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By Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor

Palestinian Territory – More than 30 Palestinians sustain permanent or temporary disabilities each day in the Gaza Strip, as part of the genocide carried out by Israel since October 2023.

The number of persons with disabilities in the Gaza Strip has risen by about 35 per cent compared to the period before the genocide, as a direct result of Israeli attacks deliberately targeting civilians. The Israeli army systematically employed excessive force and highly destructive weapons to maximise deaths and injuries, causing permanent disabilities and severe physical and psychological suffering to thousands of Palestinians. This forms part of Israel’s systematic policy of destruction, integral to the ongoing crime of genocide.

From about 156,000 Palestinians injured during Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip over 681 days of genocide, the Euro-Med Monitor field team documented more than 21,000 cases of permanent or temporary disability. This exceptionally high rate reflects Israel’s use of highly destructive weapons, including cluster munitions, heavy explosives, and missiles fired at populated areas, causing amputations, deformities, and severe brain and sensory damage. These practices form part of a deliberate policy to maximise physical and psychological suffering among civilians.

Prior to Israel’s genocide in Gaza in October 2023, the number of people with disabilities in the Strip was estimated at about 58,000. In less than 23 months, 21,000 new cases of permanent and temporary disability were recorded, raising the proportion of people with disabilities to around 3.4 per cent of the total population, directly caused by Israel’s ongoing crimes.

Furthermore, the initial figure of 58,000 before October 2023 was not the result of natural or purely health-related causes, but was largely driven by repeated Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip over the years, including the excessive use of force against peaceful demonstrators in the Great March of Return and successive military assaults that left thousands with permanent injuries. This demonstrates that Israel had already been systematically increasing the number of people with disabilities in Gaza even before the current genocide.

Based on data from the Palestinian Ministry of Health and institutions concerned with persons with disabilities, Euro-Med Monitor documented 8,700 cases of permanent disability, including 4,800 amputations, 1,200 cases of paralysis, 1,200 cases of blindness, and 1,500 cases of other disabilities such as speech and hearing loss and disabilities caused by major burns.

In addition to violent attacks with highly destructive weapons, the deliberate denial of medical care through the targeting of the health system, the blockade, and restrictions on the entry of medicines and surgical supplies, as well as leaving the injured for hours or days under rubble due to the obstruction and targeting of rescue efforts and the lack of equipment, have all exacerbated the risk of disability and amputation.

The repeated targeting of medical personnel and the obstruction of their access to the wounded, the blockade restricting patients’ movement and preventing treatment abroad, recurring injuries from explosions and explosive bullets, and environmental pollution caused by shelling and the use of chemical weaponry such as white phosphorus are all causing chronic injuries and permanent disfigurements, further increasing the number of people with disabilities in the Gaza Strip.

The rise in amputations is also linked to the collapse of the healthcare system, which Israel has systematically targeted. Overwhelmed hospitals receive huge numbers of injured people, forcing medical teams to prioritise cases and leaving many without timely, critical treatment.

Alongside the collapse of health services, harsh living conditions caused by forced displacement, the destruction of homes, the confinement of hundreds of thousands to tents without basic necessities, the absence of sewage networks and clean water, widespread pollution, and severe shortages of food and essential medicines, especially antibiotics, have turned treatable injuries into serious infections that in many cases led to amputation, driving disability rates in the enclave to unprecedented levels.

During its ongoing ground incursions into the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army has detained many people with disabilities. Although Israeli authorities withhold clear data on detainees from Gaza, Euro-Med Monitor has confirmed that those with disabilities face deadly and inhumane conditions in Israeli prisons and military detention centres. They are subjected to physical and psychological torture and denied basic rights, including medical care, while accurate information about their fate remains unavailable.

The suspension of medical referrals has prevented thousands of injured people from accessing advanced treatment and essential surgeries outside Gaza, forcing under-resourced local teams to resort to amputation as the only option and directly increasing the number of people with disabilities.

Israel not only destroyed Gaza’s health system but also targeted vital facilities and institutions serving persons with disabilities. Almost all specialised centres and associations were destroyed or severely damaged, with around 80 per cent completely destroyed. These include Assalama Charity Association, Baitona for Community Development, Jabalia Rehabilitation Society, the Palestinian General Union of People with Disability, Atfaluna Society for the Deaf, Accessible Beach Break, Al Salam Sports Club for People with Disabilities, the Association of Visually Impaired Graduates, Right to Live Society, the Centre for Disability and Inclusion Services at the Islamic University of Gaza, the Communication Disorders Clinic at the University College of Applied Sciences, El-Amal Rehabilitation Society, the Society of Friends for People with Special Needs, and the Society of Physically Handicapped People.

This systematic destruction of disability institutions seeks to dismantle the support and rehabilitation framework for this group, deepening the impact of disability and depriving those affected of their most basic rights.

Israel also disrupted the work of the UNRWA’s Al-Nour Centre for the Visually Impaired in Gaza City, which provided children with Braille tools, guide canes, and specialised educational services. The facility had been converted into a shelter.

It also inflicted extensive damage on the Sheikh Hamad Hospital for Rehabilitation and Prosthetics, the only facility in Gaza capable of manufacturing prosthetic limbs and offering comprehensive rehabilitation programmes. In addition, it destroyed homes and service centres that housed wheelchairs and prosthetic devices, depriving thousands of people with disabilities of essential services that enable mobility and independent living. This has turned disability into a double burden of suffering, reflecting a systematic policy of deliberately depriving the most vulnerable groups and imposing destructive living conditions on the entire population as part of the crime of genocide.

Of the roughly 62,000 Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks, more than 400 were persons with disabilities. In addition, an estimated 9,000 died from critical injuries due to the deliberate denial of healthcare and essential treatment, constituting intentional killing.

The unprecedented rise in disability rates reflects a deliberate pattern of inflicting serious harm, one of the elements of genocide under the 1948 Genocide Convention and the Rome Statute, which define causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of a group as an act of genocide when carried out with intent to destroy that group, in whole or in part.

Furthermore, many temporary disabilities are likely to become permanent due to the lack of medication, treatment, and rehabilitation, compounded by the collapse of the healthcare system and the ban on external medical referrals. This denies those affected essential care and severely limits their chances of recovery.

In testimony to Euro-Med Monitor, Anwar Ibsisa, 40, from Khan Yunis, recounted that he was shot in the back by an Israeli sniper while attempting to reach the US-backed GHF aid distribution centre in Rafah. He said: “I was lying in the area where people gather before reaching the aid centre. Suddenly, Israeli soldiers opened fire. I saw a young man getting shot in front of me. I ran to help him, but a bullet struck my back, hitting my spinal cord. Now I suffer from permanent hemiplegia.”

A.M., 38, injured on 15 June 2025 while trying to obtain aid in the Zikim area northwest of Gaza, said: “I was among people trying to get closer to the aid trucks when a quadcopter flew over and opened fire randomly. I was shot in the right leg and fell to the ground covered in blood before losing consciousness.”

He added: “When I woke up, I realised I had been bleeding for three hours. Even after reaching the hospital, I lay there for six hours without care. They told me there were no vascular doctors and that I had to wait.”

He continued: “After six days, they decided to amputate my leg without anaesthesia because the infection had spread. Days later, they cut another five centimetres, again without anaesthesia, as the infection worsened. The pain was excruciating.”

Mohammed Awad, 27, from Gaza City, who lost his leg when his home was bombed, said: “I used to work to support my family, but now I cannot stand on my feet. I feel as if my life has suddenly stopped.”

In another testimony to Euro-Med Monitor, Amna H., 19, from Khan Yunis, who lost her sight in the Israeli bombing of her family’s home, said: “I wake up every day to pitch-black darkness. I did not only lose my eyes, but also the ability to see my mother and siblings.”

Sami al-Kurd, 35, from Jabalia camp in northern Gaza, who was left partially paralysed by an Israeli airstrike, said: “My body no longer obeys me. I need help with the simplest tasks. This occupation has robbed me of my independence and dignity.”

The tragedy of disability does not end with injury or amputation but worsens daily under Israel’s policies of destruction and impoverishment. Those affected are left without limbs or physical abilities, deprived of treatment, rehabilitation, and prosthetic devices that could help them live more independently. In an environment without resources, medicine, adequate food, or safe housing, disability becomes a heavy burden on both the individual and their family, while repeated displacement and life in tents without basic necessities deepen feelings of helplessness and isolation.

These consequences go beyond humanitarian impacts and are deliberately used to undermine Palestinians’ ability to survive and thrive. They inflict deep psychological scars that weaken resilience, restrict productive potential and participation in reconstruction, and intensify suffering in displacement camps and ill-equipped shelters, reflecting a systematic policy to drain Palestinian society of its strength and capacity to prosper.

Targeting civilians and causing permanent disability constitutes a deliberate act at the core of the crime of genocide, falling within the intentional infliction of serious harm on the Palestinian people as a protected group under the 1948 Genocide Convention. It is a fundamental element of the crime under both the Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, as widespread disability undermines the physical and psychological capacity of the Palestinian people to survive and clearly reflects the destructive intent inherent in genocide.

The international community must act urgently to halt the genocide, hold Israeli officials accountable before international and national courts, and provide immediate humanitarian assistance to Palestinians with disabilities in Gaza, including treatment, prosthetic limbs, psychological care, and rehabilitation services. This requires rebuilding specialised facilities destroyed by Israel, ensuring the entry of prosthetic devices and surgical supplies, and establishing sustainable programmes for care, social support, and economic empowerment to guarantee these victims their basic rights to dignity and independent living.

All states, individually and collectively, must urgently meet their legal obligations to end the genocide in the Gaza Strip in all its forms. This requires concrete measures to protect Palestinian civilians and lift the illegal blockade, as only then can the accelerating humanitarian collapse be halted and aid allowed into the enclave. Any delay in lifting the blockade will only worsen an already uncontainable catastrophe, leaving more than two million people trapped in hunger, disease, and thirst, deprived of the basic conditions for a dignified life.

The international community must also impose economic, diplomatic, and military sanctions on Israel in response to its systematic and grave violations of international law. This includes banning weapons exports to Israel and halting arms purchases from it; suspending all forms of political, financial, and military support and cooperation; freezing the assets of officials involved in crimes against Palestinians or inciting such acts; and imposing travel bans on them. Moreover, trade privileges and bilateral agreements that grant Israel economic advantages, enabling it to commit crimes, must be suspended.

The international community must urgently fulfil its legal and moral obligations by addressing the root causes of the Palestinian people’s suffering and oppression, ongoing for 77 years. It must ensure their right to live in freedom, dignity, and self-determination in line with international law, end the apartheid regime imposed by the Israeli settler-colonial enterprise, lift the illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip, hold Israeli perpetrators accountable, and guarantee Palestinian victims their right to compensation and redress.

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

18 August 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr. Fai

Kashmiri American community observed the 77th anniversary of unimplemented UN Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP) resolution of August 13, 1948, by renting the digital led trucks in New York city. The digital trucks were sponsored by Washington-based ‘World Kashmir Awareness Forum’. The resolution of August 13, 1948, states that ‘the Government of India and the Government of Pakistan reaffirm their wish that the future status of the state of Jammu and Kashmir shall be determined in accordance with the will of the people.’

The digital trucks were carrying the message: “Struggle for Free Kashmir Will Never Impede: To UN Resolutions India Will Have to Concede”; “In Kashmir India Enforcing Ethnic Cleansing: UN Guilty of Inertia and Caught Sleeping”; “UN Resolutions Succinctly State: Kashmir is Not an Indian Protectorate”; “Kashmiris Reject Indian Occupation: UN Resolution only Solution”; “Kashmir Conflict Should be Heeded: Mediation of President Trump is Highly Needed”; “Settler Colonialism and Demographic Alterations: India Shreds UN Resolutions”; “No Election, No Selection: UN Resolution the Only Solution.”

Dr. Ghulam N. Mir, President, World Kashmir Awareness Forum and Executive Producer, Saffron Kingdom, a Kashmiri film said that the UNCIP was established by the UN Security Council in 1948 to investigate and mediate the dispute over Jammu and Kashmir between India and Pakistan. UNCIP was tasked with facilitating a ceasefire, demilitarization, and holding a plebiscite under the auspices of the United Nations to determine the future political status of Kashmir as mandated by the UNSC Resolution 47 of April 21, 1948.

Dr. Mir added that the dream of Kashmiris, and the world around remains unfulfilled to this day. Peace remains elusive for the region and despite its massive military force unarmed Kashmiris in and around the globe remain defiant. The UN may be weak, but Kashmiris remain resilient and hopeful of their future.

Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai, Chairman, World Kashmir Awareness Forum said that Kashmir is not an “internal matter” for India, it is an international dispute recognized by the United Nations Security Council since 1948, which promised Kashmiris the right to choose their future through a free vote. International law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention, clearly forbids an occupying power from moving the people into occupied land. India’s demographic engineering in Kashmir under military control is a direct violation of that law.

Dr. Fai added that while Kashmir suffers, the world’s democracies issue only soft words of concern. The UN Security Council has limited itself to closed door discussions, with no resolutions, no sanctions, and no real action. This silence helps India speed up its colonial project. Without real diplomatic and economic pressure, Kashmir’s identity could disappear within a generation.

Dr. Imtiaz Khan, Kashmiri American scholar said that United Nations Security Council resolutions adopted 77 years ago remain unimplemented. This is the outcome of conceited attitude of successive Indian governments and lackadaisical attitude of the United Nations. The creation of UN in 1945 apparently marked a major turning point in global diplomacy, aiming to prevent future conflicts, foster peace, and promote cooperation among nations. But as far as Kashmir is concerned, the United Nations has failed to deliver.

Dr. Khan added that India has not only exhibited lack of compliance, but she has integrated Kashmir as part of the country and since August 2019 she is actively pursuing the line of action that can be construed as settler colonialism, demographic alteration and ethnic cleansing. Under these circumstances the credibility of UN is at stake. The message it sends that with economic prowess, huge military force and weapons that can cause mass destruction, the nations can shred any resolution and thump at the nose of international community.

Raja Mukhtar, Spokesman of JKLF North America and the main organizer of the event said that after Article 370 was abrogated, Domicile law was enacted which has increased a sense of insecurity and has made indigenous Kashmiris strangers within their own land.

Raja Mukhtar maintained that the people of Kashmir have given sacrifices beyond imagination. But one thing, Indian army could not do: it could not kill the sentiments and aspirations of the people of Kashmir for freedom. Those sentiments of the people of Kashmir are growing day by day. Mohammad Yasin Malik is the prime example who has not abandon the cause, despite inhuman conditions he endures within the walls of Tihar Jail.

Sardar Taj Khan, senior vice chairman, Kashmir Mission USA and co-organizer of the event said let us send a clear message to the people of Kashmir that Kashmiri diaspora and friends of Kashmir stand committed to carry on the struggle till the final settlement of the Kashmir dispute.

Sardar Taj added that the Kashmiris across the globe have rejected the reprehensible attempts of Indian government to change the demographic character of our nation and resolved to counter India’s bigoted settler colonialism through peaceful resistance.

Sardar Sawar Khan, former Advisor to the Prime Minister of Azad Kashmir alerted that whole Kashmir has been converted into a concentration camp. Any voice of dissent is met by long-term imprisonment or even death. Thus, it is exigent for the Kashmir diaspora to disseminate these atrocious stories to world and question their criminal silence over this important issue which has potential to jeopardize the existence of South Asia – one fifth of total human race.

Advocate Sardar Imtiaz Khan Garalvi said that the Global Kashmiri diaspora leadership has unanimously resolved to pursue the struggle to protect the unique and historical identity of the State of Jammu and Kashmir against all challenges. He appealed to all peoples of conscience and the international community to raise their voices against the brutal oppression the people of Jammu and Kashmiri are suffering under the occupying forces of the Government of India.

Sardar Zarif Khan, Advisor to the President of Azad Kashmir said that Indian draconian laws grant legal immunity to any type of crime against humanity perpetrated by Indian army in Kashmir. Torture is an international crime. Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 7 of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) clearly state, “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”. Yet Indian soldiers who are involved in torture in Kashmir are not prosecuted because they have been given immunity under the Indian law.

Sardar Zubair Khan, Director, Community Affairs, ‘Voices of Justice in Kashmir’ said that India’s war crimes in Kashmir are shameful. The presence of 900,000 Indian soldiers has made Kashmir the largest army concentration anywhere in the world. The atrocities committed by Indian army has intensified manifold after August 5, 2019, when article 35 A and 370 were abrogated by Indian Government.

Raja Liaqat Kiyani, President, Kashmir House Maryland said that the Kashmir dispute could only be resolved through the free exercise by the Kashmiri people of their UN-pledged right of self-determination, and not by military means as India is attempting to do. He added that the lives and hopes of Kashmiris should not be snuffed out by a “might-makes-right” approach to international relations, moral values and universal principles.

Sardar Shoaib Irshad, Joint Secretary, ‘Kashmir American Welfare Association’ (KAWA) said that the Domicile law means that everything the people of Kashmir own for centuries can be taken away by the Government of India at its will. Long-term design is to restrict local Muslim population in ghettos, snatch their livelihood so that they are at the mercy of the foreigners.

Br. Aalam of Bangladeshi businessman called on Government of India to accede to international law and to cooperate in holding a referendum.  India itself will benefit by the vast savings in military and paramilitary forces in Kashmir. He added that India’s design is ultimately change the demography of Kashmir.

Dr. Fai is also the Secretary General, World Kashmir Awareness Forum.

He can be reached at: WhatsApp: 1-202-607-6435. Or. gnfai2003@yahoo.comwww.Kashmirawareness.org

New York. August 13, 2025

By

Dear Secretary-General Guterres,

Amidst the ongoing Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip and mass forcible displacement across the West Bank, the Strategic Assessment of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), published in June 2025, raises urgent concerns for all actors committed to upholding the rights and protection of Palestinian refugees—and for the United Nations itself in fulfilling its Charter mandate and obligations under international law.

Rather than challenging the Israeli campaign targeting UNRWA, violating international law, and upholding and reinforcing UNRWA’s mandate, the Assessment treats the Agency’s collapse as inevitable—presenting four future scenarios that, in different ways, dismantle the last operational UN institution serving over 5.9 million Palestine refugees.

In our paper, Engineered Collapse: The United Nations’ Strategic Assessment of UNRWA and Palestinian Refugee Rights, our analysis finds that the Assessment:

• Decontextualizes UNRWA’s mandate in the ongoing situation of genocide, colonialism, apartheid, and forced displacement;
• Prioritizes the political interests of certain Member States and the Israeli regime over binding international legal obligations;
• Proposes reforms that would fragment and localize refugee protection, offloading responsibilities onto host states;
• Ignores viable and just funding solutions, such as integrating UNRWA’s budget into the UN’s regular budget or utilizing revenues from Palestinian refugee properties held in custodianship;
• Portrays UNRWA’s neutrality through a colonial lens, instrumentalizing the Agency as a tool of “regional stability” for donor-driven political agendas.

At the heart of this matter lies the indivisible relationship between UNGA Resolutions 302 and 194. Article 11 of Resolution 194 establishes the right of Palestinian refugees to reparations—including return, property restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, and guarantees of non-repetition. Article 5 of Resolution 302 grounds UNRWA’s mandate in this still-unrealized right of return, stipulating that its operations are without prejudice to it. The Agency’s existence is a direct consequence of non-implementation of this right, and its dismantlement could only be justified once that right has been fully realized.

Another troubling trend is found both in the Strategic Assessment and in recent discussions—including the High-Level International Conference for the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution. Despite the clear legal framework affirming Palestinian refugee rights, the Assessment links UNRWA’s continued existence to the realization of the two-state solution rather than to the exercise of the Palestinian right of return. Notably, Paragraph 14 of the New York Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine highlights the prospects outlined in Scenario Four of the Strategic Assessment. This scenario envisions transferring UNRWA’s services to the Palestinian Authority, which would politicize the Agency and violate its mandate.

Tying the Agency’s role and existence to this political framework compromises its neutrality, shifts its operational purpose away from fulfilling Palestinian refugees’ rights, and absolves the international community of their obligations to provide international protection.

Lastly, the Assessment’s failure to recognize the Israeli regime’s long-standing campaign to dismantle UNRWA as a legal emergency, normalizes its obstruction as an administrative matter instead of a violation of UN privileges and immunities. This limited treatment starkly contrasts with the gravity of the situation, which has resulted in the gravest loss of life ever suffered by any UN agency—over 330 UNRWA personnel killed and more than 311 UNRWA installations destroyed in Gaza since the Israeli genocide began.

BADIL and the Global Palestinian Refugee and IDP Network (GPRN, a coalition of 42 community-based organizations active in displaced communities across Mandatory Palestine and abroad) call on the UN Secretary-General to: 

• Safeguard the UN’s commitment to international law and the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, by ensuring that UNRWA’s mandate is upheld in full, shielded from politicization, and adequately resourced in accordance with the UN’s legal responsibilities;
• Reject the adoption of the Strategic Assessment, ahead of the upcoming renewal of UNRWA’s mandate by the UN General Assembly.

Sincerely,

BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency & Refugee Rights and the Global Palestinian Refugee and IDP Network (GPRN).

20 August 2025

Source: badil.org

Dr. Imtiaz Khan

Kashmiri American Scholar &
Board Member, World Kashmir Awareness Forum

August 20, 2025

Yasin Malik (born 3 April 1966 in Srinagar, Kashmir) is a prominent leader for the movement of Kashmiri independence and the chairman of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front. Raised in the Maisuma neighborhood of Srinagar, Malik’s political activism began early, when he founded the Tala Party and later the Islamic Students League. In the late 1980s, frustrated by blatant rigging of election in the 1987, he along with his colleagues launched a movement that demanded implementation of UN Security Council resolutions on Kashmir, to which both India and Pakistan are signatory. The mass agitation received mammoth support from the people of Kashmir and international attention unnerved government of India. Yasin Malik was jailed and tortured and consequently, he developed heart ailment and lost his ability to hear from one of his ears. He has been checked for these conditions by several physicians in the United States, but the damage is so severe that the defect is beyond total cure. 

It is important to mention Amy Waldman who wrote in the New York Times on August 24, 2002, that “Rigged elections in Kashmir in 1989 helped trigger the armed uprising that India estimates has taken more than 35,000 lives.”

Yasin Malik is not run of the mill politician, but a revolutionary leader who has flame of freedom burning in his heart. In media interviews he succinctly states that his involvement in “armed struggle” was outcome of the actions by Indian state. The voices of freedom were throttled and space for non-violent protests was diminished. Under mounting pressure from the people of Kashmir and the attention it received from international community, in 1994, a delegation headed by Ambassador Kuldip Nayyar was dispatched by Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao to contact Mr. Malik in the Jail. It was unequivocally affirmed that all cases against him will be dropped if he eschews violent measures. 

The statement by eminent journalist Ambassador Kuldip Nayyar in Redfiff.com on August 7, 1999, bears testimony to his fulfillment of the promise.  In Mr. Nayar’s words “The first militant, Yasin Malik, who raised his gun at a public meeting in the heart of Srinagar, has turned nonviolent and vegetarian. Now he is a follower of Mahatma Gandhi.” A prominent journalist Bharat Bhushan, wrote in a prestigious daily ‘The Telegraph’ on February 4, 2007, “The president of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), one of the first to wield the gun in Kashmir, is today training youngsters in non-violent politics. He uses a curious mixture of religion — Sufism — and non-violence to build a constituency for peace in Jammu and Kashmir.”

Indian government cannot ignore the fact that their former Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, interacted with Yasin Malik on February 17, 2006, at 6.00 p.m. (India time) and meeting lasted for more than an hour.  Dr. Singh sought help from Yasin Mailk and suggested him to take an initiative to bring separatist and militant voices into a dialogue process that can lead India–Pakistan peace parleys. It was conveyed to Yasin Malik by Prime Minister Singh that he had no qualms in visiting Pakistan to advance the peace talks. Subsequently, before visiting Pakistan, Yasin Malik flew to Washington and discussed the peace initiative with then the Assistant Secretary of State, Richrd A. Boucher. He also had a meeting with Elizabeth Millard in National Security Council.

Yasin Malik was invited by Dr. Micheal Krepon, President of Henry L. Stimpson Center, Washington; Dr. Stephen Phillip Cohen, senior fellow in foreign policy studies at Brookings Institutions, Dr. T. Kumar, the Director for International Advocacy at Amnesty International, Washington, DC, to speak on the peace initiative between India and Pakistan and his role in strengthening the dialogue process. Yasin Malik also spoke at New York based, Asia Society and Harvard University Asia Center. It would be illogical, irrational and insane to expect that Prime Minister of India or the representatives of state department or representative of American think-tanks would meet with a person who has committed murderous acts. 

In April 2025, while still incarcerated, Malik told India’s Supreme Court that he is a “political leader, not a terrorist,” and highlighted that multiple Indian prime ministers who had previously engaged Yasin Malik in dialogue. He also defended his choice to represent himself in court and clarified that his organization was never officially listed as a terrorist group under UAPA post-1994 ceasefire. On August 8. 2025, Malik appeared virtually before Delhi High Court. He had pleaded for physical presence rather than appearance via virtual mode. His plea was rejected.  Presently the National Investigation Agency (NIA) of India is asking for the enhancement of Mr. Malik’s life imprisonment into death penalty. The next hearing will be on November 19, 2025.

One wonders what his crime is.  Earlier trial court had said that crimes committed by Malik struck at the ‘heart of the idea of India’ and were intended to forcefully secede Jammu and Kashmir from the union of India. One wonders how Kashmir can secede from India when according to all international agreements including the UN resolutions, Kashmir has never acceded to India in the first place. Associated Press reported that Yasin Malik said during the trial, “Terrorism-related charges leveled against me are concocted, fabricated and politically motivated” and that “If seeking Azadi (Freedom) is a crime, then I am ready to accept this crime and its consequences.”

Sampat Prakash—a prominent Kashmiri Pandit, trade union leader, and activist—described Yasin Malik, the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chairman, as a courageous leader who “lives in the hearts of the Kashmiri people.” He highlighted Malik’s transition from armed resistance to leading a peaceful struggle for Kashmir’s freedom and expressed pride in his friend for having spent much of his life in jail for the Kashmir cause. Sampat Prakash urged Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to demonstrate sincerity toward resolving the Kashmir conflict by visiting Srinagar’s Martyrs’ Graveyard, bowing before the graves of innocent victims, and seeking forgiveness from the Kashmiri people. Despite ideological differences, Sampat Prakash publicly acknowledged Yasin Malik’s influence and commitment to the cause of Kashmir. 

The plan and intentions of the current fascist regime are more sinister when it comes to the case of Yasin Malik. Narinder Modi is using Yasin Malik as a pawn for his domestic agenda. The fascist government is encountered with severe backlash due to recent defeat from Pakistan and failed foreign policy. Increase tariffs imposed by present US government has led to economic downturn and Modi’s popularity is in tatters. To ameliorate his political standing, Prime Minister Modi is using concocted, cooked up and contrived cases against Yasin Malik. It should be noted that earlier Indian supreme court had rejected curative appeals for seeking death sentence for Yasin Malik. The trial court ruled that the case did not meet the Supreme Court’s “rarest of rare” threshold for capital punishment. Indian agencies are pursuing nefarious activities by conducting fresh raids after more than three and half decades to manufacture evidence to achieve their iniquitous goals.  

The International community must take cognizance of that historical behavior of India in cases like late Afzal Guru where it was stated by Chief justice of supreme court that notwithstanding the lack of overwhelming evidence, the death sentence needs to be carried to fulfill the collective conscience of the majority. Thereafter, the chief justice was rewarded with seat in the Indian parliament on his superannuation. 

By eliminating peace-loving leaders like Yasin Malik, the Indian regime is closing any avenues of peace in the region and pushing the youth of Kashmir towards actions that can be detrimental to the peaceful resolution of Kashmir conflict. We appeal to the United Nations and other world powers, including President Donald Trump to earnestly impress upon the Indian government to let international standards of justice prevail and free Mohammad Yasin Malik.

By Jeffrey D. Sachs* and Sybil Fares* – Common Dreams

An immediate UN Security Council vote to grant Palestine permanent membership in the UN next month would put an end to Israel’s zealous delusions of permanent control over Palestine. It cannot happen without US backing.

President Donald Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize, and his efforts toward peace in Ukraine, if successful, could possibly help him earn one—but only if he also ends US complicity in the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Under Trump, as under former President Joe Biden, the US has served as Israel’s partner in mass murder, annexation, starvation, and the escalating torment of millions of Palestinians. The genocide can, and will, stop if Trump wills it. So far he has not.

Israel is committing genocide—everyone knows it, even its staunchest defenders. The Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem has recently made a poignant acknowledgment of “Our Genocide.” In Foreign Affairs, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew recently admitted that extremist parties in Netanyahu’s government openly aim to starve Palestinians in Gaza. Lew frames his piece as praise for the former Biden administration (and for himself) for their supposedly valiant efforts to prevent mass starvation by pressuring Israel to allow minimal food entry, while blaming Trump for easing that pressure.

Yet the actual importance of the piece is that an ardent Zionist insider certifies the genocidal agenda sustaining Netanyahu’s rule. Lew recounts that in the aftermath of October 7, Israelis frequently pledged that “not a drop of water, not a drop of milk, and not a drop of fuel will go from Israel to Gaza,” a stance that still shapes Israel’s cabinet policy. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) can use Lew’s article as confirmation of Israel’s genocidal intent.

The genocide in Gaza, coupled with the annexation in the West Bank, aims to fulfill the Likud vision of a Greater Israel that exercises territorial control between the Sea and Jordan. This will destroy any possibility of a Palestinian state, and any possibility of peace. Indeed, Bezalel Smotrich, the extremist minister of finance and minister in the ministry of defense, recently vowed to “permanently bury the idea of a Palestinian state” while the Knesset has recently called for annexation of the occupied West Bank.

The US aids and protects Israel every day in these horrific crimes against the Palestinian people. The US provides billions of dollars in military support, goes to war alongside Israel, and offers diplomatic cover for Israel’s crimes against humanity. The vacuous mantra that “Israel has the right to defend itself” is the US pat excuse for Israel’s mass murder and starvation of innocent civilians.

Generations of historians, psychologists, sociologists, philosophers, and inquiring minds will ask how the descendants and co‑religionists of the Jews murdered by Hitler’s genocidal regime came to become genocidaires. Two factors, deeply intertwined, come to the fore.

First, the Nazi Holocaust lent credence among Jews to the Zionist claim that only a state with overwhelming military power and ready to use it can protect the Jewish people. For these militarists, every Arab country opposed to Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestine became a dire foe to be crushed by war. This is Netanyahu’s doctrine of violence, which was first unveiled in the Clean Break strategy, and which has produced nonstop Israeli mobilization and war, and a society now gripped by implacable hatred even of innocent women and children in Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria. Netanyahu has dragged the US into countless devastating and futile wars out of Netanyahu’s blindness to the reality that only diplomacy, not war, can achieve Israel’s security.

Second, this non-stop resort to violence reignited a dormant strain of Biblical Judaism, notably based on the Book of Joshua, which presents God’s covenant with Abraham as justification for genocides committed in conquering the Promised Land. Ancient zealotry of this kind, and the belief that God would redeem his chosen people through violence, fueled suicidal revolts against the Roman Empire between 66 and 135 AD. Whether the genocides in the Book of Joshua ever occurred (probably not ) is beside the point. For today’s zealots, the license to commit genocide is vivid, immediate, and biblically ordained.

Aware of the danger of self-destructive zealotry, the rabbis who shaped the Babylonian Talmud proscribed Jews from attempting to return en masse to the promised land (Ketubot 111a). They taught that Jews should live in their own communities and fulfill God’s commandments where they are, rather than seeking to recapture a land from which they had been exiled following decades of suicidal revolt.

Whatever the fundamental reasons for Israel’s murderous turn, Israel’s survival among nations is at risk today as it has become a pariah state. For the first time in history, Israel’s Western allies have repudiated Israel’s violent ways. France, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada have each pledged to formally recognize the State of Palestine at the upcoming UN General Assembly in September. These countries will finally join the will of the overwhelming global majority in recognizing that the two-state solution, enshrined in international law, is the true guarantor of peace.

The majority of the American people, are rightly revulsed by Israel’s brutality and are also turning their support massively to the Palestinian cause. In a new Reuters poll released today, 58% of Americans now believe that the UN should recognize the State of Palestine, against just 32% who oppose that. American politicians will surely note the change, at Israel’s peril, unless the two-state solution is rapidly implemented. (Logical arguments can also be given for a peaceful one-state, bi-national solution, but this alternative has essentially no backing among UN member states and no basis in the international law regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict that has developed over more than seven decades.)

This Israeli government will not change course on its own. Only the Trump administration can end the genocide through a comprehensive settlement agreed by the world’s nations at the UN Security Council and UN General Assembly. The solution is to stop the genocide, make peace, and salvage Israel’s standing in the world by creating a Palestinian state alongside Israel on the June 4, 1967 borders.

For decades, the entire Arab and Islamic world has supported the two-state solution, and advocated to normalize relations with Israel and guarantee security for the entire region. This solution is in full accordance with international law, and was again espoused clearly by the UN General Assembly in the NY Declaration last month at the conclusion of the United Nations High-Level International Conference on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution (July 29, 2025).

Trump has come to understand that to save Ukraine, he must force it to see reality: that NATO cannot expand to Ukraine as that would directly threaten Russia’s own security. In the same way, Trump must force Israel to see reality: that Israel cannot continue to rule over the Palestinian people, murder them, starve them, and ethnically cleanse them. The two-state solution thereby saves both Palestine and Israel.

An immediate UN Security Council vote to grant Palestine permanent membership in the UN next month would put an end to Israel’s zealous delusions of permanent control over Palestine, as well as its reckless territorial ambitions in Lebanon and Syria. The focus of the crisis would then shift to immediate and practical issues: how to disarm non-state actors within the framework of the new state and regional peace, how to enable mutual security for Israel and Palestine, how to empower the Palestinians to govern effectively, how to finance the reconstruction, and how to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to a starving population.

Trump can make this happen at the UN in September. The US, and only the US, has vetoed the permanent membership of Palestine in the UN. The other members of the UN Security Council have already signaled their support.

Peace in the Middle East is possible now—and there is no time to lose.

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

20 August 2025

Source: other-news.info

By Paul Craig Roberts 

What do we make of it?

A good result came of it. Trump moved away from his demand for a ceasefire and said that it was more important to work toward a permanent peace than a ceasefire which is seldom kept. 

This would seem to commit Trump to addressing the root cause of the conflict, which is Russia’s insecurity with NATO all over her borders.

Putin said that the meeting marked the transition from confrontation and threats to dialogue. This prospect alone made the meeting worthwhile.

These are good results. In a world of nuclear weapons the level of tension had become untenable.

For hopes to be realized two barriers must be recognized and overcome. One is the neoconservative doctrine of American hegemony. The other is the interest of the US military/security complex.

The doctrine of hegemony requires overcoming Russia in order to achieve Washington’s unilateralism. Is this doctrine too institutionalized to be repudiated?

The budget, influence over Congress, and power of the military/security complex requires a major enemy. Russia fills that role. Peace on equal terms with Russia takes away the enemy, and the budget and influence of the military/security complex declines. There are military bases or weapon manufacturers in almost every state, which means this interest is also institutionalized as President Eisenhower warned us it would be.

Therefore, the question before us is: how likely is it that Trump can get NATO and missile bases off of Russia’s border? It is not at all likely if attention cannot be directed to the basic problem.

How helpful will media be? It is the wrong focus to emphasize that Putin wanted the meeting in order to show that he was not isolated and could meet with the American president like Zelensky and Netanyahu do.  

The meeting was fortuitous. Trump had trapped himself. His threatened secondary sanctions or tariffs against India and other BRICS members backfired. Faced with his own 10-day deadline, he had to find a way out. He found it in an immediate meeting with Putin. For Trump the meeting was a way of getting himself off of the spot.

The opportunity to wind down a confrontation that would likely end in nuclear war is based on luck. 

Can this lucky outcome be turned into a mutual security agreement? That depends on the strength of the neoconservatives’ doctrine of hegemony and the willingness of the military/security complex to accept declining sales and profits. Until it is realized that these two interests are the barriers to peace that must be overcome, there will be no peace process.

*

Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal.

18 August 2025

Source: globalresearch.ca

By Alan Macleod

7 Aug 2025 – After reaching an agreement with President Trump, David Ellison—the son of the second-richest man in the world, Larry Ellison—has acquired Paramount Global, the media giant that owns CBS News.

Larry Ellison, the largest private funder of the Israel Defense Forces, is deeply tied to the Israeli national security state and counts Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu among his closest friends.

David has already announced significant changes at CBS, promising “unbiased” news coverage and “varied ideological perspectives,” which are widely understood to signal a shift toward right-wing, pro-Trump coverage. Worse still, Bari Weiss, a journalist with a long history of zealous pro-Israel advocacy, is being considered as the network’s new ombudsman, shaping its political direction, precisely because of her “pro-Israel stance.”

MintPress News examines Ellison’s close ties to both Trump and Israel, Weiss’s extensive career as Israel’s most vocal supporter in the U.S., and what this means for the future of free and diverse speech in America.

Israel’s Man In Silicon Valley

Although Skydance, Ellison’s media empire, is officially headed by David, it is well understood that father Larry holds both the purse strings and the reins of power. With a net worth of $301 billion, placing him second on the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires Rankings, Larry made his fortune by founding tech giant Oracle.

Oracle started as a project for the Central Intelligence Agency. Indeed, it is named after Project Oracle, a 1970s CIA operation on which Ellison worked. For some time, the CIA was Oracle’s only customer, until it began to win contracts with other agencies of the U.S. national security state. Today, although Oracle’s customer base is much wider, it maintains its role as the privatized face of the CIA.

Yet if Oracle is close to Washington and Langley, it is perhaps even more intimately tied to the State of Israel. An avowed Zionist, Ellison has worked tirelessly to advance Israel’s political project. Among his closest personal friends is Benjamin Netanyahu, with whom he vacationed on his private island in Hawaii. Ellison was so impressed and confident in the Israeli prime minister that he offered him a seat on his company’s board, replete with a salary of $450,000.

While Oracle has signed multiple lucrative contracts with the Israeli national security state, Ellison himself has personally bankrolled the Israeli Defense Forces, giving tens of millions of dollars to the Friends of the IDF, an organization that purchases equipment for the Israeli military. This included a $16.6 million pledge (the largest single donation the group has received) to build a new training facility for soldiers defending what he called “our home.” As Ellison explained:

In my mind, there is no greater honor than supporting some of the bravest people in the world, and I thank Friends of the IDF for allowing us to celebrate and support these soldiers year after year. We should do all we can to show these heroic soldiers that they are not alone.”

Oracle sees itself as an activist organization, one whose goal is the advancement of the Israeli colonization project. Safra Catz, the company’s Israeli-American CEO, bluntly explained that any employees uncomfortable with supporting a genocide should simply quit. “We are not flexible regarding our mission, and our commitment to Israel is second to none,” she said, adding:

This is a free world and I love my employees, and if they don’t agree with our mission to support the State of Israel, then maybe we aren’t the right company for them. Larry and I are publicly committed to Israel and devote personal time to the country, and no one should be surprised by that.”

For a deep dive into Oracle and its connections to both U.S. and Israeli power, read the MintPress News investigation, “Openly Pro-Israel Tech Group Now Has Control over UK’s Most Sensitive National Security Data.”

18 August 2025

Source: transcend.org

By Prof. Jan Oberg

13 Aug 2025 – But did you know? Is this discussed now when the UN turn 80 in October? No, politicians, media and scholars generally focus on war and ignore humanity’s most important peace-maker.

“UNITED NATIONS, Aug 12 2025 (IPS) – The United Nations, facing a liquidity crisis, has been threatening to lay-off about 20 percent of its estimated 37,000 employees world-wide: a proposed move that has triggered widespread protests from staff unions both in New York and Geneva.”
Thus starts Thalif Dean’s analysis in a recent IPS article.

The UN is in a liquidity crisis!!!???

This is an issue the whole world should talk about NOW.

This is a situation that every thinking person should condemn in the strongest possible terms: The UN must cut down, while the rest of the world, the West in particular with its 5% of the GNP, invests perverse sums in militarism and war, while other, cheaper and more efficient, peace-making means are available.

It is not that the UN should not be reformed and made more efficient. But in whose interest is it to force the UN to become even more poor and powerless?

World military expenditure reached $2718 billion in 2024, an increase of 9.4 per cent in real terms from 2023 and the steepest year-on-year rise since at least the end of the cold war, SIPRI has just told the world.

No reaction! No outrage!

Here are key facts about the United Nations’ budget:

The General Assembly has approved a $3.72 billion budget for the United Nations for 2025. The UN regular budget funds the core administrative costs of the organisation, including the UN General Assembly, Security Council, Secretariat, International Court of Justice, special political missions, and human rights entities.

“The biggest single item of expenditure is (UN) peacekeeping, which costs $9 billion across all agencies ($7.9 billion via DPKO). Much of the rest is spent on humanitarian assistance (e.g. $ 4.5 billion from the World Food Programme, $3.2 billion from the High Commissioner for Refugees, $2.3 billion from UNICEF – the children’s fund) or development programmes (e.g. $5 billion from the UN Development Programme). Overall $14.9 billion is spent on humanitarian assistance and $12 billion on development programmes.” More here.

Thus, these main items make roughly US$ 31 billion: 4 + 15 + 12 for all the United Nations does in our world.

Thus, the UN has 1,1% of the world’s military expenditures to do good worldwide.

Or, UN member states spend 100 times more on armament and war than on the entire UN system. Further, the US, one of the largest contributors to the UN budget, does all it can to undermine the UN, leave its organisations and cut down its contribution.

And as of 7 August 2025, only 119 Member States have paid their regular budget assessments in full.

Here is how the UN is funded and who is not paying up – and more. And here is one that puts it all in perspective: “When you add up the regular UN Secretariat and peacekeeping budgets, the annual average cost of the UN for each person on the planet is about $1.25; that’s about the cost of a bag of chips…”

There exists no way the world can move towards a future with more peace and less violence as long as these priorities continue – and continue un-discussed as if they were natural, normal and healthy. The reality is that the global system is fundamentally sick, militarising itself to death. Period.

Military expenditures have never been as high as they are today, and everyone talks about the increasing risk of war, regional or global. Armament means less security, and bigger risks. And possessing nuclear weapons is a violation of international law.

In contrast, disarmament, another type of defence thinking, education about conflict analysis, resources for mediation and peace-making will, without a doubt, increase human and global security and open roads to peaceful co-existence.

The madness must stop. Therefore:

World taxpayers unite!
Refuse to pay for these perverse priorities.
Let the Military-Industrial-Media-Academic Complexes, MIMAC, arrange coffee and bake sales for their – kakistocratic – militarism and war.

See also my recent article “The UN at 80: Still humanity’s most important organisation, but member states deliberately destroy it” and this conversation:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DYuL68qNN8]

Prof. Jan Oberg, Ph.D. is director of the independent Transnational Foundation for Peace & Future Research-TFF in Sweden and a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment.

18 August 2025

Source: transcend.org

By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies

16 Aug 2025 – Donald Trump came into office promising to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. Now, six months later, his high stakes meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska may have put the United States and Russia on a new path toward peace, or, if this initiative fails, could trigger an even more dangerous escalation, with warhawks in Congress already pushing for another $54.6 billion in weapons for Ukraine.

After emerging from the meeting, Putin correctly framed the historical moment: “This was a very hard time for bilateral relations and, let’s be frank, they’ve fallen to the lowest point since the Cold War. I think that’s not benefiting our countries and the world as a whole. Sooner or later, we have to amend the situation to move on from confrontation to dialogue.”

Trump said he will follow up by talking to NATO leaders and Zelenskyy, as if the U.S. is simply an innocent bystander trying to help. But in Ukraine, as in Palestine, Washington plays the “mediator” while pouring weapons, intelligence, and political cover into one side of the war. In Gaza, that has enabled genocide. In Ukraine, it could lead to nuclear war.

Despite protests from Zelenskyy and European leaders, Trump was right to meet with Putin, not because they are friends, but because the United States and Russia are enemies, and because the war they are fighting to the last Ukrainian is the front line of a global conflict between the United States, Russia and China.

In our book, War In Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, which we have now updated and revised to cover three years of war in Ukraine, we have detailed the U.S. role in expanding NATO up to Russia’s borders, its support for the violent overthrow of Ukraine’s elected government in 2014, its undermining of the Minsk II peace accord, and its rejection of a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine after only two months of war in 2022.

We doubt that Donald Trump fully grasps this history. Are his simplistic statements alternately blaming Russia and Ukraine, but never the United States, just a public façade for domestic consumption, or does he really believe America’s hands are clean?

At their first meeting in Saudi Arabia on February 18th, senior U.S. and Russian negotiators agreed on a three-step plan: first to restore U.S.-Russian diplomatic relations; then to negotiate peace in Ukraine; and finally to work on resolving the broader, underlying breakdown in relations between the United States and Russia. Trump and Putin’s decision to meet now was a recognition that they must address the deeper rift before they can achieve a stable and lasting peace in Ukraine..

The stakes are high. Russia has been waging a war of attrition, concentrating on destroying Ukrainian forces and military equipment rather than on advancing quickly and seizing a lot more territory. It has still not occupied all of Donetsk province, which unilaterally declared independence from Ukraine in May 2014, and which Russia officially annexed before its invasion in February 2022.

The failure of peace negotiations could lead to a more aggressive Russian war plan to seize territory much faster. Ukrainian forces are thinly spread out along much of its 700 mile front line, with as few as 100 soldiers often manning several miles of defenses. A major Russian offensive could lead to the collapse of the Ukrainian military or the fall of the Zelenskyy government.

How would the U.S. and its Western allies respond to such major changes in the strategic picture? Zelenskyy’s European allies talk tough, but have always rejected sending their own troops to Ukraine, apart from small numbers of special operations forces and mercenaries.

Putin addressed the Europeans in his remarks after the Summit:

“We expect that Kyiv and the European capitals will perceive [the negotiations] constructively, and that they won’t throw a wrench in the works, will not make any attempts to use some backroom dealings to conduct provocations to torpedo the nascent progress.”

Meanwhile, more U.S. and NATO troops are fighting from the relative safety of the joint Ukraine-NATO war headquarters at the U.S. military base in Wiesbaden in Germany, where they work with Ukrainian forces to plan operations, coordinate intelligence and target missile and drone strikes. If the war escalates further, Wiesbaden could become a target for Russian missile strikes, just as NATO missiles already target bases in Russia. How would the United States and Germany respond to Russian missile strikes on Wiesbaden?

The U.S. and NATO’s official policy has always been to keep Ukraine fighting until it is in a stronger position to negotiate with Russia, as Joe Biden wrote in the New York Times in June 2022. But every time the U.S. and NATO prolong or escalate the war, they leave Ukraine in a weaker position, not a stronger one. The neutrality agreement that the U.S. and U.K. rejected in April 2022 included a Russian withdrawal from all the territory it had just occupied. But that was not good enough for Boris Johnson and Joe Biden, who instead promised a long war to weaken Russia.

NATO military leaders believed that Ukraine’s counter-offensive in the fall of 2022 achieved the stronger position they were looking for, and General Milley went out on a limb to say publicly that Ukraine should “seize the moment” to negotiate. But Biden and Zelenskyy rejected his advice, and Ukraine’s failed offensive in 2023 squandered the moment they had failed to seize. No amount of deceptive propaganda can hide the reality that it has been downhill since then, and 69% of Ukrainians now want a negotiated peace, before their position gets even worse.

So Trump went to Alaska with a weak hand, but one that will get weaker still if the war goes on. The European politicians urging Zelenskyy to cling to his maximalist demands want to look tough to their own people, but the keys to a stable and lasting peace are still Ukrainian neutrality, self determination for the people of all regions of Ukraine, and a genuine peace process that finally lays to rest the zombification of the Cold War.

The whole world celebrated the end of the Cold War in 1991, but the people of the world are still waiting for the long-promised peace dividend that a generation of corrupt, war-mongering leaders have stolen from us.

U.S. officials must be honest about the U.S. role in provoking this crisis. They must demonstrate that they are ready to listen to Russia’s concerns, take them seriously, and negotiate in good faith to achieve a stable and lasting agreement that delivers peace and security to all parties in the Ukraine war and in the wider Cold War it is part of.

Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies are the authors of War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, available from OR Books in November 2022.

18 August 2025

Source: transcend.org

By Maung Zarni

Israel’s genocidal patron, namely the leaderships of the United States, have shown an utter and complete lack of human empathy, conscience or regard for the post-Hiroshima, post-Holocaust international law, which they helped create.

7 Aug 2025 – Standing at the giant parking lot of Kerem Shalom Crossing in southern Gaza next to the Egyptian border on 29 August 2024, I drew a parallel between Auschwitz and Gaza.

All comparisons typically fail to capture certain aspects. My comparison is no exception.

The aerial images captured from some Jordanian air craft engaged in air drop of aid to Gaza’s population being starved to death by what “Jewish Fascists” of Israel as apartheid “ethnocracy”, to borrow the words of Oxford University’s Avi Shlaim, boast as “the world’s most moral army” blows a hole in my Auschwitz analogy. (See “First Thing: Gaza from the sky – a landscape of rubble, dust and graves”, The Guardian, Wed. 6 Aug 2025.)

Gaza is more than a slaughter house

As evidenced from the freshly emerging videos and photographs, Gaza’s physical landscape today resembles Hiroshima City in the morning after on 7 August 1945. Just as Israel’s mass killing of Palestinians of all ages is the direct, intended outcome by Israel’s planners of this “war for annihilation” of an entire Palestinian society so is the near total destruction of the physical infrastructure that sheltered the 2.3 million Palestinians at the start of the war on 8 October 2023.

The vastly undercounted deaths of over 60,000 — of whom more than 16,000 were babies, and children – by the Gaza Health Ministry must be paired with the staggering number – 377,000 – presented by Dr. Yaakov Garb, Professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev who are “missing” (presumed dead and buried under dozens of tons of rubble of bombed out Gazan buildings).

Let’s also not forget that Israel had allowed Gaza to exist as its “open air prison”, to use the term publicly utter by retired IDF naval admiral Ami Ayalon who also served as the chief of Shin Bet, or Shabek, which runs Gaza like prison guards, since 2007. That was the year when the Hamas became the elected government of the 28-mile strip along the hydrocarbon rich Mediterranean Sea, something Israel eyes with its characteristic lust for land and resources.

Chillingly, the common element here is both Hiroshima and Gaza have been variously vaporized by the American weapons.

Obviously, the estimated 80,000 tons of the explosives delivered through Made-in-USA 1,000 and 2,000 lb bombs, all provided by the bipartisan Washington dropped from F-35s, almost daily and nightly over 660 days, could do a similar degree of physical destruction as Truman’s Bombs did in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Who then needs atomic bombs to destroy Gaza?

Here worth noting is the fact that the American Creator of history’s first-ever atomic bomb J. Robert Oppenheimer, the German-trained professor of theoretical physics at the flagship campus of the University of California, in Berkeley, was capable of painful and honest self-reflection that “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds“.

Alas, there is absolutely no sign of such capacity for honest soul-searching amongst the American political leaders and their foreign policy advisors: the United States continues to be the destroyer of worlds, that is, other peoples’ worlds (whole sale societies, countries and nations), from the Korean peninsula to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia to throughout the Muslim Middle East of Iraq, Libya, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and now Gaza and all of the Occupied Palestine, as well as Latin America.

In the early autumn of 2016, I visited Hiroshima , with an old British friend of mine, Professor Edward Vickers, whose father is a retired Royal Air Force pilot. Ed resides in Japan with his Japanese partner and their children. I was in Kyoto for a small international seminar on comparative cases of genocidal violence where I presented my main research theme of my own “Buddhist” country’s genocide against Rohingya people, still ongoing to date.

I decided to take a long train journey from Kyoto to Hiroshima and asked Ed to join me at Hiroshima, a place we had both wanted to go. For me, Hiroshima has long had a personal ring: the extended American family (of two sisters, both of whom did their undergraduate degrees at Oppie’s university when the man was on the faculty of physics) who practically adopted me as a young foreign graduate student in Northern California was entangled in the Manhattan Project. The older sister got a job at Los Alamos National Lab where the bomb was developed, specifically as Oppenheimer’s personal secretary. As a matter of fact, her boss walked her down the aisle at a small chapel established for the thousands of project workers as she fell in love with and married a young scientist working on the project.

In the video below, Marilyn Langlois describes her pilgrimage to Hiroshima, Japan, in April 2025, recalling her family connection to the first atomic bomb, countering myths surrounding its use, and stressing the urgency of “never again.”

One Thousand Paper Cranes

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTjaoflsuq8]

If it weren’t for the name Hiroshima and our historical knowledge it triggers, we would see neither the traces of the old Hiroshima nor the evidence of the first atomic bomb’s impact on the physical and natural environment.

When I visited the dark site, Hiroshima is no more dark or tragic, no traces of the atomic scars of the World War II savagely fought amongst Western imperialists and the axis of fascists for 6 years.

It looks and feels like another vibrant and populous Japanese city, eighty years after the city was reduced to rubble and a large number of its residents instantly vaporised.

That is, until we approached the Hiroshima Peace Park where the museum is located. We immediately recognized an iconic landmark of the vaporised city: the skeleton of a building with its dome, which has been kept as an unreconstructed memorial to the old Hiroshima which existed until 8:15 am on 6 August 1945.

Israel’s genocidal patron, namely the leaderships of the United States, have shown an utter and complete lack of human empathy, conscience or regard for the post-Hiroshima, post-Holocaust international law, which they helped create.

The United States has long become death, and destroyer of the worlds, while its corporate political class continues to celebrate its power of annihilation and seeks to send the massage that they will continue to destroy the world, natural and human, in order to rule over it.

For that reason alone, I am not so sure that we can be optimistic about Gaza’s reconstruction alas post-war Hiroshima, even as a Trumpian dystopian Riviera on the “unmarked mass graves of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians exterminated in their extended families over 2-3 generations.

As Rev. Dr Munther Isaac, the renowned Palestinian theologian of Shepherd’s Field, Bethlehem, said in his recent address to the Churches for the Middle East Peace Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, the ongoing US-Israel’s joint mass extermination campaign against his fellow people in Gaza, (and the West Bank) is the clearest indication of the total collapse of the current moral order of this post-Holocaust world.

In Isaac’s words, “Never again!” is really ‘Yet again!” while the Zionized Imperialists have integrated elements of both Auschwitz (closed on 27 January 1945) and Hiroshima (destroyed on 6 August 1945) in their annihilation of Gaza, both the physical environment and residential human population.

Isaac continues, “the law (now) protects the perpetrators of genocide in Gaza while punishing those who oppose (this crime against humanity.”

In passing, I will point out that even the relentless attempts to deny, defy and erase truths about USA and Israel by the planners, executioners and supporters of the genocide in Gaza have a precedent in the way the United States as the occupying military power in Tokyo handled the atomic bomb survivors’ attempts to document and tell the factual truths about what the Americans did with their atomic bomb in a single morning at 8:15 am on 6 August 1945.

The flyer I picked up from the Special Exhibition during my visit to Hiroshima speaks volumes about the typical perpetrator behaviour: erasure or concealment of evidence, oral or physical.

It reads: “In 1950, five years after the bombing, Hiroshima City invited its residents to send stories of their A-bomb experience in order to share with others and thereby help create a peaceful nuke-free world. A total of 165 stories were collected. …

However, due to various reasons such as the intensifying Cold War with the outbreak of the Korean War, a Peace Memorial Ceremony on August 6 that year was cancelled at the last minute by order of the GHQ (General Headquarters of the Allied Powers), which had occupied Japan.”

Fast forward to 2025
The destroyers of Gaza today see themselves as God’s chosen people with the divine right to perpetrate a Holocaust of their own against the largely Muslim population of Palestine whose land they have stolen to build “the Jewish national homeland”, under the imperial patronage of first Britain and now the USA.

There are daily crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide in Gaza by USA and Israel over 660 mornings – and still counting.

So expect these two states to become even more shrill and extreme as they struggle to exterminate factual truths about their victim-livestreamed crimes against Palestinians, specifically, the bogus “antisemitism” laws as defined by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) run by the Jewish Supremacist or Jewish Exceptionalist psychopaths working for the genocidal state of Israel.

A Buddhist humanist from Burma (Myanmar), Maung Zarni, nominated for the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize, is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment, former Visiting Lecturer with Harvard Medical School, specializing in racism and violence in Burma and Sri Lanka, and Non-resident Scholar in Genocide Studies with Documentation Center – Cambodia.

18 August 2025

Source: transcend.org