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By Juan Cole

President Joe Biden has now joined the ranks of Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush as a president whose Middle East policy crashed and burned spectacularly. Unlike Carter, who was stymied by the Iranian hostage crisis, or Bush, who faced a popular Iraqi resistance movement, Biden’s woes weren’t inflicted by an enemy. Quite the opposite, it was this country’s putative partner, the Israeli government, that implicated the president in its still ongoing genocide in Gaza, as well as its disproportionate attacks on Lebanon and Iran, for which Biden steadfastly declined to impose the slightest penalties. Instead, he’s continued to arm the Israelis to the teeth.

Israel’s total war on Palestinian civilians, in turn, significantly reduced enthusiasm for Biden among youth and minorities at home, helping usher him out of office. It also created electoral obstacles for Kamala Harris’s presidential bid. By his insistence on impunity for the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden has left the Middle East in flames and the U.S. and the world distinctly in peril.

During his first three years in office, his administration wielded the tools of diplomacy in the Middle East. Donald Trump’s sanctions against the Houthis in Yemen had imperiled the civilian population there by denying them humanitarian aid and gasoline to drive to the market for food. Biden lifted those sanctions and sponsored continued negotiations between those in power in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa and in the neighboring Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh. Only relatively small contingents of American troops remained in Syria and Iraq to help with the mopping-up operations against the so-called Islamic State terrorist organization.

Pushing Iran into the Arms of China and Russia

Danger signals nonetheless soon began flashing bright red among friend and foe alike in the region, as Biden’s team quickly squandered an opportunity to restore the 2015 “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,” or JCPOA, between the U.N. Security Council and the Iranian regime in Tehran, which Trump had so tellingly trashed.  Between 2015 and 2019, that deal had successfully kept Iran’s civilian nuclear enrichment program purely civilian, closing off the four most plausible pathways to a nuclear weapon.

In those years, the Iranians had, in fact, mothballed 80% of their nuclear program in return for sanctions relief. While the U.N. Security Council lifted economic sanctions on that country, Republicans in Congress refused to halt unilateral American sanctions, which applied to third parties as well. European investors had to jump through hoops to invest in Iran while avoiding Treasury Department fines. As a result, a disappointed Iranian leadership went unrewarded for its careful compliance with the JCPOA.

Then, in May 2018, Trump stabbed the Iranians in the back, withdrawing the U.S. from the JCPOA and slapping the most severe economic sanctions ever applied by one country to another in peacetime on Iran. It essentially added up to an invisible blockade of the Iranian economy, even interfering with ordinary commerce like that country’s oil sales. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted of having convinced the gullible Trump to take such a step, which led Iran’s petroleum exports to plummet over the next three years. Trump even designated the Iranian National Bank a terrorist organization, again with potentially crippling consequences for the entire economy.

In revenge, Iran went back to enriching uranium to high levels and building more centrifuges, though without actually producing weapons-grade material. To this day, its civilian nuclear program remains a form of “the Japan option,” an attempt at deterrence by making it clear that it does not want a bomb but that, if it feels sufficiently threatened, it can build a nuclear weapon relatively quickly.

As soon as Joe Biden defeated Trump in 2020, the centrist Iranian President Hassan Rouhani declared that the JCPOA could be restored by the two leaders virtually by fiat. And Biden’s foreign policy team initially appeared to consider negotiations to reinstate the treaty, only to ultimately retain Trump’s outrageous sanctions as “leverage,” demanding that Iran return to compliance with the JCPOA before the two sides could talk.

Perhaps the Iranian public got the message that Biden was determined to be as hostile as Trump. Certainly, in the next round of voting in the summer of 2021, they swung behind hardliner Ebrahim Raisi. And despite occasional modest diplomatic forays since then, relations have been in a dumpster for the remainder of Biden’s term, with most of Trump’s “maximum pressure” sanctions still in place. And once again, as in the Trump years, the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu has lobbied Biden hard to cease all negotiations with Tehran.

Iran, which might have been drawn into the Western camp, has instead become a hostage to Beijing. Starting in 2019, China accepted smuggled Iranian petroleum at a substantial price discount. Then, when the Ukraine War broke out and Biden imposed maximum sanctions on the Russian Federation, Moscow and Tehran found themselves pushed ever closer.

Now, the two countries plan to sign a “strategic partnership agreement,” while, in July 2023, Iran joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, cementing the alliances with both China and Russia into which it had been so vigorously pushed by Washington. Iran also became a definite asset for Russia in its Ukraine War, providing Vladimir Putin with crucial weaponry. In short, Biden’s hardline policy toward Tehran ultimately harmed his major foreign policy initiative, of defeating Moscow.

Passionate Intensity

Biden’s team also pursued the strategy worked out by Donald Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner of trying to wheedle or strong-arm Arab states into making a separate peace with Israel, while throwing the stateless Palestinians under the bus. They managed to defame the Bible by naming their agreements — initially among Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, and Israel — the “Abraham Accords,” though they were actually thinly veiled arms deals. Underlying such a strategy lurked the possibility of creating a military bloc, involving Israel and significant parts of the Arab world, to isolate and ultimately overthrow the government of Iran. The Arab signatories all sought the economic benefits of trade and investment with Israel as well as U.S. security promises, benefiting American arms manufacturers with their orders. Had Biden instead made a full-court press for Palestinian rights, he might have created optimism rather than despair.

Sudan was also soon blackmailed into joining the accords. A popular revolution there overthrew the decades-long dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir on April 11, 2019. Its civilian and military wings then entered into a tenuous cohabitation, with the civilians pressing the generals to return to their barracks. Civilian Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and the chairman of the Transitional Military Council, General Abdel Fattah Burhan, signed onto the Abraham Accords in January 2021 both to get Sudan removed from the U.S. list of terrorist nations and to begin repairing its economy.

In the end, that represented pure economic blackmail, a policy continued by Secretary of State Antony Blinken. A 2022 poll showed that more than 74% of Sudanese rejected any normalization with Israel. Instead of attempting to bolster budding Sudanese democracy, the Biden administration continued to resort to backdoor deals with that junta in the interests of America’s main geopolitical client in the Middle East (while Sudan itself fell into a catastrophic civil war).

Blinken also made it a personal mission to rope Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accords. Unlike the two other Gulf states committed to the treaty, however, Saudi Arabia has a largely pro-Palestinian Muslim population in the millions and a peace treaty with Israel might have fomented unrest among them. While Mohammed Bin Salman, the fickle crown prince who ran much of the show in that country, continued to vacillate on the issue, his father, King Salman, repeatedly made it clear that “Palestine is our number one issue,” and that there will be no recognition of Israel without an ironclad path to a Palestinian state (a longstanding Saudi position).

Nonetheless, the Biden foreign policy team continued pressuring Riyadh to normalize relations with Israel, even as the Gaza War grew ever more devastating and the Saudi public daily saw images of women and children being shredded by American-supplied bombs and drones. In an opinion poll released last January, 78% of Saudis said that they felt psychologically stressed by the Gaza War, while nearly every one of them lambasted the U.S. response as “bad” or “very bad,” and  57% believed there was now no possibility of making peace with Israel.

Things Fall Apart, the Center Cannot Hold

The security guarantees the U.S. gave the United Arab Emirates under the Abraham Accords emboldened its leader, Mohamed Bin Zayed (MBZ), in his quest to create an informal empire stretching from Yemen to Sudan and even all the way to Libya.  In April 2023, however, Sudan’s conventional army and the country’s special operations Rapid Support Forces (RSF) fell to fighting one another, as the generals that led them competed for power. The country then devolved into a horror show of a civil war, with half of its 50 million people now facing starvation and at least 62,000 already slaughtered. The brutal RSF fighters are nonetheless backed by the Emirates (lovingly dubbed “little Sparta” by the Pentagon). And in these years, President Biden has proven impotent when it came to reining in America’s “Abraham Accords” darling. In fact, he only recently hosted MBZ at the White House and a Rose Garden that’s seen more genocidaires than most administrations.

The Israeli and U.S. response to the gruesome Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, can fairly be said to have entirely undone all of Biden’s diplomatic work in the region. While the United States and some other Western governments viewed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s never-ending devastation of Gaza and his country’s deployment of American 2,000-pound bombs against residential complexes as forced on him by Hamas’s alleged tactic of using civilians as “human shields,” virtually no one in the global South agreed. Even some European Union states and Israeli journalists dissented.

South Africa brought a case against Israel at the International Criminal Court charging it with genocide, which the Court found “plausible” in January, issuing the equivalent of a preliminary injunction against the Netanyahu government. Israel, of course, ignored it and has simply continued the devastation there (and now in Lebanon as well). Somehow, Biden seemed unaware that the government of extremists formed by Netanyahu in late 2022 was anything but the Israel of the 1960 film Exodus, with a blue-eyed Paul Newman as the protagonist. It was instead a witch’s brew of virulent ethnonationalism and religious apocalypticism.

Worse yet, Netanyahu used the cover of his Gaza atrocities to expand the war further. He deliberately bombed an Iranian diplomatic facility (considered Iranian soil under international law) in the Syrian capital of Damascus last spring. Iran later responded with a rocket barrage. Netanyahu went on attempting to get Tehran’s goat, aware that if he could turn his conflict into an actual war with Iran, American jingoists would give him even more knee-jerk support.

In the process, he had Ismail Haniyeh, his chief, if indirect, civilian Hamas negotiating partner, assassinated in Iran’s capital of Tehran on the occasion of the inauguration of a new president there. He then launched a terrorist onslaught of booby-trapped pager bombs against an Iran-allied group, Hezbollah, in Lebanon before invading that country and subjecting significant parts of it to a Gaza-style bombardment, as a response to Hezbollah rocket attacks on Israel in support of Gaza. Such provocations led to yet another Iranian missile barrage against Israel on October 1st to which Israel replied with attacks on Iranian military facilities. Biden was reduced to pleading with Iran to be reasonable in response, while declining to demand any similar restraint from Israel.

The Blood-Dimmed Tide

And here’s the truth of the matter: President Biden could undoubtedly have halted Netanyahu’s total war on Palestinian civilians at any point in 2024, given Israel’s dependence on U.S. ammunition and arms. Instead, his gung-ho support of the insupportable in Gaza has helped turn the Middle East into a genuine powder keg, which he is bequeathing to his successor. Crucial Red Sea and Suez Canal maritime trade has already been partially paralyzed, thanks to rocket attacks launched by Yemen’s Houthi rebels in support of the people of Gaza, adding inflation and supply-chain difficulties to the global economy.

Biden then restored sanctions on the Houthis, harming Yemeni civilians, while allowing Netanyahu to go on butchering Gazan civilians.  Lebanon, already a basket case, with a ruined port, a bankrupt national bank, no president, and a third of its population below the poverty line, now faces a wholesale reduction to fourth-world misery. More than a million Lebanese have had to flee their homes in that small country and the conflict will undoubtedly contribute to Europe’s immigration crisis.

Consider it a distinct irony, then, that, rather than allying with Israel against Iran, most Arab publics have significantly raised their estimation of Tehran. Even long-time American ally Turkey and U.S. partner Egypt have felt threatened by the extremist Netanyahu government and its Napoleonic ambitions, and have begun warming to one another and exploring better relations with Tehran.

Nativist Shiite militias in Iraq rained down rockets on bases in that country hosting U.S. troops, but ranged even further afield, targeting American soldiers in Jordan and killing Israeli troops in Israel itself. They pledged to come to the aid of Lebanon’s Hezbollah. The Iraqi parliament recognized such militias in 2016 as the equivalent of a national guard. Iraq’s outraged Shiites even finally convinced Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ Al Sudani to kick the last U.S. troops out of that country by 2026.

In the end, Biden’s unfaltering bear hug of Benjamin Netanyahu ensured that even the last vestiges of the George W. Bush administration’s neoconservative project of reshaping the Middle East to America’s and Israel’s advantage have now gone down the drain. Washington continues to send ever more bombs and sophisticated weaponry to a Middle East in flames and, with Donald Trump set to take office in January, such dangerous arms deals will likely only multiply.

Consider it a genuine first-class nightmare.

Juan Cole, a TomDispatch regular, is the Richard P. Mitchell collegiate professor of history at the University of Michigan.

11 November 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor

Palestinian Territory – Given that Israel has blocked the entry of goods and aid to the hundreds of thousands of besieged residents in the northern Gaza Strip for more than 50 days now, the relevant international and UN organisations must formally declare famine in the region. Israel’s use of starvation as a weapon is one component of its ongoing genocide in the Strip, which also includes mass killings and forced displacement.

Due to the illegal Israeli blockade on the enclave, 10s of thousands of Palestinians, including dozens of patients in three hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip, are in immediate danger of starvation or long-term health consequences.

Israel has been blocking the flow of any humanitarian aid into northern Gaza since 25 September. By blocking the entry of all goods, beginning on 1 October, and launching a massive military assault against all citizens of Jabalia and Beit Lahia four days later, Israel has successfully divided the North Gaza Governorate from the rest of the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli occupation forces targeted and bombed hundreds of homes and shelters in the North Gaza Governorate over the course of 36 days, killing approximately 1,900 Palestinians and injuring over 4,000 more. Tens of thousands of people were forced to leave the governorate, while 10s of thousands more still reside in its homes and shelters.

The people who are still in North Gaza are living under an immobilising siege, are being deliberately and continuously bombed, and are without food, water, and medical supplies. Anyone who tries to flee in search of these necessities is targeted by Israeli drones and killed.

The Euro-Med Monitor field team has documented shocking testimonies from Palestinians forced to leave the northern Gaza Strip regarding the intense hunger and scarcity of food there. The team cautions that this foretells a rise in the prevalence and spread of hunger, severe malnutrition, and related illnesses, particularly among the elderly, children, and expectant mothers.

Palestinians have not recovered from earlier waves of starvation that appeared at different times at the end of last year and multiple times in the preceding months, and they are currently facing the worst of Israel’s starvation, bombing, and displacement campaigns.

Due to Israel’s illegal blockade on the entire northern Gaza Strip, including Gaza City, 10s of thousands of people who were forced to flee the North Gaza Governorate and initially sought safety in the Gaza City Governorate are now unable to purchase basic necessities. This is due to both the lack of humanitarian aid allowed to enter the northern governorates of the Strip and to the high costs brought on by the shortage of supplies there.

The situation in the southern Gaza Valley is not much better, because Israel still places severe restrictions on the ability of traders to enter the area, restricts the number of aid trucks allowed in, and frequently gives armed gangs and thieves cover to seize a significant portion of aid from the trucks in Israeli-controlled areas, preventing them from reaching their destinations. Israel has effectively destroyed public order in the Gaza Strip, killing numerous people in charge of protecting humanitarian aid and distributing it equitably.

All residents of the Gaza Strip are now reliant on foreign humanitarian aid due to a lack of employment opportunities, cash liquidity issues, and the collapse of local production capacity. Consequently, halting such aid would mean denying them access to food and other necessities that are essential to their survival.

Since Israel has been committing the crime of starvation and using it as a means to carry out its genocide against the Palestinian people with the goal of eradicating them, the world is accountable for the famine crisis that Israel has caused in the Gaza Strip. Given the likelihood of dozens of deaths among the hungry every day, the international community is cautioned that this crisis is nearing its peak.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification System’s Famine Review Committee, a specialised body that evaluates and authorises famine classifications in nations experiencing severe food crises, issued an alert on Friday that warned of the gravity of the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip and its rapid deterioration. It also raised concerns about the imminent and high risk of famine in the northern part of the Strip specifically and the urgent need for the international community to act within days—not weeks—to lessen the severity of this humanitarian disaster in the northern Gaza Strip.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor counters that it is time to formally declare famine in the Gaza Strip, particularly in the north, which is experiencing an unprecedented siege, bombardment, and deprivation of all basic necessities for survival. This declaration would require the international community to fulfill its moral obligations and take all of the necessary legal actions against Israel, such as punishing it with sanctions, preventing it from receiving weapons, and acting quickly to establish a humanitarian corridor and bring in aid and supplies to prevent thousands of Palestinians from starving to death.

The international community has both an ethical and legal responsibility to stop the spread of famine in the Gaza Strip. This includes calling things by their proper names and officially declaring the famine in the Strip in order to ensure the provision of immediate supplies of life-saving aid. The delay in this official declaration, i.e. the decision not to take new, serious steps to pressure Israel to lift its illegal blockade of the Strip and stop its crimes there, will undoubtedly result in further obstructions of life-saving aid that will lead to worsening poverty, malnutrition, starvation and deaths.

Israel must be pressured to restore health, water, and sanitation services in the Gaza Strip and to supply safe, nourishing, and sufficient food for the entire Palestinian population there by providing parents with baby formula; treating cases of starvation, malnutrition, and related diseases; allowing the entry and movement of life-saving materials through crossings and land routes immediately, quickly, and effectively; and restoring local production systems and the entry of commercial goods. All of these actions are necessary, especially in the north, as is the urgent restoration of Palestinians’ access to humanitarian aid and services across the entire Strip.

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

11 November 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Francisco Dominguez

The people of the United States and most of the rest of the world woke up this week to the last news they wanted to hear.

Not only had Donald J Trump presiding over a proto-fascist Maga mass movement been elected president of the United States, he will enjoy a comfortable Republican majority in the Senate, and he also may have a Republican majority in the House of Representatives.

He obtained about the same number of votes as in 2020, 74 million, and he scored an electoral victory because the Democrat candidate, Kamala Harris, got well over 10 million votes less than Joe Biden in 2020.

If one adds the strong political identification of the US Supreme Court with Trump’s overall political views, he will enjoy few obstacles from the key institutional structures of the United States to implement his cherished aim, the establishment of a strongly authoritarian government that would endeavour to turn all existing institutions into instruments of his political movement, his ideology and his government plans.

Throughout the election campaign and since he lost the 2020 election, Trump has projected a government programme of wholesale retribution against his political opponents including what he perceives as a hostile media, which he has labelled “the enemy within.”

He also intends to expel millions of — principally Latino — immigrants, who he accuses of “poisoning the blood of the country.”

His strategic plan for the US has been systematised in a 900-page document by the Heritage Foundation, Project 2025, which, if fully implemented, will erase most of the existing mechanisms and practices that, despite its gross imperfections, broadly qualify the US as a democracy.

Many have exhaled a premature sigh of relief when Trump in his victory speech promised “no more wars” in his coming administration. However, during his 2016-20 government he conducted a mutually damaging “trade war” against China, a country he harbours a deep hostility to.

Hostility to China is likely to become the centre of his concerns on foreign policy, for which he can escalate the intense cold war and the massive military build-up around the South China Sea, including arming Taiwan, already developed by Biden.

Open US hostility to China began with president Barack Obama’s “Pivot to East Asia” in 2011, which prepared the militarisation of US policy towards the Asian giant. US military build-up 8,000 miles away from the US is stirring trouble in the region.

There ought to be little progress to be expected from the coming Trump government on the Middle East and on Palestine-Gaza. In December 2017, less than a year in office, reversing nearly seven decades of US policy on this sensitive issue, Trump formally recognised Jerusalem as the capital city of Israel and moved the US embassy to Jerusalem. There was worldwide dismay, including in substantial sections of the US Establishment, because it “shattered decades of unwavering US neutrality on Jerusalem.”

About Latin America, the 2016-20 Trump government specifically targeted what his national security adviser, John Bolton, called the “troika of tyranny” — namely, Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua — which he also referred to as “a triangle of terror.”

Bolton in outlining Trump’s policy accused the three governments of being “the cause of immense suffering, the impetus of enormous regional instability and the genesis of a sordid cradle of communism.”

In 2018, Trump’s state secretary, Rex Tillerson, affirmed the Monroe Doctrine because it had asserted US “authority” in the western hemisphere, stating that the doctrine is “as relevant today as it was when it was written.” Tillerson’s was a strong message to Latin America that the US would not allow the region to entertain building links with emerging world powers such as China.

It was during Trump’s 2016-20 administration that, after several years of careful and methodical preparations, the US orchestrated and financed the 2018 coup attempt against Nicaragua. It convulsed the small Central American nation for more than six months of vicious levels of violence, leading to wanton destruction of property, massive economic losses, and nearly 200 innocent people killed. The Biden administration, under pressure from cold warriors in the US, has continued its policy of aggression against Nicaragua by applying an array of sanctions.

Trump inflicted hundreds of sanctions on Venezuela with horrible human consequences, since in 2017-18 about 40,000 vulnerable people died unnecessarily. Venezuela’s economy was blockaded to near asphyxiation. Its oil industry was crippled with the double purpose of denying the country’s main revenue earner and preventing oil supplies to Cuba. Trump repeatedly threatened Venezuela with military aggression; Venezuela (2017) was subjected to six months of opposition street violence; an assassination attempt against President Nicolas Maduro (August 2018); Juan Guaido proclaimed himself Venezuela’s “interim president” (January 2019, and he was recognised by the US); the opposition tried to force food through the Venezuela border by military means (February 2019); the State Department offered a reward of $15 million for “information leading to the arrest of President Maduro” (March 2020); a failed coup attempt (May 2019); a mercenary raid (May 2020); and in 2023 Trump publicly admitted that he wanted to overthrow Maduro to have control over Venezuela’s large oil deposits.

Although Cuba has endured the longest comprehensive blockade of a nation in peace time (over six decades, so far), under Trump the pressure was substantially ratcheted up. In 2019 Trump accused the government of Cuba of “controlling Venezuela” and demanded that, on the threat of implementing a “full and complete” blockade, the 20,000 Cuban specialists on health, sports culture, education, communications, agriculture, food, industry, science, energy and transport, who Trump falsely depicted as soldiers, leave.

Due to the tightening of the US blockade, between April 2019 and March 2020, for the first time its annual cost to the island surpassed $5 billion (a 20 per cent increase on the year before).

Furthermore, Trump’s policy of “maximum pressure” against Cuba meant, among other things, that lawsuits under Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, were allowed; increased persecution of Cuba’s financial and commercial transactions; a ban on flights from the US to all Cuban provinces (except Havana); persecution and intimidation of companies that send fuel supplies; an intense campaign to discredit Cuban medical co-operation programmes; USAid issued a $97,321 grant to a Florida-based body aimed at depicting Cuban tourism as exploitative; Trump also drastically reduced remittances to the island and severely limited the ability of US citizens to travel to Cuba, deliberately making companies and third countries think twice before doing business with Cuba; and 54 groups received $40 million in US grants to promote unrest in Cuba. Besides, Cuba has had to contend with serious unrest in July 2021 and more recently in March 2024, stoked by US-funded groups in as many cities as they could. The model of unrest is based on what has been perpetrated against Nicaragua and Venezuela.

Trump’s final act of sabotage, just days before Biden’s inauguration, was to return Cuba to the State Sponsors of Terrorism (SSOT) list by falsely charging it with having ties to international terrorism. The consequences have been devastating: between March 2022 and February 2023, 130 companies, including 75 from Europe, stopped any dealings with Cuba, affecting transfers for the purchase of food, medicines, fuel, materials, parts and other goods.

Trump, despite being so intemperate and substantially discredited worldwide due to his rhetorical excesses, threats and vulgarities, leads a mass extremist movement, has the presidency, the Senate and counts on the Supreme Court’s explicit complicity, and is, therefore, in a particularly strong position to go wacko about the “troika of tyranny,” especially on Cuba. In short, Trump’s election as president has a historic significance in the worst possible sense of the term.

From his speeches one can surmise he would like to make history and he may entertain the idea of doing so by “finishing the job” on Cuba (but also on Venezuela and Nicaragua). If he does undertake that route, he has already a raft of aggressive policies he implemented during 2016-20. Furthermore, he will enjoy right-wing Republican control over the Senate foreign affairs committee.

Worse, pro-blockade hard-line senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are leading members of this committee and have a fixation with Cuba. Trump got stronger support in Florida, where the anti-Cuban Republicans in Florida bolstered his support and election victory. He also has a global network of communications owned by his ally, billionaire Elon Musk. Furthermore, no matter who the tenant in the White House, the “regime change” machinery is always plotting something nasty on Cuba.

So, buckle up! Turbulent times are coming to Latin America. Our solidarity work must be substantially intensified by explaining the increased threat that a second Trump term represents for all Latin America, but especially for Cuba.

Francisco Dominguez is national secretary of the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign and co-author of Right-Wing Politics in the New Latin America.

10 November 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Gerry Condon

November 11, declared Armistice Day at the end of World War I, is celebrated in the U.S. as Veterans Day. Understanding why requires us to recall World War I and its aftermath.

World War I was an international conflict, 1914-18, that embroiled most of the nations of Europe, along with Russia, the United States, the Middle East, and other regions.  The war pitted the “Central Powers” – mainly Germany Austria-Hungary and Turkey – against the “Allies” – mainly France, Great Britain, Russia, Italy and (from 1917) the United States. The war was unprecedented in the slaughter, carnage, and destruction it caused. Over 15 million people were killed – both soldiers and civilians, and over 25 million were wounded.

The First World War ended in November 1918 when an armistice was declared at the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month,” marking a moment of hope and the promise of peace. It was also a moment of great sadness and a sense of great tragedy. Many people prayed this would be “the war to end all wars,” and that Armistice Day would serve as an eternal warning never to repeat the past.  But then came World War II.

After the end of World War II and the Korean War ceasefire, in 1954 veterans’ organizations pushed the Congress to switch the holiday’s name to Veterans Day, a day to honor those who fight in war. Could it be that – having emerged from World War II unscathed and more powerful than ever, the United States was not ready to abandon militarism? Whatever the intention, the holiday’s meaning was turned on its head – a day for war instead of a day for peace.

The national organization Veterans For Peace has been working to Reclaim Armistice Day as  a day that is dedicated to ending war once and for all. Veterans lead Armistice Day activities around the country, many incorporating the ringing of bells at the “11^th hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th month.” Now the veterans group is also calling for Peace in the Middle East.

The looming threats of climate catastrophe and nuclear annihilation have been overshadowed this year by Israel’s horrific ongoing genocide of Palestinian civilians in Gaza – up to 50,000 killed, 70% of whom are women and children.For thirteen months straight, unspeakable atrocities have filled our screens and haunted our consciences. We can see clearly that the US government is complicit in Israel’s merciless ethnic cleansing. The bombs that Israel drops on Palestinian children are made in the USA and delivered by the US government. US-backed Israeli wars have now expanded to the Palestine’s West Bank, to Lebanon and to Iran, risking a wider war, possibly even a global war that could “go nuclear.”

According to Wikipedia: “Scholars trying to understand the cause of World War I “look at political, territorial and economic competition; militarism, a complex web of alliances and alignments; imperialism, the growth of nationalism; and the power vacuum created by the decline of the Ottoman Empire.” One hundred and six years after the end of World War I, another such deadly concoction is brewing. War is permanent. Genocide is on TV.  A desperate empire is pushing human civilization toward a tragic end.

NO MORE US BOMBS TO ISRAEL

This year, Veterans For Peace is calling for an Armistice – a permanent Ceasefire in Palestine, Lebanon and throughout the Middle East, and for an end to US arms shipments to Israel.

 “When US bombs stop dropping on Palestinian children, the genocide will end” said VFP Vice President Joshua Shurley.

The 39-year-old veterans’ organization, with chapters in over 100 US cities, recently issued a statement in support of Israeli and US soldiers who refuse to take part genocide, illegal wars and war crimes.

Gerry Condon is Vietnam-era veteran and war resister who is a past president and a current Board member of Veterans For Peace.

10 November 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Ida Audeh

Addressing the UN in September, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu held up a map of historic Palestine, in which the West Bank and Gaza Strip were not delineated; the whole territory, from the river to the sea, was labeled Israel. Other maps of Israel are even more ambitious and include parts of Lebanon and Syria as well. Israel sees the war with the Palestinians, and now with Lebanon, as an opportunity to change the map of the Arab world to make it more hospitable to Israeli expansionism and domination. The United States had the same impulse after September 2001, seizing the moment to embark on a global program of regime change, to make the world more amenable to U.S. hegemony.

As the genocidal war against Palestinians enters its second year, some things are very clear.

Israel’s wars in Palestine and now Lebanon are joint U.S.-Israeli wars. The U.S. could stop the carnage if it chose to, but it chooses instead to offer full military, tactical, financial and political support to Israel. European countries with colonial and genocidal histories assist Israel to the extent they can. The result is that the most industrial “advanced” countries in the world are supporting the destruction of the Gaza Strip, besieged for the past 17 years, and Lebanon, a country that has teetered on collapse for the past several years. Their goal is to demonstrate that resistance to U.S.-Israeli hegemony is futile. This single fact transforms the war into one with global implications.

Israelis and Palestinians are engaged in an existential battle throughout historic Palestine. If Palestinians lose, they most likely will be ethnically cleansed from the soil of Palestine in a repeat of the 1948 Nakba. (In fact, that process has already begun in the West Bank and in the northern Gaza Strip.) Israeli leaders have threatened this very explicitly, using the word “Nakba” to leave no doubt about their intentions. They have long lamented that the 1948 Nakba had not been more thorough. After Oct. 7, 2023, they saw an opportunity and seized it.

If Israel loses, its colonial experiment—as a Jewish ethnostate representing Western aims in the region and destabilizing the Arab world—comes to an end. Jews who live in Palestine will have to live like everyone else in a non-Zionist state yet to be created. Already tens of thousands of Israelis have decided that the country has no future, and they’ve used their second passports to emigrate.

Both parties know what is at stake. This understanding fuels the savagery of the Israeli army, fully supported by the Israeli people and the Biden administration, and the tenacious resistance of the Palestinian fighters. One year of carpet bombing and bloodletting, and Israel hasn’t managed to accomplish a single one of its stated military aims in Gaza. In fact, one of those goals—securing the release of the Israelis held in Gaza—no longer seems to factor into military considerations at all. It is waging a war of terror on civilians to prepare them for Israel’s Final Solution.

A high civilian death toll is precisely the point for the colonizer. In Gaza, the figure of 42,000 dead used by the health ministry includes only documented deaths; it is clear to everyone that in the massive mounds of rubble throughout the Gaza Strip, decomposing bodies are buried. Lebanon is getting similar treatment, with bombing of residential areas in which entire families are snuffed out.

The U.S. has denounced calls for a ceasefire as unacceptable. It prefers to give Israel time and space to kill civilians, in the hopes of improving Israel’s negotiating position and enabling it to dictate the terms of an end to hostilities. What Israel, the U.S. and other colonial backers have not yet figured out is that atrocities don’t cow people into accepting subjugation. Burying lots of children shot in the head has the uncanny effect of stiffening the backbone and fueling rage, which in turn produces fighters who understand that they cannot negotiate with a savage enemy bent on their destruction. When you’ve lived through the worst you can imagine—loved ones dismembered, relatives shuttled from place to place like sacks of potatoes and bombed anyway, the dead fed to roaming dogs, starvation—what is left for you to fear?

Israel has no red lines. Since its creation, Israel has been supported, armed and politically protected by Western countries. The result is the creation of a powerful, savage Frankenstein that ends Palestinian bloodlines; shoots children in the head; runs torture centers where Palestinian noncombatants are beaten, electrocuted, starved and gang raped; deliberately destroys hospitals and schools; targets U.N. agencies and personnel and makes geographies uninhabitable. The consequences of Western indulgence of Israel are explored in the recent Al Jazeera investigative study, (see p. x) which assembles social media postings from Israeli soldiers. The seeming unawareness by Israeli soldiers that their trophy moments are evidence of war crimes is deeply disturbing to the viewer. They actually believe that no human law applies to them.

Israel’s sabotaging of pagers and walkie-talkies delivered to Lebanon in September is a clear case of state-sponsored terrorism because the devices were remotely detonated as their users were in public spaces. At least 12 were killed and thousands injured; many were blinded. This is on a par with targeting hospitals and medical staff and turning commandeered hospitals into mass graves.

Israel’s assassination of political leaders demonstrates a need to deliver some red meat to the Israeli public in the absence of securing the release of Israelis from Gaza. Its assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in July in Tehran, followed less than two months later by its assassination of Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut, were grievous blows to both organizations, but not the knock-out punches that Israel and the U.S. might have hoped. Israel has a long and sordid history of assassinating Palestinian political figures. The Palestinian encyclopedia (<palquest.org>) lists 37 actual and attempted assassinations of Palestinian figures from 1970 to 2019. The resistance movement fighters know that they are marked men, and their organizations have found ways to continue functioning after they are gone. They are honored for their sacrifices.

U.S. officials who support Israel are becoming more freakish and disturbing with each passing month. What can be made of revelations that U.S. Secretary State Antony Blinken signed off on Israeli attacks on humanitarian convoys and buried internal reports concluding that Israel was blocking aid into Gaza. Or plastic-faced State Department spokesman Matthew Miller claiming that Israel is taking steps to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza even as a mountain of evidence shows that famine is widespread, a fact that World Food Program Executive Director Cindy McCain acknowledged?

Even people who don’t care about foreign policy have to be dismayed by the sight of a charlatan like Netanyahu being invited to address Congress and receiving no fewer than 58 standing ovations as he spewed lie after lie about the Israeli army’s conduct in Gaza. What good can come from legislators with such questionable morals and no self-respect, who see fit to give a gracious audience to a foreign war criminal?

This blind support for Israel even as it commits genocide explains at least some of the unease Americans feel when contemplating Gaza. Palestinians are being killed wholesale, but Americans feel threatened, too. U.S. institutions and state agencies have come down harshly on protesters on university campuses. White nationalists who shoot social justice protesters while the police stand by are not very different from Israeli settlers who shoot Palestinians while the army stands by to offer backup support. Whether in Palestine or the United States, dissent is crushed in ways designed to serve as a deterrence for others. State power is absolute and cannot be questioned. Can we live in such a world?

The Israeli army is an effective demolition battalion and mass killer of noncombatants, but it is psychologically defeated. It has destroyed every university in Gaza and most of the hospitals and killed noncombatants without restraint. But when Israeli soldiers come under fire, Palestinian fighters hear them curse their leaders, the same leaders who show no interest in securing the release of Israelis. When Palestinian fighters prepare for an ambush, they regard it as an honor and pay tribute to other brigades and to their fallen leaders—Haniyeh, Nasrallah and those who died years ago, whose names are given to the guns they use. They have a cause they believe in, and they are part of a history and tradition that they understand and honor and believe can liberate Palestine from the river to the sea. They fight for the future; the Israeli cause, incubated in the 19th century, seems increasingly preposterous, a racist setup long rejected by normal people.

The Palestinian resistance is aided by resistance movements in the Arab world. The current war demonstrates that Palestine is an Arab, not exclusively Palestinian, cause. Hezbollah knows that unless Israel is defanged, it will always pose a threat to Lebanon and to the Lebanese people, who are being wiped out like Gazans, entire families at one go. Groups in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, countries that have been ravaged by Western colonial actors, are coming to the aid of the Palestinians because they understand the need to end Western domination of the region.

That domination began more than a century ago, with the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916, with which the French and British divided the Levant into states and spheres of influence that suited their wishes, indifferent to the histories and wishes of the people. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 generously promised the support of the British government for the creation of a Jewish national homeland in Palestine. The Bush administration (2001-2009) took upon itself the foolhardy mission of implementing regime change in countries it thought should be more malleable to U.S. (and Israeli) wishes, and its wish list included Iraq, Libya and Syria; these countries are now in shambles. Everywhere the U.S. and Israel impose their will, they leave wastelands behind.

The battle waged for the liberation of Palestine calls to mind the battles waged in the epic trilogy Lord of the Rings, where warriors band together to fight against the seemingly crushing evil forces of Sauron. The odds are against them, and they know they won’t all live to see the scourge expunged from the realm, but they must at least try, because to do less would be ignoble.

Palestinians and their allies too, understand what is at stake. As of this writing, Israel is expelling Palestinians from the northern Gaza Strip in the first stages of what it thinks of as a final solution for the matter of the Palestinians. It is laying claim to territories in southern Lebanon to afford itself more living space. The combined Israel-U.S.-Western forces against them are merciless, and they must not be allowed to prevail.

What Israel and the U.S. are doing in Palestine, and now Lebanon, will set precedents for future lawless regimes. Unless the international community sets some red lines and backs them with deterring force, no one will be safe anywhere in the world.

Ida Audeh is senior editor of the Washington Report. This article was first published on the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs website on October 16, 2024

10 November 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By V.A. Mohamad Ashrof

This article examines how puritanical, literalist, and intolerant interpretations of the Quran have contributed to Islamophobia and explores the scholarly arguments advocating for more contextual, pluralist, and human rights-based readings of Islamic texts. Scholars such as Abdolkarim Soroush, Mohammed Arkoun, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im, Fazlur Rahman, and Mohammad Abed al-Jabri argue that rigid interpretations can perpetuate stereotypes, fostering misunderstanding and hostility toward Islam. These scholars advocate for a dynamic approach that respects historical contexts, embraces diversity, and promotes rational and inclusive perspectives. This paper seeks to articulate these scholars’ contributions to reframing Islamic thought in ways that challenge Islamophobia.

The issue of Islamophobia—an irrational fear, hostility, or prejudice against Islam and its followers—has escalated in recent decades, exacerbated by political, social, and cultural misunderstandings. A significant contributing factor to this phenomenon is the existence of rigid, literal, and exclusivist interpretations of Islamic texts. Prominent Islamic scholars have argued that such interpretations can fuel misrepresentations and even contribute to global Islamophobia. This article examines the perspectives of five notable scholars—Abdolkarim Soroush, Mohammed Arkoun, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im, Fazlur Rahman, and Mohammad Abed Al-Jabri—who critique puritanical readings of the Quran and advocate for a more contextualized, inclusive, and human-centered approach to Islamic thought. Their insights show that a shift in Islamic interpretative methodologies can help counter the spread of Islamophobia by promoting a more compassionate, pluralistic, and human rights-oriented image of Islam.

The Problem of Literalist Interpretations in Islamic Thought

Literalist interpretations of the Quran are often “set in stone,” adhering strictly to the surface of the text without considering the historical, cultural, and social layers beneath it. Such interpretations have been compared to “blinders” that restrict a broader understanding, turning the Quran’s flexible and adaptable principles into “narrow paths” that leave little room for the winds of change. Abdolkarim Soroush, an Iranian philosopher, argues that a rigid, dogmatic understanding of Islamic texts contributes to hostility and misunderstanding, thereby fuelling Islamophobia. According to Soroush, “When religion is taken literally and reduced to a rigid doctrine, it becomes an instrument for division and hostility rather than unity and peace.” (Soroush, p. 65).

Similarly, Mohammed Arkoun, an Algerian philosopher, critiques traditionalist readings of the Quran as reductionist, often ignoring the Quran’s diverse interpretive history and potential for adaptation to modern contexts. Arkoun proposes a pluralistic approach that values critical inquiry and embraces multiple interpretations, arguing that such an approach not only counters intolerance within Muslim societies but also mitigates Islamophobic perceptions from outside. He argues that “an inclusive and pluralistic approach to Islamic thought allows for a deeper understanding and the dismantling of the myths that have historically divided people of different faiths.” (Arkoun, p.47).

By moving away from rigid literalism, Arkoun believes Islamic scholarship can present a more inclusive, compassionate, and humane face of Islam, one that can serve as a “bridge across troubled waters,” helping to dispel prejudice and mistrust.

Advocating for Contextual Understanding

Fazlur Rahman, a Pakistani-American scholar, has been one of the most vocal proponents of understanding the Quran within its historical and social contexts. Rahman argues that many Quranic verses addressed the immediate needs and circumstances of 7th-century Arabian society and thus cannot be meaningfully interpreted without acknowledging this historical context. He states, “Understanding the Quran in its historical context is not a way of abandoning tradition, but rather a means of renewing it for each new generation.” (Rahman, p.147) For Rahman, contextualization is like breathing new life into ancient wisdom, keeping the spirit of the Quran alive while avoiding what he calls the “trap of rigidity.”

By advocating for a contextual understanding, Rahman counters the dangers of a static, decontextualized interpretation that risks turning Islamic teachings into a “stumbling block” for Muslims and non-Muslims alike. His approach encourages Muslims to embrace a dynamic, evolving interpretation of the Quran that respects the principles of justice, equity, and mercy in line with modern ethical standards. A contextual approach helps challenge Islamophobic narratives by portraying Islam as a faith capable of adapting to diverse cultural and social realities without compromising its core values.

Promoting Pluralism and Diversity in Islamic Thought

Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im, a Sudanese-American scholar, emphasizes the importance of pluralism in Islamic jurisprudence and interpretation. An-Na’im argues that literalist readings of Islamic law often contribute to Islamophobia by reinforcing stereotypes of Islam as a monolithic, intolerant faith. His work underscores the potential for an inclusive, human rights-centered approach to Islamic law that respects cultural diversity and supports coexistence.

An-Na’im’s scholarship encourages Muslims to recognize and celebrate the diversity of Islamic traditions, interpretations, and practices that have historically coexisted within Muslim societies. “Variety is the spice of life,” and this idea of pluralism, at its heart, acts as a balm against the negative narratives often spun about Islam. By painting Islam as an “open tapestry” that weaves together diverse strands of belief and practice, An-Na’im’s approach can challenge Islamophobic narratives, demonstrating that Islam, like other major religions, accommodates a variety of cultural and intellectual perspectives.

An-Na’im emphasizes the importance of a secular state in fostering an authentic Islamic expression based on individual choice, rather than state-imposed mandates. He argues, “Forcing Islamic principles on the public does a disservice to those principles” and that Islam should “play a positive public role unfettered by state control,” thereby supporting a humanistic approach that respects freedom of belief and rejects compulsion in religion. (An-Na’im, pp. 5-7)

Emphasizing Critical Rationalism and Openness to Knowledge

In their critiques of literalist interpretations, scholars like Mohammad Abed Al-Jabri and Mohammed Arkoun advocate for a rational and critical approach to Islamic thought. Al-Jabri, a Moroccan philosopher, emphasizes the need for a rational framework within Islamic philosophy that promotes openness, flexibility, and intellectual rigor. Al-Jabri argues that critical rationalism is essential to “clearing away the cobwebs” of outdated assumptions and prejudices, thereby dispelling myths and misconceptions about Islam, both within Muslim societies and in the broader global community. In Arab-Islamic Philosophy, Al-Jabri advocates for a critical reinterpretation of religious thought, suggesting that an inclusive and pluralistic understanding of Islamic philosophy is essential for the intellectual revival of the Arab-Islamic world. He posits that “religious thought must evolve in dialogue with human rights and modernity,” reinforcing a liberal and tolerant perspective that values intellectual openness. (Al-Jabri, pp.12-14).

Arkoun similarly promotes a critical and rationalist approach to Islamic scholarship that questions dogmatic assumptions and engages with modern knowledge and scientific advancements. His vision encourages Muslims to “think outside the box” when interpreting Islamic teachings, in ways that resonate with contemporary values of equality, democracy, and human rights. This perspective provides a counter-narrative to Islamophobia by portraying Islam as a faith grounded in reason, compassion, and intellectual openness, a faith with “roots in the past but eyes on the future.”

An-Na’im’s human rights-based approach argues that the Quran’s core values align with universal principles of justice, compassion, and equality, making it compatible with modern human rights frameworks. By framing Islamic law and ethics in a manner consistent with human rights, An-Na’im demonstrates that Islam’s teachings can complement, rather than conflict with, contemporary human rights ideals. His approach is akin to “building bridges” between Islamic principles and universal human rights, showing that Islam, far from being at odds with human dignity and justice, actually upholds these values at its heart.

Breaking the Mould of Exclusivism

The collective insights of Abdolkarim Soroush, Mohammed Arkoun, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im, Fazlur Rahman and Mohammad Abed al-Jabri underscore the imperative of nuanced, contextualized and inclusive interpretations of Islamic texts to effectively counter Islamophobia. Their scholarly contributions emphasize transitioning from rigid literalism to a dynamic, pluralistic and human-centered understanding of Islam, thereby dismantling exclusivist narratives. By embracing these principles, Islamic thought can project an authentic, compassionate image to the global community, reversing Islamophobic misconceptions and cultivating cross-cultural and interfaith understanding, respect and solidarity.

Bibliography

Al-Jabri, M. A, Arab-Islamic Philosophy: A Critique of Religious Thought, London: I.B. Tauris, 1999

An-Na’im, A. A. Islam and the Secular State, New York: Harvard University Press, 2008

Arkoun, M. Rethinking Islam, Boulder: Westview Press, 1994

Rahman, Fazlur, Islam and Modernity, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982

Soroush, A. Reason, Freedom and Democracy in Islam, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000

V.A. Mohamad Ashrof is a renowned Indian scholar of Islamic humanism, regularly contributing insightful articles to Counter Currents.

9 November 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Rev. Graylan Scott Hagler

So much will be said about the Presidential elections of 2024. Democrats will reflect and inquire where they went wrong, and the various political pundits will claim that it was the economy, the southern border, immigration, and the economy. And credible arguments will be made to sustain their hypothesis. The Democrats will be accused of misplaced emphasis where too much was placed on a women’s right to choose, and protection from abortion bans. Some will argue that not enough emphasis was placed on bread-and-butter issues of the working class. Where was the talk about jobs, opening and keeping manufacturing booming in the US, and making wages grow to support a family and make feasible the American Dream. The Harris campaign expected a huge turnout of women voters who would resonate with issues of Choice, a national abortion ban, democracy, more civility in public discourse, and protecting the country from fascism. But it appears that was a gross miscalculation. We discover according to a Washington Post exit poll that 45% of women broke for Trump with 53% of white women going that way. White women and Hispanic men voted for Trump despite the sexism and racism of the campaign. The numbers among Black men had not changed from 2020 where 8 in 10 Black men supported the Democratic presidential nominee.

Trump’s campaign was a celebration of maleness. We heard about women being protected whether they wanted it or not. He talked about the size of Arnold Palmer’s penis. Even after the attempt on Trump’s life in Butler, Pennsylvania he pops back up with his fist in the air chanting “fight, fight, fight”. This was the Cowboy, the John Wayne, tougher than Ronald Reagan that white maleness and women were waiting for. Despite all the trials, convictions, adjudication for sexual assault, and the infamous tape where he is heard saying that you can “grab them by the pussy”, and his posturing with some of the world’s “strong men” helped to define him as a man’s man. His white male supporters, and more than a majority of white women dismissed all the Trump rhetoric, its rancor, racism, and the sexism as a celebration of testosterone that reestablished the “strong” white man.

As a man growing up in this US culture, I understand the sexist misogynistic attitudes that are afoot in the psyche of men. Though as a Black man I was raised with strong Black women, yet I did not escape the socialization that defines maleness and separates us from women. Though I have faithfully worked to reeducate myself from this socialization I am still struggling with my own failures. The culture has served as the academy of sexism and misogyny. As men we have all been educated in the universities of the locker room where we take sideway glances to see whose package is bigger, and to affirm the miracle of men. We have been socialized to believe that men should lead, are stronger, and that men are the pragmatist and therefore wiser than women. White women have largely been accepting of these roles as evidenced by 53% going with a macho white male instead of an accomplished Black/South Asian woman. Not only is this sexist but racist. Men have a strong identification with the macho sexism of Donald Trump, and feel that he spoke to their sense of failure as men in the home, community, and world. Trump has presented a beacon that draws white men to it in hopes that by supporting him it will mean that white men can take their rightful place – again. This movement is not just the Make America Great – Again movement, but it is also The Make Men Great – Again movement that resonated with significant portions of the white male and female population that led to the defeat of another woman vying for President of the US. In this case it was also a nonwhite woman who was perceived as posing a threat to maleness and endangering the belief that this is a country for, by, and of white males.

Rev. Graylan Scott Hagler, Senior Advisor-Fellowship of Reconciliation, USA,  & Director and Chief Visionary-Faith Strategies, LLC

9 November 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Alex Lantier

On the night of Wednesday to Thursday, Israeli football hooligans ran riot in Amsterdam, tearing down Palestinian flags, assaulting Arabs, and chanting anti-Gaza slogans. Some clashed with residents of Amsterdam, where a protest was planned against holding a game between the Maccabi Tel Aviv and Ajax Amsterdam football clubs during the Gaza genocide. Five people were taken to hospital, and yesterday the Israeli Foreign Ministry said all Maccabi fans were accounted for.

But Washington and European governments reacted with a deafening propaganda campaign, denouncing those who clashed with the hooligans as “anti-Semitic.” While no one was killed, far-right Dutch government strongman Geert Wilders is demanding a police crackdown, supposedly to stop a deadly “pogrom” against Jews. As of yesterday, at least 62 people had been detained in a wave of arrests across the city.

This propaganda campaign is a pack of lies, spun by governments complicit in genocide by their support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza. While they are outraged that five Israeli football hooligans were taken to hospital with light injuries, they support the mass murder of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

US President Joe Biden tweeted: “The Antisemitic attacks on Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam are despicable and echo dark moments in history when Jews were persecuted. We’ve been in touch with Israeli and Dutch officials and appreciate Dutch authorities’ commitment to holding the perpetrators accountable. We must relentlessly fight anti-Semitism, wherever it emerges.”

European governments made similar comments. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz denounced the clashes as “intolerable” because they “attack us all,” and Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof called them a “terrible anti-Semitic attack.” Equating the clashes with the Holocaust, French President Emmanuel Macron “firmly condemned” violence that he claimed recalls “the most horrific hours of history.” Within the Netherlands, the press campaign is largely directed by Wilders himself.

“A pogrom in the streets of Amsterdam,” Wilders claimed in one tweet, adding: “Muslims with Palestinian flags hunting down Jews. I will NOT accept that. NEVER. The authorities will be held accountable for their failure to protect the Israeli citizens. Never again.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, wanted on charges of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court, said he views the “incident with the utmost gravity.” He demanded “vigorous and swift action” by Dutch authorities.

These hysterical, unsubstantiated claims that the football clashes were anti-Semitic acts, or even deadly pogroms, aim to justify a mass police crackdown. No one was killed, nor have Dutch authorities provided evidence that the hooligans who were punched, or in one case thrown into a river, were targeted because they were Jewish. Rather, there is massive video evidence, backed up by statements of Amsterdam police, that Maccabi hooligans’ assaults on people and property in Amsterdam, together with their pro-genocide chants, provoked an eruption of anger.

There is reason to believe, moreover, that this was a deliberate provocation arranged between Israeli authorities and the far-right Dutch government. In the days before the Maccabi-Ajax game, Dutch newspapers De Telegraaf and Voetbalzone reported that agents of Israel’s Mossad foreign intelligence agency would be traveling among the Maccabi fans, supposedly to protect them from Dutch protesters.

At the stadium, just before the game, the Maccabi fans refused to honor the minute of silence for the thousands of victims of the Valencia floods in Spain, apparently because Madrid has called to recognize a Palestinian state. However, tensions exploded after the game, which Maccabi lost 5-0.

Maccabi hooligans “began attacking houses of people in Amsterdam with Palestinian flags, so that’s actually where the violence started,” Amsterdam city councilman Jazie Veldhuyzen told Al Jazeera yesterday. “As a reaction, Amsterdammers mobilised themselves and countered the attacks that started on Wednesday by the Maccabi hooligans.”

[https://twitter.com/GuyShahar93/status/1854392152932991373]

Maccabi hooligans rampaged across the city, tearing up Palestinian flags, hitting taxis driven by Arabic drivers with crowbars, and chanting pro-genocide slogans. These included “There are no schools in Gaza because there are no children left,” “F*ck Palestine,” “IDF [Israel Defense Forces] f*ck the Arabs,” and “Death to Arabs! We will win.”

[https://twitter.com/DutchTaxiDriver/status/1854359701342826522]

Amsterdam police chief Peter Holla confirmed reports of attacks that night by Maccabi fans. He told France24 news: “Violence had begun Wednesday night between fans. During the night, there were incidents on both sides. The Maccabi fans took down a flag from a façade of the Rokin [canal] in Amsterdam and destroyed a taxi. One Palestinian flag was burned.”

Comparisons by Biden, Macron, and others between clashes with Maccabi football hooligans and the Holocaust are politically obscene lies. During World War II, three-quarters of the Netherlands’ 140,000 Jews were deported and murdered on an industrial scale in Nazi death camps. When the working class opposed these deportations, as in the February 1941 Amsterdam general strike, Nazi authorities and members of Anton Mussert’s pro-Nazi, Dutch National Socialist Movement (NSB) gunned down dozens of workers, both Jewish and non-Jewish.

The force who is carrying out a genocide today is not the working class of Amsterdam, but the Zionist regime, backed by NATO governments. These include Wilders’ pathologically anti-Muslim Party for Freedom (PVV), which is driving the current police crackdown in Amsterdam, and whose party flag is inscribed with the gull that was the symbol of Mussert’s NSB.

Moreover, the Zionist regime is working with the European imperialist powers to create conditions for further provocations like the one this week in Amsterdam. Yesterday, Netanyahu announced he had asked Mossad to deploy its operatives to other international sporting events involving Israeli athletes: “I instructed the head of Mossad and other officials to prepare action plans, alert systems and our organization amid this new situation.”

This order is all the more explosive in that Mossad is infamous for its brutal methods, including targeted assassinations overseas, and that a controversial France-Israel League of Nations football match is currently set to go forward on November 14.

The Macron government, deeply unpopular and relying on the parliamentary support of far-right forces like the far-right National Rally, is desperately seeking to strangle working class opposition to the Gaza genocide. This week, far-right French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau threatened the Paris Saint Germain football club with investigations and prosecution, after its fans displayed a large “Free Palestine” flag at a game.

Yesterday, Retailleau rejected calls to move the France-Israel football match scheduled for November 14 out of the Stade de France, located in the largely Muslim north suburbs of Paris. Retailleau claimed moving the League of Nations match would “mean abdicating to threats of violence and to anti-Semitism.” This threatens to trigger new clashes between workers, this time in France, and Israeli football hooligans backed by Mossad and French police.

9 November 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai

Chairman

World Forum for Peace & justice

November 7, 2024

81^st session of the UN Committee Against Torture (CAT) is taking place in Geneva under the chairmanship of Dr. Claude Heller of Mexico. CAT is composed of 10 internationally known independent experts. It began on October 28 and will continue until November 22, 2024. CAT defines its objective in these words, “In order to ensure adequate protection for all persons against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, over the years the United Nations has adopted universally applicable standards. These standards were ultimately embodied in international declarations and conventions. In developing this valuable instrument, the United Nations did not merely put in writing in a series of articles a body of principles and pious hopes, the implementation and observance of which would not be guaranteed by anything or anyone. It set up also a monitoring body, the Committee against Torture, whose main function is to ensure that the Convention is observed and implemented.”

Torture, inhuman and degrading punishment in my judgement, deserve special abhorrence and deterrents.  They should all be made international crimes with no immunity for any government official implicated in the villainies.

It is undisputable that fundamental human rights are universal.  That is the tacit assumption of all the declarations, conventions and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They know no religious, national, or political boundaries. Everyone stands on the same plane when human rights are at issue. There is no denying that international declarations and conventions need strengthening. Unfortunately, these noble declarations and conventions were never applied when the world powers saw the bleeding body that of Kashmir.

Dr. Nigel S. Rodley of Great Britain and former U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture reported that the security forces systematically practice torture against persons in Jammu and Kashmir in order to coerce them to confess to militant activity, to reveal information about suspected militants, or to inflict punishment for suspected support or sympathy with militants…[M]ethods of torture included beating, rape, crushing the leg muscles with a wooden roller, burning with heated objects, and electric shocks…The U.N. Rapporteurs on Torture and Extrajudicial Killings renewed their requests to visit during the year, but the Government did not permit them to do so.”

Earlier, UN Human Rights Committee issued a statement on July 24, 2024, that, “The Committee was concerned that some provisions of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Acts and counter-terrorism legislation are not in compliance with the Covenant. The Committee also voiced its concern over the application of counter-terrorism legislation for decades in “disturbed areas”, such as districts in Manipur, Jammu and Kashmir and Assam, has led to widespread and grave human rights violations, including excessive use of force leading to unlawful killings, prolonged arbitrary detention, sexual violence, forced displacement and torture. It also asked India to establish a mechanism to initiate a process to acknowledge responsibility and ascertain the truth regarding human rights violations in disturbed areas.”

 UN human rights experts, including Mary Lawlor, Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders urged the Indian authorities to stop targeting Kashmiri human rights defender Khurram Parvez. “We call on the Indian authorities to immediately release him and ensure his rights to liberty and security,” they added.  “We regret that the Government continues to use the UAPA as a means of coercion to restrict civil society’s, the media’s and human rights defenders’ fundamental freedoms in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir as well as in the rest of the country. We therefore once again urge the Government to bring this legislation in line with India’s international legal obligations under human rights law,” the experts said.

What is the crime of Khurram Parvez, one may ask? Khurram Parvez documented a 549-page report entitled, “Torture: Indian State’s Instrument of Control in Indian Administered Jammu and Kashmir.’ He wrote, “You cannot understand human rights if you don’t understand the context. Human rights abuses are taking place all around the world, in many places, including in India. But the difference is these are happening because of aberrations, deficiencies in governance, and because people transgress the law. What is happening in Kashmir is not an aberration, it is part of an institutionalized policy of the Indian government.”

Mr. Parvez pleaded for the international community, whose assistance to date had been ‘dismal’ and all the organizations working for Kashmir to bring pressure to lobby for a United Nations ‘probe’ on the situation in Kashmir. Without such intervention, he said, ‘we cannot proceed forward. We are now at a stage where it is a complete dead end. We have done everything; we have met everyone in the government, but nothing has changed.

The prologue to this report was written by Professor Juan E. Mendez, former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture. Professor Mendez writes, “I am convinced that a report, when it is as rigorous, evidence based and persuasive as this one is, constitutes a building block towards public awareness of the tragedy of torture.” However, the dreams of Professor Mendez were shattered when the world powers turned a blind eye to his expectation that “It (the report) can also spearhead democratic debate about measures of public policy needed to re-establish the rule of law in this extremely sensitive area (Kashmir).”

It is well established that human rights defenders are cornerstones of the UN human rights machinery. Individuals must be energized to pick up the cudgels of enforcement, whether by way of free speech, legal services, political leadership, revelations, or otherwise.  Thus, it seems to me, some special international immunity akin to diplomatic immunity under the Vienna Convention is worth considering for credentialed defenders of human rights.

The repression of Kashmir’s soul has not diminished the pain or the need for India to meet those face to face who have had nothing but a boot to the belly and a cane to the back.  The voice of Kashmir not only remains as vibrant and shrill as in the very beginning, it is yet even stronger. It is time that India showed some honesty and forthrightness in its dealings with Kashmir.

The presence of 900,000 Indian troops plus seventy-seven years of conflict would seem to most observers a clear indication that Kashmir’s differences with India are intractable and irresolvable given the persistent resistance, despite the serious imbalance of power between the two.

It is our hope that the reports of UN Human Rights Committee, CAT and others will mobilize the policy makers of the members states of the UN Human Rights Council to do everything in their constitutional power to stop the torture, inhuman and degrading treatment of the people of Kashmir. It is further our hope that the policy makers of these member countries will look to solving the root cause of the problem – the unfulfilled promise of self-determination as guaranteed by successive United Nations Security Council resolutions.

The world powers should persuade India that it is in India’s interest to end the systematic torture and officially sanctioned inhuman and degrading treatment in Kashmir. It is time to end the charade. It is time to allow the people of Kashmir to sort out their own affairs and determine their own future.

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

He can be reached at: WhatsApp: 1-202-607-6435.  Or.  gnfai2003@yahoo.com
www.kashmirawareness.org

By Basharat Shameem

Here is an AI-generated podcast based on the article

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Sheikh ul Alam, commonly referred to as Sheikh Nooruddin, Nund Reshi, or Shazanand, holds a significant place in the hearts of both Pandits and Muslims, serving as an essential emblem of Kashmiriyat. He is justly celebrated as the patron saint of Kashmir, whose teachings contributed to the deeper articulation of the concept of Kashmiriyat. This October marked the 587th anniversary of his passing. Sheikh ul Alam is acknowledged for founding the Rishi order during the fifteenth century. As a natural ascetic, he devoted himself wholly to meditation, the remembrance of God, prayer, and spiritual discipline. His expressed his thoughts in his verses known as Shruks. Sheikh ul Alam may not have established a formal and systematic theology of emancipation; however, he dedicated himself fervently to the pursuit of socio-economic reform, approaching the issue from a faith oriented standpoint. There existed a fundamental coherence and evolution in the life and philosophy of Sheikh ul Alam, shaped by the influences of Sufi Islam and other faiths native to Kashmir. This coherence and evolution in Sheikh ul Alam’s thought encapsulate the rich and continuous cultural heritage of Kashmir.

Emancipation theology is recognized as a significant intellectual discourse that centers on the concept of emancipation in relation to discrimination, inequality, and societal regression. This movement, often viewed as a radical interpretation of religious doctrines, portrays religious leaders as both redeemers and liberators for marginalized communities. The main aim of emancipation theology is to empower believers to actively pursue socio-economic and political reforms for the benefit of the impoverished and disenfranchised. The theology of emancipation, although a relatively recent development, is rooted in a universal experience. This experience pertains to circumstances characterized by backwardness, enslavement, inequality, dependency, and extreme marginalization, juxtaposed with a foundation of religious faith. In this context, emancipation theologies align broadly with the paradigms or ideal struggles of numerous religious figures.

Emancipation theology encompasses significant practical action and reform, in addition to critical hermeneutic mediation. In the 15th century Kashmir, Sheikh ul Alam undertook the role of critical hermeneutic mediator, employing the same approach for the emancipation of the Kashmiri people in religious, social, and economic dimensions. The historical context significantly influenced the development of Sheikh ul Alam’s religious and theological perspectives. As a result, his theology serves as an autobiography, reflecting both his personal identity and the essence of Kashmiriyat.

Sheikh ul Alam’s social initiatives were grounded in his Sufi humanist perspective of theological belief. The concepts of the Divine and the individual form the foundation of Sheikh ul Alam’s faith, manifesting prominently in his teachings and actions:

Upon feeling the oneness of God
I promptly submitted to His authority
Merging my being in his Omnipresence
I remain in awe of his supreme Divinity

Sheikh ul Alam possessed a strong self-awareness regarding the belief that the Sufi humanist principles of compassion, equality, the pursuit of justice and truth, tolerance, and reconciliation serve as essential elements in addressing political, social, and religious conflicts. He journeyed widely across the Kashmir valley, living in different places while imparting his teachings on simplicity, purity, piety, reverence for God, and love for humanity:

Penitence shall enable you to traverse the vast expanse of this earthly realm
Repentance serves as the boat that carries one across the stream

Sheikh ul Alam, while rooted in the context of early medieval feudal Kashmir, envisioned an emancipated society that transcended local boundaries, advocating for a global and universal approach that encompasses all of humanity and various aspects of life. Central to his universal perspective was the belief in God as the ultimate source and focal point. He offered this vision as a significant counterpoint to the prevailing systems of feudal monarchy, caste discrimination, and exploitative religious practices by the powerful clergy. In alignment with his fundamental Sufi-Rishi principles, Sheikh ul Alam posited that the paths to divine realization lie in the harmonious integration of self, truth and tolerance. He stands as a significant religious leader in Kashmir’s history whose deep faith inspired him to engage actively in the pursuit of social liberation. His life and teachings exemplify the potential for a profound spiritual transformation of society from within, illustrating how the thoughtful application of advanced theological principles can facilitate socio-economic progress.

As a true Sufi humanist, Sheikh ul Alam held the conviction that faith and religion have the potential to promote a common good for humanity when viewed through a strictly humanist lens. He asserted that authentic faith motivates individuals to selflessly assist others. Sheikh ul Alam championed the idea of universal brotherhood, advocating that one’s sense of belonging should not be determined by religion or any other affiliations:

We hold no resentment towards each other
If our love brings together all, both Hindus and Muslims
Then it is certain that God is pleased with us

Sheikh ul Alam’s devotion and spirituality provided purpose and guidance in his life, fostering his conviction in the interconnectedness of existence and his dedication to the path of love. His commitment to serving humanity was integral to his religious principles. As he immersed himself in societal service, his spiritual consciousness expanded. Consequently, he shifted from a self-focused perspective to one centered on the spirit. His aspiration for a fair and equitable social structure was rooted in the belief that personal change and societal change are interconnected. It is something that is a key characteristic of emancipation theologians.

Even after six centuries, Sheikh ul Alam remains a symbol of spirituality and virtue for all Kashmiris. In the vision he aspired to create, there was space for all beliefs, castes, and religions. He did not perceive differences as obstacles; instead, he embraced them as avenues toward the attainment of the ultimate Truth. He understood the interconnectedness of the inner and outer realms, the personal and political spheres, as well as the religious and secular dimensions, recognizing a fundamental relationship between individual and societal transformation. He firmly believed that the renewal and emancipation of his own existence were intrinsically linked to the renewal and emancipation of his community. His life was dedicated to the service of God and humanity. For him, achieving religious and spiritual enlightenment was insufficient for societal transformation unless it was accompanied by tangible reform and active engagement. In his perspective, escapism was never a viable option. It is important to note that ancient Hindu traditions placed significant emphasis on the philosophy of Karma Yoga, which advocates for spiritual realization through social action, had a significant influence on the Kashmiri Rishi order. Likewise, in the Islamic tradition, the concept of “Amal-i-Saaleha” or virtuous actions, serves as the foundation of faith.

In the contemporary times which are sadly characterized by numerous conflicts and divisions, the ethical principles imparted by Sheikh ul Alam are increasingly essential for guiding our efforts towards a better world through faith, peace, and tolerance.

Basharat Shameem is Assistant Professor, Higher Education Department, J&K

4 November 2024

Source: countercurrents.org