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By René Wadlow

“Is not this what I require of you… to snap every yoke and set free those who have been crushed?” Isaiah, 58 v 6

There are many ways that an individual can be held in chains through his desires and emotions. These chains need to be broken by the development of the will and strong efforts of self-realization through mediation and therapy.

However, it is contemporary forms of slavery in its literal and not symbolic sense that must concern us today. The League of Nations on September 25, 1926 facilitated a Convention on Slavery which was a high-water mark in the world-wide consensus on the need to abolish slavery begun some 100 years before by small groups of anti-slavery activists in England, France and the USA. However as with many League of Nations conventions, there were no mechanisms written into the convention for monitoring, investigation and enforcement. Although the Slavery Convention outlawed slavery and associated practices, it not only failed to establish procedures for reviewing the incidences of slavery in States parties, but also neglected to create an international body which could evaluate and pursue allegations of violations.

Within the United Nations system, there have been advances made, especially in investigation both making public through official U.N. documents the investigations of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and through the work of Special Rapporteurs of U.N. human rights bodies.

Thus in a U.N. report on “Trafficking of Children and Prostitution in India” the authors write “Nepal appears to be the most significant, identifiable source of child prostitution for Indian brothels.  Thousands of Nepalese females under the age of 20 have been identified in India by various studies.  The average  age of the Nepalese girl entering an Indian brothel is said to be 10-14 years, some 5,000-7,000 of them being trafficked between Nepal and India annually.”

As Professor Vitit Muntarbhorn, a former U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Sale of Children has written “Gender discrimination victimizes the girl child.  Precisely because the girl child in seen in some communities as having lower priority, she is often denied access to such basic necessities as education which could ultimately protect her from exploitation.  Another disquieting form of discrimination is based upon race and social origin, interwoven with issues of class and caste.  It has become increasingly obvious that many children used in labor and sexual exploitation are lured from particular racial or social groups such as hill tribes, rather than the well-endowed groups in power.”

Today, it is the fate of migrants blocked in Libya, forced into forms of slavery one thought had disappeared, which rightly has focused U.N. and NGO concern. The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Prince Zeid Raad Al Hussein, has said that “the suffering of migrants detained in Libya is an outrage to the conscience of humanity.”  His evaluation is based in part on the in-depth field investigation of U.N. teams which have highlighted that the majority of the 34 detention centers in Libya are concentration camps in which abuse, torture, forced work and all sorts of violence are everyday occurrences.  Smugglers of people are often free to do as they please with the complicity of police officials at all levels.  The risk of women being captured and raped is so high that some women and girls who are often fleeing from conflict conditions in their home countries take massage doses of birth control pills before entering Libya so that they can avoid getting pregnant.  However, this can often cause irreversible injuries.

There have been reports and filming of “slave auctions” especially in Sabba, the capital of the Fezzan province where routes from Sudan, Chad, and Niger meet and where roads leading north to the Mediterranean start. The U.N. also has reports from NGOs, especially humanitarian organizations, and from investigators of the International Criminal Court.

The issue which faces us now is what can be done. The League of Nations and the U.N. anti-slavery conventions are based on the idea that a State has a government. Unfortunately, Libya is a “failed State”.  It has two rival governments, a host of armed groups, and more-or-less independent tribes.

The Association of World Citizens has proposed that there could be created a Libyan confederation with a good deal of regional autonomy but with a central government which would be responsible for living up to international treaties and U.N. standards.  For the moment there has been no progress in that direction or in the direction of any other constitutional system.

Slavery is a consequence of disorder.  Without a minimum of legal structure, there will always be those who arise to make short-term gains including by the selling of people.  The conscience of humanity of which the High Commissioner for Human Rights spoke must now speak out boldly to break the yoke of slavery.  NGOs need to take a lead. Governments are likely to follow.

Rene Wadlow, President, Association of World Citizens

15 December 2017

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat

Gujarat’s much awaited results are out. The fraudsters sitting in the mega ‘slaughterhouses’ have been exposed and myth related to invincibility is broken and perhaps shaken the Hindutva camp from inside. These results will have huge impact on the psyche of our nation and the fraudsters will start building up their narratives now about how ‘despite’ 25 years ruling, the BJP has still won the game but the fact is that Gujarat verdict has jolted them and it need to be understood in broad perspectives. Can Congress rebuild itself from Gujarat ? What are the lessons for other parties as well as what could be the future politics of three youngsters who actually won our ‘imaginations’ but before coming to analyse those points I have to speak about the absolute degradation and pathetic attempt to thwart the mandate by those fraudsters who claim themselves to be journalists and shouldn’t the Press Council if it is there or Editors Guild and others who are worried about the falling grace particularly of media, must now not only ponder but act too.

Whatever be the outcome of the Exit Polls and Opinion Polls, I think it is time we call for a complete ban on them. You cannot support such frauds that attempt to influence people’s mandate through mischievous means in the name of prime time discussions in their slaughter houses whose only aim was to demolish opposition. This so-called media became BJP and Hindutva’s  not merely polling agents but an instrument in spreading the poisonous propaganda of the SanghParivar that sought to polarize people on communal lines and created fictional issues. Times Now, and Republic TV apart from many others don’t even deserve to be called media houses and that is why I called them slaughter houses meant to humiliate those who disagree with Hindutva and its venomous agenda. It is great that all the attempt to sow seeds of this poison did not succeed in Gujarat. In putting the people’s agenda on political parties, the media can play a big role but sadly and rather dangerously, it was not merely setting agenda but it became part of the canard that divided people and create communal discord which is nothing but a seditious act. So election commission as well as political parties will have to think on whether these media houses should be allowed to steal people’s agenda and attempt to influence their opinion. In the ballot boxe games we had booth capturing and other things at regular intervals but in the current phase, media has become worse than those goons at the street who used to loot the booth to vote for a particular candidate. Media is engaged in bigger loot and denying people their right to set the agenda.

Prime Minister NarendraModi and BJP president Amit Shah has said that this victory of Gujarat is a ‘rejection’ of caste forces and politics of appeasement’ and a victory of ‘good governance’ and ‘developmental’ agenda of the government. It would be good for the media to ask BJP as how many times they talked about good governance and Vikas during this election. Prime Minister’s desperation started whether Congress wanted to make Ahmed Patel as chief minister of Gujarat who has every right to be so if his party had won the election and he were elected leader of the legislature party. Modiji then found conspiracy at Mani Shankar Aiyer’s home involving Dr Man Mohan Singh and Pakistanis together to put Ahmed Patel as chief minister of Gujarat. What do you make with such statement? If it was spoken by anyone else, we would have laughed at the silliness of such argument but  it came from Prime Minister makes it more serious. Question is if Pakistanis are attempting to intervene in our democratic process and conspiring with other Indians then the government must act.

Attempt to create a debate around Rahul Gandhi’s Hinduness was another low which the Congress failed to respond politically and meekly placed before us that Rahul Gandhi is a janeudhari, shiv-bhakt Brahmin. Now this became worst with the idiotic response of the Congress Party. Sangh or its musketeers have no right to ask any citizen of this country about their faith as these are personal matter. As long as I am citizen of India, I have a right to participate in its polity. Congress must come out becoming the B team of the BJP. Rahul Gandhi need to inform his team to project the party as progressive, liberal and secular which India deserve today. The crooked Brahmanical minds inside Congress don’t want it to become a party of all and hence they play all those games which they have been playing for years. These tricks have damaged Congress more than anything else. Congress and Rahul Gandhi must not engage in the Mandir Masjid debate and focus on good governance and India’s pluralistic cultural heritage. It is time, we talk about citizenship, making party more inclusive by involving and assigning the Dalits, Adivasis, Muslims and others fair role in party’s structure as well as in ticket distribution.

It is sad that even Ram Temple became an issue for the Bhartiya Janata Party in Gujarat. Actually the strategy of Shah – Modi duo was to raise deliberately all the issues which tend to polarize voters, avoid developmental and good governance debate and the lapdogs jumped on all the feeds. Every day, prime time crooks shouting shamelessly on these issues with equally provocative hashtags to build a narrative that SanghParivar is doing through their whatsapp university. So the role of these Slaughter Houses was nothing but to carefully craft a narrative around Narendra Modi and his invincibility while attacking Gandhi family through their choicest contempt. One is not here to defend the family but as political leaders they deserve same respect as anyone else and they have a right to defend themselves.

People of Gujarat actually have rejected the Modi Model so the narrative that they are weaving about 19 states under BJP must be rejected. Parties come to power and go. BJP had 2 seats too in Parliament. It got defeated too and in democracy it is fair. The narrative around Gujarat was about its invincibility and Hindutva’s laboratory of nationalism that was only helping the savarna Hindus and denying the Dalits , OBCs and adivasis their space in power structure and for that it weaved a hate Muslim agenda as that is the only work they could do. Gujarat became victim of this hate politics and development went somewhere else. The Patidar resentment was not merely because of jobs but also the aspirations of the community which dominated the political landscape of Gujarat once upon a time. Under Modi’s leadership Patidar were sidelined politically and hence the entire battle and resentment of Patidars was not merely jobs for the youths but aspiring leadership of the community.

Many stories are coming that Congress could have won more if BSP had not fielded its candidate in many seats. Similar things are said about Himachal Pradesh too. It is important for all of us to understand that in politics the bigger party has to take a call. I have been speaking for years that Congress and BSP should work together because despite her limited party base, Mayawati still has a Pan Indian appeal among the Dalits and BSP cadres could be found in each state. It was for the Congress to speak to all the parties and should have avoided this division.

With the win of Jignesh Mewani, many of friends feel as if BSP has become irrelevant. While we welcome the victory of Jignesh Mewani and hope he will concentrate on Gujarat and perhaps strengthen social movement and alliances there. We will have to take a decision whether he would remain independent candidate or join Congress. I suppose the second alternative is suitable for him and from that way he can strengthen the independent Dalit voices inside the Congress Party. It would not be advisable for him to develop a new party as some people are looking at him as a new icon of Dalit movement in India. Gujarat’s realities are far different than rest of the country and things are not that simple as our Facebook friends might think. Our advice to Jignesh would be to concentrate building bridges of Dalit-OBC-Muslims in Gujarat as a permanent base so that you have a government in 2023.He and all others have a bigger role for 2019 too to completely bury the hate propagandists in that election.

In a diverse country like ours, we must not shy away from having more political parties. BSP is a brand and it has come out of Ambedkarite thoughts with a noble mission. Ms Mayawati has here severe limitations too. She failed to bring the youngsters like Chandra Shekar Azad, Jignesh Mewani and other forces at the party or any social platform. It is time for her to nurture young leadership in the party. We don’t want BSP to be irrelevant as every party has a big role to play and it has a big mass base at least in Uttar Pradesh but the party must learn to work with other opposition parties. It can’t work on creating opportunistic alliances. If this Gujarat narrative goes in Uttar Pradesh, it would be difficult for BSP to get the Muslim and other OBC votes in the states but then it is also a reality that every state has a distinct nature and has to be dealt in that way but even then SP-BSP-Congress alliance in Uttar Pradesh and RJD-Congress alliance in Bihar, TMC-Congress in Bengal, DMK-Congress in Tamilnadu will work wonders. That apart Congress can also weave same alliances with leaders of social movements as it happened in Gujarat in the states where it has a direct fight with BJP or other regional parties such as Madhya Pradesh, Maharastra, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Chhattishgarh, Odisha, Uttarakhand, Karnataka, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Congress must focus on other states too including North East.

The Gujarat results have rejuvenated the Congress Party which is passing through its toughest period as well as the opposition and if anyone is the winner in these elections, it is Rahul Gandhi. He won the heart of the people through his simplicity and hearty talks. His oratory is getting better day and the most important part is his modesty in admitting his mistakes and graciously accepting the defeat in Gujarat. We know, he is the one, who has become part of daily humiliation by the Sangh and its gappus daily including those sitting in their slaughter houses who would bring out things to target him individually. In independent India’s history, we have very few such examples where one individual was so much targeted and in the obscene way as Rahul has been and these elections have proved that his versions and narratives will be the biggest strength the Congress Party. Rahul Gandhi must build Congress Party from the ground develop a team of not only social media experts but also engage with social movements, opposition leaders, students groups, community leaders, opinion makers, intellectuals to build a strong case to defeat the hatemongering agenda of the SanghParivar. It is time that Congress Party must have these segments but at the same point of time, Congress Party must accept the changing nature of India and respect its diversity in terms of assertions of identities and political parties.

Congress should not think India in terms of a two party politics but must encourage secular political parties to acquire space. I have always respected former prime minister V P Singh’s often repeated statement that if we need to protect secularism and social justice in India or idea of liberal inclusive India then both the ruling as well as opposition space must be acquired by the secular parties. How is it possible to do that ? Will Congress start building up new narratives? Will it admit that it did nothing to remove those things which are still roaming in the web world about JawaharLal Nehru ? It did not act against those goons who spread such nasty photoshopped videos insulting political leaders of our independent movement particularly JawaharLal Nehru. So, it is important to spread your narrative. Sanghis are expert in spreading this as they had the monopoly but they have been defeated now.

It is time we build India brick by brick, defend its secular liberal space, not impose one identity on others but how will it happen? Can we make the Sangh irrelevant? If yes then how? Certainly not trying to be more conservative than them but what Rahul said that we will defend our values and will not be like them who spread hatred. Now Congress has to develop that narrative in action that they are different than the BJP and Hindutva forces in all aspects including their economic model and talk about breaking social barriers and creating a level playing field for all.

As far as the EVM’s are concerned, we have our reservation about it. These elections also, for the first time in last 20 years, showed how an autonomous institution like Election Commission has been compromised. Its credibility has been shaken and we need to work to restore it back. What is the use of EVM’s VVPT if they are not counted. It should be made mandatory to get them counted in several constituencies in each state during the LokSabha Polls to restore the credibility of the Commission otherwise conspiracy theory will continue which will be more dangerous for the health of democracy in our country.

It is clear that 2019 narratives of Sangh Parivar and its Gappus will not be on development and good governance but purely on Hindu Muslim binary. Congress and all other secular parties have to defend with great convictions the idea of India. There is no need for us to defend the wrongs of communities. Defend the rights of a citizen to be Indians and claim entitlement as an Indian citizen irrespective of his or her caste and religion. Focus on Good Governance and seek answer from Narendra Modi and his team on their track record of ‘Development’ and Good Governance’ and as Rahul did in Gujarat, he must focus on these issues and make his team of spokespersons more informed and progressive.

Regressive ideas of Sangh Parivar can’t be accepted by people in longer term hence Congress and all other political parties must focus on progressive attitude and those syncretic values of India where people lived together despite all their differences; above all, we must adhere to our faith in the original constitution of India, to resolve all our disputes. We must tell the people that the best way to solve our disputes is not at the slaughter houses or in the street but through the courts and negotiations. Rahul Gandhi showed exemplary leadership qualities through well organized campaign and involving the youth which is a good sign for the future of the country and we hope that battle 2019 now is wide open and the opportunity must not be lost at all.

Vidya Bhushan Rawat is a social and human rights activist. He blogs at www.manukhsi.blogspot.com twitter @freetohumanity Email: vbrawat@gmail.com

19 December 2017

Source: http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/12/19/invincibility-busted-in-gujarat-game-wide-open-for-2019/

By Dr Gideon Polya

Beatrice Fihn, Director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), has delivered the Acceptance Speech for the Nobel Peace Prize award to ICAN. 2 months ago the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was set for ratification and will enter into force 90 days after 50 countries have ratified it. Beatrice Fihn declared: “Will it be the end of nuclear weapons, or will it be the end of us? … Mutual destruction is only one impulsive tantrum away”. Nuclear Weapons ban now.

Key points raised in Beatrice Fihn’s speech [1] are set out below together with my amplifying comments:

1. Anti-nuclear weapons Nobel Peace Prizes.

Beatrice Fihn: “Today, it is a great honour to accept the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of thousands of inspirational people who make up the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. Together we have brought democracy to disarmament and are reshaping international law…”

Comment. The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to many anti-nuclear weapons activists, namely Linus Pauling, (1962; anti-nuclear testing), International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (1985), Joseph Rotblat and Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs (1995, for anti-nuclear weapons stance) , the  International Atomic Energy Agency and Mohamed El Baradei (2005, anti-nuclear weapons),  and to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear weapons (ICAN) (2017) (in similar vein it was  also awarded to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in 2013) [2, 3].

One notes sadly that the Nobel Peace Prize has also been awarded to numerous leaders of nuclear-armed, nuclear terrorist states, namely  Barack Obama (US, 2009), Jimmy Carter (US, 2002), Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin (Apartheid Israel, 1994), Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (Russia, 1990), Menachem Begin (Apartheid Israel, 1978), Henry A. Kissinger (US, 1973), and to further leaders involved in making war and/or  genocide, namely Aung San Suu Kyi (Myanmar, 1991), Thomas Woodrow Wilson (US, 1919), and Theodore Roosevelt (US, 1906) [3, 4].

2. 15,000 nuclear weapons.

Beatrice Fihn: “At dozens of locations around the world – in missile silos buried in our earth, on submarines navigating through our oceans, and aboard planes flying high in our sky – lie 15,000 objects of humankind’s destruction…”

Comment. The upper  estimates of stored  nuclear weapons  are as follows: US (7,315), Russia (8,000), Apartheid Israel (400), France (300), UK (250), China (250), Pakistan (120), India (100), and North Korea (less than 10). India , Pakistan, Apartheid Israel and North Korea have not ratified the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) [2, 5]. Serial war criminal, homicidally greedy neoliberal, psychopathic racist and ignorant, anti-science buffoon Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to totally destroy North Korea and there is great fear that nuclear terrorist Apartheid Israel might use such a genocidal attack to wipe out non-nuclear armed Iran using nuclear weapons from Germany-supplied submarines [6-9].

3. Risk – “insanity… mutual destruction is only one impulsive tantrum away”.

Beatrice Fihn: “It is insanity to allow ourselves to be ruled by these weapons. Many critics of this movement suggest that we are the irrational ones, the idealists with no grounding in reality. That nuclear-armed states will never give up their weapons. But we represent the only rational choice. We represent those who refuse to accept nuclear weapons as a fixture in our world, those who refuse to have their fates bound up in a few lines of launch code. Ours is the only reality that is possible. The alternative is unthinkable. The story of nuclear weapons will have an ending, and it is up to us what that ending will be. Will it be the end of nuclear weapons, or will it be the end of us? One of these things will happen. The only rational course of action is to cease living under the conditions where our mutual destruction is only one impulsive tantrum away…”

Comment. As far as we know, the world narrowly evaded a nuclear holocaust on at least 2 occasions. Thus Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov (30 January 1926 – 19 August 1998) was a Soviet Navy officer during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.  As Commander of the Soviet submarine flotilla near Cuba, he prevented the launch of a nuclear torpedo from a Soviet submarine being threatened by US depth charges, and therefore prevented a possible nuclear war. Thomas Blanton (then director of the National Security Archive) said in 2002 that “a guy called Vasili Arkhipov saved the world” [10, 11].  Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov (born in 1939) was a  lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Air Defence Forces when on 26 September  1983 he was the duty officer at the command center for the Oko nuclear early warning system.  When the system reported a missile being launched from the United States, Petrov concluded that the report was a false alarm and did not press the button to end the world. This decision by Stanislav Petrov may have prevented an erroneous retaliatory nuclear attack on the United States and its Western allies. Investigation later confirmed that the satellite warning system had malfunctioned [12, 13].

It is speculated from an evidential basis that the US may have used a neutron bomb to capturer Baghdad Airport intact in 2003 [14, 15]. It appears that Harry Truman considered  launching a nuclear attack on China during the Korean War [16, 17]. The “empirical annual probability” of nuclear weapons use  is very low i.e. as far as is publicly known, there have been only 2  such nuclear weapons use events in the last 72 years (Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945).  However this low  “empirical annual probability” must be balanced against the existential reality that 7.5 billion human beings will die immediately  or soon thereafter as a result of a general  nuclear exchange today [18].

4. Speciescidal, ecocidal, omnicidal, terracidal Nuclear Winter.

Beatrice Fihn: “A calculated military escalation could lead to the indiscriminate mass murder of civilians. If only a small fraction of today’s nuclear weapons were used, soot and smoke from the firestorms would loft high into the atmosphere – cooling, darkening and drying the Earth’s surface for more than a decade. It would obliterate food crops, putting billions at risk of starvation. Yet we continue to live in denial of this existential threat…”

Comment. A nuclear exchange would wipe out most of Humanity (current population about 7.5 billion) , successively through the initial instantaneous destruction of cities, subsequent deaths from burns and  radiation sickness from radioactive fallout, and  finally  through a “Nuclear Winter” decimating agriculture, photosynthesis and photosynthate-based life in general [2]. Fred Mendelsohn (Emeritus Professor,  the Florey Institute of Neuroscience & Mental Health at the University of Melbourne) (2014): “Despite the end of the Cold War, we still live under the dark shadow of some 16,300 nuclear weapons, 1,800 of them on high alert. Each is capable of levelling a city in a flash, killing hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of innocent people. Each is designed to destroy indiscriminately on a vast scale, leaving a toxic radioactive legacy for decades. Collectively, nuclear weapons pose the greatest immediate threat to the health and welfare of humankind and the future of the planet. Such was the conclusion of the world’s leading medical authority, the World Health Organization… Climate scientists now predict that even a so-called “limited” nuclear war would put up to two billion people at risk of famine from an unnatural prolonged winter. A war fought using 5 per cent of all nuclear weapons in the world today would render the planet completely and permanently uninhabitable… The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which originated in Melbourne seven years ago, has been instrumental in putting a nuclear weapons ban firmly on the global political agenda” [19].

The late Malcolm Fraser (former PM in 1975-1983 of an Australia that in 2017 fervently supports US and Israeli nuclear terrorism) and Dr Tilmann Ruff (a co-founder of ICAN in Melbourne and Associate Professor at the Nossal Institute for Global Health, University of Melbourne ): “New and overwhelming evidence has been added at successive conferences about what nuclear weapons actually do to human beings and the Earth that supports all species including us. Key conclusions from all three conferences were unequivocal. Any nuclear explosion/war would have long-term catastrophic effects in almost every sphere, not constrained by borders, that could threaten the very survival of humankind. Radioactive contamination, disproportionately harming women and children, would cause genetic mutations and cancer over countless generations. The risks of nuclear weapons being used are real, and have previously been underestimated. Aggravated by international tensions, there are many circumstances in which nuclear weapons could be used by intent; or by accidental, mistaken, unauthorised or malicious use, including through machine failure, human error and increasingly, cyberattack. Limiting the role of nuclear weapons to deterrence – their claimed role in the “defence” of Australia – does not remove the danger of their use. On the contrary, the vulnerability of nuclear command and control systems, maintaining arsenals on high alert, ready to be fired within minutes, forward deployments and continuing modernisation of nuclear arsenals, increase the risks over time. Every weapon developed has been used in war. In August 1945 only two nuclear weapons existed; both were used. Despite reductions, there are now 16,400, most of them many times more powerful than the weapons which destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing close to a quarter of a million people. The only assurance against nuclear war is the total elimination of nuclear weapons” [20].

5. UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons – “nuclear weapons are now illegal”.

Beatrice Fihn: “This year the hypothetical marched forward towards the actual as 122 nations negotiated and concluded a UN treaty to outlaw these weapons of mass destruction. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons provides the pathway forward at a moment of great global crisis…”

Comment. 127 nations out of the 193 UN members states have formally endorsed the Pledge to outlaw nuclear weapons. In addition, 23 nations have voted in favour of the Pledge resolution. [21].  Those refusing to take the Pledge or to be in favour of the Pledge resolution are nearly all European countries and allies of the nuclear terrorist nations of the US,  the UK, France  and Apartheid Israel, degenerate nations prepared to mass murder billions of human beings for some crazily  perceived profit . The European nations formally endorsing the Pledge include  Andorra, Austraia, Cyprus, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Malta and San Marino; in addition, Belarus, New Zealand, Sweden and Switzerland have voted in favour of the Pledge resolution [2, 21].

According to Wikipedia (2017): “The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, or the Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty, is the first legally binding international agreement to comprehensively prohibit nuclear weapons, with the goal of leading towards their total elimination. It was passed on 7 July 2017. In order to come into effect, signature and ratification by at least 50 countries is required. For those nations that are party to it, the treaty prohibits the development, testing, production, stockpiling, stationing, transfer, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons, as well as assistance and encouragement to the prohibited activities. For nuclear armed states joining the treaty, it provides for a time-bound framework for negotiations leading to the verified and irreversible elimination of its nuclear weapons programme. According to a mandate adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in December 2016, negotiations on the treaty began in the United Nations in March 2017 and continued from 15 June to 7 July 2017. In the vote on the treaty text, 122 were in favour, 1 voted against (Netherlands), and 1 abstained (Singapore). 69 nations did not vote, among them all of the nuclear weapon states and all NATO members except the Netherlands” [2, 22].

As of 22 September 2017, 3 states have ratified the Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty (Guyana, Thailand and Vatican City )  and 53 states have signed the Treaty: Algeria, Austria, Bangladesh, Brazil, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chile, Comoros, Congo (Democratic Republic of; Congo-Kinshasa, Zaire), Congo (Republic of; Congo-Brazzaville), Costa Rica, Cote D’Ivoire, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Fiji, Gambia (The), Ghana, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Indonesia, Ireland, Kiribati, Laos, Libya, Liechtenstein, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Mexico, Nepal, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Palau, Palestine, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Samoa, San Marino, Sao Tome and Principe, South Africa, Thailand,  Togo, Tuvalu, Uruguay, Vanuatu, Vatican City, Venezuela, and Vietnam [2, 22].

Dr Tilman Ruff: “[In September 2017]  a historic ceremony will take place in the UN General Assembly – the opening for signature of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The treaty will enter into force 90 days after 50 countries have ratified it. More than 40 are expected to sign today, and more will sign over the coming weeks and months. As it was adopted by a vote of 122 to one, it can be expected that close to 100 countries will sign before year’s end and it will enter into force in 2018… No human should have the power to end the world in an afternoon. If nuclear weapons are retained they will eventually be used. The crisis relating to North Korea, for which there is no military solution, highlights again that our luck could run out any day. The countries that have foresworn biological and chemical weapons now need to do the same for nuclear weapons. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons provides a credible pathway to the verified, time-bound elimination of weapons posing the most acute existential threat to people everywhere. All countries – including North Korea, the US and Australia – should join the treaty” [23].

6. Choice – “the end of nuclear weapons or the end of us?”

Beatrice Fihn: “Nuclear weapons, like chemical weapons, biological weapons, cluster munitions and land mines before them, are now illegal. Their existence is immoral. Their abolishment is in our hands. The end is inevitable. But will that end be the end of nuclear weapons or the end of us? We must choose one. We are a movement for rationality. For democracy. For freedom from fear. We are campaigners from 468 organisations who are working to safeguard the future, and we are representative of the moral majority: the billions of people who choose life over death, who together will see the end of nuclear weapons”.

Comment. Campaigning on the basis of rationality and humanity has so far failed to sway the nuclear terrorist states. As detailed below, the nuclear terrorist states and other  nuclear terrorism-supporting states should be utterly stigmatized and subject to sensibly and selectively applied Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS).

Final comments.

What can existentially nuclear weapons-threatened Humanity do in addition to pleading for rationality and humanity? The inescapable horrible reality is that those committed to nuclear weapons and “nuclear deterrence” are committed to the mass murder of non-combatant men, women and children and thence likely terracide – the wiping out of most terrestrial life. World fail to describe such evil – in short, they are degenerate scum who have no place in any decent society.

Complete nuclear disarmament is technically possible with resolute goodwill and commitment. Demands for (a) abolition of or intervening drastic reductions in nuclear weapons, and (b) Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) for non-compliance should be selectively applied to all nuclear terrorist states, noting that  (a) huge countries with huge numbers of nuclear weapons have more “space” for massive arms  reductions,  and (b) countries with smaller populations  and without global imperial imperatives may be more susceptible  to selectively applied, BDS-based persuasion.

Nuclear  powers with populations under 100 million like France (population 66.9 million, 290 warheads),  the UK (population 65.6 million, 120 warheads), Apartheid Israel (Jewish Israeli population 6.4 million, 400 warheads) and North Korea (population 25.4 million, circa 10 warheads) are most susceptible to pressure and may be variously persuaded by BDS impositions  to abandon nuclear weapons. Thus the UK and France have no empires left to defend,  are remote from conceivable invaders.   and should be particularly  susceptible  to Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) as were successfully applied to  Apartheid South Africa and are currently being applied against Apartheid Israel. North Korea, that lost 28% of its population to US bombing in the Korean War [24],  could be granted a guarantee of safety and territorial integrity by its neighbours China and Russia. US-backed, nuclear terrorist, racist Zionist-run, genocidally racist, democracy-by-genocide Apartheid Israel is already subject to Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)  over its obscene, Nazi-style Apartheid race laws,  and must also be condemned for its  ongoing Palestinian Genocide, its complicity in other  genocides,  and its subversion of Western democracies [25-33]. Apartheid Israel should be de-nuclearized immediately  by overwhelming global consensus after the example of Apartheid South Africa (that obtained nuclear weapons with the help of pro-Apartheid US  and  Apartheid Israel) [34, 35].

Numerous countries that (a) host US bases, (b) host US  nuclear weapons, (c) host  nuclear-armed warships, or (d) host nuclear terrorism-related communications facilities should face Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS). Thus  when a US nuclear-armed warship is in an Australian port,  Australia is effectively hosting US nuclear weapons  and making Australia a nuclear target,  as well as through Australia hosting a US Marine base in Darwin, hosting nuclear-armed warships in general, and hosting  joint US-Australian  nuclear terrorism-related communications facilities such as that at Pine Gap in Central Australia.

Nuclear disarmament is possible as exampled by Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and South Africa [36]. All nuclear terrorist countries and all of  the mostly European and US-allied countries that refuse to join the present 127 nations who support the Nuclear Weapons Ban or the 23 supporting the anti-nuclear weapons Pledge, should be subject to Boycotts, Divestment & Sanctions (BDS).   Decent people must vote out all politicians and parties complicit in nuclear terrorism. Thus Australians who utterly abhor mass murder will utterly reject the Zionist-subverted, US lackey, US nuclear terrorism-complicit  Lib-Labs (Coalition and Labor Right), vote 1 Green and put the Coalition last.

There must be zero tolerance for racism, violence and mass murder whether actual or prospective. The world must save itself and ban all nuclear weapons now.

References.

[1]. Beatrice Fihn, “Nobel Peace Prize Speech by ICAN leader Beatrice Fihn”, The Mainichi, 11 December 2017: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20171211/p2a/00m/0na/004000c .

[2]. “Nuclear weapons ban, end poverty and reverse climate change”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/nuclear-weapons-ban  and https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/nuclear-weapons-ban .

[3]. “All  Nobel Peace Prizes”, Nobelprize.org: https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/ .

[4]. “Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, including an avoidable mortality-related history of every country from Neolithic times and is now available for free perusal on the web : http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com.au/  .

[5]. “List of states with nuclear weapons”, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_weapons  .

[6]. “Nuclear weapons and Israel”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Israel .

[7]. Victor Gilinsky, “Israel’s sea-borne nukes pose risks”, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 8 February 2016: http://thebulletin.org/israel%E2%80%99s-sea-based-nukes-pose-risks9151 .

[8]. Gideon Polya, “Hitler, Churchill, Trump, Aung San Suu Kyi & Genocidal Intent To Destroy”, Countercurrents, 29 September 2017: http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/09/29/hitler-churchill-trump-aung-san-suu-kyi-genocidal-intent-to-destroy/ .
[9]. “Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention”: http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html .

[10]. “Vasili Arkhipov”,  Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov .

[11]. “Are we doomed?”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/are-we-doomed .

[12]. “Stanislaw Petrov”, Wikipedia:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov .

[13]. “On this date [26 September] 1983, Stanislav Petrov single-handedly prevented nuclear war”, Mental Floss, 26 September 2012: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/143192 .

[14]. Gideon Polya, “Review: “Genocide In Iraq Volume II. The Obliteration Of A Modern State” By Abdul-Haq Al-Ani & Tariq Al-Ani”, Countercurrents, 15 March, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya150315.htm .

[15]. Abdul-Haq Al-Ani and Tariq Al-Ani “Genocide in Iraq Volume II. The Obliteration of a Modern State” (Clarity Press, 2015).

[16]. Robert Farley, “What id the United States had used the bomb in Korea”, The Diplomat, 5 January 2016: https://thediplomat.com/2016/01/what-if-the-united-states-had-used-the-bomb-in-korea/ .

[17]. Carl A. Posey, “How the Korean War almost went nuclear”, Air & Space Magazine,  July 2015: https://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/how-korean-war-almost-went-nuclear-180955324/ .

[18]. Gideon Polya, “Rational risk management, science and denial”: http://rationalriskmanagement.blogspot.com.au/2008/02/risk-management-science-denial.html .

[19]. Fred Mendelsohn, “Working to abolish nuclear weapons… Now, with a nuclear weapons ban on the horizon, there is a historic window of opportunity for all of us to amplify our call for a nuclear-weapons-free world – and to hold our governments to account to ensure that they deliver this to us.”, ABC Radio National Ockham’s Razor, 10 August 2014: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/working-to-abolish-nuclear-weapons/5650138#transcript  .

[20]. Malcolm Fraser and Tilman Ruff, “2015 is the year to ban nuclear weapons”, The Age, 19 February 2015: http://www.theage.com.au/comment/2015-is-the-year-to-ban-nuclear-weapons-20150219-13jali.html .

[21]. ICAN, “Humanitarian Pledge. Stigmatize, prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons”: http://www.icanw.org/pledge/ .

[22]. “Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Prohibition_of_Nuclear_Weapons .

[23]. Tilman Ruff, “Australia must sign the prohibition of nuclear weapons and here’s why”, The Conversation, 20 September 2017: https://theconversation.com/australia-must-sign-the-prohibition-on-nuclear-weapons-heres-why-83951 .

[24]. Michel Chossudovsky, “Know the facts: North Korea lost neatly 30% of ots population as a resut of  US bombinbgs in the 1950s”, Global Research, 27 November 2010: http://www.globalresearch.ca/know-the-facts-north-korea-lost-close-to-30-of-its-population-as-a-result-of-us-bombings-in-the-1950s/22131 .

[25]. Gideon Polya, “Palestinian Genocide–imposing Apartheid Israel Complicit In Rohingya Genocide, Other Genocides & US, UK & Australian State Terrorism”, Countercurrents, 30 November 2017: http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/11/30/palestinian-genocide-imposing-apartheid-israel-complicit-in-rohingya-genocide-other-genocides-us-uk-australian-state-terrorism/  .

[26]. Gideon Polya, “Racist Zionism and Israeli State Terrorism threats to Australia and Humanity”, Palestinian Genocide: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/racist-zionism-and-israeli .

[27]. Kevin Barrett, “Buying Sharon – and “We  Jews control America””” , Veterans Today, 11 January 2014: http://www.veteranstoday.com/2014/01/11/burying-sharon/ .

[28]. Gideon Polya, “Apartheid Israel buries serial war criminal, genocidal racist and nuclear terrorist Shimon Peres”, Countercurrents, 1 October 2016: http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/10/01/apartheid-israel-buries-serial-war-criminal-genocidal-racist-and-nuclear-terrorist-shimon-peres/ .

[29]. Gideon Polya, “Israeli-Palestinian & Middle East conflict – from oil to climate genocide”, Countercurrents, 21 August 2017: http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/08/21/israeli-palestinian-middle-east-conflict-from-oil-to-climate-genocide/ .

[30]. Gideon Polya, “End 50 Years Of Genocidal Occupation & Human Rights Abuse By US-Backed Apartheid Israel”, Countercurrents,  9 June  2017: http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/06/09/end-50-years-of-genocidal-occupation-human-rights-abuse-by-us-backed-apartheid-israel/ .

[31]. William A. Cook (editor), “The Plight of the Palestinians: a Long History of Destruction”, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

[32].  Gideon Polya, “Review: “The Plight Of The Palestinians. A Long History Of Destruction””,   Countercurrents, 17 June, 2012: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya170612.htm .

[33]. “Palestinian Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/ .

[34]. “South Africa and weapons of mass destruction”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction .

[35]. Gideon Polya, “Nuclear Weapons Ban & Boycotts, Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) To Save World From  Nuclear, Poverty & Climate Threats”, Countercurrents, 11 August 2014: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya110814.htm .

[36]. “Arms control Association”: http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Nuclearweaponswhohaswhat .

Dr Gideon Polya taught science students at a major Australian university for 4 decades. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds” (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London , 2003). He has published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ); see also his contributions “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/australian-complicity-in-iraq-mass-mortality/3369002#transcript

13 December 2017

Source: http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/12/13/ican-nobel-peace-prize-acceptance-speech-nuclear-weapons-ban-now/

By Dr Ludwig Watzal

President Trump’s unilateral decision to declare Jerusalem as Israel’s capital earned him worldwide criticism and condemnation, except for Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu’s so-called charm offensive in Brussels, where he wanted to convince the EU to follow Trump’s example, was shunt by Federica Mogherini, the EU’s foreign policy chief, saying that “this move will not come.” She stressed the support of the EU for a two-state solution with Jerusalem as the capital of both states.

By the way, Netanyahu was not invited by the EU but asked himself to read the EU the riot act. Instead of kicking him out, the EU representatives endured him and became prominent and firm after he left the stage. Community, which tries to act as a global player, would have shown such a political rascal the door. Instead, they got insulting by Netanyahu and took it with a smile.

There have been widespread demonstrations all across the Muslim world, especially in occupied Palestine. Demonstrators also went into the streets in Lebanon, Turkey, Morocco, Sweden, and Berlin, protesting before US Embassies calling anti-American and anti-Israeli slogans.

Turkish President Erdogan uttered harsh criticism about Trump’s decision and Israel in particular, calling Israel a “terrorist state” and a “killer of children” slamming the Zionist regime as an “oppressive, occupation state.” And the US is a “partner in bloodshed” in the Middle East, so Erdogan. At a meeting of the Arab League in Cairo, Lebanon’s foreign minister Gebran Bassil, a Maronite Christian, called for sanctions against the US.

In Berlin, two thousand demonstrators gathered at the Brandenburg Gate close to the US Embassy, shouting anti-Israeli slogans and burning a self-made Israeli flag. This childish symbolism originated out of frustration, anger, lack of power and despair, created a hype among German politicians who branded it an act of “anti-Semitism.” One can ask why the demonstrators didn’t burn the American flag too, which would have made much more sense. The burning of flags is not a crime and falls under the right to demonstrate, as long as it’s not attached to a foreign embassy, which is considered a crime in Germany.

What criticism of Israel’s criminal behavior is concerned, the exercise of freedom of speech is in great danger. Among German politicians and the fawning media, the anti-Semitism-club is always at hand to make critics silence or stigmatize any Israel critics as “anti-Semites.” It still works, although we are living in the 21st century and not in the Middle Ages. With reference to Karl Marx one can say; a ghost is going around in Germany, the specter of anti-Semitism!

Unanimously, the German political class condemned the burning of the Israeli flag as a form of “anti-Semitism and xenophobia”, how Chancellor Merkel called it. Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière stated: “We don’t accept it when Jews or the state of Israel are disgraced in this way.” He continued saying: Germany is “bound in a special way to the state of Israel and people of Jewish belief.” And Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel  said that despite understandable criticism of Trump’s decision, “there is no right and also no justification to burn Israeli flags, incite hatred against Jews or question the right of Israel to exist.” Not enough of this political nonsense, Gabriel claimed that such acts do not only oppose Israel but also “the constitutional order of Germany.” None of the demonstrators denied Israel’s right to exists and nobody called the “constitutional order” into question, Mr. Gabriel. Perhaps the Foreign Minister doesn’t understand democracy.

Justice and “Censorship” Minister Heiko Maas was in on it declaring “Every form of anti-Semitism is an attack against us. There is no place for any anti-Semitism.”  Rightly so, but there has been no anti-Semitism at the Berlin rally only criticism against the Israeli occupier and its ally the US. Jens Spahn, a politician from Merkel’s CDU, wrote on Twitter: “We have been looking at imported anti-Semitism for too long out of the misreading of misunderstood tolerance.” One could continue this kind of political rhetoric on pages without any gain of knowledge.

The President of the Central Council of Jews in German, Josef Schuster, also added his two cents to it. According to him, the burning of the self-designed Israel flag was pure Anti-Semitism and a threat to Israel’s existence. Schuster never criticized Israel’s brutal occupation and the mistreatment of the Palestinian people. Not only the Central Council of Jews but also other Jewish functionaries are fighting tooth and nail against criticism of Israel. Even Jewish critics of Israel such as the editor-in-chief of the online magazine “the Semit,” Abraham Melzer, was slandered by the chairperson of the Jewish community in Munich, Charlotte Knobloch, as a “notorious anti-Semite.”  A court in Munich has forbidden her this slander, but Knobloch appealed the judgment.

One tenor in many articles was a kind of anti-Semitism that came with the refugees from the Arab world, although it was stressed that there is a latent anti-Semitism in Germany of about 20 percent among the population. It comes to no one’s surprise that all the headlines linked the demonstrations to “Anti-Semitism.” On a regular basis, many of the anti-Semitic “scandals” are initiated by infamous Jewish journalists. Too often, the press jumps on their bandwagon and the slander of innocents take its course.

The reaction of the political class is pure hypocrisy and ingratiation to Israel. The politicians kept mum when Israel committed war crimes against the population of the Gaza Strip killing several thousand. No word against settlements, house demolitions, land theft, random killings, settler inflicted terror, demolitions of institutions financed by the EU et cetera. Across-the-board, the German political class has no empathy for the oppressed Palestinians but only for the Zionist oppressor.

Dr. Ludwig Watzal works as a journalist and editor in Bonn , Germany . He runs the bilingual blog between the lines. http://between-the-lines-ludwig-watzal.blogspot.de/

13 December 2017

Source: http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/12/13/german-politicians-condemn-anti-israel-protest-as-anti-semitism/

By Nauman Sadiq

On the campaign trail, in his speeches as well as on TV debates with other presidential contenders, Donald Trump repeatedly mentioned that he has a ‘secret plan’ for defeating the Islamic State without elaborating what the plan is? To the careful observers of the US-led war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, however, the outlines of Trump’s ‘secret plan’ to defeat the Islamic State, particularly in Syria, have now become obvious.

As far as the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq is concerned, the Trump administration has continued with the policy of its predecessor. The Trump administration’s policy in Syria, however, has been markedly different from the regime change policy of the Obama administration. Unlike Iraq, where the US has provided air and logistical support to Iraq’s armed forces and allied militias in their battle to retake Mosul from the Islamic State militants, the conflict in Syria is much more complex that involves the Syrian government, the opposition-affiliated militant groups and the Kurds.

Regarding the recapture of Palmyra from the Islamic State by the Syrian government forces, a March 2 article in the Washington Post carried a rather paradoxical headline: “Hezbollah, Russia and the US help Syria retake Palmyra” [1]. The article by Liz Sly offers clues as to how the Syrian conflict has transformed under the new Trump administration. Further, according to a March 31 article [2] for the New York Times by Michael Gordon, the US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, and the Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, have stated on the record that defeating the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq is the first priority of the Trump administration and the fate of Bashar al-Assad is of least concern to the new administration.

Under the previous Obama administration, the evident policy in Syria was regime change, and any collaboration with the Syrian government against the Islamic State was simply not on the cards. The Trump administration, however, looks at the crisis in Syria from an entirely different perspective, a fact which is obvious from Donald Trump’s statements on Syria during the election campaign, and more recently by the statements of Nikki Haley and Rex Tillerson. Moreover, unlike the Obama administration which was hostile to Russia’s interference in Syria, the Trump administration is on friendly terms with Assad’s main backer in Syria, Vladimir Putin.

It is stated in the aforementioned article by Liz Sly that the US carried out 45 air strikes in the vicinity of Palmyra against the Islamic State’s targets in the month of February alone, which must have indirectly helped the Syrian government troops and the allied Hezbollah militia recapture Palmyra along with Russia’s air support.

Although expecting a radical departure from the six-year-long Obama administration’s policy of training and arming Sunni militants against the Shi’a-led Syrian government by the Trump administration is unlikely, however, the latter regards Islamic jihadists as a much bigger threat to the security of the US than the former. Therefore, some indirect support and a certain level of collaboration with Russia and the Syrian government against radical Islamists cannot be ruled out.

What has been different in the respective Syria policy of the two markedly different US administrations, however, is that while the Obama administration did avail itself of the opportunity to strike an alliance with the Kurds against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, but it was simply not possible for it to come up with an out of the box solution and use the Shi’a-led government and allied militias against the Sunni Arab militant groups, particularly the Islamic State. The Trump administration, however, is not hampered by the botched legacy of the Obama administration in Syria, and therefore it has been willing to some extent to cooperate with the Kurds as well as the Russians and the Syrian government against the Islamic jihadists in Syria.

Two obstacles to such a natural alignment of interests, however, are: first, Israel’s objections regarding the threat that Hezbollah poses to its regional security; and second, Turkey, which is a NATO member and has throughout nurtured several Sunni militant groups during the six-year-long conflict, would have serious reservations against the new US administration’s partnership not only with the Russians and the Syrian government but also with the PYD/YPG Kurds in Syria, which Turkey regards as an offshoot of the separatist PKK Kurds in southeast Turkey.

Therefore, in order to allay the concerns of Washington’s traditional allies in the Middle East, the Trump administration has conducted a cruise missiles strike on al-Shayrat airfield in Homs governorate on April 6 after the chemical weapons strike in Khan Sheikhoun, but that isolated incident was nothing more than a show of force to bring home the point that the newly elected president, Donald Trump, is a ‘powerful and aggressive’ president, while behind the scenes he has been willing to cooperate with Russia in Syria in order to contain and eliminate the threat posed by Islamic jihadists to the security of the US and the rest of the world.

It would be pertinent to mention here that unlike the dyed-in-the-wool politicians, like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who cannot look past beyond the tunnel vision of political establishments, it appears that Donald Trump not only follows news from conservative mainstream outlets, like the Fox News, but he has also been familiar with alternative news perspectives, such as Breitbart’s, no matter how racist and xenophobic.

Thus, Donald Trump is fully aware that the conflict in Syria is a proxy war initiated by the Western political establishments and their regional Middle Eastern allies against the Syrian government. And he is also mindful of the fact that the militants have been funded, trained and armed in the training camps located in the Turkey-Syria border regions to the north of Syria and the Jordan-Syria border regions to the south of Syria.

Finally, Karen De Young and Liz Sly made another startling revelation in a March 4 article [3] for the Washington Post that: “Trump has said repeatedly that the US and Russia should cooperate against the Islamic State, and he has indicated that the future of Russia-backed Assad is of less concern to him.” Thus, it appears, that the interests of all the major players in Syria have converged on defeating the Islamic jihadists, and the Obama era policy of regime change has been put on the back burner for all practical purposes.

Sources and links:

1- Hezbollah, Russia and the US help Syria retake Palmyra:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/syrian-army-retakes-the-ancient-city-of-palmyra-from-the-islamic-state/2017/03/02/fe770c78-ff63-11e6-9b78-824ccab94435_story.html

2- White House Accepts ‘Political Reality’ of Assad’s Grip on Power in Syria:

3- Pentagon plan to seize Raqqa calls for significant increase in U.S. participation:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pentagon-plan-to-seize-raqqa-calls-for-significant-increase-in-us-participation/2017/03/04/d3205386-00f3-11e7-8f41-ea6ed597e4ca_story.html

Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and petroimperialism.

13 December 2017

Source: http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/12/13/trump-administrations-turnaround-in-syria/

By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich

In 1995, a few short years after the official end of the Cold War when hope-filled nations were focusing on peace and prosperity, the United States Congress unanimously passed the “Jerusalem Embassy Act” into law.   The law recognized “Jerusalem” as the official capital of Israel. The passage of this law was left unnoticed by most.  Few objected to a law passed by the preeminent power of the new unilateral world order. Fewer still understood the consequences of the law.

On December 6, Donald Trump reminded the world of the decision made years ago.  There was outrage, but the true implications of this decision were not discussed.  Predictably, stories centered on Palestinians  – and Jews.  Some justified the decision while others condemned it. Many reasoned that the Palestinians had to be defended.  While others thought that it was up to the Arabs and Moslems to challenge America’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

The Jerusalem question raised legal challenges to religious claims.   The cacophony of protests and cheers obscured the approaching doomsday scenario that had been in the making for decades.  Few understood.  None listened.  Others are in denial, believing religious zealotry to be a geopolitical game.  But what has been taking place under our noses is not a fight over real estate, or international law.  It is the power of madness, or the mad in power, that is enabling religious fanaticism to prevail at a cost to our collective humanity.

How could we not have seen this coming? Perhaps our logic challenged it; or our sense of decency denied the reality of what was happening.  It would seem too improbable, simply too far-fetched that we should denounce God with our science and yet usher in rupture to bring back the God science had disproved (Big Bang).   But how do we ignore Senator Broxon telling a cheering crowd “Now, I don’t know about you, but when I heard about Jerusalem — where the King of Kings where our soon coming King is coming back to Jerusalem, it is because President Trump declared Jerusalem to be capital of Israel”.

And how do we ignore Benjamin Netanyahu taking ownership of Jerusalem stating that the Bible, the holy book for Jews and Christians, had justified it.    Should we then be surprised that rabbis sent a letter of gratitude to Trump, praising him for “fulfilling prophecies”.   Prophecies do not sit well with modernity; nonetheless, they exist.  And attempts to fulfill them are not new.

In 1990, there was an attempt by the ‘Temple Mount Faithful’ to bring a cornerstone for a reconstructed Third Temple to the Temple Mount.  In 2000, Ariel Sharon staged a provocative visit to the Temple Mount and said: “The Temple Mount is in our hands and will remain in our hands. It is the holiest site in Judaism and it is the right of every Jew to visit the Temple Mount,”.

In 2006, the Israeli government began work on an exact replica of the Hurva synagogue on its original site. The story of the Hurva has received little attention other than coinciding with Joe Biden’s visit to Israel and that government’s insistence on building more illegal settlements.  But Hurva is the beginning of the end.  Rabbis have been tailored for the special kind of garments they will be wearing in a “rebuilt temple”.[i]

Tragically for the world, such fanaticism is coupled with deadly weapons, thanks to the United States government. In 1999, Warner D. Farr, LTC, U.S. Army presented his findings in the Counterproliferation papers, Future Warfare Series No. 2, USAF Counterproliferation Center.  This fascinating report, among other things, sounded the alarm over the probability of Gush Emunim, a right wing religious organization, or others, hijacking a nuclear device to “liberate” the Temple Mount for the building of the third temple.

America continued to fund Israel’s activities and shielded it from criticism.

So while the Western media paints a doomsday picture triggered by Moslems, and Mr. Trump, on cue from his Israeli boss points the accusatory finger at Moslems, there are far more precarious scenarios that are kept hidden from the public.   The irony being that the Moslems are the only ones safeguarding the world from a Doomsday scenario by refusing to abandon the one city where both Christian and Jewish Zionists want to bring the world to an end.

What is incomprehensible is why is it that the rest of the world is following this pied piper into Armageddon?   Surely is it not cowardice that prompts them to have Palestinians fight their battle.  Or perhaps they believe they can avert this religious zealotry in time to save their skins while continuing to make a prophet by shedding the blood of the innocent in Jerusalem.   How to explain their complicity and their madness other than to remind them to heed the words of Alexander the Great: “Remember upon the conduct of each depends the fate of all”.

Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich is an independent researcher and writer with a focus on US foreign policy.

12 December 2017

Source: http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/12/12/trumps-doomsday-jerusalem-speech/

By Rima Najjar

What’s going on in Jerusalem is what has always been going on in Palestine since 1948 –the forced dispossession of Palestinian Arabs of their identity, land and heritage.

Because of Donald Trump’s declaration to move the US embassy to Jerusalem and the resultant global outrage regarding this decision, many people have become interested in understanding what is going on in Palestine and what the global ramifications might be.

They are finally becoming aware, after 69 years of Nakba, 69 anniversaries of Human Rights Day and 69 years of falsification of history, that the Palestinian people, like all other peoples in the world, do in fact have the right to self-determination and return.

Israel is surrounded by the Palestinians (among them 5 million UNRWA Palestine refugees in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan) it drove out of Palestine to establish the Apartheid settler colonial Jewish state there. These people are mostly, but not exclusively, Muslim in religion. They are the indigenous people of Palestine, Arab in culture, the true owners of the land.

But at the center of Zionist mythology is illegally-annexed Arab East Jerusalem.

As Hamid Dabashiwrites in Al-Jazeera:

If you want to understand the psychopathology at the root of the Zionist psychosis, you must go to the heart of their delusion, like an analyst placing a mentally sick person on a couch – and today there is no better place to see that psychotic colonial fixation at work than in an article, titled, Of Course Jerusalem Is Israel’s Capital, published (where else?) in the New York Times just hours before Donald Trump’s announcement that in his august moronic opinion, “Jerusalem is the capital of Israel….” Jerusalem has never been and will never be the capital of a racist apartheid European colonial garrison state that calls itself “Israel”. Never.

The unilateral declaration by the US president has caused so much protest because it recognizes Israel’s sovereignty over illegally annexed East Jerusalem with its ensuing residency revocation and forcible illegal transfer of many Palestinians from the city.

The declaration also goes against international law (14 of 15 Security Council members denounced it) as well as breaks with decisions on such “recognition” by every American president since Harry Truman formally recognized Israel on May 14, 1948. (See also Jerusalem as corpus separatum and its legal implications.)

But why is this happening now?

Harry Truman was swayed in his decision to recognize Israel by his political adviser, Clark Clifford, who wanted to secure the Jewish vote and funds essential for winning the US’s upcoming presidential election.

Donald Trump was also influenced in his decision by influential American Jews like Sheldon Adelson, Jared Kushner, Jason Greenblatt and US envoy to Israel David Friedman and by right-wing Christian evangelicals.

Today in US domestic politics, despite the disillusionment with Israel of the younger generation of American Jews, support for Zionism is loud and powerful among the traditional base of Zionism, as well as among Evangelical Christians and neo-fascists. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) continues to have a death grip on both parties.

Shamefully, on this issue, as Stephen Zunes writes, “there is no real opposition party” in the US.

The Palestinian Authority is impotent, shackled by Oslo and the fraudulent promise of a “two-state solution” . It has zero leverage other than to dissolve itself and leave Israel and the US to foot the bill for the occupation.

Arab countries such as Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia are American allies and heavily dependent on the US. These countries are not expected to act against their political self-interest. There is no “Arab supremacy” doctrine to parallel or counter the “Jewish supremacy” doctrine of Zionism.

When Palestinians say that Jerusalem or Palestine is Arab, they are referring to Palestinian Arabs of any religion, and not to a generic supremacist notion of Arabness in the political sense, the way Israel refers to Jews and Jewishness.

Arab countries are not likely to come to the rescue of Jerusalem, but Muslims (who are largely non-Arab) are – not least because of Jewish encroachment on al-Aqsa Mosque in Haram al-Sharif compound (see also Jerusalem’s Temple Mount: The Hoax of the Millennium! by Mike M. Joseph, 2011). And that’s where, unfortunately, the Islamophobic West’s anxieties are focused – not, as they ought to be, on warmongering Israel (See After Israel: Towards Cultural Transformation by Marcelo Svirsky 2014).

Through the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement and other strategies for resistance, the Palestinian Authority must find a way to get rid of the racist “two state solution” concept, renounce the Oslo Accords, and come up with a democratic alternative, one that does not deny the humanity of Palestinian Arabs nor value the well-being of colonizing Jews (euphemistically called “settlers” or “immigrants”) over that of the indigenous people of historic Palestine – of any religion.

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. She is an activist, researcher and retired professor of English literature, Al-Quds University, occupied West Bank.

12 December 2017

Source: http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/12/12/its-not-simply-jerusalem-its-all-of-palestine/

By Paul Craig Roberts

I deplore the tax cut that has passed Congress. It is not an economic policy tax cut, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with supply-side economics. The entire purpose is to raise equity prices by providing equity owners with more capital gains and dividends. In other words, it is legislation that makes equity owners richer, thus further polarizing society into a vast arena of poverty and near-poverty and the One Percent, or more precisely a fraction of the One Percent wallowing in billions of dollars. Unless our rulers can continue to control the explanations, the tax cut edges us closer to revolution resulting from complete distrust of government.

The current tax legislation drops the corporate tax rate to 20%. This means that global corporations registered in the US will be taxed at a lower income tax rate than a licensed practical nurse making $50,000 per year. The nurse, if single, faces in 2017 a 25% marginal tax rate on all income over $37,950.

A single person is taxed at a rate of 33% on all income above $191,651. 33% was the top tax rate extracted from medieval serfs, and approaches the tax rate on US 19th century slaves. Such an upper middle class income as $191,651 sounds extraordinary to most Americans, but it is so far from the multi-million dollar annual incomes of the rich as to be invisible. In America, it is the shrinking middle and upper middle class incomes that bear the burden of income taxation. The rich with their capital gains from their equity holdings are taxed at 15%.

Even single individuals who earn between $1 and $9,325 are taxed at 10% on their pittance.

The neoliberal economists who are the shills for the rich, Wall Street, and the Banks-Too-Big-Too-Fail claim, erroneously, that by cutting the corporate income tax rate to 20% all sorts of offshored profits will be brought back to the US and lead to a booming economy and higher wages. This is absolute total nonsense. The money won’t come back, because it is invested abroad where labor costs are lower, if invested at all instead of buying back the corporation’s stock or buying other existing companies. After 20 years of offshoring US manufacturing and professional tradable skills and the incomes associated with the jobs, who is going to invest in America? The American population has no income with which to purchase the goods and services from new investment, and the American population’s credit cards are maxed out.

All that is going to happen is that Wall Street will calculate the lower tax rate into a higher equity price. Wall Street can do this without any of the offshored earnings coming home. Suddenly, everyone who owns equities will experience a boost in wealth, or the boost has already occurred in anticipation of the handout.

The deficit-conscious Republicans have put into the Bill for Enhancement of the Rich’s Wealth, cuts in social services in order to “save workers from higher interest rates from budget deficits.” This is more dishonesty. If the Fed lets real interest rates rise to any meaningful amount, derivatives will unwind, and the Fed will have to create trillions more in new dollars to keep its ponzi scheme in place. The deficit that results from the tax cut will be covered by the Fed purchasing the Treasuries, not by a rise in interest rates.

What we are witnessing in the US and indeed throughout the western world is the total failure of capitalism. Capitalism is now merely a looting machine. The financial sector no longer supplies capital for production. What the financial sector does is to turn discretionary consumer income into interest and fee payments to banks. Aggregate demand can only grow through debt expansion, and the consumers reach a point where they cannot expand their debt.

Capitalism, hiding behind “globalism,” which is misrepresented as a good thing when it is death itself, locates production where labor is cheapest, thus depriving First World labor of good wages and work opportunities and putting First World countries on the path to becoming Third World countries. Short-term profits and executive and board bonuses and stock options are maximized at the cost of the destruction of the domestic consumer market.

Plunder Capitalism also privatizes as much of the public sector, such as the military, as possible, thus driving up the cost of the Pentagon’s budget. Jobs that the soldiers themselves formerly did are given to politically-connected firms. What was once KP (kitchen patrol) is now provided by an outside private service. Private mercenaries hired by the Pentagon collect as much in a month as troops in the line of fire earn in a year. I don’t know that the army any longer has a supply organization other than the private business that has the contract.

Medicare and Medicaid are the next to be privatized, along with Social Security. The tax cut will result in deficit and high interest rate hype, and these lies will be used to save the workers from high interest rates on their mortgage, credit card, and student loan debt by scaling back or privatizing Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

The environment and public lands will be sacrificed to the private profits of timber, mining, and energy companies. Grizzly bears and wolves are losing their protection under the endangered species act so that states can sell trophy hunting licenses to men who have to prove their manhood by killing an animal with a high-powerful rifle at a safe distance.

What we are witnessing is the complete looting of America and the entirety of the West. While the Western World collapses, the insouciant, submissive people sit there sucking their thumbs while they are being ruined.

Nothing is left of the West except looters at work.

This tax bill is an abomination, an act of brutal plunder. Its sponsors should be tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail, if not hung from a lamp post.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal.

11 December 2017

Source: https://www.transcend.org/tms/2017/12/plunder-capitalism/

By Nanjala Nyabola

In the wake of the CNN report on human auctions in Libya, there has rightly been a surge in concern for the thousands of Africans languishing in inhumane conditions in detention camps.

Political leaders in Europe and Africa, including UN Secretary-General António Guterres and African Union Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki, have condemned the situation.

Notable also has been the spontaneous attention of African and African-American celebrities in the face of the silence by official Hollywood goodwill ambassadors for various international organisations.

After years of flailing diplomacy and lonely advocacy, it seems the world is finally ready to talk about the humanitarian disaster in Libya.

But while this new wave of attention is welcome and necessary, it does raise key questions.

Why did it take so long to have this near-unified voice of condemnation on a well-researched and well-covered issue that has been in the public domain for the better part of the last decade? Why now and not before? And more importantly, what does this delayed reaction say about race and racism in international humanitarian work?

The CNN film has had such a major impact in part because of the starkness of the imagery – the visuals reminiscent of the trans-Saharan and trans-Atlantic slave trades.

Although the men in the videos are not shackled, they are certainly imprisoned and, in a later part of the film, they detail the dire conditions in which they are held. Rape, beatings, starvation and murder all recur with alarming frequency in this contemporary slave trade.

The impact of injustice

Yet this information is not new. International organisations, politicians, and journalists have all reported the dire conditions facing African migrants in Libya from at least 2010.

Rather, this new urgency can be attributed in part to the rise of new forms of organising for racial justice.

Specifically, the Black Lives Matter movement has broadened the concerns of global racial solidarity, not just in the United States where it was born, but also across other racially divided societies like South Africa and Brazil.

African diasporas in France and in the United Kingdom have also organised chapters to fight local racial battles. The call for a new global compact for racial justice demanded in the streets of Baltimore, New York, Paris, Johannesburg, and Tel Aviv is finally being heard in offices in Geneva and New York.

Is global humanitarianism ready to talk about race?

It should be, considering that anti-black racism is the elephant in the room when it comes to the protection of refugees and migrants.

The vast majority of the world’s refugees and migrants today are Asian and African, unlike in the 1940s when the original instruments of protection were negotiated.

Most of these people remain in their region of origin. South-South migration is common in Africa where, for example, 20,000 Ethiopians and Eritreans try to reach southern Africa every year.

It’s important to situate contemporary human mobility in its proper place. With the notable exception of the cruel and inhumane global slave trade, the search for better opportunities, particularly in young men negotiating patriarchal masculinities, is – and has long been – common.

But the rules have changed.

In the 19th century as more and more young men took to the sea from southern Portugal as part of exploration and colonisation missions, the women they left behind would sing mournful songs, lamenting their departure and willing them to return safely, songs collectively known as Fado.

Now, hundreds of thousands of young African men and women die on their journeys abroad – from the North African deserts to the Mediterranean Sea, primarily as a consequence of increasingly inhumane policies towards human mobility. They are unmourned except when families finally get word that they have gone missing.

Criminalising migrants

Unlike European men in the last century who were celebrated for leaving home in search of opportunity or even adventure, young African men today are criminalised and punished, especially when they try to enter predominantly white societies.

Take another example. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have crossed into Bangladesh and have been largely welcomed, if under-resourced, while Australia expends much force and energy to keep hundreds of refugees violently contained on Manus Island. The same can be said of South Americans attempting to cross into the United States, and of course the frame of existential crisis that populist parties in Europe reserve for Muslim refugees from the Middle East.

If there is a global crisis of migration it is that societies are resorting to increasingly draconian measures to keep “The Other” out.

Contrast this panic with the treatment of predominantly white migrants or “expats”. Most countries in the world have migration policies that favour immigration by “expats” while penalising similar migration from predominantly black and brown populations.

This includes African countries like Kenya, which has kept half a million Somali refugees encamped with no legal status or pathway to citizenship for over 25 years.

On the campaign trail earlier this year, French President Emmanuel Macron emphatically offered France as a “second home” to American climate scientists concerned about the anti-science proclivities of Donald Trump’s administration.

But when African and European leaders met in Abidjan last week, Macron was equivocal in offering the same emphatic welcome to African migrants held in the detention centres in Libya – regardless of their qualifications.

Everyone wants “good migrants” – where “good” means primarily white and/or wealthy.

Ignoring the suffering

At the same time, consider that the barter of African bodies in Libya is not a question of a handful of criminals in the desert. It is a global system that rises to the highest level.

Deposed Libyan president Muammar Gaddafi routinely used the threat of allowing mass migration of black Africans to Europe in negotiations for improved political relations.

European governments have repeatedly paid African countries to take and keep African migrants and refugees in Africa. Black and brown bodies are constantly on sale in the modern era, but it is couched in the polite language of diplomatic negotiation and “helping them where they are”.

And the very act of feigning shock at information that has been in the public domain – reported by survivors and journalists alike – for so long speaks to an unwillingness to see the suffering of Africans.

Race and racism are at the heart of the ongoing refugee and migrant crisis, but, to date, humanitarianism has been reluctant to talk about it in stark terms.

The preferred language of protection is dry and technical, linked to statutes and conventions that were drafted at the time of Jim Crow and independence movements around the world.

Consider that the refugee convention entered into force in 1951 when most of Africa and the Caribbean was still colonised and three years before Brown v. Board of Education desegregated US schools.

New voices

The convention was not designed with ethnic minorities in mind and has struggled to adapt as the dynamics of refugee protection have shifted. It responded to the white-on-white crimes of World War II and is predicated on the goodwill of states towards citizens that arguably has never been extended to black or brown people.

Which is probably why, less than a week later, the momentum triggered by the CNN film is already fading. The United States has pulled out of the new global compact on migration, and the document agreed upon by EU and AU leaders in Abidjan is widely viewed as weak.

The stark visuals of the CNN report have forced a conversation on humanitarian protection to be openly and explicitly framed as a question of racial justice.

This has allowed new voices and new advocacy into the conversation. It remains unclear if this new momentum and direction of thought will translate into more meaningful action for those on the move.

Nanjala Nyabola – Nairobi-based writer and political analyst.

11 December 2017

Source: https://www.transcend.org/tms/2017/12/what-libyas-slave-auctions-tell-us-about-the-humanitarian-system/

By Uri Avnery

Ehud Barak has “broken the silence”. He has published an article in The New York Times attacking our prime minister in the most abrasive terms. In other words, he has done exactly the same as the group of ex-soldiers who call themselves “Breaking the Silence”, who are accused of washing our dirty linen abroad. They expose war crimes to which they have been witnesses, or even participants.

But apart from the attack on Binyamin Netanyahu, Barak has used the article to publish his Peace Plan. A former chief-of-staff of the Israeli army and a former prime minister, Barak is obviously planning a comeback, and his peace plan is part of the effort. There seems to be, anyhow, open season for Peace Plans in our region.

I respect the intelligence of Barak. Many years ago, when he was still the deputy chief-of-staff, he unexpectedly invited me for a talk. We discussed the military history of the 17th century (military history is an old hobby of mine) and I soon realized that he was a real expert. I enjoyed it very much.

On a spring evening In May 1999, I was part of a huge jubilant crowd in Tel-Aviv’s Rabin Square after Barak had won the Knesset elections and become prime minister. He promised us “the dawn of a new day”. In particular, he promised to make peace with the Palestinians.

Intellectually, Barak is superior to all other politicians on the Israeli scene. Soon enough it appeared that this may be a handicap.

Intelligent people tend to be arrogant. They despise people of lesser mental powers. Knowing that he had all the answers, Barak demanded that President Clinton call a meeting with Yasser Arafat.

On the morrow I spoke with Arafat and found him deeply worried. Nothing has been prepared, no prior exchange of views, nothing. He did not want to go to the meeting which he thought was bound to fail, but could not refuse an invitation from the president of the US.

The result was catastrophe. Barak, sure of himself as usual, presented his peace plan. It was more accommodating than any prior Israeli plan, but still fell far short of the Palestinians’ minimum. The meeting broke up.

What does a diplomat do in such circumstances? He announces that “we had a fruitful exchange of views. We have not yet reached total agreement, but the negotiations will go on, and there will be more meetings, until we reach agreement.”

Barak did not say that. Neither did he say: “Sorry, I am totally ignorant of the Palestinian point of view, and I shall now study it seriously.”

Instead, Barak came home and announced that Israel had proposed the most generous terms ever, that the Palestinians had rejected everything, that the Palestinians want to throw us into the sea, that we have “no partner for peace”.

If this had been declared by a right-wing politician, everybody would have shrugged. But coming from the leader of the Peace Camp, it was devastating. Its effects can be felt to this very day.

SO HERE comes Barak, the new Barak, with a brand-new Peace Plan. What does he say? The aim, he writes, is “separation” from the Palestinians. Not peace, not cooperation, just separation. Get rid of them. “Peace” is not popular just now.

How separation? Israel will annex the new Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and the “settlement blocs” – the clusters of Jewish settlements beyond the Green Line but close to it. He agrees to “land swaps”. And then comes the killer: “overall security responsibility in the West Bank will remain in the hands of the Israel Defense Forces as long as necessary.”

And the sad conclusion: “Even if it is not possible to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at this stage – and it probably is not…”

If there is one Palestinian who would accept these terms, I shall be surprised. But Barak, then and now, does not care for the views and feelings of the Palestinians. Just like Netanyahu, who at least has the decency not to propose a “Peace Plan”. Unlike Trump.

DONALD TRUMP is not a genius like Barak, but he also has a Peace Plan.

A group of right-wing Jews, including his son-in-law (also no genius, he) have been working on this for months. He has proposed it to Mahmoud Abbas, Arafat’s successor, to the new Saudi Crown Prince and other Arab princes. It seems to provide for a Palestinian State composed of several small isolated enclaves on the West Bank, without Jerusalem and without an army.

This is sheer lunacy. Not one single Palestinian and not one single other Arab would accept this. Worse, anyone proposing such a caricature of a state betrays utter ignorance.

That’s where the real problem lies: it is much worse than just not knowing. It demonstrates abysmal contempt for the Palestinians and for Arabs in general, a basic belief that their feelings, if any, don’t matter at all. This is a remnant of colonial times.

Palestinians, and Arabs at large, do have deep feelings and convictions. They are a proud people. They still remember the times when Muslims were incomparably more advanced than the barbarian Europeans. To be treated like dirt by the US president and his Jewish entourage hurts them deeply, and may lead to a disturbance in our region that no Arab prince, hired by the USA, will be able to control.

THIS ESPECIALLY concerns Jerusalem. For Muslims, this is not just a town. It is their third holiest place, the spot from where the Prophet – peace be upon him – ascended to heaven. For a Muslim to give up Jerusalem is inconceivable.

The latest decisions of Trump concerning Jerusalem are – to put it mildly – idiotic. Arabs are furious, Israelis don’t really care, America’s Arab stooges, princes and all, are deeply worried. If disturbances erupt, they may well be swept away.

And what for? For one evening’s headline?

There is no subject in our region, and perhaps in the world – that is more delicate. Jerusalem is holy to three world religions, and one cannot argue with holiness.

In the past I have devoted much thought to this subject. I love Jerusalem (contrary to the founder of Zionism, Theodor Herzl, who was disgusted by it and left it in a hurry after one single night). The early Zionists disliked the city as a symbol of all that is wrong and foul in Judaism.

Some twenty years ago I composed a manifesto, together with my late friend, Feisal al-Husseini, the leader of Jerusalem’s Arabs and the scion of its most noble family. Hundreds of Israelis and Palestinians signed it.

Its title was “Our Jerusalem”. It started with the words: “Jerusalem is ours, Israelis and Palestinians, Muslims, Christians and Jews.”

It went on: “Our Jerusalem Is a mosaic of all the cultures, all the religions and all the periods that enriched the city, from earliest antiquity to this very day – Canaanites and Jebusites and Israelites, Jews and Hellenes, Romans and Byzantines, Christians and Muslims, Arabs and Mamelukes, Othmanlis and Britons, Palestinians and Israelis.

“Our Jerusalem must be united, open to all, and belonging to all its inhabitants, without borders and barbed wire in its midst.”

And the practical conclusion: “Our Jerusalem must be the capital of the two states that will live side by side in this country – West Jerusalem the capital of the State of Israel and East Jerusalem the capital of the State of Palestine.”

I wish I could nail this Manifesto to the doors of the White House.

URI AVNERY is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is a contributor to CounterPunch’s book The Politics of Anti-Semitism.

11 December 2017

Source: https://www.transcend.org/tms/2017/12/from-barak-to-trump/