We go to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, where activists are shining a light on Morocco’s brutal occupation of Western Sahara and its Indigenous people, the Sahrawi. The Sahrawi journalist and activist Asria Mohamed speaks with Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman about “Jaimitna,” an art installation that evokes the tents of Sahrawi people living in refugee camps. The installation features various melhfas, traditional clothing worn by Sahrawi women, and includes their stories. “These women, they spent years and years in prison. They have been tortured. They have been beaten up. They have been raped,” Mohamed says. We also speak with María Carrión, executive director of FiSahara, the Sahara International Film Festival, who says the story of the Sahrawi must be better known. Morocco has occupied Western Sahara since 1975 in defiance of the United Nations and the international community. The first Trump administration recognized Moroccan sovereignty in 2020 as part of a larger effort to normalize relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Pacific advocacy movements and civil society organisations have challenged French credentials in hosting a global ocean conference, saying that unless France is accountable for its actions in the Pacific, it is merely “rebranding”.

The call for accountability marked the French-sponsored UN Ocean Conference (UNOC) in Nice this week, during which President Emmanuel Macron will be hosting a France-Pacific Summit.

French officials have described the UNOC event as a coming together “in the true spirit of Talanoa” and one that would be inconceivable without the Pacific.

• READ MORE: Former Congress staffer allowed to return to Kanaky New Caledonia
• Other France in the Pacific reports

While acknowledging the importance of leveraging global partnerships for urgent climate action and ocean protection through the UNOC process, Pacific civil society groups have issued a joint statement saying that their political leaders must hold France accountable for its past actions and not allow it to “launder its dirty linen in ‘Blue Pacific’ and ‘critical transition’ narratives”.

‘Responsible steward’ image undermined
France’s claims of being a “responsible steward” of the ocean were undermined by its historical actions in the Pacific, said the statement. This included:

● A brutal colonial legacy dating back to the mid-1800s, with the annexation of island nations now known as Kanaky-New Caledonia and Ma’ohi Nui-French Polynesia;

● A refusal to complete the decolonisation process, and in fact the perpetuation of the colonial condition, particularly for the those “territories” on the UN decolonisation list. In Kanaky-New Caledonia, for instance, France and its agents continue to renege on longstanding decolonisation commitments, while weaponising democratic ideals and processes such as “universal” voting rights to deny the fundamental rights of the indigenous population to self-determination;

● 30 years of nuclear violence in Ma’ohi Nui-French Polynesia with 193 test detonations — 46 in the atmosphere and close to 150 under the Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls, irradiating both land and sea, and people. Approximately 90 percent of the local population was exposed to radioactive fallout, resulting in long-term health impacts, including elevated rates of cancer and other radiation-related illnesses;

● Active efforts to obscure the true extent of its nuclear violence in Maʻohi Nui-French Polynesia, diverting resources to discredit independent research and obstructing transparency around health and environmental impacts. These actions reveal a persistent pattern of denial and narrative control that continues to undermine compensation efforts and delay justice for victims and communities;

● French claims to approximately one-third of the Pacific’s combined EEZ, and to being the world’s second largest ocean state, accruing largely from its so-called Pacific dependencies; and

● The supply of French military equipment, and the 1985 bombing of the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior by French secret service agents — a state-sponsored terrorist attack with the 40th anniversary this year.

Seeking diplomatic support
“Since the late 1980s, France has worked to build on diplomatic, development and defence fronts to garner support from Pacific governments.

This includes development assistance through the Agence Française de Développement (AFD), Asian Development Fund, language and cultural exchanges, scientific collaboration and humanitarian assistance.

A strong diplomatic presence in Pacific capitals as well as a full schedule of high-level exchanges, including a triennial France-Oceania leaders’ Summit commencing in 2003, together function to enhance proximity with and inclination towards Paris sentiments and priorities.

The Pacific civil society statement said that French leadership at this UNOC process was once again central to its ongoing efforts to rebrand itself as a global leader on climate action, a champion of ocean protection, and a promoter of sovereignty.

“Nothing can be further from the truth,” the groups said.

“The reality is that France is rather more interested in strengthening its position as a middle power in an Indo-Pacific rather than a Pacific framework, and as a balancing power within the context of big-power rivalry between the US and China, all of which undermines rather than enhances Pacific sovereignty.”

New global image
The statement said that leaders must not allow France to build this new global image on the “foundations of its atrocities against Pacific peoples” and the ocean continent.

Pacific civil society called on France:

● For immediate and irreversible commitments and practical steps to bring its colonial presence in the Pacific to an end before the conclusion, in 2030, of the 4th International Decade on the Eradication of Colonialism; and

● To acknowledge and take responsibility for the oceanic and human harms caused by 30 years of nuclear violence in Maʻohi Nui–French Polynesia, and to commit to full and just reparations, including support for affected communities, environmental remediation of test sites, and full public disclosure of all health and contamination data.

The statement also called on Pacific leaders to:

● Keep France accountable for its multiple and longstanding debt to Pacific people; and

● Ensure that Ma’ohi Nui-French Polynesia and Kanaky-New Caledonia remain on the UN list of non-self-governing territories to be decolonised (UN decolonisation list).

“Pacific leaders must ensure that France does not succeed in laundering its soiled linen — soiled by the blood of thousands of Pacific Islanders who resisted colonial occupation and/or who were used as test subjects for its industrial-military machinery — in the UNOC process,” said the statement.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Pacific advocacy movements and civil society organisations have challenged French credentials in hosting a global ocean conference, saying that unless France is accountable for its actions in the Pacific, it is merely “rebranding”.

The call for accountability marked the French-sponsored UN Ocean Conference (UNOC) in Nice this week, during which President Emmanuel Macron will be hosting a France-Pacific Summit.

French officials have described the UNOC event as a coming together “in the true spirit of Talanoa” and one that would be inconceivable without the Pacific.

• READ MORE: Former Congress staffer allowed to return to Kanaky New Caledonia
• Other France in the Pacific reports

While acknowledging the importance of leveraging global partnerships for urgent climate action and ocean protection through the UNOC process, Pacific civil society groups have issued a joint statement saying that their political leaders must hold France accountable for its past actions and not allow it to “launder its dirty linen in ‘Blue Pacific’ and ‘critical transition’ narratives”.

‘Responsible steward’ image undermined
France’s claims of being a “responsible steward” of the ocean were undermined by its historical actions in the Pacific, said the statement. This included:

● A brutal colonial legacy dating back to the mid-1800s, with the annexation of island nations now known as Kanaky-New Caledonia and Ma’ohi Nui-French Polynesia;

● A refusal to complete the decolonisation process, and in fact the perpetuation of the colonial condition, particularly for the those “territories” on the UN decolonisation list. In Kanaky-New Caledonia, for instance, France and its agents continue to renege on longstanding decolonisation commitments, while weaponising democratic ideals and processes such as “universal” voting rights to deny the fundamental rights of the indigenous population to self-determination;

● 30 years of nuclear violence in Ma’ohi Nui-French Polynesia with 193 test detonations — 46 in the atmosphere and close to 150 under the Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls, irradiating both land and sea, and people. Approximately 90 percent of the local population was exposed to radioactive fallout, resulting in long-term health impacts, including elevated rates of cancer and other radiation-related illnesses;

● Active efforts to obscure the true extent of its nuclear violence in Maʻohi Nui-French Polynesia, diverting resources to discredit independent research and obstructing transparency around health and environmental impacts. These actions reveal a persistent pattern of denial and narrative control that continues to undermine compensation efforts and delay justice for victims and communities;

● French claims to approximately one-third of the Pacific’s combined EEZ, and to being the world’s second largest ocean state, accruing largely from its so-called Pacific dependencies; and

● The supply of French military equipment, and the 1985 bombing of the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior by French secret service agents — a state-sponsored terrorist attack with the 40th anniversary this year.

Seeking diplomatic support
“Since the late 1980s, France has worked to build on diplomatic, development and defence fronts to garner support from Pacific governments.

This includes development assistance through the Agence Française de Développement (AFD), Asian Development Fund, language and cultural exchanges, scientific collaboration and humanitarian assistance.

A strong diplomatic presence in Pacific capitals as well as a full schedule of high-level exchanges, including a triennial France-Oceania leaders’ Summit commencing in 2003, together function to enhance proximity with and inclination towards Paris sentiments and priorities.

The Pacific civil society statement said that French leadership at this UNOC process was once again central to its ongoing efforts to rebrand itself as a global leader on climate action, a champion of ocean protection, and a promoter of sovereignty.

“Nothing can be further from the truth,” the groups said.

“The reality is that France is rather more interested in strengthening its position as a middle power in an Indo-Pacific rather than a Pacific framework, and as a balancing power within the context of big-power rivalry between the US and China, all of which undermines rather than enhances Pacific sovereignty.”

New global image
The statement said that leaders must not allow France to build this new global image on the “foundations of its atrocities against Pacific peoples” and the ocean continent.

Pacific civil society called on France:

● For immediate and irreversible commitments and practical steps to bring its colonial presence in the Pacific to an end before the conclusion, in 2030, of the 4th International Decade on the Eradication of Colonialism; and

● To acknowledge and take responsibility for the oceanic and human harms caused by 30 years of nuclear violence in Maʻohi Nui–French Polynesia, and to commit to full and just reparations, including support for affected communities, environmental remediation of test sites, and full public disclosure of all health and contamination data.

The statement also called on Pacific leaders to:

● Keep France accountable for its multiple and longstanding debt to Pacific people; and

● Ensure that Ma’ohi Nui-French Polynesia and Kanaky-New Caledonia remain on the UN list of non-self-governing territories to be decolonised (UN decolonisation list).

“Pacific leaders must ensure that France does not succeed in laundering its soiled linen — soiled by the blood of thousands of Pacific Islanders who resisted colonial occupation and/or who were used as test subjects for its industrial-military machinery — in the UNOC process,” said the statement.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

A short guide on how to engineer a genocide by starvation and ethnic cleansing:

1. Choose your moment. Ok, you’ve been ethnically cleansing, occupying, oppressing, and killing your neighbours for decades. The international courts have ruled your actions illegal. But none of that will matter the moment your neighbours retaliate by attacking you. Don’t worry. The Western media can be relied on to help out here. They will be only too ready to pretend that history began on the day you were attacked.

2. Declare, in response, your intention to starve your neighbours, treating them as “human animals”, by blocking all food, water, and power. You will be surprised by how many Western politicians are ready to support this as your “right to defend yourself”. The media will echo them. It is important not to just talk about blocking aid. You must actually do it. There will be no serious pushback for many, many months.

3. Start relatively slowly. Time is on your side. Let a little bit of aid in. But be sure to relentlessly smear the well-functioning, decades-old aid distribution system run by the international community, one that is transparent, accountable, and widely integrated into the communities it serves. Say it is infiltrated by “terrorists”.

4. Use that claim – evidence isn’t really necessary, the western media never ask for it – as the pretext to bomb the aid system’s warehouses, distribution centres, and community kitchens. Oh, and don’t forget to bomb all the private bakeries, destroy all the farmland, shoot all the animals, and kill anyone who tries to use a fishing boat, so that there are no other sources of food. You are now in control of the trickle of aid reaching what is rapidly becoming a severely malnourished population.

5. Time to move into higher gear. Stop the international community’s aid from getting in altogether. You will need a humanitarian cover story for this bit. The danger, particularly in an age of social media, is that images of starving babies will make you look very bad. Hold firm. You can get through this. Claim – again, evidence isn’t really necessary, the western media won’t ask for it – that the “terrorists” are stealing the aid. You will be surprised how willing the media is to talk about babies going “hungry”, ignoring the fact that you are starving them to death, or speak of a “famine”, as though from drought and crop failure, not from your carefully laid plans.

6. Don’t lose sight of the bigger story. You are blocking aid to “eradicate the terrorists”. After all, what is the worth of a baby, of a child – all one million of them – in the fight to eliminate a rag-tag army of lightly armed “terrorists” who have never waged their struggle outside of their historic homeland?

7. Now that the population is entirely at your disposal, you can roll out a “humanitarian” alternative to the existing system you have been vilifying and wrecking. Probably best to have been working on this part of the plan behind the scenes from early on, and to have regularly consulted with the Americans on how to develop it. You may even find they are willing to fund it. They usually are. You can obscure their role by using the term “private contractors”.

8. It’s time for implementation. Obviously, the point is not to really distribute aid. It is all about providing a cover story so that the starvation and ethnic cleansing can continue. Ensure that you provide only a tiny amount of aid and make it available only at a few distribution points you have set up with these “private contractors”. This has two advantages.

9. It forces the population to come to the areas you want them in, like luring mice into a trap. Get them to the very edge of the territory, because from there you will be best positioned at some point to drive them over the border and get rid of them for good.

10. Your system will lead to chaos, as desperate, starving people fight for food. That’s great for you. It makes them look like a swarming mass of those “human animals” you were talking about from the start. Don’t they deserve their fate? And it means that young, fit men – especially those from large, often armed, criminal families – will end up with most of the food. The stuff they can’t grab at the distribution points, they will ambush later as people try to return home laden with their heavy aid packages. That may seem counter-productive, given that you’re claiming to want to eliminate the “terrorists”. Won’t these fit, young men, as conditions degenerate further, provide a future source of recruits to the “terrorists”? But remember, the real goal here is to starve the population as quickly as possible. The young, the elderly, the sick, and the vulnerable are the ones who will die first. The more of them who start dying, the faster the pressure builds on everyone else to flee the territory to save themselves.

You are nearly there. True, faced with the emaciated bodies of your victims, Western politicians will start making harsh pronouncements. But they have already given you a massive head start of 20 months. Be grateful for that. You don’t need much longer. While they dither, you can get on with the job of extermination. Leave it to the history books to judge what really happened.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Jonathan Cook.

The feeling of cooling tensions induced an air of complacency. Groups such as the TRF, along with a fruit salad of insurgent outfits – the Kashmir Tigers, the People’s Anti-Fascist Front, and the United Liberation Front of Kashmir – were all spawned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s August 2019 revocation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, which granted Kashmir singular autonomy. TRF has been particularly and violently opposed to the resettlement of the Kashmiri pandits, which they see as an effort to alter the region’s demography.

The murderous incident raised the obvious question: Would Modi pay lip service to the 1972 Shimla Agreement, one that divided Kashmir into two zones of administration separated by a Line of Control? (A vital feature of that agreement is an understanding that both powers resolve their disputes without the need for third parties.)

The answers came promptly enough. First came India’s suspension of the vital Indus Water Treaty, a crucial agreement governing the distribution of water from India to Pakistan. Pakistan reciprocated firmly by suspending the Shimla Agreement, expelling Indian military diplomats, halting visa exemptions for Indian citizens, and closing the Wagah border for trade.

Hindu nationalism proved particularly stirred, and Modi duly fed its cravings. On May 7, India commenced Operation Sindoor, involving what were purportedly precision missile attacks on nine militant camps in Pakistan and the Jammu and Kashmir area controlled by Islamabad. The operation itself had a scent of gendered manipulation, named after the vermillion used by married Hindu women to symbolise the durable existence of their husbands. Two female military officers – Colonel Sofiya Qureshi and Wing Commander Vyomika Singh – were tasked with managing the media pack.

The Indian briefings celebrated the accuracy of the strikes on what were said to be the sites of Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, and Hizbul Mujahideen. Thirty-one suspected terrorists were said to have perished, though Pakistan insisted that civilians had been killed in this apparent feast of forensic precision. India’s Defence Minister Rajnath Singh would have none of it: Indian forces had only “struck only those who harmed our innocents”.

The next day, it was operations against Pakistan’s air defence systems in Lahore that stole the show. The inevitable Pakistani retaliation followed on May 10, with the Indian return serve against 11 Pakistani air bases. What followed is one version: Pakistan’s military broke into a sweat. A cessation of hostilities was sought and achieved. Armchair pundits on the Indian side celebrated: India had successfully targeted the terrorist cells supported by Pakistan. If one is to read Anubhav Shankar Goswami seriously, Operation Sindoor was a stroke of genius, threatening “the Pakistan Army’s strategic shield against terrorists”.

More accurately, this was a lovely little spilling of blood with weaponry between callow sibling throats, a pattern familiar since 1947. The two countries have fought four full-blown conflicts, two over Kashmir. Along the way, they have made the world a lot safer by acquiring nuclear weapons.

There was something for everyone in this retaliatory and counter-retaliatory feast. India claimed strategic proficiency, keeping censorship on the matter tight. Pakistan could claim some prowess in shooting down five Indian jets, using Chinese weaponry, including the J-10.  With pride and pomp, they could even appoint Pakistani Army chief Asim Munir to the post of Field Marshal, an absurdly ceremonial gesture that gave the impression that the army had restored its tattered pride. It was to be expected that this was ample reward for his, in the words of the government, “strategic leadership and decisive role” in defeating India.

The only ones to be notably ignored in this display of subcontinental machismo were the Kashmiris themselves, who face, in both the Pakistan and Indian administered zones, oppressive anti-terrorism laws, discriminatory practices, and suppression of dissent and free speech.

Ultimately, the bickering children were convinced to end their playground antics. The fact that the overbearing headmaster, the unlikely US President Donald Trump, eventually brought himself to bear on proceedings must have irritated them. After four days of conflict, the US role in defusing matters between the powers became evident. Kashmir, which India has long hoped to keep in museum-like storage, away from the international stage, had been enlivened.  Trump even offered his services to enable New Delhi and Islamabad a chance to reach a more enduring peace. Praise for the president followed, notably from those wishing to see the Kashmir conflict resolved.

In one sense, there seems to be little reason to worry. These are countries seemingly linked to sandpit grievances, scrapping, gouging, and complaining about their lot. Even amidst juvenile spats, they can bicker yet still sign enduring ceasefires. In February 2021, for instance, the militaries of both countries cobbled together a ceasefire which ended four months of cross-border skirmishes. A mere two violations of the agreement (how proud they must have been) was recorded for the rest of the year. In 2022, a solitary incident of violation was noted.

A needlessly florid emphasis was made on the conflict by Indian political scientist Pratap Bhanu Meta.  This was an encounter lacking a “decisive victory and no clear political end”. It merely reinstated “the India-Pakistan hyphenation”. In one sense, this element of hyphenation – the international perception of two subcontinental powers in an eternal, immature squabble – was something India seemed to be marching away from. But Prime Minister Modi, despite his grander visions for India, is a sectarian fanatic. History shows that fanaticism tends to shrink, rather than enlarge, the mind. In that sense, he is in good company with those other uniformed fanatics in uniform.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

[A] lot of people across the global majority are asking the extremely serious question: why the BRICS, and especially why Russia and China, are not doing more than what they’re doing on behalf of Palestine and to defend Palestine. This is an extremely serious question and it’s not being addressed by Russia and China. We have to be straightforward about that, right? The only ones who are actually doing something, once again, are the Houthis in Yemen. Heroes of the whole planet.

— Journalist and geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar in a Youtube interview with Danny Haiphong, streamed live on 17 July 2024 (approximately 18:16 to 18:54)

The sentiments expressed by Escobar were expressed to me at an earlier date by author Randy Shields:

… if all Russia and China are going to do is talk they could start talking about a one state solution. They could put some urgency into the situation. They could let Abbas and the Gulf family dictatorships know that the status quo is unacceptable. They could start telling the truth to the world that the “two state solution” is impossible and was only ever a delaying tactic by Israel. They could even announce that Palestine is under consideration for BRICS membership…. They could cut off whatever trade they have and cut off diplomatic relations with Israel, recall ambassadors, etc…

Godfree Roberts, author of Why China Leads the World gave his take on China and Palestine in his 1 May 2025, “Xi the Merciful?: The fate of China’s worst enemy lies in Xi Jinping’s hands”:

Beijing is hunting much bigger game than tariffs: the liberation of Palestine. China, Palestine’s oldest and most loyal friend, has endured America’s genocidal mania for generations and now has the tools to end their shared misery….

This year, we will witness the most momentous events since WWII. Global leadership will return to Asia, America will enters [sic] its post-imperial twilight, and Palestine will become free and independent, and the Zionists return to Ukraine whence they came.

Shields is skeptical:

There’s no evidence to back up what [Roberts] says. Russia and China continue to maintain trade and diplomatic ties with a genocidal apartheid state committing 24/7 live-streamed genocide.

China plays a long game. There is plenty of evidence of Chinese advancements in science, technology, supply chains, manufacturing, arts, etc. The question is whether China (and Russia) will come through with morally based support befitting a leading world economy?

The Communist Party of China (CPC) has made great strides for its people, having achieved a xiaokang (moderately prosperous) society in 2021. Moving forward, China aims for gongtong fuyu (common prosperity) — a society based on social equality and economic equity.

On the road to gongtong fuyu, the CPC’s next five-year plan targets “the goal of basically realizing socialist modernization, with a view to building a great country and advancing national rejuvenation” in the period 2026 to 2030. China’s rise is also meant to benefit the world as it seeks peaceful win-win relationships. Chairman Xi Jinping said, “Long ago China made a solemn declaration to the world that it is committed to pursuing peaceful development.”¹

This commitment to pursuing peaceful development has recently been thrown into question by China’s business arrangements connected to the Israeli occupation of Palestine, which can hardly be construed as peaceful development from the Palestinian side (or any morally based side).

China’s Support for Palestine

China’s support for the human and territorial rights of Palestinians dates back to the time of chairman Mao Zedong. Mao’s China supported anti-imperialist and national liberation movements worldwide; this included support for the Palestinian cause. In May 1965, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was ensconced in a Beijing office and accorded diplomatic privileges and immunity. During a meeting with a visiting PLO delegation in 1965, Mao said: “Imperialism is afraid of China and of the Arabs. Israel and Formosa are bases of imperialism in Asia. You are the front gate of the great continent, and we are the rear.”²

Post-Mao, on 20 November 1988, China officially recognized the State of Palestine and established official diplomatic relations between the two countries. On 31 December of the same year, the PLO’s office in Beijing was upgraded to the Embassy of the State of Palestine in China, and its head was appointed as the ambassador of the State of Palestine to China.

However, China has a uneven history of supporting the Palestinian cause and opposing Zionism.³

More recently, at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on 22 February 2024, Ma Xinmin, director-general of the Department of Treaty and Law of the Chinese Foreign Ministry “unequivocally stated”:

“The Palestinian-Israeli conflict stems from Israel’s prolonged occupation of Palestinian territory and Israel’s longstanding oppression of the Palestinian people. The Palestinian people fight against Israeli oppression and their struggle for completing the establishment of an independent state on the occupied territory are essentially just actions for restoring their legitimate rights.”⁴

Moreover,

Citing numerous articles of international laws, Ma claims that “the struggle waged by peoples for their liberation, right to self-determination, including armed struggle against colonialism, occupation, aggression, domination against foreign forces should not be considered terror acts” and that “armed struggle in this context is distinguished from acts of terrorism. It is grounded in international law. This distinction is acknowledged by several international conventions.” He further declares, “in pursuit of the right to self-determination, Palestinian people’s use of force to resist foreign oppression and complete the establishment of an independent state is an inalienable right, well-founded in international law.”⁵

Regarding the deliberations by the ICJ on the charge of genocide being carried out by the state of Israel, China supports the ICJ’s role in upholding justice and international law, and calls for an immediate ceasefire in Palestine, humanitarian assistance, and a two-state solution to achieve lasting peace in the region.

On 14 April 2025, Times of India reported that Russia and China criticized Israel for turning humanitarian assistance to Gaza into “a tool of war.” Russia’s UN envoy Vasily Nebenzya alleged that Israel was attempting to make the UN an accomplice to its warring in Gaza. This sentiment was echoed by China’s envoy Fu Cong.

As Shields, and many others, would point out this is just more words.

What is China doing in Israeli Occupied Palestine?

But the situation vis-à-vis Palestine appears decidedly more sinister.

Razan Shawamreh is a Palestinian researcher interested in Chinese foreign policy in the Middle East. She has thrown a wrench into Chinese good intentions supporting Palestinian resistance and self-determination in its territories. Shawamreh wrote an article, “How China is quietly aiding Israel’s settlement enterprise,” for the Middle East Eye in which she charges, “Away from Beijing’s lofty rhetoric about defending Palestinians, Chinese firms are helping to sustain illegal settlements.” Despite China having supported the UN General Assembly resolution 3379 that defined Zionism as a “form of racism and racial discrimination” in 1975, Shawamreh provides numerous examples of Chinese support for Zionism.

• Adama Agricultural Solutions, a former Israeli company now fully owned by the Chinese state-run firm China National Chemical Corporation (ChemChina) is directly “linked to the militarised destruction of Palestinian livelihoods.”
• This is not an exception. Shawamreh writes, “In recent years, several state-owned Chinese companies, along with other private Chinese firms, have invested directly or indirectly in Israeli settlements or companies operating within them. Take the case of Tnuva, a major Israeli food producer that operates in illegal settlements. Despite international calls to boycott the company, China’s state-owned conglomerate Bright Food acquired a 56 percent stake in Tnuva in 2014. In 2021, Tnuva won a tender to operate 22 public transportation lines that serve 16 settlements in Mateh Yehuda – all built on occupied land in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. These aren’t just buses; they’re infrastructure supporting colonial entrenchment, making settler life easier and more permanent.”

An earlier article by Shawamreh concluded, “China’s alleged impartiality serves to undermine Palestinian rights.”⁶

I have seen no official Chinese response to the reports of abetting the Israeli Jews’ dispossession of Palestinians. What did appear on 17 May 2025 was a Youtube video by global impulse, titled “The SHOCKING Truth Behind China’s Gaza Aid | 60,000 Families Saved,” which claimed, “But one thing is clear, China is no longer content to be a passive observer in Middle Eastern Affairs.” Two months earlier, The Indian Express showed a video that China had sent its first batch of 60,000 packages of humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza via Jordan.

Can the guilt of colluding in the genocide and dispossession of indigenous Palestinians bring comfort to the Chinese soul through providing aid parcels?

Xi Jinping on Israel and Palestine

In a speech on 5 June 2014 chairman Xi Jinping spoke of “hundreds of years [of] peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual learning, and mutual benefit” between the Chinese and Arab peoples. “We will not forget the promise to support the cause of the Palestinian people that China made to the Arab states … at the Bandung Conference 60 years ago.”⁷ [Emphasis added]

Mao laid the foundation for the PRC in dealing with Palestinians. As part of a symposium to commemorate the 120th anniversary of Mao’s birth, Xi channelled Mao in a speech titled “Carry on the Enduring Spirit of Mao Zedong Thought”:

We stand for peaceful resolutions to international disputes, oppose all forms of hegemony and power politics, and never seek hegemonism nor engage in expansion.⁸

The Conscience of China

China is important. Its dedication to peaceful development and diplomacy is laudatory and in stark contrast to the bombastic hectoring and warring of the US-NATO block. China cares for the well-being of all its citizens; it seeks win-win relationships with other countries — not the win-lose entanglements of the capitalist West. As such China gives substance and believability to reifying that elusive, illusory, transient, teasing, wishful abstraction called hope — hope that all too often leads to bitter disappointment.

I have been disappointed before upon hearing of Chinese involvement in an unsavoury circumstance. A few years back, I came across an article that was scathing of a big Chinese tuna-fishing company, Dalian Ocean Fishing, for alleged maltreatment of foreign workers, workers who fell sick, died, suffered abuses, substandard food, excessive working hours, and withholding of pay.

I inquired about the situation and discovered it was a rogue private company that was selling its catch to a Japanese company, Mitsubishi. Nonetheless, that does not let China off the hook. Perfection is not expected, but how Chinese-licensed private companies do business at home and abroad does reflect back on the home country.

While beyond the scope of the present article, deeper consideration of the role of the Chinese State vs. Private Capital in China’s external relationships demands elucidation. What exactly does win-win mean?
While state-owned firms are clearly extensions of Chinese policy, how China manages — or fails to manage — the conduct of private or semi-state firms abroad, especially in contested or ethically sensitive zones speaks to the conscience of a nation.

Especially concerning, is the case of Chinese state-owned companies doing business for an occupier in occupied territory. This is morally magnified when the occupier, Israel, is under scrutiny by the World Court for committing genocide. Genocide is an act that morally upstanding countries will emphatically denounce as reprehensible; in addition, morally upstanding countries will take measures to publicly distance their state from such an evil-doer until such time as it sincerely atones for its crime against humanity. Highly moral countries — for example, Yemen — will make sacrifices to bring an end to such horrific crimes.

Professor and author T.P. Wilkinson, a keen China observer, remarked, “Non-interference is China’s top principle — business comes first. If there is any morality it only applies in China.”

China does not interfere in the culture and politics of other nations. That is understood. Nonetheless, morally centered people do not wish to see their country or any other country engage in violence against other nations in the world. And morally centered people do not wish to see their country abetting violence, not borne of self-defense, by another country. For allying with unrepentant rogue actors such as the United States and Israel, vassal states in Canada, Oceania, and Europe deserve to be regarded scornfully.

As an emerging superpower, China has increasingly garnered respect for pledging and delivering peaceful, win-win relations with other countries. That needs to be across the board. China is now faced with serious allegations, and it needs to come clean on what its companies are doing in occupied Palestine. One cannot expect that a country’s political leader is up-to-date and aware of all the ongoing functions of a country, domestically and externally, especially in a rapidly rising colossus of 1.4 billion people. However, when sordid facts come to the fore, a leader must lead. It is morally incumbent that chairman Xi deal forthrightly and promptly with any Chinese involvement in ignoble business affairs or crimes against humanity.

What Would Meaningful Action Look Like?

If Chinese firms are confirmed to be operating illegally in the occupied territories of Palestine, then I submit that an official Chinese public apology is demanded, also an immediate cessation of Chinese operations in what was once known as Mandate Palestine, and a turning over of Chinese assets in Mandate Palestine to Palestinian authorities. But it is for the Palestinians to determine what would be the proper rectification by China.

Why, one may ask, is such atonement not demanded of Canadians, American, and European interests in Mandate Palestine? It is and should be, but western governments have been unabashed in supporting colonialism, imperialism, and racism abroad. This speaks to the nature and conscience of Western governments that were so quick to fallaciously accuse China of genocide in Xinjiang, and yet they are loathe to acknowledge the factually undeniable genocide in Palestine. China, on the other hand, is viewed by much of the world’s people as a cut above the western governments.

Geopolitical Realism vs. Moral Idealism

While the present article acknowledges the current realpolitik constraints that China faces in balancing ties with Israel, the US, Arab countries, and the rest of the world, it posits the primacy of moral responsibility. Morality is what separates capitalism’s dog-eat-dog law-of-the-jungle from socialism, and Socialism with Chinese Characteristics is what is practiced by China.

As such an unflinching moral audit of China’s actions in occupied Palestine is called for. Therefore, to maintain its high regard, China must earn and hold onto the people’s trust through morally centered economic activities at home and abroad, as is implied by win-win relationships. In a truly multipolar world not only must power be redistributed more equitably but shared moral standards must also be elevated.

It is decidedly not a win-win relationship when Palestinians are subjected to starvation, humiliation, murder, bombardment, theft of territory, and the indignity of the World Court taking what must seem like an eternity to put a halt to a crime that demands immediate action: genocide. That China companies would profit from a genocide would cast a pall over China that would be hard to shake.

If China aspires to genuine global leadership, then it must lead not just in development and diplomacy — but in conscience.

ENDNOTES:

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Kim Petersen.

The mendacious pattern of the IDF and Netanyahu government has become clearer than ever. It comes in instalments, much like a distasteful fashion show. The opening begins with unequivocal, hot denial: famine is not taking place, and any aid to Gaza has been looted by the Hamas authorities; civilians were not targeted, let alone massacred; aid workers were not butchered but legitimately killed as they had Hamas militants among them. And there is no ethnic cleansing and genocide to speak of. To claim otherwise was antisemitic.

Then comes the large dollop of corrective, inconvenient reality, be it a film, a blatant statement, or some item of damning evidence. The next stage is one of quibbles and qualifications: Gaza will receive some necessaries; there is a humanitarian crisis, because we were told by the United States, our main sponsor, that this was the case; and there might have been some cases where civilians were killed, a problem easily rectified by an internal investigation by the military.

Just prior to the latest assault, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in leaked quotes, revealed another dark purpose of the new military operation.  “We are destroying more and more homes. They have nowhere to return to,” he said in testimony before the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee.  “The only inevitable outcome will be the desire of Gazans to emigrate outside the Gaza Strip.”  Here was a state official’s declaration of intent to ethnically cleanse a population.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich was even blunter, something praised by Netanyahu.  Israel’s objective, he revealed in a statement on March 19, was to destroy “everything that’s left of the Gaza Strip”.  What was currently underway involved “conquering, cleansing, and remaining in Gaza until Hamas is destroyed”.

The Netanyahu government has also added another twist to the ghastly performance. On March 18, the provision of various “basic” forms of humanitarian aid into Gaza was announced. The measure was approved by a security cabinet meeting pressed by concerns from military officials warning that food supplies from UN sources and other aid groups had run out. The pressure had also come from, in Netanyahu’s words in a March 19 video address, Israel’s “greatest friends in the world”, the trying sort who claimed that there was “‘one thing we cannot stand. We cannot accept images of hunger, mass hunger. We cannot stand that. We will not be able to support you’”. How inconveniently squeamish of them.

That same day, United Nations aid chief Tom Fletcher said nine aid trucks had been cleared by Israeli authorities to enter Gaza through the Karem Abu Salem crossing.  This was an absurd, ineffectual number, given the 500 trucks or more that entered Gaza prior to October 2023.

Fanatics who subscribe to the ethnic cleansing, rid-of-Palestine school were understandably disappointed, even at this obscenely modest provision of aid. “Any humanitarian aid that enters the Strip… will fuel Hamas and give it oxygen while our hostages languish in tunnels,” moaned National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. “We must crush Hamas, not simultaneously give it oxygen.” He also wished that Netanyahu “explain to our friends in the White House the implications of this ‘aid’, which only prolongs the war and delays our victory and the return of all our hostages.”

Israel’s Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, also of Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party, was in a similar mood, making the farcical resumption of aid sound like criminal salvation for a savage people. “This is our tragedy with Netanyahu’s approach. A leader who could have led to a clear victory and been remembered as the one who defeated radical Islam, but who, time after time, let this historic opportunity slip away. Letting humanitarian aid in now directly harms the war effort to achieve victory and is another obstacle to the release of the hostages.”

The picture emerging from Israel’s latest mission of carnage is one of murderous dysfunction. It made little sense to Knesset member Moshe Saada, for instance, that a broader, ever more lethal offensive was in the offing with five new IDF divisions even as aid was being provided.  This was implicitly telling.  Did Palestinian civilians matter insofar as they should be fed, even as they were being butchered and encouraged into fleeing?

The extent of the horror has now reached the point where it is being acknowledged in the capitals of Israel’s close allies. A joint statement from the UK, France, and Canada affirmed opposition to “the expansion of Israel’s military operations in Gaza.” Israel’s permission of “a basic quantity of food into Gaza” was wholly inadequate in the face of “intolerable” human suffering. Denying essential humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian population in the Strip “is unacceptable and risks breaching International Humanitarian Law. We condemn the abhorrent language used recently by members of the Israeli Government, threatening that, in their despair at the destruction of Gaza, civilians will start to relocate.”

For a long time, the notion of consciously eliminating the Palestinian presence in Gaza, through starvation, massacre, and displacement, was confined to the racial, ethnoreligious fringes of purist lunacy typified by Smotrich and Ben Gvir.  Their vocal presence and frank advocacy have now made that ambition a grotesque, ongoing reality.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

In the central park in Niquinohomo, Nicaragua, there is a statue of a man. 

He’s dressed in working man’s clothes of the 20th century. Long-brimmed hat. Jacket and boots. His hands are clasped around his belt buckle. He stares ahead… determined.

His name is Augusto Sandino.

The man who would lead the six-year rebellion against the US occupation of Nicaragua. 

The man who would become a legend across the country… and also far from the shores of Central America.

Sandino was born on May 18, 1895.

The so-called illegitimate son of a wealthy coffee merchant and his indigenous servant. 

Sandino lived with his mother until he was nine years old, and then his father took him in and arranged for his education.

He helped his dad. Learned the coffee merchant business and started buying and selling on his own. 

As he grew, he became a successful small-time merchant himself, selling grains, beans, and rice. 

But in his mid-20s, something went wrong.

There was a dispute over a business deal.

They say he shot someone and had to flee. An illegitimate son would be hauled in on charges.

So he traveled to Honduras and Guatemala. He worked for the US banana juggernaut United Fruit.

He lived in Mexico on the heels of the Mexican Revolution. He met radical labor groups. Anarchists and communist revolutionaries. He became inspired.

But in 1926, a civil war broke out in Nicaragua, and he returned home. 

He joined the Liberal Army. He became a general. 

And when the civil war ended the following year, Sandino was one of the only liberal generals who refused to lay down his weapons. He had 29 men.

See… Nicaragua was still under US occupation. At the time, the United States had occupied the country for roughly 15 years. 

The United States said it was helping Nicaragua maintain political stability.

In reality, the US sought two things. One, dollar diplomacy. The US government was doing the bidding of US corporations, looking to bank off of Nicaragua’s natural resources. And two, the United States had built the Panama Canal. And it didn’t want a foreign power challenging the US shipping dominance and building another one in neighboring Nicaragua.

And so, when the United States imposed the terms of the agreement to end Nicaragua’s Civil War… Sandino said no.

He wanted the US Marines out of Nicaragua.

“I will not sell out, nor will I give up,” he said. “I want Patria o muerte—a free country or death.”

His guerrilla war for Nicaragua’s freedom against the United States would become the stuff of legends across the world.

Sandino took his army to the Segovias, the mountains of northwestern Nicaragua, and began his insurgency.

Small, but powerful.

Tactical hits and runs against the US marines. 

They attacked US-owned mines. US-owned plantations. 

Peasants and miners joined. The insurgency grew. 

And the US began to use airplanes to support troops on the ground.

But they could not catch Sandino. 

In one message sent secretly by Sandino in 1929, he says, “I will not abandon my resistance until the pirate invaders… assassins of weak peoples are expelled from my country. I will make them realize that their crimes will cost them dear… Nicaragua shall not be the patrimony of Imperialists. I will fight for my cause as long as my heart beats.”

The United States called him a bandit. Much of Latin America called him a hero.

One of the world’s first anti-imperialist heroes of the 20th century. 

There were pro-Sandino movements across the world.

When Chinese nationalists fought their own war in the late ’20s against a puppet regime, they marched with portraits of Sandino.

And he won.

After a protracted guerrilla war, the United States withdrew the last US marines from the country in early 1933.

But the following year, Sandino traveled to Managua for talks with president Juan Bautista Sacasa. 

After the meeting, his car was ambushed, and Sandino, his brother, and two of his top generals were killed by members of the US-trained National Guard. 

They were acting on orders from General Anastasio Somoza García. 

Two years later, Somoza Garcia would stage a coup and install a US-backed dictatorship and family dynasty that would rule Nicaragua for more than four decades.

Sandino, the man, the legend, and his revolutionary struggle, would continue to inspire.

And that is why his name was chosen for the Sandinistas, Nicaragua’s revolutionary guerrilla army that would fight and finally defeat the Somoza dictatorship in 1979.

###

Augusto Sandino was born May 18, 1895. 130 years go. 

His legacy lives on.

###

Hi folks, thanks for listening. As always, I’m your host Michael Fox. 

I’ve included some links in the show notes to reporting from my podcast Under the Shadow about Sandino, the Nicaraguan revolution and the US backlash. Definitely check them out.

Also, you can check out exclusive pictures from Sandino’s hometown, Niquinohomo, Nicaragua, in my Patreon. That’s patreon.com/mfox. 

This is episode 34 of Stories of Resistance, a new podcast series co-produced by The Real News and Global Exchange. Each week, I bring you stories of resistance and hope like this. Inspiration for dark times. If you like what you hear, please subscribe, like, share, comment or leave a review. 

As always, thanks for listening. See you next time.

This is episode 34 of Stories of Resistance—a podcast co-produced by The Real News and Global Exchange. Independent investigative journalism, supported by Global Exchange’s Human Rights in Action program. Each week, we’ll bring you stories of resistance like this. Inspiration for dark times.

If you like what you hear, please subscribe, like, share, comment, or leave a review. 

You can check out exclusive pictures from Sandino’s hometown, Niquinohomo, Nicaragua, in Michael Fox’s Patreon. There you can also follow his reporting and support at www.patreon.com/mfox.

Written and produced by Michael Fox.

Resources:

Below are links to Michael’s episodes on Nicaragua from his podcast Under the Shadow.

THE GRINGO WHO TRIED TO RULE CENTRAL AMERICA | UNDER THE SHADOW, EPISODE 8: https://therealnews.com/nicaragua-william-walker-under-the-shadow-episode-8

NICARAGUA. SANDINO | UNDER THE SHADOW, EPISODE 9: https://therealnews.com/nicaragua-sandino-under-the-shadow-episode-9

NICARAGUA, 1980S. REVOLUTION | UNDER THE SHADOW, EPISODE 10, PART 1: https://therealnews.com/nicaragua-1980s-revolution-under-the-shadow-episode-10-part-1

NICARAGUA, 1980S. CONTRA WAR | UNDER THE SHADOW, EPISODE 10, PART 2: https://therealnews.com/nicaragua-reagan-iran-contra-sandinista-revolution

This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Michael Fox.

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The post Trump’s “big beautiful” domestic agenda bill sparks debate, protest in House committees; Netanyahu planning full occupation of Gaza and relocation of Palestinians – May 13, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

Israel: after 19 months of non-stop genocide where do you stand Mr Cooper?

ku.tnemailrapnull@pm.repooc.nhoj

Dear Mr Cooper,

In your communications to me in February and October last year some remarks were misleading and sounded as if penned by Israel’s propaganda scribblers in Tel Aviv. Given your journalistic background it was hoped you would sniff out and reject such disinformation. With the situation in Gaza now so horrific a more considered reply would be welcome, please, from our representative at Westminster.

• You said: “Israel has suffered the worst terror attack in its history at the hands of Hamas.”

But you omitted the context. In the 23 years prior to October 7 Israel had been slaughtering Palestinians at the rate of 8:1 and children at the rate of 16:1. Why overlook this? 7,200 Palestinian hostages, including 88 women and 250 children, were held in Israeli jails on that fateful day. Over 1,200 were under ‘administrative detention’ without charge or trial and denied ‘due process’ (B’Tselem figures). October 7 was therefore a retaliation against extreme provocation. Or were we expecting the Palestinians to take all that lying down?

Evidence is now emerging that the IDF inflicted many of the casualties on their own people that day in order to provide a pretext for their long-planned genocidal assault.

Early in the genocide JVP (Jewish Voice for Peace), the largest progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization in the world, described the situation leading up to October 7 rather well:

The Israeli government may have just declared war, but its war on Palestinians started over 75 years ago. Israeli apartheid and occupation — and United States complicity in that oppression — are the source of all this violence…. For the past year, the most racist, fundamentalist, far-right government in Israeli history has ruthlessly escalated its military occupation over Palestinians in the name of Jewish supremacy with violent expulsions and home demolitions, mass killings, military raids on refugee camps, unrelenting siege and daily humiliation….

For 16 years, the Israeli government has suffocated Palestinians in Gaza under a draconian air, sea and land military blockade, imprisoning and starving two million people and denying them medical aid. The Israeli government routinely massacres Palestinians in Gaza; ten-year-olds who live in Gaza have already been traumatized by seven major bombing campaigns in their short lives.

For 75 years, the Israeli government has maintained a military occupation over Palestinians, operating an apartheid regime. Palestinian children are dragged from their beds in pre-dawn raids by Israeli soldiers and held without charge in Israeli military prisons. Palestinians’ homes are torched by mobs of Israeli settlers, or destroyed by the Israeli army. Entire Palestinian villages are forced to flee, abandoning the homes orchards, and land that were in their family for generations.

The bloodshed of today and the past 75 years traces back directly to US complicity in the oppression and horror caused by Israel’s military occupation. The US government consistently enables Israeli violence and bears blame for this moment. The unchecked military funding, diplomatic cover, and billions of dollars of private money flowing from the US enables and empowers Israel’s apartheid regime.

• You said: “I support Israel’s right to defend itself, in line with international humanitarian law.”

The UN itself has made it clear that “Israel cannot claim self-defence against a threat that emanates from the territory it occupies”, and many law experts have said the same.

On the other hand the Palestinians’ right to resist is confirmed in UN Resolution 3246 which calls for all States to recognize the right to self-determination and independence for all peoples subject to colonial and foreign domination and alien subjugation, and to assist them in their struggle, and reaffirms the Palestinians’ right to use “all available means, including armed struggle” in their fight for freedom.

Furthermore UN Resolution 37/43 gives them an unquestionable right, in their struggle for liberation, to “eliminate the threat posed by Israel by all available means including armed struggle”. And as China reminded everyone at the ICJ, “armed resistance against occupation is enshrined in international law and is not terrorism”.

• You said “There is no moral equivalence between Hamas and the democratically elected Government of Israel.”

How right you are! Under international law Palestinians have an inalienable right to self-determination. They properly elected Hamas under international scrutiny in 2006, at the last permitted election. Hamas are the lawful and legitimate rulers in Gaza.

Israel is not the Western-style democracy it pretends to be. It is a deeply unpleasant ethnocracy with recently enacted discriminatory nation-state laws to emphasise its apartheid ‘bottom line’. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, an Israeli human rights organization, has documented entrenched discrimination and socioeconomic differences in “land, urban planning, housing, infrastructure, economic development, and education.”

• You said: “Leaving Hamas in power in Gaza would be a permanent roadblock to a two-state solution…..A sustainable ceasefire must mean that Hamas is no longer there, able to threaten Israel.”

The US and UK have no right to attempt coercive regime change. Besides, Israel has been a fatal threat to Gaza and the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) since well before Hamas was even founded.

Sections 16 and 20 of Hamas’s 2017 Charter are in tune with international law while the Israeli government pursues policies that definitely are not.

(s.16) “Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine.

(s.20) “Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus.”

The correct and lawful way to deal with the threat posed by Hamas is (and always has been) by requiring Israel to immediately end its illegal occupation of Palestinian territory, theft of Palestinian resources, and destruction of Palestinian heritage.

• You said: “I support all steps to bring about a negotiated settlement leading to a safe and secure Israel living alongside a viable and sovereign Palestinian state, based on 1967 borders.”

Palestinians should not have to negotiate their freedom and self-determination. Under international law it’s their basic right and doesn’t depend on anyone else, such as Israel or the US, agreeing to it. The UK disrespects that, otherwise we would long ago have recognised Palestinian statehood along with the vast majority of nations that have already done so. And why is only Israel allowed to be “safe and secure”?

Britain’s refusal to recognise Palestine is disgraceful. We promised the Palestinian Arabs independence in 1915 in return for their help in defeating the Turks but reneged in 1917 (in favour of the shameful Balfour Declaration). We should have granted Palestine provisional independence in 1923 in accordance with our responsibilities under the League of Nations Mandate Agreement, but didn’t. In 1947 the UN Partition Plan allocated the Palestinians a measly portion of their own homeland and, without consulting them, handed the lion’s share to incomer Jews with no ancestral connection to it… thanks in large part to the Balfour betrayal.

The following year Britain walked away from its mandate responsibilities leaving Palestinians at the mercy of Israel’s vicious plan for annexing the Holy Land by military force – “from the river to the sea” – which they’ve pursued relentlessly ever since in defiance of international and humanitarian law, bringing terror, misery, wholesale destruction and ruination to the Palestinians. And now genocide.

Today Britain still refuses to recognise Palestinian independence although 138 other UN member states do.

• You said: “Settler violence and the demolition of Palestinian homes is intolerable, and I expect to see Ministers firmly raising these issues with the Israeli Government, and taking robust action where necessary.”

The Israeli regime has long ignored representations on such issues, so where is the “robust action” you speak of?

According to B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights, “The apartheid regime is based on organized, systemic violence against Palestinians, which is carried out by numerous agents: the government, the military, the Civil Administration, the Supreme Court, the Israel Police, the Israel Security Agency, the Israel Prison Service, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, and others. Settlers are another item on this list, and the state incorporates their violence into its own official acts of violence…. Like state violence, settler violence is organized, institutionalized, well-equipped and implemented in order to achieve a defined strategic goal.”

Law expert Ralph Wilde provides this opinion:

There is no right under international law to maintain the occupation pending a peace agreement, or for creating ‘facts on the ground’ that might give Israel advantages in relation to such an agreement, or as a means of coercing the Palestinian people into agreeing on a situation they would not accept otherwise.

Implanting settlers in the hope of eventually acquiring territory is a violation of occupation law by Israel and a war crime on the part of the individuals involved. And it is a violation of Israel’s legal obligation to respect the sovereignty of another state and a violation of Israel’s legal obligation to respect the right of self-determination of the Palestinian people; also a violation of Israel’s obligations in the international law on the use of force. Ending these violations involves immediate removal of the settlers and the settlements from occupied land and an immediate end to Israel’s exercise of control, including its use of military force….

• You said: “The UK is doing everything it can to get more aid in and open more crossings, and we played a leading role in securing the passage of UN Security Council resolution 2720, which made clear the urgent demand for expanded humanitarian access.”

That went well, didn’t it? It’s sickening how Westminster still won’t accept the truth – that Israel is a depraved and repulsive regime, devoid of humanity, and we should not be supporting it in any way, shape or form.

For decades before October 7 Israel’s illegal control over the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza and military aggression, ethnic cleansing, restrictions on movement of goods and people, dispossession of prime lands, theft of Palestine’s key resources and destruction of its economy have bordered on slow-motion genocide.

And now the International Court of Justice has clarified that “a State’s obligation to prevent, and the corresponding duty to act, arise at the instant that the State learns of, or should normally have learned of, the existence of a serious risk that genocide will be committed. From that moment onwards, if the State has available means likely to have a deterrent effect on those suspected of preparing genocide, or reasonably suspected of harbouring specific intent, it is under a duty to make such use of these means as the circumstances permit”.

The many means available to the British Government include sanctions – which it readily applies to other delinquent nations – and withdrawal of favoured-nation privileges, trade deals, scientific/security collaboration, and cessation of arms supplies. In Israel’s case the British Government, far from using its available deterrent means, has militarily assisted Israel in its genocide.

So let’s remind ourselves of the UK Lawyers’ Open Letter Concerning Gaza of 26 October 2023 which arrived at the UK Government with important warnings regarding breaches of international law — for example:

⦁ The UK is duty-bound to “respect and ensure respect” for international humanitarian law as set out in the Four Geneva Conventions in all circumstances (1949 Geneva Conventions, Common Art 1). That means the UK must not itself assist violations by others.

⦁ The UK Government must immediately halt the export of weapons from the UK to Israel, given the clear risk that they might be used in serious violations of international humanitarian law and in breach of the UK’s domestic Strategic Export Licensing Criteria, including its obligations under the Arms Trade Treaty.

The Department for Business and Trade (whose committee I believe you now sit on) dismissed a petition calling for all licences for arms to Israel to be revoked. Their excuse was that “we rigorously assess every application on a case-by-case basis against strict assessment criteria, the Strategic Export Licensing Criteria (or SELC)…. The SELC provide a thorough risk assessment framework for export licence applications and require us to think hard about the impact of providing equipment and its capabilities. We will not license the export of equipment where to do so would be inconsistent with the SELC.”

But they didn’t explain how Israel managed to satisfy those “strict assessment criteria” and survive such a “rigorous” process. Were we supposed to take it all on trust? There are 8 criteria and, on reading them, any reasonably informed person might conclude that Israel fails to satisfy at least 5.

• You said: “In the longer term, I will continue to support the UK’s long held-position, that there should be a credible and irreversible pathway towards a two-state solution of Israel and Palestine, living side-by-side in peace and security for both nations and the wider region.”

Why the longer term? Why not now? If Palestinian statehood had been recognised at the proper time (in 1923, or at least by 1948 when Israeli statehood was ‘accepted’) these unspeakable atrocities would never have happened.

QME and Plan Dalet

These are the never-mentioned driving forces behind the evil that poisons the Holy Land.

In 2008 Congress enacted legislation requiring that US arms sales to any country in the Middle East other than Israel must not adversely affect Israel’s “qualitative military edge” (QME). It ensures the apartheid regime always has the upper hand over it neighbours. This is central to US Middle East policy and guarantees the region is kept at or near boiling point and ripe for exploitation.

Sadly the UK has superglued itself to America’s cynical partnership with Israel for ‘security’ and other dubious reasons.

Plan D, or Plan Dalet, is the Zionist terror blueprint for their brutal takeover of the Palestinian homeland written 77 years ago. It was drawn up by the Jewish underground militia, the Haganah, at the behest of David Ben-Gurion, then boss of the Jewish Agency and later to become the first president of ‘New Israel’. .

Plan D was a carefully thought-out, step-by-step plot choreographed ahead of the British mandate government’s withdrawal and the Zionists’ declaration of Israeli statehood. It correctly assumed that the British authorities would no longer be there to prevent it. As Plan D shows, “expulsion and transfer” (i.e. ethnic cleansing) has always been a key part of the Zionists’ scheme, and Ben-Gurion reminded his military commanders that the prime aim of Plan D was the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

The Deir Yassin massacre signalled the beginning of a deliberate programme to depopulate Arab towns and villages – destroying churches and mosques – in order to make room for incoming Holocaust survivors and other Jews. In July 1948 Israeli terrorist troops seized Lydda, shot up the town and drove out the population. They massacred 426 men, women, and children. 176 of them were slaughtered in the town’s main mosque. The remainder were forced to walk into exile in the scalding July heat leaving a trail of bodies – men, women and children – along the way. Of all the blood-baths they say this was the biggest. Israel’s great hero Moshe Dayan was responsible.

By 1949 the Zionists had seized nearly 80 percent of Palestine, provoking the resistance backlash we still see today. The knock-on effects have created around 6 million Palestinian refugees registered with the UN plus an estimated 1 million others worldwide.

Israel Lobby

Considering Britain’s obligations towards the Holy Land since WW1, would you please let me know what you and your colleagues are now doing to stop this appalling extermination of the Palestinian people? And I do mean action not empty words. And would you please explain why Conservative Friends of Israel, which works to promote and support Israel in Parliament and at every level of the Party and claims 80% of Conservative MPs as signed-up members, are allowed to flourish at Westminster?.

MPs who put themselves under the influence of an aggressive foreign military power are surely in flagrant breach of the principles of public life (aka the Nolan Principles) which are written into MPs’ code of conduct and the ministerial code.

Being a Friend of Israel, of course, means embracing the terror on which the state of Israel was built, approving the dispossession of the innocent and the oppression of the powerless, and applauding the discriminatory laws against non-Jews who resisted being ejected and inconveniently remain in their homeland.

It means aligning oneself with the vile mindset that abducts civilians — including children — and imprisons and tortures them without trial, imposes hundreds of military checkpoints, severely restricts the movement of people and goods, and interferes with Palestinian life at every level.

And it means giving the thumbs-up to Israeli gunboats shooting up Palestinian fishermen in their own territorial waters, the strangulation of the West Bank’s economy, the cruel 19-year blockade on Gaza and the bloodbaths inflicted on the tiny enclave’s packed population. Also the religious war that humiliates the Holy Land’s Muslims and Christians and prevents them visiting their holy places.

I prefer to think that you know all this but must be mindful that the Israel lobby have Conservative Central Office in their pocket.

Stuart Littlewood

8 May 2025

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Stuart Littlewood.

As the conflict chugs along in pools of blood and bountiful gore, the confused shape of Israel’s intentions continues in all its glorious nebulousness.  Pretend moderation clouds murderous desire.  There is no sense that those unfortunate Israeli hostages captured by Hamas in its assault on October 7, 2023, matter anymore, being merely decorative for the imminent slaughter.  There is even less sense that Hamas will be cleansed and removed from the strip, however attractive this idea continues to be.

Such evident limits have not discouraged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet, who have decided that more force, that old province of the unimaginative, is the answer.  According to the PM, the cabinet had agreed on a “forceful operation” to eliminate Hamas and salvage what is left of the hostage situation.

A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, Brigadier-General Effie Defrin, has explained on Israeli radio that the offensive will apparently ensure the return of the hostages.  What follows will be “the collapse of the Hamas regime, its defeat, its submission”.  Anywhere up to two million Palestinian civilians in Gaza will be herded into the ruins of the south.  Humanitarian aid will be arranged by the Israeli forces to be possibly distributed through approved contractors.

The IDF chief of staff, Lt. General Eyal Zamir, confirmed that the approved plan will involve “the capture of the Strip and holding the territories, moving the Gazan population south for its defence, denying Hamas the ability to distribute humanitarian supplies, and powerful attacks against Hamas.”

Within the Israeli cabinet, ethnocentric and religious fires burn with bright fanaticism.  The Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich remains a figure who ignores floral subtlety in favour of the blood-stained sledgehammer.  He remains that coherent link between cruel lawmaking and baffling violence.  “Within a few months,” he boasts, “we will be able to declare that we have won.  Gaza will be totally destroyed.”  With pompous certitude, he also claimed that the next six months would see Hamas cease to exist.

Such opinions, expressed at the “Settlements Conference” organised by the Makor Rishon newspaper in Ofra, a West Bank settlement, give a sense of the flavour.  Palestinians are to be “concentrated” on land located between the Egyptian border and the arbitrarily designated Morag Corridor.  As with any potential abuser keen to violate his vulnerable charges while justifying it, Smotrich tried to impress with the idea that this was a “humanitarian” zone that would be free of “Hamas and terrorism”.

The program here is clear in its chilling crudeness.  Expulsion, relocation, transfer.  These are the words famously used to move on populations of a sizeable number in history, often at enormous cost.  That this should involve lawmakers of the Jewish state adds a stunning, if perverse, poignancy to this.  They, the moved on in history, the expelled and the condemned wanderers, shall expel others and condemn them in turn.  Smotrich also points the finger at desperation and hopelessness, the biting incentives that propel migration.  The Palestinians will feel blessed in their banishment.  “They will be totally despairing, understanding that there is no hope and nothing to look for in Gaza, and will be looking for relocation to begin a new life in other places.”

Impossible to ignore in Smotrich’s steaming bile against the Palestinians is the broader view that no Palestinian state can arise, necessitating urgent, preventative poisoning.  In addition to the eventual depopulation of Gaza, plans to reconstitute the contours of the West Bank, ensuring that Israeli and Palestinian traffic are separated to enable building and construction for settlements as a prelude to annexation, are to be implemented.

The issue of twisting and mangling humanitarian aid in favour of Israel’s territorial lust has raised some tart commentary.  A statement from the Humanitarian Country Team of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, a forum led by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), does not shy away from the realities on the ground.  All supplies, including those vital to survival, have been blocked for nine weeks.  Bakeries and community kitchens have closed, while warehouses are empty.  Hunger, notably among children, is rampant.  Israel’s plan, as presented, “will mean that large parts of Gaza, including the less mobile and most vulnerable people, will continue to go without supplies.”

The UN Secretary General and the Emergency Relief Coordinator have confirmed that they will not cooperate in the scheme, as it “does not adhere to the global humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, independence, and neutrality.”

The foreign ministers of the United Kingdom, France, and Germany have made the same point.  Despite all being solid allies of Israel, they have warned that violations of international law are taking place.  “Humanitarian aid must never be used as a political tool and a Palestinian territory must not be reduced nor subjected to any demographic change”.

To date, a promise lingers that the offensive will only commence once US President Donald Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar takes place.  But no ongoing savaging of Gaza with some crude effort at occupation will solve the historical vortex that continues to drag the Jewish state to risk and oblivion.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

Photograph Source: User:שועל, modified by User:MathKnight – File:IDF Caterpillar D9 in action.JPG – CC BY-SA 3.0

In recent months, the Israeli Defense Forces have been much taken by a term that augurs poorly for peaceful accord in the Middle East.“Security zones” are being seized in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon and Syria.Land is, for claimed reasons of self-defence, being appropriated with brazen assuredness.It is hard, however, to see this latest turn as anything other than a de facto military occupation, a situation that will prolong the crisis of vulnerability the Jewish state so wishes to overcome.Israel’s insecurities are much the result of various expansions since 1948 that have only imperilled it to future attack and simmering acrimony.The pattern threatens to repeat itself.

The post De Facto Occupation: Israel’s Security Zone Strategy appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

In Syria, Israel rapidly capitalised on the fall of the Assad regime by shredding the status quo. Within a matter of 11 days after the fleeing of the former President Bashar Al-Assad to Moscow, and again on February 1 this year, satellite images showed six military sites being constructed within what is nominally the UN-supervised demilitarised zone, otherwise known as the Area of Separation. A seventh is being constructed outside the zone and in Syria proper. Such busy feats of construction have also accompanied Israeli encroachment on the land of Syrian civilians, coupled with vexing housing raids, road closures and unsanctioned arrests.

All this has taken place despite undertakings from Syria’s transitional President Ahmed al-Sharaa that he would recognise the 1974 agreement made with Israel, one which prohibits Israel from crossing the Alpha Line on the western edge of the Area of Separation. “Syria’s war-weary condition, after years of conflict and war, does not allow for new confrontations,” admitted the new leader on December 14, 2024. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was only scornful, regarding the 1974 agreement between the two countries as a dead letter buried by history. “We will not allow any hostile force to establish itself on our border,” he snottily declared.

Lebanon is also facing a stubborn IDF, one that refuses to abide by the Israel-Hezbollah agreement last November which promised the withdrawal of both forces from southern Lebanon, leaving the Lebanese army to take over the supervising reins. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, who faces the herculean task of removing Hezbollah’s weapons while potentially integrating members of its group into the Lebanese army, has found his task needlessly onerous. In recent discussions with US deputy Mideast envoy Morgan Ortagus, the Lebanese leader reasoned “that Israel’s presence in the five disputed points gives Hezbollah a pretext to keep its weapons.”

On April 16, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz promised that such security zones would provide relevant buffers to shield Israeli communities. Ominously, the IDF would “Unlike in the past [not evacuate] areas that have been cleared and seized”. They would “remain in the security zones as a buffer between the enemy and [Israeli] communities in any temporary or permanent situation in Gaza – as in Lebanon and Syria.”

In Gaza, it is becoming increasingly clear that any prospect of Palestinian autonomy or political independence is to be strangled and snuffed out. Israel has already arbitrarily created the “Morag Corridor”, which excises Rafah from the Strip, and the Netzarim Corridor, which severs Gaza in half. Katz has also promised that the policy of blocking all food, medicine and other vital supplies to Gaza implemented on March 2 will continue, as it “is one of the main pressure levers preventing Hamas from using it as a tool with the population”.

Displacement orders, euphemised as “evacuation orders”, have become the staple of operating doctrine, the means of creating buffers of guns and steel. On April 11, Israeli authorities issued two such orders, effectively “covering vast areas in northern and southern Gaza”, according to UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric. “Together, these areas span more than 24 square kilometres – roughly the size of everything south of Central Park here in Manhattan.” Within these zones of military seizure lie medical facilities and storage sites filled with vital supplies.

The UN Human Rights office also expressed its concerns about Israel seemingly “inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life increasingly incompatible with their continued existence as a group in Gaza.” The population was being “forcibly transferred into ever shrinking spaces with little or no access to life-saving services, including water, food, and shelter, and whey they continue to be subject to attacks.” Engaging in such conduct against a civilian population within an occupied territory, the office pointedly observes, satisfies the definition of a forcible transfer, being both a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute of 1998.

The latest doctrine of appropriation and indeterminate occupation adopted by Katz and the IDF has not impressed the Hostages and Missing Families Forum in Israel, long advocating for the release of Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza by Hamas. “They promised that the hostages come before everything,” came the organisation’s aggrieved observation. “In practice, however, Israel is choosing to seize territory before the hostages.” In doing so, the prerogatives of permanent conflict and habitual predation have displaced the more humane prerogatives of peace.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

Image by Vasilis Caravitis.

In the fractured and scarred landscapes of Palestine, where the earth’s skin is etched with memories of violence, dispossession, and resistance, there lies an unspoken tragedy. An ecological tragedy. Beyond the suffocating walls of the occupation, beneath the rubble of homes and the twisting olive trees, there is a landscape slowly being strangled, not only by military might but by the relentless, invisible hand of environmental degradation. This is a tale not just of loss—of life and liberty—but of a land under siege, of natural resources turned into tools of war and power.

In Palestine, the land is not simply earth. It is history, identity, and memory that is saturated with the blood of ancestors and the hopes of the dispossessed. But in the hands of occupation, it is rendered mute, violated, and endlessly exploited. For the people of Palestine, the environment is both a battleground and a metaphor for their struggle for sovereignty. The occupation, in its systematic devastation, turns every blade of grass and every spring of water into a prize to be controlled, manipulated, and consumed.

Water, that essential lifeblood of the land, has been weaponized in Palestine. The Oslo Accords, in their half-hearted attempt to divide and conquer, left the water resources of the region in a state of absurd fragmentation. Oslo outlines a significant disparity in water resource allocation, with Israel receiving a much larger share, approximately four times the Palestinian portion, of the joint aquifer resources.

The West Bank’s aquifers, once shared by both Palestinians and Israelis, have been effectively monopolized. While Israeli settlements plunge deep into the earth to siphon the precious liquid, Palestinian communities are left to endure shortages, rationing, and, for many, complete deprivation.

In Gaza, the situation is more desperate. The coastal aquifer is polluted, tainted by both saltwater intrusion and sewage, leaving an entire population with undrinkable water. Children grow sick, their small bodies poisoned by the very liquid that should sustain them. The Israelis, meanwhile, extract desalinated water to their own citizens, the shimmering promise of technology and science keeping them shielded from the ecological despair that engulfs Gaza.

But water is not the only casualty of occupation. The once-thriving agricultural lands of Palestine are slowly disappearing, gobbled up by the insatiable hunger of settlement expansion. The olive tree, a symbol of endurance and defiance, has become a casualty of war. Over the past decades, thousands of olive groves have been uprooted or burned, not simply as an act of destruction, but as a deliberate erasure of Palestinian life. These trees, planted by ancestors who cultivated their lands with the sweat of their brows, have become markers of resistance. To destroy the olive groves is not merely to strike at the heart of Palestine’s agriculture, but to wound its soul. It is to sever the connection between the land and its people. The scars of this deforestation are not only visible in the charred remains of trees, but in the bodies of Palestinian farmers who stand, helpless, as bulldozers tear through their history.

The environmental toll of occupation, however, is not simply a matter of lost resources. It is a slow, creeping form of violence that permeates every aspect of daily life. The air, the soil, the water are all tainted by the structures of control. Military checkpoints, illegal settlements, and the so-called security barrier cut through the landscape like open wounds, creating a fractured topography of confinement. Roads built for settlers bypass Palestinian communities, cutting them off from their land and from each other, making the movement of goods and people a daily struggle. The ecology of Palestine is one of division, a land balkanized not only by fences and walls but by a political order that seeks to turn the environment into another instrument of domination.

Perhaps the most insidious aspect of this ecological destruction is the quiet way in which it has become invisible to the outside world. While the world’s attention is often focused on the violent clashes, the bombings, the endless cycle of occupation and resistance, the environmental catastrophe plays out in the shadows. It is not the bombs that kill, but the slow suffocation of life; the slow, deliberate erasure of an ecosystem that once thrived.

This ecological violence is, at its core, an extension of the broader political and military violence that defines the occupation. It is a means of control, a way of reminding Palestinians that they are not just dispossessed of their land, but dispossessed of their connection to it. The land is a place of memory and belonging; it is the repository of stories and dreams. To occupy the land is to steal not just the physical earth, but the very soul of its people.

But amidst this devastation, there is something else: a quiet resistance. The Arabic word for this resistance is “Sumud” (صمود). The people of Palestine have not only fought with guns and stones, but with seeds and soil. They have continued to plant, to nurture, to cultivate even as their lands are stolen from them. They have organized, not only to resist the physical occupation, but to reclaim their environment. Through initiatives to preserve water, to fight against illegal land grabs, and to replant olive groves, Palestinians continue to assert their sovereignty over the land.

Yet, the struggle is not only for the preservation of a culture and a way of life. It is also, fundamentally, a struggle for the very future of the earth. The land may be a prisoner of occupation, but it is not yet conquered. For as long as the people continue to resist, the land, too, continues to resist. This sumud persists through nonviolent protests, through agricultural resistance, and through every act of daily defiance.

The ecology of Palestine may be scarred, but it is not broken. The olive trees may fall, but their roots run deep. The water may be stolen, but the rivers will never forget the taste of their rightful owners. In the end, the struggle is not only for the liberation of a people, but for the liberation of a land; the land that has long stood as a witness to a history of pain and hope, of destruction and renewal.

And so, in the land of Palestine, amidst the rubble and the ruins, a quiet revolution stirs. It is not just for the reclamation of power, but for the reclamation of life itself, in all its fragile, pulsing, and unyielding beauty.

The post The Ecology of Occupation: Palestine’s Struggle for Land and Life appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Michael Morrill.

Listen carefully to the end. It will be historic. Interestingly, if you can not see it embedded here from my homepage (see below). But just click this link to see it on YouTube.

Vice-president JD Vance’s 59 seconds speech about the “fun” in Greenland that he wants to join in marks the beginning of an occupation of Greenland by that US, which Denmark’s governments since 1948 have blindly been submissive to, supported politically and militarily no matter its illegal interventions and wars, CIA worldwide, regime changes, 650 foreign bases, mass killings, genocide, country-destruction, NATO militarism and economic exploitation.

In sum, the most violent and war-addicted country on earth for more than half a century.

He invents a series of “threats” from many other countries against Greenland (and the US…). He scolds Copenhagen for having ignored Greenland’s security for far too long, and he twice elevates Greenland to a world security issue and insists that only the US can make it secure and thereby secure “the entire world.”

For equally long, some of us argued – warned – that the US was not that good – and Russia and China were not that bad. That our world was not a black-and-white world. But that was too much of an intellectual challenge. Over time, facts, analyses, conflict analysis, objective threat analyses based upon decent intelligence as well as national and international law, the UN, diplomacy – not to mention peace-making – were treated as petty issues and thrown overboard.

The Danish foreign policy kakistocracy has finally entered a situation in which they will feel what it means to be blind friends of the Evil Empire and opportunistically never prepare for the obvious: That that empire would ruthlessly pursue only its own interests and humiliate its friends (except Israel) and treat them like dirt. It allegedly gave them “protection”…

Like the rest of Europe, Denmark will now face two Cold Wars for decades ahead – one with Russia and one with the US – and in best Frederiksen-Leyden-Kallas-style, militarise itself to death. You don’t have to be a prophet to see that, like “you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”

The tragedy – which is now also Sweden’s and Finland’s – is that it could all have been avoided.

By independent, free thinking and research, by listening and prudent decision-makers, not servants listening only to His Master’s Voice.

Europe will now be dragged down with the decline and fall of the US/Western world. What? Oh yes, the Trump Regime will not get away with all its crystal-clear extremist imperialism, its megalomania and delusional ways: It will meet increasing worldwide resistance and fall – “one way or the other” as Trump said about getting Greenland.

I fear the price to be paid with Trump in his undoubtedly golden bunker fiddling with the red button when he hears someone say, Mr President, it is all over. It’s all over.

Do you?

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Jan Oberg.

State and market solutions to the ecological crisis have only increased the wealth and power of those on top, while greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise. Nearly all the experts and professionals are invested, literally, in a framework that is only making things worse. With so much power concentrated in the very institutions that suppress any realistic assessment of the situation, things seem incredibly bleak. But what if we told you that there’s another way? That there are already people all around the world implementing immediate, effective responses that can be integrated into long-term strategies to survive these overlapping, cascading crises?

We spoke with three revolutionaries on the front lines resisting capitalist, colonial projects. Sleydo’ from the Gidimt’en clan of the Wet’suwet’en nation, in so-called British Columbia, Isa from the ZAD in the west of France, and Neto, a militant with the Landless Workers’ Movement based in the northeast of so-called Brazil. They share their experiences gained from years of building collective power, defeating repression, and defending the Earth for all its inhabitants and for the generations still to come.

They share stories of solidarity spreading across a continent, of people abandoned to poverty and marginalization reclaiming land, restoring devastated forests, and feeding themselves communally, stories of strangers coming together for their shared survival and a better future, going head to head with militarized police forces and winning. And in these stories we can hear things that are lacking almost everywhere else we look: optimism alongside realism, intelligent strategies for how we can survive, love and empathy for the world around us and for the future generations, together with the belief that we can do something meaningful, something that makes a difference. The joy of revolutionary transformation.

We learn about solutions. Real world solutions. Solutions outside of the control of capitalism and the state.

The Revolution is Already Here.

Next up: how do we make it our own?

Revolution or Death is a three-part collaboration between Peter Gelderloos and subMedia. Part 1, ‘Short Term Investments,’ examined the official response to the climate crisis and how it’s failing. In Part 2, ‘Heads Up, the Revolution is Already Here’ we talk with movements around the globe that provide inspiring examples of what realistic, effective responses look like. Part 3 ‘Reclaiming the World Wherever We Stand’ will focus on how we can all apply these lessons at home.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by subMedia.

Sultan Barakat, a professor at Qatar’s Hamad Bin Khalifa University, says the release of Palestinian prisoners is a “symbolic win” rather than a victory for the Palestinians, primarily showing the inhumane conditions they live under.

“Israel can capture people in the West Bank and Gaza because they all live in a confinement area under the control of Israel,” he told Al Jazeera.

Dr Barakat discussed the way Palestinians were “arbitrarily rounded up, taken to prison and treated badly” by Israel.

• READ MORE: ‘Ignore Trump’s bully’ and take stand over genocide, PSNA tells Peters
• UN rapporteur welcomes ‘best news’ — Hague Group coalition pushing for Palestinian state
• Moral bankruptcy, Israel’s genocide and the betrayal of the Palestinians
• Other Palestine reports

A total of 183 Palestinian prisoners were released today from Israeli jails as part of the exchange for three Israeli hostages under the ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel.

They included 18 serving life sentences and 54 serving lengthy sentences, as well as 111 detained in Gaza since 7 October 2023.

Dozens of Palestinians released from Israeli jails showed signs of torture and starvation, said the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society.

Barakat stressed that the release of prisoners also “shows the unity of the Palestinians in the face of occupation”.

“The prisoners are not all necessarily Hamas sympathisers — some were at odds with Hamas for a long time,” the academic said.

“But they are united in their refusal of occupation and standing up to Israel,” he added.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) provisional government interim president Benny Wenda has warned that since Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto took office in October, he has been proven right in having remarked, after the politician’s last February election, that his coming marks the return of “the ghost of Suharto” — the brutal dictator who ruled over the nation for three decades.

Wenda, an exiled West Papuan leader, outlined in a December 16 statement that at that moment the Indonesian forces were carrying out ethnic cleansing in multiple regencies, as thousands of West Papuans were being forced out of their villages and into the bush by soldiers.

The entire regency of Oksop had been emptied, with more than 1200 West Papuans displaced since an escalation began in Nduga regency in 2018.

• READ MORE: Mass displacements in West Papua show Prabowo’s true face
• Other West Papua reports

Prabowo coming to top office has a particular foreboding for the West Papuans, who have been occupied by Indonesia since 1963, as over his military career — which spanned from 1970 to 1998 and saw rise him to the position of general, as well as mainly serve in Kopassus (special forces) — the current president perpetrated multiple alleged atrocities across East Timor and West Papua.

According to Wenda, the incumbent Indonesian president can “never clean the blood from his hands for his crimes as a general in West Papua and East Timor”. He further makes clear that Prabowo’s acts since taking office reveal that he is set on “creating a new regime of brutality” in the country of his birth.

Enhancing the occupation
“Foreign governments should not be fooled by Prabowo’s PR campaign,” Wenda made certain in mid-December.

“He is desperately seeking international legitimacy through his international tour, empty environmental pledges and the amnesty offered to various prisoners, including 18 West Papuans and the remaining imprisoned members of the Bali Nine.”

Former Indonesian President Suharto ruled over the Southeast Asian nation with an iron fist from 1967 until 1998.

In the years prior to his officially taking office, General Suharto oversaw the mass murder of up to 1 million local Communists, he further rigged the 1969 referendum on self-determination for West Papua, so that it failed and he invaded East Timor in 1975.

Wenda maintains that the proof Prabowo is something of an apparition of Suharto is that he has set about forging “mass displacement, increased militarisation” and “increased deforestation” in the Melanesian region of West Papua.

And he has further restarted the transmigration programme of the Suharto days, which involves Indonesians being moved to West Papua to populate the region.

As Wenda advised in 2015, the initial transmigration programme resulted in West Papuans, who made up 96 percent of the population in 1971, only comprising 49 percent of those living in their own homelands at that current time.

Wenda considers the “occupation was entering a new phase”, when former Indonesian president Joko Widodo split the region of West Papua into five provinces in mid-2022.

And the West Papuan leader advises that Prabowo is set to establish separate military commands in each province, which will provide “a new, more thorough and far-reaching system of occupation”.

West Papua was previously split into two regions, which the West Papuan people did not recognise, as these and the current five provinces are actually Indonesian administrative zones.

“By establishing new administrative divisions, Indonesia creates the pretext for new military posts and checkpoints,” Wenda underscores.

“The result is the deployment of thousands more soldiers, curfews, arbitrary arrests and human rights abuses. West Papua is under martial law.”

Ecocide on a formidable scale
Prabowo paid his first official visit to West Papua as President in November, visiting the Merauke district in South Papua province, which is the site of the world’s largest deforestation project, with clearing beginning in mid-2024, and it will eventually comprise of 2 million deforested hectares turned into giant sugarcane plantations, via the destruction of forests, wetlands and grasslands.

Five consortiums, including Indonesian and foreign companies, are involved in the project, with the first seedlings having been planted in July. And despite promises that the megaproject would not harm existing forests, these areas are being torn down regardless.

And part of this deforestation includes the razing of forest that had previously been declared protected by the government.

A similar programme was established in Merauke district in 2011, by Widodo’s predecessor President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who established rice and sugarcane plantations in the region, aiming to turn it into a “future breadbasket for Indonesia”.

However, the plan was a failure, and the project was rather used as a cover to establish hazardous palm oil and pulpwood plantations.

“It is not a coincidence Prabowo has announced a new transmigration programme at the same time as their ecocidal deforestation regime intensifies,” Wenda said in a November 2024 statement. “These twin agendas represent the two sides of Indonesian colonialism in West Papua: exploitation and settlement.”

Wenda added that Jakarta is only interested in West Papuan land and resources, and in exchange, Indonesia has killed at least half a million West Papuans since 1963.

And while the occupying nation is funding other projects via the profits it has been making on West Papuan palm oil, gold and natural gas, the West Papuan provinces are the poorest in the Southeast Asian nation.

Independence is still key
The 1962 New York Agreement involved the Netherlands, West Papua’s former colonial rulers, signing over the region to Indonesia. A brief United Nations administrative period was to be followed by Jakarta assuming control of the region on 1 May 1963.

And part of the agreement was that West Papuans undertake the Act of Free Choice, or a 1969 referendum on self-determination.

So, if the West Papuans did not vote to become an autonomous nation, then Indonesian administration would continue.

However, the UN brokered referendum is now referred to as the Act of “No Choice”, as it only involved 1026 West Papuans, handpicked by Indonesia. And under threat of violence, all of these men voted to stick with their colonial oppressors.

Wenda presented The People’s Petition to the UN Human Rights High Commissioner in January 2019, which calls for a new internationally supervised vote on self-determination for the people of West Papua, and it included the signatures of 1.8 million West Papuans, or 70 percent of the Indigenous population.

The exiled West Papuan leader further announced the formation of the West Papua provisional government on 1 December 2020, which involved the establishment of entire departments of government with heads of staff appointed on the ground in the Melanesian province, and Wenda was also named the president of the body.

Indonesian president Prabowo Subianto has recommenced transmigration into West Papua, while embarking on the world’s largest deforestation project. #sydneycriminallawyers #indonesian #westpapuahttps://t.co/gTXg19eT2R

— SydneyCriminalLawyer (@sydcrimlawyers) January 4, 2025

But with the coming of Prabowo and the recent developments in West Papua, it appears the West Papuan struggle is about to intensify at the same time as the movement for independence becomes increasingly more prominent on the global stage.

“Every element of West Papua is being systematically destroyed: our land, our people, our Melanesian culture identity,” Wenda said in November, in response to the recommencement of Indonesia’s transmigration programme and the massive environment devastation in Merauke.

“This is why it is not enough to speak about the Act of No Choice in 1969: the violation of our self-determination is continuous, renewed with every new settlement programme, police crackdown, or ecocidal development.”

Paul Gregoire is a Sydney-based journalist and writer. He is the winner of the 2021 NSW Council for Civil Liberties Award For Excellence In Civil Liberties Journalism. Prior to Sydney Criminal Lawyers®, Paul wrote for VICE and was news editor at Sydney’s City Hub.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Since the overthrow of the Syrian government, corporate media analysts have offered advice as to how the US should approach Syria going forward. These observers consistently opted not to call on the US and Israel to end their occupations of and violence toward Syria.

The Washington Post (12/8/24) calls for “engaged diplomacy” from the incoming Trump administration to “help write a brighter next chapter for this strategically located, and long-suffering, country.”

A Washington Post editorial (12/8/24), headlined “Why the US Needs to Help Build a New Syria,” said:

Syria might seem far removed from US interests. Before Mr. Assad’s fall, President-elect Donald Trump posted: “DO NOT GET INVOLVED!” But America is involved. Some 900 US troops and an undisclosed number of military contractors are operating in northeastern Syria near Iraq, battling the Islamic State and backing Kurdish forces fighting the Assad regime.

Estimates suggest that the US-led coalition that bombed Syria, ostensibly to defeat ISIS (Jacobin, 3/29/16), has killed at least 3,000 Syrian civilians and possibly more than 15,000. The Post misses a rather obvious point: The US can “help” Syria by withdrawing the forces that have slaughtered thousands of Syrian noncombatants.

The Post also published a piece by columnist Josh Rogin (12/8/24), “For the First Time in Decades, Syria Is Free. Now It’s Time to Help.” Set aside that Syria is not “free”; it is under foreign occupation (CBC, 12/10/24). The article provided virtually no details about the forms he thinks that “help” should take. Rogin said that “for those in Washington who have long wanted to withdraw US troops from Syria, [the ouster of Bashar al-Assad’s government] might offer a path forward.”

That falls short of saying that the US should withdraw its 900 troops and unknown number of contractors from the country, and Rogin said nothing about the US military bases in Syria, of which there are at least five, plus a minimum of two smaller sites (Stars and Stripes, 12/6/24). Through such mechanisms, the US has long exercised control over a quarter of Syrian territory, including its breadbasket and oil reserves (FAIR.org, 3/7/18; Responsible Statecraft, 7/28/24). Surely ending the US military occupation and returning sovereign control over the country’s vital resources are essential ways to “help” Syria, yet Rogin declined to call for these steps.

‘Promote stability and democracy’

Boston Globe (12/12/24): “A US military presence, however small, can make a difference.“

The Boston Globe’s editorial board (12/12/24) said that the fall of the Syrian government

represents an opportunity for the United States and the international community to reach out, to engage, and to help free Syria from the more cynical ambitions of Assad’s patrons in Iran and Russia.

Yet the paper endorsed the US occupation of Syria, writing that “a US military presence, however small, can make a difference.” It also advocated continued US meddling in Syrian affairs, asserting that “American diplomats can help promote stability and democracy in the country while sidelining extremist groups.”

Writing such a thing requires extraordinary cynicism, a goldfish’s memory, or both. The US teamed up with Al Qaeda in an effort to bring down the Assad government (Harper’s, 1/16). Weapons that America and its Saudi allies supplied to groups fighting the Syrian government “fell into” ISIS’ hands, significantly improving the quality of ISIS’ armaments, in quantities “far beyond those that would have been available through battle capture alone” (Al Jazeera, 12/14/17).

‘Cautious about removing sanctions’

“The US should be cautious about removing sanctions,” advised the LA Times (12/13/24).

In the Los Angeles Times (12/13/24), Matthew Levitt said Syria’s “people need and deserve American support now.” His definition of “support” includes the US “maintain[ing] its small but influential US military presence in Syria,” in part to enable America’s junior partners in northeast Syria, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), to “continue maintaining detention camps holding Islamic State fighters.”

The conditions in these camps are abhorrent. An April report from Amnesty International concluded that the SDF and its local partners

—with the support of the US government and other members of the coalition to defeat the Islamic State (IS) armed group—are engaged in the large-scale and systematic violation of the rights of more than 56,000 men, women and children in their custody. Most of these people were detained during the final battles with IS in 2019. They are now held in at least 27 detention facilities and two detention camps and face arbitrary and indefinite detention, enforced disappearance, grossly inhumane conditions, and other serious violations. Many of those detained are victims of IS atrocity crimes or trafficking in persons.

Keeping Syrians in dungeons is a rather odd way to “support” them.

Levitt also wrote that “the US should be cautious about removing sanctions against the Syrian state.” Maintaining sanctions is the opposite of “support[ing]” Syrians. In July, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia reported that the sanctions are negatively “impact[ing] large sectors of the population and the economy, including basic services (education, health, [water, sanitation, and hygiene]) and productive sectors (manufacturing and agriculture), as well as the work of humanitarian organizations.”

The cruelty of the sanctions is such that during the war in Syria, according to World Health Organization (WHO) officials, Western sanctions have “severely restrict[ed] pharmaceutical imports,” undermining pediatric cancer treatment (Reuters, 3/15/17). Yet Levitt thinks the US shouldn’t hurry to lift such measures, even as doing so is a straightforward way to “support” Syrians.

Meanwhile, neither the editorial board of the Post nor that of the Globe includes sanctions removal on its list of ways to “help” Syria.

Furthermore, Levitt points out that, between the Assad government’s last hours and the first days after its overthrow, “the Israeli air force and navy have hit more than 350 strategic targets across the country, destroying an estimated 70% of Syria’s military capabilities.” Whatever Levitt’s definition is for “support,” it apparently includes the US allowing its Israeli surrogate to destroy Syria’s capacity to defend itself from foreign aggression. That won’t help Syria regain the sovereignty it has lost in the 13 years of international proxy war that have taken place on its soil, particularly when the party destroying Syrian military capacity is Israel, which maintains a decades-long regime of illegal occupation, colonization and annexation in Syria’s Golan Heights.

‘Suck Israel into Syria’

Thomas Friedman (New York Times, 12/13/24): “Middle Eastern countries…come in just two varieties: countries that implode and countries that explode.”

Similarly, the New York Times’ Thomas Friedman (12/13/24) argued that the incoming Trump administration should “help with—dare I say it—nation-building in Syria.” He went on to say “it would cost the United States and its allies little money and few troops to try to help” Syria. Friedman subsequently claimed that “without American help and leadership,” Syria could devolve into a “forever war” that would “suck Israel into Syria.”

Prior to Friedman’s article going to print, Israel had carried out 420 airstrikes in Syria in a week, hitting targets in 13 Syrian provinces. Israel had also set up shop on Mount Hermon, which is strategically located on the Syria/Lebanon border, in violation of 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria (BBC, 12/13/24).

Setting aside that Friedman bizarrely cast Israeli involvement in Syria as a hypothetical rather than a long-running reality—Israel bombed Syria hundreds of times in the 13 years of war that led to the Syrian government’s demise—the author’s notion of America “help[ing]” with “nation-building” does not exclude its underwriting Israel’s nation-destroying and nation-stealing in Syria.

In the same vein, the Globe’s editorial board says they want the US to “help free Syria,” but the Israeli violence that the US underwrites appears exempt, since it blandly describes some of what Israel has been doing, but doesn’t say it should stop:

Israel continues to launch bombing raids of Assad’s chemical weapons plants, naval vessels and Russian-made bombers, which the Israeli government says it is doing to prevent those military assets from falling into the wrong hands amid the chaos.

Thus, the authors seem to think the US can “help free Syria” without compelling its Israeli client to ends its relentless assault on the state. Meanwhile, stopping Israel’s bombing and conquest of Syria is not enumerated among the ways that Rogin or the Post’s editors think the US can “help” Syria have a brighter future.

If these commentators genuinely wanted Syria to flourish, they’d insist that the US and its allies finally end their long campaign of intervening in Syria, with quite harmful effects on the country’s population (Electronic Intifada, 3/16/17), and allow the nation to chart its own course.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Gregory Shupak.

Israel is continuing to bomb Syria a week after longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad was ousted from power. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Israeli forces have launched over 800 strikes on Syria over the past week. Meanwhile, the Israeli government has approved a plan to expand illegal settlements in the occupied Golan Heights. “Israel is setting new precedents in the Middle East,” says Al Jazeera senior political analyst Marwan Bishara. “It’s acting so lawlessly against Syria, as a rogue state basically.” Bishara also discusses Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and the Syria strategy of other actors in the region, including neighboring U.S. allies that had previously attempted to normalize relations with Assad and extremist groups that have formed partially in response to U.S. aggression.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

An aid agency is warning that a lack of aid reaching Gaza is forcing Palestinians to search through destroyed buildings for basic necessities, putting them at risk of death or injury from unexploded bombs.

“Civilians in Gaza are caught in a relentless cycle of destruction, displacement, and despair,” said the Danish Refugee Council in a new report.

“Decades of occupation, blockade, and siege have been compounded by the catastrophic use of explosive weapons in one of the world’s most densely populated areas.

• READ MORE: Six Israeli soldiers die by suicide – thousands get mental health treatment, says report
• Other Israel’s war on Gaza reports

“The human cost is staggering with more than 44,000 people killed, 90 percent of the population displaced, and essential infrastructure obliterated.”

The report said that civilians were left grappling with “unimaginable risks” from widespread destruction to the deadly legacy of explosive ordinance (EO) contamination.

“Nearly everyone in Gaza has felt the devastating impact. Homes reduced to rubble, schools and hospitals targeted, and basic services like water and healthcare brought to a standstill,” the report said.

“Families face a grim reality, uprooted an average of six times, often returning to areas that have seen active fighting which are likely riddled with explosive ordnance.

War remnants ‘mistaken for toys’
“Children, tragically, are among the most vulnerable, mistaking deadly remnants of war for toys.”

This report has exposed the far-reaching consequences of the use of explosive weapons in populated areas in Gaza, “revealing a dire reality for a population trapped in danger”.

It underscores the devastating toll of impunity and disregard for international humanitarian law, which continues to result in immense suffering of civilians.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Today is the first anniversary of the October 7 attack on Israel, when Hamas’s military wing broke out of Israeli-constructed barrier fencing in the Gaza Strip. In the ensuing firefight, an estimated 1,200 people died. About 250 people were taken hostage and brought back to Gaza in a bid to pressure Israel to release some of the thousands of Palestinian political prisoners it holds in Israeli custody. While more than half of the hostages were exchanged this way through subsequent deals, Israel’s primary response to the incursion was the launch of a full-scale assault on the already-besieged Gaza Strip. Conservative estimates place the number of Palestinians killed at over 41,000. More recent projections suggest that this number may have reached the hundreds of thousands.

Meanwhile, in Israel, many families of remaining hostages continue to deride Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for refusing to accept a ceasefire deal that would return their family members, contending that Netanyahu is exploiting their loved ones and putting them in danger in order to manufacture a regional war. “Those who believe in war, they are naive, because they have been failing again and again and again,” says Israeli peace activist Maoz Inon, who has been advocating for a ceasefire and an end to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories for the past year. His parents, Bilha and Yakovi, were among those killed on October 7.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

The UNGA resolution follows the ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in July 2024. This ICJ ruling argued that Israel’s continued seizure of the OPT is illegal and that it must be ended immediately. The language of the ICJ is very strong: “The sustained abuse by Israel of its position as an occupying Power, through annexation and an assertion of permanent control over the Occupied Palestinian Territory and continued frustration of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, violates fundamental principles of international law and renders Israel’s presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory unlawful.” There is no ambiguity about this statement, and none in the UNGA resolution that followed.

Rains of Heaven

Going from one village to another in Palestine’s West Bank, I was shown broken water cistern after broken water cistern. Each time the story was the same. Palestinians, starved of water by the illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestine Territory (OPT) and by the Israeli military, try their best to harvest rainwater in cisterns. But each time the Israelis find out about this ancient human practice, the Israeli military shows up and destroys the cisterns. It has become part of the ritual of the Israeli occupation. After the 1967 war, the Israeli government issued Military Order 158 (November 1967) and Military Order 498 (November 1974) which forced Palestinians to seek permits from the Israeli military before they could build any water installation.

During one of these visits, an elderly Palestinian man asked me if I had read either the Torah or the Bible. I told him that I had read bits and pieces of the Bible, but not systematically. He then proceeded to tell me a story from Deuteronomy about the exodus of the Jews from Egypt, where they had been enslaved. Egypt, they are told, was a land of milk and honey, while the land before them—Palestine—is a land that suffers from a lack of water. The Jews would have to rely upon the “rains of heaven” and not the rivers that irrigated Egypt. These rains of heaven, said the elderly Palestinian man, “are denied to us.”

Israelis who live in the illegal settlements in the West Bank consume on average 247 liters of water per person per day, while the Palestinians can access at most 89 liters per person per day (the World Health Organization or WHO minimum amount is 100 liters per person per day). It bears repeating to say that the Israelis live in illegal settlements. This illegality is not made in moral terms but in terms of international law. Several United Nations Security Council resolutions have said that Israel is in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention as it extends its settlements in the West Bank: Resolution 446(March 1979), Resolution 478 (August 1980), and Resolution 2334(December 2016). The 2024 ICJ ruling and the new UNGA resolution underlie the illegality. We did not need more laws to clarify the situation, but it does help that the new statements are unequivocal.

Water in Gaza

A decade ago, the only time I was in Gaza, I was horrified by the lack of basic water supplies. Wadi Gaza, which runs through the Gaza Strip, is the culmination of rivers that stretch into the West Bank (Wadi al-Khalil) and rivers that run into the al-Naqab desert (Wadi Besor). It would be an act of foolishness to drink from Wadi Gaza or from the coastal aquifer, most of which was polluted by insufficient sewage services in Gaza long before this genocidal war. Most people in Gaza, even in 2014, bought water from expensive private tankers. There was no other choice.

If the situation in Gaza was objectionable a decade ago, it is now beyond belief. The average Palestinian in Gaza, who has been forcibly ejected from their homes (most of them bombed), now survives on an average of 4.74 liters of water per person per day (that is 95.53 liters less than the WHO-mandated minimum for a person to survive). Since October 2023, the daily use of water amongst the Palestinians of Gaza has declined by 94 percent. The scale of the destruction of Gaza’s infrastructure is overwhelming (as shown by the UN Satellite Centre). In April 2024, only 6 percent of Rafah’s water and sanitation infrastructure showed signs of damage, but by June, the Israelis had destroyed 67.6 percent of all the infrastructure. It has been clearly demonstrated that the Israelis are targeting the basic elements of life, such as water, to ensure the annihilation of the Palestinians in the OPT.

And so, this is precisely why the UNGA voted overwhelmingly for Israel to exit from the OPT and cease its annexationist policies. The Israeli government responded with defiance, saying that the resolution “tells a one-sided, fictional story” in which there is no violence against Israel. However, what the Israeli government ignores is the occupation, which frames the entire conflict. A people who are occupied have the right to resist their occupation, which makes the violence against Israel important to register but not central to the argument. The ICJ and the UNGA say that Israel’s occupation must end. That point is not addressed by the Israeli government, which pretends that there is no occupation and that they have the right to annex as much land as possible even if this means ethnic cleansing. Cutting access to water, for example, is one of the instruments of that ceaseless, genocidal violence.

This article was produced by Globetrotter.

The post The World Says That Israel’s Unlawful Occupation of Palestine Must End appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Vijay Prashad.

The UN General Assembly has overwhelmingly passed a resolution demanding that the Israeli government end its occupation of Palestinian territories within 12 months — but half of the countries that voted against are from the Pacific.

Affirming a recent International Court of Justice opinion that deemed the decades-long occupation unlawful, the opposition from seven Pacific nations further marginalised the region from world opinion against Israel.

Earlier this week several UN experts and officials warned against Israel becoming a global “pariah” state over its almost year-long genocidal war on Gaza.

• READ MORE: UN General Assembly overwhelmingly calls for end of Israeli occupation
• Israel will become a ‘pariah’ over Gaza ‘genocide’, UN rights experts say
• Other Israeli War on Palestine reports

The final vote tally was 124 member states in favour and 14 against, with 43 nations abstaining.

Pacific countries that voted with Israel and its main ally and arms-supplier United States against the Palestinian resolution are Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Palau, Tonga and Tuvalu.

Kiribati, Samoa and Vanuatu abstained while Solomon islands voted yes. Australia abstained while New Zealand and Timor-Leste also supported the resolution.

Pacific countries have been the target of an Israeli diplomatic, aid and media influence push in recent years.

The Palestine-led resolution, co-sponsored by dozens of nations, calls on Israel to swiftly withdraw “all its military forces” from Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

Palestine is a permanent observer state at the UN and it described the vote as “historic”.

Devastating war
Like the International Court of Justice (ICJ) opinion in July, which found the occupation “unlawful”, the resolution is not legally binding but carries considerable political weight.

The court’s opinion had been sought in a 2022 request from the UN General Assembly.

The UNGA vote comes amid Israel’s devastating war on Gaza, which has killed more than 41,250 Palestinians.

The United Kingdom, which recently suspended some arms export licenses for Israel, abstained from yesterday’s vote, a decision that the advocacy group Global Justice Now (GJN) said shows “complete disregard for the ongoing suffering of Palestinians forced to live under military-enforced racial discrimination”.

However, other US allies such as France voted for the resolution. Australia, Germany, Italy and Switzerland abstained but Ireland, Spain and Norway supported the vote.

“The vast majority of countries have made it clear: Israel’s occupation of Palestine must end, and all countries have a definite duty not to aid or assist its continuation,” said GJN’s Tim Bierley.

“To stay on the right side of international law, the UK’s dealings with Israel must drastically change, including closing all loopholes in its partial arms ban and revoking any trade or investment relations that might assist the occupation.”

NEWS: UN General Assembly adopts resolution demanding that Israel brings to an end its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory without delay and within the next 12 months.https://t.co/Vj0Ve1lLBi pic.twitter.com/2rKKvDNDqd

— United Nations (@UN) September 18, 2024

BDS welcomes vote
The Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement welcomed passage of the resolution, noting that the UN General Assembly had voted “for the first time in 42 years” in favour of “imposing sanctions on Israel”, reports Common Dreams.

The resolution specifically calls on all UN member states to “implement sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, against natural and legal persons engaged in the maintenance of Israel’s unlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territory, including in relation to settler violence.”

The resolution’s passage came nearly two months after the ICJ, or World Court, the UN’s highest legal body, handed down an advisory opinion concluding that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories is illegal and must end “as rapidly as possible.”

The newly approved resolution states that “respect for the International Court of Justice and its functions . . .  is essential to international law and justice and to an international order based on the rule of law.”

The Biden administration, which is heavily arming the Israeli military as it assails Gaza and the West Bank, criticised the ICJ’s opinion as overly broad.

Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said in a statement that “the Biden administration should join the overwhelming majority of nations around the world in condemning these crimes against the Palestinian people, demanding an end to the occupation, and exerting serious pressure on the Israeli government to comply”.

“We welcome this UN resolution demanding an end to one of the worst and ongoing crimes against humanity of the past century,” said Awad.

Turning ‘blind eye’
Ahead of the vote, a group of UN experts said in a statement that many countries “appear unwilling or unable to take the necessary steps to meet their obligations” in the wake of the ICJ’s opinion.

“Devastating attacks on Palestinians across the occupied Palestinian territory show that by continuing to turn a blind eye to the horrific plight of the Palestinian people, the international community is furthering genocidal violence,” the experts said.

“States must act now. They must listen to voices calling on them to take action to stop Israel’s attacks against the Palestinians and end its unlawful occupation.

“All states have a legal obligation to comply with the ICJ’s ruling and must promote adherence to norms that protect civilians.”

Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem in the 1967 war and subsequently annexed the entire holy city in 1980, reports Al Jazeera.

International law prohibits the acquisition of land by force.

Israel has also been building settlements — now home to hundreds of thousands of Israelis — in the West Bank in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which bans the occupying power from transferring “parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies”.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the largest coalition in Palestinian society leading the global BDS movement, has called for immediate pressure on all states to support the updated resolution tabled at the UN General Assembly calling for sanctions on Israel.

The resolution is aimed at enacting the July 2024 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) about the illegality of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory and its violation of the prohibition of apartheid under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD).

A vote is expected tomorrow.

• READ MORE: Katz threatens to ‘break and dissolve’ PA if it pushes UN resolution against Israel
• UN likely to vote on push to end Israel presence in Palestinian territory
• Israel has killed over 11,000 students in Gaza, West Bank: Ministry

This resolution, a diluted version of an earlier draft, falls below the bare minimum of the legal obligations of states to implement the ICJ ruling, undoubtedly a result of intense bullying and intimidation by the colonial West — led by the US and Israel’s partners in the ongoing Gaza genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians.

By relegating ending the Gaza genocide to an afterthought, the resolution ignores its utmost urgency.

Despite such obvious failure, the resolution does call for:

• Ending Israel’s illegal occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, within 12 months;
• Ending states’ complicity in aiding or maintaining this occupation by imposing trade and military sanctions such as “ceasing the importation of any products originating in the Israeli settlements, as well as the provision or transfer of arms, munitions and related equipment” to Israel. In April 2024, the UN Human Rights Council called for an embargo on “the sale, transfer and diversion of arms, munitions and other military equipment to Israel, the occupying Power;”
• Preventing, prohibiting and eradicating Israel’s violations of article 3 of CERD identified in the advisory opinion, regarding apartheid;
• Imposing sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, against individuals and entities engaged in the maintenance of Israel’s unlawful occupation.

Step in right direction
Limited in scope to addressing a mere subset of Palestinian rights, the resolution does not, indeed cannot, legally or morally prejudice the other rights of the Indigenous people of Palestine, particularly the right of our refugees since the 1948 Nakba to return and receive reparations and the right of the Palestinian people, including those who are citizens of apartheid Israel, to liberation from settler-colonialism and apartheid.

Supporting this resolution would therefore be only a step in the right direction. It cannot absolve states of their legal and moral obligations to end all complicity with Israel’s regime of oppression.

Meaningful targeted sanctions by states and inter-state groups (Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, Arab League, African Union etc.) remain absolutely necessary to stop Israel’s genocide and end its occupation and apartheid.

Failing to do so would further shatter international law’s credibility and relevance to the global majority.

Dozens of UN human rights experts have confirmed that the ICJ ruling “has finally reaffirmed a principle that seemed unclear, even to the United Nations: Freedom from foreign military occupation, racial segregation and apartheid is absolutely non-negotiable”.

The ruling in effect affirms that BDS is not just a right but also “an obligation,” and it constitutes a paradigm shift from one centered on “negotiations” between oppressor and oppressed to one centered on accountability, sanctions and enforcement to end the system of oppression and to uphold the inalienable, internationally recognised rights of the Palestinian people.

States must be pressured
To sincerely implement the ICJ ruling on the occupation and fulfil the legal obligations triggered by the court’s earlier finding that Israel is plausibly perpetrating genocide in Gaza, and in line with the demands by UN human rights experts, all states must be pressured to immediately:

• Impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel, including the export, import, shipping and transit of military and dual-use items, military cooperation, and academic and industrial research;
• Impose sanctions on trade, finance, travel, technology and cooperation with Israel;
• “Review all diplomatic, political, and economic ties with Israel, inclusive of business and finance, pension funds, academia and charities,” as stated by UN experts, to ensure an end to all complicity in Israel’s illegal occupation;
• Impose an embargo on oil, coal and other energy exports to Israel;
• Declare support for suspending apartheid Israel’s membership in the UN, as apartheid South Africa was suspended;
• Take immediate actions to ensure that their economic relationship with Israel and the activities of corporations domiciled in their territories do not breach their duty to prevent and to not be complicit in genocide and are not complicit in Israel’s commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity; and
• Reaffirm the right of Palestinian refugees to return, as per UNGA Resolution 194, and fully support UNRWA until this right can be exercised.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the largest coalition in Palestinian society leading the global BDS movement, has called for immediate pressure on all states to support the updated resolution tabled at the UN General Assembly calling for sanctions on Israel.

The resolution is aimed at enacting the July 2024 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) about the illegality of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory and its violation of the prohibition of apartheid under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD).

A vote is expected tomorrow.

• READ MORE: Katz threatens to ‘break and dissolve’ PA if it pushes UN resolution against Israel
• UN likely to vote on push to end Israel presence in Palestinian territory
• Israel has killed over 11,000 students in Gaza, West Bank: Ministry

This resolution, a diluted version of an earlier draft, falls below the bare minimum of the legal obligations of states to implement the ICJ ruling, undoubtedly a result of intense bullying and intimidation by the colonial West — led by the US and Israel’s partners in the ongoing Gaza genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians.

By relegating ending the Gaza genocide to an afterthought, the resolution ignores its utmost urgency.

Despite such obvious failure, the resolution does call for:

• Ending Israel’s illegal occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, within 12 months;
• Ending states’ complicity in aiding or maintaining this occupation by imposing trade and military sanctions such as “ceasing the importation of any products originating in the Israeli settlements, as well as the provision or transfer of arms, munitions and related equipment” to Israel. In April 2024, the UN Human Rights Council called for an embargo on “the sale, transfer and diversion of arms, munitions and other military equipment to Israel, the occupying Power;”
• Preventing, prohibiting and eradicating Israel’s violations of article 3 of CERD identified in the advisory opinion, regarding apartheid;
• Imposing sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, against individuals and entities engaged in the maintenance of Israel’s unlawful occupation.

Step in right direction
Limited in scope to addressing a mere subset of Palestinian rights, the resolution does not, indeed cannot, legally or morally prejudice the other rights of the Indigenous people of Palestine, particularly the right of our refugees since the 1948 Nakba to return and receive reparations and the right of the Palestinian people, including those who are citizens of apartheid Israel, to liberation from settler-colonialism and apartheid.

Supporting this resolution would therefore be only a step in the right direction. It cannot absolve states of their legal and moral obligations to end all complicity with Israel’s regime of oppression.

Meaningful targeted sanctions by states and inter-state groups (Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, Arab League, African Union etc.) remain absolutely necessary to stop Israel’s genocide and end its occupation and apartheid.

Failing to do so would further shatter international law’s credibility and relevance to the global majority.

Dozens of UN human rights experts have confirmed that the ICJ ruling “has finally reaffirmed a principle that seemed unclear, even to the United Nations: Freedom from foreign military occupation, racial segregation and apartheid is absolutely non-negotiable”.

The ruling in effect affirms that BDS is not just a right but also “an obligation,” and it constitutes a paradigm shift from one centered on “negotiations” between oppressor and oppressed to one centered on accountability, sanctions and enforcement to end the system of oppression and to uphold the inalienable, internationally recognised rights of the Palestinian people.

States must be pressured
To sincerely implement the ICJ ruling on the occupation and fulfil the legal obligations triggered by the court’s earlier finding that Israel is plausibly perpetrating genocide in Gaza, and in line with the demands by UN human rights experts, all states must be pressured to immediately:

• Impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel, including the export, import, shipping and transit of military and dual-use items, military cooperation, and academic and industrial research;
• Impose sanctions on trade, finance, travel, technology and cooperation with Israel;
• “Review all diplomatic, political, and economic ties with Israel, inclusive of business and finance, pension funds, academia and charities,” as stated by UN experts, to ensure an end to all complicity in Israel’s illegal occupation;
• Impose an embargo on oil, coal and other energy exports to Israel;
• Declare support for suspending apartheid Israel’s membership in the UN, as apartheid South Africa was suspended;
• Take immediate actions to ensure that their economic relationship with Israel and the activities of corporations domiciled in their territories do not breach their duty to prevent and to not be complicit in genocide and are not complicit in Israel’s commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity; and
• Reaffirm the right of Palestinian refugees to return, as per UNGA Resolution 194, and fully support UNRWA until this right can be exercised.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

On September 5th and 6th, the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Haiti and the Dominican Republic. In Haiti, Blinken met with members of the US- and CARICOM-imposed “presidential council” and the illegitimate Prime Minister of Haiti to discuss support for the Kenyan and U.S. occupation forces currently present in the country.

On September 5, 2024, a group of Haitian and Dominican organizations released a statement denouncing Blinken’s visit to the island (English translation here). The statement titled, “Repudiation of the Presence of the Representative of Yankee Imperialism in Haiti and the Dominican Republic,” declared:

“This interventionist visit will bring no good to the Haitian people, nor to the Dominican people. Rather, it will seek to consolidate the neocolonial domination imposed on Haiti since the first U.S. military occupation (1915-1934) and on the Dominican Republic (1916-1924). In fact, Blinken’s only mission is to protect the interests of imperialism in Haiti and those of Haiti’s small, repugnant elite class. He will do the same in the Dominican Republic.”

Soon after Blinken’s departure from the island, Western media revealed the true U.S. objective of his visit: transforming the illegal, unpopular, and inept U.S.-led Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission of 400 Kenyan police officers into a full-scale UN occupation (cynically referred to as a “peacekeeping operation.”). This was further confirmed by reports that the UN Security Council is considering a resolution to deploy a military force to Haiti.

BAP’s position has been consistent and unwavering: we support Haitian self-determination. We will continue to struggle against foreign invasion and occupation of the country. Since 2021, we have advocated against U.S. imperial machinations in Haiti, including the continuing renewal of the mandate of the UN office in Haiti (BINUH), which Haitian people see as an occupation force, and the establishment of the MSS. BAP challenged the narrative of “gang violence” as a pretext for occupation and argued that it is the U.S.’s own puppets and Haitian oligarchs that are arming young men in Haiti. We warned that the MSS was a temporary cover for a more permanent military occupation of Haiti through proxies, and with the blessing of the UN. And we continue to remind people of the brutal repercussions of the two decades-long 2004 UN intervention and occupation of Haiti.

In solidarity with Haitian and Dominican organizations opposing U.S. imperialism, and in defense of Haitian self-determination and sovereignty, the Haiti/Americas Team of the Black Alliance for Peace demands an end to the current occupation of Haiti, calling for the closure of the BINUH office in Haiti, and the removal of Kenyan and U.S. militarized police from the country. We also demand that the UNSC cease its interference in Haitian affairs on behalf of the U.S.

We urge people of conscience around the world to help stop another UN invasion of Haiti and, we also warn leaders of the Caribbean and Latin America – who have either remained silent or are actively participating in the U.S. usurpation of Haitian sovereignty  – that if Haiti is not free from U.S. bullying and imperial control, no other country in the region will be free.

DEFEND HAITIAN SOVEREIGNTY!

U.S. OUT OF HAITI AND THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC!

END THE U.S./EU/NATO AXIS OF DOMINATION!

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Black Alliance for Peace.

By David Whyte and Samira Homerang Saunders

Many in the international community are finally coming to accept that the earth’s ecosystem can no longer bear the weight of military occupation.

Most have reached this inevitable conclusion, clearly articulated in the environmental movement’s latest slogan “No Climate Justice on Occupied Land”, in light of the horrors we have witnessed in Gaza since October 7.

While the correlation between military occupation and climate sustainability may be a recent discovery for those living their lives in relative peace and security, people living under occupation, and thus constant threat of military violence, have always known any guided missile strike or aerial bombardment campaign by an occupying military is not only an attack on those being targeted but also their land’s ability to sustain life.

• READ MORE: Other Gaza reports
• Other West Papua reports

A recent hearing on “State and Environmental Violence in West Papua” under the jurisdiction of the Rome-based Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT), for example, heard that Indonesia’s military occupation, spanning more than seven decades, has facilitated a “slow genocide” of the Papuan people through not only political repression and violence, but also the gradual decimation of the forest area — one of the largest and most biodiverse on the planet — that sustains them.

West Papua hosts one of the largest copper and gold mines in the world, is the site of a major BP liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility, and is the fastest-expanding area of palm oil and biofuel plantation in Indonesia.

All of these industries leave ecological dead zones in their wake, and every single one of them is secured by military occupation.

At the PPT hearing, prominent Papuan lawyer Yan Christian Warinussy spoke of the connection between human suffering in West Papua and the exploitation of the region’s natural resources.

Shot and wounded
Just one week later, he was shot and wounded by an unknown assailant. The PPT Secretariat noted that the attack came after the lawyer depicted “the past and current violence committed against the defenceless civil population and the environment in the region”.

What happened to Warinussy reinforced yet again the indivisibility of military occupation and environmental violence.

I’m stand in solidarity with West Papuans rising up against colonialism, racism, state violence, sexual violence, and environmental destruction.

West Papua’s “special autonomy” is another euphemism for control and exploitation pic.twitter.com/cvP7fp2Ml0

— K.Diallo ☭ (@nyeusi_waasi) May 19, 2021

In total, militaries around the world account for almost 5.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions annually — more than the aviation and shipping industries combined.

Our colleagues at Queen Mary University of London recently concluded that emissions from the first 120 days of this latest round of slaughter in Gaza alone were greater than the annual emissions of 26 individual countries; emissions from rebuilding Gaza will be higher than the annual emissions of more than 135 countries, equating them to those of Sweden and Portugal.

But even these shocking statistics fail to shed sufficient light on the deep connection between military violence and environmental violence. War and occupation’s impact on the climate is not merely a side effect or unfortunate consequence.

We must not reduce our analysis of what is going on in Gaza, for example, to a dualism of consequences: the killing of people on one side and the effect on “the environment” on the other.

Inseparable from impact on nature
In reality, the impact on the people is inseparable from the impact on nature. The genocide in Gaza is also an ecocide — as is almost always the case with military campaigns.

In the Vietnam War, the use of toxic chemicals, including Agent Orange, was part of a deliberate strategy to eliminate any capacity for agricultural production, and thus force the people off their land and into “strategic hamlets”.

Forests, used by the Vietcong as cover, were also cut by the US military to reduce the population’s capacity for resistance. The anti-war activist and international lawyer Richard Falk coined the phrase “ecocide” to describe this.

In different ways, this is what all military operations do: they tactically reduce or completely eliminate the capacity of the “enemy” population to live sustainably and to retain autonomy over its own water and food supplies.

Since 2014, the bulldozing of Palestinian homes and other essential infrastructure by the Israeli occupation forces has been complemented by chemical warfare, with herbicides aerially sprayed by the Israeli military destroying entire swaths of arable land in Gaza.

In other words, Gaza has been subjected to an “ecocide” strategy almost identical to the one used in Vietnam since long before October 7.

The occupying military force has been working to reduce, and eventually completely eliminate, the Palestinian population’s capacity to live sustainably in Gaza for many years. Since October 7, it has been waging a war to make Gaza completely unliveable.

50% of Gaza farms wiped out
As researchers at Forensic Architecture have concluded, at least 50 percent of farmland and orchards in Gaza are now completely wiped out. Many ancient olive groves have also been destroyed. Fields of crops have been uprooted using tanks, tractors and other vehicles.

Widespread aerial bombardment reduced the Gaza Strip’s greenhouse production facilities to rubble. All this was done not by mistake, but in a deliberate effort to leave the land unable to sustain life.

The wholesale destruction of the water supply and sanitation facilities and the ongoing threat of starvation across the Gaza Strip are also not unwanted consequences, but deliberate tactics of war. The Israeli military has weaponised food and water access in its unrelenting assault on the population of Gaza.

Of course, none of this is new to Palestinians there, or indeed in the West Bank. Israel has been using these same tactics to sustain its occupation, pressure Palestinians into leaving their lands, and expand its illegal settlement enterprise for many years.

Since October 7, it has merely intensified its efforts. It is now working with unprecedented urgency to eradicate the little capacity the occupied Palestinian territory has left in it to sustain Palestinian life.

Just as is the case with the occupation of Papua, environmental destruction is not an unintended side effect but a primary objective of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. The immediate damage military occupation inflicts on the affected population is never separate from the long-term damage it inflicts on the planet.

For this reason, it would be a mistake to try and separate the genocide from the ecocide in Gaza, or anywhere else for that matter.

Anyone interested in putting an end to human suffering now, and preventing climate catastrophe in the future, should oppose all wars of occupation, and all forms of militarism that help fuel them.

David Whyte is professor of climate justice at Queen Mary University of London and director of the Centre for Climate Crime and Climate Justice. Samira Homerang Saunders is research officer at the Centre for Climate Crime and Climate Justice, Queen Mary University.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Former New Zealand attorney-general David Parker spoke on day 295 of Israel’ genocidal war on Gaza in Auckland today, condemning the National-led government’s inaction over the ongoing crisis.

Responding to the recent International Court of Justice’s landmark advisory ruling that Israel’s occupation of Gaza, West Bank and East Jerusalem — Occupied Palestine — was illegal and must end as soon as possible, Parker said he was disappointed in New Zealand’s “equivocal” response.

He also called on the government to recognise the state of Palestine, along with some 145 countries around the world that have already done so.

• READ MORE: Israel’s war on Gaza live — at least 66 killed across Gaza in past 24 hours
• Anzac massacre: The story of Surafend
• Other Israel’s war on Gaza reports

Parker described the enthusiastic response to Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the US Congress this week — at a time when the International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor is seeking an arrest warrant accusing him of war crimes — “shameful”.

“I was appalled at the reception that Netanyahu was given in America . . .”

Cries of “shame” from the crowd greeted his words.

“. . . I agree that was shameful.

Applauding of Netanyahu ‘appalling’
“It was appalling that he was lauded the way that he was by the American parliament.

“It is a shame that the New Zealand government does not recognise Palestine.

“The Labour Party has called for the recognition of Palestine.”

The ICJ advisory judgment also ruled that Israel was an apartheid state.

This case was separate from the genocide one brought by South Africa against Israel in January which is still before the court.

A large banner at the rally illustrated the massive global support for Palestine statehood, with a map showing the main countries that have not supported recognition to be the white English-speaking settler colonial nations such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom and United States.

Among the speakers were two Palestinian teenagers, Lujain Al-Badry, who spoke of the litany of the latest Israeli massacres in Gaza — but she also highlighted the “forgotten” atrocities by illegal settlers and the military in the West Bank — and the other a poet who spoke passionately of the constant evictions of Palestinians from their own homes and land.

More than 700 Israelis have illegally settled on Palestinian land since the territory was occupied during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war in defiance of repeated UN resolutions declaring the settlements unlawful.

Irish activist and trade unionist Joe Carolan, just back from a visit to Ireland, spoke of the political drift to the right in France and other European Union countries and reminded the crowd that support for the Palestinian cause and against colonialism was “liberation for all”.

The crowd marched around the block to protest outside the US consulate in Auckland, calling on Washington to end its support and funding for the Israeli genocide.

At least 39,324 Palestinians have been killed and 90,830 others wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza since October 7, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

The Surafend massacre
Meanwhile, an RNZ podcast released at the weekend has revealed new insights into what has been described as the worst New Zealand military atrocity — the Surafend massacre during the First World War in Palestine in 1918.

According to the new season RNZ’s Black Sheep podcast, New Zealand and Australian soldiers “murdered upwards of 40 Arab civilians in a Palestinian village” in December 2018.

“But,” continued the podcast report, “more than 100 years later, we still don’t know exactly who did it, or why.

“We investigate what one military historian describes as ‘by far the worst war crime ever committed by New Zealand military personnel’ — The Surafend massacre — and other allegations of war crimes against Anzacs in the Middle East and North Africa.”

Dr David Robie is editor and publisher of Asia Pacific Report.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

According to Landmine Monitor 2023, Ukraine recorded 608 landmine casualties in 2022, more than any country in the world bar Syria. Data gathered by humanitarian mine clearance organizations working in Ukraine shows most casualties come from anti-personnel mines, which are inherently indiscriminate weapons, and as such prohibited by international humanitarian law.

“Mines are scattered across the territory of Ukraine previously and currently occupied by Russian troops. They are a daily, deadly threat to civilians. Some have been deliberately placed in civilian homes where they maim and kill,” said Patrick Thompson, Ukraine Researcher at Amnesty International.

“There must be an effective investigation into all such incidents as possible war crimes. In every region in Ukraine that was formerly occupied by Russia, we have seen evidence of civilians killed and injured by anti-personnel mines left behind by Russian forces.”

Anti-personnel mines have been used regularly in Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, and to a lesser extent since 2014. There was a noticeable spike in civilian casualties following the Russian retreat from Mykolaiv, Kherson and Kharkiv oblasts in late 2022, as civilians returned to their houses, homesteads and farms.

In March 2022, Russian forces evicted Oleksandr* (not his real name) and his mother from their flat in Snihurivka, in the region of Mykolaiv. A Russian military unit took over the entire apartment block until it was forced to withdraw following fierce fighting around Snihurivka in November 2022.

After the Russian retreat, Oleksandr returned to the apartment block to assess how badly it had been damaged. Upon entering the basement, he stepped on a disguised PFM-1 anti-personnel mine that had been placed under wooden planks. The mine exploded, Oleksandr fell, and landed on other disguised mines that had apparently, had been deliberately placed to injure or kill anyone entering the building. He lost both his left leg and arm in the incident.

Despite the horrific episode, his story is not unique. Amnesty International researchers documented other incidents of Russian forces laying anti-personnel mines in residential areas in Kherson and Kharkiv oblasts.

“The deminers working to clear Ukraine of this threat are carrying out painstaking, dangerous work every day. While the scale of the problem is undeniably huge, the biggest obstacle to clearing Ukraine of landmines is Russia’s ongoing aggression,” Patrick Thompson said.

“The international community must commit to sustained financial and technical assistance to help Ukraine get rid of a danger that continues to wreck lives and livelihoods.”

Ukraine has itself pledged to investigate its own forces’ use of anti-personnel mines.

Anti-personnel mines deployed today will continue to impact civilians long into the future.

“Countries must uphold the ban on the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of anti-personnel mines worldwide. There must be an end to the use of such indiscriminate weapons,” Patrick Thompson said.

BACKGROUND

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Don’t be fooled. The ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on 19 July that Israel’s occupation of Palestine is unlawful is earth-shattering. Israel is a rogue state, according to the world’s highest court.

For that reason, the judgment will be studiously ignored by the cabal of western states and their medias that for decades have so successfully run cover for Israel.

Doubters need only watch the reception Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu receives during his visit to the United States this week.

Even though he is currently being pursued for war crimes by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, the US Congress will give him a hero’s welcome when he addresses its representatives on Wednesday.

The warm handshakes and standing ovations will be a reminder that Netanyahu has had the full backing of western powers throughout the nine-month slaughter of at least 16,000 Palestinian children in Gaza – with another 21,000 missing, most of them under rubble.

The welcome will be a reminder that western capitals are fully on board with Israel’s levelling of Gaza and the starvation of its population – in what the same court concluded way back in January amounted to a “plausible genocide”.

And it will serve as a heavy slap in the face to those like the World Court committed to international law – reminding them that the West and its most favoured client state believe they are untouchable.

Western politicians and columnists will keep emphasising that the World Court is offering nothing more than an “advisory opinion” and one that is “non-binding”.

What they won’t point out is that this opinion is the collective view of the world’s most eminent judges on international law, the people best positioned to rule on the occupation’s legality.

And it is non-binding only because the western powers who control our international bodies plan to do nothing to implement a decision that doesn’t suit them.

Nonetheless, the ruling will have dramatic consequences for Israel, and its western patrons, even if those consequences will take months, years or even decades to play out.

‘Top secret’ warning

Last week’s judgment is separate from the case accepted in January by the ICJ that put Israel on trial for genocide in Gaza. A decision on that matter may still be many months away.

This ruling was in response to a request from the United Nations General Assembly in December 2022 for advice on the legality of Israel’s 57-year occupation.

That may sound more mundane a deliberation than the one on genocide, but the implications ultimately are likely to be every bit as profound.

Those not familiar with international law may underestimate the importance of the World Court’s ruling if only because they had already assumed the occupation was illegal.

But that is not how international law works. A belligerent occupation is permitted so long as it satisfies two conditions.

First, it must be strictly military, designed to protect the security of the occupying state and safeguard the rights of the occupied people.

And second, it must be a temporary measure – while negotiations are conducted to restore civilian rule and allow the occupied people self-determination.

Astonishingly, it has taken 57 years for the world’s highest court to deliver a conclusion that should have been staring it – and everyone else – in the face all that time.

The military nature of the occupation was subverted almost from the moment Israel occupied the Palestinian territories in June 1967.

Within months, Israel had chosen to transfer Jewish civilians – mostly extreme religious nationalists – into the occupied Palestinian territories to help colonise them.

Israel knew that this was a gross violation of international law because its own legal adviser warned it of as much in a “top secret” memo unearthed by the Israeli journalist Gershom Gorenberg some two decades ago.

In a declaration enlarging on the ICJ’s reasoning, Court President Nawaf Salam specifically referenced the warnings of Theodor Meron, who was the Israeli foreign ministry’s legal expert at the time.

In September 1967, his memo cautioned that any decision to establish civilian settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories “contravenes explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention”. Those provisions, he added, were “aimed at preventing colonization”.

Nine days later, the Israeli government rode roughshod over Meron’s memo and assisted a group of young Israelis in setting up the first settlement at Kfar Etzion.

Sham peace-making

Today, hundreds of illegal settlements – many of them home to what amount to armed militias – control more than half of the West Bank and much of East Jerusalem.

Rather than protecting the rights of Palestinians under occupation, as international law demands, the Israeli military assists Jewish settlers in terrorising the Palestinians. The aim is to drive them off their land.

In the words of the Israeli government, the settlements are there to “Judaise” Palestinian territory. In the words of everyone else, they are there to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian population.

Which brings us to Israel’s second violation of the laws of occupation. In transferring hundreds of thousands of settlers into the occupied territories, Israel intentionally blocked any chance of a Palestinian state emerging.

The settlements weren’t makeshift encampments. Some soon developed into small cities, such as Ariel and Maale Adumim, with shopping malls, parks, public pools, synagogues, factories, libraries, schools and colleges.

There was nothing “temporary” about them. They were there to incrementally annex Palestinian territory under cover of an occupation that Washington and its European allies conspired to pretend was temporary.

The whole Oslo process initiated in the early 1990s was a switch-and-bait exercise, or a “Palestinian Versailles”, as the Palestinian scholar Edward Said warned at the time.

Israel was never serious about allowing the Palestinians meaningful statehood – a fact the then-Israeli prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, admitted shortly before he was killed by a far-right settler in 1995.

Oslo’s sham peace-making was designed to buy more time for Israel to expand the settlements – while also binding the Palestinians into endless contractual obligations that were never reciprocated by Israel.

In his incensed response to the court’s decision last week, Netanyahu gave the game away. He said: “The Jewish people are not occupiers in their own land, including in our eternal capital Jerusalem nor in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank], our historical homeland.”

His is a bipartisan view in Israel. All the Jewish parties in the Israeli parliament take the same position.

Last week they voted to reject any possibility of creating a Palestinian state on the grounds it would be an “existential threat” to Israel. Only a handful of legislators – all belonging to Israel’s Palestinian minority – dissented.

Apartheid rule

The World Court’s ruling is most significant in that it permanently blows apart western states’ cover story about Israel.

The judges point out that Israel’s permanent occupation of the territories, and its transfer of Jewish settlers into them, has necessitated the development of two separate and distinct systems of laws.

One is for the Jewish settlers, enshrining for them the rights enjoyed by Israelis. Palestinians, by contrast, must submit to the whims of an alien and belligerent military regime.

There is a word for such an arrangement: apartheid.

Over the past decade, a consensus had already emerged in the world’s human rights community – from Amnesty International to Human Rights Watch – that Israel was an apartheid state.

Now the world’s highest judicial body has declared that it agrees.

Apartheid is a crime against humanity. This means that Israeli officials are war criminals, quite aside from the crimes they are currently committing in Gaza.

That was why the Israeli media reported panic inside the Israeli government at the ICJ ruling.

Officials fear that it will leave the International Criminal Court, its sister court, with no option but to issue arrest warrants against Netanyahu and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, as already requested by its chief prosecutor.

It is also likely to strengthen the ICC’s resolve to prosecute more senior Israeli officials for crimes associated with Israel’s settlement programme.

A former Israeli foreign ministry official told the Haaretz newspaper that the World Court ruling had punctured Israel’s claim to be a western-style state: “The democratic aura is no longer protecting us as it did before.”

Acts of aggression

The ICJ has concluded that Israel’s apartheid rule over Palestinians – as well as the ethnic cleansing policies implemented by its settler militias – are acts of aggression.

The West’s depiction of a “conflict” between Israel and the Palestinians, with efforts to resolve this “dispute”, is wilfully muddled. Its depiction of Israel’s rampage in Gaza as a “war against Hamas” is a lie too, according to this ruling.

The ICJ has effectively ridiculed the claim by Israel and its western allies that the occupation of Gaza ended when Israel pulled its soldiers to the perimeter fence and soon afterwards instituted a siege on the enclave by land, sea and air.

Israel is judged to be fully responsible for the suffering of Palestinians before 7 October as well as after.

It is Israel that has been permanently attacking the Palestinians – through its illegal occupation, its apartheid rule, its siege of Gaza, and its incremental annexation of territory that should comprise a Palestinian state.

Palestinian violence is a response, not the inciting cause. It is the Palestinians who are the ones retaliating, the ones resisting, according to the judgment. The western political and media establishments have cause and effect back to front.

There are further consequences to the ICJ’s ruling. You don’t compromise on apartheid. No one suggested meeting apartheid South Africa halfway.

The racist foundations of such a state must be eradicated. Apartheid states must be reconstituted from scratch.

The World Court demands that Israel not only pull its occupation forces out of the Palestinian territories and halt its settlement expansion but also dismantle the settlements in their entirety. The settlers must leave Palestine.

The judges call too for “reparations” for the Palestinians for the enormous harm done to them by decades of occupation and apartheid.

That includes allowing those Palestinians who have been ethnically cleansed since 1967 a right to return to their lands, and it requires Israel to pay large-scale financial compensation for the decades-long theft of key resources.

Complicit in war crimes

But the implications don’t just apply to Israel.

In referring the case to the ICJ, the UN General Assembly requested the court advise on how its 192 member states should respond to its findings.

If Israeli leaders are war criminals, then supporting them – as western capitals have been doing for decades – makes those states complicit in Israel’s crimes against humanity.

For western powers, the ruling makes their continuing arms sales, diplomatic cover and the preferential trade status they give Israel collusion in the crime of prolonged occupation and apartheid.

But there’s more. It also means that western states must not only stop harassing, and even jailing, those who seek to penalise Israel for its crimes – supporters of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement – but should take up that very cause as their own.

They are now under an implied legal obligation to join in such actions by imposing sanctions on Israel for being a rogue state.

Already, Britain’s weaselly new Labour government has tried to shift attention away from the ruling and onto discursive terrain that better suits Israel.

It responded with a statement that “the UK is strongly opposed to the expansion of illegal settlements and rising settler violence”.

But as former British ambassador Craig Murray noted, that was not what the ICJ decided. “It is not the expansion of Israel’s illegal settlements that is at issue. It is their existence,” he wrote.

Similarly, the Biden administration bemoaned the court’s ruling. In an act of spectacular mental gymnastics, it argued that ending the occupation would “complicate efforts to resolve the conflict”.

But as noted previously, according to the ICJ’s judgment, there is no “conflict” except in the self-serving imaginations of Israel and its patrons. There are occupation and apartheid – permanent acts of aggression by Israel towards the Palestinian people.

Further, the US warned other states not to take “unilateral actions” against Israel, as the ICJ ruling obliges them to do. Washington claims such actions will “deepen divisions”. But a division – between the upholders of international law and lawbreakers such as Israel and Washington – is precisely what is needed.

The World Court’s ruling upends decades of linguistic slippage by the West whose goal has been to move the ideological dial in favour of Israel’s incremental annexationist agenda.

It is vitally important that activists, legal and human rights groups keep holding the feet of the British and US governments to the ICJ’s fire.

The fog clears

Israel’s supporters will take comfort from the fact that an earlier judgment from the World Court on Israel was roundly ignored by both Israel and its western patrons.

Asked for an advisory opinion, the judges ruled in 2004 that, under cover of security claims, Israel was illegally annexing swaths of territory by building its 800km-long “separation wall” on Palestinian land.

Israel did not dismantle the wall, though in response it did re-route parts of it and abandoned construction in other areas.

But that two-decade-old ICJ ruling was much narrower than the present one. It was restricted to a specific Israeli policy rather than address the entirety of Israel’s rule over Palestinians. It did not impugn Israel’s political character, identifying it as an apartheid state. And there were few obvious implications in the ruling for Israel’s western patrons.

And perhaps most importantly, Israeli officials were in no danger 20 years ago of being put in the dock by the International Criminal Court charged with war crimes, as they are now.

The World Court decision tightens the legal noose around Israel’s neck, and makes it hard for the ICC to continue dragging its feet on issuing arrest warrants for Israeli officials.

And that will put multinational corporations, banks and pension funds in an ever harder legal position if they continue to ignore their own complicity with Israel’s criminality.

They may quickly find themselves paying a price with their customers too.

Adidas could be one of the first victims of just such a backlash after it caved into Israeli pressure on 19 July to drop the Palestinian-American model Bella Hadid as the face of a new ad campaign – paradoxically, on the same day the World Court announced its ruling.

There will also be ramifications for domestic courts in the West. It will be hard for judges to ignore the World Court’s opinion when their governments seek to punish Palestinian solidarity activists.

Those promoting boycotts and sanctions on Israel, or trying to stop companies supplying Israel with weapons, are doing what, according to the World Court, western governments should be doing of their own accord.

But, maybe most importantly of all, the ruling will decisively disrupt the West’s intentionally deceitful discourse about Israel.

This ruling strips away the entire basis of the language western powers have been using about Israel. A reality that’s been turned upside down for decades by the West has been put firmly back on its feet by the World Court.

The occupation – not just the settlements – is illegal.

Israel is legally defined as an apartheid state, as South Africa was before it, and one engaged in a project of annexation and ethnic cleansing.

The Palestinians are the victims, not Israel. It’s their security that needs protecting, not Israel’s. They are the ones who are owed financial assistance, in the form of reparations, not Israel.

As a result, the West’s pretend peace-making stands starkly revealed for the sham it always was. Continuing with this kind of duplicity – as British leader Keir Starmer, for example, appears determined to do – will serve only to highlight the bad faith of those engaged in such exercises.

On the flip side, western powers that help Israel continue its work of segregating, dispossessing and ethnic cleansing the Palestinians will be exposed as complicit in Israel’s crimes against humanity.

Words have power. They are our route to understanding reality. And the World Court has just cleared away the fog. It has wiped clean the mist on the window.

The West will do its level best once again to shroud Israel’s crimes. But the World Court has done the Palestinians and the rest of mankind a service in unmasking Israel for what it is: a rogue, criminal state.

• First published in Middle East Eye

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Jonathan Cook.

Don’t be fooled. The ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on 19 July that Israel’s occupation of Palestine is unlawful is earth-shattering. Israel is a rogue state, according to the world’s highest court.

For that reason, the judgment will be studiously ignored by the cabal of western states and their medias that for decades have so successfully run cover for Israel.

Doubters need only watch the reception Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu receives during his visit to the United States this week.

Even though he is currently being pursued for war crimes by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, the US Congress will give him a hero’s welcome when he addresses its representatives on Wednesday.

The warm handshakes and standing ovations will be a reminder that Netanyahu has had the full backing of western powers throughout the nine-month slaughter of at least 16,000 Palestinian children in Gaza – with another 21,000 missing, most of them under rubble.

The welcome will be a reminder that western capitals are fully on board with Israel’s levelling of Gaza and the starvation of its population – in what the same court concluded way back in January amounted to a “plausible genocide”.

And it will serve as a heavy slap in the face to those like the World Court committed to international law – reminding them that the West and its most favoured client state believe they are untouchable.

Western politicians and columnists will keep emphasising that the World Court is offering nothing more than an “advisory opinion” and one that is “non-binding”.

What they won’t point out is that this opinion is the collective view of the world’s most eminent judges on international law, the people best positioned to rule on the occupation’s legality.

And it is non-binding only because the western powers who control our international bodies plan to do nothing to implement a decision that doesn’t suit them.

Nonetheless, the ruling will have dramatic consequences for Israel, and its western patrons, even if those consequences will take months, years or even decades to play out.

‘Top secret’ warning

Last week’s judgment is separate from the case accepted in January by the ICJ that put Israel on trial for genocide in Gaza. A decision on that matter may still be many months away.

This ruling was in response to a request from the United Nations General Assembly in December 2022 for advice on the legality of Israel’s 57-year occupation.

That may sound more mundane a deliberation than the one on genocide, but the implications ultimately are likely to be every bit as profound.

Those not familiar with international law may underestimate the importance of the World Court’s ruling if only because they had already assumed the occupation was illegal.

But that is not how international law works. A belligerent occupation is permitted so long as it satisfies two conditions.

First, it must be strictly military, designed to protect the security of the occupying state and safeguard the rights of the occupied people.

And second, it must be a temporary measure – while negotiations are conducted to restore civilian rule and allow the occupied people self-determination.

Astonishingly, it has taken 57 years for the world’s highest court to deliver a conclusion that should have been staring it – and everyone else – in the face all that time.

The military nature of the occupation was subverted almost from the moment Israel occupied the Palestinian territories in June 1967.

Within months, Israel had chosen to transfer Jewish civilians – mostly extreme religious nationalists – into the occupied Palestinian territories to help colonise them.

Israel knew that this was a gross violation of international law because its own legal adviser warned it of as much in a “top secret” memo unearthed by the Israeli journalist Gershom Gorenberg some two decades ago.

In a declaration enlarging on the ICJ’s reasoning, Court President Nawaf Salam specifically referenced the warnings of Theodor Meron, who was the Israeli foreign ministry’s legal expert at the time.

In September 1967, his memo cautioned that any decision to establish civilian settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories “contravenes explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention”. Those provisions, he added, were “aimed at preventing colonization”.

Nine days later, the Israeli government rode roughshod over Meron’s memo and assisted a group of young Israelis in setting up the first settlement at Kfar Etzion.

Sham peace-making

Today, hundreds of illegal settlements – many of them home to what amount to armed militias – control more than half of the West Bank and much of East Jerusalem.

Rather than protecting the rights of Palestinians under occupation, as international law demands, the Israeli military assists Jewish settlers in terrorising the Palestinians. The aim is to drive them off their land.

In the words of the Israeli government, the settlements are there to “Judaise” Palestinian territory. In the words of everyone else, they are there to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian population.

Which brings us to Israel’s second violation of the laws of occupation. In transferring hundreds of thousands of settlers into the occupied territories, Israel intentionally blocked any chance of a Palestinian state emerging.

The settlements weren’t makeshift encampments. Some soon developed into small cities, such as Ariel and Maale Adumim, with shopping malls, parks, public pools, synagogues, factories, libraries, schools and colleges.

There was nothing “temporary” about them. They were there to incrementally annex Palestinian territory under cover of an occupation that Washington and its European allies conspired to pretend was temporary.

The whole Oslo process initiated in the early 1990s was a switch-and-bait exercise, or a “Palestinian Versailles”, as the Palestinian scholar Edward Said warned at the time.

Israel was never serious about allowing the Palestinians meaningful statehood – a fact the then-Israeli prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, admitted shortly before he was killed by a far-right settler in 1995.

Oslo’s sham peace-making was designed to buy more time for Israel to expand the settlements – while also binding the Palestinians into endless contractual obligations that were never reciprocated by Israel.

In his incensed response to the court’s decision last week, Netanyahu gave the game away. He said: “The Jewish people are not occupiers in their own land, including in our eternal capital Jerusalem nor in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank], our historical homeland.”

His is a bipartisan view in Israel. All the Jewish parties in the Israeli parliament take the same position.

Last week they voted to reject any possibility of creating a Palestinian state on the grounds it would be an “existential threat” to Israel. Only a handful of legislators – all belonging to Israel’s Palestinian minority – dissented.

Apartheid rule

The World Court’s ruling is most significant in that it permanently blows apart western states’ cover story about Israel.

The judges point out that Israel’s permanent occupation of the territories, and its transfer of Jewish settlers into them, has necessitated the development of two separate and distinct systems of laws.

One is for the Jewish settlers, enshrining for them the rights enjoyed by Israelis. Palestinians, by contrast, must submit to the whims of an alien and belligerent military regime.

There is a word for such an arrangement: apartheid.

Over the past decade, a consensus had already emerged in the world’s human rights community – from Amnesty International to Human Rights Watch – that Israel was an apartheid state.

Now the world’s highest judicial body has declared that it agrees.

Apartheid is a crime against humanity. This means that Israeli officials are war criminals, quite aside from the crimes they are currently committing in Gaza.

That was why the Israeli media reported panic inside the Israeli government at the ICJ ruling.

Officials fear that it will leave the International Criminal Court, its sister court, with no option but to issue arrest warrants against Netanyahu and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, as already requested by its chief prosecutor.

It is also likely to strengthen the ICC’s resolve to prosecute more senior Israeli officials for crimes associated with Israel’s settlement programme.

A former Israeli foreign ministry official told the Haaretz newspaper that the World Court ruling had punctured Israel’s claim to be a western-style state: “The democratic aura is no longer protecting us as it did before.”

Acts of aggression

The ICJ has concluded that Israel’s apartheid rule over Palestinians – as well as the ethnic cleansing policies implemented by its settler militias – are acts of aggression.

The West’s depiction of a “conflict” between Israel and the Palestinians, with efforts to resolve this “dispute”, is wilfully muddled. Its depiction of Israel’s rampage in Gaza as a “war against Hamas” is a lie too, according to this ruling.

The ICJ has effectively ridiculed the claim by Israel and its western allies that the occupation of Gaza ended when Israel pulled its soldiers to the perimeter fence and soon afterwards instituted a siege on the enclave by land, sea and air.

Israel is judged to be fully responsible for the suffering of Palestinians before 7 October as well as after.

It is Israel that has been permanently attacking the Palestinians – through its illegal occupation, its apartheid rule, its siege of Gaza, and its incremental annexation of territory that should comprise a Palestinian state.

Palestinian violence is a response, not the inciting cause. It is the Palestinians who are the ones retaliating, the ones resisting, according to the judgment. The western political and media establishments have cause and effect back to front.

There are further consequences to the ICJ’s ruling. You don’t compromise on apartheid. No one suggested meeting apartheid South Africa halfway.

The racist foundations of such a state must be eradicated. Apartheid states must be reconstituted from scratch.

The World Court demands that Israel not only pull its occupation forces out of the Palestinian territories and halt its settlement expansion but also dismantle the settlements in their entirety. The settlers must leave Palestine.

The judges call too for “reparations” for the Palestinians for the enormous harm done to them by decades of occupation and apartheid.

That includes allowing those Palestinians who have been ethnically cleansed since 1967 a right to return to their lands, and it requires Israel to pay large-scale financial compensation for the decades-long theft of key resources.

Complicit in war crimes

But the implications don’t just apply to Israel.

In referring the case to the ICJ, the UN General Assembly requested the court advise on how its 192 member states should respond to its findings.

If Israeli leaders are war criminals, then supporting them – as western capitals have been doing for decades – makes those states complicit in Israel’s crimes against humanity.

For western powers, the ruling makes their continuing arms sales, diplomatic cover and the preferential trade status they give Israel collusion in the crime of prolonged occupation and apartheid.

But there’s more. It also means that western states must not only stop harassing, and even jailing, those who seek to penalise Israel for its crimes – supporters of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement – but should take up that very cause as their own.

They are now under an implied legal obligation to join in such actions by imposing sanctions on Israel for being a rogue state.

Already, Britain’s weaselly new Labour government has tried to shift attention away from the ruling and onto discursive terrain that better suits Israel.

It responded with a statement that “the UK is strongly opposed to the expansion of illegal settlements and rising settler violence”.

But as former British ambassador Craig Murray noted, that was not what the ICJ decided. “It is not the expansion of Israel’s illegal settlements that is at issue. It is their existence,” he wrote.

Similarly, the Biden administration bemoaned the court’s ruling. In an act of spectacular mental gymnastics, it argued that ending the occupation would “complicate efforts to resolve the conflict”.

But as noted previously, according to the ICJ’s judgment, there is no “conflict” except in the self-serving imaginations of Israel and its patrons. There are occupation and apartheid – permanent acts of aggression by Israel towards the Palestinian people.

Further, the US warned other states not to take “unilateral actions” against Israel, as the ICJ ruling obliges them to do. Washington claims such actions will “deepen divisions”. But a division – between the upholders of international law and lawbreakers such as Israel and Washington – is precisely what is needed.

The World Court’s ruling upends decades of linguistic slippage by the West whose goal has been to move the ideological dial in favour of Israel’s incremental annexationist agenda.

It is vitally important that activists, legal and human rights groups keep holding the feet of the British and US governments to the ICJ’s fire.

The fog clears

Israel’s supporters will take comfort from the fact that an earlier judgment from the World Court on Israel was roundly ignored by both Israel and its western patrons.

Asked for an advisory opinion, the judges ruled in 2004 that, under cover of security claims, Israel was illegally annexing swaths of territory by building its 800km-long “separation wall” on Palestinian land.

Israel did not dismantle the wall, though in response it did re-route parts of it and abandoned construction in other areas.

But that two-decade-old ICJ ruling was much narrower than the present one. It was restricted to a specific Israeli policy rather than address the entirety of Israel’s rule over Palestinians. It did not impugn Israel’s political character, identifying it as an apartheid state. And there were few obvious implications in the ruling for Israel’s western patrons.

And perhaps most importantly, Israeli officials were in no danger 20 years ago of being put in the dock by the International Criminal Court charged with war crimes, as they are now.

The World Court decision tightens the legal noose around Israel’s neck, and makes it hard for the ICC to continue dragging its feet on issuing arrest warrants for Israeli officials.

And that will put multinational corporations, banks and pension funds in an ever harder legal position if they continue to ignore their own complicity with Israel’s criminality.

They may quickly find themselves paying a price with their customers too.

Adidas could be one of the first victims of just such a backlash after it caved into Israeli pressure on 19 July to drop the Palestinian-American model Bella Hadid as the face of a new ad campaign – paradoxically, on the same day the World Court announced its ruling.

There will also be ramifications for domestic courts in the West. It will be hard for judges to ignore the World Court’s opinion when their governments seek to punish Palestinian solidarity activists.

Those promoting boycotts and sanctions on Israel, or trying to stop companies supplying Israel with weapons, are doing what, according to the World Court, western governments should be doing of their own accord.

But, maybe most importantly of all, the ruling will decisively disrupt the West’s intentionally deceitful discourse about Israel.

This ruling strips away the entire basis of the language western powers have been using about Israel. A reality that’s been turned upside down for decades by the West has been put firmly back on its feet by the World Court.

The occupation – not just the settlements – is illegal.

Israel is legally defined as an apartheid state, as South Africa was before it, and one engaged in a project of annexation and ethnic cleansing.

The Palestinians are the victims, not Israel. It’s their security that needs protecting, not Israel’s. They are the ones who are owed financial assistance, in the form of reparations, not Israel.

As a result, the West’s pretend peace-making stands starkly revealed for the sham it always was. Continuing with this kind of duplicity – as British leader Keir Starmer, for example, appears determined to do – will serve only to highlight the bad faith of those engaged in such exercises.

On the flip side, western powers that help Israel continue its work of segregating, dispossessing and ethnic cleansing the Palestinians will be exposed as complicit in Israel’s crimes against humanity.

Words have power. They are our route to understanding reality. And the World Court has just cleared away the fog. It has wiped clean the mist on the window.

The West will do its level best once again to shroud Israel’s crimes. But the World Court has done the Palestinians and the rest of mankind a service in unmasking Israel for what it is: a rogue, criminal state.

• First published in Middle East Eye

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Jonathan Cook.

Don’t be fooled. The ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on 19 July that Israel’s occupation of Palestine is unlawful is earth-shattering. Israel is a rogue state, according to the world’s highest court.

For that reason, the judgment will be studiously ignored by the cabal of western states and their medias that for decades have so successfully run cover for Israel.

Doubters need only watch the reception Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu receives during his visit to the United States this week.

Even though he is currently being pursued for war crimes by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, the US Congress will give him a hero’s welcome when he addresses its representatives on Wednesday.

The warm handshakes and standing ovations will be a reminder that Netanyahu has had the full backing of western powers throughout the nine-month slaughter of at least 16,000 Palestinian children in Gaza – with another 21,000 missing, most of them under rubble.

The welcome will be a reminder that western capitals are fully on board with Israel’s levelling of Gaza and the starvation of its population – in what the same court concluded way back in January amounted to a “plausible genocide”.

And it will serve as a heavy slap in the face to those like the World Court committed to international law – reminding them that the West and its most favoured client state believe they are untouchable.

Western politicians and columnists will keep emphasising that the World Court is offering nothing more than an “advisory opinion” and one that is “non-binding”.

What they won’t point out is that this opinion is the collective view of the world’s most eminent judges on international law, the people best positioned to rule on the occupation’s legality.

And it is non-binding only because the western powers who control our international bodies plan to do nothing to implement a decision that doesn’t suit them.

Nonetheless, the ruling will have dramatic consequences for Israel, and its western patrons, even if those consequences will take months, years or even decades to play out.

‘Top secret’ warning

Last week’s judgment is separate from the case accepted in January by the ICJ that put Israel on trial for genocide in Gaza. A decision on that matter may still be many months away.

This ruling was in response to a request from the United Nations General Assembly in December 2022 for advice on the legality of Israel’s 57-year occupation.

That may sound more mundane a deliberation than the one on genocide, but the implications ultimately are likely to be every bit as profound.

Those not familiar with international law may underestimate the importance of the World Court’s ruling if only because they had already assumed the occupation was illegal.

But that is not how international law works. A belligerent occupation is permitted so long as it satisfies two conditions.

First, it must be strictly military, designed to protect the security of the occupying state and safeguard the rights of the occupied people.

And second, it must be a temporary measure – while negotiations are conducted to restore civilian rule and allow the occupied people self-determination.

Astonishingly, it has taken 57 years for the world’s highest court to deliver a conclusion that should have been staring it – and everyone else – in the face all that time.

The military nature of the occupation was subverted almost from the moment Israel occupied the Palestinian territories in June 1967.

Within months, Israel had chosen to transfer Jewish civilians – mostly extreme religious nationalists – into the occupied Palestinian territories to help colonise them.

Israel knew that this was a gross violation of international law because its own legal adviser warned it of as much in a “top secret” memo unearthed by the Israeli journalist Gershom Gorenberg some two decades ago.

In a declaration enlarging on the ICJ’s reasoning, Court President Nawaf Salam specifically referenced the warnings of Theodor Meron, who was the Israeli foreign ministry’s legal expert at the time.

In September 1967, his memo cautioned that any decision to establish civilian settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories “contravenes explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention”. Those provisions, he added, were “aimed at preventing colonization”.

Nine days later, the Israeli government rode roughshod over Meron’s memo and assisted a group of young Israelis in setting up the first settlement at Kfar Etzion.

Sham peace-making

Today, hundreds of illegal settlements – many of them home to what amount to armed militias – control more than half of the West Bank and much of East Jerusalem.

Rather than protecting the rights of Palestinians under occupation, as international law demands, the Israeli military assists Jewish settlers in terrorising the Palestinians. The aim is to drive them off their land.

In the words of the Israeli government, the settlements are there to “Judaise” Palestinian territory. In the words of everyone else, they are there to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian population.

Which brings us to Israel’s second violation of the laws of occupation. In transferring hundreds of thousands of settlers into the occupied territories, Israel intentionally blocked any chance of a Palestinian state emerging.

The settlements weren’t makeshift encampments. Some soon developed into small cities, such as Ariel and Maale Adumim, with shopping malls, parks, public pools, synagogues, factories, libraries, schools and colleges.

There was nothing “temporary” about them. They were there to incrementally annex Palestinian territory under cover of an occupation that Washington and its European allies conspired to pretend was temporary.

The whole Oslo process initiated in the early 1990s was a switch-and-bait exercise, or a “Palestinian Versailles”, as the Palestinian scholar Edward Said warned at the time.

Israel was never serious about allowing the Palestinians meaningful statehood – a fact the then-Israeli prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, admitted shortly before he was killed by a far-right settler in 1995.

Oslo’s sham peace-making was designed to buy more time for Israel to expand the settlements – while also binding the Palestinians into endless contractual obligations that were never reciprocated by Israel.

In his incensed response to the court’s decision last week, Netanyahu gave the game away. He said: “The Jewish people are not occupiers in their own land, including in our eternal capital Jerusalem nor in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank], our historical homeland.”

His is a bipartisan view in Israel. All the Jewish parties in the Israeli parliament take the same position.

Last week they voted to reject any possibility of creating a Palestinian state on the grounds it would be an “existential threat” to Israel. Only a handful of legislators – all belonging to Israel’s Palestinian minority – dissented.

Apartheid rule

The World Court’s ruling is most significant in that it permanently blows apart western states’ cover story about Israel.

The judges point out that Israel’s permanent occupation of the territories, and its transfer of Jewish settlers into them, has necessitated the development of two separate and distinct systems of laws.

One is for the Jewish settlers, enshrining for them the rights enjoyed by Israelis. Palestinians, by contrast, must submit to the whims of an alien and belligerent military regime.

There is a word for such an arrangement: apartheid.

Over the past decade, a consensus had already emerged in the world’s human rights community – from Amnesty International to Human Rights Watch – that Israel was an apartheid state.

Now the world’s highest judicial body has declared that it agrees.

Apartheid is a crime against humanity. This means that Israeli officials are war criminals, quite aside from the crimes they are currently committing in Gaza.

That was why the Israeli media reported panic inside the Israeli government at the ICJ ruling.

Officials fear that it will leave the International Criminal Court, its sister court, with no option but to issue arrest warrants against Netanyahu and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, as already requested by its chief prosecutor.

It is also likely to strengthen the ICC’s resolve to prosecute more senior Israeli officials for crimes associated with Israel’s settlement programme.

A former Israeli foreign ministry official told the Haaretz newspaper that the World Court ruling had punctured Israel’s claim to be a western-style state: “The democratic aura is no longer protecting us as it did before.”

Acts of aggression

The ICJ has concluded that Israel’s apartheid rule over Palestinians – as well as the ethnic cleansing policies implemented by its settler militias – are acts of aggression.

The West’s depiction of a “conflict” between Israel and the Palestinians, with efforts to resolve this “dispute”, is wilfully muddled. Its depiction of Israel’s rampage in Gaza as a “war against Hamas” is a lie too, according to this ruling.

The ICJ has effectively ridiculed the claim by Israel and its western allies that the occupation of Gaza ended when Israel pulled its soldiers to the perimeter fence and soon afterwards instituted a siege on the enclave by land, sea and air.

Israel is judged to be fully responsible for the suffering of Palestinians before 7 October as well as after.

It is Israel that has been permanently attacking the Palestinians – through its illegal occupation, its apartheid rule, its siege of Gaza, and its incremental annexation of territory that should comprise a Palestinian state.

Palestinian violence is a response, not the inciting cause. It is the Palestinians who are the ones retaliating, the ones resisting, according to the judgment. The western political and media establishments have cause and effect back to front.

There are further consequences to the ICJ’s ruling. You don’t compromise on apartheid. No one suggested meeting apartheid South Africa halfway.

The racist foundations of such a state must be eradicated. Apartheid states must be reconstituted from scratch.

The World Court demands that Israel not only pull its occupation forces out of the Palestinian territories and halt its settlement expansion but also dismantle the settlements in their entirety. The settlers must leave Palestine.

The judges call too for “reparations” for the Palestinians for the enormous harm done to them by decades of occupation and apartheid.

That includes allowing those Palestinians who have been ethnically cleansed since 1967 a right to return to their lands, and it requires Israel to pay large-scale financial compensation for the decades-long theft of key resources.

Complicit in war crimes

But the implications don’t just apply to Israel.

In referring the case to the ICJ, the UN General Assembly requested the court advise on how its 192 member states should respond to its findings.

If Israeli leaders are war criminals, then supporting them – as western capitals have been doing for decades – makes those states complicit in Israel’s crimes against humanity.

For western powers, the ruling makes their continuing arms sales, diplomatic cover and the preferential trade status they give Israel collusion in the crime of prolonged occupation and apartheid.

But there’s more. It also means that western states must not only stop harassing, and even jailing, those who seek to penalise Israel for its crimes – supporters of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement – but should take up that very cause as their own.

They are now under an implied legal obligation to join in such actions by imposing sanctions on Israel for being a rogue state.

Already, Britain’s weaselly new Labour government has tried to shift attention away from the ruling and onto discursive terrain that better suits Israel.

It responded with a statement that “the UK is strongly opposed to the expansion of illegal settlements and rising settler violence”.

But as former British ambassador Craig Murray noted, that was not what the ICJ decided. “It is not the expansion of Israel’s illegal settlements that is at issue. It is their existence,” he wrote.

Similarly, the Biden administration bemoaned the court’s ruling. In an act of spectacular mental gymnastics, it argued that ending the occupation would “complicate efforts to resolve the conflict”.

But as noted previously, according to the ICJ’s judgment, there is no “conflict” except in the self-serving imaginations of Israel and its patrons. There are occupation and apartheid – permanent acts of aggression by Israel towards the Palestinian people.

Further, the US warned other states not to take “unilateral actions” against Israel, as the ICJ ruling obliges them to do. Washington claims such actions will “deepen divisions”. But a division – between the upholders of international law and lawbreakers such as Israel and Washington – is precisely what is needed.

The World Court’s ruling upends decades of linguistic slippage by the West whose goal has been to move the ideological dial in favour of Israel’s incremental annexationist agenda.

It is vitally important that activists, legal and human rights groups keep holding the feet of the British and US governments to the ICJ’s fire.

The fog clears

Israel’s supporters will take comfort from the fact that an earlier judgment from the World Court on Israel was roundly ignored by both Israel and its western patrons.

Asked for an advisory opinion, the judges ruled in 2004 that, under cover of security claims, Israel was illegally annexing swaths of territory by building its 800km-long “separation wall” on Palestinian land.

Israel did not dismantle the wall, though in response it did re-route parts of it and abandoned construction in other areas.

But that two-decade-old ICJ ruling was much narrower than the present one. It was restricted to a specific Israeli policy rather than address the entirety of Israel’s rule over Palestinians. It did not impugn Israel’s political character, identifying it as an apartheid state. And there were few obvious implications in the ruling for Israel’s western patrons.

And perhaps most importantly, Israeli officials were in no danger 20 years ago of being put in the dock by the International Criminal Court charged with war crimes, as they are now.

The World Court decision tightens the legal noose around Israel’s neck, and makes it hard for the ICC to continue dragging its feet on issuing arrest warrants for Israeli officials.

And that will put multinational corporations, banks and pension funds in an ever harder legal position if they continue to ignore their own complicity with Israel’s criminality.

They may quickly find themselves paying a price with their customers too.

Adidas could be one of the first victims of just such a backlash after it caved into Israeli pressure on 19 July to drop the Palestinian-American model Bella Hadid as the face of a new ad campaign – paradoxically, on the same day the World Court announced its ruling.

There will also be ramifications for domestic courts in the West. It will be hard for judges to ignore the World Court’s opinion when their governments seek to punish Palestinian solidarity activists.

Those promoting boycotts and sanctions on Israel, or trying to stop companies supplying Israel with weapons, are doing what, according to the World Court, western governments should be doing of their own accord.

But, maybe most importantly of all, the ruling will decisively disrupt the West’s intentionally deceitful discourse about Israel.

This ruling strips away the entire basis of the language western powers have been using about Israel. A reality that’s been turned upside down for decades by the West has been put firmly back on its feet by the World Court.

The occupation – not just the settlements – is illegal.

Israel is legally defined as an apartheid state, as South Africa was before it, and one engaged in a project of annexation and ethnic cleansing.

The Palestinians are the victims, not Israel. It’s their security that needs protecting, not Israel’s. They are the ones who are owed financial assistance, in the form of reparations, not Israel.

As a result, the West’s pretend peace-making stands starkly revealed for the sham it always was. Continuing with this kind of duplicity – as British leader Keir Starmer, for example, appears determined to do – will serve only to highlight the bad faith of those engaged in such exercises.

On the flip side, western powers that help Israel continue its work of segregating, dispossessing and ethnic cleansing the Palestinians will be exposed as complicit in Israel’s crimes against humanity.

Words have power. They are our route to understanding reality. And the World Court has just cleared away the fog. It has wiped clean the mist on the window.

The West will do its level best once again to shroud Israel’s crimes. But the World Court has done the Palestinians and the rest of mankind a service in unmasking Israel for what it is: a rogue, criminal state.

• First published in Middle East Eye

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Jonathan Cook.

Photograph Source: Muhammad Sabah, B’Tselem – CC BY 4.0

The International Court of Justice released its historic advisory opinion on 19 July 2024 just as I was finishing my essay on Israel’s theft and abuse of the water resources of Palestine.

The post The Politics of Water Under Occupation: Israel in Palestine appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by M. Reza Behnam.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The International Court of Justice has ruled Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories is illegal and should come to an end “as rapidly as possible.” This is one of the most significant rulings issued by an international court on the matter since Israel’s military occupation of the territories began in 1967. We speak with Palestinian human rights lawyer Diana Buttu on the historic ruling and what impact it could have on Israel. “The court makes it clear not only that Israel’s occupation is illegal, but it also says that all countries around the world have an obligation to make sure that Israel doesn’t get away with it,” says Buttu. “It’s up to the international community now to put sanctions on Israel to end this military occupation.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

The decision of the International Court of Justice that Israeli settlements on Palestinian land are illegal demands immediate action from the New Zealand government, says a national advocacy group.

The ICJ in the Hague found in a landmark but non-binding advisory ruling on Friday that “Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the regime associated with them, have been established and are being maintained in violation of international law”.

The court said that the UN Security Council, the General Assembly and all states had an obligation not to recognise the occupation as legal and not to give aid or support toward Israel in maintaining it.

• READ MORE: Palestinians urge world to end Israel’s illegal occupation after ICJ ruling
• Why ICJ ruling against Israel’s settlement policies will be hard to ignore
• Other Israel’s War on Gaza reports

In a statement today, the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) said the NZ government should immediately:

• impose a ban on the importation of all products from the illegal Israeli settlements; and
• direct NZ’s Superfund, Accident Compensation Commission (ACC) and Kiwisaver funds to divest from companies identified by the United Nations Human Rights Council as complicit in the building and maintenance of these settlements.

The recently updated database is here.

The ICJ ruling confirmed what the UN Security Council found in passing resolution 2334 in 2016.

This resolution was co-sponsored by New Zealand, which had a place on the Security Council at the time under a National-led government.

The United Nations Security Council stated that, in the occupied Palestinian territories, Israeli settlements had “no legal validity” and constituted “a flagrant violation under international law”.

It said they were a “major obstacle to the achievement of the two-state solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace” in the Middle East.

ICJ-Israel Occupied territories resolution.   Video: Al Jazeera

The ICJ ruling reinforced the UN resolution and the need for government action, the PSNA statement said.

“New Zealand, which co-sponsored the UN resolution in 2016 should lead the way on this,” said PSNA national chair John Minto.

“We need to put our money where our mouth is — especially since the current far-right Israeli government has said its ‘top priority’ is to push ahead with more illegal Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land”.

New Zealanders have been holding national rallies in protest over Israel’s war on Gaza for nine months and protesters were expected to be out in their thousands this weekend to demand government action.

• Details of this weekend’s NZ protests

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Nonetheless, aside from the otherwise splendid investigative reporting by Swann, the interview raised a question: Why is a legitimate Palestinian resistance against Israeli occupation (the borders are sealed to Gaza and the seas are closed to Palestinian fishermen) and oppression described by Swann as an “horrible and evil thing”?

Is not the Israeli slow-motion genocide (since 7 October it has been accelerated), occupation, racism, discrimination, and oppression not the “horrible and evil thing”? Is the horrible and evil theft of historical Palestine by European Jews not the cause of Palestinian resistance? Is it not, per se, horrible and evil to deride a legitimate resistance against the evil of Zionism?

Back in 2008 when Israel was on an earlier mass murder binge against Palestinians and Hamas resisted, I wrote about “The Inalienable Right to Resist Occupation”:

Complicitly, the Whitehouse blamed Hamas, as did Canada’s government. Government officials in the US, Canada, and Europe spoke the same lame phrase, “Israel has a right to defend itself,” as if the slaughter being carried out by a world military power against a starving population could be construed as some kind of defense. Israel, the world’s most frequently cited violator of international law, a racist state, an occupation state built through violence and slow-motion genocide is being acknowledged as having the right to defend its criminality. This is preposterous; there is no right of an occupation regime to defend its occupation. Palestine, however, has a right to resist occupation!

Frequent guest of the Dore Show, comedian Kurt Metzger realizes the situation that Israel forces the Palestinians to live under: a “concentration camp.” The Palestinians in Gaza are presented with a choice to either live on bended knee or to resist.

However, Swann would double down on his vitriol against the Hamas resistance saying: “The Hamas attacks were violent and brutal.” The language is leading and unnecessary. Attacks by their very nature are usually violent and brutal. But why are these adjectives not applied to the violent and brutal Israeli occupation by Swann?

If there wer no occupation of historical Palestine, if there were not millions of Palestinians living outside their homeland as refugees, if Palestinians were not being systematically humiliated by Israelis, if Palestinians were not being weeded out of existence by Israelis, if Palestinians were thrown the crumb of the decency to live peacefully alongside their racist usurpers in their historical homeland, would not the rise of a resistance have been obviated?

A progressivist principle should hold that: The oppressor bears responsibility for all casualties because without the oppression, there would be no need for resistance. Ergo, criticism of the resistance of Hamas is unprincipled.

As the show’s cast rummaged over whether Israel was now carrying out a genocide, Jimmy Dore felt it necessary to describe Hamas as a terrorist organization. Hello! There are likeliest over a 100,000 Palestinians slaughtered resulting from this bogus intelligence failure, so who are the terrorists?

Ed Herman, the first author of the acclaimed media analysis, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, noted:

For decades it has been the standard practice of the U.S. mainstream media to designate Palestinian attacks on Israelis as acts of “terrorism,” whereas acts of Israeli violence against Palestinians are described as “retaliation” and “counter-terror.” This linguistic asymmetry has been based entirely on political bias. Virtually all definitions of terrorism, if applied on a nonpolitical basis, would find a wide array of Israeli operations and acts of violence straightforward terrorism. (p 119)

The commonly bandied about death toll of 30 something thousand Palestinians is atrocious, but serious voices point to a serious undercount.

On 5 July 2024, the Lancet ran its numbers: “Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death to the 37396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza.”

Ralph Nader had written months earlier: “From accounts of people on the ground, videos and photographs of deadly episode after episode, plus the resultant mortalities from blocking or smashing the crucial necessities of life, a more likely estimate, in my appraisal, is that at least 200,000 Palestinians must have perished by now and the toll is accelerating by the hour.” [emphasis added]

This time, it appears that Zionist connivance has blown up in the connivers faces and the faces of the supporters of Zionism in western governments.

There has been a catastrophic blowback against the genocidaires. Houthis in Yemen have caused disruptions to Zionist-aligned shipping in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. Even US and UK aircraft carriers fear Houthi attacks.

Former US Marine intelligence officer Scott Ritter sourced inactive Israeli generals: “Israel can’t win this war. Not only Israel can’t win this war, Israel is losing this war.”

Would an outcome where Zionist occupation, oppression, racism, genocide is defeated be a horrible and evil thing?

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Kim Petersen.

Image by Vin Jack.

Whoever among you sees evil,
let him change it with his hand.If he cannot do so, then with his tongue.
If he cannot do so, then with his heart […].

-Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him)

As I sit to write this piece, bombs rain down in Rafah and all of Gaza. Settler encroachments into the occupied West Bank intensify. Nina* sends me a message on Instagram, a picture of Palestinian journalist, Bisan Owda and a group of men, holding up a Puerto Rican flag. Nina is in tears. I, too, feel them welling up in my throat. Two hundred sixty eight days. Nine months. Seven and a half decades. One hundred twenty six years. My people have been fighting colonial occupation. Nina* and I, who many nights stayed up talking about the parallels between the Puerto Rican struggle and the Native American struggle, discuss once again the parallels between Palestine and Puerto Rico.

The parallels between Puerto Ricans and Palestinians are many – both occupied territories, both subject to experimentation with bombs and medicine, both experiencing disaster capitalism, both experiencing forced displacement, both dying – one slowly through austerity measures and the other rapidly through the onslaught of bombs by occupation forces. After Hurricane María ravaged our homeland, my Puerto Rican research participants each declared resoundingly – “El desastre real es el colonialismo.” So, too, for Palestinians – the real disaster is colonialism.

Since the onslaught of escalated violence against Palestinians by the Israeli occupation in October 2023, officials one after the other, have declared that “there are no innocent civilians” in Gaza and all of occupied Palestine. The characterization of Palestinian youth by occupation Prime Minister Netanyahu as “children of darkness” highlights a widespread misrepresentation of all Palestinians as terrorists and ignores the ongoing history of the occupation of Palestine and the legacy of the Nakba in 1948 and numerous instances of occupied forces’ aggression against the Palestinian people. The characterization of Palestinians as terrorists is corroborated by the U.S. government, the occupation’s greatest ally in the ongoing colonization, displacement, and genocide of Palestinians. As early as October 8, 1997, the U.S. Secretary of State designated multiple groups advocating for Palestinian liberation as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs), including the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF), Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and HAMAS.

Palestinians are not the first people seeking liberation from military occupation that have been labeled by the U.S. government as terrorists – a label intended to dehumanize and justify genocide. Since at least the 1950s, through the covert FBI program COINTELPRO, the U.S. government has undermined the Puerto Rican liberation movement by classifying its activists and advocates as terrorists, thereby criminalizing their struggle and justifying continued state repression. As early as October 24, 1935, the U.S. backed police force opened fire on a group of students at the University of Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras, resulting in the deaths of four young Puerto Rican nationalists. In the infamous 1937 Ponce Massacre, the U.S. government killed 19 Puerto Ricans and injured more than 200. In 1948, the same year as the Nakba, students protesting the Ley de la Mordaza (Gag Law), which suppressed Puerto Rican independence movements, faced violent crackdowns by police, resulting in numerous injuries and arrests. In the 1960s and 1970s, Puerto Ricans along with other students across the world protested against the Vietnam War and were met with military and police repression and violence. From the 1990s and into the present, students protesting austerity measures, tuition hikes, and university closures have been met with violent confrontations with police, who have used tear gas and batons to disperse students, arresting numerous student activists.

Repression of Puerto Ricans does not only occur on the archipelago, but extends to the diaspora. For example, in the 1990s, a teacher at a Puerto Rican alternative high school in Chicago, IL was revealed to be an FBI infiltrator who later testified against nationalist activists, labeling them as terrorists (Ramos-Zayas 2004: 31, quoting Oclander 1995). Taken together, all these repressive tactics are part of a broader historical process where Puerto Ricans have been racialized and constructed as “enemies of the State,” as “anti-American,” and, most dangerously, as “terrorists” (Ramos-Zayas 2004: 35). Media representations play a powerful role in this, categorizing some Puerto Ricans as “deserving” American citizens, those proving their worth through upward mobility, and others as “undeserving” ones, deemed criminals (Ramos-Zayas 2004: 35, citing herself 1997; 2003). Similarly, the everyday programs of Puerto Rican nationalist activists within the diaspora are branded as un-American terrorist activities, legitimizing their criminalization and producing unequal citizen-subjects (Ramos-Zayas 2004: 40-41). The possibility of a free and independent Puerto Rican nation continues to be undermined through FBI and CIA programs (Bosque-Perez 2006; Caban 2005), which use violence and surveillance to undermine local organizations on the archipelago that are aimed at self-determination, including the bombing of multiple independence party headquarters (Caban 2005), the murdering of independence leaders and their children, including the assassination of Filiberto Ojeda-Rios on September 23, 2005 (a date which honors Puerto Rico’s independence struggle against the Spanish Crown), and the incarceration of Puerto Rican independence leaders and activists well into the present (Bosque-Perez 2006; Caban 2005; Lopez-River and Headley 1989).

Educational facilities have been a primary site of attack by both the U.S. government in Puerto Rico and by occupation forces in Palestine. Palestinian schools and universities often face accusations of fostering terrorism, and students and teachers are subject to surveillance and arrests under the pretext of security concerns. For example, Israeli occupation forces have bombed numerous UN schools throughout Gaza claiming that HAMAS is hiding in the schools, killing dozens of teachers, students, and families sheltering there. These actions serve to delegitimize Palestinian resistance and to portray the struggle for self-determination as inherently violent and terroristic. As with Puerto Rico, this labeling extends beyond the educational sphere, permeating media representations and public discourse, and thus justifying ongoing military occupation and repression.

From the viewpoint of the present moment, then, we can see a prevailing blueprint for the dehumanization of occupied peoples by their occupiers, one that serves to justify their ongoing disenfranchisement, displacement, and death. Taking stock historically, it is striking how rooted, enduring, and analogous the parallels are: occupied by the U.S. and Israel, respectively, Puerto Rico and Palestine have been subject to settler-colonial rule for 126 and 76 years. Both occupations have been marked by political and economic control with military presence and mass displacement of indigenous populations. Both occupied territories have limited self-governance and lack full sovereignty. While organizations like the PLO and Hamas have come into power through elections in Palestine, neither organization has had the ability to decide Palestine’s political future without Israeli intervention. Similarly, while Puerto Rico has limited self-governance and elections, the local government is often beholden to the whims of whatever the U.S. Congress decides, and the archipelago is subject to U.S. federal law without full representation, meaning that while Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens, they do not have the right to vote for the U.S. president if they are residing in Puerto Rico. Like Puerto Ricans living in the U.S., Palestinians residing within the borders of Israel qualify for citizenship but have limited civil and political representation in government, right down to something as concrete as infrastructure, for example, unequal access to Israeli roads, while those living in Occupied Palestine are subject to mass policing and detention. Furthermore, Israeli control of the Palestinian economy through restrictions on trade, movement, and access to resources has resulted in economic dependence on international aid. Similarly, the Puerto Rican economy has been shaped and hampered by U.S. interests, leading to mass austerity measures, economic dependence intended to stifle the attainment of political sovereignty, and mass debt due to incentivized programs for non-Puerto Rican investors. Symbolically, the Palestinian and Puerto Rican flags were both outlawed in their respective territories and flying them has become a symbol of resistance. Both Palestine and Puerto Rico, then, have had ongoing movements for independence, which were and continue to be met with violent resistance from their occupiers.

The license to take license: occupation and experimentation

The histories of U.S. military testing on Puerto Ricans and Israeli military testing on Palestinians reveal further parallels, in this case the disturbing use of colonized and occupied populations for experimental purposes. In Puerto Rico, the U.S. military used the island of Vieques extensively for naval training exercises, including the detonation of bombs and the release of toxic substances, leading to severe environmental contamination and significant health problems among the local population. This testing, which spanned several decades, resulted in high rates of cancer and other serious illnesses among Vieques residents, highlighting the exploitation of a marginalized population that lacked political power to challenge such actions effectively. The legacy of these actions underscores both the basic underlying attitudes of colonialism and the many ethical violations inherent in using a territory and its people as a testing ground for military purposes (Zavestoski and Agüero 2004).

Similarly, allegations have emerged regarding the use of Palestinians as subjects for military and medical testing by Israeli forces. Reports suggest that during periods of heightened conflict, such as the Intifadas and various military operations in Gaza, new military technologies and crowd control methods have been tested on Palestinian civilians, including advanced surveillance technologies and crowd control weapons. Additionally, there have been accusations of Israeli pharmaceutical companies conducting drug trials on Palestinian patients without proper informed consent. These actions are facilitated by the ongoing occupation, which has left Palestinians with limited sovereignty and political power, making them particularly vulnerable to exploitation. The same could be said for Puerto Rico: in addition to knowing, but indirect biological harm, with slow consequences, the U.S. government carried out knowing, direct, permanent biological harm, in the form of sterilizing one-third of Puerto Rican women, from 1930 to 1970, without their informed consent. Both cases exemplify the ethical and human rights concerns associated with using occupied and colonized populations for experimental purposes, reflecting broader patterns of military and political dominance over marginalized groups (Amnesty International 2020; Physicians for Human Rights-Israel 2015). And both cases point to genocidal effort: either through circumventing biological reproduction from the start or through all-out war. Both are bent on the control and, when expedient, the extermination of dehumanized civilians.

Catastrophes exploited and exploited yet again: disaster capitalism, displacement, and beyond

The violations attendant on colonialism and active occupations do not stop at social and biological labeling and control. They extend to encompass–to harm–the health of the economies of the occupied lands in question, as well. For instance, both Puerto Rico and Palestine have experienced a crushing form of disaster capitalism, or the exploitation of crises for economic gain, leading to significant displacement and disenfranchisement of local populations. In Puerto Rico, the aftermath of Hurricane Maria and the financial oversight imposed by policies like the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA), have facilitated both privatization and austerity measures, a double-sided baton that brutally exacerbates inequality and help drives out-migration. Acts 20 and 22 incentivized and attracted external investors, further displacing local communities. In Palestine, the ongoing blockade of Gaza, violent repression of protests like the overwhelmingly peaceful 2018 Great March of Return, and settlement expansion have similarly led to economic deprivation and forced displacement. Both regions experience international interventions prioritizing profit over local needs, yet the contexts differ: Puerto Rico faces economic policies under U.S. colonial rule, while Palestine contends with illegal military occupation and systematic violence by Israeli occupation forces. Despite these differences, both cases illustrate how external actors exploit crises to impose neoliberal reforms, deepening existing inequalities, doubling down on existing displacements, as in the Great March, and catalyzing new displacements with free market abandon, all the while undermining local resources, life force, biological integrity, and collective resilience.

In Puerto Rico, PROMESA in combination with the influx of wealthy non-residents buying property after Hurricane Maria have led to significant displacement, including via traditional gentrification but by no means being limited to that. Since 2016, for instance, over 500,000 Puerto Ricans have left the archipelago due to economic hardship, the closure of over 300 schools, austerity measures that have raised tuition and the local cost of living, and a lack of medical infrastructure to deal with health crises (Census Bureau 2020; Rosario-Ramos et al. 2020). Puerto Rican youth struggle to find employment, obtain affordable and timely education, and are faced with an uncertain future in their homeland, many feeling forced to leave as a means of survival.

Since 2016, over 11,000 Palestinians have been displaced in the most blunt object of ways, due to settlers demolishing Palestinian homes and appropriating their lands. And since October 2023, the genocidal actions by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) against Palestinians in Gaza have resulted in roughly 1.7 million Palestinians being displaced across Gaza (UNRWA; Human Rights Watch; OCHA; Al Jazeera). Every university in Palestine has been destroyed by the Israeli occupation since late 2023 and Palestinian youth lack access to education, healthcare, housing, and food, while having bombs rain down on them on a daily basis.

The systematic targeting of youth as a form of dispossession and control are the law of occupation and an apparent tool of genocide and forced displacement. In Puerto Rico, historical actions, such as the U.S. government’s placement of Puerto Rican youth in Indian boarding schools, aimed to suppress cultural identity and impose Americanization – another form of stifling not just self-determination efforts but the space to imagine such efforts in the first place. Today, ongoing austerity measures regularly threaten university education, forcing students into extended academic paths due to class shortages and financial constraints. Further, the closure of hundreds of schools threaten their futures and the futures of motivated students to come.

In Palestine, the situation is even more dire. Schools are routinely targeted and destroyed by Israeli forces under the pretext of security concerns, severely limiting educational opportunities for Palestinian children. It is well reported that the Israeli occupation forces specifically target Palestinian youth – Netanyahu’s “children of darkness”– shooting them, maiming their limbs, and detaining them in prisons. Annually about 500-700 Palestinian youth are detained by the Israeli occupation, freedom out of sight. The deliberate targeting of Palestinian youth underscores a systematic effort to undermine the future generations’ ability to resist occupation and assert their national identity.

In 2023, we were still uncovering the bones of massacred Native American youth in the U.S. For how many more centuries, will we be uncovering the mass graves of Palestinian youth?

In examining the shared experiences of Puerto Rico and Palestine under colonial occupation, we see clear and unnerving parallels in their struggles against dehumanization, displacement, and exploitation. From historical mislabeling as terrorists to ongoing military occupations enabling experimentation and disaster capitalism, Puerto Ricans and Palestinians face extensive injustices by colonial design. Whether in Palestine, Puerto Rico, Congo, Sudan, Hawai’i, Haiti or elsewhere, colonial extractivism and violence persist effectively unchecked. The labeling of indigenous peoples as once savages and now terrorists while their lands are seized and their lives are taken captures, in a single stroke, the brutality of colonial occupation. As Palestinians raise the Puerto Rican flag in Gaza, and Puerto Ricans march on the archipelago and across the diaspora adorned in keffiyehs and Palestinian flags, they communicate to the world that the true disaster is colonial occupation. In alignment with the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him)’s words, they see evil and don’t look away. Parallel histories of injustice are matched with parallel shows of mutual support born of knowledge sharing and shared experiences. Here, I can both point to the empirical record and speak from personal experience when I say that the Pali-Rican solidarity is strong and ongoing. It and interrelated abolitionist struggles around the planet are being expressed through pen, tongue, and heart. If the Prophet (PBUH) suggests an obligation to change evil, then heeding parallel histories of colonial outrage is one important starting point.

The post Pali-Rican Solidarities: The Dizzying Parallels of Colonial Occupation appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Melinda González.

Mao Ning: Once a wheat exporter, Syria now finds around 55 percent of its population facing food insecurity. The US is undeniably responsible for this. The US says it’s there to fight terrorism, but the reality says it’s there to plunder. The US keeps emphasizing human rights, but the reality abounds with US violations of people’s rights to subsistence and life in other countries. The US brands itself as a guardian of democracy, freedom and prosperity, but the reality shows its true identity as a manufacturer of humanitarian crises.

The US needs to earnestly respect Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, immediately end its illegal military occupation in Syria, stop plundering Syria’s resources, and take concrete actions to make up for the damages done to the Syrian people.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by ShanghaiEye.

On March 29, 2024, US Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer led a meeting on Haiti policy with a selected group of “leaders of U.S.-based Black civil rights groups.” The White House’s Readout lists the participants as Reverend Al Sharpton of the National Action Network, Ron Daniels of the Institute of the Black World (IBW21), Marc Morial, President of the National Urban League, Derrick Johnson, President of the NAACP, and Jocelyn McCalla, Senior Policy Advisor for the Haitian-American Foundation for Democracy. Why would the U.S. National Security office sponsor a meeting about Haiti with these groups? The readout claims the U.S. is committed to “ensuring a better future for Haiti.” But the most significant aspect of the meeting was the need, according to the White House, to rally support for “the UN-authorized Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission to Haiti and lifting up Haitian-led solutions to the political impasse.”

It seems that these Black misleaders huddling around the latrine of white power were given their marching orders to manufacture Black consent for continued US occupation and oppression of Haiti. Since that meeting, there has been a ramping up of US Black voices supposedly speaking on behalf of Haiti and Haitians. From Jesse Jackson to Al Sharpton, the main goal seems to be to rally the US Black community to support US foreign policy objectives, using Haiti as staging ground.

Ron Daniels of IBW21 has been the most egregious, using the crisis in Haiti to raise funds for his organization, while propagating vile stereotypes about Haitian society and supporting US imperialism. In his recent “Haiti on Fire” articles, Daniels describes the country as a “virtual failed state” and a “narco-state” controlled by “vicious gangs,” calling for the Core Group to take the lead in Haiti, and claiming that only a US-ordered, Kenya-led mercenary mission can solve Haiti’s problems.

By intent or ignorance, Daniels does not once mention the role of the US, France, and Canada in fomenting the crisis in Haiti, portraying it instead as a recent, self-inflicted problem caused by gangs and a few elites. Daniels does not acknowledge that this latest racist western media fascination with “gangs” only began in 2022 as the US was trying to keep its puppet Prime Minister, Ariel Henry, in power. What is most disturbing is that Daniels accepts that the Core Group, the foreign occupying force in Haiti, has legitimacy and has the right to take rule over Haiti. Never mind that Haitian people see the Core Group as a criminal, colonial entity. Daniels also celebrates the US-installed “Presidential Council” in Haiti, stating that this will lead to a “people-based democracy.” Someone should remind Daniels that there is no democracy under occupation.

But we know that it was the US and Core Group – under the cover of pliant misleaders of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) – that handpicked the Haitian participants in the Presidential Council. We also know that all participants in this Council had to first agree to this illegal foreign military invasion of Haiti. In effect, Daniels is not only calling on the same white supremacist arsonists to put out the fire that they themselves lit in Haiti, he also supports another US-led military invasion and occupation of Haiti!

BAP calls on those who support Haiti to not fall for the language of “solidarity” with Haiti when these Black hucksters of western hegemony are using their platform and the language of “brotherhood” and “sisterhood, and a cynical co-optation of “Pan-Africanism” to help US imperialism snuff out Haitian sovereignty. We must remember that the crisis in Haiti is a crisis of imperialism.

Ron Daniels and the IBW21, as well as these other Black misleaders, should be condemned for supporting US imperial policy against the First Black Republic in the modern world. These selected “Leaders of Civil Rights Groups” would do well to know that they are just the third group of Black faces that the US is instrumentalizing, to invade Haiti, following the pattern set by the CARICOM countries and Kenya (which the U.S. is bribing with $300 million to pretend to lead this disastrous mission). Are they wondering why the US, France, or Canada are refusing to lead the mission, or why they are only now involving them in the discussion? As we have said of the Kenyan government and the CARICOM governments providing armed mercenaries to kill Haitian people, this is Blackface imperialism.

We would also like to point out to these Black “leaders” that this planned invasion of Haiti, though heralded as a “UN” mission, is actually not. It has the sanction of the UN Security Council, but the UN did not want to take responsibility for the mission because it would need to apply too much “robust use of force” on Haitian people.

The Black Alliance for Peace continues to denounce US imperialism. But we especially condemn the Black faces of imperialism. We call on all those committed to a world without colonies to reject the Black faces of empire and their lies. Disband the Core Group! End the BINUH occupation! Stop all efforts to impose a new invasion on Haiti!

Dump the Imperialists in Blackface! Solidarity with the resistance! Long live a free Haiti!

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Black Alliance for Peace.

On March 29, 2024, US Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer led a meeting on Haiti policy with a selected group of “leaders of U.S.-based Black civil rights groups.” The White House’s Readout lists the participants as Reverend Al Sharpton of the National Action Network, Ron Daniels of the Institute of the Black World (IBW21), Marc Morial, President of the National Urban League, Derrick Johnson, President of the NAACP, and Jocelyn McCalla, Senior Policy Advisor for the Haitian-American Foundation for Democracy. Why would the U.S. National Security office sponsor a meeting about Haiti with these groups? The readout claims the U.S. is committed to “ensuring a better future for Haiti.” But the most significant aspect of the meeting was the need, according to the White House, to rally support for “the UN-authorized Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission to Haiti and lifting up Haitian-led solutions to the political impasse.”

It seems that these Black misleaders huddling around the latrine of white power were given their marching orders to manufacture Black consent for continued US occupation and oppression of Haiti. Since that meeting, there has been a ramping up of US Black voices supposedly speaking on behalf of Haiti and Haitians. From Jesse Jackson to Al Sharpton, the main goal seems to be to rally the US Black community to support US foreign policy objectives, using Haiti as staging ground.

Ron Daniels of IBW21 has been the most egregious, using the crisis in Haiti to raise funds for his organization, while propagating vile stereotypes about Haitian society and supporting US imperialism. In his recent “Haiti on Fire” articles, Daniels describes the country as a “virtual failed state” and a “narco-state” controlled by “vicious gangs,” calling for the Core Group to take the lead in Haiti, and claiming that only a US-ordered, Kenya-led mercenary mission can solve Haiti’s problems.

By intent or ignorance, Daniels does not once mention the role of the US, France, and Canada in fomenting the crisis in Haiti, portraying it instead as a recent, self-inflicted problem caused by gangs and a few elites. Daniels does not acknowledge that this latest racist western media fascination with “gangs” only began in 2022 as the US was trying to keep its puppet Prime Minister, Ariel Henry, in power. What is most disturbing is that Daniels accepts that the Core Group, the foreign occupying force in Haiti, has legitimacy and has the right to take rule over Haiti. Never mind that Haitian people see the Core Group as a criminal, colonial entity. Daniels also celebrates the US-installed “Presidential Council” in Haiti, stating that this will lead to a “people-based democracy.” Someone should remind Daniels that there is no democracy under occupation.

But we know that it was the US and Core Group – under the cover of pliant misleaders of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) – that handpicked the Haitian participants in the Presidential Council. We also know that all participants in this Council had to first agree to this illegal foreign military invasion of Haiti. In effect, Daniels is not only calling on the same white supremacist arsonists to put out the fire that they themselves lit in Haiti, he also supports another US-led military invasion and occupation of Haiti!

BAP calls on those who support Haiti to not fall for the language of “solidarity” with Haiti when these Black hucksters of hegemony are using their platform and the language of “brotherhood” and “sisterhood, and a cynical co-optation of “Pan-Africanism” to help US imperialism snuff out Haitian sovereignty. We must remember that the crisis in Haiti is a crisis of imperialism.

Ron Daniels and the IBW21, as well as these other Black misleaders, should be condemned for supporting US imperial policy against the First Black Republic in the modern world. These selected “Leaders of Civil Rights Groups” would do well to know that they are just the third group of Black faces that the US is instrumentalizing,  to invade Haiti, following the pattern set by the CARICOM countries and Kenya (which the U.S. is bribing with $300,000 to pretend to lead this disastrous mission). Are they wondering why the US, France, or Canada are refusing to lead the mission, or why they are only now involving them in the discussion? As we have said of the Kenyan government and the CARICOM governments providing armed mercenaries to kill Haitian people, this is Blackface imperialism.

We would also like to point out to these Black “leaders” that this planned invasion of Haiti, though heralded as a “UN” mission, is actually not. It has the sanction of the UN Security Council, but the UN did not want to take responsibility for the mission because it would need to apply too much “robust use of force” on Haitian people.

The Black Alliance for Peace continues to denounce US imperialism. But we especially condemn the Black faces of imperialism. We call on all those committed to a world without colonies to reject the Black faces of empire and their lies. Disband the Core Group! End the BINUH occupation! Stop all efforts to impose a new invasion on Haiti!

Dump the Imperialists in Blackface! Solidarity with the resistance! Long live a free Haiti!

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Black Alliance for Peace.

• Israel should allow Palestinians to create a legitimate political leadership — which can take charge in the West Bank and Gaza — and empower Palestinians who pursue their freedom in ethical ways.
• Israeli forces must withdraw all the way to the border of Gaza. As that campaign now continues, Israel, the United States and other allies in parallel must agree on the deployment of an international force drawn from NATO countries, with their deployment agreed on by Israel and the United States and operating under the auspices of the U.N. Security Council.
• The most promising course of action, and one that has not been widely discussed, is a temporary international trusteeship under a U.N. Security Council mandate.
• We envision a political framework of two states in a confederated association. The core concepts can be outlined as follows: two sovereign states, each with its own government but with joint mechanisms and institutions for critical shared concerns.
• The future of Gaza — like that of the West Bank — is for Palestinians to decide. That is the essence of self-determination. The international community must not continue to place Israel first, as has been done for decades. It cannot try to seek convenient leaders as partners or try to enter yet another long-term arrangement.

All of the proposals contain wish fulfillment and thoughts that find acceptance in much of the peace-loving world. Each contains doubts of being accepted.

(1)    There is no transition from a war in Gaza to a rehabilitation of Gaza. There never was a war in Gaza. Israel used the October 7 attack as an excuse to accelerate its ongoing destruction of the Palestinian community.

(2)    The killing machine that destroyed housing, government, agriculture, medical facilities, educational institutions, cultural institutions, food distribution, transportation, entire families, and left trauma in a majority of the population has been rightfully termed genocide. Will those carrying out genocide for 75 years suddenly halt the aggression and wish everyone well? Won’t the genocide continue?

(3)    The proposals are designed to separate the Israelis and the Palestinians. They do not provide sufficient living space and resources for the Palestinians and do not prevent additional Israeli encroachment on Palestinian land.

(4)    Israel has never listened to suggestions from others and always done what it wants, no matter the crime and no matter the reactions from the United Nations, United States, and any government. Why generate proposals for a “post-war” Gaza? For whom?

(5)    The Israeli government may seem in disarray with conflicting “good guy” and “bad guy” approaches. Don’t be fooled; the Israeli government and its Jewish citizens agree on incorporating all of the West Bank and Gaza into the stolen land and cleansing the entire area of Palestinians, which includes genocide. They differ in how to accomplish their purposes and that discussion goes on behind the scenes. The contradictory public disclosures are only window dressing to give hope to the helpless.

(6) The same type of fraudulent “made for public” disputes between Israeli and US governments appear in the media. The US pretends to be able to keep Israel in check and Israel pretends to listen. If Israel agrees with a US suggestion, it is because Israel has a plan and they want to make it seem that the US offered it; making their “ally” look good.

An article started with, “What can we do for the Palestinians after the genocide is over?” Not wanting to embarrass a website, its name will not be disclosed. Do people expect Israel to stop its genocide of the Palestinians? This innocence recalls the innocents of those who believed in the 2-state solution and some still do. From the day a Zionist set foot on Ottoman Palestine and, as outlined in their proposal at the 1919 Paris peace conference, the Zionists claimed all of Palestine and other territory.

The Zionists show they will never stop adding more Palestinian lands to the already conquered and stolen lands and they test the atmosphere with murmurs of the word “annexation.” All of the two-state proposals have had confusions and contradictions that make acceptance by both sides to be impossible. What was the point of suggesting the trading of stolen land in Israel for allowing settlers to remain on stolen land in the West Bank? If Israel had available land for settlers, why send them to the West Bank and then give up land in Israel so the settlers could remain in the West Bank? Why didn’t they remain in Israel and settle there?

The principle reason the two-state solution never had legs is because no Israeli Prime Minister wanted to go down in history as being the leader who prevented the Zionists from achieving their agenda. Knowing that and realizing the two-state solution is dead, why are there proposals for federated states, one-state, and a confederation, all of which have less probability of being accepted by Israel than the separated two states, which had zero probability.

The reality is that the genocide persists and how to stop it is the primary issue. One scenario has Israel claiming rehabilitation of their damaged lands as first priority, for which they will assert the Gazans have responsibility, and preceding with installation of additional security, so that the remains of the massive Hamas army never again enters a few kilometers into Israel. Gazans will be herded into a smaller enclave, which will be completely surrounded by Israeli troops — probably no access to sea, no access to Egypt, and completely separated from touching Israel. Israeli military and administrative families will build communities on Gazan lands.

Israel will control all entrances and exits to and from Gaza. Agriculture and fishing will be limited, with food importation and distribution operated by Israel authorities. Rebuilding of all demolished civic, educational, religious, medical, and cultural will be delayed and slow in forming. Look for Gazans to be living in tents for a long time. Israel’s ultra-orthodox extremists are still intent on making their Israel “Arab free,” and Gaza may provide a solution for housing some of the Arab populations from Jaffa, Beersheba, Haifa, Acre, Nazareth, and Jerusalem.

Reports indicate Israel has already started incorporation of Gaza into a greater Israel.

Israeli troops are fortifying a strategic corridor that carves Gaza in two, building bases, taking over civilian structures and razing homes, according to satellite imagery and other visual evidence — an effort that military analysts and Israeli experts say is part of a large-scale project to reshape the Strip and entrench the Israeli military presence there.

This exposition on the situation in Gaza reflects an interpretation of the Zionist mind. However, the facts don’t add up to accomplishing a genocide that reduces Palestinian population to nil; demographic analysis shows that type of genocide is implausible. Unless mass extermination methods are used, diminishing a population proceeds by applying simple arithmetic ─ maintain the death and departure rate about 3-4 percent higher than the birth rate. If this is done, within twenty years, Gaza’s population will be halved. In forty years, Gaza will have less than three hundred thousand Palestinian inhabitants and hundreds of thousands of Israelis, who may not be all Jews. “If this is done” does not translate into, “This can be done.”

Statistics indicate that the Palestinians in Gaza are the most resilient, admirable, and hardy people in the world. Despite decades of oppression, induced traumas, and physical and psychological wounds, their death rate is among the lowest and their birth rate is among the highest in the universe. They know how to handle adversity and take care of themselves and one another. The statistics tell the story.

*The World Factbook
**World Bank
***The World Factbook
****Highest birth rate in the world
****Lowest mortality rate in the world

A surprising statistic; the Palestinians may have the highest growth rate in the world. Can Israel’s oppressive tactics reduce the Palestinian birth rate and increase the mortality rate sufficiently to cause a demographic genocide? By withholding necessary medical assistance the Palestinian birth rate might be reduced to 15/1000 population and the infant mortality rate increased to 24/1000 live births.

Lithuania, at 15.17/1000 population, has the highest mortality rate on the planet. Why does Lithuania have the highest death rate?

Lithuania has the highest death rate in the world mainly because of the high prevalence of cardiovascular diseases and cancer. These diseases are linked to high smoking rates, unhealthy diet, and lack of physical activity. Other factors that contribute to the high death rate are alcoholism, depression, and suicide, which are influenced by the climatic, economic, and social conditions in the country.

The Palestinians don’t have the same conditions that caused an accelerated death rate in Lithuania, especially a lack of physical activity. They spend the entire day in back breaking work and moving around just to survive. Even if their birth rate is reduced to 1.5 percent and a higher infant mortality rate reduces the living births to 1.46 percent, and the mortality rate is multiplied by six, which will give them the highest death rate in the world, the Palestinian growth rate will be only a slightly negative 0.37 percent annually. At that rate, it will take 195 years to halve the present Palestinian populations in Gaza and the West Bank. They will be around for a long time.

What are the Zionist Jews attempting to accomplish with their deadly policies, a genocide that destroys lives, institutions, housing, government, agriculture, medical facilities, educational institutions, cultural institutions, food distribution, transportation, and entire families and never breaks the will of the Palestinians and does not reduce their numbers? Either the Israeli Jews cannot live without making the Palestinians suffer, which may be a way of translating their disturbed psyche into a mission that exalts their existence, or they have a plan, a final solution. The careless world will have to be careful. Spanish have a good expression for being careful, “ojo,” or “eye,” and pointing to an eye when saying it.

Conclusions

The statistics and mental ramblings lead to decisive conclusions.

(1)    The genocide of the Palestinians is not told in numbers.

• Article II from The UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide certifies the genocide.
• This genocide does not take life; it takes lives, preventing generations of Palestinians from satisfying their lives.
• Causing physical deprivation, suffering from constant aggression, and mental anguish in others can be more disturbing than demographic genocide.

(2)    The world portrays events and players upside down. Defending Hamas is depicted as being attached to terrorism and anti-Semitism. The facts indicate otherwise.

• In finally responding to several unanswered Israeli provocations, Hamas can be blamed for the few verified atrocities committed during the October 7 attack, but these were much less than the hundreds of atrocities committed against the Palestinians and Hamas’ followers in the West Bank and Gaza. The reply to atrocities committed by US troops is usually, “During battles, atrocities often happen.” Why single out Hamas for what others are also guilty and listen to the constant harping of the October 7 attack as if it was worse and more significant than Hiroshima, September 11, and Pearl Harbor?
• Hamas is portrayed as a corrupt, violent, terrorist, and manipulative organization that cannot administer and takes advantage of an innocent Gazan population. Reality shows the opposite. Despite constant violent attacks from Israel, Hamas has been able to sustain the morale of the Gazans, motivate them, and give them hope and life. Faced with inadequate food production, no airport or seaports, a lack of natural resources, interrupted energy, a barrier to financial markets, and limited access to the outside world, Hamas has created a society with educated, cultured, healthy, energetic, and endurable people. These are people with the highest growth rate in the world ─ they have the will to live and produce. With assistance from UNRWA, Hamas has built hospitals, schools, colleges, recreational facilities, sports arenas, and culture centers. Gazans are well housed (were well housed) with entire extended families inhabiting an apartment building. The organization has been remarkable, just the opposite from what propaganda wants us to believe.
• The Israeli Jews are portrayed as compassionate and peace loving victims of terror. Reality shows a corrupt government that incites settler violence, engages in innumerable wars, terrorizes Palestinians, and deceives the world into accepting their destruction of the Palestinian people, just the opposite from what propaganda wants us to believe.
• The “no holds” barred use of the anti-Semitism label to divert the public from learning the truth of the Zionist criminal actions has been clearly exposed during the last months. Seeing the success of the fraudulent anti-Semitism in gathering US domestic and government support, for Israel and intimidating college officials, leads to wondering if anti-Semitism is only a construct and was always a weapon used by the Zionists to shield the truth of irresponsible actions?  Should we reevaluate the promoted anti-Semitic charges of the Zionist past?

For 75 years, the Israeli Jews have been oppressing Palestinians as their national sport. They wanted the land and have taken the land. They want to cleanse the land of Palestinians and have not been able to achieve that objective and there is no indication of how they can achieve it. Will Israel keep the Palestinians in captivity for eternity? Looks that way, unless the Israeli Jews, who can live well anywhere, decide to leave or decide, “Maybe we can live together with the Palestinians in a single state. Regard how obedient the Israeli Palestinian population have been.” Or, will Israel remain guided by its extremists who recite,

Are these words from human beings? They are capable of anything. “Ojo” is the word of the day.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Maya Angelou, “Still I Rise”

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Dan Lieberman.

The title of this newsletter, ‘My heart makes my head swim’, comes from Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks (1952). In a chapter called ‘The Fact of Blackness’, Fanon writes about the despair that racism produces, the immense anxiety about living in a world that has decided that certain people are simply not human or not sufficiently human. The lives of these people, children of a lesser god, are assigned less worth than the lives of the powerful and the propertied. An international division of humanity tears the world into pieces, throwing masses of people into the fires of anguish and oblivion.

What is happening in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, is ghastly. Since October 2023, Israel has ordered 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza to move southwards as the Israeli armed forces have steadily moved their gunsights across the Wadi Gaza wetlands down to the edge of Rafah. Kilometre by kilometre, as the Israeli military advances, the so-called safe zone moves further and further south. In December, the Israeli government claimed, with great cruelty, that the tent city of al-Mawasi (west of Rafah, along the Mediterranean Sea) was the new designated safe area. A mere 6.5 square kilometres (half the size of London’s Heathrow airport), the supposed safe zone within al-Mawasi is nowhere near large enough to house the more than one million Palestinians who are in Rafah. Not only was it absurd for Israel to say that al-Mawasi would be a refuge, but – according to the laws of war – a safe zone must be agreed upon by all parties.

Ismail Shammout (Palestine), Odyssey of a People, 1980.

‘How can a zone be safe in a war zone if it is only unilaterally decided by one part of the conflict?’, asked Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA); ‘It can only promote the false feeling that it will be safe’. Furthermore, on several occasions, Israel has bombed al-Mawasi, the area it says is safe. On 20 February, Israel attacked a shelter operated by Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières, killing two family members of the organisation’s staff. This week, on 13 May, an international UN staff member was killed after the Israeli army opened fire on a UN vehicle, one of the nearly 200 UN workers killed in Gaza in addition to the targeted assassination of aid workers.

Aref El-Rayyes (Lebanon), Untitled, 1963.

Not only has Israel begun to bomb Rafah, but it hastily sent in tanks to seize the only border crossing through which aid dribbled in on the few trucks a day that were allowed to enter. After Israel seized the Rafah border, it prevented the entry of aid into Gaza altogether. Starving Palestinians has long been Israeli policy, which is of course a war crime. Preventing aid from entering Gaza is part of the international division of humanity that has defined not only this genocide, but the occupation of Palestinian land in East Jerusalem, Gaza, and the West Bank since 1967 and the system of apartheid within the borders defined by Israel following the 1948 Nakba (‘Catastrophe’).

Three words in this sentence are fundamentally contested by Israel: apartheid, occupation, and genocide. Israel and its Global North allies want to claim that the use of these words to describe Israeli policies, Zionism, or the oppression of Palestinians is tantamount to anti-Semitism. But, as the United Nations and numerous respected human rights groups note, these are legal descriptions of the reality on the ground and not moral judgments that are made either in haste or out of anti-Semitism. A short primer on the accuracy of these three concepts is necessary to counter this denial.

Nelson Makamo (South Africa), Decoration of the Youth, 2019.

Apartheid. The Israeli government treats the Palestinian minority population within the borders defined in 1948 (21%) as second-class citizens. There are at least sixty-five Israeli laws that discriminate against Palestinian citizens of Israel. One of them, passed in 2018, declares the country a ‘nation state of the Jewish people’. As the Israeli philosopher Omri Boehm wrote, through this new law, the Israeli government ‘formally endorses’ the use of ‘apartheid methods within Israel’s recognised borders’. The United Nations and Human Rights Watch have both said that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians falls under the definition of apartheid. The use of this term is entirely factual.

Laila Shawa (Palestine), The Hands of Fatima, 2013.

Occupation. In 1967, Israel occupied the three Palestinian territories of East Jerusalem, Gaza, and the West Bank. From 1967 to 1999, these three areas were referred to as part of the Occupied Arab Territories (which at different times also included Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, Syria’s Golan region, and southern Lebanon). Since 1999, they have been termed the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). In UN documents and at the International Court of Justice, Israel is referred to as the ‘occupying power’, which is a term of art that requires certain obligations from Israel toward those whom it occupies. Although the 1993 Oslo Accords set up the Palestinian Authority, Israel remains the occupying power of the OPT, a designation that has not been revised. An occupation is identical to colonial rule: it is when a foreign power dominates a people in their homeland and denies them sovereignty and rights. Despite Israel’s military withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 (which included the dismantling of twenty-one illegal settlements), Israel continues to occupy Gaza by building a perimeter fence around the Gaza Strip and by policing the Mediterranean waters of Gaza. Annexation of parts of East Jerusalem and the West Bank as well as the punctual bombing of Gaza are violations of Israel’s obligation as the occupying power.

An occupation imposes a structural condition of violence upon the occupied. That is why international law recognises that those who are occupied have the right to resist. In 1965, in the midst of Guinea Bissau’s struggle against Portuguese colonialism, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 2105 (‘Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples’). Paragraph 10 of this resolution is worth reading carefully: ‘The General Assembly… [r]ecognises the legitimacy of the struggle by the peoples under colonial rule to exercise their right to self-determination and independence and invites all States to provide material and moral assistance to the national liberation movements in colonial Territories’. There is no ambiguity here. Those who are occupied have the right to resist, and, in fact, all member states of the United Nations are bound by this treaty to assist them. Rather than sell arms to the occupying power, who is the aggressor in the ongoing genocide, the members states of the United Nations – particularly from the Global North – should aid the Palestinians.

Abdulqader al-Rais (United Arab Emirates), Waiting, c. 1970.

Genocide. In its order published on 26 January, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that there was ‘plausible’ evidence of Israel committing genocide against Palestinians. In March, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Francesca Albanese, published a monumental report called Anatomy of a Genocide. In this report, Albanese wrote that ‘there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating Israel’s commission of genocide is met’. ‘More broadly’, she wrote, ‘they also indicate that Israel’s actions have been driven by a genocidal logic integral to its settler-colonial project in Palestine, signalling a tragedy foretold’.

Intent to commit genocide is easily proved in the context of Israel’s bombardment. In October 2023, Israel’s President Isaac Herzog said that ‘an entire nation out there is responsible’ for the attacks on 7 October, and it was not true that ‘civilians [were] not… aware, not involved’. The ICJ pointed to this statement, among others, since it expresses Israel’s intent and use of ‘collective punishment’, a genocidal war crime. The following month, Israel’s Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu said that dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza was ‘an option’ since ‘there are no non-combatants in Gaza’. Before the ICJ ruling was published, Moshe Saada, a member of the Israeli parliament from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, said that ‘all Gazans must be destroyed’. These sentiments, by any international standard, demonstrate an intent to commit genocide. As with ‘apartheid’ and ‘occupation’, the use of the term ‘genocide’ is entirely accurate.

Vijay Prashad presents Frantz Fanon’s daughter, Mireille Fanon Mendès-France, with a poster of the cover of the new isiZulu edition of her father’s classic, The Wretched of the Earth, in Paris, France, 2024.

Earlier this year, Inkani Books, a Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research project based in South Africa, published the isiZulu translation of Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth, Izimpabanga Zomhlaba, translated by Makhosazana Xaba. We are so proud of this accomplishment, bringing the work of Fanon into another African language (it has already been translated into Arabic and Swahili).

When I was last in Palestine, I spoke with young children about their aspirations. What they told me reminded me of a section from The Wretched of the Earth: ‘At twelve or thirteen years of age the village children know the names of the old men who were in the last rising, and the dreams they dream in the douars [camps] or in the villages are not those of money or of getting through their exams like the children of the towns, but dreams of identification with some rebel or another, the story of whose heroic death still today moves them to tears’.

Children in Gaza will remember this genocide with at least the same intensity as their ancestors remembered 1948 and as their parents remembered the occupation that has loomed over this narrow piece of land since their own childhood. Children in South Africa will read these lines from Fanon in isiZulu and remember those who fell to inaugurate a new South Africa thirty years ago.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Vijay Prashad.

Powerful student movements in the 1960s and 1970s shook the world’s conscience to end America’s slaughter in Vietnam and Cambodia. The moral force of Black people rising together in their pain and rage against legislated racism changed the social fabric of America, ending formal segregation and ushering a new era in the struggle against institutional racialism.

Power did what power does, deploying brute force, murder, intimidation, silencing, marginalizing, surveillance and all manner of corrupt policing.

We see the outcome and we think we know it.

Labels like “victory” and “advancement” are applied. “Civil rights” is a term spoken as an absolute, a singular point of history with a terrible before and liberated after.

It’s the “happy ending” reframing of what is indeed a boundless thread of struggle for Black liberation stretching in both directions through time.

The resilience of elite capitalist rule relies heavily on such narrative construction that manipulates public imagination with platitudes and reversible concessions, followed by a rebranding of oppression.

Enslavement becomes mass incarceration and purposeful drug addiction. Segregation is sacrificed to be replaced with conscription of Black faces around the same table of power ethos.

Rebooted with greater cruelty

Power adapted since the 1960s, creating new stops, levers, gates and gatekeepers. They lulled us back into their system, rebooted it with greater cruelty and corruption, and retooled it with distractions and celebrity worship while they consolidated and concentrated power in the hands of a tiny minority.

They bought politicians, who in turn work to safeguard and increase the wealth and influence of this elite minority, turning millionaires into billionaires and soon trillionaires, a staggering wealth gap built on the misery of the masses. They created laws to exonerate their criminality and criminalize dissent.

They busted up the unions, subjugated workers and pitted them against each other. Instead of confronting the bosses, workers were manipulated into demanding iron borders and separation of families at those borders.

They gutted regulations and bought up the airwaves to now dictate the content of 95 percent of everything we see, hear and read in the way of journalism, entertainment, education and cultural productions.

This is the reason terrorist characters dominate Arab depictions in Hollywood. It’s the reason for the unusually high number of casual mentions of Israeli benevolence or genius in so many television series and films; the reason why Palestinian humanity is ignored or at best obscured in both print and broadcast news media no matter how many atrocities we face at Israel’s hands.

It’s why Black media outlets, owned and run by Zionists of all stripes, take out hit pieces on the likes of Amanda Seales for her righteous stand on Palestine.

Instead of paying taxes, these billionaires “donate” to universities sufficient sums to impose their vision not only for higher education, but for the acceptable expression of constitutional rights like the First Amendment.

For example, outraged by a Palestinian literature festival – a beautiful celebration of Palestinian excellence and indigenous heritage – the billionaires Marc Rowan, Dick Wolf and the Lauder family conspired to remove the president of the University of Pennsylvania for her insufficient deference to their interpretation of academic freedom.

Enlisting their hired goons in Congress, they and others of their ilk, like Bill Ackman, denigrated and/or removed more university presidents for the same reason.

They even managed to bring the internet – which gave the 1990s generation hope for real democracy – under their nefarious control through algorithms and various forms of surveillance and censorship.

Hiding the horrors

Americans tried to stop the march of US corporate and Zionist warmongers toward war in the early 2000s, but they marched on, trampling our will and the bodies of millions of Iraqis. And the world watched as the US pulverized Iraq, a once glorious, high functioning ancient society.

An “embedded” media hid the bloody horrors and kept the secrets of US corporate looting of Iraq’s treasures and laundering of US tax dollars through rebuilding schemes.

Desensitized, Americans didn’t bother protesting when the US did the same in Libya, spurring a staggering de-development of one of Africa’s most advanced nations into a veritable human slave market.

The enslavement and mutilation of Congolese children and whole families in mineral mines to benefit American tech billionaires (as well as Israel’s blood diamond trade) barely elicit a blip in Western media, a shockingly cruel reality they continue to obscure.

There are hundreds more examples of American and Israeli militarism killing and destroying others in the service of this ruling corporate class.

Mass surveillance of the populace followed the gutting and looting of public education in the United States. The rich got richer and the poor became destitute.

In the name of technology and efficiency, capitalists degraded our food and water – poisoned them even – benefitting pharmaceutical billionaires who keep the masses teetering on the edge of health.

Popular gurus pushed philosophies of individualism, contempt for family, and various forms of alienation that shattered community and social or familial bonds, leaving vast swaths of the people unable to cope with life without drug varieties, both legal and illegal.

They have weighed us down with the fake dreams they scripted for us – insurmountable debt as a stand-in for family and education, blood diamonds as a stand-in for love and carnage abroad as a stand-in for greatness. They sold us a glorious pile of shit and made us think it was a normal – even inevitable – way of life.

They glorified obsessive consumerism and obscenely ostentatious lifestyles. And we let them, believing it was our choice.

But we had none.

An American illusion

Choice, like democracy and free press, is an American illusion, a fairytale they peddle in school, newspapers and songs.

Look how quickly they disbanded, silenced and erased memory of the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011. Look how we are taught to believe that change can only come through the ballot box, where we’re told to “choose” between two war criminals one election after another.

This moment of livestreamed genocide is the culmination of decades of global capitalist criminality and genocidal Western and Zionist imperialism. We watch in horror as whole Palestinian families are buried alive in their homes, crushed beneath the weight of rubble, their bodies torn and shredded.

Then they gaslight us.

Politicians, spokespeople, pundits, journalists and broadcasters take to the airways to convince us that we hadn’t just seen brains, tongues and eyeballs spilling from the crushed skulls of children and babies. Or worse, that they somehow deserved it.

“Fog of war.”

“Collateral damage.”

“Hamas. Hamas. Hamas.”

“The only democracy.”

“Self-defense.”

Over and over they use their wicked justifications and obfuscations. They speak to us as if we’re stupid because they’re accustomed to our silence and acquiescence.

And they go on, prancing into the Met Gala in obscene finery, the vulgarity of which is made all the more apparent in juxtaposition to the burned and dismembered small bodies on the same day, pouring into Gaza’s few remaining hospitals, screaming, bewildered, in shock and in pain.

But thank God for the students.

Thank God for every Palestinian journalist and every Palestinian healthcare worker risking their lives day in and out to serve their people.

For every fighter choosing martyrdom over indignity.

For the local organizations and activists you never hear about, but whose work has been keeping thousands alive. I dare not say their names, lest they become targets.

For Naledi Pandor in South Africa, Francesca Albanese at the United Nations and Clare Daly in the European Parliament.

For the masses rising up in #Blockout2024. For artists and musicians from Roger Waters and Talib Kweli, to Macklemore and Black Thought, Questlove and more.

For Yemen, South Africa and Colombia. For every person who refuses to remain silent.

All dots connected

This time is different from the uprisings of the 1960s and 1970s. There is a new sense of global interconnection, an emerging class consciousness and foundational political analyses predicated on post-colonial studies and intersectionality.

Back then the white students protesting the war wouldn’t unite with the Black Panthers because they couldn’t connect the dots. All dots are connecting now.

Gaza is no longer the enclave sealed and besieged by Israel and Abdulfattah al-Sisi’s Egypt into a concentration camp. Gaza is no longer the densely-populated strip of Israeli-occupied land.

Rather, Gaza is now all the world.

Gaza is our collective moment of truth, the meaning in our lives. It is the clarity we need and seek.

It is the definitive divide between us and the ruling class that tramples us.

It is us or them. There is no middle place now.

All the borders fade, leaving us united to confront this greedy genocidal minority everywhere.

Gaza is the most anguished place on earth at this hour, dimmed by unimaginable Zionist cruelty, which their military and society conduct with perverted glee that they set to music for TikTok.

And from this tortured place of rubble, death and misery there springs the greatest light we have ever known to guide us out of the darkness in which we’ve been forced to live. The light of our ancestors – from Palestine and Alkebulan to Turtle Island and Aotearoa.

Gaza may well be our last chance to save humanity.

If we allow the wheels of this genocidal Zionist engine to keep turning, there will be no more limits to fascism. There will be no shame or red lines before which they will halt.

This struggle can no more be just about a ceasefire. It must demand liberation and accountability across our burning planet.

Already they are using the tactics of brute force, violent intimidation, suspension and marginalization. They will attempt the same dismantlement, silencing and erasure they did with the Occupy Wall Street movement.

They will offer half-baked promises with no teeth, enough to quiet matters long enough to adopt new strategies and enact new laws.

If we stop they will adapt, and they will do so with artificial intelligence, against which we may well have no defenses, not for a long time to come. So beware of their concessions.

Beware of victory that pulls us back into the lanes they made.

We cannot allow Israeli genocide against a defenseless and captive indigenous population to become a whitewashed, declawed historic moment of before and after.

We cannot leave the lawns and streets and courts and battlefields until Zionism is dismantled and Palestine is free.

This moment belongs to the people. We can dream our own dreams and create a new world in every personal act of refusal to participate in this horrible system predicated on genocide and unending exploitation.

Together we are powerful beyond our wildest imaginations. Compassion and defiance are our superpowers, and this is just our origin story.

The youth are leading and showing us that the future is ours, if we dare to claim it.

• First published in The Electronic Intifada

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Susan Abulhawa.

• Columbia campus protests escalate with building occupation and threats of expulsion.
• Police crack down on University of Texas campus protest.
• Judge fines Trump for gag order violation at hush money trial in New York.
• Secretary of State Blinken in Israel for talks, urges Hamas accept ceasefire proposal.
• US health officials recommend women get regular mammograms starting at a younger age.
• Youth voter organization breaks downs down findings of youth voter poll.
• California lawmakers advance bill that would protect poll workers. 

The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – April 30, 2024 Columbia campus protests escalate with building occupation and threats of expulsion. appeared first on KPFA.

This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

People’s doors were kicked in and people were assaulted, insulted, and threatened by men wielding automatic weapons. Many people were kicked, including women. The police fired rubber bullets at the residents. Money was also stolen. People who tried to film the attack were threatened. The police boasted that they have been instructed by police minister Bheki Cele to shoot and kill. The residents were dehumanised and the whole community criminalised.

The residents of Sihlalangenkani refused to accept that they were now being policed by a private security company hired by the rich, demanded to know why they were under attack from a private security company, and why this company was taking over the work of the police. They successfully resisted the attack. After this they moved to the Umhlali police station where they protested against the attack and demanded to know why IPSS Security was now doing the work of the police. The IPSS website shows that the company is actively involved in “thwarting land invasions”.

In terms of the law the actions of IPSS and the police were unlawful and criminal but of course IPSS Security and the police will be treated as if they are above the law and poor black people are always treated as if we are beneath the law. Our mere presence on this land in an elite area is taken as a crime, a crime that legitimates unlawful and violent behaviour from IPSS Security and the police.

The real ‘crime’ of the Sihlalangenkani residents is that they have occupied and held ‘prime land’, land where very rich people, most of them white, live in gated communities.

On Friday 12 April the police returned to the community and arrested Fezile Gosa and Bongeka Gazu, the chairperson and deputy chairperson of the Abahlali baseMjondolo branch. Bongeka is pregnant and was kept in very bad conditions while she was under arrest. These were obviously political targeted arrests.

The community protested against the arrests while they were being carried out and then again outside the police station. Fezile and Bongeka were released on Monday. Their case was not even placed on the role in the court as there was no evidence against them and no case to make against them. Our lawyers expressed their shock at the conditions under which the Deputy Chairperson was detained.

We note that in both of the media reports in Independent Online on the attack on Sihlalangenkani and the arrests of the community leaders only IPSS Security and the police are quoted. Not a single resident of Sihlalangenkani is given an opportunity to speak in either of the two articles. We also not that both articles contain statements that are not true. Perhaps the most important of these is the claim that residents fired on IPSS Security and the police.

Both articles take the statements from IPSS security and the police as fact despite the long and well known history of both the police and security companies lying to the media after they have committed violence against poor black people, including murder.

We would like to remind the media that after the police murders of Nqobile Ngcobo in 2013 and Zamekile Shangase in 2021 the media uncritically repeated false claims by the police that they had had to open fire while under attack as if these claims were true. In the case of the murder of Zamekile Shangase the police claimed that they were “coming under fire from all sides” when, as was later shown, no shots were fired at them. In both cases the media did not ask eyewitnesses for comment or ask for comments from the communities that had come under police attack or from our movement. In both cases they did not withdraw or correct their articles when the facts came to light, or even make an apology.

We would like to thank the lawyers from the Right to Protest for representing our comrades in the KwaDukuza Magistrate’s Court on Monday.

Our comrades spent three days in police cells for the ‘crime’ of being elected leaders of the residents of a land occupation. The ‘crime’ of the residents of the occupation is being poor and black and residing on land near to where very rich people live.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Abahlali baseMjondolo.

Democracy Now! speaks with two former Israeli soldiers who are members of Breaking the Silence, an anti-occupation group of Israeli army veterans. The group’s education director, Tal Sagi, describes growing up in a settlement and joining the military without understanding what occupation was. “We’ve been told that this is security and we have to control millions of lives and we don’t have other options,” says Sagi, who says Israeli society is not open to ending the occupation. “We’re trying to say that there are other options.” We also speak with Breaking the Silence deputy director Nadav Weiman about why the group is touring U.S. colleges and calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. “We stood in checkpoints. We raided homes. We attacked Gaza from the air. We fought from the ground,” says Weiman. “So, when you bring reality, you bring real conversation about the occupation, and you bring real conversation about Gaza.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Israel apparently crossed a red line when it killed a handful of foreign aid workers on 1 April, including three British security contractors.

Three missiles, fired over several minutes, struck vehicles in a World Central Kitchen (WCK) aid convoy heading up Gaza’s coast on one of the few roads still passable after Israel turned the enclave’s homes and streets into rubble. All the vehicles were clearly marked. All were on an approved, safe passage. And the Israeli military had been given the coordinates to track the convoy’s location.

With precise missile holes through the vehicle roofs making it impossible to blame Hamas for the strike, Israel was forced to admit responsibility. Its spokespeople claimed an armed figure had been seen entering the storage area from which the aid convoy had departed.

But even that feeble, formulaic response could not explain why the Israeli military hit cars in which it was known there were aid workers. So Israel hurriedly promised to investigate what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described as a “tragic incident”.

Israel deeply regrets the tragic incident which claimed the lives of seven humanitarian aid workers.

Our hearts go out to their families and to their home countries.

The IDF is conducting a swift and transparent investigation and we will make our findings public.

Israel…

— Benjamin Netanyahu – ?????? ?????? (@netanyahu) April 2, 2024

Presumably, it was a “tragic incident” just like the 15,000-plus other “tragic incidents” – the ones we know about – that Israel has committed against Palestinian children day after day for six months.

In those cases, of course, western commentators always managed to produce some rationalisation for the slaughter.

Not this time.

'It could've been our missiles that killed them.'
@NickFerrariLBC calls for the suspension of arms sales to Israel after an Israeli airstrike on Gaza killed seven aid workers, including three Brits. pic.twitter.com/HK4PfHy2JU

— LBC (@LBC) April 3, 2024

Like the Independent, he too proclaimed: “This has to stop.”

The attack on the WCK convoy briefly changed the equation for the western media. Seven dead aid workers were a wake-up call when many tens of thousands of dead, maimed and orphaned Palestinian children had not been.

A salutary equation indeed.

British politicians reassured the public that Israel would carry out an “independent investigation” into the killings. That is, the same Israel that never punishes its soldiers even when their atrocities are televised. The same Israel whose military courts find almost every Palestinian guilty of whatever crime Israel chooses to accuse them of, if it allows them a trial.

But at least the foreign aid workers merited an investigation, however much of a foregone conclusion the verdict. That is more than the dead children of Gaza will ever get.

Israel’s playbook

British commentators appeared startled by the thought that Israel had chosen to kill the foreigners working for World Central Kitchen – even if those same journalists still treat tens of thousands of dead Palestinians as unfortunate “collateral damage” in a “war” to “eradicate Hamas”.

But had they been paying closer attention, these pundits would understand that the murder of foreigners is not exceptional. It has been central to Israel’s occupation playbook for decades – and helps explain what Israel hopes to achieve with its current slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza.

Back in the early 2000s, Israel was on another of its rampages, wrecking Gaza and the West Bank supposedly in “retaliation” for Palestinians having had the temerity to rise up against decades of military occupation.

Shocked by the brutality, a group of foreign volunteers, a significant number of them Jewish, ventured into these areas to witness and document the Israeli military’s crimes and act as human shields to protect Palestinians from the violence.

They arrived under the mantle of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a Palestinian-led initiative. They were keen to use what were then new technologies such as digital cameras, email and blogs to focus attention on the Israeli military’s atrocities.

Some became a new breed of activist journalist, embedded in Palestinian communities to report the story western establishment journalists, embedded in Israel, never managed to cover.

Israel presented the ISM as a terrorist group and dismissed its filmed documentation as “Pallywood” – a supposedly fiction-producing industry equated to a Palestinian Hollywood.

Gaza isolated

But the ISM’s evidence increasingly exposed the “most moral army in the world” for what it really was: a criminal enterprise there to enforce land thefts and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

Israel needed to take firmer action.

The evidence suggests soldiers received authorisation to execute foreigners in the occupied territories. That included young activists such as Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall; James Miller, an independent filmmaker who ventured into Gaza; and even a United Nations official, Iain Hook, based in the West Bank.

This rapid spate of killings – and the maiming of many other activists – had the intended effect. The ISM largely withdrew from the region to protect its volunteers, while Israel formally banned the group from accessing the occupied territories.

Meanwhile, Israel denied press credentials to any journalist not sponsored by a state or a billionaire-owned outlet, kicking them out of the region.

Al Jazeera, the one critical Arab channel whose coverage reached western audiences, found its journalists regularly banned or killed, and its offices bombed.

The battle to isolate the Palestinians, freeing Israel to commit atrocities unmonitored, culminated in Israel’s now 17-year blockade of Gaza. It was sealed off.

With the enclave completely besieged by land, human rights activists focused their efforts on breaking the blockade via the high seas. A series of “freedom flotillas” tried to reach Gaza’s coast from 2008 onwards. Israel soon managed to stop most of them.

The largest was led by the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish vessel laden with aid and medicine. Israeli naval commandos stormed the ship illegally in international waters in 2010, killing 10 foreign aid workers and human rights activists on board and injuring another 30.

The western media soft-pedalled Israel’s preposterous characterisation of the flotillas as a terrorist enterprise. The initiative gradually petered out.

Western complicity

That is the proper context for understanding the latest attack on the WCK aid convoy.

Israel has always had four prongs to its strategy towards the Palestinians. Taken together, they have allowed Israel to refine its apartheid-style rule, and are now allowing it to implement its genocidal policies undisturbed.

The first is to incrementally isolate the Palestinians from the international community.

The second is to make the Palestinians entirely dependent on the Israeli military’s goodwill, and create conditions that are so precarious and unpredictable that most Palestinians try to vacate their historic homeland, leaving it free to be “Judaised”.

Third, Israel has crushed any attempt by outsiders – especially the media and human rights monitors – to scrutinise its activities in real-time or hold it to account.

And fourth, to achieve all this, Israel has needed to erode piece by piece the humanitarian protections that were enshrined in international law to stop a repeat of the common-place atrocities against civilians during the Second World War.

This process, which had been taking place over years and decades, was rapidly accelerated after Hamas’ attack on 7 October. Israel had the pretext to transform apartheid into genocide.

Unrwa, the main United Nations refugee agency, which is mandated to supply aid to the Palestinians, had long been in Israel’s sights, especially in Gaza. It has allowed the international community to keep its foot in the door of the enclave, maintaining a lifeline to the population there independent of Israel, and creating an authoritative framework for judging Israel’s human rights abuses. Worse, for Israel, Unrwa has kept alive the right of return – enshrined in international law – of Palestinian refugees expelled from their original lands so a self-declared Jewish state could be built in their place.

Israel leapt at the chance to accuse Unrwa of being implicated in the 7 October attack, even though it produced zero evidence for the claim. Almost as enthusiastically, western states turned off the funding tap to the UN agency.

The Biden administration appears keen to end UN oversight of Gaza by hiving off its main aid role to private firms. It has been one of the key sponsors of WCK, led by a celebrity Spanish chef with ties to the US State Department.

WCK, which has also been building a pier off Gaza’s coast, was expected to be an adjunct to Washington’s plan to eventually ship in aid from Cyprus – to help those Palestinians who, over the next few weeks, do not starve to death.

Until, that is, Israel struck the aid convoy, killing its staff. WCK has pulled out of Gaza for the time being, and other private aid contractors are backing off, fearful for their workers’ safety.

Goal one has been achieved. The people of Gaza are on their own. The West, rather than their saviour, is now fully complicit not only in Israel’s blockade of Gaza but in its starvation too.

Life and death lottery

Next, Israel has demonstrated beyond doubt that it regards every Palestinian in Gaza, even its children, as an enemy.

The fact that most of the enclave’s homes are now rubble should serve as proof enough, as should the fact that many tens of thousands there have been violently killed. Only a fraction of the death toll is likely to have been recorded, given Israel’s destruction of the enclave’s health sector.

Israel’s levelling of hospitals, including al-Shifa – as well as the kidnapping and torture of medical staff – has left Palestinians in Gaza completely exposed. The eradication of meaningful healthcare means births, serious injuries and chronic and acute illnesses are quickly becoming a death sentence.

Israel has intentionally been turning life in Gaza into a lottery, with nowhere safe.

According to a new investigation, Israel’s bombing campaign has relied heavily on experimental AI systems that largely automate the killing of Palestinians. That means there is no need for human oversight – and the potential limitations imposed by a human conscience.

Israeli website 972 found that tens of thousands of Palestinians had been put on “kill lists” generated by a program called Lavender, using loose definitions of “terrorist” and with an error rate estimated even by the Israeli military at one in 10.

Another programme called “Where’s Daddy?” tracked many of these “targets” to their family homes, where they – and potentially dozens of other Palestinians unlucky enough to be inside – were killed by air strikes.

An Israeli intelligence official told 972: “The IDF bombed them in homes without hesitation, as a first option. It’s much easier to bomb a family’s home. The system is built to look for them in these situations.”

As so many of these targets were considered to be “junior” operatives, of little military value, Israel preferred to use unguided, imprecise munitions – “dumb bombs” – increasing dramatically the likelihood of large numbers of other Palestinians being killed too.

Or, as another Israeli intelligence official observed: “You don’t want to waste expensive bombs on unimportant people – it’s very expensive for the country and there’s a shortage [of smart bombs].”

That explains how entire extended families, comprising dozens of members, have been so regularly slaughtered.

Separately, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported on 31 March that the Israeli military has been operating unmarked “kill zones” in which anyone moving – man, woman or child – is in danger of being shot dead.

Or, as a reserve officer who has been serving in Gaza told the paper: “In practice, a terrorist is anyone the IDF has killed in the areas in which its forces operate.”

This, Haaretz reports, is the likely reason why soldiers gunned down three escaped Israeli hostages who were trying to surrender to them.

Palestinians, of course, rarely know where these kill zones are as they desperately scour ever larger areas in the hope of finding food.

If they are fortunate enough to avoid death from the skies or expiring from starvation, they risk being seized by Israeli soldiers and taken off to one of Israel’s black sites. There, as a whistleblowing Israeli doctor admitted last week, unspeakable, Abu Ghraib-style horrors are being inflicted on the inmates.

Goal two has been achieved, leaving Palestinians terrified of the Israeli military’s largely random violence and desperate to find an escape from the Russian roulette Israel is playing with their lives.

Reporting stifled

Long ago, Israel barred UN human rights monitors from accessing the occupied territories. That has left scrutiny of its crimes largely in the hands of the media.

Independent foreign reporters have been barred from the region for some 15 years, leaving the field to establishment journalists serving state and corporate media, where there are strong pressures to present Israel’s actions in the best possible light.

That is why the most important stories about 7 October and the Israeli military’s actions in Gaza and treatment of Palestinian prisoners in Israel have been broken by Israeli-based media – as well as small, independent western outlets that have highlighted its coverage.

Since 7 October, Israel has barred all foreign journalists from Gaza, and western reporters have meekly complied. None have been alerting their audience to this major assault on their supposed role as watchdogs.

Israeli spokespeople, well-practised in the dark arts of deception and misdirection, have been allowed to fill the void in London studios.

What on-the-ground information from Gaza has been reaching western publics – when it is not suppressed by media outlets either because it would be too distressing or because its inclusion would enrage Israel – comes via Palestinian journalists. They have been showing the genocide unfolding in real-time.

But for that reason, Israel has been picking them off one by one – just as it did earlier with Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall – as well as murdering their extended families as a warning to others.

The one international channel that has many journalists on the ground in Gaza and is in a position to present its reporting in high-quality English is Al Jazeera.

The list of its journalists killed by Israel has grown steadily longer since 7 October. Gaza bureau chief Wael al-Dahdouh has had most of his family executed, as well as being injured himself.

His counterpart in the West Bank, Shireen Abu Akhleh, was shot dead by an Israeli army sniper two years ago.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Israel rushed a law through its parliament last week to ban Al Jazeera from broadcasting from the region. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it a “terror channel”, claiming it participated in Hamas’ 7 October attack.

Al Jazeera had just aired a documentary revisiting the events of 7 October. It showed that Hamas did not commit the most barbaric crimes Israel accuses it of, and that, in fact, in some cases Israel was responsible for the most horrifying atrocities against its own citizens that it had attributed to Hamas.

Al Jazeera and human rights groups are understandably worried about what further actions Israel is likely to take against the channel’s journalists to snuff out its reporting.

Palestinians in Gaza, meanwhile, fear that they are about to lose the only channel that connects them to the outside world, both telling their stories and keeping them informed about what the watching world knows of their plight.

Goal three has been achieved. The lights are being turned off. Israel can carry out in the dark the potentially ugliest phase of its genocide, as Palestinian children emaciate and starve to death.

Rulebook torn up

And finally, Israel has torn up the rulebook on international humanitarian law intended to protect civilians from atrocities, as well as the infrastructure they rely on.

Israel has destroyed universities, government buildings, mosques, churches and bakeries, as well as, most critically, medical facilities.

Over the past six months, hospitals, once sacrosanct, have slowly become legitimate targets, as have the patients inside.

Collective punishment, absolutely prohibited as a war crime, has become the norm in Gaza since 2007, when the West stood mutely by as Israel besieged the enclave for 17 years.

Now, as Palestinians are starved to death, as children turn to skin and bones, and as aid convoys are bombed and aid seekers are shot dead, there is still apparently room for debate among the western media-political class about whether this all constitutes a violation of international law.

Even after six months of Israel bombing Gaza, treating its people as “human animals” and denying them food, water and power – the very definition of collective punishment – Britain’s deputy prime minister, Oliver Dowden, apparently believes Israel is, unfairly, being held to “incredibly high standards”. David Lammy, shadow foreign secretary for the supposedly opposition Labour party, still has no more than “serious concerns” that international law may have been breached.

Neither party yet proposes banning the sale of British arms to Israel, arms that are being used to commit precisely these violations of international law. Neither is referencing the International Court of Justice’s ruling that Israel is “plausibly” committing genocide.

Meanwhile, the main political conversation in the West is still mired in delusional talk about how to revive the fabled “two-state solution”, rather than how to stop an accelerating genocide.

The reality is that Israel has ripped up the most fundamental of the principles in international law: “distinction” – differentiating between combatants and civilians – and “proportionality” – using only the minimum amount of force needed to achieve legitimate military goals.

The rules of war are in tatters. The system of international humanitarian law is not under threat, it has collapsed.

Every Palestinian in Gaza now faces a death sentence. And with good reason, Israel assumes it is untouchable.

Despite the background noise of endlessly expressed “concerns” from the White House, and of rumours of growing “tensions” between allies, the US and Europe have indicated that the genocide can continue – but must be carried out more discreetly, more unobtrusively.

The killing of the World Central Kitchen staff is a setback. But the destruction of Gaza – Israel’s plan of nearly two decades’ duration – is far from over.

• First published in Middle East Eye

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Jonathan Cook.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel says he will “act immediately” to ban Al Jazeera in the country after the Knesset passed a law Monday that allows the government to shut down foreign news networks deemed to be threats to national security. Al Jazeera, one of the few outlets with local reporters in Gaza, denounced the move and said it was part of a pattern of Israeli attacks on the Qatar-based network, including targeting its journalists in Gaza since October 7 and the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh in the occupied West Bank in 2022. For more, we speak with Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator and president of the U.S./Middle East Project, who says Netanyahu’s move to ban Al Jazeera is “red meat to his own base … in a situation in which the war is not going particularly well for Israel. He’s looking for distractions.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

The backlash against even the mildest-mannered protests for Gaza at the Oscars was predictable. Artists, musicians, and actors who wore a pin symbolizing a call for a ceasefire in Israel–Palestine are being called antisemitic.

“The Zone of Interest” director Jonathan Glazer, however, went further in his Oscars acceptance speech: He actually said something. After winning the Academy Award for best international film, Glazer objected that his own Jewishness and the memory of the Holocaust were “being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people. Whether the victims of October — whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza.”

The largest offense here, if the backlash is to be believed, was that Glazer dared speak of context — of the Israeli occupation. He was so bold as to suggest that history did not begin on October 7.

As a letter signed by more than 900 people, described as Hollywood “creatives and professionals,” and published Monday made clear: The very word “occupation” was off limits.

“The use of words like ‘occupation’ to describe an indigenous Jewish people defending a homeland that dates back thousands of years and has been recognized as a state by the United Nations, distorts history,” the letter said, never mind that the military occupation of the Palestinian Territories of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem, as well as the Syrian Golan Heights, has been recognized as such by the United Nations since 1967.

But the letter went on to say that “occupation” did more than just distort history, it invoked history’s worst antisemitic tropes: “It gives credence to the modern blood libel that fuels growing anti-Jewish hatred around the world, in the United States, and in Hollywood.”

The indisputable fact of Israeli occupation on Palestinian land is now apparently a “blood libel”: a millennia-old antisemitic canard, which rose to prominence in the Middle Ages, that Jews murder Christians to use their blood for cultish rituals.

To be against virtually any policy that Israel can claim to justify as self-defense would be antisemitic.

By the letter’s logic, it would therefore be “blood libel” to oppose virtually any Israeli policy, from permanent control of all Palestinians “from the river to the sea” — which is what Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he wants — to what human rights groups have recognized as an apartheid system. To be against virtually any policy that Israel can claim to justify as self-defense would be antisemitic.

If that were not enough, the letter is extraordinary in the sheer extent of its denialism. “Israel is not targeting civilians. It is targeting Hamas,” the authors wrote. Unmentioned, however, is that Israeli forces have killed over 31,000 people, including 13,000 children, decimated every form of civilian infrastructure, brought Gaza to the brink of mass starvation, and displaced over 1.7 million people — to say nothing of the credible reports of journalists and academics being individually targeted.

Of course, these people are Palestinians: a word that the Hollywood letter doesn’t explicitly bar, but that nonetheless goes unmentioned.

The most well-known among the “creatives” are horror film director Eli Roth and actors Debra Messing and Michael Rapaport, who have been outspoken in their support of Israel’s war on Gaza.

More notable are the list of executives and producers who have added their names — unknown to most of us industry outsiders. They included Spyglass Media Group head and former MGM CEO Gary Barber, former Paramount Pictures CEO Sherry Lansing, producer and major television executive Gail Berman, as well as former president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Producers Guild of America Hawk Koch.

Many on the list are screenwriters and showrunners. The agents, producers, and executives denouncing Glazer, however, are engaging in no less than a bullying campaign, leveraging their Jewishness specifically against his, in their numbers, to make baseless and extreme claims.

The Jewish writer Sarah Schulman, commenting on the letter signatories, said that the backlash betrays a “strange childishness — an inability to imagine that they could be part of anything wrong. A total inability to be self-critical.” 

It is the Zionist equivalent of what the late Jamaican-British philosopher Charles Mills called “white ignorance” — by which he did not mean things people with white skin do not know. Rather, it is “​​a cognitive tendency” that functions as an epistemic block, resistant to facts that challenge white supremacy and expose its violence. It leaves the person “aprioristically intent on denying what is before them” — no matter how unassailable the thing is. Mills stressed that “what makes such denial possible, of course, is the management of memory.”

Glazer’s film — about how the family of SS officer and Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss built a domestic idyll at the gates of the concentration camp — depicted this sort of entrenched, ideological, and willful ignorance. The knee-jerk backlash to Glazer’s speech exposes it once again.

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Natasha Lennard.

We will destroy everything not Jewish. 
— Theodore Herzl [1]

We have no solution, you shall continue to live like dogs, and whoever wishes may leave, and we will see where this process leads . . . . You Palestinians, as a nation, don’t want us today, but we’ll change your attitude by forcing our presence on you.
— Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan [2]

The common denominator amongst all the American peace efforts is their abysmal failure.
— Cheryl A. Rubenberg [3]

USrael’s disgraceful conduct in Gaza goes on, and on and on. Leveling hospitals, shooting children in the head; gunning down a surgeon at the operating table, using an emergency call from a little girl trapped in a car with the corpses of family members to lure two rescue workers to her, then killing all three; systematically killing Palestinian journalists reporting on the slaughter; promising to save three premature babies at a hospital under forced evacuation, then leaving them to slowly die and be devoured by dogs; singing in chorus of the joy of exterminating Arabs; cheering the blocking of food aid to starving Gazans; killing entire families, inducing a Palestinian boy to lay down in the road hoping someone would run over him and end his misery; this is but a small sampling of the consequences of trapping over a million Gazans in the southern half of a 125-square-mile concentration camp without food, shelter, or sanitation, then methodically shooting and bombing them while thousands of their relatives decompose under expanding mountains of rubble.

Depravity on this scale will not magically disappear by establishing a cease fire and holding peace talks, as urgently necessary as both those preliminaries are. Only relentless popular pressure on the U.S. government to force it to deny Israel the means to subjugate and murder Palestinians can even hope to lead to de-nazification of the Jewish state, without which real peace can never be achieved. Keep in mind that in the midst of the current wholesale slaughter a large majority of Israelis think Netanyahu isn’t using enough violence.

Cease fires we have had before, and peace agreements, too, but they didn’t solve the underlying conflict because addressing the absence of Palestinian national rights – the heart of the Palestine conflict – is taboo.

Because of this taboo, massacres of Palestinians are a feature, not a bug, of Zionist ideology, and have stained Israel’s history from before the state was even formed.

Only the scale of the current Gaza slaughter sets it apart.

In June of 1982, for example, Israel invaded Lebanon on a surge of Pentagon arms shipments, seeking to disperse the Palestine Liberation Organization (the Hamas of its day) and poison its relations with the local population while destroying its political and military structures. Tens of thousands of civilians died as the IDF carved up the country in alliance with Christian fascist militias.

While claiming to stand tall for human rights, Washington kept arms and money flowing in support of Israel’s occupation of not just Palestine, but Syria and Lebanon as well.

Lebanon was savagely pounded, leaving people roaming the wreckage of Beirut in clouds of flies, terror in their eyes, their clothes reduced to rags. Mothers howled, orphans sobbed, and the stench of rotting corpses filled the air.

Cluster bombs leveled whole blocks. White phosphorous burned people alive. Palestinian refugee camps were blasted to rubble, left pockmarked with blackened craters that filled with dead bodies and other debris. An officer in the U.N. peace-keeping force swept aside by the Israeli attack on Rashidiyeh said, “It was like shooting sparrows with a cannon.” Asked why houses containing women and children were being bombarded and bulldozed, an Israeli army officer explained that, “they are all terrorists.”

Surrounded by tanks, gunshots, and hysteria, one hundred thousand people were left without shelter or food, roaming through piles of wreckage. Blindfolded men, handcuffed with plastic bonds, were marched away to concentration camps where they were tortured, humiliated, and murdered. Their families were turned over to Phalangist patrols and Haddad forces (Israeli allies), who torched homes and beat people indiscriminately.

At the United Nations, the United States gave its customary blessing to Israeli savagery, vetoing a Security Council resolution condemning Israel.

Much impressed by Israel’s “purity of arms, The New York Times saluted the “liberation” of Lebanon.

But it was a macabre “liberation.” After three months of relentless attack, the southern half of the country lay in ruins. Even President Reagan, as ardent a fan of Israel as any of his predecessors in the Oval Office, couldn’t stomach more killing, and called Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to stop the “holocaust.” Offended at the president’s use of this word, Begin nevertheless halted the bombardment immediately.

An agreement between Israel, the U.S. and the PLO was signed with security guarantees for the Palestinians. Yasser Arafat and his PLO fighters left for Tunis. On September 16, in defiance of the cease fire, Ariel Sharon’s army circled the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. Israeli soldiers set up checkpoints and allowed truckloads of their Phalange and Haddad allies into the Palestinian camps. The Phalangists came with old scores to settle and a long list of atrocities against Palestinians already to their credit. The Haddad forces acted as part of the Israeli Army and operated under its command.

Perched on rooftops, Israeli soldiers watched through binoculars during the day and lit up the sky with flares at night, guiding the soldiers as they moved from shelter to shelter in the camps slaughtering the defenseless refugees. In mid-massacre, Israeli Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan congratulated the Phalangist command for having “carried out good work,” offered a bulldozer for scooping up corpses, and authorized the killers to remain in the camp twelve more hours. [4]

On September 18 war correspondent Robert Fisk entered the camps and described what he found there:

Down every alleyway there were corpses – women, young men, babies and grandparents – lying together in lazy and terrible profusion where they had been killed or machine-gunned to death. . .  In the panic and hatred of battle, tens of thousands had been killed in this country. But these people, hundreds of them, had been shot down unarmed . . . these were women lying in houses with their skirts torn up to their waists and their legs wide apart, children with their throats cut, rows of young men shot in the back after being lined up at an execution wall. There were babies – blackened babies because they had been slaughtered more than 24 hours earlier and their small bodies were already in a state of decomposition – tossed into rubbish heaps alongside discarded U.S. Army ration tins, Israeli army medical equipment, and empty bottles of whiskey.

. . . Down a laneway to our right, no more than 50 yards from the entrance, there lay a pile of corpses. There were more than a dozen of them, young men whose arms and legs had been wrapped around each other in the agony of death. All had been shot at point-blank range  . . . One had been castrated . . .  The youngest was only 12 or 13 years old.”  [5]

Such were the results of Israel exercising its “right to self-defense,” just as the wholesale slaughter and starvation of Gazans forty-two years later is rationalized on the same grounds.

The moral of the story is that no matter how blindingly obvious its crimes are Israel is never guilty of anything because . . . the Holocaust.

Forty-seven years ago the London Sunday Times reported that Israel routinely tortures Palestinians, a devastating revelation at the time. The scope of the torture, said the Times, was so broad that it implicated “all of Israel’s security forces,” and was so “systematic that it [could not] be dismissed as a handful of ‘rogue cops’ exceeding orders.”

Among the prisoner experiences detailed by the Times’ Insight team were being beaten and kicked, being set upon by dogs, having one’s testicles squeezed, having a ball-point pen refill shoved into one’s penis, or being raped with a stick and left bleeding from the mouth and face and anus.

Israel categorically denied the charges, but refused to rebut, diverting to side issues and attacking Israeli lawyers who stooped so low as to defend Arabs. Seth Kaplan in the staunchly liberal The New Republic rose in defense of Israeli torture, arguing that how a government treats its people “is not susceptible to simple absolutism, such as the outright condemnation of torture. One may have to use extreme measures – call them ‘torture’ – to deal with a terrorist movement whose steady tactic is the taking of human life.”  [6] Of course, every state in the world practicing administrative torture routinely claimed it was fighting “terrorists,” an infinitely elastic designation in the hands of national security officials.

So what supposedly made Palestinians “terrorists”? Mainly, that they resisted Israel’s steady tactic of robbing, swindling, torturing, and murdering all those who had been living in Palestine long before Zionism even appeared on the scene. But Israel simply couldn’t publicly admit that Palestine was not what it told the world it was – a land without a people for a people without a land. It had to keep torturing and killing Palestinians to induce them to vacate the land, but it could never admit this. At the end of 1996, when the Israeli Supreme Court authorized the torture of Palestinian prisoners, the justices called it “moderate physical pressure,” which sounds more like massage than torture. [7]

Two major Middle East peace agreements have been negotiated entirely under the prejudiced assumption that Palestinians are terrorists to be neutralized, not an oppressed people entitled to its rights. In neither Camp David nor Oslo was there any indication that Palestinian grievances were to be seriously considered, much less honestly dealt with. Had the obvious issues been faced with courage then, Gazans wouldn’t be getting slaughtered now. But they weren’t, an outcome that could have been foreseen just by looking at the people who produced the agreements.

The Camp David Treaty was negotiated by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and U.S. President Jimmy Carter.

Sadat was a former Nazi collaborator whose idol was the Shah of Iran, a U.S. client then moving at break-neck speed to Westernize the country, in the process laying down a human rights record so appalling that Amnesty International characterized it as “beyond belief.” He was shortly overthrown by the Iranian Revolution of 1979.

The year before Camp David Sadat had made his “sacred mission” to Jerusalem to speak to the Knesset, opening the way for peace. But he complied with Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan’s instructions to delete references to the PLO, and he never got off his knees after that. At Camp David he threw himself on the goodwill of the United States, striving for an agreement so good for Israel that Begin would invite condemnation should he dare to reject it.  Dismissed as a traitor and a fool throughout the Arab world, he was assassinated three years later.

Former head of the underground terrorist group Irgun, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin was proud of his role in blowing up 95 British and Arabs in the King David Hotel in 1946, as well as the slaughter of over two-hundred Arab women, children and old men at Deir Yassin in 1948. In WWII, the Irgun had offered to support the Nazis against the British. One of Begin’s first acts when he became Israeli Prime Minister was to issue a postage stamp honoring Abraham Stern, whose group made the proposal. [8]

The last thing one could reasonably expect out of Prime Minister Begin’s cabinet was peace. His military junta included five generals who maintained cozy relations with apartheid South Africa and the blood-soaked dictators Augusto Pinochet and Anastasio Somoza.

As for Begin’s territorial ambitions, they were expansive, to say the least. The former Irgun commander had been elected on a platform calling for the annexation of the West Bank and the East Bank of the Jordan River, a goal that the Likud Party has never renounced. He regarded the West Bank and Gaza not as occupied but as liberated – from the indigenous Arabs to whom he felt they didn’t rightfully belong, and he called the land “Judea and Samaria,” Biblical names for God’s gift to the Jews. He openly regarded the Palestinians as Israel’s coolies, corralling them into Bantustans even as he promised them full autonomy, which he defined mystically as self-rule for people, but not for the land on which they lived. [9]

The key figure at Camp David, of course, was U.S. President Jimmy Carter, a fundamentalist Baptist and supposedly a neutral mediator between Begin and Sadat. He confessed to having an “affinity for Israel” based on its custodianship of the Holy Land, and regarded it as “compatible with the teachings of the Bible, hence ordained by God.” Ordained by God!  He had “no strong feelings about the Arab countries,” but condemned the “terrorist PLO.” Begin he described implausibly as a man of integrity and honor.

Carter instructed Sadat that unless his proposals were patently fair to Israel, which regarded Arabs as subhuman, Begin would justifiably reject them. When Egypt’s opening proposals requested compensation for Israeli use of land and oil wells in the occupied Sinai, free immigration to the West Bank, Israeli withdrawal from the illegally occupied territories (including East Jerusalem), and a Palestinian state, Carter was despondent at the “extremely harsh” recommendations. [10] Any treatment of Palestinians other than as anonymous refugees to be absorbed and pacified in colonial structures was apparently unimaginable extremism.

At the time, the PLO was the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, and its inclusion in negotiations was the only possible basis for establishing Palestinian national rights and reaching real peace. Nevertheless, Carter’s national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski summed up the U.S. stance at Camp David as “bye-bye PLO.” The Palestinians’ nationalist aspirations were summarily dismissed, and a solution for the Occupied Territories was postponed until future “autonomy talks,” to which the PLO would not be invited. This doomed any prospect of peace.

Unsurprisingly, Camp David’s imagined Palestinian “autonomy” was a substitute for national liberation in the Accords, and was fundamentally colonial. Israel was allowed to retain economic and political power over the West Bank and Gaza, and the Israeli Defense Forces were permitted to indefinitely remain. The Palestinians were essentially granted municipal authority (to pick up the garbage?) provided it didn’t threaten Israeli “security.” Prime Minister Begin openly declared that he would never allow a Palestinian state on the West Bank.

It’s hard to improve upon the summation of Camp David provided by Fayez Sayegh, founder of the Palestine Research Center:

A fraction of the Palestinian people (under one-third of the whole) is promised a fraction of its rights (not including the national right to self-determination and statehood) in a fraction of its homeland (less than one-fifth of the area of the whole); and this promise is to be fulfilled several years from now, through a step-by-step process in which Israel is to exercise a decisive veto power over any agreement. Beyond that, the vast majority of Palestinians is condemned to permanent loss of its Palestinian national identity, to permanent exile and statelessness, to permanent separation from one another and from Palestine – to a life without national hope or meaning.  [11]

Nevertheless, the United States applauded what it somehow construed as the birth of peace in the Middle East, while Israel proceeded to “annex” Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, tattoo the Occupied Territories with Jewish settlements, carve up southern Lebanon, attack Iraq, and bomb Palestinian refugee camps. [12]

None of this was a surprise. According to Israeli strategic analyst Avner Yaniv, the effect of Camp David’s removing of Egypt from the Arab military alliance was that “Israel would be free to sustain military operations against the PLO in Lebanon as well as settlement activity on the West Bank.”  [13]

Five years after Israel had reduced southern Lebanon to rubble Gaza rose in rebellion (the first intifada), and six years after that came the Oslo Accords, with the White House announcing triumphantly for the second time that lasting Middle East peace was at hand. But once again there was no peace. In accordance with long-standing U.S.-Israeli rejectionism the Oslo Accords called for the incorporation of Palestinian lands in a permanent colonial structure administered by Israel.

In other words, after more than seventy years of sacrifice and popular struggle for their national rights, the Palestinians were triumphantly handed a micro-state with no power. A toothless “Palestinian Authority” was set up in the West Bank.

Once again, Israel remained in possession of everything that counted: East Jerusalem, the settlements, the economy, the land, water, sovereignty, and “security.” The Oslo settlement was based on UN Resolution 242, which only recognized Palestinians as stateless refugees, not as a people possessed of national rights.

Israel made no commitment to giving up its violence or compensating the Palestinians for 45 years of conquest and dispossession. Yasir Arafat renounced all nationalist aspirations and discarded Palestinian rights, including the right to resist oppression. He accepted responsibility for guaranteeing Israeli security, turning his people into police for their occupiers.

The Palestinians were granted nothing more than “limited autonomy,” with no guarantee of Palestinian security, no Palestinian sovereignty, and no autonomous economy. Israeli companies were to set up sweatshops in the Occupied Territories and Palestinians were to continue supplying the $6-a-day labor. After years of granting concessions to Israel, they were asked to wait three to five more years until “final status” talks could determine what Israel’s vague references to “improvements” actually meant.

For the majority of Palestinians living in the Diaspora, this represented the final act of robbery, nullifying years of promises from the UN, Arab governments, and the PLO itself.

At the celebration of the Oslo Accords on the White House lawn, Arafat, the conquered, thanked everyone for the agreement suspending most of his people’s rights, and delivered an emotionally sterile speech as though he were reading out of a phone book. He barely mentioned the Palestinians.

Yitzak Rabin, the conqueror, gave a long speech detailing Israeli anguish, loss, and suffering involved in the conquest. He promised that Israel would concede nothing on sovereignty and would keep the River Jordan, the boundaries with Egypt and Jordan, the sea, the land between Gaza and Jericho, Jerusalem, the roads, and the settlements.  He did not concede that Israel was, or ever had been, an occupying power. He made no commitment to dismantling the maze of racist laws and repressive fixtures of the Occupation. He said nothing about the thousands of Palestinians rotting in Israeli jails. He expressed not a twinge of remorse for four-and-a-half decades of ethnic cleansing and lies.  [14]

So the occupation of Palestine continued for years more, severely restricting Palestinian movement, increasing Jewish colonization of Arab land, and intensifying bureaucratic harassment. On September 28, 2000, Ariel Sharon and a thousand Israeli soldiers touched off the second intifada by invading the Al Aqsa mosque site in Arab Jerusalem. The next day Prime Minister Ehud Barak ordered riot police to storm the compound where 20,000 Palestinians were praying. Rocks were thrown and the police opened fire, killing seven and wounding 220. Within days President Clinton dispatched the largest shipment of attack helicopters to Israel in a decade.

Though portrayed by Israel apologists as extraordinarily generous towards the Palestinians, Prime Minister Ehud Barak never dismantled a settlement or freed a Palestinian prisoner during his entire 18 months in office. Like his predecessors, he refused to compromise on settlements, borders, refugee rights, and Jerusalem. According to Robert Malley, special assistant for Arab-Israeli affairs in the Clinton administration, it is a myth that Israel had offered to meet “most if not all of the Palestinians’ legitimate aspirations,” and equally a myth that the “Palestinians made no concession of their own.” In fact, Palestinians expressed willingness to accommodate Jewish settlements on the West Bank, Israeli sovereignty over Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, and a limit on repatriation of Palestinian exiles, though all of them were entitled to return. Malley stated that “no other Arab party that has negotiated with Israel . . . ever came close to even considering such compromises.”

Meanwhile, Israel offered nothing and demanded surrender, just as it always had.

According to Israeli military analyst Ze’ev Schiff, the Palestinians were left with three options:  (1) agree to the expanding Occupation, (2) set up Bantustans, or (3) launch an uprising.

Palestinians chose to fight, and Israel pounded the nearly defenseless civilian population with helicopter gunships, F-16s, tanks, missiles, and machine guns. While systematically assassinating Palestinian leaders, Israel cried “immoral” when its victims turned their bodies into weapons in horrific suicide bombings at supermarkets, restaurants, pool halls, and discotheques. Israeli propaganda blamed “hate teaching” by the PLO, but the real hate teacher was the racist ideology that defined Palestinians as “beasts walking on two legs” and “cockroaches in a bottle,” among other terms of endearment popular with Israeli leaders. [15] This swelled the ranks of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade with volunteers who had lost close relatives to the Israeli military.

Amidst the firestorm of moral indignation occasioned by the suicide attacks, Israel never considered negotiating in good faith to resolve the longstanding conflict, and the United States applied no pressure to make them do so. Following in the footsteps of a long line of predecessors, President George W. Bush heaped arms and aid on Israel, vetoed UN resolutions calling for observers in the Occupied Territories, and continued funding the ever-expanding Jewish settlements. With the entire world recoiling in shocked outrage at Israel’s pulverizing of the West Bank, he declared Ariel Sharon “a man of peace.” [16]

Post-Oslo the stealing of land and dynamiting of Palestinian homes continued with the same justification as before: Jewish land was redeemed, Arab land was unredeemed. By the end of the twentieth-century, over 80% of Palestine no longer belonged to Palestinian Arabs. Under Clinton-Barak settlement construction had accelerated dramatically and Jews received nearly seven times as much water as Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza. Meanwhile, three hundred miles of Jews-only highways and bypass roads integrated the settlements into Israel proper while dividing Palestinian areas into enclaves of misery completely cut-off from the wider world.

Increasing numbers of Israeli Arabs joined with the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories to protest Jewish supremacy rooted in nationality rights granting Jews exclusive use of land, better access to jobs, special treatment in getting loans, and preferences for college admission, among other unearned advantages. Military service brought even more benefits, from which Palestinians were excluded.  [17]

Founded as a haven for Jews, Israel had become the most dangerous place in the world for them to live. The constant war on Palestinians that made this so was still described as self-defense, and the crushing of their national culture was still the goal of “peace.” Orwell would have felt like an amateur.

Whatever differences President Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu may be having regarding tactics and media sound bites, the commitment they share is to preserving the festering boil of apartheid Israel, rooted in the conviction that Jews are a master race of chosen people destined to scrub the Holy Land of unsightly Arabs and rule over Greater Israel forever.

The stench of death is its constant gift to the world.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Joel Kovel, Overcoming Zionism, (Pluto, 2007) p. 224

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Michael K. Smith.

Image by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona.

Left to its own devices, Israel would never grant Palestinians their freedom.

In the past, some, whether ignorantly or not, claimed that peace in Palestine can only be achieved through ‘unconditional negotiations’.

This mantra was also championed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, when he cared enough to pay lip service to the ‘peace process’ and other US-originated fantasies. Back then, he spoke about his readiness to hold unconditional negotiations, though constantly arguing that Israel does not have a peace partner.

All of this was, of course, ‘doublespeak’. What Netanyahu and other Israelis were, in fact, saying is that Israel should be freed from any commitment to international law, let alone international pressure. Worse, by declaring that Israel has no Palestinian peace partner, the Israeli government has essentially canceled the hypothetical and ‘unconditional negotiations’ before they even took place.

For years – in fact, for decades – Israel was allowed to perpetuate such nonsense, empowered, of course, by the total and unconditional support of Washington and its other Western allies.

In an environment where Israel receives billions of dollars of US-Western aid, and where it grew to become a thriving technological hub, let alone one of the world’s largest weapons exporters, Tel Aviv simply had no reason to end its occupation or to dismantle its racist apartheid in Palestine.

But things must change now. The genocidal Israeli war in Gaza should completely alter our understanding, not only of the tragic reality underway in Palestine, but of past misunderstanding as well. It should be made clear that Israel never had any intentions of achieving a just peace, ending its colonialism in Palestine, that is, the expansion of illegal settlements or granting Palestinians an iota of rights.

To the contrary, Israel has been planning to carry out a genocide against the Palestinians all along.

Israel has already carried out terrible war crimes against Palestinians, during the Nakba in 1947-48, and in successive wars, ever since. Each crime, large or small, was always accompanied by a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Over 800,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed when Israel was established on the ruins of Palestine 76 years ago. An additional 300,000 were ethnically cleansed during the Naksa, the war and ‘setback’ of 1967.

Throughout the years, mainstream Western media did its best to completely hide the Israeli crimes, or minimize their impact, or blame someone else entirely for them. This process of shielding Israel remains in place to this day, even when tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed since October 7 and when the majority of Gaza, including its hospitals, schools, mosques, churches, civilian homes and shelters have been erased.

Considering all of this, anyone who still speaks of ‘unconditional negotiations’ – especially those conducted under the auspices of Washington – is, frankly, only doing so to help Israel escape international legal and political accountability.

Luckily, the world is waking up to this fact and, hopefully, this awakening will mature sooner rather than later, as Israeli massacres in Gaza continue to claim hundreds of innocent lives every single day.

This collective realization that Israel must be stopped through international measures is also accompanied by an equally critical realization that the US is not an honest peace broker. In fact, it never was.

To appreciate the ruinous role of the US in this so-called conflict, just marvel at this fact. While practically every country that participated with a legal opinion and a political position in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) public hearings from February 19 to the 26, formulated its position based on international law, the US did not.

“The Court should not find that Israel is legally obligated to immediately and unconditionally withdraw from occupied territory,” the acting legal adviser for the US State Department, Richard Visek, embarrassingly said on February 21.

76 years after the Nakba and following 57 years of military occupation, the US legal position remains committed to defending the illegality of Israel’s conduct throughout Palestine.

Compare the above stance to the rounded, courageous and legally grounded position of almost every country in the world, especially of the over 50 countries which requested to speak at the ICJ hearings.

China, whose words, and actions seem far more consistent with international law than many Western nations, especially now, went even further. “In pursuit of the right to self-determination, Palestinian people’s use of force to resist foreign oppression and complete the establishment of an independent state is (an) inalienable right well founded in international law,” Chinese representative Ma Xinmin told the ICJ on February 22.

Unlike the cliched and non-committal position of the likes of UK Foreign Minister, David Cameron, on the need to start an “irreversible progress” towards an independent Palestinian state, the Chinese position is arguably the most comprehensive and realistic articulation.

Ma linked self-determination to liberation struggle, to sovereignty, to the inalienable rights of people, which are all consistent with international laws and norms. In fact, it is these very principles that have led to the liberation of numerous countries in the Global South. Considering that Israel has no intention to free Palestinians from the grip of apartheid and military occupation, the Palestinian people have had no other option but to resist.

The question now is, will the international community continue to defy the US position in words only, or will it formulate a new approach to the Israeli occupation of Palestine, thus bringing it to an end by any means necessary?

In his statement to the ICJ on February 19, British barrister Philippe Sands, who is a member of team Palestine, offered a roadmap on how the international community can force Israel to end its occupation: “The right of self-determination requires that UN Member States bring Israel’s occupation to an immediate end. No aid. No assistance. No complicity. No contribution to forcible actions. No money. No arms. No trade. No nothing.”

Indeed, it is now time to turn words into actions, especially when thousands of children are being killed for no fault of their own but for being born Palestinian.

The post United Against Israel: Time to End World’s Longest Occupation appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Ramzy Baroud.

The International Court of Justice (ICC) has held its last day of hearings examining the legality of Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian lands.

Fifty two countries and three international organisations have addressed the court in the hearings that ended on Monday.

Most called for Israel’s occupation to be declared illegal and for it to end, with some calling for reparations to be paid by Israel to the state of Palestine.

• READ MORE: The ICJ hearings

Only the representatives of the United States, United Kingdom and Fiji claimed the occupation was legal while non-government organisations and opposition politicians in Fiji condemned their country’s surprise position.

Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst and a Middle East expert, said the final legal arguments had “demolished the shameless defences” of Israel’s illegal occupation.

“Ireland, Algeria and South Africa . . . projected their own experience, their own narrative, their own history, their own struggle with [colonial] occupation, and their own experience with liberation as well,” he said.

“Hence it was both instructive, if you will, not I mean liberating, not depressing.

ICJ hearing: Final Israeli occupation arguments.  Video: Al Jazeera

“I want to say it was instructive that they did share with us that but then we had this disingenuous, selective, mind boggling, if not, you know, mind insulting presentations by the United States and the United Kingdom that I think set everyone back.

“You know they were trampling over international law, expropriating international law, confiscating international legality in order to fit their own little geopolitical calculus on behalf of their little client Israel.

“So it was a bit shameful, it was a bit shameless to be honest and that’s why today we’ve heard from the Arab League and the [Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)], legal opinions that were basically set or apparently revised in order to counter the arguments of the UK and the US and in that way I thought it was brilliant and it was entertaining almost.”

The African Union lawyers argued that “occuopatiion” and “self-determination” could not exist in the same place at the same time.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Leaders at this year’s African Union summit have condemned Israel’s assault on Gaza and called for its immediate end. Kenyan writer and political analyst Nanjala Nyabola explains the long history of African solidarity with Palestine, continuing with today’s efforts to end the destruction of Gaza. African countries “see really an identical experience between Palestinian occupation and what they have endured under colonization,” says Nyabola. “It’s a question of history. It’s a question of solidarity. It’s a question of shared experiences of all of these systemic types of violence.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

RNZ Pacific

Former Fiji prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama says the country’s intervention at the International Court of Justice over Israel’s occupation of Palestine betrays Fiji’s legacy as peacekeepers.

Paul Reichler, an attorney representing Palestine at the ICJ revealed this week that Fiji and the United States were the only nations to defend Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

Fifty countries and three international organisations are calling for self-determination and an end to the Israeli military occupation which has lasted more than half a century.

• READ MORE: Fiji human rights group condemns ‘troubling’ support for Israel at ICJ
• Palestinian foreign minister tells ICJ of ‘besieged, bombed and killed’ Gazans
• What’s the ICJ case against Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine?
• Other War on Gaza reports

Bainimarama said Fiji’s stance “insults the intelligence of every Fijian”.

The former prime minister and military commander said that that position undid Fiji’s long-standing commitment to neutrality, peacekeeping, and the principles of self-determination and decolonisation.

“The coalition government’s claim that the occupation of foreign territory by Israel is legal — an argument not even advanced by Israel itself — reveals a disturbing truth that Fiji’s voice to the world is hostage to a demented few who are hellbent on destroying our national reputation,” he said in a statement today.

‘Contradicts our stance on independence’
“This action contradicts our firm stance on the rights to independence and statehood, rights we have championed for our Pacific brothers and for all colonial peoples.

He said Fiji has stood with Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Kiribati, and others in their pursuit of independence.

“We must ask ourselves: with what credibility will we support the independence of territories like New Caledonia and French Polynesia? We must not be selective in our support for statehood and independence.

“Our actions today will define our legacy and our ability to lead in the Pacific and beyond.

“The world should know that the vast majority of Fijians stand on the side of peace. That is our national character and that is the spirit in which we offer our service on the frontlines of conflict zones around the world.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Arguments are underway at the International Court of Justice, where more than 50 countries are asking the World Court to issue a nonbinding legal opinion against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza since 1967. The request is separate from South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the ICJ. “Israel has been instrumentalizing the rules of international humanitarian law … to further its settler-colonial project in Palestine,” says Ahmed Abofoul of the Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq, which submitted an advisory opinion on the case. “I have no doubt that the court will decide that Israel’s occupation is illegal,” he says. We also discuss what comes after the ruling and Israeli society’s reaction to the war.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Israel must end its brutal occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, which it has maintained since 1967, said Amnesty International, as public hearings begin atthe International Court of Justice (ICJ) to examine the legal consequences of Israel’s prolonged occupation.

The public hearings are taking place in the Hague from 19 to 26 February after the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution in December 2022 to request an advisory opinion from the ICJ on the legality of Israel’s policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and the consequences of Israel’s conduct for other states and the UN. More than 50 states, the African Union, the Arab League and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation are scheduled to participate in the proceedings.

The world must recognize that ending Israel’s illegal occupation is a prerequisite to stopping the recurrent human rights violations in Israel and the OPT.
Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General

“Israel’s occupation of Palestine is the longest and one of the most deadly military occupations in the world. For decades it has been characterised by widespread and systematic human rights violations against Palestinians. The occupation has also enabled and entrenched Israel’s system of apartheid imposed on Palestinians,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.

“Over the years, Israel’s military occupation has evolved into a perpetual occupation in flagrant violation of international law.

“The current conflict raging in the occupied Gaza Strip, where the ICJ has ruled there is a real and imminent risk of genocide, has brought into sharp focus the catastrophic consequences of allowing Israel’s international crimes in the OPT to continue with impunity for so long. The world must recognize that ending Israel’s illegal occupation is a prerequisite to stopping the recurrent human rights violations in Israel and the OPT.”

‘Perpetual’ occupation

Under international humanitarian law, occupation of a territory during a conflict is meant to be temporary. The occupying power is required to administer the territory in the interest of the occupied population and to preserve as much as possible the situation that existed at the beginning of the occupation, including by respecting existing laws and refraining from introducing demographic changes and tampering with the territorial integrity of the occupied territory.

Israel’s occupation has failed to align with these basic principles of international humanitarian law. The duration of Israel’s occupation – spanning more than half a century – coupled with the authorities’ illegal official annexation of occupied East Jerusalem and de facto annexation of large swathes of the West Bank through land confiscation and settlement expansion, provide clear evidence that Israel’s intention is for the occupation to be permanent and for the benefit of the occupying power and its own citizens.

The Gaza Strip remains occupied even after the withdrawal of Israeli forces and removal of settlers in 2005 as Israel has retained effective control over the territory and its population, including through its control of its borders, territorial waters, air space, and population registry. For 16 years, the occupation has been experienced in Gaza through Israel’s illegal blockade that has severely restricted movement of people and goods and has devastated Gaza’s economy, and through repeated episodes of hostilities that have killed and injured thousands of civilians and destroyed much of Gaza’s infrastructure and housing.

“All states must review their relations with Israel to ensure that they are not contributing to sustaining the occupation or the system of apartheid. As European foreign ministers gather in Brussels today, the need to make a clear and united call for an end to Israel’s occupation has never been more urgent,” said Agnès Callamard.

Life under occupation

Palestinians living under Israeli occupation are subjected to a myriad of human rights violations, maintained by an institutionalized regime of systematic domination and oppression. The discriminatory and repressive laws, ostensibly adopted as part of the occupation but effectively serving the objectives of the Israel’s system of apartheid, have fragmented and segregated Palestinians across the OPT, while unlawfully exploiting their resources, arbitrarily restricting their rights and freedoms and controlling almost every aspect of their lives.

Even before the latest hostilities, Palestinians in Gaza had been subjected to numerous Israeli military offensives – at least six between 2008 and 2023 – in addition to an enduring land, air, and sea blockade, which has helped maintain Israel’s effective control and occupation of Gaza. During those offensives, Amnesty International documented a recurrent pattern of unlawful attacks, amounting to war crimes and even crimes against humanity, while the enduring blockade constitutes collective punishment, also a war crime.

For 56 years Palestinians in the OPT have been living trapped and oppressed under Israel’s brutal occupation, subjected to systemic discrimination.
Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General

In the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, Palestinians routinely face excessive use of force, unlawful killings, arbitrary arrest, administrative detention, forced displacement, home demolitions, confiscation of land and natural resources, and denial of fundamental rights and freedoms. Israel’s multi-layered closure system, fortified by mass surveillance, physical barriers and legal restrictions, including an illegal wall/fence, hundreds of checkpoints and roadblocks, and an arbitrary permit regime, has curtailed Palestinians’ freedom of movement and perpetuated their disenfranchisement.

Among the most emblematic examples of Israel’s outright disregard for international law has been the establishment and incessant spread of Israeli settlements throughout the OPT and the illegal annexation of occupied East Jerusalem immediately after the 1967 war which was constitutionally enshrined in 1980. There are currently at least 300 illegal Israeli settlements and outposts in the West Bank, including in occupied East Jerusalem, with a population of over 700,000 Israeli settlers.

“For 56 years Palestinians in the OPT have been living trapped and oppressed under Israel’s brutal occupation, subjected to systemic discrimination. Every aspect of their daily lives is disrupted and controlled by Israeli authorities, who place restrictions on their rights to move around, earn a living, pursue educational and professional aspirations, and enjoy a decent quality of life, as well as depriving them of access to their land and natural resources,” said Agnès Callamard.

“Israel has also continued its vicious land grab policies relentlessly expanding illegal settlements in violation of international law with devastating consequences for Palestinians’ human rights and security. Violent Israeli settlers have been attacking Palestinians for decades with virtually total impunity.”

A draconian system of control

Israel’s draconian system of control over the OPT includes a large network of military checkpoints, fences/ walls and military bases and patrols as well as a string of repressive military orders.

Israel’s control of the OPT’s borders, the population registry, the supply of water, electricity, telecommunication services, humanitarian and development assistance, and the imposition of its currency have had devastating effects on the economic and social developments of the Palestinian people in the OPT.

This control has reached unprecedented levels of cruelty in the Gaza Strip where Israel has maintained a 16-year illegal blockade which has been further tightened since 9 October 2023. The blockade, coupled with Israel’s recurrent military operations have plunged the Gaza Strip into one of the gravest humanitarian and human rights crisis of modern times.

“As the occupying power Israel has an obligation to ensure the protection and welfare of all those residing in the territory it controls. Instead, it has perpetrated gross and systematic human rights violations with impunity. Israel cites the need to maintain security as the reason for its cruel policies. But security can never justify apartheid, illegal annexation and settlements, or war crimes against the protected population. The only way to ensure security for Israelis and Palestinians is to uphold human rights for all,” said Agnès Callamard.

Ending the occupation would mean restoring Palestinians’ rights by lifting the brutal blockade on Gaza, dismantling Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and reversing its illegal annexation. It would allow Palestinians to move freely in the areas where they live and allow families separated by different identification legal statuses – such as the Jerusalem residency and West Bank or Gaza Strip – to be reunited. It would alleviate mass suffering and end widescale human rights violations.

It would also contribute to tackling one of the root causes of the recurrent violence and war crimes against Israelis, thus helping to improve human rights protection and secure justice and reparation for victims on all sides.

Background

On 30 December 2022, the UN General Assembly adopted resolution A/RES/77/247, in which, it requested the International Court of Justice for an advisory opinion on key questions regarding the legal consequences arising from its prolonged occupation, and settlement and annexation of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, how the policies and practices of Israel affect the legal status of the occupation and what legal consequences arise for all states and the UN from this status.

The Court is expected to issue its advisory opinion later this year.

For six decades, Amnesty International has been documenting how Israeli forces have committed grave human rights violations in the OPT with impunity. In 2022, the organization issued Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel system of domination and crime against humanity, a report which highlights the entrenched role that Israel’s military and its occupation have had in perpetuating the system of apartheid. Many of the report’s findings and recommendations underline the urgent need for an end to Israel’s occupation to remove the environment that enables the commission of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

A West Papuan pro-independence leader has accused Indonesia of new human rights atrocities this week while the republic has apparently elected a new president with a past record of violations in Timor-Leste and West Papua.

Indonesian Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto has declared victory in the presidential election on Wednesday after unofficial vote counts showed him with a significant lead over his rivals, reports Al Jazeera.

The 72-year-old former Kopassus special forces commander, who had run unsuccessfully for president twice before, was given a dishonourable discharge in 1998 after claims that his force kidnapped and tortured political opponents of Soeharto as his regime crumbled.

• READ MORE: Prabowo Subianto claims victory in Indonesian presidential election
• Other West Papua reports

He has also been accused of human rights abuses in East Timor, which won independence from Indonesia amid the collapse of the Soeharto regime, and also in West West Papua.

On the day that Indonesia went to the polls — Valentine’s Day, February 14 — Benny Wenda, president of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), accused Jakarta’s military of continuing its “reign of terror” in rural West Papua.

“The latest tragedy they have inflicted on my people occurred in the Puncak regency,” Wenda said in a statement.

“Military raids on the February 3 and 4 devastated a number of highland villages.

‘Villagers tortured, houses burnt’
“Numerous houses were burnt to the ground, villagers were tortured, and at least one Papuan died from his wounds — though Indonesian control of information makes it difficult to know whether others were also killed.”

Wenda said that “as always”, the military had claimed the victims were TPNPB resistance fighters — “a grotesque lie, immediately denied by the villagers and their relatives”.

Wenda also accused Indonesia of “hypocrisy” over Israel’s war on Gaza.

“We have complete sympathy with [Palestinians over their suffering] in what is happening in Gaza,” he said.

“But Indonesian hypocrisy on Palestine cannot be ignored. They are bringing a legal case to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) about Israel’s occupation of Palestine while intensifying their own brutal and bloody military occupation of West Papua.

“They are supporting South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the ICJ while conducting their own genocide in West Papua.

Denying West Papuan rights
“They are crying about Palestinians’ right to self-determination while continuing to deny West Papuans that same right.”

More than 500,000 West Papuans have been killed since the occupation began in 1963, says the ULMWP.

In the past six years, more than 100,000 Papuans were estimated to have been displaced, made refugees in their own land as a result of Indonesian military operations.

“Genocide, ecocide, and ethnic cleansing — West Papuans are victims of all three. The world must pay attention to our plight.”

There were no reports of reaction from the Jakarta authorities.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Still from Israelism.

Without presenting a single shred of evidence, Rep. Nancy Pelosi recently contended on CNN that protesters challenging U.S. and Israeli policies in Gaza are doing the Kremlin’s bidding. “For them to call for a cease-fire is Mr. Putin’s message. Make no mistake, this is directly connected to what he would like to see… I think some of these protesters are spontaneous and organic and sincere. Some, I think, are connected to Russia. And I say that having looked at this for a long time now… I think some financing should be investigated. And I want to ask the FBI to investigate that,” Pelosi squealed.(Paging Joe McCarthy!)

Nevertheless, undaunted, two thirty-something American Jewish filmmakers have made Israelism, a documentary that is the worst ideological nightmare for the mindless pro-Israel camp. Erin Axelrod and Sam Eilertsen expertly give the lie to the one-sided propaganda about Palestinians that American Jews and others have been indoctrinated with regarding the Israeli occupation, apartheid and other dehumanizing policies, in a skillfully rendered, award-winning 80-minute nonfiction film. Challenging the dominant pro-Israel mythos, American Jewish and Palestinian activists, along with independent presidential candidate/academic Cornel West and intellectual Noam Chomsky, expose the lies that have been perpetrated and perpetuated by the ultra-Zionist militaristic regime and its supporters, threatening their stranglehold over the hearts and minds of Jewish and other Americans.

The post Israelism Bucks Blind Faith in Israeli Occupation, Apartheid and “the Jewish Disneyland” appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Ed Rampell.

The so-called Battle of the Paracels took place on Jan. 19, 1974, between the Chinese and South Vietnamese naval forces, as the latter tried to regain control of the islands, a cluster of islets east of Vietnam and south of China.

The Republic of Vietnam, or South Vietnam at the time – separately from the communist North – claimed sovereignty over the Paracel islands as part of French Indochina but only had a small presence there.

Towards the end of the Vietnam War, China had already occupied part of the Paracels including the biggest feature – Woody Island – when the Saigon government sent soldiers on four warships in order to repel Chinese forces. 

The clash ended with the South Vietnamese navy’s defeat; 75 Vietnamese soldiers lost their lives and China has fully occupied the archipelago ever since.

In a rare strongly-worded statement over the weekend, a Vietnamese spokeswoman said, “Every act of threatening or using force in international relations, especially the use of force to resolve territorial disputes between states, is in complete contravention of the fundamental principles of the United Nations Charter, and in serious violation of international law.”

Pham Thu Hang was responding to a reporter’s query on Vietnam's position concerning what Vietnam’s state news agency calls “China's invasion of the Hoang Sa Islands in 1974,” using the Vietnamese name for the islands.

“Such an act neither establishes any territorial title of sovereignty, nor changes the truth that sovereignty over the Hoang Sa Islands belongs to Vietnam,” Hang said.

“As it has been clearly affirmed many times, Vietnam's sovereignty over the Hoang Sa Islands has been established since at least the 17th century in accordance with international law, and exercised in a peaceful, continuous, and public manner by successive Vietnamese states,” the spokeswoman said.

The archipelago is now occupied and controlled by China, with Woody Island extensively developed.

China has carried out land reclamations and substantial upgrades of its military infrastructure there, according to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

‘Not much change’

Right after the Battle of the Paracels, North Vietnam did not react, according to the U.S. government archive.

At a Special Actions Group Meeting on Indochina in Washington, chaired by the then-Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger on Jan. 25, 1974, the then-Director of the CIA William Colby told the participants that Hanoi ignored it, “said it’s below the 17th Parallel and thus doesn’t affect them.”

“In general, they didn’t take a position, didn’t come out on either side,” Colby said.

For a long time, the government in North Vietnam stayed silent as the confrontation was considered to be between China and the “puppet Saigon regime,” but after the end of the Vietnam War, Hanoi slowly moved towards recognizing the deaths of South Vietnamese soldiers and denouncing China’s occupation.

Yet the current Vietnamese government has always been careful not to be seen as overly critical of Beijing, its traditional ally and one of the main comprehensive strategic partners. Neither does it want to discuss the legacy of the Republic of Vietnam.

However, Hanoi knows it needs to deal with the public’s anti-China sentiment, seen rising at every commemoration of past confrontations with China, according to Song Phan, a Vietnamese researcher on South China Sea.

“They have to make strong statements to reduce the public pressure and it may offend the ‘big neighbor’ a little,” he said.

“But I don’t think they can do anything in practice. They still listen fully to Beijing therefore there’s not much change in the [bilateral] relationship,” the researcher added.

It was agreed at the Washington meeting on Jan. 25, 1974, that “the CIA would prepare a paper on the current status of the Paracel and Spratly Islands and an assessment of Chinese intention in the area,” according to the meeting’s minutes. 

U.S. involvement seemed to stop there but the successive Vietnamese government have continued to dispute China’s claims over the Paracels.

Edited by Mike Firn and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Staff.

The new documentary Israelism examines the growing generational divide among Jewish Americans on the question of Palestine, with many younger Jews increasingly critical of Israel and less supportive of Zionism. Simone Zimmerman, one of the protagonists of the film and a co-founder of the group IfNotNow, says she grew up being told that supporting Israel was central to her Jewish identity, but that collapsed once she visited the Occupied Palestinian Territories and saw the system of apartheid under which millions live. “It’s so deeply contrary to our values as Jewish people to support this disgusting oppression and denial of freedom,” she says. We are also joined by Erin Axelman, co-director and one of the producers of Israelism, who says Zimmerman’s journey mirrors their own and those of many other young Jews who realize they “must fight for the freedom and equality of Palestinians while also fighting antisemitism.” The film is on a 40-city screening tour in Canada and the United States after previous efforts to ban the screenings on several campuses.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

In a debate on Israel and Palestine in Parliament last week, Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Affairs Leo Docherty got up and said:

There is no scenario in which Hamas can be allowed to control Gaza again. That is why we are not calling for a general ceasefire, which would allow Hamas to regroup and entrench their position. I am pleased to say that the government’s position is shared by the Opposition Front Bench. Instead, we are focused on urging respect for international law…

What a fatuous statement. If the UK government had any concern for international law Israel would not have been allowed to breach it continuous and with impunity for the last 75 years and the horrendous slaughter we’ve all been watching would never have happened.

As a foreign office minister, Docherty should be aware that Hamas is the legitimate government in Gaza, having won the last election fair and square. Israel, the US and UK might not like the result but that’s beside the point. What Docherty and his colleagues are contemplating is coercive regime change, which is hardly in line with international law or Palestinians’ right to self-determination.

Meanwhile, David Cameron, hurriedly parachuted in from outside Parliament as our new Foreign Secretary and breaching all democratic niceties, was telling everyone that there can be no resolution to the conflict in the Middle East if Hamas is still “armed to the teeth” and capable of attacking Israel. And he defended the UK’s decision to abstain on the UN vote for a Gaza ceasefire on the grounds that the UN was calling for an immediate armistice plus a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine, and “those two things don’t go together… If you have an immediate ceasefire but Hamas [is] still armed to the teeth, launching rockets into Israel, wanting to repeat 7 October, you’ll never have a two-state solution.

“Long-term security I think requires there to be a state for Palestine as well,” he said, sounding wonderfully generous, adding that he did not agree with “disappointing” comments made by Israeli ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely, on Wednesday 13 December that Tel Aviv would not back a two-state solution.

Had he been paying attention Cameron would know that the apartheid regime, from its very inception in 1948, has refused to contemplate the existence of a Palestinian state. That would thwart Israel’s ambition to establish sovereignty over the entire territory “from the river to the sea”, which is the express aim of Hotovely’s (and Netanyahu’s) vile party, Likud.

Britain, on the other hand, promised a Palestinian state back in 1915 but repeatedly reneged on it – in 1917, in 1923, in 1948 – and continues to sidestep the issue while forever prattling on about a two-state solution.

Cameron is also saying that Israel “must take stronger action to stop settler violence and hold the perpetrators accountable”. But his lordship should be telling Israel to do much more than that. To comply with international law Israel must remove its settlers and its thuggish military from the West Bank altogether, remembering that the West Bank includes East Jerusalem (and the Old City) and Gaza.

What needs eliminating is the threat posed by Israel

As I write, Cameron is changing tack slightly and now calling for a “sustainable” ceasefire because it has dawned on him that “too many civilians have been killed” by Israel. A joint article in the Sunday Times by him and German Foreign Affairs Minister Annalena Baerbock comes amid growing pressure on Israel over its methods in the war on Gaza. It states: “We do not believe that calling right now for a general and immediate ceasefire, hoping it somehow becomes permanent, is the way forward. It ignores why Israel is forced to defend itself: Hamas barbarically attacked Israel and still fires rockets to kill Israeli citizens every day.”

The usual misinformation. They ignore why the Palestinians are compelled to defend themselves, i.e. the brutal and murderous decades-long illegal occupation by Israel using military force.

“Hamas must lay down its arms,” say Cameron and Baerbock. And in a tepid warning to Israel, the two foreign ministers say: “Israel has the right to defend itself but, in doing so, it must abide by international humanitarian law. Israel will not win this war if its operations destroy the prospect of peaceful coexistence with Palestinians. They have a right to eliminate the threat posed by Hamas.”

But do they really? Where in international law does it say that an illegal occupier (such as Israel) can claim self-defence against a threat that emanates from the territory it illegally occupies?

Under UN Resolution 37/43, however, the Palestinians, as victims of illegal military occupation, have an unquestionable right to eliminate the threat posed by Israel in their struggle for “liberation from colonial domination, apartheid and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle”.

Resolution 37/43 also condemns “the constant and deliberate violations of the fundamental rights of the Palestinian people, as well as the expansionist activities of Israel in the Middle East, which constitute an obstacle to the achievement of self-determination and independence by the Palestinian people and a threat to peace and stability in the region”.

The Palestinians’ right to armed struggle in self-defence is also confirmed in UN Resolution 3246, which calls for all States to recognise the right to self-determination and independence for all peoples subject to colonial and foreign domination and alien subjugation and to offer them moral, material and other forms of assistance in their struggle to exercise fully their inalienable right to self-determination and independence.

Resolution 3246 reaffirms the legitimacy of the peoples’ struggle for liberation from colonial and foreign domination and alien subjugation by all available means, including armed struggle, and demands full respect for the basic human rights of all individuals detained or imprisoned as a result of their struggle for self-determination and independence, and strict respect for article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights under which no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

There’s no sign that Cameron and the rest of the UK government understand any of this.

And what right does the UK have to prevent Palestinians choosing their own government? None. The correct way to “eliminate the threat posed by Hamas” is to require Israel to end its occupation.

International law trampled to suit Israeli plans for domination

It is ludicrous to keep repeating that Israel must abide by international humanitarian law. Israel has no intention of doing so, and everyone knows it. Israel wants to dominate the Holy Land and has made that abundantly clear. Western governments and Western Christendom seem paralysed. The presumption must be that Biden and Cameron (both self-proclaimed Zionists, as were most of their predecessors) are overly sympathetic towards Israel and happy to trample international law to ensure the success of the apartheid regime’s criminal enterprise.

Many in the UK question why our parliamentarians are so concerned about the 1,200 Israeli dead following Hamas’s breakout attack and the 200-odd hostages when they couldn’t care less about the 10,651 Palestinians (including 656 women and 2,270 children) slaughtered by Israel in the 23 years before 7 October. Or the 7,200 Palestinian hostages held in Israeli jails, including 88 women and 250 children. Over 1,200 are held under “administrative detention” without charge or trial and denied due process.

An authority on international law, Dr Ralph Wilde, has produced a legal opinion on the Israeli occupation which might be helpful in putting an end to Cameron’s & co’s claptrap.

He points out that:

• There’s no valid basis in international law for the occupation and it is an unlawful use of force, an aggression, and a violation on the part of Israel against the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination. And aggression is a crime on an individual level for senior Israeli leaders. “As a result, the occupation is existentially illegal and must end immediately.”
• What’s more, an end to the occupation cannot be delayed by Israel’s failure to agree to the adoption of a peace agreement or by the unreadiness of the Palestinian people, by ‘facts on the ground’, or by waiting for the approval of the UN, the Quartet, the White House, the British Foreign Office or anybody else. Every day the occupation continues is a breach of international law.
• Palestinian people are treated in international law as a collective entity with rights, notably the right of self-determination and the right to freely choose whether or not to enter into international agreements. Palestine is what’s called a Self-determination Unit. The territory it covers is everything that is ‘not Israel’, legally, and includes Al-Quds/Jerusalem in its entirety, the rest of the West Bank beyond East Jerusalem, and Gaza.
• Israel’s recognition and UN membership did not include sovereignty over any part of Al-Quds/Jerusalem. Palestinians also enjoy the right of external self-determination (i.e. freedom from external domination) which has been universally accepted and affirmed by states and UN institutions including the General Assembly, the Security Council, and the International Court of Justice.
• And Palestine is a state in the international law sense because (a) there’s a presumption in favour of statehood for people with a right of external self-determination; and (b) a large majority (138) of the world’s states collectively recognized Palestinian statehood when the UN General Assembly voted in 2012 to re-designate Palestine’s status from ‘non-member Entity’ to ‘non-member State’. This had the effect of establishing statehood.
• External self-determination is a right to be free of any external domination, including occupation or other forms of non-sovereign territorial control which prevent the full exercise of that right. Such domination must end so that this right can be exercised.
• The right operates and exists simply and exclusively by virtue of the Palestinian people being entitled to it. It is not something that depends on anyone else agreeing to it, such as Israel, the Quartet, the UN, other states, etc. It is a right; so there is no need for Palestinians to negotiate or compromise with Israelis as the price for ending their occupation.
• Israel’s exercising control over the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza, preventing the Palestinian people from full and effective self-governance, has for decades been a fundamental impediment to the realization of the right of self-determination which the Palestinian people are entitled to enjoy under international law. And there was no actual or imminent armed attack that justified the occupation as a means of self-defence prior to 7 October.
• Furthermore, there is no right under international law to maintain the occupation pending a peace agreement, or for creating ‘facts on the ground’ that might give Israel advantages in relation to such an agreement, or as a means of coercing the Palestinian people into agreeing on a situation they would not accept otherwise.
• Implanting settlers in the hope of eventually acquiring territory is a violation of occupation law by Israel and a war crime on the part of the individuals involved. And it is a violation of Israel’s legal obligation to respect the sovereignty of another state and a violation of Israel’s legal obligation to respect the right of self-determination of the Palestinian people; also a violation of Israel’s obligations in the international law on the use of force. Ending these violations involves immediate removal of the settlers and the settlements from occupied land and an immediate end to Israel’s exercise of control, including its use of military force, over those areas of the West Bank.

Advice to Messrs Sunak, Cameron and Docherty is surely to first get on the right side of international law – and human decency – and recognise Palestinian statehood without any more foot-dragging. Furthermore, to join with other states and tell Israel, firmly, that all cooperation, collaboration and favoured nation privileges are cancelled until the apartheid regime ends its illegal occupation, removes its squatters, lifts its siege, ceases interference with free movement and fulfils its obligations under the UN Charter and resolutions. And completes a probationary period demonstrating good behaviour before being welcomed back into the community of nations.

Otherwise, what is international law worth? Our political leaders must realise that the British public don’t want a so-called ally that’s bent on genocide and the wholesale destruction of another people’s homeland and heritage, and is as hateful, racist and disrespectful of human rights and norms as Israel has been for as long as most of us can remember.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Stuart Littlewood.

Photograph Source: IDF Spokesperson’s Unit photographer – CC BY-SA 3.0

The U.S. government provides support for Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza in retaliation for Hamas’s costly and cruel attack on October 7. Thousands of Gazan civilians, mostly children and women, have died from bombs and gunfire and many more will be dying soon from lack of medical care, food, water, and spread of infectious diseases.  Healthcare and social service facilities, and homes, are reduced to rubble

Prospects for Gazans who survive the war are grim, or worse. The families of many are gone, and international aid agencies have mostly disappeared. Dire shortages of necessities are on the horizon.  Repairing the physical damage won’t happen soon.

With humanitarian disaster on full display, Human Rights Watch points out that, “By continuing to provide Israel with weapons and diplomatic cover as it commits atrocities … the US risks complicity in war crimes.” Accusations of shared responsibility for horror will very likely bedevil the United States for as long as Gazan civilians are dying in large numbers or being removed to camps somewhere else and, all the while, Israeli occupiers are using U.S. weapons to do the killing.

A recently released Israeli military analysis raises the possibility that the U.S. government would be courting very serious condemnation if it provides material support for Israel’s occupation of Gaza.

Dr. Omer Dostri, the study’s author, is associated with the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security and the Israel Defense and Security Forum. Each is oriented to Israel’s military establishment.  His study appeared November 7 in the Military Review, the self-described“professional Journal of the U.S. Army.”

As reported by journalist Dan Cohen, Dostri declared on social media that, “I authored [the study] on behalf of the US Department of Defense and the US Army’s Military Review journal.” For the Military Review’s editors to have invited Dostri’s submission suggests they already knew about, and were at least tolerant of, Dostri’s iron-fist approach toward Gaza.

The author and editors alike presumably expected their respective military superiors to be accepting of some or most of the views expressed in the paper. The two military leaderships very likely are in general agreement in regard to Gaza. Publication of this Israeli analysis is a straw in the wind as to future U.S.-Israel military collaboration on Gaza and, on that score, points to U.S. war crimes in the offing.

The title of Dostri’s article reads in part, “The End of the Deterrence Strategy in Gaza.” He notes the failure of Israeli military intelligence, Israel’s lack of combat readiness, and Hamas’s “exceptional military and professional approach.” Referring to Israel’s “disregard for the fundamentalist religious dimension of Hamas as an extreme Islamic terrorist organization,” he diagnoses faulty “political perception”

Dostri reviews options for control of Gaza following the defeat of Hamas. They are: a local Gazan administration, the Palestinian Authority taking charge, a mandate exercised by another government or an international agency, or occupation and governance by Israel’s military.  He favors the latter, “from a security perspective.”

The main reason for establishing Israeli settlements in Gaza, he states, is that “seizing and securing land constitutes a more substantial blow to radical Islamist terror groups than the elimination of terrorist operatives and high-ranking leaders.”

Summarizing, Dostri indicates that, “[A] robust ground campaign in the Gaza Strip, encompassing the occupation of territories, the creation of new Israeli settlements, and the voluntary relocation of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to Egypt with no option for return will greatly fortify Israeli deterrence and project influence throughout the entire Middle East.”

Dostri examines Israel’s conduct of the ongoing Gaza war. He calls for a military strategy aimed at securing “a swift surrender of the enemy” that would allow “political maneuverability to make decisions.” The goal “is to defeat Hamas and assume control of the Gaza Strip for the benefit of future generations.”

Israel runs “the risk of a multifront war.” Planners are “in the process of altering … policy and military strategy, not only concerning Gaza but also across other fronts.” The Gaza experience is instructive: “Successive Israeli governments …regarded Hamas in the Gaza Strip as a legitimate governing entity that could be managed and engaged through diplomatic and economic means. Not anymore.”

Now “Israel should shift from a strategy of deterrence … [to a] strategy of unwavering decisiveness and victory.” In particular, “Israel will have no choice but to invade Lebanon and defeat Hezbollah.” In addition, “Israel cannot afford to allow the Houthis [in Yemen] to significantly bolster their military strength over time.”

U.S. political leaders for the most part have yet to weigh in on the fate of Gazan civilians in the post-war period. Dostri’s view of Gaza’s future, seemingly acceptable, more or less, to the militaries of the two countries, leaves no room for the niceties of civilians being abused and dying as part of the coming occupation.

By December 1, the U.S. Congress was considering a proposal for assisting Israeli forces as they clear Gaza of Gazans:  Egypt, Turkey, Yemen, and Iraq would receive U.S. monetary support for taking in Gazans fleeing from Israeli attacks.  The next day, however, Vice President Kamala Harris indicated that, ““Under no circumstances will the United States permit the forced relocation of Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank.”

At issue for U.S. policymakers are competing realities: the suffering of Gaza civilians, obligations to U.S. ally Israel, the prospect of region-wide war, and the control of oil, whether Israeli or Palestinian.

Reporting on counterpunch.org, Charlotte Dennett cites “oil and natural gas, discovered off the coast of Gaza, Israel and Lebanon in 2000 and 2010 and estimated to be worth $500 billion.” The Palestinians in 2000 claimed that the “gas fields …. belonged to them.” Yasser Arafat, President of the Palestinian National Authority, “learned they could provide $1 billion in badly needed revenue. For him, this [was] a Gift of God for our people and a strong foundation for a Palestinian state.”

Dennett adds that, “In December 2010, prospectors discovered a much larger gas field off the Israeli coast, dubbed Leviathan. In addition, “work has already begun on … the so-called Ben Gurion Canal, from the tip of northern Gaza south into the Gulf of Aqaba, connecting Israel to the Red Sea and providing a competitor to Egypt’s Suez Canal.”  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to “convince international lenders to support his long-held scheme of turning Israel into an energy corridor”

The post US Military May be Endorsing Harsh Israeli Plan for Gaza Occupation appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by W. T. Whitney.

In his bill to the Senate, Paul called for “the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities in Syria that have not been authorized by Congress”, leaving a 30-day time frame for the measure to take place.  It notes, among a number of events, that US armed forces in Syria and Iraq since October 17 “have been attacked at least 52 times, with 28 attacks in Syria and 24 attacks in Iraq.  Such attacks resulted in at least 56 members of the United States Armed Forces being injured, of whom at least 25 members have sustained traumatic brain injuries.”  Such are the travails of empire.

The concern is valid enough.  With the Israel-Hamas war continuing in its heaving murderousness, allies for the Palestinian cause are getting tetchy.  From the US perspective, that tetchiness deserves retaliation, notably targeting any forces backed by Iran throughout the Middle East.  The soldiers, in other words, are not just in harm’s way, but likely to cause widening harm.

As Paul explained to his fellow senators, “It seems to be, though our 900 troops have no viable mission in Syria, that they’re sitting ducks.”  Even more saliently, he insisted that they were “a tripwire to a larger war, and without a clear-cut mission, I don’t think they can adequately defend themselves, yet they remain in Syria.”

The problem here, as with all childish impulses of US power, is the fear that its freedom loving forces might look like insufferable sissies in the face of armed savages who have no innate sense of that same freedom.

The impulse for remaining in Syria is treated by desk spanking wonks in the Pentagon and State Department as one of those good ideas to dampen and snuff out any prospect of renewal on the part of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.  But this, as we have known for a while, is merely a case of medium and vehicle.  In December 2018, President Donald Trump noted that the caliphate aspirants had lost 99 of their territory.  “We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there,” he declared.  He subsequently promised a “full” and “rapid” withdrawal of US forces.

Apoplexy, and various sabotaging efforts from those hostile to the suggestion, followed.  Defense Secretary Jim Mattis resigned in protest.  As Ambassador Jim Jeffrey, who served as special representative for Syria Engagement put it to Defense One, “When the situation in northeast Syria had been fairly stable after we defeated ISIS, [Trump] was inclined to pull out.  In each case, we then decided to come up with five better arguments for why we needed to stay.  And we succeeded both times.  That’s the story.”

The broader reason for maintaining US personnel in the Levant and Iraq is largely based on keeping the theocratic mullahs in Teheran in check.  On this point, former US ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, is helpfully candid.  “ISIS hasn’t controlled Tanf (near the junction of Syria/Jordan/Iraq) for 7 years.  The real (but unstated) reason the US is there is to block Iran from using a road coming from Iraq into Syria.”

Pundits with their stick-figure commentary (it’s all in the form, not substance, see?) continue to scratch for their crust and wisdom on the theme that withdrawing occupation forces from a territory spells doom and disaster for the broader project.  Call it civilisation, democracy, or whatever fable might so happen to satisfy the memorandum and itch of the moment.  Yes, the US did invade and impose itself with muscular violence, but why leave the violated party even as the effects of molestation continue to be felt?  “With a withdrawal of US forces from Syria (as well as Iraq) becoming more likely,” warn the earnest authors of a report for the New Lines Institute, “US policy  makers must understand the long-term effects of withdrawal will cause and then adapt accordingly.  This is particularly urgent given the possibility of a US withdrawal triggering malign actors in Syria, including Iran, to rush to fill the power vacuum.”

Pentagon advisor Michael Rubin was also one to rush to the podium of common values in justifying what he regarded as a rather modest US investment in Syria for excellent returns.  Washington had, for instance, supported the Autonomous Administration in North and East Syria (AANES), and insisted that more funding was needed.  The ongoing relationship with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) was also of value.

Paul, at least on this score, was always going to struggle in getting the resolution across the line.  Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, may, or may not, have been suffering some seizure in observing that passing “such a resolution would be a gift to Iran and its terrorist network.”  The removal of US forces from the Middle East was “exactly what they’d like to see.”  The resolution was duly defeated, with 13 members favouring it, and 84 opposed.

The more level-headed observers have, like Paul, concluded that Washington’s forces in Syria are merely ripening targets, fodder for deeper and wider conflict.  Justin Logan of the CATO Institute has made the self-evident point that US forces in Syria, after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, “have served as little more than shooting gallery targets for regional militias backed by Iran.  Contrary to their ostensible purpose, they are not fighting ISIS.”

Such conservative outlets as the National Review agree.  One of its senior writers, Michael Brendan Dougherty, is lacerating about the presence.  “Our troops in Syria have no mission, and they have no lawful reason given to them by our Congress to remain there.  In the meantime, they serve as convenient targets for Iranian-backed militias who otherwise would have no way of threatening American lives.”  For those inclined towards permanent wars, that remains a most desirable state of affairs.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

Photograph Source: Driedprawns at en.wikipedia – CC BY 2.5

On the South Korean side of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), the twisted wreckage of a train sits on a set of rails that end abruptly before they can proceed northward. The wreck, what remains of a train bombed during the Korean War, rests outside Woljeong-ri train station, the northernmost station on the Gyeongwon line before the border. When I visited the DMZ in 2018, I stood before this rusted remnant — a poignant reminder of the tragedies of war and the division of the peninsula — without knowing very much about the train or its history.

Only when I picked up the latest novel by the celebrated Korean writer Sok-yong Hwang did I get the rest of the story. The locomotive in question is a Mater 2-10 — the name comes from the Japanese abbreviation for mountain — and it was put into operation in the first part of the 20th century when Japan began its colonization of Korea.

Mater 2-10 is also the title of Hwang’s novel. The story dramatizes Korean resistance to the Japanese occupation, connecting it narratively to labor protests in contemporary South Korea. It is a dense and ultimately rewarding work that introduces readers to such unexpected details as the operation of steam trains, the production of pounded rice cake, and the ideological disputes among Communist cadres in the Korean underground.

Hwang has published an astonishing array of novels, using settings that range across the broad expanse of modern Korean history. Some of these books are long and dense, and more detailed than most non-Korean readers might be willing to absorb. But at their best, Hwang’s novels reveal the complicated histories behind their narratives. The Shadow of Arms covers Korea’s participation in the Vietnam War and the role of war profiteering; The Old Garden follows democracy activists during the 1970s and 1980s with a focus on the Gwangju Uprising of 1980.

Even his shorter novels contain surprises. The Guest introduced me to a hidden history that I thought I knew, in this case an atrocity that took place in Sinchon during the Korean War and that I learned about, inaccurately as it turned out, when I visited the North Korean site in 1999. Like Mater 2-10, The Guest pulled aside a curtain that I barely knew existed so that I could peek at what lay on the other side.

The period of Japanese colonialism is never far from Hwang’s writing, because for most Koreans that era is not ancient history. Although the Japanese withdrew from Korea at the end of World War II in 1945, nearly 80 years ago, the colonial legacy still complicates Korean-Japanese relations today, most prominently around the Korean demands for an apology and compensation for the women who were forcibly drafted into military sexual slavery by Japan during the long Pacific war. Less prominent, but equally consequential, is the debate in Korea over the contributions that Japan did or did not make to the modernization of the Korean peninsula.

Trains are a key component of the industrialization of a country. They not only convey passengers more quickly across territory, they open hitherto inaccessible industrial and agriculture regions to national and global markets. In a colonial system, trains also facilitate the exploitation of natural resources that enrich the colonizing power.  By 1945, the investments that the colonizer made into tracks and rolling stock had turned Korea, according to historian Bruce Cumings, into “the most developed rail system in Asia outside of Japan.”

The price tag on this economic development for Koreans was high, and Mater 2-10 explores these costs, including the Japanese expropriation of Korean land to build the lines and stations. One of the characters in the novel exclaims:

“Japan is like a thief placing a ladder against the wall so they can climb over and rob our house. Do you really think they built the railroads for us? From the beginning, the tracks that lead from the peninsula up into the continent were called a military railway. That’s how they were able to grab all that land and labour to build it.”

It wasn’t only land: Japan also expropriated Korean souls. It drafted Koreans to build the railroads and then, eventually, to staff them. Yet it was a rare privilege to become an engineer on one of the enormous locomotives that pulled passengers and freight from Busan in the south all the way up to the Japanese territory of Manchuria in northeastern China.

Mater 2-10 focuses on a pair of brothers, one of whom, Ilcheol Yi, becomes just such a train engineer. To rise to that position, however, Ilcheol must make a series of compromises with the colonial authorities, whether speaking Japanese with his Japanese colleagues or ultimately giving up his Korean name in favor of a Japanese one. His brother Icheol, meanwhile, takes the route of resistance, risking imprisonment, torture, and eventually death.

The tensions between the brothers — whose names mean “one steel” and “two steel” in Korean — form the backbone of the novel. They stand in for the two halves of the Korean population at the time, those who collaborated and those who resisted.

At one point, Icheol says to his brother, “I know being a slave to the Japanese is how you survive, but…”

“You can curse at me all you want, but this is how all people without a country live,” Ilcheol replies.

Since my own first novel was about trains, I enjoyed reading about the details of Ilcheol’s job as an engineer, from the spraying of sand on the rails to improve traction during inclement weather to the screech of the wheels as the train traversed tracks that widened by a mere 10 millimeters. Hwang is a master of such details.

But even though I’m similarly fascinated by the politics of underground movements, I’m frankly mystified by Hwang’s inclusion of what seem to be historical materials from Icheol’s activities as a clandestine organizer. Readers are thus subjected to the full text of the Red Flag mission statement with all of its wooden agitprop content. Later, Hwang reprints a transcription of Emperor Hirohito’s broadcast of “surrender,” followed by an extended commentary. Then, as if that were not enough documentary material, the texts of Douglas MacArthur’s post-war proclamations take up a couple more pages of the novel.

I understand Hwang’s desire to detail the exceptionally brave work of the underground resistance during Japanese colonialism. But the splits among various Communist factions over strategy don’t have much bearing on the development of the novel’s plot. The documents covering the Japanese surrender and the new rules of the U.S. occupation authority certainly reinforce Hwang’s point that not much changed after 1945, aside from the replacement of one colonial authority by another. But surely he could have devised a more novelistic way of conveying that information. So, too, could he have avoided some rather wooden exposition that clumsily relates his points:

The Korean people had taken a huge leap toward building the independent nation and democratic society of their hopes and desires. Having those hopes crushed by the U.S. military occupation so immediately after Liberation gave the people a bitter education in history and the laws of social development.

Even if they happen to be true, slogans make for weak literature.

Although the bulk of the novel takes place during the colonial period and just after, Hwang connects this historical story to the modern day with a clever framing device. A descendent of the Yi family, Yi Jino, is described at the beginning of the novel as being 45 meters up in the sky, atop a chimney connected to a heat-and-power plant. A labor activist protesting the dismissal of his fellow workers, Jino is camping out on a narrow catwalk in a tent with a sleeping bag. His comrades send up his food and take down his excretions.

Hwang was himself a labor activist who was jailed for his efforts. With Mater 2-10, he brings to life working-class characters who are present in Korean novels only as fringe characters if at all. Jino is a familiar figure in Korean life — labor activists were integral in the fight for democracy in the 1970s and 1980s and they continue to push for better working conditions and pay in South Korea today. However, the modern industrial worker is a rare figure in Korean literature, as Hwang notes in the novel’s afterward. With compassion, Hwang captures the frustrations of these workers:

“In the past, workers had doused themselves with petrol and set themselves on fire, one after the other, as if the idea were contagious. Now what shattered workers wasn’t rage but despair — a mighty, terrifying enemy that slowly gnawed away at them day after day. Another protest assembly would end, and the workers would be on their own. Even after returning home to their waiting families, they were alone. The world has always been as indifferent as the universe. It is lonely, still, and silent. Tedious, worthless everyday life crushed them all. Dismissal was murder.”

Like the holy ascetics of old who sat on columns in the desert, Jino sits atop the chimney and waits for a sign from above, this time in the form of a capitulation from a corporate CEO. It eventually comes, and he can descend from his catwalk. But like so many stories that take place on the Korean peninsula, it’s ultimately not a happy ending.

As in many of his novels, Hwang injects a measure of magical realism into Mater 2-10 by introducing various ghosts, psychics, and soothsayers. Atop his tower, Jino not only meditates on how his struggle connects with those of his predecessors, he actively summons these long dead figures to tell their stories, like character witnesses testifying in his defense during his trial by ordeal. The dead, it seems, are not dead, and the past clings to the characters like a powerful odor.

Sora Kim-Russell and Youngjae Josephine Bae do a masterful job of translating the novel, retaining many of the specific Korean words describing food and personal relationships. The Korean custom of referring to parents as the father or mother of the child becomes especially poignant at one point when Ilcheol is referred to as Jangsan Abeoji — the father of Jangsan — when the child Jangsan has been dead already for some time. The dead indeed stay with us in many ways.

So, too, can the full flavor of Korean life be experienced in the novel when Icheol is initially released from prison and his parents buy dog meat for medicinal dishes to restore his health — the “royal soup” of boshintang, the slices of meat (suyuk) that are wrapped in leaves with condiments, the spicy stir-fried duruchigi.

Dog meat is, of course, not to everyone’s taste, especially outside of Korea. Mater 2-10 might also test the patience, and even offend the literary tastes, of non-Korean readers. However, readers should hold back on any judgment of this complex novel and appreciate the extraordinary privilege of being invited as an honorary guest on a tour of Korean history and culture. This trip across the landscape of history and up into the heights of activism — the crucial axis of experience for many Koreans — ultimately proves both exhilarating and unforgettable.

Originally published in Korea Quarterly.

The post Telling the Complex History of Korea’s Occupation appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by John Feffer.

In this special broadcast, we air excerpts from a recent event organized by the Palestine Festival of Literature at the Union Theological Seminary here in New York. The event featured a discussion between the acclaimed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates and Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi. Coates won the National Book Award for his book Between the World and Me. Rashid Khalidi is the Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia. His books include The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine. Their conversation was moderated by civil rights attorney Michelle Alexander.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

On October 24, it became clear to the United Nations (UN) that the sustained bombardment of Gaza—which had already killed 6,500 people (including at least 35 UN employees)—had made this part of Palestine unviable for human life. Over two million people live in this slim section of land on the Mediterranean Sea. Since 1948, the refugees who live here have relied on UN assistance, with the United Nations building an entire agency (UNRWA) in 1949 for that purpose. UN Secretary General António Guterres told the UN Security Council that within days the UN would run out of fuel for its trucks, which carry the minimal relief that crosses into Gaza from Egypt and supports the 660,000 Palestinians who have fled their homes to come to UN compounds across Gaza. The trucks carry “a drop of aid in an ocean of need,” Guterres said. “The people of Gaza need continuous aid delivery at a level that corresponds to the enormous needs. That aid must be delivered without restrictions.”

Guterres’s statement, delivered in a calm voice, did however depart from the sentiment of disregard that defines the statements of European and North American leaders—many of whom have rushed to Tel Aviv to stand beside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and pledge their full-throated support for Israel. History matters. Guterres said that the problems now befalling the Palestinians of Gaza did not begin on October 7, when Hamas and other Palestinian factions broke through the apartheid security barrier and attacked the settlements that border Gaza. His statement on the situation over the past decades is factual, based as it was on thousands of pages of UN reports and resolutions: “It is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum. The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation. They have seen their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence; their economy stifled; their people displaced, and their homes demolished. Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been vanishing.” The image of the “suffocating occupation” is utterly accurate.

After Guterres made these remarks, Israeli authorities—as if on cue—demanded the resignation of the UN Secretary-General. Israel’s permanent representative to the UN Gilad Erdan accused Guterres—absurdly—of “justifying terrorism.” Saying that Guterres “once again distorts and twists reality,” Erdan noted that his government would not permit the UN Humanitarian Aid chief Martin Griffiths from crossing the Rafah border into Gaza to oversee the distribution of relief. “In what world do you live?” asked Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen of Guterres. At the UN Security Council, meanwhile, the United States vetoed resolutions for a ceasefire, while China and Russia vetoed a U.S. resolution that said Israel had a right to defend itself and Iran must stop its export of arms. The United States has deeply politicized the atmosphere in the UN, using its own resolutions to rally support—unsuccessfully—for Israel, while attacking the Palestinians (and bizarrely Iran) in the process.

Nothing Neutral About the United States

The United States has never been an unbiased arbiter over the region, given its close linkage to Israel from at least the 1960s. Billions of dollars of weapons sold to Israel, billions of dollars of aid to Israel, and punctual statements in favor of Israel have defined the relationship between Washington and Tel Aviv. During all the negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis, the United States has played a game of duplicity: pretending to be neutral, but in fact, using its immense power to neuter Palestinians and to strengthen Israel. The Oslo Accords, which led to the creation of a powerless Bantustan run by the Palestinian Authority, was negotiated with the United States with its hands on the pen. Oslo led to the creation of a process that has resulted in the attrition of Palestinian control over East Jerusalem and the West Bank as well as the garrotting of the Palestinians in Gaza—all of this combined being the “suffocating occupation” that Guterres talked about.

Since 2007, when Israeli troops left Gaza and then hemmed it in by land and sea walls that made Gaza the world’s largest open-air prison, Israel has routinely bombed the Palestinians who live there. Each time there is a bombardment, one worse than the next, the United States government has backed Israel fully and re-armed it during the bombardment. Calls for a ceasefire have been blocked by Washington in the UN Security Council since the destructive bombing of Gaza called Operation Cast Lead (2008-09). This time, on cue, the United States has provided Israel with diplomatic support, with U.S. President Joe Biden going to Tel Aviv and with the United States going as far as adopting a flagrant lie that Israel did not bomb al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City on October 17. Before Biden got to Israel, the United States sent two major naval battle groups into the eastern Mediterranean—two aircraft carriers, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and the USS Gerald Ford, with their supporting naval vessels in two strike groups. Since then, the U.S. has moved missile defense systems into the region to strengthen the Israeli armed forces. The movement of these forces comes alongside billions of dollars spent annually by the U.S. to arm Israel, including $15 billion in extra military assistance over this recent period. These wars are not merely Israel’s wars. These are the wars of Israel and the United States, with its Western allies in tow.

Gaza Will Become Mosul

Meanwhile, the United States has sent senior military officials to work closely with the Israeli generals. One of these officials is a three-star Marine lieutenant general James Glynn, who has been sent to “help the Israelis with the challenges of fighting an urban war.” Glynn and others are in the Israeli military chain of command not to make decisions for Israel but to assist them. Glynn was part of the U.S. Operation Inherent Resolve against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in the years following 2014, when the United States bombed Mosul and Raqqa (Iraq) to eject ISIS from those cities. As if to underline Glynn’s Mosul and Raqqa experience, U.S. Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin told Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant that he had himself been involved in Operation Inherent Resolve in 2016-2017 when Austin headed U.S. Central Command. Austin’s comments and Glynn’s deployment to Israel are in anticipation of the ground war that is expected against Gaza. “The first thing that everyone should know,” Austin told ABC News, “and I think everyone does know, is that urban combat is extremely difficult.”

Indeed, Austin’s comment about the difficulty of urban combat, particularly with the Mosul and Raqqa experiences in mind, is appropriate. In 2017, the Associated Press (AP) reported that the U.S. attack on Mosul had resulted in between 9,000 and 11,000 civilian casualties. Very few people recall the brutality of that war and the numbers of civilian dead are barely noted. If Mosul is the example before the United States and Israel for the ground war to come in Gaza, there are some differences that should be borne in mind. ISIS had only two years to dig in its defenses, while the Palestinian factions have been preparing for such an eventuality since at least 2005 and are therefore better prepared to fight the Israeli army one ruined street after the next. It appears from all reports that the morale of the Palestinian factions is far greater than that of the Israeli army, which means that the Palestinian factions will fight with much more force and with much less to lose than ISIS (whose fighters slipped out of the city and vanished into the countryside).

In both Mosul and Raqqa, when the U.S. aerial bombardment began, tens of thousands of civilians fled the cities for the countryside alongside some ISIS fighters to wait for the destruction to commence and then end. If they had remained in Mosul and Raqqa, the civilian casualties would have been twice the number reported by AP. Mosul’s population was just 1.6 million, smaller than the 2.3 million residents of Gaza—so the numbers of civilian casualties would have to be adjusted upwards. Palestinians in Gaza are trapped and cannot escape to the countryside, unlike the residents of Mosul and Raqqa. They can go nowhere as Israeli tanks enter Gaza, guns blazing. The civilian deaths in Gaza, already outrageously high due to the uncontrolled bombing by Israel, will be unimaginable during this ground war that began on October 27. Gaza, already a ruin, will be left a cemetery.

This article was produced by Globetrotter.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Vijay Prashad.

The Israeli bombing of the Baptist hospital in Gaza killing hundreds of innocent Palestinians may have been a turning point in the war on Gaza.

The October 17 attack led instantly to mass protests throughout Palestine and the Middle East and forced the Egyptian, Jordanian and Palestinian leaders to cancel a summit meeting the following day with US President Biden.

The deadly bombing of the hospital was preceded by bombardment of a UN-run school on the same day, in which at least six people were killed.

• READ MORE: Israel-Hamas war: Israel kills 500 in hospital attack – ministry
• Al Jazeera live news feed
• John Minto: A shameful NZ response to genocide of Palestinians in Gaza
• Other War Against Gaza reports

These tragedies have highlighted the humanitarian consequences of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, waged under the pretext of “self-defence”. Which mirrors its long history of pursuing maximum security at the expense of Palestinian lives, through disproportionate and indiscriminate use of military force.

Israel has tried to muddy the waters as it did after the assassination of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, by blaming the Palestinians for the hospital bombing.

It is easy to get lost in the midst of mayhem, death and destruction and forget how and why we have arrived at such madness.

Disenchanted old-timers, like the baffled newcomers, find it ever more challenging to make sense of the perpetual bloodshed and the endless recriminations, and wonder if there is ever a solution to this protracted and tragic conflict, after a dozen wars, countless peace initiatives and innumerable “creative” solutions failed to resolve the conflict.

Main contradiction
That is why it is paramount during these chaotic times to zero in on the main contradiction driving and inflaming the conflict, namely the clash between what Israel claims is its “security” drive and what Palestinians demand as their rights under international law.

This primary contradiction has evolved over the years into a zero-sum conflict, as Israel has pursued maximum “security” at the expense of justice for the Palestinians.

Since its inception, Israel has defined its security all too broadly, in both military and nonmilitary terms that undermine basic Palestinian rights and freedom.

After its establishment through terror and violence, the tiny colonial entity developed a formidable security doctrine that matches its heightened perception of threats — real and imagined — from a cynical world, a hostile region, and a defiant indigenous population.

From the outset, Israel focused on the relentless preparation for and pursuit of war; even when its state of affairs did not require it, its state of mind justified it.

First and foremost, Israel pursued military superiority, strategic preemption and nuclear deterrence, to compensate for its strategic depth and small population, and to ensure the country does not lose a single war, believing any such loss would mean total annihilation.

Armed with an aggressive military doctrine, Israel went on to win three wars in 1948, 1956 and 1967, resulting in its permanent control of all of historic Palestine, including a perpetual military occupation of millions of Palestinians, all under the pretext of preserving its security.

Israel perpetuated injustices
Israel has perpetuated injustices against the Palestinians, incessantly breaking international law. After the Nakba of 1948, Israeli “security” has meant preventing millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants from returning to their homes and homeland in contravention to UN Resolution 194.

It also led to the confiscation of their land in order to settle new Jewish immigrants and ensure Jewish demographic majority.

Likewise, after the 1967 war and the subsequent occupation, Israel confiscated Palestinian lands to settle hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers, whose illegal presence became a justification for a greater, more repressive Israeli military deployment, rendering Israeli withdrawal in line with United Nations Security Council resolutions ever more improbable.

Even after Israel reached “historic peace accords” with the Palestinians in 1993, it continued to settle Jewish immigrants onto occupied Palestinian land, with the population of illegal Jewish settlers reaching 700,000 today.

It has had to massively expand its national security provision to include the security of these settlements. This, of course, was done at the direct expense of Palestinian life, land, dignity and well-being.

To safeguard its illegal settlements, Israel has also carved up and fragmented the Palestinian territories into 202 separate cantons, erecting a system of apartheid, and diminishing the Palestinians’ access to employment, health and education.

Like other settler colonial powers, Israel’s ideological approach to security has been no less dangerous than its strategic approach to its military doctrine.

Security the magic word
Security became the magic word that trumps all others; it explains all and justifies all. Its mention silences any criticism or dissent.

It is the answer to every question: why build here not there — security; why sustain the occupation — security; why expand the Jewish settlements — security; why carry out the bloodshed — security; why maintain a state of no war or peace — security.

Indeed, security emerged as the state ideology; it is Zionism’s answer to its colonial reality. It is no coincidence that what Israel calls security, the Palestinians call hegemony.

In that way, security went beyond police, military, intelligence and surveillance, to an all-encompassing hegemonic, even racist concept covering demography, immigration, settlement, land confiscation, as well as, theology, archaeology, indoctrination and propaganda.

These became the essential and complimentary ingredients to Israeli military power, deterrence, prevention and preemption.

But Israel’s disproportionality in response to the Palestinian struggle for freedom has always failed to deter Palestinian resistance. The suffering of the Palestinian people has produced greater frustration and anger, leading to cycles of retaliations, as we have seen this month in Gaza.

Since it withdrew its several thousand illegal settlers and redeployed its forces outside the Gaza in 2005, Israel has laid siege, an unjust and inhumane blockade to the densely populated strip, making life ever more unbearable for its over 2.3 million Palestinians, most of whom are refugees from the southern part of what today is Israel.

Preparing land invasion
Eighteen years, five wars, and tens of thousands of casualties later, Israel is back to bombing the ill-fated Palestinian territory, in retaliation for Hamas’s October 7 attack on its soldiers and civilians, and is preparing for a full land invasion of Gaza with incalculable cost to its residents.

Israel’s insistence on the exclusive right to defend its citizens, while denying the Palestinians the right to protect their own civilians under military occupation and siege, has long backfired. This month, it backfired spectacularly.

The myth of Israel’s security and invincibility has been shattered once and for all. It is high time to pursue security through a just peace, instead of pursuing peace through bloody security.

This is the reality the new self-appointed sheriff in town, Joe Biden, must address during his visit to the region, instead of egging Israel on as in its genocidal war in Gaza.

As my brother, seasoned scholar Azmi Bishara, argued in his recent book, Palestine: Matters of Truth and Justice, at the heart of the conflict lies not a dilemma in need of creativity, but rather a tragedy in dire need of justice.

Any decent mediator will have to find and maintain the balance between the two, starting with putting an end to Israel’s occupation and the colonial mindset that governed the conflict.

It’s not bothsidesism and it’s not whataboutism, it’s common sense and sober reading of the historical dynamic that governed the reality in the land.

Marwan Bishara is a senior analyst for Al Jazeera English. He is an author who writes extensively on global politics and is widely regarded as a leading authority on US foreign policy, the Middle East and international strategic affairs. He was previously a professor of international relations at the American University of Paris.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

COMMENTARY: By Donna Miles

Of everything that I have read and watched about the unfolding events in Israel and Gaza, a tweet and a short video have stood out the most.

The tweet came from Dov Waxman, a professor of Israel studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. It read:

“To the people celebrating the mass murder of Israeli citizens, you have lost your humanity. To the people enthusiastically calling for Israel to decimate Gaza, densely populated with 2 million Palestinian citizens, you have lost your humanity. Israelis and Palestinians are real people, just like you and me.”

The video, posted on X, is a short clip of an interview with the distressed father of the young Israeli woman whose video of being taken hostage on a motorbike went viral on social media.

The father speaks in Hebrew with a voice full of pain. A written translation reads:

”Also Gaza has casualties… mothers who cry… let’s use this emotion, we are two nations from one father, let’s make peace, a real peace.”

The heroic words of this Israeli father and his belief in peace, despite his incredible suffering, reduced me to tears.

• READ MORE: Israel-Hamas war: Israel kills 500 in hospital attack – ministry
• Al Jazeera live news feed
• John Minto: A shameful NZ response to genocide of Palestinians in Gaza
• Other War Against Gaza reports

To the people celebrating the mass murder of Israeli civilians, you have lost your humanity. To the people enthusiastically calling for Israel to decimate Gaza, densely populated with 2 million Palestinian civilians, you have lost your humanity. Israelis and Palestinians are real…

— Dov Waxman (@DovWaxman) October 9, 2023

We, the international community, bear a big responsibility for the bloodbath of the past few days and the hell that is to come by failing to bring “a real peace” for Palestinians and Israelis.

A Gazan schoolgirl looks into the BBC camera and says: “I wish I could be a normal child, living with no war”.

We, the international community, have failed this child and one million other Gazan children who are about to pay “a huge price” for the crimes that they’ve had no parts in.

For more than 40 years, hundreds of UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions, including one co-sponsored by New Zealand, have stated that “Israel’s annexation of occupied territory is unlawful, its construction of hundreds of Jewish settlements are illegal, and its denial of Palestinian self-determination breaches international law”, but there has been no accountability for Israeli occupation and its apartheid practices.

But now that we have this horror unfolding before our eyes, we are, at last, prepared to pay attention and listen to Palestinians as they are finally invited to the likes of CNN and BBC to tell us that what we have seen in the past few days, they have been experiencing for the past 75 years.

Husam Zomlot, the head of Palestinian Mission to the UK, described Gaza as the biggest open air prison, where 2 million people have been taken hostage by Israel for the last 17 years.

As I type this, Israel has ordered a total siege of the densely-populated Gaza, cutting off fuel, food and electricity to an already deprived population while conducting massive retaliatory airstrikes.

Half of Gaza is children
Half of Gaza’s 2.2 million population are children. These children have no Iron Dome to stop the rockets, and no sophisticated army to protect them as their houses are flattened and their bodies are charred and mangled.

An airstrike has already wiped out 19 members of the same Palestinian family who were sheltering in their house in a jam-packed refugee camp in Gaza.

A shell-shocked survivor of the strike said he didn’t understand why Israel struck his house. “There were no militants in his building, he insisted, and his family was not warned”.

Many Gazans have already lost family members, including children and infants, in previous wars.

The 2-year-old son and wife of Israel’s most wanted man, the leader of Hamas’ military arm, Mohammed Deif, were killed as Israel tried and failed to kill him during the 2014 Israeli offensive on Gaza which, shockingly, killed over 500 Palestinian children.

Targeting schools, hospitals, mosques and marketplaces, as Israel is doing now and has done in the past, in a densely populated area where people have nowhere to flee, can only reflect Israel’s total disregard for the lives of Palestinian civilians.

If we expect occupied people not to target civilians then surely we must demand the same from their powerful occupier.

It’s rare to find a full body with all its parts the deeper we went into the hospital the more shocking and terrifying the scene became in gaza in result of the israeli air strike that hit the #baptisthospital #Gaza pic.twitter.com/tR9KC5sRvb

— PALESTINE ONLINE (@OnlinePalEng) October 17, 2023

Staggering failure
There has been much talk about the staggering failure of Israeli intelligence on multiple fronts. But Israel’s biggest intelligence failure is the ongoing assumption that occupation can ever co-exist with peace — it cannot.

I have no doubt that Netanyahu will do as he has promised and will exact “a huge price” for Hamas’ murderous attacks.

But we have been here before, and, time and time again, have learnt that collective punishment of Palestinians will only strengthen their resolve to fight for their freedom.

In his first message after the attacks, Netanyahu quoted from the poet Hayim Nahman Bialik: “Vengeance… for the blood of a small child, / Satan has not yet created.”

Netanyahu left out the preceding line: “Cursed be he who cries out: Revenge!”.

Killing more Palestinians will not solve Israeli’s security problems. The only path to peace is by ending the illegal settlements, annexations and dispossession of Palestinians.

Donna Miles is an Iranian-Kiwi columnist and writer based in Christchurch. This article was first published in The Press last Friday and is published here with the permission of the author.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.