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By Dr. Ramzy Baroud

The distance between Gaza and Namibia is measured in the thousands of kilometers. But the historical distance is much closer. This is precisely why Namibia was one of the first countries to take a strong stance against the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

Namibia was colonized by the Germans in 1884, while the British colonized Palestine in the 1920s, handing the territory to the Zionist colonizers in 1948.

Though the ethnic and religious fabric of both Palestine and Namibia are different, the historical experiences are similar.

It is easy, however, to assume that the history which unifies many countries in the Global South is only that of western exploitation and victimization. It is also a history of collective struggle and resistance.

Namibia has been inhabited since prehistoric times. This long-rooted history has allowed Namibians, over the course of thousands of years, to establish a sense of belonging to the land and to one another, something that the Germans did not understand or appreciate.

When the Germans colonized Namibia, giving it the name of ‘German Southwest Africa’, they did what all other western colonialists have done, from Palestine to South Africa to Algeria, to virtually all Global South countries. They attempted to divide the people, exploited their resources and butchered those who resisted.

Although a country with a small population, Namibians resisted their colonizers, resulting in the German decision to simply exterminate the natives, literally killing the majority of the population.

Since the start of the Israeli genocide in Gaza, Namibia answered the call of solidarity with the Palestinians, along with many African and South American countries, including Colombia, Nicaragua, Cuba, South Africa, Brazil, China and many others.

Though intersectionality is a much-celebrated notion in western academia, no academic theory is needed for oppressed, colonized nations in the Global South to exhibit solidarity with one another.

So when Namibia took a strong stance against Israel’s largest military supporter in Europe – Germany – it did so based on Namibia’s total awareness of its history.

The German genocide of the Nama and Herero people (1904-1907), is known as the “first genocide of the 20th century”. The ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza is the first genocide of the 21st century. The unity between Palestine and Namibia is now cemented through mutual suffering.

But it is not Namibia that has launched the legal case against Germany at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) but, rather, Nicaragua, a Central American country that is also thousands of miles away from both Palestine and Namibia.

The Nicaraguan case accuses Germany of violating the ‘Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide’. It rightly sees Germany as a partner in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinians.

This accusation alone should terrify the German people, in fact the whole world, as Germany is affiliated with genocides from its early days as a colonial power. The horrific crime of the Holocaust, and other mass killings carried out by the German government against Jews and other minority groups in Europe during WWII, is a continuation of other German crimes committed against Africans, decades earlier.

The typical analysis of why Germany continues to support Israel is explained on the basis of German guilt over the Holocaust. This explanation, however, is partly illogical and partly erroneous.

Illogical, because, if Germany has, indeed, internalized any guilt from its previous mass killings, it would make no sense for Berlin to add yet more guilt by allowing Palestinians to be butchered, en masse. If guilt indeed exists, it is not genuine.

And erroneous, because it completely overlooks the German genocide in Namibia. In fact, it took the German government until 2021 to acknowledge the horrific butchery in that poor African country, ultimately agreeing to pay merely one billion euros in ‘community aid’, which will be allocated over the course of three decades.

The German government’s support of the Israeli war on Gaza is not motivated by guilt, but by a power paradigm that governs the relations among colonial countries. Many countries in the Global South understand this logic very well, thus the growing solidarity with Palestine.

The Israeli brutality in Gaza, but also the Palestinian sumud, resilience and resistance, are inspiring the Global South to reclaim its centrality in anti-colonial liberation struggles.

The revolution in the Global South outlook – culminating in South Africa’s case at the ICJ, and also the Nicaraguan lawsuit against Germany – indicates that the change is not the outcome of a collective emotional reaction. Instead, it is part and parcel of the shifting relationship between the Global South and the Global North.

Africa has been undergoing a process of geopolitical restructuring for years. The anti-French rebellions in West Africa, demanding true independence from the continent’s former colonial masters, in addition to the intense geopolitical competition – involving Russia, China and others – are all signs of changing times.

And, with this rapid rearrangement, a new political discourse and popular rhetoric are emerging, often expressed in the revolutionary language emanating from Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali and others.

But the shift is not happening on the rhetorical front only. The rise of BRICS as a powerful new platform for economic integration between Asia and the rest of the Global South has opened up the possibility that alternatives to western financial and political institutions are very much possible.

In 2023, it was revealed that BRICS countries are now holding 32 percent of the world’s total GDP, compared to 30 percent held by the G7 countries. There is much political value to this as four of the five original founders of BRICS are strong and unapologetic supporters of the Palestinians.

While South Africa has been championing the legal front against Israel, Russia and China are battling the US at the UN Security Council to institute a ceasefire. Beijing’s Ambassador to The Hague went as far as defending the Palestinian armed struggle as legitimate under international law.

Now that global dynamics are working in favor of Palestinians, it is time for the Palestinian struggle to return to the embrace of the Global South, where common histories will always serve as a foundation for a meaningful solidarity.

Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle.

18 April 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Andre Damon

The United States and its imperialist allies will imminently announce new sanctions targeting Iran as the US-led war drive against Tehran continues to accelerate.

In a statement Tuesday, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the US and its G7 allies would announce the sanctions “in the coming days.”

“We will not hesitate to continue to take action, in coordination with allies and partners around the world, and with Congress, to hold the Iranian government accountable for its malicious and destabilizing actions,” Sullivan said. He added that the US actions “continue a steady drumbeat of pressure to contain and degrade Iran’s military capacity and effectiveness and confront the full range of its problematic behaviors.”

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the US would impose “additional sanctions action against Iran in the coming days.” The announcement came ahead of a scheduled meeting of the Israeli war cabinet at which Israel is expected to decide whether to carry out strikes against Iran.

Increasingly, the US press is treating a military response by Israel against Iran as inevitable. In an article titled “Restraint or retribution? Israel faces dilemma in its response to Iran’s attack,” CNN wrote:

The US expects Israel’s military response will be limited in scope, a senior administration official and a source familiar with the intelligence told CNN. There is US intelligence to suggest Israel is weighing a narrow and limited strike inside Iran, the second source said.

These developments come as the imperialist powers continue to ever more directly align themselves with Israel, using Iran’s strikes over the weekend as a pretext to abandon their previous nominal criticism of the Gaza genocide. UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, in a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Tuesday, “reiterated the UK’s steadfast support for Israel’s security,” according to a UK government spokesperson.

While stating on background that the United States will not directly take part in a strike, US officials have given Israel a green light to attack Iran, reaffirming Washington’s unconditional support for Israel. On Monday, White House spokesman John Kirby declared, “This is an Israeli decision to make, whether and how they’ll respond to what Iran did on Saturday, and we’re going to leave it squarely with them.”

The escalating US-Israeli offensive against Iran comes as Israel continues its genocide against the population of Gaza. On Tuesday, an Israeli airstrike reportedly targeted a playground in Gaza’s Maghazi refugee camp, killing 11 people, most of whom were children. Al Jazeera reported that “dozens” of people were transported to hospitals following the attack.

Separately, seven police officers charged with protecting food distribution were killed in an airstrike on their vehicle. In a statement, Gaza’s interior ministry condemned the Israeli army’s “repeated, targeted attacks on security forces” throughout Gaza. It added:

We call on all parties within the international community to pressure the occupation to halt its attacks against members of the police force, who are carrying out their duties to serve and protect our people.

Al Jazeera reported that, in yet another airstrike Tuesday, several people were killed when an Israeli jet attacked a residential building in central Rafah. There are more than 1.5 million displaced Palestinians sheltering in the city, amid a looming Israeli offensive that is expected to displace hundreds of thousands of people and kill countless thousands.

In a harrowing report published Tuesday, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor asserted that Israeli forces are broadcasting the recorded sounds of women screaming and children crying in order to lure civilians out from under cover in order to shoot them. The Monitor reported:

Testimonies from camp residents, which were provided to the Euro-Med Monitor team, confirm that the sound of women screaming and babies crying was heard late at night on both Sunday and Monday. When some of the residents went out to investigate and tried to help, they were shot at by Israeli quadcopter drones. The sounds they had heard were, in fact, recordings played by the Israeli drones with the intent of forcing the camp’s residents out into the streets, where they could be easily targeted by snipers and other weaponry.

Another witness described the incident to Al Jazeera, saying, “Yesterday, the area was subjected to Israeli shelling. Three hours after the raids, we heard the voices of children crying out and the voice of a woman.” The witness added, “When we went out, we were subjected to heavy fire from the Israeli army and the sound was coming out of an Israeli quadcopter with four propellers.”

In a statement Tuesday, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) warned of a “public health catastrophe underway in Gaza,” declaring that “millions of Palestinians in Gaza [are] facing famine, malnutrition and disease outbreaks.” The committee warned that without an immediate ceasefire, 12,000 people were expected to lose their lives as a result of disease.

The statement quoted Dr. Seema Jilani, senior health technical advisor for emergencies at the organization, who said:

No hospitals in Gaza are fully functioning any longer. IRC staff and partners in Gaza continue to witness devastation in the health facilities that are left. Palestinians are often forced to weigh whether it is worth the risk of death or encountering violence to get to a hospital, given unprecedented attacks, total absence of medical supplies, and the burden on existing health services. Patients as young as 4 months old are dying from preventable or easily treatable diseases like pneumonia and gastroenteritis.

17 April 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr Marwan Asmar

In what is seen as an unprecedented international diplomatic move, the White House has asked the Tehran government if it would allow Israel to engage in a “symbolic retaliatory strike” on Iran as a “face-saving formula” and to placate domestic pressure.

The American message delivered through the Swiss Embassy in Tehran which looks after US relations there is seen as highly irregular and has been major news on the social media and a butt of all jokes and sarcasm by many bloggers and commentators.

The breaking story first appeared on The Cradle news website which quoted an Iranian official speaking in anonymity saying the Iranian government received messages from different mediators to let Israel do a symbolic strike on the country to save face and has asked Iran not to retaliate.

In turn, the source added the government in Tehran had outrightly rejected such a move. To drive their point home, the government let officials from the Islamic Revolution Guard Corp deliver a message to the USA via the Swiss Embassy, emphasizing it would respond in the strongest possible terms if Israel would strike Iran in any form.

Although most of the 300 weapons – drones, ballistic and cruise missiles – were brought down by US and British allies before they reached Israel, the Netanyahu government had been licking its wounds.

The missiles managed to penetrate some three military bases in Israel and is being seen in Iran as a major victory.

Since the series of strikes on Israel, in the early hours of Sunday morning, the Biden administration in Washington has been trying to persuade the Israeli government not to militarily respond and create a major conflagration in the Middle East.

US president Joe Biden is seeking to control the slippery-slope situation brought on by Israel’s 7-month war on Gaza. It is already facing a Houthi-led blockade in the Red Sea and the Bab Al Mandeb Straits as well as Hezbollah and other pro-Iranian Shia groups in the Lebanon, Syria and Iraq.

Therefore, it fears if Israel responds to the last Iranian attacks, it would put the whole region in a military tailspin and a prelude for a regional war.

But Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant says Israel has no choice but to respond military to the Iranian projectiles that were mainly seen over the skies of Jordan, and came from the south from Yemen fired by the Houthis.

Although they don’t like to admit it, the political and Israeli military establishments have been shocked about the scale of the Iran attacks. This is despite the fact, Israel virtually regards Syria as its military backyard with hundreds of sorties carried out on the country over the past 10 years.

It is clear Iran has penetrated the Israeli psyche this time around, although after the attacks Iranian officials let it be known through different intermediaries like Qatar, Turkey as well as the Swiss they don’t wish to escalate and their actions was in response to the Israeli strikes on their Consulate in Syria in which seven of their officials were killed.

Thus, the guessing game continues. Israelis, and from the statements of its officials continue to mull over the type of military response they want to undertake. Officials in Washington believe a hit is coming but they only ask they’d be told about in advance.

Meanwhile social media celebrities have been having a field do on Washington’s urging to Tehran to let Israel strike “symbolically.”  The views are from the X platform.

Social media reactions

Marin Prvan simply says “what is this, Kindergarten politics?,” while Sarah Wilkinson writes: “Hilariously, the US begged Iran to allow the Israeli regime to make ‘a symbolic strike’ against it to save it from embarrassment: no, says Iran.” On the other hand Alexa Heidar says: “What joke of a world we live in.”

And the list goes on. Remove a ToryMP writes the US is begging Iran to let Israel have a pity-strike while Notinmyname says: “The United Slaves of America grovelling for Israel masters.”

It is a reminder of the First Gulf War in January 1991 when the president Saddam Hussein of Iraq fired 42 scud missiles on Tel Aviv and Haifa. Then, the Israeli government was persuaded not to respond because the Bush administration was about to have its first war on Iraq.

Dr Asmar is a writer from Amman covering Middle East Affairs

17 April 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Andre Damon

The imperialist powers have responded to Iran’s strikes on Israel Saturday with an outpouring of condemnation.

“I condemn these attacks in the strongest possible terms,” US President Joe Biden declared, reaffirming “America’s ironclad commitment to the security of Israel.”

The G7 group of imperialist powers said in a statement, “We … unequivocally condemn in the strongest terms Iran’s direct and unprecedented attack against Israel.” It added, “Iran has further stepped toward the destabilization of the region and risks provoking an uncontrollable regional escalation.”

These statements by the imperialist warmongers, repeated by every major NATO power, are the height of hypocrisy. The force “provoking an uncontrollable regional escalation” in the Middle East is Israel and its imperialist backers.

Let us get the timeline accurate. Iran’s strike was a response to the April 1 attack by Israel on an Iranian embassy in Syria that killed seven top-level Iranian military officers, including two generals.

In response to Israel’s flagrantly illegal and murderous attack on what was, under international law, Iranian soil, the imperialist powers effectively endorsed it. US Ambassador to the UN Robert Wood declared that “terrorist leaders and elements were allegedly present at this facility.” The US, France and the UK vetoed a resolution in the UN Security Council condemning Israel’s attack.

Now, the imperialists are falling over themselves to condemn Iran’s response to Israel’s action. This is all the more striking given that Iran’s action was largely symbolic. The Iranian government announced Saturday’s strike to countries in the region 72 hours in advance in an effort to limit the impact. As Reuters reported Sunday, “Iran gave wide notice days before Saturday’s drone and missile attack on Israel allowing mass casualties and rampant escalation to be averted.”

The imperialist powers are asserting that they and their proxies can kill as many people as they want, carry out targeted assassinations and act in complete violation of anything resembling international law. But any response, even of the most minimal character, is denounced as a crime. This is the basic law of colonialism and imperialism.

While Biden “condemns” the actions of Iran, he does not extend the same language to Israel’s onslaught against Gaza, which is being funded, armed and politically supported by the United States and other imperialist powers.

Israel is actively carrying out a genocide against the population of Gaza, already having killed at least 40,000 people. It is systematically displacing, starving and bombing an entire population of 2.2 million people and methodically and deliberately murdering doctors and aid workers.

The genocide in Gaza is developing into a regional war, which can very quickly draw in the entire globe.

To the extent that the Biden administration is stating, generally on background rather than through official pronuncements, that it would prefer that Israel not respond with immediate military strikes, this is determined by tactical considerations.

Some of these considerations were laid out in an op-ed in the New York Times by Bret Stephens under the headline, “For Israel, Revenge Should Be a Dish Served Cold.”

“As a matter of self-defense,” Stephens wrote, “Israel has every moral and legal right to respond in kind—and then some. It is not enough for Israel to demonstrate its capacity for defense, as it did over the weekend. It must also re-establish its capacity for deterrence. That is, it needs to show Iran’s leaders that the price for bringing their war against Israel out of the shadows will be unbearably high, and is therefore not to be repeated.”

Stephens counsels against, however, an all-out assault on Iran. “Israel has an unfinished war against Hamas in Gaza, and a direct Israeli attack on Iran could trigger a second full-scale war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, if not with Iran itself. Most Israelis understand that particular war will have to be fought sooner or later—perhaps before the end of the summer—and that it will be probably much tougher on them than the Gaza war has been so far.” (Emphasis added)

In other words, it is first necessary to finish the genocide in Gaza, before turning to the “much tougher” task of war with Iran.

Sections of the US political establishment are openly advocating a full-scale war, asserting that the Biden administration is not going far enough in supporting an Israeli war against Iran. The Wall Street Journal wrote in an editorial, “The attack should at least cause Mr. Biden and his fellow Democrats to end their cold war with Israel over Gaza and recognize that this is really a war against Iran.”

It continued, “Leaders in both parties should also start telling the truth to Americans about the new world of global threats. Russia, China, Iran and North Korea are all on the march and working together.”

The Israeli cabinet has been deliberating over the past day on what actions to take, and there are evidently divisions within the regime itself.

Moreover, while Israel is imperialism’s attack dog in the Middle East, the US is not in complete control of what it will do. In any event, the Biden administration has reaffirmed that if Israel does take action, it will have full support.

Appearing on Meet the Press, White House spokesman John Kirby declared, “Whether and how the Israelis respond is going to be up to them.”

Asked, “If Israel does decide to move forward with retaliatory strikes, will the United States support Israel?” Kirby replied that US “support for Israel’s self-defense will stay ironclad. It will not change.”

The United States responded to the events of October 7 by launching a major military offensive throughout the Middle East, with Iran as the central target. Within days, the US surged an armada of warships and hundreds of aircraft to the region, which it has used to launch dozens of illegal airstrikes over the past six months.

The US offensive in the Middle East is a crucial element of an unfolding global war, with Russia and China as the main targets. The subjugation of Iran, lying at the heart of Eurasia, is a critical component of the United States’ drive for global military domination.

Whatever the immediate developments in the coming days, the regional war throughout the Middle East, as part of an expanding global war, is spiraling dangerously out of control. The world stands closer to nuclear conflict than at any time since the Second World War. Nothing can stop this expanding global war except the development of a mass anti-war movement oriented to and based on the working class.

15 April 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark

While the Australian government continues to pirouette with shallow constancy on the issue of Israel’s war in Gaza, making vacuous utterances on Palestinian statehood even as it denies supplying the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) with weapons (spare parts, it would seem, are a different, footnoted matter), efforts made to unearth details of the defence relationship between the countries have so far come to naught.

The brief on Australian-Israel relations published by the Department of Trade and Foreign Affairs is deplorably skimpy, noting that both countries have, since 2017, “expanded cooperation on national security, defence and cyber security.”  Since 2018, we are told that annual talks have been conducted between defence officials, while Australia appointed, in early 2018, a resident Defence Attaché to the embassy in Tel Aviv.  What is conspicuously absent are details of the Memorandum of Understanding on defence cooperation both countries signed in 2017.

A little bit of scrapping around reveals that 2017 was something of a critical year, a true bumper return.  The Australia-Israel Defence Industry Cooperation Joint Working Group was created that October.  A following Australian Defence media release notes the group’s intention: “to strengthen ties between Australia and Israel, explore defence industry and innovation opportunities, identify export opportunities, and support our industries to cooperate in the development of innovative technologies for shared capability challenges.”

The intentions of the group were well borne out.  Defence contracts followed with sweet indulgence:  the February 2018 contract between Israel-based Rafael Advanced Defence Systems with Australia’s Bisalloy Steels worth A$900,000; an August 2018 joint venture between the Australian defence engineering company Varley Group and Rafael, behind such “leading weapons systems” as “the Spike LR2 anti-tank guided missile”; and the Electro Optic Systems-Elbit Systems agreement from 2019 responsible for developing “a modular medium-calibre turret that can be configured for a range of platforms, including lightweight reconnaissance and heavy fighting vehicles.”

In February this year, Elbit Systems, Israel’s notorious drone manufacturer and creator of the Hermes 450 aerial device responsible for this month’s killing of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers including the Australian national, Lalzawmi “Zomi” Frankcom, was rewarded with a A$917 million contract.  Business, even over bodies, exerts a corrupting force.

In a heartbeat after the outbreak of the latest Gaza War last October, the Australian Greens filed a Freedom of Information (FOI) request seeking a copy of the barely mentioned MOU.  After a period of three months, the Australian Defence Department reached the boring conclusion that the application should be rejected.  It fell, the argument went, within the category of exemptions so treasured by secretive bureaucrats keen to make sure the “freedom” in FOI is kept spare and bare.

What follows is repulsive to intellect and denigrating to morality.  “The document within the scope of this request,” went the letter from the Defence Department, “contains information which, if released, could reasonably be expected to damage the international relations of the Commonwealth.” The MOU “contains information communicated to Australia by a foreign government and its officials under the expectation that it would not be disclosed.”  Releasing “such information could harm Australia’s international standing and reputation.”

A telling, and troubling role was played by Israel in the process.  With characteristic, jellied spinelessness, Australian defence officials notified Israel of the FOI request in December 2023.  In February, the Netanyahu government responded with its views, of which we can only speculate.  The Greens were duly informed by the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) that the relevant decision maker in Defence “will consider the foreign government’s consultation response to make an informed and robust decision.”  With such words, a negative response was nigh predictable.

Greens Senator David Shoebridge, in responding to the decision, was adamant that, “There is no place for secret arms treaties and secret arms deals between countries.”  Furthermore, there was “no place for giving other countries veto power over what the Australian government tells the public about our government defence and arms deals.”  The case is even more pressing given allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide taking place in the Gaza strip.

This regrettable episode retains a certain familiar repulsiveness.  Unfortunately for devotees of open government, a fraught term if ever there was one, Australia’s FOI regime remains stringently archaic and pathologically secretive.

Decision makers are given directions to frustrate, not aid applications to reveal information, notably on sensitive topics such as security, defence and international relations.  Spurious notions about damage to international relations are advanced to ensure secrecy and the muzzling of debate.  The OAIC has also shown itself to be lamentably weak, tardy and inefficient in reviewing applications.  In March 2023, it was revealed that almost 600 unresolved FOI cases had bottled up over the course of three years.

The latest refusal from the Defence Department to disclose the Israel-Australian MOU to members of Parliament, a decision reached after discussions with a foreign power (that fact is staggering and disheartening in of itself), betrays much doubletalk regarding defence ties between Canberra, the IDF, and the Israeli government.  More than that, it confirms that those in Canberra are being steered by other interests, longing for the approval of foreign eyes and foreign interests.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.

14 April 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr Marwan Asmar

[https://twitter.com/HadiNasrallah/status/1779281620479975507]

Israel is under attack by incoming Iranian drones and ballistic missiles. The Jordanian skies lit up with passing missiles and drones as they made their way to Israel

[https://twitter.com/officejjsmart/status/1779287237638939047]

They were heard over the Jordanian skies at around 2 am local time, Sunday, 14 April, 2024. A series of booming noise was heard as the trajectory objects made their way over the Jordanian capital, Amman.

The number of those fired from Iran varied from 50, 100, 150 and 200 missiles. The social media blustered over the figures.

[https://twitter.com/Ali_Al_SmAdi/status/1779286263540977692]

Later on, news sources suggested 400 and 500 missiles were expected to reach Israel’s strategic depth. And later another figure was branded about of 1500 missiles that targeted Israel.

But there was immediate speculation about the origins of these missiles with observers suggesting they may have come from Shiite groups in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon and/or from the Houthis from Yemen.

[https://twitter.com/salardigione/status/1779274870204899331]

Social media pundits were quick to videoclip the missiles over the skies of Amman which very quickly dominated the social media.

The United States on hearing about the launch of the drones and missiles from Iran’s western part, Saturday evening – around 1700 kilometers away from Israel -quickly promised it would seek to intercept these trajectories.

Very quickly also Jordan quickly closed its airspace to any incoming and outgoing flights with Iraq also closing to airspace. Jordan’s Civil Aviation Regulatory Authority (CARC) announced the extension of the closure of the Kingdom’s airspace until 11 a.m. local time (8 a.m. UTC). This came in a statement following an earlier announcement statement issued the previous evening.

Dr Asmar is an Amman-based writer covering Middle East Affairs

14 April 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Feroze Mithiborwala

Iran made all the due preparations over the last few days and then struck Israel with a mighty series of blows with its drones and cruise missiles. Iran’s retaliation was its answer to the Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus. Now the Iranians have answered, as they promised they would and have struck military and other targets in Israel.

Iran ensured that none of the US bases in the region, in Iraq, Syria, or the Gulf countries, or Turkey would retaliate – none! If the US did, the the Axis of Resistance would strike at the US bases, ensuring their utter destruction. Until now, the USS Carney too has not struck Iran, and the UK has backed out from any role whatsoever.

In case of Israeli attacks, the Axis of Resistance has further warned of great escalation on the Lebanese front, where the Hezbollah could take Israeli (Occupied Palestine 1948) territory all the way till Haifa. Syria too will move into the Golan Heights and reclaim its sovereign territory held by Israel since 1967.

The Yemeni Houthi government continues to stand guard on the Red Sea, with Iran controlling the Hormuz Strait, the entry to the Persian Gulf.

Iran’s attack on the psychopathic mass murderer Judeo-Nazi entity of Israel has boosted the morale of the people and nations across the region and across the world. There are celebrations on the streets of Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Jordan, with more and more countries joining the celebrations.

Israel has made a great strategic error by directly attacking Iran, thus now directly drawing Iran into the fast unfolding regional war. Iran had no choice, but to retaliate against the Israeli attacks on its consulate in Damascus. Israel, after facing a strategic military defeat in Gaza, wanted to expand the war, drawing in Iran, and then would follow the US & the rest of the Anglo-Zionist Western alliance.

After the Iranian retaliation, now will Israel escalate the war further?

Will the US too attack Iran from its aircraft carriers on standby?

What will be the role of Russia in the fast-unfolding war? Russia has a strategic alliance with Iran, as is evident from their military & political cooperation in Syria to Ukraine. China too will surely stand with Russia and Iran.

So even as deep cracks are appearing within the Western alliance, the nations that constitute the Global South, the World Majority are fast uniting. The nations of Asia, Africa, the America’s, are fast uniting for the cause of Palestine, which is the central geopolitical issue and the greatest moral issue of our times.

If the US attacks Iran, its illegal bases, its illegal presence in Syria, in Iraq will come under massive attack and the US will yet again have to flee in ignominy, just as they did from Vietnam & Afghanistan.

Due to the ongoing Holocaust of the Palestinian people, Israel is deeply isolated internationally, a pariah, a war criminal entity. Israel is deeply divided within and not even the war has managed to unite the country. Netanyahu is highly unpopular, and his extreme rightwing bunch of extremist Judeo-Nazi psychopaths, the Gvir’s, the Smotrich’s, are dragging Israel towards certain defeat.

If the war came to a halt, Netanyahu will lose power, he will have to resign. He faces serious corruption charges with hearings still pending in the Supreme Court. Netanyahu will go to prison, which is why he is desperately prolonging the war.

If an election were held today, Netanyahu and his ultra-rightwing fanatical Jewish Bloc will lose. Israel has lost all sense of direction, be it in terms of political strategy, both at home or abroad, or on the battlefield. Thus, even after committing a Holocaust, Israel has been unable to defeat the Palestinian resistance, or break the will of the Palestinian people, who refuse to surrender. Thus, despite the Hiroshima-Nagasaki scale of bombings, the mass murder, the torture, the famine and starvation conditions created by the Israeli Nazi entity – Gaza still stands, Palestine still stands!!

Now, Iran, the Axis of the Regional Resistance, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen are ready to proceed with the “Last War of Independence”. The freedom and liberty of all of the West Asian region is at stake, of the World is at stake. We are witness to the collapse of US-led Western imperialism & Zionism.

The Global South, the Global  Majority stand with Palestine! The People of the world, which include the majority of the people of the West, including a few governments like Ireland & Spain, too stand with Palestine. It’s now down to a handful of Zionist occupied regimes in the US, UK, Germany, France and Canada. They yet, shamefully support, arm, finance the colonial settler occupation, the ethnic cleansing, the war crimes, the genocide, and the Holocaust of the Palestinian nation. These Western regimes too are increasingly isolated, mere pariah states.

Israel is led by deranged, insane racist, supremacist cabal of Judeo-Nazi fanatics, and when a state is led by such delusional maniacs, their words, their actions and their misdeeds, lead to the eventual collapse and the destruction of that nation. The destruction of Israel is directly proportional to the growing Jewish fanaticism and the increasing genocidal war crimes against the Palestinian population.

The consequences of the “October 7 Gaza Ghetto Uprising” have indeed been far reaching & it has upset all of the Israeli & US calculations. They have been unable to comprehend and decipher the depth of its meaning and strategic impact that it would have.

The October 7 Palestinian uprising was a desperate “Call for Freedom”, a call that much of the world was deaf to, blind to, but is now hearing, seeing, heeding…..

The end of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine draws closer and closer.

Palestine will be free. After decades of Persecution and Crucifixion, the world is witnessing the Resurrection of the Palestinian nation.

All the Palestinians are soon coming back home, and We, with them.

Feroze Mithiborwala is Founder-National Gen. Sec. India Palestine Solidarity Forum

14 April 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr Marwan Asmar

Gaza no more! All of its 364-kilometers have been totally destroyed and obliterated. If the Israeli army had the capability, they would have wiped it off the face of the earth. But the resistance is another story. They stand strong and unflinching.

Israel has barely scratched the surface in “eradicating” Hamas and the other Palestinian groups. By all counts, and despite its colossal destruction, they give as good as they get and even better.

The Israelis, their politicians and army stand bewildered. The only thing they are doing is more destruction and bombing. They are bombing towns, cities and neighborhoods a second, third and fourth times simply because the resistance is too strong. They are bogged down. In Gaza there is no “cleaning operations”.

But it has been tough for the Palestinians in this smallest enclave in the world. Its destruction has been magnified and brutal.

“Every time I walk the streets of Gaza, I am overwhelmed by the desire to cry over what the city has become,” Bayan Abu Sultan writes on her X platform page @BayanPalestine.

“The smell of the blood of the martyrs’ wafts in every neighborhood,” the journalist whose home behind Al Shifa hospital was destroyed by the Israeli army says.

“The rubble extends as far as the eye can see in every direction,” the journalist who lived some of the worst onslaught on Al Shifa hospital by the Israel army, and was thought killed at one time points out.

https://t.me/QudsNen/101402

Gaza no more!

“The garbage has piled up to an extent that prevents the continuation of normal life, and the features of the people only appear helpless.

Gaza has become uninhabitable,” she adds.

Quoting from what she said the Quds News Network points out “female Palestinian journalist Bayan Abu Sultan says after more than six months of brutal Israeli genocide, Gaza has become uninhabitable.

At one time when the Israeli army raided Al Shifa Hospital and started killing many of its people and destroyed its surrounding the French Reporters Sans Frontiers sounded the alarm bells that she may have been killed by the Israelis because she disappeared from the radar screen after 18 March.

Despite the mass slaughter, killing and destruction – 33,000 killed, 76,000 injured, 1.9 million displaced out of a total population of 2.3 million – many observers, a lot are Jewish and Israelis says after seven months of war on Gaza, it is Israel which is being defeated.

Many of the Hebrew media and newspapers are talking about a major defeat for Israel in its seventh months of war on Gaza. The daily Yedioth Ahronot headlines its report as “Israel defeated and Isolated” saying “the Israeli regime” is “defeated in the war against the Gaza Strip and is in sever isolation.”

The daily paper says the government and army has failed and “the main reason for this failure is the short-sighted party policy pursued by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”

Haaretz,  another influential daily, writes: “We shouldn’t say that [word defeat] but there is no other option “We are defeated, it’s a total defeat.” Quoting the paper one blogger points out “admitting defeat is a matter of time…the entity is paying the price for its crimes”.

Adding insult to injury, he says none of the Israeli objectives were achieved in the war, only victories against women and children.

And Haim Ramon, an ex-Justice Minister, agrees. He says Israel has indeed, been strategically defeated in its war on Gaza. He made the comments in a radio interview quoted by the Hebrew Maariv newspaper.

And further to that, former Israeli Deputy Chief of Staff Yair Golan says that the Israeli army is stuck in Gaza without any real goals and/or exit strategy to leave the enclave.

One blogger (@HealthRanger) put it this way: “Israel’s only real military capabilities lie in bombing and slaughtering innocent, unarmed women and children who have no weapons, no air defenses and no armor.” He points out the IDF is “snowflake” and has been defeated whilst “Israel has only destroyed its reputation with the entire world.”

He says “Netanyahu has put Israel on a path of self-destruction that will earn the Zionists a place in history alongside the worst genocidal murderers the world has ever known”.  Another blogger says Israel has “lost everything against the civilians of Gaza” whilst “Hamas has not been defeated and Israel appears for what it is: A genocidal state that aims only to take Gaza.

Finally, another Jewish blogger says in this war Israel sends the best of its soldiers but they return back handicapped, crippled and no longer of any use to the army that is if they are not killed.

Dr Asmar is based in Amman and covers Middle East affairs

13 April 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Ellen Isaacs

The images are hard to fathom. How have well educated, well fed young Israelis been won to commit atrocities in Gaza similar to those perpetrated by Nazis against Jews? How do we explain the images of the military spending two weeks destroying Al-Shifa hospital, killing patients – including babies and children – unarmed civilians, medical and humanitarian workers? How do we explain watching soldiers shoot starving civilians approaching aid trucks or old women waving white flags? Ah, the government even had to explain how its soldiers shot down their own escaped hostages who were half-naked, unarmed, waving a white flag and yelling in Hebrew? I’m sure there are some soldiers who are revolted by what they’ve seen and whose words are suppressed if they try and speak them. But they must be the very few.

In Israel, 99% of the population is said to be in favor continuing the present level of force in Gaza. There may be large anti-government demonstrations, but that is only because the October 7 Hamas action caught Israel unprepared and/or hostages have not been rescued, it is only a tactical disagreement. Actual demonstrations against the occupation and the war involve only a very few, who are quickly and brutally beaten by the police.

Of course, the theory put forward to justify Zionist brutality in Gaza by the Israeli establishment and parroted by most of the world’s media and government, is that all Jews in Israel were traumatized by the holocaust, by the murder of six million  of their number. And it was an unspeakably horrible event. What is also taught to all Israelis is that a holocaust is just waiting to happen again and cannot be prevented and Israel is seen as the only safe haven from the slaughter. Anti-Semitism is seen as different in character from other examples of racism and mass killing, something that cannot be explained by political or economic motivations.

In the US, the European settlers were won to the mass displacement and killing of Native Americans by viewing them as savages, as of lesser humanity. Later, many white Americans were won to endorse the enslavement of Africans as anti-black racism was purposely and successfully propagated. From 1915-16, the Turks murdered something like 1.5 million Armenians in the hopes of controlling their eastern provinces by stoking Muslim antagonism to Christians.

In Germany, building upon a long history of anti-Semitism, the Nazis appealed to German working class, suffering from defeat in WWI and rabid inflation, to believe they were the master race and that their enemies were Jews (among others), not capitalists. However, this is not the way the Holocaust is viewed in Israel. Instead of being seen as a horrific tactic of fascistic capitalism, it is seen as part of the inevitable role of Jews as the victims of mass slaughter – a dynamic that will continue forever and is unchangeable.

The Origin Stories

The origin of the inevitably of genocide is sometimes traced back to the biblical story of Amalek. In the time of Moses, the Amalek were said to have launched a merciless attack against Jews traveling to the promised land and God told Moses to annihilate them. Hundreds of years later, Saul did so, but he spared the king, whose descendants went on to kill all the Jews then living in Persia. In November, Netanyahu publicly compared Hamas to Amalek and said “You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember.” ¹

Other versions of the unique fate of Jews claim that Jews are God’s chosen people with a divine destiny to inhabit the promised land. Thus anyone else living there, for no matter how long, was an interloper in divinely ordained Jewish space. Moreover, the Arab failure to recognize this right makes them anti-Semitic. Some Zionist historians try and trace Islamic anti-Semitism to the Quran and the Prophet Muhammad.² A more secular view, that existed in my family, is that Jews are resented because they are superior. Thus they are hated by all non-Jews and racism of Jews against “inferior” races is justified.

There is no guilt for what Jews have done to Arabs – they are the wrongdoers. One concrete example is the tale that all Jews immigrating from other Middle Eastern or North African countries in the 1940-50s did so because they were expelled, so that Israel took in as many refugees as Palestinians left in the Nakba. The reality is that the Jews came for a variety of reasons, including Zionism and false flag anti-Semitic incidents created by Zionists. Those that were expelled were usually in retaliation for the Nakba.

Israelis are primed to accept these narratives by the way they learn about and interact with Palestinians (if they do at all). An 80 year old Israeli friend of mine in Jewish Voice for Peace told me she never spoke to a Palestinian until she was 65, when her daughter brought her to a demonstration for a Palestinian family that had been evicted from their home in Jerusalem. Since the end of the Second Intifada in 2004, the separation wall and inability of most Palestinians to even work in Israel has ended almost all inter-group contact.

Throughout Israel one can see ruins of destroyed Palestinian villages destroyed in the Nakba. At many sites there are signs purporting to describe the history that completely obliterate Palestinians. For example, Bar’am National Park in northern Israel is renown as the site of ruins of two ancient synagogue, but the site also contains the remains of the Palestinian village of Kafr Bir’im, from which the residents were driven in 1948 and which existed since at least the 1800s.

Elsewhere the remains of Palestinian villages are described as Roman ruins.

As described in detail in another article on this blog, the Zionist plan has always been to eradicate the Palestinians from Palestine. To some this is God’s biblical plan and to others merely a necessity in view of the perceived threat of genocide against all Jews by all Arabs. In this view it is not only necessary to expel all Palestinians but it is justified, necessary to kill them. Ben Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel, summed up many sentiments that are as strong today:

·      “[The Arabs] see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?”

·      “After the formation of a large army in the wake of the establishment of the state, we will abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine. “

·      “We must expel the Arabs and take their places.” ³

Indoctrination Begins Early

In textbooks, from kindergarten through high school, Arabs are not pictured as playing any role in Israeli society. In images, they are only depicted as subservient, criminal and backward and often as terrorists. Palestinians are described as foreigners or migrants, and the refugee camps which many inhabit are an “ecological disaster” inflicted on Israel. Maps depict Israel as all the land from the Jordan to the sea.⁴

In Goliath, Max Blumenthal describes how children are indoctrinated into worship of the military from a preschool. In some elementary schools, “It is good to die for your country” is written atop every blackboard. Picture book exercises depict images of military hardware. Posters read Who Wants to Kill Us and give choices including the Pharoah, Nazis and Arabs. Female soldiers on leave, but in uniform, often assist in classrooms and portray the army as a loving family. All but very few students grow up looking forward to their involuntary military service.⁵

The teaching of history to older children and its depiction throughout the society is falsified to present Jews as heroic and just in their battle to defeat murderous Arabs. The Nakba, or expulsion of most Palestinians from Israel in 1947-8 is depicted as flight of anti-Semitic Arabs from the newly declared Jewish state, rather than as a planned massacre and expulsion. Very few Israelis or international Zionists have any idea about the true story. A friend in Tel Aviv who has taught high school for many years told me would be fired if he ever mentioned any accurate history. Every year, about 40,000 thousand Israeli high school students visit Auschwitz to see firsthand what the world wishes to do to them.

Every Jewish Israeli, save the Orthodox, is enlisted in the IDF at the age of 18, men for 3 years and women for two, with men remaining in the reserves for decades. The army “serves as a symbol of Israeli strength, efficiency and effectiveness,” according to the Jewish Agency.

There have always been a small number of leftist or pacifist students who refused to serve, known a Refuseniks. They are almost always sentenced to repeated sentences adding up to about 5 months in military prison. Refusal also usually leads to being ostracized by many Israelis and to losing employment prospects. Whereas 230 teens had signed a letter September, 2023 refusing to serve, only a few have actually resistedsinceOctober.⁷

What to Expect

Many Jews around the world are indoctrinated with the same Zionist world view as Israelis. The Israel lobby, AIPAC and wealthy donors ensure that all critics of Israel are branded as anti-Semites and suffer consequences, as documented in the previous blog article. However, the genocide in Gaza is beginning to weaken this movement, among anti-Zionist Jews and the general public and grow activism amongst Muslims. So strong is the opposition to the support of Israel that politicians from the US to Turkey have had to at least utter words of rebuke.

However, these rebukes will not lead to a divorce from Israel by Western leaders no matter what tactics Israel continues to use. Israel is too important as the most reliable pro-Western military in a region of the world central to the shipping, pipelines and sources of fossil fuels and inhibition of nationalist, fundamentalist or pro-Chinese movements in the area. Nor can we expect the Palestinians, under divided leaders, none of whom represent the interests of the masses of the workers, to attain a victory. Only a world-wide working class led movement for an anti-imperialist – a communist – society can bring a better world for all of us.

Ellen Isaacs is a physician, anti-war and anti-capitalist activist, and co-editor of multiracialunity.org. She can be reached at eisaacs66@gmail.com

12 April 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Thomas Scripps

Tensions between Israel and Iran reached new heights Thursday after the United States warned of an “imminent” attack being planned by Tehran. The Iranian regime has said since Israel’s bombing of its Syrian embassy at the start of this month, killing senior members of Iran’s military, that it would retaliate.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz threatened Thursday, “If Iran attacks from its territory, Israel will respond and attack in Iran.”

Speaking at the Tel Nof Air Base, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told air force personnel: “We are in challenging times. We are in the midst of a war in Gaza that is continuing with full force. In addition, we are continuing with ceaseless efforts to return our hostages, but we are also preparing for challenges from other fronts.

“We set a simple principle: Anyone who hits us, we hit them. We are ready to fulfil our responsibilities to Israel’s security, in defence and attack.”

According to Israeli news stations, the country’s air force recently conducted joint exercises with Cyprus to “simulate an attack in Iran.” The Israel Defense Forces are on high alert, with weekend leave cancelled and the army calling up extra reservists to the Aerial Defence Array.

America’s top general, Michael Kurilla, landed in Israel for talks with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who was assured by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken in a call Wednesday evening that Washington would back Israel fully in any conflict with Iran. President Joe Biden had said in a press conference earlier that day, “As I told Prime Minister Netanyahu, our commitment to Israel’s security against these threats from Iran and its proxies is ironclad, ironclad.”

Republican Senator Marco Rubio, a member of the Intelligence Committee, described the situation as “the most dangerous Middle East moment since 1973,” warning, “Iran wants to launch a large-scale attack from their own territory against Israel. Israel will respond instantly with an even more severe counterattack inside of Iran.”

Even as they push Iran to respond to such provocations, the US and European powers have demanded Tehran show a “restraint” never expected of their ally Israel. American Middle East envoy Brett McGurk directed the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar and Iraq to speak with Tehran and urge its government to back down.

German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock urged “maximum restraint” in the name of “avoiding further regional escalation.”

But it is the imperialist powers who have constantly and deliberately driven the escalation, providing Israel with weapons and diplomatic and military support to carry out a genocide in Gaza and brazenly attack its opponents in Lebanon and Syria. Last December, Gallant described Israel as being engaged in a “multi-front war” across “seven theatres”.

At the very start of Israel’s war, the United States dispatched two aircraft carrier strike groups to the Eastern Mediterranean to insure the country against retaliation. These forces intercepted 11 drones launched by the Iran and Palestine-aligned Houthis in Yemen on Wednesday.

The most unashamedly hawkish voices in Israel and the imperialist centres have been urging Israel to attack Iran directly.

Danny Ayalon, former Israeli ambassador to the US, commented, “With this heightened tension, there is a novelty here. Iran, for the first time, is threatening to strike, itself, directly at Israel, and not through proxies,” adding, “I think that by striking at the head of the snake in Iran and in Tehran, this is probably the most effective way to bring Iran back, to keep it at bay.”

The UK Daily Telegraphs’ Richard Kemp, a former colonel, argued that “the UK should be ready to take direct military action against Iran” or “whatever is needed to help them [Israel] fight back.”

In the same paper, John Bolton, the former National Security Advisor under President Donald Trump, gnashed that “Israel has for too long delayed the Rafah offensive…

“Mopping up residual Hamas guerrilla/terrorist activities will be time-consuming, but dismantling it means Israel is freer and less at risk if it must confront Hezbollah full on. Or confronting Iran and its nuclear weapons programme now, before Iran has a reliable deliverable capacity.”

Israeli forces are already redoubling the campaign in Gaza, carrying out attacks in the central Strip focussed on the Nuseirat refugee camp. Raouf Abed resident of nearby Deir el-Balah, told Al Jazeera, “It was as if the occupation army is launching a new war.”

Referring to strikes launched from air and sea, he explained, “The explosions were non-stop, the sounds came from different directions. Every time we hope there will be a ceasefire, Israel escalates the aggression as if they are trying to pressure Hamas by hitting on us, the civilians.”

Al Jazeera journalist Tareq Abu Azzoum reported, “The situation on the ground is terrible and chaotic as the Israeli military has been scaling up its attacks… Battles have been raging in villages and towns that are adjacent to the Nuseirat refugee camp.

“We can see the Israeli military destroying entire neighbourhoods using heavy firepower from artillery units on the ground with cover from fighter jets and surveillance drones.”

Azzoum’s colleague Hani Mahmoud explained, “People find themselves trapped under heavy bombardment. This has caused a great deal of panic and people are starting to move out of Nuseirat camp and other parts of the central area. The situation is getting more difficult by the hour.”

Attacks were also carried out at the Jabalia refugee camp and Gaza City in the north of the Strip, and in the southern city of Rafah, to which the majority of Gaza’s population has fled.

In Rafah, a group of six on their way to visit family for Eid was killed by Israeli warplanes. In Gaza City, another six were killed when the Firas market was bombed.

A UNICEF aid convoy attempting to enter the north was hit by Israeli fire aimed at Palestinians. Spokeswoman Tess Ingram explained shots were fired “towards civilians who then ran in the other direction” and several hit the car. “It was shocking that this was happening to us on a coordinated mission in a designated holding area. We had colleagues outside the vehicle who very easily could have been injured or killed.”

On the front with Lebanon, Israeli aircraft launched raids against a Hezbollah military compound near the border town of al-Dahira, and against the southern town Tayr Harfa.

12 April 2024

Source: countercurrents.org