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By Abdel Bari Atwan

The Qassam Brigades succeeded not only in winning the war and achieving victory in Gaza, but also in dealing fatal blows to Israeli morale, when they surprised the entire world, not just Israel, by organizing a military parade for hundreds of their fighters who emerged from the rubble, and/or heart of tunnels in their extremely elegant green clothes with their personal weapons, in a startling move,  shedding light on their strength, despite Netanyahu’s 15 months of carnage. Brigade fighters stood steadfast, fighting, and sniping Israeli soldiers like birds and rabbits, despite the deceptions by their political and military leaders.

***

The smiling faces of the three Israeli female prisoners released in the first batch of the exchange according to the first phase of the ceasefire agreement were striking. The three young women emerged as if they had just returned from a concert, in good health, and in high spirits as if they were staying in a five-star hotel. It was a wonderful and very smart gesture for their guards to present symbolic gifts before they left the Strip in a Red Cross car.

These are the terrorists according to US and European specifics, setting an example of humanity, while the diplomatic envoys of Western civilization rape prisoners and treat them in a Nazi-like manner. The most honest example is the mujahida Khalida Jarrar and the painful state she appeared in after her release.

The fire of resistance ignites in the West Bank, suicide operations expand, and the dead among the occupation forces rises on the first days of the ceasefire to confirm that jihad is continuing in parallel and in conjunction with the exchange of prisoners.

The one who forced Netanyahu to drink the cup of defeat is not Trump, but the heroes of the Qassam Brigades, Al-Quds Brigades, and the Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, who exhausted the Israeli army with heavy losses among its brigades and battalions, in the Gaza Strip, West Bank, and southern Lebanon.

Netanyahu stands defeated, not achieving any of his goals, neither eliminating the resistance movements in Gaza, nor with displacing the people of the Strip and replacing them with Israeli settlers.

As such we do not rule out the fact that he may violate the ceasefire in the coming days, and before the end of its first phase, in the hope of remaining in power. But no matter, the goals he failed to achieve over the course of 15 months of extermination and ethnic cleansing will not be achieved if he returns to war again but legitimize many retaliatory reactions from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Yemen, and perhaps soon from Lebanon and Iraq.

***

Our people in the Gaza Strip celebrate and sing for joys of victory achieved by the resistance. Perhaps the return of the symbolic Abu Obeida after months of absence, congratulating all on victory and ignoring all Arab leaders except Yemen whilst affirming the readiness of the Qassam to return to fighting is a confirmation of the strength and steadfastness of the resistance, and its high capabilities to manage war, manage negotiations, and psychological warfare.

Thus we assert that the liberation of Palestine, all of Palestine, and the restoration of dignity to the Arabs and Muslims, has become imminent and it is only a matter of time…

This editorial by Al Rai Al Youm’s Chief Editor  Mr Abdel Bari Atwan has been reproduced from Arabic and appeared on www.crossfirearabia.com

22 January 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Vijay Prashad

It is impossible to bottle this sensibility. All of Gaza is a ruin. Millions of Palestinians have braved the winter in makeshift tents or in ruined buildings, their children freezing (a few frozen to death) and their hunger escalating. The smell of Israeli vengeance is everywhere. The sound of the tanks and the terrifying silence of the falling bombs shatter the nerves of even the most hardened fighter. Yet, during that, the armed units of the Palestinian resistance continue to fire their depleted ammunition at the Israeli troops. At the same time, children run amid the toxic wreckage with Palestinian flags aloft.

There is a ceasefire now. But this is the rhythm of Palestinian history since at least 1948: occupation, war, ceasefire, and underneath everything the constant occupation and the threat of war, and yet, the defiance and the smiles. In the lexicon of the Palestinian resistance, the word sumud, used first in the 1960s by the Palestinian Liberation Organization, is everything: it means to defy, to be steadfast, to hold onto one’s land despite the Israeli occupation. It is to take out the key to one’s pre-1948 Palestinian home and hold it aloft.

When Khalida Jarrar emerged into the crowd of supporters after months in Israel’s cruel dungeons, she said, “I’m coming from solitary confinement. I still don’t believe it. I’m a little bit tired.” Jarrar, one of the leaders of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), has been in and out of Israel’s prisons for almost her entire adult life. Her first detention was in March 1989 when she participated in a march for International Women’s Day. I have followed her journey in and out of prison, cataloging her distress as her captors prevented her from being at the funerals of her father (2015), mother (2018), and daughter Suha (2021). Jarrar is one of thousands of Palestinians who are held in Israeli prisons under “administrative detention,” a false label that justifies indefinite imprisonment with no charge.

Each time Jarrar went to prison, the behavior of her Israeli captors was harsher and harsher still. This time, arrested during the genocide in December 2023, she was put into a cell with poor ventilation and could not breathe with ease. Her husband, Ghassan Jarrar, read out a statement from her from August 2024:

I die every day. The cell looks like a tiny, airtight box. The cell is equipped with a toilet and a small window above it, which was closed a day after I was moved to it. They did not leave me any space to breathe. Even the so-called porthole in the cell door was closed. I spend most of my time sitting next to a tiny opening that allows me to breathe. I wait for the hours to pass while I suffocate in my cell in hopes of finding oxygen molecules to breathe and survive.

Now, Jarrar leaves prison along with 90 other Palestinian prisoners who were exchanged for three Israeli prisoners in the first part of the ceasefire deal. The stories of the prisoners are astounding and enraging. The Israelis arrested one young Palestinian woman (Shatha Jarabaa) for writing on social media about the “brutality” of the genocide. Another young man (Zakaria Zubeidi) of the Freedom Theater in Jenin was held under suspicion of being a terrorist.

Two other women from the PFLP, Abla Sa’adat and Maysar Faqih, had been arrested by the Israelis without charge and held under administrative detention as part of the general Israeli strategy of preventing the Palestinian groups from political activity. The PFLP’s leader, Ahmad Sa’adat has been in prison for decades and will likely not be released until the occupation ends. It has been on the Israeli agenda for decades to weaken the Palestinian left—particularly the PFLP—and thereby to strengthen the Islamist forces. This allows them to falsely make the case that this is a war against Islamism rather than a brutal campaign to extinguish the Palestinian nation.

It Is the Occupation

In August 2014, Israeli soldiers surrounded the home of Khalida and Ghassan Jarrar. They had come to inform Khalida Jarrar that she was banned from her home in Ramallah and had to restrict herself to the town of Jericho. “It is the occupation that must leave our homeland,” she said to the soldiers. Then, she and her comrades set up a tent outside the Palestinian Legislative Council office and lived there. The Israelis had to back off. There was too much international pressure on them.

People under occupation are people imprisoned. Palestinians in East Jerusalem, Gaza, and the West Bank—the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as the United Nations calls it—have no freedom of movement. They are encaged. Those who want to break the cage are further imprisoned in the terrible conditions of Israeli jails. Little wonder then that Khalida Jarrar was from 1993 to 2005 the director of Addameer, a non-profit organization that provides support for prisoners. When she is not in an Israeli jail she has been working on a research project for Birzeit University’s Muwatin Institute for Democracy and Human Rights on “The Class and Gender Dimensions of the Palestinian Prisoners Movement and their Implications for the National Liberation Project.”

It is likely that a few days from now, Jarrar will come out of her house, give a speech, and then return to work on her project. Made of such steel and love, Jarrar is unrelenting. So too are the Palestinians who are slowly moving back to their destroyed homes in Gaza, looking for stray photographs and the few belongings that remain; the roots that have not been cut.

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

22 January 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Ranjan Solomon

A ceasefire between Hamas and Israel was finally been agreed on. But the uncertainties persisted until the very end. Israeli airstrikes has killed at least 130 people in the war-ravaged territory after the ceasefire was announced. Israel wanted maximum mileage of the extra time before the ceasefire was to come into force. Such is their arrogance and the way they cock a snook with international agreements beginning with International law.  Netanyahu had signaled unresolved issues.

The premature celebrations in Gaza before they were expected to take effect on Sunday, January 19 were a sign of their relief that the war was finally over.

The agreement is a three-staged process. In the first stage, Hamas will release 33 hostages (both alive and dead) while Israel will release some prisoners and suspend bombing for 42 days, while arrangements are made for the next two phases. The population of Northern Gaza will be permitted to return to their destroyed homes and humanitarian aid allowed to enter.

It is common knowledge that the ceasefire does not have appeal among key Ministers in the cabinet. Should they carry forward the threat that they would resign, Netanyahu is a goner. This is why there is speculation that Netanyahu’s statements were made to keep his restless coalition together.

Israelis who have lost loved ones in the war treat the cease fire deal contemptuously. Families of Israeli soldiers killed fighting in Gaza held a demonstration against a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. The Gvura Forum opposed the deal, saying it won’t lead to Hamas’ destruction and that it will free Palestinians convicted of deadly crimes against Israelis

Trump had repeatedly threatened that “all hell will be let loose if the fighting does not end on the day he takes office on 19^th January”. Today, rumors are making the rounds that there could be a tacit arrangement between Netanyahu and Trump. They assume that the silencing of guns and fighter jets will lower the guard of Hamas, and the 42 waiting period may just allow for provocations with Israel refreshed and rearmed. If this were to happen, Trump would be reduced to a mere Donald Duck. He would reduce himself to being a distrusted and dishonest US President by the world. Weakened by his own stupidities and dishonesty, the rest of his term would make him a comic persona.

Trump is a hard-nosed business person and will look at profit and loss as the ultimate template. His interests go much further than war and peace. They are, in his view, irritating obstacles in the way of his ambitions of a kingdom of opulence and unrivaled power to do as he wants. He knew for certain that Israel would have to give in. In doing so, he presented them a face-saver. Imagine Israel having to close down the war for want of capacity to reach its boastful goals. 15 months after the war begun, all they could show for it is a devastated Gaza Strip. And, that is a scandalous certificate of ethnic cleansing and a similar holocaust that Jews themselves were victims to during the 2^nd World War from 1941-1945.

Still, the optimists among the Gazans would prefer to think that these are rumors. Hopes glimmer for the oppressed even in the worst of times. Gazans have astonished the rest of the world with their resilience. Israeli’s lack this quality and, as a consequence, many have fled Israel like rats deserting a sinking ship. A few will probably return to assess if things have better prospects in the post-war scenario. Those who have learned that a genuinely peaceful Israel can be real are grim will never return. Moreover, they have shifted out their investments, insurance arrangements, and transferred their moneys to wherever they have fled.

Israel has learned yet another lesson: that the age of accountability has begun. Many had indulged in dancing around the dead bodies of dead Palestinians in Gaza and disseminated it in social media post. Sick humor, you can call it. In another movement, some 200 soldiers signed a letter saying they’d stop defending Israel if the government didn’t secure a ceasefire. Those numbers may just be the tip of the iceberg given the extreme war-fatigue. They are mobilizing to add to their numbers. These are among the many forms of creative resistance against continued armed fighting

Has Israel recognized the folly of its ways after a war in which the world has declared Hamas the winner and Israel the loser? They will not easily admit it publicly. Israel has fallen into a precipice, and it will now struggle to resurface.  Since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza, Tel Aviv has already learned humiliating lessons. They now know that its army is no longer “invincible”, its economy is relatively small and highly dependent, and its political system is fragile, as seen in the last few years when it struggled to keep a government in place. In times of crisis, it is barely operable.

There are wise people who have even forecast that Israel is on the verge of dissolution and collapse. Mainstream media concealed the harsh reality that the war was shifting away from Israel’s hands. Antony Blinken made a spectacular acknowledgment of this reality when he said: “Hamas has recruited almost as many new militants as it has lost.”This is a unflattering admittance that Israel’s war effort has failed to achieve its stated goal of eliminating Hamas. It merely prompted a cycle of violence, deepened humanitarian suffering, and further destabilized the region.

As Ramzy Baroud, writer and founder of “Palestine Chronicle” states, “Israel’s goals have all been thwarted. There will be No ‘Nakba Two’2, no ethnic cleansing, no ending the Palestinian cause, no destroying the Resistance. Israel has learned that its military superiority, backed by the United States, can no longer guarantee victory or political outcomes. Palestinians—hungry, displaced, trapped, betrayed, and bleeding has won against all Western arms concentrated in the hands of a brutal military enemy that respects no laws”

This is the greatest defeat of Zionism since its inception and the greatest defeat of imperialism in the Middle East since the signing of the Sykes-Picot Agreement in 1916. Baroud concludes: “What’s extraordinary is that this victory has been achieved by ordinary people, through their faith, persistence, resilience, and sumoud (Arabic for steadfastness). We’ve lost more loved ones than I can count, many of whom have been decomposing in the rubble of Gaza for months. But in the end, their sacrifices have ignited hope that evil can be challenged and defeated. This is Gaza’s message to the world—and a gift to humanity”. He pleads: “Please don’t squander it”.

Donald Trump likes to be touted as the President for Peace and no-war. He kept his promise of ending the Gaza war on Day 1 of his administration. A solution to the question of Ukraine still evades him. He has too many lobbyists on the side of the screen regardless of the fact that Zelensky is illegitimate and touted as, perhaps, the most corrupt politician around. This same Peace President has threatened Canada, Panama, and Greenland with takeovers of Canada to be incorporated as the 51^st State of USA. The 100-year old Panama Canal deemed to be an engineering spectacle which traditionally linked the Atlantic and Pacific oceans was a gold mine. Just 25 years back it was returned to Panama by the US. Trump has set his eyes on it not to ‘Make America Great Again’ his MAGA slogan) but to get riches which are not America’s to claim anymore.

His ambitions to complete his much flaunted ‘normalization’ agreements to prevail based on the Israel Relations Normalization Act of 2021 are somewhere on the top of his agenda. That Act “supports and seeks to expand the previously concluded peace and normalization agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco”. His economic advisors swear that these agreements have the potential to transform the region and enhance prospects for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

But there is a huge obstacle in the way. The Act can no longer be bulldozed. To succeed, they must guarantee that these Israeli-Arab partnerships line up with crucial U.S. national interests. Further normalization prospects rest on achieving a long-range solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A two-state must take its place that actualizes a democratic Jewish state of Israel and a viable democratic Palestinian state based on 1967 boundaries -living side by side in peace, security, and mutual recognition. If the remaining countries that Trump has target to incorporate into his “Normalization Plan”, the Israeli persecution of Palestinians and other neighboring countries must end. These countries fear their own streets, especially after the Gaza war. The most powerful of these rulers is Mohammed bin Salman who, as Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia, is deemed a strongman and is tough on any political opponents and public criticism. He, it was, who firmly reminded Trump of the assassination of Sadat only because he signed a peace deal with Israel. He did not want to meet the same fate. The entire region is ruled by dictators who secretly side with Israel in the hope of economic ties of gain to themselves. Israel and the USA will be the greatest benefactors of ‘Normalization’. In the current mood of the Arab peoples, this is a grey zone, the space in between peace and war in which state and non-state actors engage in competition.

Europe played ‘footsie’ all through. Western regimes and media they were actually sowing the seeds of anti-Semitism, not combating it as they claim. They must now squarely face up to what principles they will swear and abide by. Theirs is a troubling role because the Jewish expulsions were of their making historically. Germany, the chief culprit, of the Jewish holocaust now turns to do the same to Palestinians. Germany Chancellor delivered 30% of weapons to Israel. ’ The Campaign against Arms Trade’ has established that the UK has granted arms export licenses to Israel amounting to £574 million ($727 million) since 2008, including £42 million ($53 million) in 2022. India is considered to be an all-weather ally of Israel, and bilateral relations have reached their highest point yet in history. The USA, of course, account for the largest armament transfers amounting to 66%. Public opposition to US government aid to Israel is growing intense and being publicly monitored. The armaments and huge financial grants are sent to prop a regime that was enabled to dominate the Palestinians and the entire region.

Israel with its assumptions that mere military power could put down the valiant never-say-die Gazans has learned the hard way. The US is politically dull and arrogant. Every war they have fought in the last decades has seen them lose at the hands of much smaller countries armies: Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Syria. It has a bitter record of support to dictatorships in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. According to Freedom House’s rating system of political rights around the world, there were 49 nations in the world, as of 2015, that could be fairly categorized as “dictatorships.” As of fiscal year 2015, the last year for which there is publicly available data, the federal government of the United States had been providing military assistance to 36 of them, courtesy of US tax dollars. The United States currently supports over 73 percent of the world’s dictatorships! That’s huge. That’s undemocratic because dictatorships are, inherently, autocratic.

Israel leaves this war weakened, even humiliated. The Middle East will never be the same again. There will follow political permutations and combinations that will make the region more dialogical, multilateral, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Egypt will develop new roles, and no one will allow Israel to do what it did to Gaza anymore.

Gaza will need trillions of dollars and a 20-year time frame to rebuild. A steadfast and clear Arab world could be the precursor for a two-state solution, and Palestine an independent, sovereign UN member. Hamas, by contrast is stronger. Israel is too weak to sustain another war. A resilient Gazan says: “Gaza is now devastation, it has become uninhabitable … but I will stay … I will not leave, and I will not accept resettlement anywhere else. I hope peace will prevail here and that this grief will end soon.”

Ranjan Solomon began his active association with the ‘Question of Palestine’ with the First Intifada in1987.

21 January 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Rima Najjar

Gazans have cracked the code of enduring and living life with hope for a better future. They continue to teach us how to die (standing up) and how to live (praising God). The strength and solidarity they exhibit as they resist oppression and as we watch them with awe and terror are truly inspiring.

But how in the world do they do it?

“Happiness science” is a real field of study, often referred to as “positive psychology.” Researchers in this field explore various aspects of happiness, wellbeing, and what contributes to a fulfilling life. I turned to this research in an effort to understand how Gazans continue to cope even after the tons of bombs rained on them by the Israeli Zionist entity and its allies (the tons of bombs dropped on the strip are estimated to amount to a multiple of the size of the largest pyramid in Egypt) and even as this same brutal and depraved entity continues to bomb and hound them, the hudna (ceasefire) notwithstanding.

Resilience is a significant area of research within the field of positive psychology and national security. The latter is about developing the means for individuals, communities, and nations to withstand, adapt to, and recover from adversity. This happens through building resilience in the following areas: Critical Infrastructure Protection, Cybersecurity, Emergency Preparedness and Response, Climate Change Adaptation, Community and Social Resilience, Economic Stability, Psychological Resilience, and International Cooperation.

Looking into these factors only deepened my wonder about Gaza. Now that there is finally a ceasefire in place, how are the Palestinian people to build their national security when hardly any of the above factors are present in their current situation? The answer to that has two facets, the communal and the political.

The communal in Palestine is defined by religion and culture. The phrase “Alhamdulillah — Praise be to God” (الحمد لله) is widely used in Arab culture and has a variety of colloquial applications. It is an utterance that expresses a deeply rooted cultural and religious sense of gratitude.

Gazan farmers say “Alhamdulillah” when they harvest their crops, no matter how small the yield; schoolchildren in Gaza express their gratitude by saying “Alhamdulillah” whenever they are able to attend school and learn; Gazan neighbors working side by side to rebuild a home say “Alhamdulillah” for their safety and for the solidarity that allows them to support each other; young mothers living in Gaza use “Alhamdulillah” to remind themselves and their children to be grateful for their safety and the little they have. We watch on the news as Gazan children literally crawl from under the rubble while raising the victory sign and saying “Alhamdulillah” for sparing their lives. In this way, Gazans maintain hope and faith and strengthen their resistance.

According to positive psychology, embracing gratitude is the act of appreciating what we have, rather than focusing on what we’ve lost or what we don’t have, a simple shift in mindset. In the case of Gazans and Muslim culture in general, uttering the phrase “Alhamdulillah” means embracing this mindset.

The cultural trait of being grateful for life’s simple pleasures and everyday blessings is a major factor that contributes to the remarkable steadfastness of Gazans. It is a counterpoint to “Inshallah” — “God willing.”

The concept of submission to the will of God in the culture of Muslim-majority regions like Palestine (“Islam” means submission) has sometimes been misunderstood by Western researchers as a defeatist attitude or a form of passive fatalism. That’s because Western culture emphasizes individualism and personal autonomy, whereas many Muslim cultures place a strong emphasis on community, collective responsibility, and submission to divine will.

According to positive psychology, what Muslim cultures emphasize is exactly that which contributes to wellbeing and resilience. People who embrace gratitude and maintain community support and solidarity; people who turn to a higher power with their pain, their losses, and their imperfections; people who cherish memories as Palestinians cherish the memories of their martyrs, the reminders of their past that is a part of who they are today (“The past is never dead. It’s not even past”), these are all people who endure in adversity.

In Gaza, community support is a cornerstone of resilience. Families and neighbors come together to share resources, provide emotional support, and help rebuild homes and infrastructure after destruction. This collective effort fosters a sense of unity and strength.

In addition, Palestinians have shown remarkable creativity in adapting to their circumstances. For instance, in Gaza, fighters have repurposed unexploded Israeli ordnance to create weapons, and there are many, many other amazing examples of such resourcefulness that have emerged. Despite the destruction, Palestinians continue to preserve their cultural and historical heritage. This includes maintaining traditional practices, storytelling, and passing down cultural knowledge to younger generations, which helps sustain their identity and hope for the future. Global awareness and support for the Palestinian cause have also played a significant role in their resilience. International solidarity movements, protests, and humanitarian aid will contribute to their ability to withstand and recover from adversities.

For such a people and despite the challenging political environment, building national security should not be an impossibility. These challenges require a multifaceted approach that includes continued armed resistance, international popular support that addresses and helps resolve Israel’s and the United States’ death grip on Palestinian governance and political autonomy (Check out: Why Trump forced Israel to accept Gaza ceasefire, with Ali Abunimah).

I keep in mind one of Faulkner’s more famous quotes related to endurance found in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech: “I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.” In their struggle for liberation, the Palestinian people embody this idea.

We have survived, and we will endure. Read “Palestinian resistance inflicts strategic defeat on genocidal Israel.” I believe the storm will pass, Inshallah and Alhamdulillah.

Rima Najjar is a Palestinian whose father’s side of the family comes from the forcibly depopulated village of Lifta on the western outskirts of Jerusalem and whose mother’s side of the family is from Ijzim, south of Haifa.

21 January 2025

Source: globalresearch.ca

By PROJECT SAVE THE WORLD

Bikini Atoll was the site of U.S. nuclear tests in the 1940s and 1950s. Thomas Goreau’s grandfather was the photographer in charge of documenting the events – {before” and “after.”

Imagine a paradise lost—lush islands ringed by vibrant coral reefs, teeming with life. Now imagine that paradise reduced to a radioactive wasteland, a testing ground for weapons of unimaginable destruction. Welcome to Bikini Atoll, a place scarred by nuclear explosions and the devastating legacy of exploitation. This story is told by Thomas Goreau, a passionate discussant of the atoll’s tragic past and uncertain future.

Goreau’s family history is relevant to the tale, for his grandfather, Fritz Goro, had been a famous pioneering photographer who developed methods of making visible things that people could never have seen otherwise, including scientific research evidence. He was the official photographer for the Manhattan project and the Bikini tests and worked closely with Oppenheimer. For example, as soon as the sand was cool enough after the first bomb test at Alamagordo, Oppenheimer, General Leslie Groves, and Goro walked together through ground zero, where sand had been melted into glass.

Thomas Goreau now possesses the archive of his grandfather’s photos and plans to produce a book displaying many of them. He also disclosed that his father had been exposed to radiation while working in the area and had died of it at age 45. Now Thomas Goreau continues the work of his father and grandfather by serving as president of the Global Coral Reef Alliance. He had just returned from an expedition to the Maldive Islands, where the coral reefs are dying of heat.

“Bikini” – a Name That Shocks

You probably think of “Bikini” as the name of a revealing swimsuit. But before it became fashion shorthand, Bikini Atoll was the site of U.S. nuclear tests in the 1940s and 1950s. The name capitalizes on the shock and awe associated with nuclear explosions.

Bikini Atoll, part of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific, became a target for nuclear tests because of its remoteness. But “remote” didn’t mean uninhabited. The islanders had lived there for 3,600 years, a community deeply connected to their land and sea. That didn’t matter to the U.S. military. They showed up unannounced in 1946 and told the residents they had to leave immediately. The islanders were promised they could return, but that promise was a lie.

A Forced Exodus and Broken Promises

The people of Bikini were displaced, their idyllic home turned into a radioactive laboratory. They were sent to barren islands with no lagoons for fishing, no fresh water, and limited food. Goreau describes how many starved to death or suffered malnutrition. When U.S. planes finally noticed their plight, supplies were air-dropped—bags of white rice and processed foods that wreaked havoc on the islanders’ health.

The U.S. government spun this as a temporary relocation, but the truth was far darker. Bikini Atoll became the site of 23 nuclear tests, including the infamous “Castle Bravo” detonation in 1954, which was 1,000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The fallout from Bravo irradiated not just the test site but also nearby islands and American personnel stationed there.

Spencer mentioned a documentary about the Marshall Islands, Nuclear Savage, which reveals that the U.S. knowingly subjected the Marshallese people to radioactive fallout, treating them as human guinea pigs. The filmmaker showed documents proving that experiments initially intended for mice were instead conducted on people.

The Fallout: Cancer, Jellyfish Babies, and a Poisoned Paradise

The human toll of these experiments is staggering. Goreau describes “jellyfish babies” – infants born with no bones, translucent and doomed to die. Cancer rates skyrocketed among the Marshallese, and entire generations have been scarred by the legacy of radiation.

And what of the atoll itself? Goreau’s grandfather documented the natural beauty of Bikini before the tests. Coral reefs thrived, their vibrant ecosystems supporting a delicate balance of life. But all of that was obliterated. The first thing the military did was dynamite the coral, clearing the lagoon for their warships. Later, the bombs themselves—one underwater, one in the air—turned the coral to rubble. Today, even the attempts to “clean up” Bikini are a testament to failure. The military bulldozed radioactive waste into craters and covered them with a concrete dome – the Runit sarcophagus – that is now cracking and leaking due to rising seas.

A Global Responsibility: Climate Change and Nuclear Legacy

Goreau’s work as head of the Global Coral Reef Alliance ties Bikini’s story to a broader crisis: climate change. Rising seas threaten not just Bikini but all low-lying atolls in the Pacific. Coral bleaching events, driven by warming oceans, have decimated reefs that once provided natural protection against storms. Goreau warns that we are nearing the point of no return, where even drastic action may not be enough to save what’s left.

This dual legacy of nuclear testing and climate change underscores a painful irony. The same militaristic and extractive systems that devastated Bikini Atoll are also driving global warming. Goreau and Spencer lament the continued prioritization of military spending over environmental and humanitarian needs. The resources that could be used to combat climate change are instead funneled into weapons programs, perpetuating cycles of violence and destruction.

The Resilience and Tragedy of the Marshallese People

Despite everything, the Marshallese people endure. But their resilience is not without cost. Goreau describes how they’ve been relegated to islands with no freshwater, forced to rely on food shipments that often fail to arrive. The Marshallese diaspora has spread across the Pacific, with many seeking better opportunities abroad. But for those who remain, life is precarious. Rising seas now inundate their homes, and the specter of radiation lingers.

Spencer and Goreau discuss how the Marshallese have been rendered invisible by the very forces that displaced them. Their plight is rarely covered in the media, and their voices are often excluded from international climate and nuclear policy discussions. The Marshallese are not just victims; they are a warning. What happened to them could happen to all of us if we fail to reckon with the twin threats of nuclear war and climate collapse.

Can the World Be Saved?

As the conversation winds down, Spencer challenges Goreau to solve the world’s problems in two minutes. His response is sobering. He argues that we need to not only stop burning fossil fuels but also actively remove carbon from the atmosphere. Even that might not be enough; we may need to reflect sunlight back into space to cool the planet. Yet these measures are controversial and fraught with their own risks.

Goreau’s ultimate point is that we cannot rely on technological fixes alone. The root causes of our crises are systemic: militarism, greed, and a disregard for life. There are still steps we can take—and must take—to mitigate the damage and build a more just and sustainable world.

22 January 2025

source: projectsavetheworld.substack.com

By Greg Grandin

Donald Trump won the White House twice on a promise to close the border. Now he waxes poetic about reopening the frontier — whose “spirit,” he said yesterday in his second Inaugural Address, “is written into our hearts.” This month, he talked about buying Greenland from Denmark, annexing Canada, retaking the Panama Canal and renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. “What a beautiful name,” Mr. Trump said, pronouncing the phrase with a decided stress on its last syllable: A-mer-i-CA, not A-MER-i-ca.

This expansionist turn is surprising for a politician best known for wanting the nation to hunker down behind a border wall. But Mr. Trump is smart. He knows, it seems, that the angry, inward-looking nationalism that first won him office can be self-destructive, as it was during his besieged first term. These calls, then — to make America not just great but also greater in size — tap into a more invigorating strain of patriotism: a vision of a United States that is forever growing, forever moving outward.

Mr. Trump’s recent remarks have electrified his base, with MAGA enthusiasts using social media to circulate battle plans to seize Canada and maps of a United States that stretches from the Arctic to Panama. But Mr. Trump is also harking back to the founders, many of whom similarly thought the United States had to expand to thrive. “Extend the sphere,” wrote James Madison in 1787; increase the “extent of territory,” and you’ll diffuse political extremism and stave off class warfare. “The larger our association,” said Thomas Jefferson in 1805, speaking of his Louisiana Purchase, “the less will it be shaken by local passions.”

In the years that followed, the United States moved across the continent with dizzying speed, citing the doctrine of conquest as it took Indian and Mexican land, reaching the Pacific and then seizing Hawaii, Puerto Rico and other islands.

And later, in the 20th century, even after the United States, along with much of the world, renounced the doctrine of conquest, our leaders still conjured up a sense of potentially limitlessness expansion, in the opening of markets for U.S. exports, in wars to rid the world of evils, in upward mobility and a growing middle class and in science and technology, which offered what the historian Frederick Jackson Turner once said the American West promised: “perennial rebirth.”

Mr. Trump is tapping into this social and intellectual history, promising to “pursue our Manifest Destiny into the stars” — even “to Mars.” But he does so in that witchy style he has perfected, which makes conventional ideas sound outlandish.

His detractors may scoff at the idea of annexing Greenland. But as it turns out, such annexation has long been a goal of U.S. politicians, at least since 1867, when Secretary of State William Seward, shortly after purchasing Alaska, considered buying the island — and Iceland — from Denmark. Franklin D. Roosevelt had his eye on the island, and after his death, the Truman administration, in 1946, offered Copenhagen $100 million for Greenland. The Danes declined. Later, Gerald Ford’s vice president, Nelson Rockefeller, proposed obtaining Greenland for its mineral wealth. In these pages, C.L. Sulzberger in 1975, citing national interest, wrote that “Greenland must be regarded as covered by” the Monroe Doctrine, that is, fully within the United States’ security perimeter.

As for Mr. Trump’s idea of adding more stars to the flag, William Kristol, a vocal Never Trump conservative, agrees with the idea, having suggested that Cuba could also become a state. He tweeted shortly after Mr. Trump gave up the White House in 2021, “60 years at 50 states is enough.” If the United States was to leave Trumpism behind, it had to grow — a sentiment Madison would agree with.

And now here’s Mr. Trump himself, triumphant in his return and grandstanding for growth.

But he is operating in a vastly different world from past expansionists’. In the decades since Bill Clinton said in 1993 that the “global economy is our new frontier,” this country has witnessed a constriction in its sense of what is possible. Traumatizing wars, a culled middle class, crippling personal debt, dystopian tech, serial climate catastrophes, Gilded Age levels of concentrated wealth, stalled life expectancy, with young people dying at alarmingly high rates — all this has combined to create political paralysis.

Mr. Trump’s imperial gambit seems a bid to break out of the deadlock, to say there are no limits, that the country does have a future. Do we want Greenland? We’ll take Greenland. Do we want Canada?

According to Politico, a number of wealthy Trump supporters, especially in tech, see Greenland as valuable not for its minerals or strategic position but as a spiritual solution to our current malaise, a way of restoring a sense of purpose to a country adrift.

But the challenges this country confronts will not be solved by fleeing to an imagined frontier and hoping its harsh climate, as one Trump supporter put it, will forge a “new people.”

And this is where Mr. Trump’s fumbling around for a rallying cry becomes dangerous, for in treating international politics as if it were a game of Risk, he’s signaling that the world is governed by new rules, which are really old rules: The powerful do what they will; the weak suffer what they must. For all its shortcomings and hypocrisies, the global order that emerged at the end of World War II promoted the idea that cooperation, not aggression, should be the presumed starting point of diplomacy.

Mr. Trump’s aggressive annexation fantasies — his threats to expand “our territory,” as he said Monday, to use punitive tariffs or military force to rearrange the world’s borders — say otherwise. Despite the soaring tone of his Inaugural Address, there was still plenty of aggrieved menace: “We will not be conquered,” he said, “We will not be intimidated.” He is sending a clear signal that dominance, not mutualism, is the world’s new organizing principle and that the doctrine of conquest, thought to have expired, is still valid.

Indeed, the world is plagued by savage wars. Today’s grand strategists, including those who guided the Biden administration, see wars not as things to be ended but as opportunities to create realms of influence.

On China, Joe Biden largely followed Mr. Trump’s lead on trade, and their various efforts to contain Beijing have increased the likelihood of conflict, particularly over Taiwan or the South China Sea. With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with Israel’s assault not just on Gaza but also on Lebanon and Syria and with our own “military interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and elsewhere,” the legal theorist Eric Posner wrote, the “ruins of international law are all around us.”

Mr. Trump’s imperialist musings, then, aren’t so much setting the pace but legitimating something that already exists: a new world order where aggression is expected.

Still, his uninhibited language (his willingness to provoke allies and force them to engage in childish games of dominance, as he is doing with Canada, Denmark and Panama) adds to the volatility of an already volatile world. One lesson the past teaches, especially the imperialist past Mr. Trump is invoking, is that opening the kind of belliger­ent, multifront balance of power that is in operation today — with the United States pushing against China, pushing against Russia, with all countries, everywhere, angling for advantage — will lead to more confrontation, more brinkmanship, more war.

Mr. Grandin is a professor at Yale and the author of the forthcoming “America, América: A New History of the New World” and other books.

21 January 2025

source: nytimes.com

“But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” Amos 5:24

Jerusalem/ Bethlehem, Monday January 20^th, 2025

In light of the recent ceasefire agreement between the Israeli occupation and Hamas, we extend our heartfelt congratulations to our Palestinian people for their steadfastness and resilient spirit during these challenging and bloody times. We deeply mourn for more than 47,000 Palestinians who have lost their lives and offer our sincerest condolences to their families and to the families who have suffered the devastating loss of their homes and properties. To the over 115,000 injured, we wish a swift and full recovery. The release of prisoners brings a moment of relief and joy; however, we emphasize that this is but a one step toward true peace and justice.

While we welcome the ceasefire and the prisoners exchange, we hope that the Israeli Prime Minister and his ultra-right-wing government will not sabotage the deal, as they did for the past months. A genuine cessation of the genocidal war must follow the release of prisoners. We also urge the international community to commit to rebuilding Gaza without conditions and not to abandon its people and leave them to their pain and suffering, as has tragically happened after the previous Israeli wars on Gaza.
The devastation in Gaza is immense. Approximately 70% of structures have been damaged or destroyed, including over 250,000 homes. More than 30 hospitals have been destroyed, severely impacting access to healthcare, especially for the injured ones. The United Nations estimates that over 50 million tons of rubble now cover Gaza, clearing this debris alone is expected to take over 14 years, with rebuilding potentially extending to 2040.

Accountability remains paramount. We call upon the international community to ensure international human rights standards and that the rulings by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) are respected and implemented without delay. The Israeli prolonged occupation and apartheid must come to an end, and the Palestinian people’s inalienable rights and their right to self-determination must be recognized and upheld.
We further emphasize that what is happening in Gaza must not come at the expense of the Palestinians in the West Bank including Jerusalem. The Gaza ceasefire agreement must not pave the way for further Israeli annexation of Palestinian land in the West Bank or another wave of killing, maiming, destruction and displacement of Palestinians there, with the blessing of some western superpowers that uphold colonial policies and practices towards our people. Gaza’s suffering cannot be used as a cover for ignoring or worsening the situation of Palestinians in other parts of Palestine including the 1948 areas.
We also call for immediate access to Gaza for journalists and international fact-finding missions. The truth of what has happened during this time of genocide must be exposed to the world. Only through transparency and accountability can we ensure that such massacres and war crimes are not repeated in Palestine and in any other area worldwide.
The international powers should make of this cease fire a definitive cessation of war, impeding the threats of present Israeli government to restart war after the one month cease fire.
We express our profound gratitude to all nations, churches, organizations, universities and all people that have stood in solidarity with Palestine, advocating for the rights of our people and supporting our just cause and demands for dignity and justice. It is imperative that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) continues its vital work until the right of return for Palestinian refugees is honored and fully implemented. The Israeli aggressive plans against UNRWA should be condemned and stopped by all countries’ members of the UN.

The complete lifting of the illegal embargo on Gaza is a just step and essential to allow for the flow of the humanitarian aid into Gaza and for an immediate commencement of reconstruction efforts. Rebuilding schools, universities, hospitals, and critical infrastructure must be prioritized to restore dignity and normalcy to the lives of our people.
Finally, we call upon our political leaders to rise up to this historic moment. Now is the time for national unity and collective united leadership to guide us toward independence and sovereignty. Only through a united front can we secure the future that all Palestinians deserve.
While the ceasefire and prisoner exchange mark significant progress, lasting peace can only be achieved through justice, accountability, and the explicit recognition of our rights.
We wrote in our Kairos Palestine document in section 4.3 “Our future and their future are one. Either the cycle of violence that destroys both of us or peace that will benefit both”. Till then, we remain steadfast in our pursuit of a future where our people live freely, with peace, dignity and independence in our homeland.

Kairos Palestine

Source: kairospalestine.ps

By Seyed Hossein Mousavian

The incoming Trump administration has expressed support for a negotiated solution with Iran on all outstanding issues. When asked about a message to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, President-elect Trump simply said, “I wish him luck.”

During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump indicated that his Iran policy in the second term would be “very different” than that in his first. He rejected the “regime change” policy and reiterated that he wants Iran to be successful, but also that he opposes the country’s acquisition of nuclear weapons.

In September 2024, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian stated that Tehran is ready for “constructive” dialogue and is “ready to engage” with the West about nuclear power, and willingness to improve relations with the U.S.

Nevertheless, the gaps between Washington and Tehran will be difficult to bridge. If Trump wishes to break the deadlock by negotiating with Iran, he will face fierce opposition within the U.S., in Iran, and in the region. Last month, Israel’s former war Cabinet member, Benny Gantz, called for Iran to be targeted “directly.”

Assuming Trump wants an alternative to another endless conflict, the first step must be a new nuclear agreement with Iran. It is likely that Israel will want the dismantlement of Iran’s enrichment capabilities. When I was the spokesperson for Iran’s nuclear team (2003-05), however, in a private meeting, Ayatollah Khamenei told Rouhani — then Iran’s top nuclear negotiator — that “if Iran is to abandon its right to enrich, it will either have to happen after my death, or I will have to resign from leadership.” Forcing this option would therefore likely mean the failure of negotiations, just as they failed from 2003-13.

If Trump’s main objective is to ensure that Iran does not acquire a nuclear bomb, however, he needs a plan that would permanently block the acquisition of nuclear bombs not only by Iran but also by other ambitious countries in the region. As President Biden warned, “if Iran gets the bomb, then Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt will follow.”

Here are the elements of such a plan:

First, as in the Obama administration’s Iran nuclear deal, Iran would agree to complete transparency of its nuclear programs and the most stringent level of International Atomic Energy Agency verification measures.

Second, the key principles of the agreement would be that it applies to all the countries in the region, making it possible to make permanent the main nonproliferation limitations of the deal, including limiting uranium enrichment to below 5 percent and no separation of plutonium from spent fuel.

Third, following the implementation of a new nuclear deal, Washington and Tehran would need to engage in discussions about regional security. Both countries should temporarily suspend all threats and hostilities as a first step and goodwill gesture.

Some years ago, Robert Einhorn, then a U.S. nuclear negotiator told me that “when we raise the necessity of regional talks, some Iranians mistakenly believe that we mean the dismantling of Iran’s missile and defense capabilities. All countries including Iran have the right to the defense capabilities they need. We understand that Iran, like us, has its own security concerns. Both sides must therefore engage in a serious and fair dialogue to address each other’s legitimate and lawful concerns and find a balanced solution.”

Ayatollah Khamenei is the ultimate decision-maker regarding Iran’s relations with the United States. On Jan. 8, 2024, he said that the U.S. is fundamentally hostile to the Iranian nation and the Islamic Republic, wishing for the destruction of Iran. Based on the several decades of understanding I have of his views, I believe that the essence of his concerns regarding the relations with the U.S. can be summarized in three key points: the threat to Iran’s independence through interference in internal affairs, the “regime change” policy and the lack of respect for and recognition of Iran’s national interests.

On the other side, during 15 years of research at Princeton University on U.S.-Iran relations, I believe that “challenging and threatening the U.S. interests in the region” is the most important concern the U.S. has regarding Iran’s policies after the 1979 revolution.

If there is going to be a fair and balanced deal, both capitals should acknowledge each other’s legitimate regional interests and commit to not threatening those interests. This would require some realignment of their regional security and diplomacy strategies, especially with their key allies.

Moreover, it would require a credible and sustainable model for regional stability and peace. Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Council countries in the Persian Gulf, could achieve such an arrangement through a new collective security and economic framework modeled on the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

The arrangement would facilitate establishing balanced and normal relations with the Western and Eastern blocs; regional arms control arrangements including a nuclear weapons-free zone and the reduction of U.S. military forces and expenditures in the region.

The agreement could also link a cessation of military conflict between Iran and Israel with a just and durable solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict based on a two-state solution as required by multiple UN resolutions.

Finally, the deal could also include significant economic cooperation between the U.S. and Iran, potentially involving projects worth hundreds of billions of dollars in sectors such as petrochemicals, aviation and clean energy. This would create major economic stakes in the agreement within both countries, making the new arrangements more robust.

On his first day in office at the White House, President Trump could agree in a phone conversation with his Iranian counterpart, President Pezeshkian, to have special envoys from both countries quickly initiate direct talks for such a fair, sustainable and historic agreement.

Seyed Hossein Mousavian is Middle East security and nuclear policy specialist at Princeton University.

17 January 2025

Source: thehill.com

By Anealla Safdar

Pappé talks on ‘neo-Zionism’, ceasefire talks, the second coming of Trump and ‘indoctrination’ in Israel.

14 Jan 2025 – On a freezing Saturday morning in Copenhagen, Ilan Pappe warmed up in a cinema hall, chatting and joking in fluent Arabic with one of the organisers of a conference he was soon to address between sips of black coffee from a paper cup.

Unlike other Israelis, Pappe said, he learned the language “of the colonised” by spending time in Palestine, surrounding himself with Palestinian friends, and taking formal Arabic lessons.

Hundreds of academics, officials, international rights activists and everyday Danes aghast at Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza attended the event in the Danish capital, hosted by the European Palestinian Network.

The group was founded recently, and its members include Danes of Palestinian heritage.

Pappe later told the audience that since the outbreak of Israel’s latest war on Gaza, he has been shocked by Europe’s response.

“I share with a lot of people a surprise at the European position,” he said on stage. “Europe, that claims to be a model of civilisation, ignored the most televised genocide of modern times.”

On the sidelines, Al Jazeera interviewed 70-year-old Pappe, a leading Israeli historian, author and professor who has spent much of his life fighting for Palestinian rights. We asked him about Zionism, solidarity, and what he thinks a shifting American political landscape means for Gaza.

************************

Al Jazeera: You have long said that the tools of Zionism, the nationalist, political ideology that called for the creation of a Jewish state, included capturing land and evictions. For the past 15 months, Gaza has endured daily mass killings. What stage of Zionism are we witnessing?

Ilan Pappe: We are in a state that one can define as neo-Zionist. The old values of Zionism are now more extreme, [in] far more aggressive form than they were before, trying to achieve in a short time what the previous generation of Zionists were trying to achieve in [a] much longer, more, incremental, gradual way.

This is an attempt by a new leadership of Zionism to complete the work that they started in 1948, namely of taking over officially the whole of historical Palestine and getting rid of as many Palestinians as possible and in the same process, and [this is] something new, creating a new Israeli empire that is either feared or respected by its neighbours – and therefore can even expand territorially beyond the borders of mandatory or historical Palestine.

Historically, I’m willing to say with some caution that this is the last phase of Zionism. Historically, such developments in ideological movements, whether they are colonials or empires, it’s usually the final chapter [that is] the ruthless one, the most ambitious one. And then it’s too much and then they fall and collapse.

Al Jazeera: We are days away from a new political landscape as Donald Trump heads to the White House for a second time. He has an even louder voice on social media with the tech billionaire and X owner Elon Musk, who lauds Israeli policies and its military, among the senior figures of his administration. How do you see the presidency influencing Israel? Will the war on Gaza continue?

Pappe: It’s very difficult to see anything positive during the second Trump term in office and with his associations with Elon Musk.

The future of Israel and Zionism is connected to the future of America.

I don’t think all the Americans are supporters of Trump. I don’t think all the Americans are supporters of Elon Musk.

[But] I’m afraid there is not much that can be done in the next two or three years.

The only good news is that populist leaders like [US President-elect Donald] Trump and nutcases like Elon Musk are not very capable. They are going to bring down with them the American economy and the American international standing, so it will end badly for America if these kind of personalities are going to lead it.

In the long run, I think it can lead to less involvement by the United States in the Middle East. And for me, a scenario in which you have minimal American involvement is a positive scenario.

We need international intervention not only in Palestine but for the whole Arab world, but it has to come from the Global South and not from the Global North. The Global North has left such a legacy that very few people would regard anyone from the Global North as an honest broker. I’m very worried about the short term, I don’t want to be misunderstood. I cannot see any forces stopping the short-term disasters that are awaiting us.

When I see a wider perspective, I think we are at the end of a very bad chapter in humanity, not the beginning of a bad chapter.

Al Jazeera: Currently, there are ceasefire negotiations. When do you expect Palestine will enjoy peace?

Pappe: I don’t know, but I do think that even a ceasefire in Gaza is not the end unfortunately, because of the genocide. Hopefully, there will be enough power to if not stop it, at least tame it or limit it.

In the long term, I can see a process that is long. I’m talking about 20 years, but I do think we are at the beginning of this process.

It’s a process of the decolonisation of a settler-colonial project.

It can go either way. We know it from history. Decolonisation can be very violent and not necessarily produce a better regime or it can be an opportunity to build something much better, a win-win for everyone concerned and the area as a whole.

Al Jazeera: To Palestinians and many observers, it feels as though the world is just standing by while Israel is expanding into its neighbours and carrying out the genocide with impunity.

Pappe: Well, a last stage from a historical point of view is a long process. It’s not an immediate process. It’s not a question of will it happen, but it is a question of when. And definitely that could take time.

There are developments regionally and globally that allow this phase to continue. Whether it is the rise of populist politicians like Trump, the power of multinational corporations, the rise of fascism, new right fascism in Europe, the level of corruption in some of the Arab countries, all of it works in in a way that sustains a global alliance that allows Israel to do what it does, but there is another alliance.

It doesn’t have the same power, but it’s widespread and it’s connected to a lot of other struggles against injustice. It is quite possible that if not in the immediate future, a bit later this kind of global sentiment that is not only focused on Palestine, it’s focused on global warming, poverty, immigration, and so on – that this one becomes a more powerful political force. Every little victory for that other global alliance brings the Zionist project closer to an end.

Al Jazeera: What does this other alliance have to do? What could help their cause?

Pappe: There are two things. One, we don’t have an organisation that kind of contains this goodwill, the support, the solidarity, this energy to fight injustice. It needs a proper organisation and some of the young people who are part of this alliance seem to dislike, for good reasons, organisations and so on. But you need this infrastructure.

The second thing is to abandon the purist approach that such movements had in the past and create networks and alliances that take into account that people disagree even on fundamental issues, but are able to work together for stopping a genocide in Gaza, for liberating colonised people.

Al Jazeera: Going back to the more powerful alliance that you say is upholding Zionism, you talked about the rise of the far right in Europe. Among them though, there are still strains of anti-Semitism.

Pappe: This unholy alliance was there from the very beginning. If you think about it logically, both anti-Semites and Zionists, when it comes to Europe had the same target, they didn’t want to see the Jews in Europe. Seeing them in Palestine could be an objective both of the Zionist movement and anti-Semitic movement.

Now there is a new layer of uniformity of ideas between the neo-right and Israel, and this is Islamophobia.

The new right is now, although it has still strong anti-Jewish, namely anti-Semitic elements in it, it’s targeting mainly Muslim and Arab communities. It doesn’t target Jewish communities, in particular.

They see Israel as the most important anti-Islamic anti-Arab force in the world, so there’s also identification on that level – but of course, it’s something that Jews would regret outside of Israel if they would be part of such an alliance. Even pro-Israeli Jews in Europe feel a bit uneasy about [those that] don themselves with the Israeli flag, but at the same time with the Nazi flag.

Hopefully, it will make them rethink their association with Israel. We already see the signs, especially in the American Jewish community among the young generation, that they understand that Israel is now part of a political alliance that they as American Jews cannot identify with.

As we say, it allows Israel to continue because of Trump and populist leaders, but it’s also something that will not be forever in the future.

Al Jazeera: The genocide has led many, including some Jewish groups, to study the creation of Israel and the historic ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Have you seen families divided by their understanding of the conflict?

Pappe: It doesn’t happen [in Israel] but definitely Jewish families outside of Israel.

The amount of information that flows is such that the younger generation cannot be blind. Even if they get a very good Jewish education, then even more so, they can see the immorality of the Israeli action.

It’s mostly intergenerational conflict, which is a positive sign because it means that the current generation might be much more uniform in this position.

Al Jazeera: But within Israel, young people also have access to the documentation of the genocide on social media, on platforms like TikTok. But many still disregard Palestinian suffering.

Pappe: They didn’t get the same education as young Jews in America. They got an education from a very indoctrinated country. And that’s the key. They were produced, if you want, engineered by the Israeli education system.

I wrote an article in 1999 warning that, looking at the Israeli curricula, the next graduates of this system would be racist fanatics, extreme and dangerous to themselves and to others. Unfortunately, I was absolutely right.

This is the product of a very indoctrinated society from the cradle to the grave.

You need to re-educate these people. You can’t just show them things and hope that this would move them.

They can see dead Palestinian babies and say ‘Good, very good’. Dehumanisation is part of the Israeli DNA and it’s very hard to confront just by giving them more information.

__________________________________________

 

Anealla Safdar is Al Jazeera‘s Europe editor.

20 January 2025

Source: transcend.org

By Jeffrey D. Sachs and Sybil Fares

The June 2025 UN Conference on Palestine can be the long-awaited turning point for the region.

10 Jan 2025 – The UN, on its 80th birthday in 2025, can mark the occasion by securing a lasting solution to the conflict in the Middle East, by welcoming the State of Palestine as the 194th UN member state. The upcoming UN Conference on Palestine, set for June 2025, can be a turning point – a decisive, irreversible path towards peace in the Middle East. The Trump administration would greatly serve America’s interests, and the world’s, by championing the two-state solution and a comprehensive Middle East peace deal, at the gathering in New York in June.

Amid Israel’s shocking brutality in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria, a small window of hope has nonetheless emerged. Almost the entire world has coalesced around the two-state solution as the key to regional peace.  As a result, a comprehensive deal is now within reach.

The UN General Assembly recently adopted a potentially transformative resolution (PDF) by an overwhelming margin. The UNGA demands an end to Israel’s illegal 1967 occupation and reaffirms its unwavering support for the two-state solution. Most importantly, the resolution laid  out a roadmap for establishing a Palestinian state at The High-level International Conference (PDF), to be held in June 2025, at the United Nations.

Consider how long the Palestinians, and the world, have waited for this moment. In 1947, the UN first took on the responsibility of addressing the Palestinian question. With Resolution 181 (PDF), the UN General Assembly proposed the partition of Mandatory Palestine into two independent states – one Jewish and one Arab. The proposed partition, alas, was neither fair nor agreed upon by the parties. It allocated 44 percent of the land to the Palestinians though they were 67 percent of the population. Yet before the plan could be revised and settled peacefully, Zionist terror groups began to ethnically cleanse more than 700,000 Palestinians from their homes, the so-called Nakba, or catastrophe, of the Palestinian people.

After Israel declared its unilateral independence, and defeated the Arab neighbours in war, a senior UN mediator, Count Folke Bernadotte, tried to resurrect the two-state solution.  Yet Bernadotte was assassinated by Lehi, a Zionist paramilitary organisation. Israel signed the 1949 Lausanne Protocol, resurrecting the two-state solution under UN auspices, but then blatantly disregarded it. What ensued instead was Israel’s 75-year quest to deny Palestinians their rights to a homeland.

For decades, the US government, under the guidance of the Israel lobby, presided over a phoney negotiating process.  These efforts ostensibly involved direct bilateral talks between an occupying power and an occupied people, inherently unequal parties, in which Israel’s goal was always to reject a truly sovereign Palestinian state. At best, Israel offered “Bantustans,” that is, little powerless enclaves of Palestinians living under Israel’s control.  The US-dominated process has continued since the mid-1970s, including the 1978 Camp David Accords, 1991 Madrid Conference, 1993-1995 Oslo Accords, 2000 Camp David Summit, 2003 Quartet Roadmap for Peace, and 2007 Annapolis Conference.  In this hall-of-mirrors process, the Israelis have continuously blocked a Palestinian state while the US “mediators” have continuously blamed the Palestinians for their intransigence.

The Trump administration could choose to change the game at the upcoming UN conference – in America’s interest, Israel’s long-term interest and security, and the interest of the Middle East and the world in peace. The US is, in fact, the only remaining veto against a Palestinian state. Israel has no veto on a Palestinian state or on peace for that matter. Only the US has that veto.

Yes, Prime Minister Netanyahu has ideas other than peace. He and his coalition continue to have one purpose: to deny a state of Palestine by expanding Israel’s territorial conquests, now including not only occupied Palestine but also parts of Lebanon and a growing part of Syria.

A new US foreign policy is needed in the Middle East – one that brings about peace rather than endless war.  As mandated by the International Court of Justice, and as demonstrated through the General Assembly, G20 (PDF), BRICS (PDF), League of Arab States (PDF), the overwhelming majority of the world favours the two-state solution.

The UN Conference on Palestine is therefore a key and vital opportunity, one that could unlock a comprehensive peace for the Middle East, including seven interconnected measures:

1. An immediate UN-mandated ceasefire across all fronts of the conflict, including Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Iran, and the immediate release of hostages and prisoners of war across all entities.
2. The admission of a sovereign State of Palestine as 194th UN member state on the June 4, 1967 borders with its capital in East Jerusalem; the withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in 1967, with the simultaneous introduction of UN-mandated international forces and security guarantees to protect all populations.
3. The protection of the territorial integrity and stability of Lebanon and Syria, and the full demilitarisation of all non-state forces, and withdrawal of all foreign armies from the respective countries.
4. The adoption of an updated Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran, and the end of all economic and other sanctions on Iran.
5. The termination, including defunding and disarmament of belligerent non-state entities, of all claims or states of belligerency, and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area, (without excluding the possibility of subsequent territorial adjustments, security arrangements, and cooperative forms of governance agreed by the sovereign parties).
6. The establishment of regional peace and normalisation of diplomatic relations by all Arab and Islamic states with Israel.
7. The establishment of an Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East Sustainable Development Fund to support the reconstruction, economic recovery and sustainable development of the region.

After far too many decades of violence and wars, the chance for peace is here and now.  The UN’s endeavour for a comprehensive peace is our best hope and opportunity in decades.

______________________________________________

Jeffrey D. Sachs, Professor of Sustainable Development and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University, is Director of Columbia’s Center for Sustainable Development and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

20 January 2025

Source: transcend.org