Archives: Articles

By Ramakrishnan

Bangladesh Hindus participate in a rally demanding that an interim government withdraw all cases against their leaders and protect them from attacks and harassment, in Chattogram, Bangladesh, Nov. 1, 2024. (Chittagong, famous during India’s freedom struggle, was renamed Chattogram, the old name.) An ultimatum was issued :Settle by Monday (Nov 5), or else…Notably all this is timed with US polls, where Indian-Hindu voters  matter.  

This article deals with this subject, instrumentalization of religion for political ends…how the disease extended from India to USA too. In the first part of the article “Bangladesh: Exporting politics of Hindutva and itching for gross interference”  we argued that hindutva is getting more ominous. Indeed it became so, fast and aggressive, as we see in this article.

Prof Ali Riaz, author and political scientist, of Illinois University, commented: Trump’s statement on Diwali day “reveals  instrumentalization of religion for both immediate and long-term political gains…In some measure, this has been a global phenomenon in recent decades, especially by the autocratic leaders. This is the latest example, he wrote on FB. (Times of India, Nov 2). It was in the context of the news being highlighted by VOA… Trump mentioned “Modi my friend”, and made an appeal in the language of Hindutva..In Canada too such signs appeared..

About 30,000 minority Hindus rallied Nov 1 Friday, and demonstrated at a major intersection in the southeastern city of Chattogram, Bangladesh, Associated Press reported, and Voice of America- VOA  carried: They rallied to demand that the interim government in Muslim-majority Bangladesh protect them from an alleged wave of attacks and harassment, and to drop sedition cases against Hindu community leaders. Even as police and soldiers guarded the area, other protests were reported elsewhere in the country.

In fact, Hindutva lobbies in India, through social, and ‘anti-social media’ too, intensified their shrill campaign in India, and linked it to their electoral politics, particularly in Maharashtra now.

We concluded the above article with these words:

“ Both(Congress and BJP ) had supported Hasina, helped her for so many years, also in manipulating the polls there. Both were one in fishing in troubled waters of Bangladesh. Indeed, Vajpayee had hailed PM Indira Gandhi as ‘Durga mata’, supporting India’s military intervention in internal affairs that led to the bifurcation of Pakistan. Both are expansionists, collaborating with imperialists as their junior partners. Both play divisive, caste and communal (hard or soft forms of Hindutva) cards. There is little to choose between them.”

https://countercurrents.org/2024/11/bangladesh-exporting-politics-of-hindutva-and-itching-for-gross-interference/

They prove to be quite apt as the issue becomes part of electoral campaigns of both Modi in India and of American leaders in Presidential polls there.

The issue has reached beyond Bangladesh, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi voicing concern about reports of attacks.

While the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden says it has been monitoring Bangladesh’s Human Rights issues since Hasina’s ouster, U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump exaggerated and hyped the issue.

VoA reported:

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Trump said: “I strongly condemn the barbaric violence against Hindus, Christians and other minorities who are getting attacked and looted by mobs in Bangladesh, which remains in a total state of chaos.”

Trump also promised Hindu Americans that he would “fight for your freedom.”

Trump ended his post with Diwali greetings. “Happy Diwali to All. I hope the Festival of Lights leads to the Victory of Good over Evil!” he wrote.

Trump’s post was quickly welcomed by Bangladeshi Hindus and organisations representing them. An overwhelming majority of the comments that the post evoked were laudatory in nature.

Trump asserted: “It (the attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh) would have never happened on my watch. Kamala and Joe have ignored Hindus across the world and in America..”.

Not to be left behind, Biden highlighted Diwali celebrations in the White House, apart from mentioning Bangladesh.

Trump invoked the name of his “friend Modi” too, and linked it with his appeal to Hindu voters: “Under my administration, we will also strengthen our great partnership with India and my good friend, Prime Minister Modi,” he said in his post.

The “immigrant” Hindus should help, but not hurt his MAGA base. So he said:

“Apart from Hindus from around the world, a huge number of white Christians also praised Trump for speaking out boldly against persecution of religious minorities in Bangladesh.”

Hindu activists have been staging protest rallies in the capital, Dhaka, and elsewhere since August. Now they come to press a set of eight demands, including a law to protect minorities, a ministry for minorities and a tribunal to prosecute acts of oppression against minorities. They also seek a five-day holiday for their largest festival, the Durga Puja. (In India itself, in most places, only one day is declared a public holiday)

Protests will go on in coming days and weeks. Notably, Nov 1 Friday’s protest in Chattogram “was hastily organized” after sedition charges were filed Oct 30 Wednesday against 19 Hindu leaders, including prominent priest Chandan Kumar Dhar, over an October 25 rally in that city. Police arrested two of the leaders, angering Hindus.

The charges, and the sedition case, stem from an incident in which a group of rally-goers allegedly placed a saffron flag above the Bangladesh flag on a pillar, which was considered disrespectful to the national flag.

Imagine if an Islamic flag is placed likewise above Indian flag, even in the disturbed state of Kashmir. What a hell of fury and repression would be launched can well be imagined. However, it is a different standard for others like Bangladesh, and ultimatums are issued. The VOA report continues:

“ Hindu community leaders say the cases are politically motivated and demanded Oct 31 Thursday that they be withdrawn within 72 hours. Another Hindu rally has been planned for Saturday in Dhaka.”

And it is increasingly politicised by the parties:

“Separately, supporters of Hasina’s Awami League party and its allied Jatiya Party have said they also have been targeted since Hasina’s ouster. Jatiya’s headquarters was vandalized and set on fire late Thursday, Oct 31. “

On Friday, Jatiya Party Chairman G.M. Quader, heating up the campaign,  said his supporters would continue to hold rallies to demand their rights “despite risking their lives.” For better effect, he adds to the issue and said they would hold a rally Saturday at the party headquarters in Dhaka to protest price hikes of commodities, and what they call false charges against their leaders and activists.

Later Friday, the Dhaka Metropolitan Police announced it was banning any rallies near the Jatiya headquarters. There was no immediate response from the party about whether it would press ahead with its attempts to hold the rally or change the venue.

“Religious political parties in Bangladesh have become active in national politics since Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s ouster,”  VOA’s Sarah Zaman reports from the capital, Dhaka, on their impact:

“Religious groups prepare to test their power in Bangladesh”, October 29, 2024, by Sarah Zaman. See video clip:

https://www.voanews.com/a/religious-groups-prepare-to-test-their-power-in-bangladesh/7843519.html

It is internationalized too:

UN Human Rights officials and other rights groups have expressed concern about human rights in the country under Yunus.

***                  ***

‘Our task is to tell the truth in transparent, compelling way’

That is how Bangladesh officially reacted, politely refuting  Trump’s claims.

Chief adviser’s Press Secretary Shafiqul Alam stressed that their task in the government is to tell the truth, reported UNB, Dhaka, Sat Nov 2, 2024.

“From the onset, Shafiqul said, Chief Adviser Prof Muhammad Yunus’s strategy was to invite all foreign journalists, researchers, and experts to come and visit Bangladesh.

“Let them discover Bangladesh in their own way, for we are confident of our society, our people, our country,” said the press secretary.

He referred to Netra News as a most respected investigative news outlet on Bangladesh, which according to Shafiqul did an “excellent piece” of journalism.

“It shattered some of the lies propagated by the umbrella minority group, Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council,” Shafiqul said on a Facebook post…the group’s claims played a big part in building the most false narrative on the revolution, especially on the violence targeting minority communities.”

“We don’t deny that some religiously motivated violence didn’t take place. But they were isolated incidents and even then hugely exaggerated. Lies don’t trigger a revolution — you have to give credit to the collective intelligence of the people,” said the press secretary.

“Momentarily, those motivated groups might win. But soon they will realise that their narrative does not have any legs. No amount of social media boosting or banners on New York public transport system and vans can then help their cause,” he said.

Mushfiqul Fazal Ansarey, who was recently appointed as an ambassador of Bangladesh, thanked Donald Trump for acknowledging the importance of protecting minorities wherever they are, regardless of their religion. (His vitriol against immigrants is thereby reminded.)

“However, fact-checking is essential to understand the real situation on the ground,” he said in a reply to Trump through his X handle.

Ansarey also shared a “fact-checking” report of Sweden-based news organisation Netra News that sheds light on what is being circulated by certain vested groups regarding Bangladesh.

For more, visit: https://www.thedailystar.net/news/bangladesh/diplomacy/news/our-task-tell-the-truth-transparent-compelling-way-3742496

“Trump’s statement is not based on facts

We urge everyone to do their due diligence about Bangladesh”

Bangladesh media, as seen in the above caption, also politely refuted the allegations made by Trump, the Big Brother, who may after all win and hence the caution and politeness.

“ However, as a sovereign country, we expect that the elected leader of the US will be well-informed about the reality in Bangladesh, especially as we seek to not only maintain good relations with the US but take it further forward…Trump characterized the incidents as “barbaric violence” against Hindus, Christians, and other minorities in Bangladesh.

“This portrayal is both unfounded and totally contrary to facts, and we hope the US diplomatic team in Bangladesh will provide Donald Trump and his team with accurate information,said a comment. (Nov 2, 2024) https://www.thedailystar.net/opinion/editorial/news/trumps-statement-not-based-facts-3742781

“ The reality is that, following the removal of former autocratic Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on August 5, Bangladesh has been under a transitional government—one that the Bangladeshi people believe will prioritise democracy and reform. Yes, some instances of unrest have occurred, that also against only one community. But as various media investigations have revealed, they have largely been politically—not communally—motivated. Nevertheless, even those incidents are highly condemnable. However, the number of such incidents were handful and significantly went down once the interim government took office.”

(other reports showed their numbers came down within 5-6 days)

“ These incidents have also been greatly exaggerated by segments of some foreign (read Indian) media and social media. For example, an investigative report by the BBC’s Disinformation Team confirmed that many videos shared online to portray communal violence against Hindus in Bangladesh are misleading—if not entirely false and manipulated.”

“ In fact, prominent leaders from Bangladeshi minority communities themselves have publicly rejected claims of organised violence against minority communities.  They emphasised that recent disturbances had resulted from broader political instability rather than communal tensions.And the chief adviser to the Bangladesh interim government has repeatedly stated that the government is committed to ensuring peace and protection for all citizens—which we strongly support.”

“Bangladesh is committed to restoring democracy and upholding human rights after years of repression. During this critical transition for Bangladesh, we urge all our friends—including the US—to extend us their full support.”

***                        ***

Falsehood exposed by India’s fact-checkers, long ago, is still circulated to serve electoral ends in USA as well as India

The Hindutva campaign, aided by falsehood and distortion, apparently gave some political mileage to Trump, as seen by reactions to his remarks. He is notorious for his conviction in post-truth concept.

“In a post on X that garnered more than 2.2 lakh  ‘likes’, 14,000 comments, and more than half a million re-posts (as of writing this), Trump also promised protection to Hindu Americans “against the anti-religion agenda of the radical left.”. Trump is hailed as “the first world leader to speak out against violence against religious minorities in Islamic Bangladesh.” 

(comment by Right-wing, pro-Modi “MAGAzine”Swarajya,

Nov 01, 2024..It is captioned: Donald Trump Draws Praise By Condemning ‘Barbaric Violence’ Against Hindus And Minorities In Bangladesh.

“The caretaker government in Bangladesh, led by Muhammad Yunus, has tried to underplay the violence and accused the Indian media that highlighted the attacks on Hindus of exaggeration.”  (Swarajya)

“Hindu women abducted and raped by Muslims” mentioned the comment, false and baseless in nature. That Swarajya stooped to tell such blatant lies like an yellow journal, itself merits analysis. So many Indian media outlets, not to mention BBC, in August itself, published fact-checkers exposing lies. The Wire (Aug 9) trashed rumors and reports including those on allegations of rape of Hindu women in the current turmoil in Bangladesh. India Today Aug 13 exposed lies on rapes. It showed incidents where they were not Hindu women, but Muslim supporters of Hasina. Newsmobile.in, Aug19 showed how a video-clip from Hathras stampede of UP was linked with Bangladesh. Factly.in exposed how some old incidents were doctored.

(For the story of Swarajya ..

https://swarajyamag.com/world/donald-trump-draws-praise-by-condemning-barbaric-violence-against-hindus-and-minorities-in-bangladesh

***                 ***

Jamaat-e-Islami too clarified its policies in the new environment. In a detailed interview with The Daily Star Oct 22, 2024, its ameer (chief )  Shafiqur Rahman said:

“Then again, and this was perhaps the first time in history that with the changeover many people began guarding the places of worship of the minorities. We were among them too. This has never happened before. But I am not willing to accept that either. I believe every citizen has the same right. If my mosque doesn’t need guarding, why should someone’s temple? Or pagoda? That means there is a security concern here. It is unfortunate that our society could not ensure that. We must address this concern…”

“ Religion and party, to each his own. But the state belongs to everyone. Everyone has the same right to security. Everyone must converge on this basic point of agreement. Without exception. Otherwise, it will never be beneficial for any society or state…”

Practice will show all in their real colors.

We have seen 8 demands of Hindutva. Some of them are brazenly reactionary. The demands presented by the leaders include:

1. Formation of a tribunal to expedite trials for those involved in minority atrocities.
2. Appropriate compensation and rehabilitation for victims.
3. Enactment of a minority protection law without delay.
4. Creation of a ministry of minority affairs.
5. Construction of places of worship for minorities in every educational institution.
6. Establishment of prayer rooms in every hostel.
7. Modernisation of the Sanskrit and Pali Education Board.
8. A five-day holiday for Durga Puja.

Imagine reaction in India, and among Hindutva lobbies, if similar demands are placed  by minorities .

The bangladesh govt had said, ‘we hear the people’ and announced the enactment of a two-day holiday for Durga Puja, marking the first time this has occurred in the country’s history.

The Indian Ministry of External Affairs, instead of appeciating the attitude, condemned it, and saw a “systematic pattern.”

Prof Ali Riaz, author and political scientist, of Illinois University, commented: Trump’s statement on Diwali day “reveals  instrumentalization of religion for both immediate and long-term political gains…In some measure, this has been a global phenomenon in recent decades, especially by the autocratic leaders. This is the latest example, he wrote on FB. (Times of India, Nov 2).

Trump and Modi have close affinity in this. Rabid Hindutva is being promoted on a larger scale, and in alliance with Zionism; we see it in imperialist countries too. We repeat our conclusion to part-1 of this article:

All this calls for organized mass resistance, going beyond media platforms, and necessary ideological-political education and struggles against imperialists, Zionists and their supporters, open or subtle.  

***               ***

Ramakrishnan is a political observer, a regular contributor to countercurrents.org.

See Part-1 of this article:

Bangladesh: Exporting politics of Hindutva and itching for gross interference 

https://countercurrents.org/2024/11/bangladesh-exporting-politics-of-hindutva-and-itching-for-gross-interference/

See also his recent related articles:

Five eminent citizens Call from Dhaka, Colombo and Kathmandu for an end to Indian interference (15/08/2024)

https://countercurrents.org/2024/08/five-eminent-citizens-call-from-dhaka-colombo-and-kathmandu-for-an-end-to-indian-interference/

Bangladesh: Student leaders on Role of Religion in politics (15/09/2024)

https://countercurrents.org/2024/09/bangladesh-student-leaders-on-role-of-religion-in-politics/

4 November 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Chris Hedges

There are some 4,000 foreign reporters accredited in Israel to cover the war. They stay in luxury hotels. They go on dog and pony shows orchestrated by the Israeli military. They can, on rare occasions, be escorted by Israeli soldiers on lightning visits to Gaza, where they are shown alleged weapons caches or tunnels the military says are used by Hamas.

They dutifully attend daily press conferences. They are given off-the-record briefings by senior Israeli officials who feed them information that often turns out to be untrue. They are Israel’s unwitting and sometimes witting propagandists, stenographers for the architects of apartheid and genocide, hotel room warriors.

Bertolt Brecht acidly called them the spokesmen of the spokesmen.

And how many foreign reporters are there in Gaza? None.

The Palestinian reporters in Gaza who fill the void often pay with their lives. They are targeted, along with their families, for assassination.

At least 134 journalists and media workers in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon, have been killed and 69 have been imprisoned, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, marking the deadliest period for journalists since the organization began collecting data in 1992.

Israel bombed a building on Friday in southern Lebanon housing seven media organizations, killing three journalists from Al Mayadeen and Al Manar and injuring 15 others. Since Oct. 7, Israel has killed 11 journalists in Lebanon.

Al Jazeera cameraman Fadi al-Wahidi, who was shot in the neck in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza by an Israeli sniper earlier this month, is in a coma. Israel has refused permission for him to seek medical care outside of Gaza.

Like most of the targeted journalists, including his murdered colleague Shireen Abu Akleh, he was wearing a helmet and flak jacket that identified him as press.

[https://twitter.com/AlJazeera/status/1848789940991365202]

The Israeli military has branded as “terrorists” six Palestinian journalists in Gaza who work for Al Jazeera.

“These 6 Palestinians are among the last journalists surviving Israel’s onslaught in Gaza,” United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, said. “Declaring them ‘terrorists’ sounds like a death sentence.”

[Meanwhile an Israeli journalist has taken direct part in combat while acting as a reporter.]

The scale and savagery of the Israeli assault on the media dwarfs anything I witnessed during my two decades as a war correspondent, including in Sarajevo where Serb snipers regularly took aim at reporters.

Twenty-three journalists were killed in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Yugoslav Wars between 1991 and 1995. Twenty-two were killed when I covered the war in El Salvador. Sixty-eight journalists were killed in World War II and 63 were killed in Vietnam.

But unlike in Gaza, Bosnia and El Salvador, journalists were usually not targeted.

[https://twitter.com/FranceskAlbs/status/1849232008880263651]

Israel’s assault on press freedom is unlike anything we have experienced since William Howard Russell, the godfather of modern war reporting, sent back dispatches from the Crimean War. Its onslaught against journalists is in a category by itself.

Representative James P. McGovern and 64 House members sent a letter to President Joseph Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken calling for the United States to push for Israel to allow unimpeded access for U.S. and international journalists. In July, over 70 media and civil society organizations signed an open letter calling on Israel to permit foreign reporters into Gaza.

Israel has not budged. Its ban on international journalists in Gaza remains in place. Its genocide grinds forward. Hundreds of Palestinian civilians are killed and wounded daily. During October, Israel killed at least 770  Palestinians in northern Gaza.

Israel spins out its lies and fabrications, from Hamas using Palestinians as human shields, to mass rape and beheaded babies, to a captive press that slavishly amplifies them. By the time the lies are exposed, often weeks or months later, the media cycle has moved on and few notice.

Israel’s wholesale censorship and assassination of journalists will have ominous consequences. It further erodes what few protections we once had as war correspondents. It sends an unequivocal message to any government, despot or dictator that seeks to mask its crimes.

It heralds, like the genocide itself, a new world order, where mass murder is normalized, totalitarian censorship is permissible and journalists who try and expose the truth have very short life expectancies.

Israel, with the fulsome support of the U.S. government, is eviscerating the last shreds of freedom of the press.

Those who wage war, any war, seek to shape public opinion. They court the reporters they can domesticate, the ones who prostrate themselves before generals and, although they do not openly admit it, seek to stay as far away from combat as possible.

These are the “good” journalists. They like to “play” at being a soldier. They enthusiastically assist in disseminating propaganda in the guise of reporting. They want to do their part for the war effort, to be part of the club. Sadly, they constitute the majority of the media in the wars I covered.

All CNN journalists reporting on Israel and Palestine must submit their work for review by the network’s Jerusalem bureau prior to publication, a bureau that is required to abide by rules set down by Israeli military censors.

These domesticated journalists and news organizations are, as Robert Fisk pointed out, “prisoners of the language of power.” They dutifully parrot the official lexicon — “terrorists,” “peace process,” “two state solution” and “Israel’s right to defend itself.”

The New York Times, The Intercept writes,

“instructed journalists covering Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip to restrict the use of the terms ‘genocide’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’ and to ‘avoid’ using the phrase ‘occupied territory’ when describing Palestinian land, according to a copy of an internal memo obtained by The Intercept.”

“The memo also instructs reporters not to use the word Palestine ‘except in very rare cases’ and to steer clear of the term ‘refugee camps’ to describe areas of Gaza historically settled by displaced Palestinians expelled from other parts of Palestine during previous Israeli–Arab wars,” The Intercept notes. “The areas are recognized by the United Nations as refugee camps and house hundreds of thousands of registered refugees.”

“There is no battle between power and the media,” Fisk noted. “Through language, we have become them.”

Retired General David Petraeus, one of the authors of the 2006 U.S. Counterinsurgency Manual used by U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, argues that persuading the public that you are winning — even if, as in Afghanistan, you are trapped in a quagmire — is more important than military superiority. The domesticated media is vital in perpetrating this deception.

Then there are the real journalists. They shine a light into the machinery of power. They tell the truth, for as the poet Seamus Heaney said, “There’s such a thing as truth and it can be told.” They make public the cruelty, mendacity and criminality of the powerful. They expose the collaboration of the domesticated media.

Protester in London on Oct. 29, 2023, holding a sign in memory of Reuters journalist Issam Abdullah killed in southern Lebanon by an IDF missile strike on Oct. 13, 2023. (Alisdare Hickson, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0)

To the powerful, the war makers and the domesticated media, these real journalists are the enemy. This is the reason Julian Assange was mercilessly hounded and persecuted for 14 years. WikiLeaks published a 2,000-page Ministry of Defence document where British government officials equated investigative journalists with terrorists. The animosity is not new. What is new is the scale of Israel’s assault on journalism.

Israel has not defeated Hamas. It has not defeated Hezbollah. It will not defeat Iran. But it must convince its own public, and the rest of the world, it is winning. Censorship and the silencing of journalists who expose Israel’s war crimes and the suffering Israel inflicts on civilians is an Israeli priority.

It would be reassuring to call Israel an outlier, a nation that did not share our values, a nation that we support in spite of its atrocities. But of course, Israel is an extension of ourselves.

As the playwright Harold Pinter said:

“US foreign policy could be best defined as follows: kiss my arse or I’ll kick your head in. It is as simple and as crude as that. What is interesting about it is that it is so incredibly successful. It possesses the structures of disinformation, use of rhetoric, distortion of language, which are very persuasive, but are actually a pack of lies. It is very successful propaganda. They have the money, they have the technology, they have all the means to get away with it, and they do.”

In accepting the Nobel prize for literature, Pinter said:

“The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.”

The most important impediment to Israel’s mass hypnosis are the Palestinian journalists in Gaza. This is why the kill rate is so high. It is why U.S. officials say nothing. They, too, hate real journalists. They, too, demand reporters domesticate themselves to scurry like rats from one choreographed press event to the next.

The U.S. government says and does nothing to protect the press because it endorses Israel’s campaign against the media, as it endorses Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Journalists, along with the Palestinians, are to be extinguished.

Chris Hedges, who graduated from seminary at Harvard Divinity School, worked for nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent for The New York Times, National Public Radio and other news organizations in Latin America, the Middle East and the Balkans.

4 November 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor

Palestinian Territory – The reluctance of the international system to implement decisive actions against Israel’s mass atrocities in the Gaza Strip, especially in the northern region, exposes a stark disregard for Palestinian lives and dignity, and fuels the continuation of its crime of genocide.

Institutions like the European Union (EU), International Criminal Court (ICC), and International Court of Justice (ICJ), alongside various United Nations (UN) bodies, have deviated from their founding principles of protecting civilians and upholding justice. In over 13 months, these bodies have neglected their fundamental duty to safeguard civilian life and stop Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza.

This failure reveals a structural flaw in the global security framework meant to prevent atrocious crimes and uphold international law. As evidenced by the ongoing Israeli crimes in the occupied Palestinian territory, particularly in Gaza, this system has faltered in the face of political calculations and the influence of powerful nations complicit in the genocide, fostering a culture of impunity.

Despite the gravity of the atrocities, the international community and justice mechanisms have largely turned a blind eye. At most, some entities have issued weak statements that fail to acknowledge the crimes accurately, emboldening Israel to escalate its offenses with U.S. and European support and armament.

For nearly a month, a full-scale invasion of northern Gaza has been unfolding openly, aiming to eradicate the Palestinian population and forcibly displace residents through terror. In addition to a crippling siege that blocks aid, prevents ambulance services, and shuts down hospitals, the Israeli army has conducted numerous massacres, killing over 1,300 people and injuring around 2,000 more.

On Tuesday, Israeli airstrikes killed 117 Palestinians in the Abu Nasr family home in Beit Lahia, leaving approximately 100 more trapped under the rubble. On Thursday, the Al-Ghandour family home in Jabalia was bombed, entombing about 120 residents with no rescue crews allowed to reach them. On Friday, the Shalayel family’s home was struck, killing around 50, with many others still buried under other homes.

In blatant defiance of the Geneva Conventions, which mandate the protection of medical personnel and emergency response, Israeli forces have blocked ambulance and rescue crews in northern Gaza for ten consecutive days, denying critical services to tens of thousands. Hospitals, including Kamal Adwan in Beit Lahia, have been targeted, with patients and wounded people killed, all without intervention from entities like the International Committee of the Red Cross, which has abdicated its role in this attack.

Despite official denials, Israel is executing the “Generals’ Plan” to empty northern Gaza, dropping leaflets demanding evacuations of residents in Jabalia and Beit Hanoun. Israel has continued its siege, blocking food and aid, forcing Palestinians into confined areas through terror, starvation, and massacres.

This helplessness persists despite urgent warnings that “the entire Palestinian population in northern Gaza is on the brink of death due to disease, hunger, and violence.” UN officials, including those from UNICEF and the World Food Programme, have described the situation as catastrophic, with conditions resembling apocalyptic horrors.

Under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Israel has committed genocide in Gaza since 7 October 2023, with the U.S. and Europe complicit by supplying weapons used to massacre Palestinian civilians and demolish their homes.

Civilians, who do not pose any threat to occupying forces, are protected by international humanitarian law if they remain in their homes or neighbourhoods during conflict. Euro-Med Monitor investigations show that Israel’s actions aim to eradicate the Palestinian people through forced eviction and mass killing, not for military objectives.

The ICC must step in to issue arrest warrants, prosecute those responsible, and fulfill its mandate to protect Palestinian civilians from Israel’s extensive destruction.

Immediate action from the international community and the United Nations is essential to prevent further loss of life in northern Gaza, end Israel’s ongoing genocide across the Strip, impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel, hold it accountable for its crimes, and take all necessary measures to protect Palestinian civilians.

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

4 November 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Andre Damon

Every man, woman and child who remains in northern Gaza “is at imminent risk of dying,” warned Catherine Russell, the director of the United Nations Children’s Fund, in a statement Saturday.

Nearly one month ago, Israel began an assault on Northern Gaza to implement the so-called “general’s plan” of ethnically cleansing the entirety of Northern Gaza. Virtually no food, water, or medical supplies have been allowed into the northern section of the Gaza Strip, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to flee.

Those who remain, estimated at approximately 100,000 people, are cut off from all necessities of life and are being systematically starved or killed by Israeli bombardment.

Israel’s “general’s plan” is being carried out with the endorsement and support of the United States, which continues to fund and arm the Israeli genocide in Gaza. The US is also sending troops to the Middle East to aid Israel’s escalating war against the populations of Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iran.

As a result of this starvation and killing campaign, “the entire Palestinian population in North Gaza, especially children, is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine, and the ongoing bombardments,” Russell said.

“This has already been a deadly weekend of attacks in North Gaza.” Russell added, “In the past 48 hours alone, over 50 children have reportedly been killed in Jabalia, where strikes leveled two residential buildings sheltering hundreds of people.”

She continued, “Taken alongside the horrific level of child deaths in North Gaza from other attacks, these most recent events combine to write yet another dark chapter in one of the darkest periods of this terrible war.”

Russell said international law prohibits the targeting of civilians and humanitarian workers. “Yet these principles are being flouted over and over again, leaving tens of thousands of children killed, injured, and deprived of essential services needed for survival.”

These statements were echoed by Rachel Cummings, a spokesperson for Save the Children, who told Al Jazeera, “We are seeing the apocalypse now unfolding in the north of Gaza. People are being constantly bombarded with aerial attacks, and of course, we know that the food and water are not sufficient. The convoys of food and water are being denied into the north… It is absolutely catastrophic.”

She added that 20,000 children are either missing or unaccompanied, and another 14,000 children have been confirmed killed. “[Children are] having to take on roles within family settings that are not for children. They take on caregiver roles. They have to take on fetching water, trying to find food,” she said. “They have seen things that no child should ever see.”

The mass killing continued Sunday, with Israeli strikes killing 31 people in the Gaza Strip that day, Reuters reported. The killings took place in separate attacks on houses in Beit Lahiya town and Jabalia. Israeli forces attacked Kamal Adwan Hospital near Beit Lahiya, severely wounding a child and damaging the facility’s nursery.

Dr. Hussam Abu Safia, director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, described to Al Jazeera the horrifying conditions that medical staff are working under. “As Israeli forces stormed the hospital and detained the entire medical staff, I, together with my assistant physician, we were left alone between a rock and a hard place, either to give up or start doing what we can to save lives,” Abu Safiya told Al Jazeera. “We’ve been flooded with victims suffering all kinds of injuries.” He concluded, “We have been abandoned by the whole world and left to work under unimaginably harsh and horrifying conditions.”

In a statement, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor wrote, “Since the beginning of August 2024, the Israeli army has targeted schools, hospitals, clinics, and shelter halls 65 times, including 39 times in the current month of October, killing 672 Palestinians and injuring over 1,000 more, according to the Euro-Med Monitor field team.”

At least 43,341 people have been killed and 102,105 injured by the Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, 2023, Gaza’s health ministry said over the weekend. The majority of Gaza has been leveled, with 87 percent of housing destroyed or damaged, and 87 percent of school buildings destroyed or damaged, according to UN figures.

Israeli airstrikes continued throughout Lebanon this weekend, wounding 10 people and damaging two hospitals. Israeli attacks between September 17 and October 31 have killed 85 health workers, Al Jazeera reported.

According to the Lebanese health ministry, the death toll from the ongoing Israeli bombardment of Lebanon has reached 2,986 people, including at least 772 women and children.

Against the backdrop of this unfolding disaster, the United States is only deepening its involvement in Israel’s rampage throughout the Middle East. Over the weekend, US Central Command (CENTCOM) head Michael Kurilla arrived in Israel to tour the deployment of US combat troops in the country, manning a US air defense battery. The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that the visit focused on “threats in the Middle East, with a focus on Iran” and that the Israeli military will “deepen its relationship with the US armed forces.”

On Saturday, US Central Command announced that B-52 bombers, capable of both delivering nuclear weapons and carrying out massive saturation bombings, have arrived in the Middle East. “B-52 Stratofortress strategic bombers from Minot Air Force Base’s 5th Bomb Wing arrived in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility,” Central Command said.

In a statement cited by the Jerusalem Post, the US Air Force said the B-52 bombers are capable of delivering “nuclear or precision-guided conventional ordnance with worldwide precision navigation capability.” It added, “In a conventional conflict, the B-52 can perform strategic attack, close-air support, air interdiction, offensive counter-air, and maritime operations.” The strategic bombers are part of a deployment of US destroyers, fighter squadrons and tankers in support of Israel’s war throughout the region.

4 November 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr Suresh Khairnar

Rabindranath Tagore himself named him because this child was born in Shantiniketan in the house of his maternal grandfather Kshitimohan on 3 November 1933. Today he is turning 92 years old. And if we take a look at his journey from birth till now, mother Amita was the first girl from a respectable Bengali family in Bengal who started performing modern dance on stage. And for self-defense, she received formal training in Judo-Karate from Japanese teachers. All this happened a hundred years’ ago.

Influenced by Amita’s dance, Rabindranath Tagore started performing the songs written by him on stage along with Amita’s dances. Nowadays all the respectable Bengalis try to give special training to their girls from Rabindranath Tagore’s songs to the dances based on them. Now even in respectable Bengali families, Bengali girls know how to dance or sing at weddings. This is also considered an additional quality to accept her as a bride! This change has taken place as a result of Bengal’s renaissance in the last hundred years! And Amartya Sen’s mother Amita has also contributed to this change!

But the media of that time used to criticize her more than praise. Because before Amita, no girl from a respectable Bengali family had done all this on stage. For that, there were girls from special artistic families like Nati Vinodini. Just like there were Devdasis in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Goa.

A boy was born from this mother’s womb! Whom Rabindranath himself named Amartya! At times Rabindranath himself used to come to Amartya’s maternal grandfather Kshitimohan’s house every morning without giving any information! If Kshitimohan is still asleep, then immediately according to his talent of a quick poet, he would say Ravi means the Sun has come! And Kshiti means the Earth has not yet woken up? Amartya heard all this from his grandmother! And then Rabindranath and Kshitimohan set out for a morning walk! Rabindranath’s company for eight years after birth and the coming and going of world class guests in Pathabhavan since its establishment, in which before Mao Tse Tung, China’s supreme general Chang Kai Shek has come to Pathabhavan and given a speech!

Amartya Sen has written all these in his autobiography!

“Similarly, Mahatma Gandhi came in 1945, four years after the death of Rabindranath Tagore in 1941. And in his speech, he was worried about what would happen to Shantiniketan after the death of Rabindranath Tagore. And I have taken his autograph. But before that he asked for a donation of five rupees for the Harijan Fund. And I had saved some money from my pocket money. From that, I gave five rupees to the great personality of the world. But for great personalities like him, this donation is not a big deal. But I remember, Gandhiji told me with a very beautiful smile that “I have taken this donation to end the caste system in our country!” And he has given his signature in Devnagri script, M.K. Gandhi, in my notebook. Which I have preserved till date.

Similarly, while studying at Patha Bhavan, I had the benefit of very good friends. Tan Lee, son of Professor Tan Yun Shan, the founder of Cheena Bhavan, who was one year younger than me and has been my lifelong friend. And he passed away recently in 2017.

And during my early education in Patha Bhavan, I was friends with some girls too! Like among boys, Sadhan, Shib, Chitta, Chaluta, Bheltu, and Mrinal who were my closest friends! And among girls, Manjula, Jaya, Bithi, Tapati, Shanta, my opinion about my Shantiniketan friends is that a biography can be written on each one of them!”

Making friends seems to be one of Amartya Sen’s favorite habits! He has named many of his relatives too! Similarly, the intimate relationship he had built with students and teachers in Trinity College is a sign of that! The very meaning of him naming his autobiography HOME-IN-THE-WORLD-A-MEMOIR! It is his affectionate form!

Amartya Sen may have become world famous as an economist, but his commitment to human relations is extraordinary. After the partition of India, he went to meet his Pakistani friends living abroad, which also included women. And suddenly went to Lahore, Karachi and other cities just to meet friends. And to join the family of those friends, you need global level sensitivity. At the time of his studies, his friends in Cambridge also included Englishmen. And that too included women. All this is a story of 75 years ago.

Amartya Sen was very irritated by the traditional unequal treatment of women in a country like India. And that is why the same thing is a matter of concern for him even today in the relationship between men and women. And Amartya Sen has gone from Pathabhavan to Presidency and later to Cambridge, Oxford and MIT to study and teach at the global level. In his village’s Jeevan Shikshan Shala and later in Shindkheda’s New English School and then in Amravati’s Medical College and also in Rashtra Seva Dal, friendship with girls and boys has been very important for him. Many friends have asked him whether he had more female friends or male friends? He writes he had not made any list. But friendship is friendship. And there should be no distinction between men and women in it. This role has been there since childhood. And seeing Amartya Sen’s role almost the same, it seems that this man is born specifically to love in life.

Amartya joined Presidency College, Calcutta in 1952 at the age of 19 (now a university). In front of him, he used to sit in the historic coffee house to discuss the current situation of the country and the world along with his studies. He used to have deep discussions about the Second World War, India’s freedom movement and the historic Bengal famine of 1942-43 in which lakhs of people died just due to lack of food. Actually, there was no shortage of food. But for the soldiers of the Second World War, ships were being sent from India to send grain in large quantities. Therefore, a man-made famine situation had developed in Bengal. This was 100% a result of the then British rule, which forcibly collected food from the mouths of the people of India and then sent it to the battlefield abroad. And here in Calcutta, Dhaka, thousands of people came from their villages in the hope of getting food and died on the roads due to lack of food. It was a common sight.

New tactics are being adopted to humiliate Amartya Sen, who writes and speaks on such very important topics, because his writing and speaking against the wrong policies of the current government is not liked by the people who do ‘Mann Ki Baat’. This shows that the era of undeclared emergency and censorship has been continuing in our country for the last ten years.

Dialogue is the primary function of democracy! And in the present times, monologues mean ‘Mann Ki Baat’ and such nonsensical things! Amartya Sen, who tries to argue like ‘Argumentative India’! The first thing the current central government did as soon as it came to power was to remove him from the post of Chancellor of Nalanda University! And if that seemed insufficient, Amartya Sen’s father bought a piece of land in the west of Shantiniketan and built a house named ‘Pratichi’ in 1942 at a place called Sripalli! The then Vice Chancellor Prof. Vidyut Chakraborty threw him out of the same house on which he had bought the land to build a house for himself! With whose help was the then Vice Chancellor of Vishwabharati Vidyut Chakraborty doing the extremely humiliating act of evicting a 90-year-old internationally renowned economist from his house for the past few days? Which was rejected by the Shiudi court a few days ago!

And in the same context, what would you call the act of the world’s best intellectuals like Amartya Sen, of evicting people from their homes who were raising slogans of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam at airports and railway stations? Hypocrisy? ?

On the occasion of Amartya Sen’s birthday, I pray that “I want to see him cross the century of his life while keeping his health good!”

Dr Suresh Khairnar is Ex. President of Rashtra Sewa Dal

3 November 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Ronnie Kasrils

Here is an AI-generated podcast based on the article

_______________________________________________________

In Gaza, six children are murdered every hour.

More than 17,000 children have been butchered. None of us, not even the poets, can summon words adequate to the horror of the fascistic bloodlust of the Israeli regime and the society that backs it.

A year after the attack on Gaza began, over 42,000 people had been killed. This number does not include the missing. More than 10,000 people are assumed to be dead, their bodies buried under rubble. More than 100,000 people are wounded, many grievously.

A study published in the esteemed medical journal, The Lancet, in July this year estimated that the total number of dead, due to direct and indirect causes, could exceed 186,000 people as of June 19, 2024. More than 70 percent of the dead are women and children. Over 1,000 children are now amputees, the highest number for a comparable period in history.

A study by Sophia Stamatopoulou-Robbins of Brown University, published on October 7 this year, shows that 90 percent of people in Gaza are displaced, 96 percent do not have enough food and water, there is no electricity, and just under 90 percent of the hospitals have been destroyed, with more than 880 health care workers killed.

Four in every five children are consumed with depression, grief, and fear. Infectious diseases are running rampant.

The confirmed deaths of 42,000 people as a direct result of the attacks by the Israeli military amount to almost two Sharpeville massacres every single day for a year.

After Sharpeville, there was relative calm after the storm. The wounded were taken to hospital, and the dead were buried with dignity. The regime was momentarily shaken by global condemnation.

In Gaza, the killing is relentless.

The Zionists and their liberal allies justify this avalanche of killing as a legitimate response to Operation Al Aqsa Flood on October 7 last year.

There is an internationally recognized right to armed resistance against occupation. There is no internationally recognized right of defense by an occupying power.

It is true that the right to armed resistance against occupation does not extend to taking civilian hostages or to deliberate attacks on civilians. We need, though, to be clear on three things.

The first is that the Israelis, backed by their allies in the United States and elsewhere, ran a brazen propaganda campaign after Operation Al Aqsa Flood. The claims about forty beheaded babies and organized mass rape have been comprehensively debunked.

The second is that more than 300 of the people killed in Israel during the operation were soldiers on active duty and therefore legitimate military targets. Many of the civilians killed were part of the Israeli military reserve and therefore off-duty soldiers. Moreover, it is well documented that many of those civilians were killed by fire from the Israeli military.

The third point is that in these matters, it is always necessary to take context into account. The context is 75 years of colonial dispossession and murderous ethnic cleansing throughout Palestine. Around 80 percent of Gazans are refugees from the Israeli ‘ethnic cleansing’ in 1948 and 1967.

Gaza has suffered a bloody siege for 17 years. The civilians taken hostage were taken to exchange them for the thousands of hostages in Israeli prisons.

As anyone who knows the history of the revolts against slavery and colonialism will be aware, atrocities do occur when the downtrodden arise. Serious analysis understands this in context. It understands that oppression is the root of violence and that ending oppression is the route to peace.

Every innocent death is a tragedy. We are all grieved by the death of babies in a conflict, but decent people are grieved by the death of all babies. Two Israeli babies died on October 7, 2023.

Within weeks, 70 newborn babies in Gaza had perished. The Israelis and their liberal allies around the world wish us to grieve for the two Israeli babies and accept the death of the 70 babies in Gaza as the actions of ‘the most moral army in the world’.

We are supposed to accept that Israeli lives are sacred while the Palestinians are the Untermensch. This logic of dehumanization has always been the logic of fascism and colonialism, and all decent people are called to resist.

People around the world have stood up on principle.

Israel’s colonial occupation and genocidal response to resistance would not be possible without the support of the United States.

In the year following Operation Al Aqsa Flood, the US spent at least $22.76 billion on military aid to Israel and related US operations in the region. But on university campuses across the United States, young people, many of them Jewish, have courageously stood up for justice.

Surveys show that 40 percent of Jews in the United States under the age of 35 oppose Zionism and support the Palestinians. They understand that Judaism existed for thousands of years before the state of Israel was formed and that it will continue to exist long after Israel has ceased to exist in its present form.

The international movement to boycott, sanction, and disinvest from Israel is growing rapidly stronger, and there has been significant progress towards empowering the United Nations and its apex courts, the ICC and ICJ, to finally act with the necessary urgency.

The South African state acted bravely to take Israel to the International Court of Justice. There is, of course, a strong pushback from the Israeli and US states, which includes significant attempts to sway public opinion in South Africa.

The US government funds projects that make it seem that ‘fake news’ only comes from its rivals in BRICS and never from the US or Israel.

In late November, the ‘World Movement for Democracy’, a project of the National Endowment for Democracy and a US state organization associated with many US-backed coups against elected governments, will be hosting a massive ‘civil society’ conference in Johannesburg that will misrepresent the US and the West as the custodians of democracy around the world.

Pressure for South African NGOs to boycott the conference is rapidly mounting, and some have already pulled out.

Israel’s hubris, its messianic sense of its right to kill and dominate, masks its growing weakness. As it has begun to attack Lebanon and Iran, following its bombing of Syria and Yemen, there is a growing understanding that its fascism is a threat to the wider region and, ultimately, to world peace.

In over a year, Israel has failed to achieve its declared aims of rescuing the hostages and crushing Hamas. Despite significant losses, the heroic resistance in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Yemen is undefeated. The Israeli military conceals the number of its dead and injured, but there is a growing awareness in Israel that casualties are mounting. Thousands of Israeli soldiers are suffering from psychological trauma that has rendered them incapable of combat duty.

The Israeli military basks in tactical wins but suffers strategic defeats. By expanding the battlefront, they overstretch themselves, and as the war escalates, they will grind to a halt.

Israel is not a stable state. The divisions within Israeli society are at breaking point, and Netanyahu’s effective abandonment of the hostages has weakened his support.

Moreover, Israel cannot indefinitely carry on a protracted war of attrition. The economy is in crisis, with capital flight, foreign investment drying up, and GDP rapidly dropping. There was a $64 billion loss last year. This year will be worse. Half a million citizens have fled the country.

The settlements and towns near the Lebanon border and in the south near Gaza are deserted. Hotels are overflowing with displaced settlers at government expense. The harbor of Aqaba is empty of ships and has declared bankruptcy.

Hezbollah rockets are striking military targets in Haifa and elsewhere, including key military and Mossad bases, and Netanyahu’s home has been struck by a drone. Operation Al-Aqsa Flood proved that Israel was not invincible, and Israel’s Iron Dome and air defenses are proving inadequate against the combined assaults from the region, from as far away as Iran and Yemen.

Israel has been severely punished by Hezbollah in Lebanon and will fail in its invasion of that country as it has in the past.

Iran is another factor entirely. It is a vast country, rich in resources and a formidable foe. And unlike Israel, Iran aims at military targets. It does not launch indiscriminate attacks on civilians. People and countries around the world are taking note of this.

The times are unimaginably grim in Gaza and in the ghettoes of the West Bank, where 11,500 people have been imprisoned. But the resistance lives on, their courage and stoicism manifest in the defiance of Yahya Sinwar in his last breath, manifest in the sheer grit of the little girl carrying her injured baby sister on her back through the piles of rubble and death.

People care and comfort one another in the most nightmarish conditions. They dig in the rubble for those buried alive. They rush to the bombed hospitals with the dying and injured in their hands, the remains of shredded victims in plastic bags. They bury their shrouded dead with the utmost tenderness in mass graves. They love their land, amaze the world with their dignity, and will not forsake the land of their ancestors.

Zionism is not dead, but it is certainly dying. The cost will be devastatingly high, high beyond measure, but those for whom we weep will win the war.

Ronnie Kasrils, veteran of the anti-apartheid struggle, and South Africa’s former Minister for Intelligence Services, activist and author. He contributed this piece to The Palestine Chronicle

3 November 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

 

By Phil Pasquini

Only days before one of the most pivotal presidential elections in US history takes place, CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) released its national poll, “Final CAIR 2024 Election Poll of American Muslim Voters,” which was conducted on October 30-31. The results illustrate how this important block of voters will be pivotal in deciding the winner in Tuesday’s election.

According to CAIR, the ongoing genocide in Gaza is the top issue affecting American-Muslim voters’ choices in the presidential race with most voters having already decided who they support.

CAIR, for its part during a morning news conference in introducing the results, urged all voters regardless of their choices to get out and vote in the election to make their voices heard.

In introducing the results of the one-question national poll, CAIR Director of Government Affairs Robert S. McCaw indicated that according to Molitico, the independent third-party research group whom they engaged in conducting the poll, there are 376,667 registered American-Muslim voters in the six key battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

The poll included 1,449 verified registered voters from across the country, with 42.3% for Dr. Jill Stein, 41% for Kamala Harris, and 9.8% for Donald Trump while 5.4% of voters polled said they would not be voting and 0.9% remain undecided. The results allow for a margin of error of +/- 2.5 percentage points with a confidence interval of 95%.

The same one-question poll conducted in September resulted with Harris at 29.40%, Stein 29.10% and Trump 11.20% while 16.50% of voters were undecided and 8.80% said they would not be voting at all.

While the results of the October poll show that Harris has lost some support, there are others who are urging all American-Muslim voters to support her to keep Trump from regaining the White House.

During a morning national television interview today, Palestinian refugee, Maher Nawaf Arekat, founder and President of the Palestinian Community Center of Arizona along with other Democrats and leaders in the Palestinian, Arab, Muslim and Progressive communities in Arizona, spoke of their joint statement issued on October 24 calling on all voters to take “The first step — and our best choice in this horrible situation — is defeating Trump by electing Harris. We urge you to join us.”

The statement concludes with “In our view, it is crystal clear that allowing the fascist Donald Trump to become president again would be the worst possible outcome for the Palestinian people. A Trump win would be an extreme danger to Muslims in our country, all immigrants, and the American pro-Palestine movement. It would be an existential threat to our democracy and our whole planet… Trump must be defeated. The only way to defeat him is to elect Kamala Harris… Voting for Harris is not a personal endorsement of her or of the policy decisions of the administration in which she served. It’s an assessment of the best possible option to continue fighting for an end to the genocide, a free Palestine, and all else that we hold dear.”

While expressing their collective frustration with Harris’ stance, saying that while she has not yet “…met our movement’s demand that she break with Biden on the issue” they are hoping that in the end “she will come around,” in part due to recent comments and statements wherein she expressed empathy for the suffering of the Palestinian people pledging to do “everything in her power” as president in ending the war in Gaza, and to achieve “a future of security and dignity for all people in the region.”

In addressing those inclined to vote for a third-party candidate in protest to the status quo, they warned that “In our electoral system, no third-party candidate can win this election. But voting for them could make Trump president.”

Report and photo by Phil Pasquini

2 November 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Kevin Reed

Hundreds of journalists from all over the world have signed an online petition condemning the Israeli government for deliberately killed Palestinian journalists in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon over the past year.

As of this writing 790 individuals—writers, reporters, editors, producers, photographers and photojournalists, artists, videographers, educators and students—have signed the online petition with the headline, “Israel Must Stop Killing Journalists.”

The petition states in part,

Despite repeated condemnation by internationally-recognized human rights and media organizations, Israel has continued to kill and maim Palestinian journalists in Gaza. It has also escalated attacks against journalists in Lebanon.

The targeting of journalists is an attack on press freedom and a violation of international law.

This must stop.

Among the journalists endorsing the letter are Sakhr Al-Makhadhi, Executive Producer at AJ+, Al Jazeera; Anne Barnard, Freelancer and former New York Times Beirut Bureau Chief; Samaa Khullar, Investigative Journalist at the Nation; and Khalil AlHajal, Deputy Opinion Editor at the Detroit Free Press.

Palestinian journalists in Gaza have served as the world’s eyes and ears, documenting Israeli attacks such as the deliberate killing of civilians carrying white flags and torture of Palestinians in detention. These journalists have received death threats, been maimed or killed by Israeli forces—even while not on assignment. Their families have also been killed by Israeli forces.

The petition circulators point out that the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported that “Israeli attacks have killed at least 123 Palestinian journalists and media workers,” which makes it the deadliest period for journalists since the organization began collecting data in 1992. The Government Media Office in Gaza puts the death toll of Palestinian journalists at 182 since October 2023.

Most recently, an airstrike in Lebanon on October 25 killed three journalists as they slept in a guest house in an area that has been used by media as a base for covering the war. A report by Associated Press said,

The 3 a.m. airstrike turned the site—a series of chalets nestled among trees that had been rented by various media outlets covering the war—into rubble. Cars marked “PRESS” were overturned and covered in dust and debris, and at least one satellite dish for live broadcasting was totally destroyed.

The Israeli army did not issue a warning prior to the strike, which it said targeted Hezbollah militant infrastructure. The military later said the strike was being reviewed.

Mohammad Farhat, a reporter for Lebanon’s Al Jadeed TV in the south, said everyone rushed out in their sleeping clothes. “The first question we asked each other: ‘Are you alive?’”

The three journalists killed in the air strike were camera operator Ghassan Najjar and broadcast technician Mohammed Rida of the Beirut-based pan-Arab Al-Mayadeen TV, and camera operator Wissam Qassim, who worked for Al-Manar TV of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group.

While the Israeli military maintained that the buildings were targeted because they were a base of Hezbollah operations, human rights groups reported that the journalists were deliberately targeted.

The CPJ’s organizational director Carlos Martinez de la Serna said the organization was, “deeply outraged by yet another deadly Israeli airstrike on journalists, this time hitting a compound hosting 18 members of the press in south Lebanon.”

In another case, 19-year-old journalist Hassan Hamad was killed by an Israeli artillery shell at his home in Jabaliya on October 6 after he received death threats. Hamad received threatening phone calls and text messages via WhatsApp from an Israeli officer ordering him to stop filming evidence of the genocide. Hamad, 19, had been sharing video reports on the Israeli incursion into the Jabalia refugee camp when he was killed.

In one threatening text message received by Hassan, shared on X by human rights activist and journalist Maha Hussaini, said, “Listen, if you continue spreading lies about Israel, we’ll come for you next and turn your family into […] This is your last warning.”

One of the demands on the petition is that Israel allow injured journalists in Gaza to be immediately evacuated so they can receive urgently needed medical attention.

The petition states,

As the Israeli military escalated its attacks on central and northern Gaza in October 2024, they killed two Palestinian journalists and seriously injured three others. On Oct. 7, Al Jazeera cameraman Ali Al-Attar was severely injured due to shrapnel from an airstrike while he was covering the conditions of displaced Palestinians. Al-Attar is now in critical condition, with medical scans showing severe bleeding and shrapnel lodged in his brain. Two days later, Israeli forces shot Al Jazeera cameraman Fadi Al-Wahidi in the neck while he was reporting. Doctors say his injury has left him paralyzed for life and he is now in a coma.

A report in Al Jazeera said al-Wahidi was shot by an Israeli sniper in the Gaza Strip and has not been allowed by Israel to leave the enclave for urgent medical treatment. The Palestinian journalist was shot as he reported on the Israeli ground invasion of the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, and he was wearing gear that clearly identified him as a member of the press.

Despite appeals from three media freedom organizations as well as medical officials, the Israeli government has not allowed al-Wahidi and Ali al-Attar to leave Gaza for “lifesaving medical treatment.”

Al Jazeera issued a statement calling on the international community “to take immediate action to ensure the safety of journalists and civilians in Gaza and hold the Israeli Occupation Forces accountable for their repeated crimes against journalists.”

The CPJ issued an appeal to the governments of the US, France and Germany as well as the United Nations seeking assistance to have al-Wahidi and al-Attar transferred out of Gaza. However, a CPJ statement says, “Despite these endeavors, the possibility of evacuating these journalists is currently blocked due to a lack of Israeli authorization for their safe passage.”

The petition campaign states that the targeting of journalists “is an attack on press freedom and a violation of international law.” A United Nations Security Council resolution adopted in May 2015 states that the council “[c]ondemns all violations and abuses committed against journalists, media professionals and associated personnel in situations of armed conflict and calls upon all parties to armed conflict to bring an end to such practices.”

2 November 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Quds News Network

New York (Quds News Network)- The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, urged the UN General Assembly on Wednesday to consider suspending Israel’s membership due to its repeated violations of international law and its ongoing occupation of Palestinian territories.

Speaking at a press conference, Albanese stressed that Israel’s impunity has enabled it to “become a serial violator of international law.”

Albanese’s recommendations include suspending Israel’s credentials at the UN until it halts these violations and withdraws its occupation, which clearly unlawful. She emphasized that Israel’s formation came at a huge price for the Palestinians, a cost that remains unaddressed.

Since the 1967 occupation, Palestinians have faced systematic segregation and repression, Albanese added, noting that Israel’s ‘Greater Israel’ policies aim to diminish Palestinian identity in the region. She highlighted that 75% of Gaza’s population consists of refugees originally from what is now called ‘Israel’, symbolizing what she termed Israel’s “original sin” since its creation.

In a recent report to the UN General Assembly, Albanese described a pattern of forced displacement, destruction, and actions amounting to genocide in Gaza and the West Bank. Her report points to “long-term, intentional, state-organized forced displacement and replacement” of Palestinians, especially in light of the Israeli attacks’ escalation since October 7, 2023.

Albanese’s findings address the genocidal intent behind Israel’s expansion, framing it as part of a sustained process of ethnic cleansing aimed at removing Palestinian presence from Palestine.

Albanese’s statements and report have faced significant outrage, especially from the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) in Canada, which has labeled her criticisms as antisemitic. Ahead of her upcoming talk at the University of Toronto on November 7, CIJA called on Canadian authorities to take measures against her. They are urging Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly and Ambassador Bob Rae to publicly condemn Albanese and bar Canadian officials from meeting with her.

CIJA has also requested that Albanese be stripped of diplomatic immunity during her visit and removed from her UN position.

“No government official should be meeting with Albanese while she’s in Canada nor should Albanese enjoy diplomatic immunity while she’s here in Canada,” CIJA said, accusing her of spreading harmful rhetoric by equating Israel’s crimes to those of Nazi Germany.

2 November 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Brett Wilkins

The heads of 15 humanitarian organizations operating under the United Nations umbrella on Friday accused Israel of creating “apocalyptic” conditions in northern Gaza and called on Israeli forces to stop attacking the Palestinian enclave and the aid workers trying to help its people.

“The situation unfolding in North Gaza is apocalyptic. The area has been under siege for almost a month, denied basic aid and lifesaving supplies while bombardment and other attacks continue,” the 15 group heads wrote in an open letter. “Just in the past few days, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed, most of them women and children, and thousands have once again been forcibly displaced.”

The letter’s 15 signers include directors of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee, a forum of United Nations and non-U.N. humanitarian partners, including the International Council of Volunteer Agencies.

[https://twitter.com/AdHaque110/status/1852394659022098594]

“Hospitals have been almost entirely cut off from supplies and have come under attack, killing patients, destroying vital equipment, and disrupting lifesaving services,” the group leaders wrote. “Health workers and patients have been taken into custody. Fighting has also reportedly taken place inside hospitals.”

“Dozens of schools serving as shelters have been bombed or forcibly evacuated. Tents sheltering displaced families have been shelled, and people have been burned alive,” the letter continues. “Rescue teams have been deliberately attacked and thwarted in their attempts to pull people buried under the rubble of their homes.”

The signers wrote that “we have received reports of civilians being targeted while trying to seek safety,” and that “the entire Palestinian population in north Gaza is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine, and violence.”

The letter warns: “Humanitarian aid cannot keep up with the scale of the needs due to the access constraints. Basic lifesaving goods are not available. Humanitarians are not safe to do their work and are blocked by Israeli forces and by insecurity from reaching people in need.”

“In a further blow to the humanitarian response, the polio vaccination campaign has been delayed due to the fighting, putting the lives of children in the region at risk,” the signers added.

[https://twitter.com/Atayeshe/status/1852401187032613084]

The humanitarian leaders lamented this week’s approval by Israeli lawmakers of a pair of bills targeting the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

“If implemented, such measures would be a catastrophe for the humanitarian response in Gaza, diametrically opposed to the United Nations Charter, with potential dire impacts on the human rights of the millions of Palestinians depending on UNRWA’s assistance, and in violation of Israel’s obligations under international law,” the letter states. “Let us be very clear: There is no alternative to UNRWA.”

The humanitarian leaders then turned their attention to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) genocide case against Israel led by South Africa and backed by around 30 nations and regional blocs. Israeli forces have been accused of flouting ICJ orders that the country prevent genocidal acts in Gaza, allow humanitarian aid into the strip, and stop the assault on Rafah.

“Israel must comply with the provisional orders and determinations of the International Court of Justice,” they asserted.

[https://twitter.com/YousefHammash/status/1851934069908492481]

Since October 2023, Israel’s assault on Gaza has left more than 155,000 Palestinians dead, wounded, or missing, and millions more displaced, starving, or sick. The Israel Defense Forces’ renewed offensive in northern Gaza has killed or injured thousands of Palestinians since last month amid fears Israel is implementing the so-called “General’s Plan” to starve and then ethnically cleanse northern Gaza to make way for Israeli recolonization, a policy promoted by senior members of Israel’s far-right government.

The humanitarian leaders’ letter also states that “Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups must release the hostages immediately and unconditionally and must abide by international humanitarian law.”

“The entire region is on the edge of a precipice,” the signers concluded. “An immediate cessation of hostilities and a sustained, unconditional cease-fire are long overdue.”

Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

2 November 2024

Source: countercurrents.org