soil and conserve water, which protect soil dwelling organisms and pollinators, which reduce costs greatly by reducing external inputs, which make best use of local/ traditional skills and resources, which revive lost good cultivation practices and diversity of traditional seeds, which use mixed farming systems that are mutually supportive of each other, which draw on mutual better help and cooperation among communities. India is a land of many diversities and these practices will be implemented in diverse highly decentralized ways, bringing out the skills and genius of local people, particularly women, in highly creative ways, but the common thread will be to increase environment protection, sustainability and self-help, while reducing costs and debts.

Hence it is important for the farmers’ movement to move in this direction of agro-ecology, and to declare clear opposition to highly disruptive technologies, like those of GM Crops, which conflict with this agro-ecology approach.

In addition it is important to announce more clearly accommodation of welfare of landless rural households, by agreeing to some smaller plots of farmland and kitchen gardens for them, supported by better and more secure employment for them in several schemes of rural development , such as regeneration of forests, pastures, ponds, wetlands and other ecosystems and reclamation of degraded farmland ( such as land spoiled by excessive water and erosion).

All this will be even more useful in times of climate change, as increase of green cover, water conservation and increase of organic content of soil can contribute much to climate change mitigation and adaption. Agro-ecology will also contribute greatly to reducing the use of fossil fuels in farming by drastically cutting dependence on chemical fertilizers, pesticides, diesel etc . Hence farmers who walk this path can hope to get financial help from the international funds that are set up to help the efforts of developing countries in achieving climate change mitigation and adaption.

Hence after six months of admirable, non-violent resistance for rather limited objectives, it is time for the farmers’ movement to take up a much wider and longer-term agenda, which will ensure a much more secure future for all rural households, including the poorest ones, and will get more support at national as well as world level.

Bharat Dogra is a journalist and author who has been close to several social movements.

27 May 2021

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr Ramzy Baroud

The ‘Palestinian Revolt of 2021’ will go down in history as one of the most influential events that irreversibly shaped collective thinking in and around Palestine. Only two other events can be compared with what has just transpired in Palestine: the revolt of 1936 and the First Intifada of 1987.

The general strike and rebellion of 1936-39 were momentous because they represented the first unmistakable expression of collective Palestinian political agency. Despite their isolation and humble tools of resistance, the Palestinian people rose across Palestine to challenge British and Zionist colonialism, combined.

The Intifada of 1987 was also historic. It was the unprecedented sustainable collective action that unified the occupied West Bank and Gaza after the Israeli occupation of what remained of historic Palestine in 1967. That legendary popular revolt, though costly in blood and sacrifices, allowed Palestinians to regain the political initiative and to, once more, speak as one people.

That Intifada was eventually thwarted after the signing of the Oslo accords in 1993. For Israel, Oslo was a gift from the Palestinian leadership that allowed it to suppress the Intifada and use the then newly invented Palestinian Authority (PA) to serve as a buffer between the Israeli military and occupied, oppressed Palestinians.

Since those years, the history of Palestine has taken on a dismal trajectory, one of disunity, factionalism, political rivalry and, for the privileged few, massive wealth. Nearly four decades have been wasted on a self-defeating political discourse centered on American-Israeli priorities, mostly concerned with ‘Israeli security’ and ‘Palestinian terrorism’.

Old but befitting terminologies such as ‘liberation’, ‘resistance’ and ‘popular struggle’, were replaced with more ‘pragmatic’ language of ‘peace process’, ‘negotiation table’ and ‘shuttle diplomacy’. The Israeli occupation of Palestine, according to this misleading discourse, was depicted as a ‘conflict’ and ‘dispute’, as if basic human rights were the subject of political interpretation.

Predictably, the already powerful Israel became more emboldened, tripling the number of its illegal colonies in the West Bank along with the population of its illegal settlers. Palestine was segmented into tiny, isolated South-African-styled Bantustans, each carrying a code – Areas, A, B, C – and the movement of Palestinians within their own homeland became conditioned on obtaining various colored permits from the Israeli military. Women giving birth at military checkpoints in the West Bank, cancer patients dying in Gaza while waiting for permission to cross to hospitals, and more, became the everyday reality of Palestine and the Palestinians.

With time, the Israeli occupation of Palestine became a marginal issue on the agenda of international diplomacy. Meanwhile, Israel cemented its relationship with numerous countries around the world, including countries in the Southern hemisphere which have historically stood beside Palestine.

Even the international solidarity movement for Palestinian rights became confused and fragmented, itself a direct expression of Palestinian confusion and fragmentation. In the absence of a unified Palestinian voice amid Palestine’s prolonged political feud, many took the liberty of lecturing Palestinians on how to resist, what ‘solutions’ to fight for and how to conduct themselves politically.

It seemed that Israel had finally gained the upper hand and, this time, for good.

Desperate to see Palestinians rise again, many called for a third Intifada. Indeed, for many years, intellectuals and political leaders called for a third Palestinian Intifada, as if the flow of history, in Palestine – or elsewhere – adheres to fixed academic notions or is compelled by the urging of some individual or organization.

The rational answer was, and remains, that only the Palestinian people will determine the nature, scope and direction of their collective action. Popular revolts are not the outcome of wishful thinking but of circumstances, the tipping point of which can only be decided by the people themselves.

May 2021 was that very tipping point. Palestinians rose in unison from Jerusalem to Gaza, to every inch of occupied Palestine, including Palestinian refugee communities throughout the Middle East and, by doing so, they also resolved an impossible political equation. The Palestinian ‘problem’ was no longer that of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem alone, but also of Israeli racism and apartheid which have targeted the Palestinian communities inside Israel. Further, it was also the crisis of leadership and the deep-seated factionalism and political corruption.

When Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, decided on May 8 to unleash the hordes of police and Jewish extremists on Palestinian worshippers at Al-Aqsa Mosque, who were protesting the ethnic cleansing of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem, he was merely attempting to score a few political points among Israel’s most chauvinist right-wing constituencies. He also wanted to remain in power or, at least, to avoid prison as a result of his corruption trial.

He did not anticipate, however, that he was unleashing one of the most historic events in Palestine, one that would ultimately resolve a seemingly impossible Palestinian quandary. True, Netanyahu’s war on Gaza killed hundreds and wounded thousands. The violence he perpetrated in the West Bank and in Arab neighborhoods in Israel killed scores. But, on May 20, it was the Palestinians who claimed victory, as hundreds of thousands of people rushed to the streets to declare their triumph as one unified, proud nation.

Winning and losing wars of national liberation cannot be measured by gruesome comparisons between the number of dead or the degree of destruction inflicted on each side. If this was the case, no colonized nation would have ever won its freedom.

Palestinians won because, once more, they emerged from the rubble of Israeli bombs as a whole, a nation so determined to win its freedom at any cost. This realization was symbolized in the many scenes of Palestinian crowds celebrating while waving the banners of all Palestinian factions, without prejudice and without exception.

Finally, it can unequivocally be asserted that the Palestinian resistance scored a major victory, arguably unprecedented in its proud history. This is the first time that Israel is forced to accept that the rules of the game have changed, likely forever. It is no longer the only party that determines political outcomes in occupied Palestine, because the Palestinian people are finally a force to be reckoned with.

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

27 May 2021

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr Binoy Kampmark

The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response was never likely to hand down a rosy report with gobbets of praise. Organised by the World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus last May, the panel’s gloomy assessment was grim: the COVID-19 pandemic could have been avoided.

Almost nothing in the main report could be seen as remarkable in these jaded times. It reads like a sharp vision of looking backwards, a history of folly and stumbles. The protagonist, SARS-CoV-2, proved wily, moving more rapidly than surveillance could detect it, ducking the monitors and seducing the examiners. The rest of the actors in the show proved, to varying degrees, to be inept, indifferent and even callous.

Such attitudes were shared in a climate of prior warning. Humanity has already faced events of mass viral mortality. That there would eventually be a pandemic of this scale was being discussed well ahead of the novel coronavirus march. But governments, planners and policy makers seemed unmoved. When action took place, it was tardy. “Although public health officials, infectious disease experts, and previous international commissions and reviews had warned of potential pandemics and urged robust preparations since the first outbreak of SARS, COVID-19 still took large parts of the world by surprise.”

The WHO itself is not spared a few chastising blows by the panel members. The organisation’s Emergency Committee should have, they argued, declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern a week earlier than it did: on January 22, at its first meeting, rather than January 30, by which time there were already 98 cases in 18 countries outside China. Not doing so also caused critical delays in mustering a global response. “The meeting of the WHO IHR Emergency Committee called to discuss the outbreak on 22-23 January was split on whether to recommend that the outbreak be declared a PHEIC.”

A central theme emerges: communication. And it is rather unsatisfactory. “It is glaringly obvious that February 2020 was a lost month,” the report states. Various Asian countries speedily responded, introducing intense testing and tracking regimes. But the WHO remained tentative. Evidence was weighed, balanced, and considered. Standard and sober as this was, the WHO did not consider convincing material that would prove to be beneficial. One was the importance of wearing masks.

The result: a pandemic that busily infected 150 million people, killed over three million people, and exposed deep inequalities. (Pandemics remain, historically, the great unmaskers.) “Division and inequality between and within countries have been exacerbated, and the impact has been severe on people who are already marginalized and disadvantaged.”

The report, and its authors, are stern in mood. “If travel restrictions,” former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark and panel co-chair combatively insists, “had been imposed more quickly, more widely, again that would have been a serious inhibition on the rapid transmission of the disease that remains the same today.” Clark, for all the merit of that assertion, ignores the logistical nightmares, hub routes, transit points and freedom of movement principles of such blocs as the European Union.

Not all actors in the COVID-19 disaster show receive a lashing. The conduct of clinicians within the last two weeks of December 2019 and January 2020 receives a nod of approval. They showed “diligence” in noticing “clusters of unusual pneumonia”. They sent samples for screening and “escalated their concerns about this cluster of unexplained disease to local health authorities.”

The panel also makes an assortment of recommendations. They call “for an all-out-effort to reach the world’s population with vaccines within a year and set in place the infrastructure needed for at least 5 billion booster doses annually.” They urge the application of “non-pharmaceutical public health measures systematically and rigorously in every country at the scale the epidemiological situation requires.” High income countries should commit “at least one billion vaccine doses no later than 1 September 2021 and more than two billion doses by mid-2022” through the GAVI COVAX Advance Market Commitment.

The conventional model behind the making of vaccines is also challenged, with the panel insisting on establishing “a truly global end-to-end platform for vaccines, diagnostics, therapeutics, and essential supplies”. Rather than leaving innovation to the market, vaccines and related products should be seen as public goods. Unequal access to such products could be overcome through technology transfer, voluntary licensing and financing of regional manufacturing capacity.

Other suggestions point to a broader, health surveillance system that will not be hostage to national interests and clunky sovereignty. “The emergence of COVID-19,” the report notes, “was characterized by a mix of some early and rapid action, but also by delay, hesitation, and denial”. From this, an epidemic grew; from that, a pandemic. To that end, it was suggested that “surveillance and alert systems at national, regional and global levels must be redesigned”, all should be “able to function at near-instantaneous speed.” The WHO should be given greater powers and a higher budget. Its officials should be permitted access with minimal notice. Many governments are unlikely to agree.

Of some interest is the suggested Global Health Threats Council. Stacked with former presidents and prime ministers of various high-, middle- and low-income countries, it would perform the role of moralising guardian, taking governments to task for not preparing for, or responding to, the public health emergencies as designated by health specialists. Such a body, however, risks becoming a toothless entity with a megaphone.

The panel’s report has a title that sounds much like previous inquiries drawn from despair and destined to be lost: COVID-19: Make it the Last Pandemic. It will be filed in the vault of aspirations along with those noble wars that went wrong with criminal stupidity, the victory by Christmas that never took place, and efforts of failed solidarity in sharing scientific discoveries. “They are trying to grab a moment that everyone knows will pass pretty fast,” suggested Stephen Morrison of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC. Global public health responses, sporadic, erratic and politically divided, will do everything to impair any such realisation. Nationalism continues to throb and disrupt. However well contained the novel coronavirus is, another threat to public health will be lurking.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.

27 May 2021

Source: countercurrents.org

By Michael Welch, Richard Falk, Richard Silverstein, and Laith Marouf

“What they need to do is they need to occupy the bases of the Canadian Armed Forces! They need to occupy the military hardware factories! They need to occupy their courts and stop the shipping of these weapons to apartheid Israel! Anything less than that will not actually cleanse them from the blood on their hands as Canadians!”

– Laith Marouf, from this week’s interview

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

The Third Intifada. Israel’s Crimes. Palestine’s Wrath. Ray of Hope?

Click to download the audio (MP3 format)

As of 2:00 am on May 21 by the Israel-Palestine hour this morning, or 7:00pm EDT on Thursday, the two sides of the disputing rivals had ceased hostilities – at least for the time being.[1]

By the standard account, the bitter eruption rose up on May 6 when Palestinians rose up in protest to a Supreme Court of Israel ruling on the matter of evicting six Palestinian families from their housing units in Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem. This was followed the next day by Israeli police storming the Al-Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site in Islam and firing stun grenades, rubber bullets and tear gas at the worshippers in attendance.

Then on May 10, Hamas, the militant force governing over Gaza, wanted Israeli security forces removed from Sheikh Jarrah and the Temple Mount complex, location of the holiest site in Judaism which also housed Al-Aqsa Mosque. When Israel refused they fired rockets on targets in Israel. What followed was a campaign of airstrikes by Israel.

What followed was the most destructive period of violence in years.. [2]

The following clip recorded by Middle East Eye is just a sample of what the last two weeks were like:

Regrettably, violence in the region tends to spring up from time to time. And absent being held to account for past crimes by the UN, Washington, or really anyone, Israel will most likely continue on setting up more shelters on occupied land, and besieging the beleaguered Gaza, and ignoring the human rights of their Palestinian neighbours frankly at levels well beyond the harsh treatment of Blacks in modern day America.

But something is a little different this time. Despite Israel’s ‘Iron Dome’ technology taking out as many as 90 percent of rockets, some projectiles, cruise missiles no less, are punching through and hitting Israel stronger than ever. The Palestinians in Israel are themselves taking action in the streets, in businesses, and synagogues. And even in the United States, while the President continues to disappoint with his tepid remarks about the right of Israel to defend itself, sharp and popular critics in Congress such as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are speaking out loudly against continuing to arm Israel despite its ongoing abuses against Palestinians.

Do these and other unique scenarios marking this 11 day period of terror mean things will be different now or in the long term? This is the question running through this Global Research News Hour and its sixty minute broadcast.

On the show in our first half hour, Richard Falk, professor emeritus of law at Princeton university talks to listeners highlighting some of the less talked about elements of the past month, including how it was incited by right wing settlers and during the Islamic holy period known as Ramadan. He also discussed attacks on media and the prospects for victory for Palestinians in the long term.

Following that, we hear from Richard Silverstein, a progressive blogger focused on the Israel-Palestine conflict. He will dwell on the growth in Hamas’ arsenal, the growth of Palestinian solidarity in Israel, and the potential ability of the International Criminal Court to wound Israel’s prospects.

Finally, Palestine activist and commentator Laith Marouf joins us again to dwell on the motives of the new Palestinian resistance, the prospects for the conflict to intensify, and the goals of Canadians wishing to show their solidarity with the damaged but determined victims of 73 years of Israeli confrontation.

Richard Falk is an international law and international relations scholar who taught at Princeton University for forty years and holds the title of professor emeritus. In 2008 he was also appointed by the UN to serve a six-year term as the Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights. He contributes regularly to Global Research.

Richard Silverstein is a political writer and commentator. Since 2003 he has authored the progressive Jewish blog Tikun Olam, which focuses on exposing the excesses of the Israeli national security state. He contributes regularly to Middle East Eye, and has contributed in the past to Truthout, Alternet, Haaretz, Mint Press News, Jewish Forward, Los Angeles Times, Comment Is Free and Al Jazeera English.

Laith Marouf is a long time multimedia consultant and producer and currently serves as Senior Consultant at the Community Media Advocacy Centre (www.cmacentre.org) and the coordinator of ICTV, in Canada (www.tele1.ca). Laith derives much of his understanding of Middle Eastern Affairs from his ancestral background of being both of Palestinian and of Syrian extraction. He is currently based in Beirut.

(Global Research News Hour Episode 317)

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

Click to download the audio (MP3 format)

The Global Research News Hour airs every Friday at 1pm CT on CKUW 95.9FM out of the University of Winnipeg. The programme is also podcast at globalresearch.ca .

Other stations airing the show:

CIXX 106.9 FM, broadcasting from Fanshawe College in London, Ontario. It airs Sundays at 6am.

WZBC 90.3 FM in Newton Massachusetts is Boston College Radio and broadcasts to the greater Boston area. The Global Research News Hour airs during Truth and Justice Radio which starts Sunday at 6am.

Campus and community radio CFMH 107.3fm in Saint John, N.B. airs the Global Research News Hour Fridays at 7pm.

CJMP 90.1 FM, Powell River Community Radio, airs the Global Research News Hour every Saturday at 8am.

Caper Radio CJBU 107.3FM in Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia airs the Global Research News Hour starting Wednesday afternoon from 3-4pm.

Cowichan Valley Community Radio CICV 98.7 FM serving the Cowichan Lake area of Vancouver Island, BC airs the program Thursdays at 9am pacific time.

Notes:

www.bbc.com/news/57200843
www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinians-idUSKCN2D12SV

22 May 2021

Source: www.globalresearch.ca

By Countercurrents Collective

An estimated $150 billion of stolen money has been smuggled out of Iraq in corrupt deals since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iraqi President Barham Salih said Sunday.

CNN and The New Arab reports said:

“Of the close to a thousand billion dollars made from oil since 2003, an estimated $150 billion of stolen money has been smuggled out of Iraq,” Salih said in a televised speech.

The statement came as the Iraqi President submitted a draft Corrupt Funds Recovery Act to the Iraqi Parliament.

“The draft law seeks to strengthen the powers of Iraqi nation in order to recover money stolen in corrupt deals, to hold corrupt people accountable and bring them to justice,” according to Salih.

He urged Iraqi lawmakers to discuss and approve the proposed legislation “to help curb this dangerous scourge that has deprived our people of enjoying the wealth of their country for many years.”

Salih said the stolen money would be enough to significantly improve Iraq’s finances.

According to Salih, the legislation would seek to recover the misappropriated funds through the cooperation of other governments and in partnership with international bodies.

“Here I reiterate Iraq’s call, which we have previously issued at the United Nations General Assembly, for the formation of an international coalition to fight corruption along the lines of the international coalition against ISIS,” Salih said.

Salih said the challenge of corruption is no less dangerous than terrorism.

“Terrorism can only be eliminated by draining its sources of funding based on corruption money as a political economy of violent,” Salih added.

Since 2019, hundreds of people have died in violent protests across Iraq against government corruption, unemployment and a lack of basic services, including electricity and clean water, as the country has failed to achieve stability following decades of sanctions and war.

The Biden administration is eying an eventual withdrawal of US troops from Iraq as the country’s security forces grow more capable and the threat of ISIS wanes, the two countries announced in a joint statement in April.

The US currently has some 2,500 troops in Iraq focused on the mission to defeat ISIS as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the global coalition to defeat what remains of the ISIS caliphate that controlled parts of Iraq and Syria.

The troops have now shifted to training and advisory tasks, “thereby allowing the for the redeployment of any remaining forces from Iraq,” the joint US-Iraq statement said.

Salih presented the draft law to parliament to fight corruption, recover stolen funds and hold perpetrators to account, a statement read.

He called “on parliament to adopt this crucial piece of legislation, in order to curb this pervasive practice that has plagued our great nation.”

Transparency International ranks the country 21st from bottom in its Corruption Perceptions Index.

Endemic corruption was one of the drivers of protests that shook Iraq from October 2019 to June 2020.

“Corruption is an impediment to any nation’s economic and social development,” the Iraqi head of state said, whose powers are limited under the constitution.

Salih said violence and terrorism, which have plagued Iraq for years, “are deeply intertwined with the phenomenon of corruption.”

The draft law targets those who have held positions of director general and above in both government and public companies since the establishment of a new regime in 2004.

Under the law, transactions over $500,000 would be scrutinized as well as bank accounts, particularly those that held over $1 million, and contracts or investments obtained through corruption would be cancelled.

But security and politics expert Fadel Abo Ragheef was skeptical the law would be passed.

“It’s certainly one of the best pieces of legislation proposed by the executive branch since 2003. But will it be adopted? I doubt it,” he told AFP.

“The political parties the lawmakers belong to will act to sabotage it, so it doesn’t pass,” he said.

“In public they will support it, but behind the scenes, they will do everything to prevent its adoption, because many of the politicians are involved in this racket.”

An Iraqi banking source said politicians have smuggled $60 billion out of the country.

However, much of that was via Lebanon, a move now likely to their detriment, as the country is mired in a severe economic crisis, and it is almost impossible to get money out of its banks.

26 May 2021

Source: countercurrents.org

The last few days have been a rollercoaster — let me tell you a bit about it.

Over the past two weeks, like so many people around the world, I couldn’t tear myself away from the terrible violence against Palestinians. I couldn’t stop scrolling through the images and videos of families being massacred by airstrikes, worshippers being attacked in one of the holiest sites for Muslims in the world, children being arrested, entire residential buildings being bombed to the ground, tens of thousands being forced from their homes, hundreds of people killed, and thousands wounded.

Last week in Toronto I organized fellow Jewish community members and allies to stand up with me in solidarity with Palestinians. We felt a need to respond not only to the Israeli government’s militarized violence but also to the Canadian government’s complicity in it — through its diplomatic support, the Canada-Israel arms trade, and allowing the Israeli embassy to go so far as to illegally recruit Canadians to join the Israeli military.

It felt like the type of rare moment where everyone was seeing the horrific violence of a military superpower for what it was and we had to drop everything to take action.

On Friday we gathered outside the Israeli consulate in Toronto and spilled a river of blood (washable paint) from the building’s doors right down to the street. We made the bloodshed from Israel’s brutal occupation, military attacks, and ethnic cleansing in Gaza and across historic Palestine visible right on the consulate’s doorstep.

We knew we had made a powerful statement but we did not expect the deluge of media. Our protest was covered in dozens of local, national, and international outlets, and translated into many languages. In this CTV news article Israel’s Consul General was even forced to go on the defensive and answer to why a river of blood was coming out of her office.

On Friday night an interview with me was broadcast on the evening TV and radio news by Canada’s national public broadcaster. Here’s a clip.

And right when things were starting to calm down on Saturday evening, we found out the Toronto police were pressing charges on Rabbi David Mivasair.

I was honoured to stand beside Rabbi David on the steps of the Israeli consulate on Friday morning as this longtime solidarity activist and member of Independent Jewish Voices powerfully shared how his Judaism is a part of his resistance (watch this clip filmed live at the consulate). The coverage of his arrest has put the story of our solidarity action all over the media again.

We know Rabbi David’s arrest is an attempt to stifle solidarity with Palestine. Help us make sure this backfires by giving the movement for a #FreePalestine even more press! Please share this post on twitter and on facebook.

We’d love to help you organize similarly powerful actions where you are — simply reply to this email to get in touch.

We also need your help to make sure we can continue to take the bold actions like these that push the antiwar movement forward in those key moments where new things are possible.

Actions like what we did on Friday take organizers. They take ongoing skill-building and training with local activists. They take connecting with legal resources, media strategizing, and building our own power so we can take on powerful institutions, be they government, military, or weapons manufacturers.

That’s why I’m asking you to concretely support us now by giving what you can.

As I was quoted saying in this CBC article, “I come to my solidarity with Palestinians very much as a Jewish person, also as a parent and as a human who will not stand by and allow this to happen.” I feel incredibly fortunate to work somewhere where I can bring my full self to my organizing, and also where I can take risks and mobilize others in struggles for justice and against violence — and where I know that my colleagues and the whole World BEYOND War movement has my back.

Thanks for your solidarity and for all that you do.

Rachel Small
Canada Organizer, World BEYOND War

25 May 2021

Source: worldbeyondwar.org

By Sonali Kolhatkar

18 May 2021 – Days after he publicly opposed the waiving of patents for lifesaving COVID-19 vaccines, billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates had a change of heart. He released a statement saying, “No barriers should stand in the way of equitable access to vaccines, including intellectual property, which is why we are supportive of a narrow waiver during the pandemic.” His statement came after President Joe Biden, in a surprising move, and in contrast to his European allies, backed a temporary waiver on COVID-19 vaccine patents. U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai released a statement saying, “extraordinary circumstances… call for extraordinary measures.” Immediately, the big drugmakers’ share prices fell, and they shot back in anger with a litany of dire predictions.

Gates had been singing a different tune just a few weeks earlier, expressing opposition to vaccine patent waivers when he said in an interview, “The thing that’s holding things back in this case is not intellectual property. There’s not like some idle vaccine factory, with regulatory approval, that makes magically safe vaccines.”

Gates’ initial opposition echoes the pharmaceutical industry’s staunch resistance to waiving the intellectual property rights to COVID-19 vaccine technology. In a letter to the Biden administration, members of an industry group called Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) wrote, “Eliminating those protections would undermine the global response to the pandemic, including ongoing effort to tackle new variants, create confusion that could potentially undermine public confidence in vaccine safety, and create a barrier to information sharing.” The signatories added, “Most importantly, eliminating protections would not speed up production.”

Walden Bello, co-founder of the advocacy organization Focus on the Global South and an international adjunct professor at SUNY Binghamton, told me in an interview from Manila, Philippines, that “these arguments are really quite spurious.” Bello had penned an opinion column in the New York Times saying, “A short-term Trips waiver would allow developing nations to quickly ramp up vaccine production and save lives at an affordable cost.”

The demand for vaccine patent waivers originated in October 2020 when the governments of India and South Africa proposed a temporary suspension of the World Trade Organization’s 1995 TRIPS agreement. Now, more than 100 nations support the call. TRIPS stands for the “Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights,” and for years has been a boon to corporations that have manufactured products with the help of public investment and reaped massive profits through the 20-year monopolies that the agreement grants them.

Bello pointed out that even though the U.S.-based vaccine manufacturer Moderna had said it would not enforce its patent on the COVID-19 vaccine, “if others use its patents and its processes, there’s no guarantee. Nobody touches it unless there is an official government waiver. And Moderna knows that, and Pfizer knows that.” Bello’s characterization is not an exaggeration. The United States has been one of the most ardent enforcers of the TRIPS agreement, bringing aggressive cases on behalf of American manufacturers against other governments.

Indeed, Gates, who sees himself as a self-appointed global health leader, has been an ardent supporter of monopolies on vaccine patents. Still, wealthy elites like him know that it is a morally reprehensible position to overtly back profits over public health, and so they have an alternative to sharing know-how: charity. Developing nations need only wait until wealthy countries and corporate boards are done prioritizing themselves before being able to access vaccines and other lifesaving medication and treatments through donations and diplomatic channels.

In his interview with Sky News, Gates said as much. He expressed patronizingly, “some of the rich countries including the U.S. and the UK, even this summer will get to high vaccination levels and that’ll free up so that we’re getting vaccines out to the entire world in late 2021 and through 2022.” In other words, poorer nations must simply wait for the crumbs of the wealthy to fall off their table in order to be fed.

Pharmaceutical companies have also echoed this sentiment, pretending to care about the well-being of billions of people in the Global South and preferring to distribute finished vaccines through COVAX, a World Health Organization initiative. In their letter to President Biden, PhRMA members wrote, “current estimates are that COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers will supply approximately 10 billion doses by the end of 2021, enough to vaccinate the entire current global vaccine eligible population.” Birgitte Markussen, the EU ambassador to the African Union, also said she supports COVAX over a TRIPS waiver. In other words, she and the drugmakers prefer that African nations wait for a handout from wealthier nations rather than be empowered to produce their own lifesaving vaccines. Developing nations know that such offers can easily be revoked or hinged to other conditions.

Western Pharmaceutical companies have also asserted that waiving vaccine patents will strain the supply chain for raw materials. Indeed, in order to mass-produce the new mRNA-based vaccines, raw materials are going to be needed on an unprecedented scale. But if Pfizer and Moderna claim they can produce enough vaccines for the entire world’s population, then clearly there are enough ingredients. What the companies want is a monopoly on the materials, the vaccines, and the resultant profits.

Another spurious argument from billionaires like Gates and pharmaceutical companies against waivers is that sharing vaccine technology will “stifle innovation.” In this neoliberal capitalist worldview, profit-seeking companies are essentially saying they will not strive for excellence unless there is a very large financial carrot dangled in front of them. Only pure market forces, we are led to believe, can spark the best possible innovation in medical technology. Yet it has been massive public spending to the tune of tens of billions of dollars by the governments of the U.S., the EU, Japan, South Korea, and others that fueled the production of COVID-19 vaccines. Similarly, the new mRNA technology on which Pfizer and Moderna based their vaccines was produced through billions of dollars in public investment.

Bello pointed out that a majority of the money that drug manufacturers spend “is going toward marketing, not innovation, and also to executive pay.” He’s right. For example, Pfizer spent nearly twice as much on marketing and sales as it did on research and development in 2019. Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla was rewarded with a $21 million compensation package in 2020—a jump of 17 percent from the year before. Vaccines are a “cash cow” for companies, said Bello. He maintains, “we need to show the real face of these guys. They are robber barons.”

Perhaps the most insulting of all arguments against waivers is the idea that generic vaccines produced in the factories of developing nations could erode public trust in vaccines because of the possibility of counterfeit products or a lowering of quality and standards. “It’s a red herring,” said Bello. He argued that it is deeply condescending “if you say that… Indian or Brazilian manufacturer[s] who have already been through the licensing processes in their own countries will somehow screw up during the manufacturing” of a vaccine. He pointed out that “this is all speculative and it goes against their record where many of these manufacturers have been producing generics for years which are as good [as] if not better than the original brands.”

In 2019, the Serum Institute of India was cited as the world’s “largest producer of affordable vaccines,” combating diseases like measles, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus, H1N1 influenza, polio, and more. To suggest that non-Western vaccine manufacturers would screw up the process of producing COVID-19 vaccines borders on racism.

Furthermore, there have been instances of Western drugmakers making mistakes in manufacturing COVID-19 vaccines, such as the Baltimore-based plant run by Emergent BioSolutions, which has partnered with Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca and which contaminated 15 million vaccine doses because of “human error.” Another 62 million doses that were produced at the same plant, were, according to the New York Times, “in jeopardy until it can be determined whether they were also contaminated.” Almost 12,000 doses of Moderna vaccine were thought to be compromised while en route to Michigan in January because the shipping company McKesson stored them at the wrong temperature. Ultimately, the government regulatory processes in place in the U.S. ensured that such screw-ups did not impact the public, and there is no reason to suggest the same would not be true in developing nations with a long history of creating and distributing other vaccines.

Bello welcomed President Joe Biden’s decision to back a TRIPS waiver for COVID-19 vaccines, saying he “did the right thing.” But the WTO still has to either come to a consensus or, if need be, vote on the TRIPS waiver. The task has become politically easier with the U.S. on board. And even if the waiver comes through, it will only be the first step before developing nations can begin manufacturing generic vaccines.

Bello rightly pointed out, “you’re running out of time. You have to start right now. The industry people are just creating all of this nonsense in order to hold on to their cash cows, which are the patents, and the processes of manufacturing.” In the meantime, hundreds of thousands of lives are at risk in the Global South as Western nations are reaching stability via mass vaccinations.

Sonali Kolhatkar is the founder, host and executive producer of “Rising Up With Sonali,” a television and radio show that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations.

24 May 2021

Source: www.transcend.org

By Ramzy Baroud

21 May 2021 – From the outset, some clarification regarding the language used to depict the ongoing violence in occupied Palestine, and also throughout Israel. This is not a ‘conflict’. Neither is it a ‘dispute’ nor ‘sectarian violence’ nor even a war in the traditional sense.

It is not a conflict, because Israel is an occupying power and the Palestinian people are an occupied nation. It is not a dispute, because freedom, justice and human rights cannot be treated as if a mere political disagreement. The Palestinian people’s inalienable rights are enshrined in international and humanitarian law and the illegality of Israeli violations of human rights in Palestine is recognized by the United Nations itself.

If it is a war, then it is a unilateral Israeli war, which is met with humble, but real and determined Palestinian resistance.

Actually, it is a Palestinian uprising, an Intifada unprecedented in the history of the Palestinian struggle, both in its nature and outreach.

For the first time in many years, we see the Palestinian people united, from Jerusalem Al Quds, to Gaza, to the West Bank and, even more critically, to the Palestinian communities, towns and villages inside historic Palestine – today’s Israel.

This unity matters the most, is far more consequential than some agreement between Palestinian factions. It eclipses Fatah and Hamas and all the rest, because without a united people there can be no meaningful resistance, no vision for liberation, no struggle for justice to be won.

Right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could never have anticipated that a routine act of ethnic cleansing in East Jerusalem’s neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah could lead to a Palestinian uprising, uniting all sectors of Palestinian society in an unprecedented show of unity.

The Palestinian people have decided to move past all the political divisions and the factional squabbles. Instead, they are coining new terminologies, centered on resistance, liberation and international solidarity. Consequently, they are challenging factionalism, along with any attempt at making Israeli occupation and apartheid normal. Equally important, a strong Palestinian voice is now piercing through the international silence, compelling the world to hear a single chant for freedom.

The leaders of this new movement are Palestinian youth who have been denied participation in any form of democratic representation, who are constantly marginalized and oppressed by their own leadership and by the relentless Israeli military occupation. They were born into a world of exile, destitution and apartheid, led to believe that they are inferior, of a lesser race. Their right to self-determination and every other right were postponed indefinitely. They grew up helplessly watching their homes being demolished, their land being robbed and their parents being humiliated.

Finally, they are rising.

Without prior coordination and with no political manifesto, this new Palestinian generation is now making its voice heard, sending an unmistakable, resounding message to Israel and its right-wing chauvinistic society, that the Palestinian people are not passive victims; that the ethnic cleansing of Sheikh Jarrah and the rest of occupied East Jerusalem, the protracted siege on Gaza, the ongoing military occupation, the construction of illegal Jewish settlements, the racism and the apartheid will no longer go unnoticed; though tired, poor, dispossessed, besieged and abandoned, Palestinians will continue to safeguard their own rights, their sacred places and the very sanctity of their own people.

Yes, the ongoing violence was instigated by Israeli provocations in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem. However, the story was never about the ethnic cleansing of Sheikh Jarrah alone. The beleaguered neighborhood is but a microcosm of the larger Palestinian struggle.

Netanyahu may have hoped to use Sheikh Jarrah as a way of mobilizing his right-wing constituency around him, intending to form an emergency government or increasing his chances of winning yet a fifth election. His rash behavior, initially compelled by entirely selfish reasons, has ignited a popular rebellion among Palestinians, exposing Israel for the violent, racist and apartheid state that it is and always has been.

Palestinian unity and popular resistance have proven successful in other ways, too. Never before have we seen this groundswell of support for Palestinian freedom, not only from millions of ordinary individuals across the globe, but also from celebrities – movie stars, footballers, mainstream intellectuals and political activists, even models and social media influencers. The hashtags #SaveSheikhJarrah and #FreePalestine, among numerous others, are now interlinked and have been trending on all social media platforms for weeks. Israel’s constant attempts at presenting itself as a perpetual victim of some imaginary horde of Arabs and Muslims are no longer paying dividends. The world can finally see, read and hear of Palestine’s tragic reality and the need to bring this tragedy to an immediate end.

None of this would be possible were it not for the fact that all Palestinians have legitimate reasons and are speaking in unison. In their spontaneous reaction and genuine, communal solidarity, all Palestinians are united, from Sheikh Jarrah, to all of Jerusalem, to Gaza, Nablus, Ramallah, Al-Bireh and even Palestinian towns inside Israel – Al-Lud, Umm Al-Fahm, Kufr Qana and elsewhere. In Palestine’s new popular revolution, factions, geography and any political division are irrelevant. Religion is not a source of divisiveness but of spiritual and national unity.

The ongoing Israeli atrocities in Gaza are continuing, with a mounting death toll. This devastation will continue for as long as the world treats the devastating siege of the impoverished, tiny Strip as if irrelevant. People in Gaza were dying long before the Israeli airstrikes began blowing up their homes and neighborhoods. They were dying from the ack of medicine, polluted water, the lack of electricity and the dilapidated infrastructure.

We must save Sheikh Jarrah, but we must also save Gaza; we must demand an end to the Israeli military occupation of Palestine and, with it, the system of racial discrimination and apartheid. International human rights groups are now precise and decisive in their depiction of this racist regime, with Human Rights Watch – and Israel’s own rights group, B’tselem, joining the call for the dismantlement of apartheid in all of Palestine.

Speak up. Speak out. The Palestinians have risen. It is time to rally behind them.

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

24 May 2021

Source: www.transcend.org

By Omar Barghouti

19 May 2021 – Toni Morrison wrote in her novel Beloved, “Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.” Palestinians have learned the hard way that unless we clearly define ourselves, our oppression, and our aspirations, the hegemonic oppressor will do it, erasing our history and subjugating our future.

Sometimes our definitions emerge when unexpected. Three days ago, following a nearby Israeli airstrike targeting a residential neighborhood in Gaza city that shook their building, my friend’s young daughter ran terrified to her mother’s arms shivering. She asked, “I want to be courageous, mama, but I don’t know how when death is so near?” Her question itself, during a televised massacre, defines courage. Palestinians are shattering our fear every day and hoping, and working to ensure, that this courage inspires millions to speak out and act in an effective way to end complicity in Israel’s oppression.

“Why are Palestinians protesting? Because we want to live.”
— Mariam Barghouti

The current Israeli war against Palestinians – in Gaza, Jerusalem, Lydd, Acre, Haifa and elsewhere – and the Palestinian resistance evoke multiple definitions. Conflict, apartheid, resistance, retaliation, self-defense, ethical journalism, co-existence, and justice are among the definitions that are hotly contested. Sometimes the debate itself is used to justify an immoral both-sides-ing that stymies indignation and the duty to act.

To remind the world of this duty, and to protest Israel’s horrific attacks, part of what many Palestinians define as an ongoing Nakba, Palestinians everywhere observed a general strike on Tuesday. Through it, we asserted our unity as an Indigenous people with an overarching quest for liberation, and reiterated our appeal for meaningful international solidarity, especially in the form of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS).

Inspired by the South African anti-apartheid struggle and the US civil rights movement, the nonviolent, anti-racist BDS movement was launched in 2005 by the broadest coalition in Palestinian society. It calls for ending Israel’s 1967 occupation, upholding the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their lands, and ending Israel’s institutionalized and legalized system of racial domination, which meets the UN definition of apartheid, as recently acknowledged by Human Rights Watch.

In the face of flagrant oppression anywhere, apathy and inaction are immoral, when one has the ability to act without suffering significantly.

Israel has been waging an all-out war of repression against BDS for years, partly because of its leading role in popularizing the apartheid analysis of Israel among students, academics, artists, trade unions, as well as social, racial and climate justice movements. Israel’s recognition of the “strategic” impact of BDS in mobilizing effective international solidarity with the Palestinian liberation struggle is another key factor.

But perhaps the most important factor behind Israel’s anti-BDS war is the fact that the movement has shattered the apathy of those who do not care and the inaction of those who insufficiently care. BDS has drastically redefined solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality, as an ethical obligation to end complicity, above everything else. In the face of flagrant oppression anywhere, apathy and inaction are immoral, when one has the ability to act without suffering significantly. They are far more immoral, still, when one has not only the ability but also the duty to act because of the complicity of one’s state or institution in the system of oppression.

When more or less democratic states, like the US, UK, Germany, and France, provide Israel with unconditional military funding or weaponry, or shield it from sanctions and accountability under international law, they are complicit in Israel’s crimes against Palestinians.

When corporations profit from providing goods or services that enable Israel to maintain its regime of occupation and apartheid, they are complicit.

When sovereign funds or church or university investment funds hold shares in such corporations, they are complicit.

When artists, athletes or academics cross the Palestinian BDS picket line and participate in events in or sponsored by Israel, they are complicit.

All this complicity generates an ethical responsibility for citizens to act, to prevent their tax money and those who speak in their name from being a partner in Israel’s relentless attempts to turn Gaza and other Palestinian ghettos into “zones of nonbeing,” as Frantz Fanon would call them.

The unprecedented and inspiring outburst of solidarity with Palestinians in recent days indicates that millions around the world now realize this ethical duty and many of them are acting to effect change, even at the policy level. A bright example is the statement by the Movement for Black Lives, which demanded cutting the $3.8bn in annual military funding to Israel and imposing sanctions “until Israel stops its apartheid practices and settler colonial project”. Among lawmakers, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, bravely tweeted, “Apartheid states aren’t democracies.”

Major TV network personalities, including MSNBC’s Ali Velshi and HBO’s John Oliver; music icons, like John Legend; and Hollywood figures, like Susan Sarandon, Viola Davis, John Cusack, Wentworth Miller, and Natalie Portman, have all expressed solidarity like never before, some of them tweeting the famous disappearing map of Palestine under gradual settler-colonialism.

On the ground, Palestinians are resisting every day the erasure of our land, identity, and hope. In the midst of the haunting images of death and destruction in Gaza, an image left me with a visceral mix of anguish and hope. It is the image of a young man, Amara Abu Ouf, who flashed a V for victory sign while still being rescued from under the rubble of a building in Gaza leveled to the ground by an Israeli bomb. That’s the definition of the phoenix rising from the ashes, one may say. Well, today, it is the definition of the Palestinian.

Omar Barghouti, born 1964, is a Palestinian human rights defender, founding committee member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) and a co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS).

24 May 2021

Source: www.transcend.org

By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies

17 May 2021 – The U.S. corporate media usually report on Israeli military assaults in occupied Palestine as if the United States is an innocent neutral party to the conflict. In fact, large majorities of Americans have told pollsters for decades that they want the United States to be neutral in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But U.S. media and politicians betray their own lack of neutrality by blaming Palestinians for nearly all the violence and framing flagrantly disproportionate, indiscriminate and therefore illegal Israeli attacks as a justifiable response to Palestinian actions. The classic formulation from U.S. officials and commentators is that “Israel has the right to defend itself,” never “Palestinians have the right to defend themselves,” even as the Israelis massacre hundreds of Palestinian civilians, destroy thousands of Palestinian homes and seize ever more Palestinian land.

The disparity in casualties in Israeli assaults on Gaza speaks for itself.

• At the time of writing, the current Israeli assault on Gaza has killed at least 200 people, including 59 children and 35 women, while rockets fired from Gaza have killed 10 people in Israel, including 2 children.
• In the 2008-9 assault on Gaza, Israel killed 1,417 Palestinians, while their meagre efforts to defend themselves killed 9 Israelis.
• In 2014, 2,251 Palestinians and 72 Israelis (mostly soldiers invading Gaza) were killed, as U.S.-built F-16s dropped at least 5,000 bombs and missiles on Gaza and Israeli tanks and artillery fired 49,500 shells, mostly massive 6-inch shells from U.S.-built M-109 howitzers.
• In response to largely peaceful “March of Return” protests at the Israel-Gaza border in 2018, Israeli snipers killed 183 Palestinians and wounded over 6,100, including 122 that required amputations, 21 paralyzed by spinal cord injuries and 9 permanently blinded.

As with the Saudi-led war on Yemen and other serious foreign policy problems, biased and distorted news coverage by U.S. corporate media leaves many Americans not knowing what to think. Many simply give up trying to sort out the rights and wrongs of what is happening and instead blame both sides, and then focus their attention closer to home, where the problems of society impact them more directly and are easier to understand and do something about.

So how should Americans respond to horrific images of bleeding, dying children and homes reduced to rubble in Gaza? The tragic relevance of this crisis for Americans is that, behind the fog of war, propaganda and commercialized, biased media coverage, the United States bears an overwhelming share of responsibility for the carnage taking place in Palestine.

U.S. policy has perpetuated the crisis and atrocities of the Israeli occupation by unconditionally supporting Israel in three distinct ways: militarily, diplomatically and politically.

On the military front, since the creation of the Israeli state, the United States has provided $146 billion in foreign aid, nearly all of it military-related. It currently provides $3.8 billion per year in military aid to Israel.

In addition, the United States is the largest seller of weapons to Israel, whose military arsenal now includes 362 U.S.-built F-16 warplanes and 100 other U.S. military aircraft, including a growing fleet of the new F-35s; at least 45 Apache attack helicopters; 600 M-109 howitzers and 64 M270 rocket-launchers. At this very moment, Israel is using many of these U.S.-supplied weapons in its devastating bombardment of Gaza.

The U.S. military alliance with Israel also involves joint military exercises and joint production of Arrow missiles and other weapons systems. The U.S. and Israeli militaries have collaborated on drone technologies tested by the Israelis in Gaza. In 2004, the United States called on Israeli forces with experience in the Occupied Territories to give tactical training to U.S. Special Operations Forces as they confronted popular resistance to the United States’ hostile military occupation of Iraq.

The U.S. military also maintains a $1.8 billion stockpile of weapons at six locations in Israel, pre-positioned for use in future U.S. wars in the Middle East. During the Israeli assault on Gaza in 2014, even as the U.S. Congress suspended some weapons deliveries to Israel, it approved handing over stocks of 120mm mortar shells and 40mm grenade launcher ammunition from the U.S. stockpile for Israel to use against Palestinians in Gaza.

Diplomatically, the United States has exercised its veto in the UN Security Council 82 times, and 44 of those vetoes have been to shield Israel from accountability for war crimes or human rights violations. In every single case, the United States has been the lone vote against the resolution, although a few other countries have occasionally abstained.

It is only the United States’ privileged position as a veto-wielding Permanent Member of the Security Council, and its willingness to abuse that privilege to shield its ally Israel, that gives it this unique power to stymie international efforts to hold the Israeli government accountable for its actions under international law.

The result of this unconditional U.S. diplomatic shielding of Israel has been to encourage increasingly barbaric Israeli treatment of the Palestinians. With the United States blocking any accountability in the Security Council, Israel has seized ever more Palestinian land in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, uprooted more and more Palestinians from their homes and responded to the resistance of largely unarmed people with ever-increasing violence, detentions and restrictions on day-to-day life.

Thirdly, on the political front, despite most Americans supporting neutrality in the conflict, AIPAC and other pro-Israel lobbying groups have exercised an extraordinary role in bribing and intimidating U.S. politicians to provide unconditional support for Israel.

The roles of campaign contributors and lobbyists in the corrupt U.S. political system make the United States uniquely vulnerable to this kind of influence peddling and intimidation, whether it is by monopolistic corporations and industry groups like the Military-Industrial Complex and Big Pharma, or well-funded interest groups like the NRA, AIPAC and, in recent years, lobbyists for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

On April 22, just weeks before this latest assault on Gaza, the overwhelming majority of congresspeople, 330 out of 435, signed a letter to the chair and ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee opposing any reduction or conditioning of US monies to Israel. The letter represented a show of force from AIPAC and a repudiation of calls from some progressives in the Democratic Party to condition or otherwise restrict aid to Israel.

President Joe Biden, who has a long history of supporting Israeli crimes, responded to the latest massacre by insisting on Israel’s “right to defend itself” and inanely hoping that “this will be closing down sooner than later.” His UN ambassador also shamefully blocked a call for a ceasefire at the UN Security Council.

The silence and worse from President Biden and most of our representatives in Congress at the massacre of civilians and mass destruction of Gaza is unconscionable. The independent voices speaking out forcefully for Palestinians, including Senator Sanders and Representatives Tlaib, Omar and Ocasio-Cortez, show us what real democracy looks like, as do the massive protests that have filled U.S. streets all over the country.

US policy must be reversed to reflect international law and the shifting US opinion in favor of Palestinian rights. Every Member of Congress must be pushed to sign the bill introduced by Rep. Betty McCollum insisting that US funds to Israel are not used “to support the military detention of Palestinian children, the unlawful seizure, appropriation, and destruction of Palestinian property and forcible transfer of civilians in the West Bank, or further annexation of Palestinian land in violation of international law.”

Congress must also be pressured to quickly enforce the Arms Export Control Act and the Leahy Laws to stop supplying any more U.S. weapons to Israel until it stops using them to attack and kill civilians.

The United States has played a vital and instrumental role in the decades-long catastrophe that has engulfed the people of Palestine. U.S. leaders and politicians must now confront their country’s and, in many cases, their own personal complicity in this catastrophe, and act urgently and decisively to reverse U.S. policy to support full human rights for all Palestinians.

Medea Benjamin is cofounder of CODEPINK for Peace, and author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher with CODEPINK and the author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.

24 May 2021

Source: www.transcend.org