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  • Toward the Abyss

    One word characterizes United States foreign policy – counterproductive.

    Major U.S. foreign policy decisions after World War II — Vietnam War, Lebanon intrusion, Somalia incursion, Afghan/Soviet War, Afghan occupation, Iraq War, support for Shah of Iran, and Libyan Wars — have been counterproductive, not resolving situations and eventually harming the American people. The one-sided relationship the United States has with Israel is another counterproductive policy that is harmful to the American public

    Persistent attention to Israel and its dubious position in the world may seem overkill, except this attention is one of the most important, mortally affecting the U.S. public. Until a complete report of fatal relations with Israel is placed on the desks of U.S. congresspersons and they act positively upon the contents, attention to the issue is incomplete and peril continues. Surveying U.S. policies that favored Israel collects a horrendous list of American fatalities, economic havoc, international terrorism, political misalignment, hatred, and aggression against fortress America.

    Two questions. How have the expensive arrangements, Velcro attachments, and highly supportive measures for Israel benefitted the United States? What has Israel done for Americans, not for American politicians, but for those who vote them into office? A convenient means for obtaining the answer is to have a leading “think tank” in the United States supply the information. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which “seeks to advance a balanced and realistic understanding of American interests in the Middle East and to promote the policies that secure them” has a 2012 article on the topic, “Friends with Benefits: Why the U.S.-Israeli Alliance Is Good for America,” by Michael Eisenstadt and David Pollock, Nov 7, 2012, and is a likely source. Some of its major recommendations:

    U.S.-Israeli security cooperation dates back to heights of the Cold War, when the Jewish state came to be seen in Washington as a bulwark against Soviet influence in the Middle East and a counter to Arab nationalism….Israel remains a counterweight against radical forces in the Middle East, including political Islam and violent extremism. It has prevented the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in the region by thwarting Iraq and Syria’s nuclear programs.

    (1) The reason the Soviet Union acquired influence in the Middle East was Washington’s refusal to sell arms to the Arab nations, while “indirectly supplying weapons to Israel via West Germany, under the terms of a 1960 secret agreement to supply Israel with $80 million worth of armaments.“ Less secret deliveries of MIM-23 Hawk anti-aircraft missiles in 1962 and M48 Patton tanks in 1965 told the Arab nations they could not collaborate with a government that armed their principal adversary and they should seek military assistance elsewhere.
    (2) Arab nationalism has developed, and developed, and developed; so, how did Israel counter Arab nationalism? Did Israel stimulate Arab nationalism?
    (3) What has Israel done to protect others as a “counterweight against radical forces in the Middle East, including political Islam and violent extremism?” The answer is nothing. Radical forces, political Islam, and violent extremism emerged immediately after Israel’s formation and grew, and grew, as Israel grew.
    (4) Iraq and Syria sought nuclear weapons to counter Israel’s nuclear weapons developments, which the U.S. could have and should have prevented. No nukes in Israel; no nukes in Syria or Iraq. Why did the U.S., dedicated to preventing nuclear proliferation, allow Israel to obtain the atomic bomb?

    Dozens of leading U.S. companies have set up technology incubators in Israel to take advantage of the country’s penchant for new ideas. In 2011, Israel was the destination of 25 percent of all U.S. exports to the region, having recently eclipsed Saudi Arabia as the top market there for American products.

    (1) U.S. companies have subsidiaries worldwide and hire talent in all nations. What’s significant about Israel?
    (2) “In 2011, Israel was the destination of 25 percent of all U.S. exports to the region…” Was that good? In 2022, U.S. exports to Israel were $20.0 billion and imports were $30.6 billion, adding $10.7 billion to Washington’s trade deficit, not a good economic statistic. Without Israel’s trade, the U.S. exported $83 billion in goods and services to Middle East nations and had a trade surplus of $5.3 billion, a better statistic.

    U.S. companies’ substantial cooperation with Israel on information technology has been crucial to Silicon Valley’s success. At Intel’s research and development centers in Israel, engineers have designed many of the company’s most successful microprocessors, accounting for some 40 percent of the firm’s revenues last year. If you’ve made a secure financial transaction on the Internet, sent an instant message, or bought something using PayPal, you can thank Israeli  researchers.

    These bites of public relations win the all-time Pinocchio award. Is The Washington Institute a legitimate “think tank” or a covert lobby?

    (1)    “Israel has been crucial to Silicon Valley’s success.” Next, we’ll hear that Moses received the Ten Commandments on Mt. Whitney.
    (2)    “At Intel’s research and development centers in Israel, engineers have designed many of the company’s most successful microprocessors, accounting for some 40 percent of the firm’s revenues last year.” Intel has 131,000 employees in 65 countries — 11,000 in Israel, 12,000 in China, and approximately 7,500 employees at its 360-acre Leixlip campus in Ireland. The company develops the processors, not the country or specific engineers; it can develop the same processors anywhere in the world and has capably developed its major microprocessors for 45 years in the good old United States of America.
    (3)    “If you’ve made a secure financial transaction on the Internet, sent an instant message, or bought something using PayPal, you can thank Israeli researchers.” Another Pinocchio award. Let’s be more accurate: “If you’ve been scammed in a financial transaction, had your messages hacked, or had someone purchase an item with your PayPal account, thank Israeli researchers.”

    In its one-sided presentation, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy does not show the U.S.-Israeli alliance is good for America. The Institute has not considered the other side, the harm that Israel has visited upon its most essential partner. Reality shows the U.S. government and its people have dealt with Israel in a suicidal manner and in a zero-sum game, where the U.S. is the “zero,” or actually minus, and Israel receives the sum of all the benefits.

    Recognition of Israel

    From its inception, Israel betrayed the United States and the U.S. betrayed its commitment to a just and peaceful post-WWII world. President Harry S. Truman’s recognition of the new state, only 11 minutes after its declaration, did not consider its composition, signified a pardon of the excesses committed by Irgun and Haganah militias against civilian populations, and certified the exclusion of a Palestinian voice in the new government. Truman never asked who represented the 400,000 indigenous Palestinians in the declared Israeli state that was almost equal in population to the 600,000 Jews, most of whom were recent immigrants and not decidedly permanent.

    Suez Canal War

    Several years later Israel again betrayed its principal benefactor. While President Eisenhower attempted to broker a peace agreement between Egypt and France and Great Britain that would resolve the crisis emerging from Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal, Israel held secret consultations with the British and French. Considering Nasser a threat to its security, desirous of incorporating the Sinai into its small nation, and with a plan to extend Israel to the Litani River in Lebanon, Israel devised a strategy with the two European powers that permitted its forces to invade Egypt and advance to within 10 miles of the Suez Canal. Pretending to protect the vital artery, Britain and France parachuted troops close to the canal. An enraged Eisenhower threatened all three nations with economic sanctions, which succeeded in having all three militaries withdraw their forces and relinquish control of the canal to Egypt.

    Six-Day War

    The six-day war brought the first American blood in the U.S. commitment to Israel. On June 8, 1967, Israeli warplanes and torpedo boats attacked the USS Liberty, an intelligence-gathering vessel patrolling in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, 17 nautical miles off the northern Sinai coast. The crew suffered thirty-four (34) killed and one hundred seventy-three (173) wounded. A declassified Top Secret report details the CIA version of the attack and exonerates Israel by claiming mistaken identity. This has not satisfied USS Liberty survivors, who felt Israeli pilots had many opportunities for proper identification and performed the attacks to prevent the ship from obtaining important intelligence information.

    1973 Yom Kippur War

    Next came the 1973 Yom Kippur War and an economic catastrophe for the American people. The U.S. maintained it needed Israel to offset Soviet influence in the Arab world. The combined Egyptian and Syrian attempt to retake lands lost in the 1967 war prompted the Nixon administration to use taxpayer money and supply massive shipments of weapons to the beleaguered Israel state. An excuse for providing the armaments shipments ─ Israel might use the Samson option and nuke its adversaries ─ is regarded as a manipulation to pacify opponents of the arms deliveries. The controversy is reported in Wikipedia.

    Dayan raised the nuclear topic in a cabinet meeting, warning that the country was approaching a point of “last resort.” That night, Meir authorized the assembly of thirteen 20-kiloton-of-TNT(84 TJ) tactical nuclear weapons for Jericho missiles at Sdot Micha Airbase and F-4 Phantom II aircraft at Tel Nof Airbase. They would be used if absolutely necessary to prevent total defeat, but the preparation was done in an easily detectable way, likely as a signal to the United States. Kissinger learned of the nuclear alert on the morning of 9 October. That day, President Nixon ordered the commencement of Operation Nickel Grass, an American airlift to replace all of Israel’s material losses.

    The U.S. contribution in enabling Israel to achieve a decisive victory resulted in an oil embargo that drove up oil prices, set Americans into a frantic rampage in trying to keep their cars on the road, a stagnant economy, and huge inflation, which the Federal Reserve stopped by raising interest rates to record highs and led to the 1982 recession.

    Lebanon War

    Despite a truce with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and wanting to rid Lebanon of the PLO and Syrian dominance in Lebanon affairs, Israel used a failed assassination of Shlomo Argov, Israel’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, as an excuse to invade Lebanon on June 6, 1982. Where Israel went, U.S. diplomacy was sure to follow, and the U.S. joined a multinational peacekeeping force.

    U.S. presence in Lebanon had detractors. On April 18, 1983, a car bomb destroyed the U.S. embassy in West Beirut, killing dozens of American foreign service workers and Lebanese civilians. On October 23, 1983,  after U.S. gunships in the Mediterranean shelled Syrian-backed Druze militias in support of the Christian government, a truck crashed through the front gates of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut and exploded. Beirut barracks were destroyed and 241 marines and sailors were killed in the explosion. Soon after, President Reagan withdrew all U.S. forces from Lebanon.

    International Terrorism

    For several decades, al-Qaeda, the most prominent international terrorist organization, posed the most serious threat to America’s peace and stability. On August 7, 1998, al-Qaeda associates bombed the American embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in Africa. Twelve Americans were among the two hundred and twenty-four people who died in the terrorist actions. Three years later, the September 11 attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C. caused 2,750 deaths in New York and 184 at the Pentagon. Forty more Americans died when one of the hijacked planes crashed into the ground in Pennsylvania. In addition, 400 police officers and firefighters perished in attempts to rescue people and extinguish the fires at the New York Trade Center.

    Where did it all start? Why, and how did master terrorist Osama bin Laden develop his plans? There is no one factor, but, in several documents, bin Landen mentions Zionist control of Middle East lands and its oppression of an Arab population as significant factors. America’s support for Israel was one of bin Laden‘s principal arguments with the United States. The al-Qaeda leader revealed his attitude in the last sentences of a “Letter to America.”

    Justice is the strongest army, and security is the best way of life, but it slipped out of your grasp the day you made the Jews victorious in occupying our land and killing our brothers in Palestine. The path to security is for you to lift your oppression from us.

    During the 1990s, two other documents,“Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places” and the “Declaration of the World Islamic Front,” retrieved from Osama bin Laden, jihad, and the sources of international terrorism, J. M. B. Porter, Indiana International & Comparative Law Review, provide additional information on bin-Laden’s attachment of his terrorist responses to Zionist activities.

    [T]he people of Islam have suffered from aggression, iniquity, and injustice imposed on them by the Zionist/Crusader alliance … Their blood was spilled in Palestine and Iraq. The horrifying pictures of the massacre of Qana, in Lebanon, are still fresh in our memory.

    So now they come to annihilate … this people and to humiliate their Muslim neighbors. … if the Americans’ aims behind these wars are religious and economic, the aim is also to serve the Jews’ petty state and divert attention from its occupation of Jerusalem and murder of Muslims there. The best proof of this is their eagerness to destroy Iraq, the strongest neighboring Arab state, and their endeavor to fragment all the states of the region such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Sudan into paper statelets and through their disunion and weakness to guarantee Israel’s survival and the continuation of the brutal crusade occupation of the Peninsula.

    Afghanistan

    The hunt for Osama bin Laden and efforts to annihilate the al-Qaeda organization led to the invasion of Afghanistan and a twenty-year clash between the U.S. and the Taliban. Result: 2,402 United States military deaths, 20,713 American service members wounded, and Taliban regaining control.

    Iraq

    It’s difficult and punishing to agree with Osama bin Laden, but he may be correct or have a perspective that needs more examination. Did Bush order the invasion of Iraq to destroy Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, which any child could ascertain he could not possibly have, or did the Neocons, Israel’s voice in the administration, convince him to use Americans, their resources, and their money to rid the Middle East of Israel’s most formidable enemy? Was George W. Bush’s uncalled-for war against Saddam Hussein in Iraq another example of sacrificing U.S. lives to advance Israel’s interests? Other international terrorist operations emerged during the Iraq war and brought U.S. military personnel into more battles. Finally, in 2019, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the best-equipped and largest of all the terrorist factions, which caused havoc in Syria and Iraq, was defeated, and international terrorism moved out of the Middle East and into parts of Africa.

    Iran

    It is taken for granted that Iran and the United States are natural enemies, except the hostility may be manufactured and the factory might be in Tel Aviv. Iran has a government and internal problems that disturb the U.S., but so do many other nations, especially Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. maintains relations with these nations. Confrontations have occurred and are escalating and that demands toning down rather than ratcheting up, and more diplomatic confrontations to prevent the physical confrontations. Sanctions that harm Iran’s economy and people, assistance to Israel in assassinating Iranian scientists, and use of the powerful computer worm, Stuxnet, to cause mayhem in Iran’s nuclear program are counterproductive provocations. The U.S. has no specific problem with Iran that cannot be ameliorated. Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians and incursions into the Haram al-Sharif are problems that Iran has with Israel, and they cannot be ameliorated until the oppression stops. Cunningly, Israel has tied its problems with the Islamic State to U.S. problems with Iran and uses the U.S. to challenge Iran.

    Other

    ·         In defiance of U.S. restrictions and the U.S. supplying Israel with advanced military equipment, Israeli companies sold weapons to China without a permit.

    ·         The U.S. gives Israel the sum of $3.1 B every year to purchase advanced weapons, from which Israel became a major exporter of military equipment and has been able to compete effectively with its patron.

    ·          Israeli governments have scoffed at all U.S. entreaties to halt settlement expansion, even insulting then Vice-President Joe Biden by authorizing settlement expansion one day before Biden arrived for talks.

    ·         Two Navy SEALs are missing and assumed dead after a maritime operation to intercept weapons from Iran heading to Houthi fighters. This episode is a result of the U.S. participating in Israel’s war against Gaza.

    ·         The Islamic Resistance in Iraq has been attacking air bases housing U.S. and Iraqi troops in western Iraq “as a part of a broad resistance to the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq, as well as a response to Israel’s operations in Gaza.”

    Toward the Abyss

    The verdict is clear; the United States derives no benefit from its close relationship with Israel. Maybe, during the confusing Cold War, desk strategists determined the Soviets had an influence with Middle Eastern nations and thought it wise to have a place where the Pentagon would be welcome. Soviet influence disappeared after the 1979 Camp David Accords; Egypt and Israel signed a peace agreement and Soviet diplomats and military vanished from the desert sands.

    From September 11, 2001, to October 7, 2023, the U.S. continually suffered fatalities, economic havoc, international terrorism, political misalignment, hatred, and aggression against Fortress America. Why did U.S. administrations pursue a “special relationship” with Israel and find themselves victims of the “war on terror” and involved in numerous wars? The current U.S. administration, which did not use its clout to prevent the October 7, 2023 attack in Israel, has permitted Israel’s self-inflicted problems to bring the U.S. people into supporting the genocide of the Palestinian people, promoting the U.S. as the leading killer of indigenous peoples.

    It took a long time to turn the murmurs of genocide in Palestine into a forceful expression that others would accept and fearlessly repeat. Murmurs of sabotage and treason by elected government officials are being heard, but they are legal terms for crimes, and, legally, U.S. legislators’ activities may not be considered in those categories. Treachery is a better word, gaining federal office by treacherous means — pandering to those that represent the interests of a foreign power to obtain campaign funds and press coverage — and using that office to satisfy the wants of the foreign power, despite the damage done to American constituencies. Past and present U.S. executives and legislators are guilty of treachery and that word should be shouted in the halls of Congress. Sound the alarm, get them out before it is too late, and elect into office those who represent the American people and not a foreign government. MAGA – MAKE AMERICA GOOD AGAIN.

    Aiding the genocide has put the U.S. in severe moral decline; escalating internal divisions are leading to social and political decline; and an economy that can no longer compete in the international markets, together with increasing resistance to use of the dollar, is leading to economic decline. The signs of civil strife have yet to appear and when they do they will push the U.S. off the edge of the cliff and into the abyss.

    The post Toward the Abyss first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Iran Bars Former President Rohani From Running In Key Election

    Air strikes and diplomatic sparring between Iran and Pakistan have raised difficult questions for China and its influence in the region amid growing fears the upheaval sweeping across the Middle East could spread.

    Since the tit-for-tat strikes on January 16 and 18 against militant and separatist groups, Islamabad and Tehran have signaled they want to de-escalate the situation and that their foreign ministers will hold talks in Pakistan on January 29.

    But the attacks have exposed the fine line between peace and conflict in the region and put the spotlight on China, a close partner of both countries, to see if it can use its sway to ramp down tensions and avoid a conflict that would jeopardize Beijing’s economic and geopolitical interests in the region.

    “For China, the stakes are high and they really can’t afford for things to get any worse between Iran and Pakistan,” Abdul Basit, an associate research fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, told RFE/RL.

    China has tens of billions of dollars of investments in Iran and Pakistan and both countries are high-level partners that benefit from Chinese political and economic support.

    Following the missile-strike exchange, China’s Foreign Ministry called for calm and said it would “play a constructive role in cooling down the situation,” without giving details.

    Beijing is now expected to step up its engagement to head off another crisis in the region, in what analysts say is yet another test for China’s influence after recently hitting its limit with the war in Gaza, shipping attacks in the Red Sea by Iranian-backed Huthi militants, and the growing instability across the Middle East these events have caused.

    “We’re yet to see anything really concrete where China has stepped in to solve an international crisis,” Sari Arho Havren, an associate fellow at London’s Royal United Services Institute, told RFE/RL. “[But] China has a reputational image at stake where it’s presenting itself as the alternative to the United States, even though assumptions about how powerful it really is in the Middle East are now being scrutinized.”

    What’s Going On Between Iran And Pakistan?

    The Iranian strikes in Pakistan were part of a series of similar attacks launched by Iran that also hit targets in Iraq and Syria.

    In Pakistan, Tehran said it was targeting the Sunni separatist group Jaish al-Adl with drones and missiles in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan Province. Jaish al-Adl operates mostly in Iran’s southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan Province but is also suspected to be in neighboring Pakistan. The group claimed responsibility for a December 15 attack on a police station in southeastern Iran that killed 11 officers.

    In response, Islamabad said its military conducted air strikes in Sistan-Baluchistan targeting the Baloch Liberation Front and the Baloch Liberation Army, two separatist groups believed to be hiding in Iran.

    The exchange of strikes was followed by Pakistan recalling its ambassador from Iran and blocking Tehran’s ambassador to Islamabad from returning to his post.

    On January 21, the Counterterrorism Department in Pakistan’s southwestern Sindh Province announced it had arrested a suspect in a 2019 assassination attempt on a top Pakistani cleric who is a member of the Zainebiyoun Brigade, a militant group allegedly backed by Iran.

    But since the strikes on each other’s territory, Iran and Pakistan have cooled their rhetoric and signaled that they intend to de-escalate, echoing sentiment through official statements that the neighbors are “brotherly countries” that should pursue dialogue and cooperation.

    People gather near rubble in the aftermath of Pakistan's military strike on an Iranian village in Sistan-Baluchistan Province on January 18.
    People gather near rubble in the aftermath of Pakistan’s military strike on an Iranian village in Sistan-Baluchistan Province on January 18.

    Basit says this stems largely from the fact that the countries see themselves spread too thin in dealing with a host of pressing foreign and domestic issues.

    Tehran has grappled with a series of attacks across the country, including a January 3 twin bombing that killed more than 90 people, and is engaged across the region directly or through groups that it backed such as Yemen’s Huthis and Lebanon’s Hizballah.

    The tit-for-tat attacks, meanwhile, come as Pakistan is embroiled in an economic crisis and prepares to hold high-stakes elections on February 8, the first since former Prime Minister Imran Khan was removed in a vote of no confidence in April 2021, setting off years of escalating political turmoil.

    “Between the economy, elections, and always-present tensions with India that could grow, Pakistan simply can’t afford another front,” Basit said.

    Islamabad and Tehran are now pushing to cool down the situation, though Basit adds that the situation remains tense. “There is peace and calm now, but the animosity is ongoing,” he said.

    How Much Leverage Does China Have?

    Following a week of tensions, China has leverage to push for a diplomatic settlement to the dispute, although experts say Beijing may be reluctant to intervene too publicly.

    “China looks to be quite measured here in its response and that raises some questions about where China stands in using its influence,” Basit said. “China knows it can influence the situation, but Beijing also usually shies away from situations like this because they worry that if they try and fail, then the West will look at it differently.”

    Beijing raised expectations in March 2023 it would play a larger political role in the Middle East when it brokered a historic deal between regional rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia.

    Wang Yi holds up a March 2023 deal in Beijing with Iranian Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Shamkhani (right) and Saudi State Minister Musaad bin Muhammad al-Aiban (left).
    Wang Yi holds up a March 2023 deal in Beijing with Iranian Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Shamkhani (right) and Saudi State Minister Musaad bin Muhammad al-Aiban (left).

    Michael Kugelman, the director of the Wilson Center’s South Asia Institute, says China’s willingness to be a mediator shouldn’t be underplayed. “It looks like the Pakistanis and the Iranians had enough in their relationship to ease tensions themselves,” he told RFE/RL. “But China was willing to do the Iran-Saudi deal, which is a more fraught relationship to get involved in. So, they might be relieved now, but that doesn’t mean they won’t step up if needed.”

    China also holds other cards if it needs to calm the situation between Iran and Pakistan.

    As China’s “iron brother,” Islamabad has a close partnership with Beijing, with cooperation ranging from economic investment to defense. Pakistan is the largest buyer of Chinese weapons and is also home to the multibillion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship series of infrastructure projects within China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

    CPEC is part of Beijing’s efforts to connect itself to the Arabian Sea and build stronger trade networks with the Middle East.

    A centerpiece of the venture is developing the port of Gwadar in Balochistan, which would strengthen shipping lanes to the region, particularly for energy shipments from Iran.

    For Tehran, China is a top buyer of sanctioned Iranian oil, and Beijing signed a sprawling 25-year economic and security agreement with Iran in 2021.

    Arho Havren says that given both Iran and Pakistan’s economic dependence on China, Beijing will do all it can, should tensions rise, but will likely do so behind the scenes. “China [is unlikely] to take a stronger public stake in the conflict, but will instead use its back-channels,” Arho Havren said.

    What Comes Next?

    While the situation between Iran and Pakistan is moving towards de-escalation, the recent tensions highlight the often tenuous footing of regional rivalries that China’s ambitions to lead the Global South rest upon.

    Both Pakistan and Iran are members of the Beijing-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which also includes India, Russia, and Central Asia (minus Turkmenistan). The SCO has been an important part of Beijing’s bid for leadership across parts of Asia and the Middle East while looking to bring together countries to work together on economic and security issues.

    China has invested in growing the bloc and is in discussion to add more countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Belarus, but further conflict between its members could derail those moves and damage the SCO’s credibility.

    Arho Havren says Beijing will still have to grapple with the lack of trust between Islamabad and Tehran and is facing similar issues elsewhere in the Middle East as it walks a tightrope between simultaneously raising its international influence and limiting any diplomatic exposure that could hurt its reputation.

    “Cooperation may be easy, but the relations between the countries in the region are complex, and China’s journey [in the Middle East] is still in its beginning,” she said.


    This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Biden’s Illegal Bombing of Yemen Intensifies the Risk of Regional War

    In response to Israel’s assault on the people of Gaza in early October, Yemen’s Houthi movement, Ansar Allah, began mounting attacks on commercial ships in and around the Red Sea. The Houthis said the attacks were aimed at Israeli-connected or Israel-bound ships and they would continue until there is a ceasefire in Gaza. Meanwhile, the pressure on this vital trade route is impacting the global…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • “Not Wanting” A Wider Middle East War, the U.S. Has Started One

    You have to hand it to the U.S. and its henchmen for brazenness.  In order to protect their client state Israel and its genocide in Gaza, the U.S., together with the UK, have in one week launched air and sea attacks on the Houthis in Yemen five times, referring to it as “self-defense” in their Orwellian lingo.  The ostensible reason being Yemen’s refusal to allow ships bound for Israel, which is committing genocide in Gaza, to enter the Red Sea, while permitting other ships to pass freely.

    To any impartial observer, the Houthis should be lauded.  Yet, while the International Court of Justice considers the South African charge of genocide against Israel that is supported by overwhelming evidence, the U.S. and its allies have instigated a wider war throughout the Middle East while claiming they do not want such a war.  These settler colonial states want genocide and a much wider war because they have been set back on their heels by those they have mocked, provoked, and attacked – notably the Palestinians, Syrians, and Russians, among others.

    While the criminalization of international law does not bode well for the ICJ’s upcoming ruling or its ability to stop Israeli’s genocide in Gaza, Michel Chossudovsky, of Global Research, as is his wont, has offered a superb analysis and suggestion for those who oppose such crimes: that Principle IV of the Nuremberg Charter – “The fact that a person [e.g. Israeli, U.S. soldiers, pilots] acted pursuant to order of his [her] Government or of a superior does not relieve him [her] from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.” – should be used to supplement the South African charges and appeal directly to the moral consciences of those asked to carry out acts of genocide. He writes:

    Let us call upon Israeli and American soldiers and pilots “to abandon the battlefield”, as an act of refusal to participate in a criminal undertaking against the People of Gaza.  

    South Africa’s legal procedure at the ICJ should be endorsed Worldwide. While it cannot be relied upon to put a rapid end to the genocide, it provides support and legitimacy to the “Disobey Unlawful Orders, Abandon the Battlefield”  campaign under Nuremberg Charter Principle IV.

    While such an approach will not stop the continuing slaughter, it would remind the world that each person who participates in and supports it bears a heavy burden of guilt for their actions; that they are morally and legally culpable.  This appeal to the human heart and conscience, no matter what its practical effect, will at least add to the condemnation of a genocide happening in real time and full view of the world, even though no one will ever be prosecuted for such crimes since any real just use of international law has long disappeared.  Yet there is a edifying history of such conscientious objection to immoral war making, and though each person makes the decision in solitary witness, individual choices can inspire others and the solitary become solidary, as Albert Camus reminded us at the end of his short story, “The Artist at Work.”

    With each passing day, it becomes more and more evident that Israel/U.S.A. and their allies do want a wider war.  Iran is their special focus, with Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen targets on the way.  Anyone who supports the genocide in Gaza, explicitly or through silence, bears responsibility for the conflagration to come.  There are no excuses.

    And the facts show that it is axiomatic that waging war has been the modus operandi of the U.S./Israeli alliance for a long time.  Just as in early 2003 when the Bush administration said they were looking for a peaceful solution to their fake charges against Sadam Hussein with his alleged “weapons of mass destruction,” the Biden administration is lying, as the Bush administration lied about September 11, 2001 to launch its ongoing war on terror, starting in Afghanistan.  Without an expanded war, President Biden – aka the Democrats, since he will most probably not be the candidate – and his psychopathic partner Benjamin Netanyahu, will not survive.  It is bi-partisan war-mongering, of course, internationally and intramurally, since both U.S. political parties are controlled by the Israel Lobby and billionaire class that owns Congress and the “defense” industry that thrives on never-ending war to such an extent that even the notable independent candidate for the presidency, Robert Kennedy, Jr., who is running as an anti-war candidate, fully supports Israel which is tantamount to supporting Biden’s expanding war policy.

    Biden and Netanyahu, who are always claiming after the fact that they were surprised by events or were fed bad advice by their underlings, are dumb scorpions. They are stupid but deadly.  And many people in the West, while perhaps decent people in their personal lives, are living in a fantasy world of “sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity,” in MLK, Jr.’s words, as the growing threat of a world war increases and insouciance reigns.

    Neither the Israeli nor American government can allow themselves to be humiliated, U.S./NATO by the Russians in Ukraine and the Israelis by the Palestinians.  Like cornered criminals with lethal weapons, they will kill as many as they can on their way down, taking their revenge on the weakest first.

    Their “mistakes” are always well intentioned.  They stumble into wars through faulty intelligence.  They drop the ball because of bureaucratic mix-ups. They miscalculate the perfidy of the moneyed elites whom allegedly they oppose while pocketing their cash and ushering them into the national coffers out of necessity since they are too big to fail.  They never see the storm coming, even as they create it.  Their incompetence or the perfidy of their enemies is the retort to all those “nut cases” who conjure up conspiracy theories or plain facts to explain their actions or lack thereof.  They are innocent.  Always innocent.  And they can’t understand why those they have long abused reach a point when they will no longer impetrate for mercy but will fight fiercely for their freedom.

    All signs point to a major war on the horizon.  Both the U.S.A. and Israel have been shown to be rogue states with no desire to negotiate a peaceful world.  Believing in high-tech weapons and massive firepower, neither has learned the hard lesson that anti-colonial wars have historically been won by those with far less weapons but with a passionate desire to throw off the chains of their oppressors.  Vietnam is the text-book case, and there are many others.  Failure to learn is the name of their game.

    The Zionist project for a Greater Israel is doomed to fail, but as it does, desperate men like Biden and Netanyahu are intent on launching desperate acts of war.  Exactly when and how this expanded war will blaze across the headlines is the question.  It has started, but I think it prudent to expect a black swan event sometime this year when all hell will break loose.  The genocide in Gaza is the first step, and the U.S./Israel, “not wanting” a wider war, have already started one.

    (For an excellent history lesson on the Zionist oppression of Palestinians and the current genocide, listen to Max Blumenthal’s and Miko Peled’s impassioned talk – “Where is the War in Gaza Going? – delivered from the heart of darkness, Washington D.C.  Two Jewish men who know the difference between Zionism and Judaism and whose consciences are aflame with justice for the oppressed Palestinians.)

    The post “Not Wanting” A Wider Middle East War, the U.S. Has Started One first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Journalist: It’s “Most Dangerous Moment” for Middle East I’ve Seen in 20 Years

    Military actions by various actors across the Middle East are compounding fears that Israel’s assault on Gaza is escalating into a full-blown regional war. In recent days, the United States has carried out strikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen who have resumed their attacks on container ships in the Red Sea; Iran has struck targets in northern Iraq, Syria and Pakistan; while Hezbollah and Israel…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Could Israel’s war in Gaza spiral into a regional war?

    Over three months into Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, there is little hope the carnage will stop anytime soon—and with each passing day, the danger of Israel’s war on Gaza spiraling into a larger regional conflict increases. The devastation in Gaza is unlike anything seen in the 21st century, but Israel’s military strikes—like last week’s assassination of Saleh al-Arouri, a top leader of Hamas, in Lebanon—have not been limited to Palestine alone. At the same time, armed resistance groups in Iraq and Syria have launched hundreds of attacks on US bases, confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah has created a simmering northern front along the Lebanese border, and Yemen’s blockade of the Red Sea has created an international crisis for shipping and trade. Should any of these fronts open into a new facet of this war, it could lead to the unraveling of the entire region, with a very real possibility of a showdown between Israel and the US against Iran. TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez speaks with former war correspondent Chris Hedges on the slippery slope to a regional war.

    Studio Production: David Hebden
    Post-Production: Adam Coley

    Transcript

    The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

    Maximillian Alvarez:

    Welcome everyone to The Real News Network. My name is Maximillian Alvarez. I’m the editor-in-chief here at The Real News, and it’s so great to have you all with us. We are recording this on Monday, January 8th, and it has been exactly three months since the October 7th Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel, designated as Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, culminated in the brutal killing of over 1100 people, including nearly 700 Israeli civilians, hundreds of security forces and dozens of foreigners. Hamas forces also captured around 250 hostages from Israel during the attack.

    Since then, over the past three months, Israel’s scorched-earth assault on the Gaza Strip has wreaked a kind of devastation unseen in the 21st century. According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, nearly 23,000 Palestinians have now been killed in Gaza since October 7th, the majority of whom are women and children, with countless others still buried under the rubble.

    As of December, 1.9 million people, 85 percent of Gaza’s population had been displaced. That number is now even higher. This is to say nothing of the violence, death, devastation, and displacement that has resulted over 75 years of Israel’s brutal occupation of Palestine. Under the manifestly false guise of eradicating Hamas, Israeli forces are carrying out Israel’s long-sought-after goal of eradicating Palestinians from Gaza itself, obliterating civilian lives, homes, and neighborhoods with genocidal abandon. Bombing hospitals, schools, archeological and cultural sites, refugee camps, and the infrastructure of daily life; roads, bridges, waterways, everything. Gaza is being reduced to a moonscape. A full-scale ethnic cleansing is happening before our eyes and the United States, and President Joe Biden’s administration, are undeniably guilty of being full-throated accomplices, allies, and enablers of this carnage. Even though Biden himself, his cabinet and the various administrators of the United States’ global military regime, have tried to paint themselves as mere concerned observers on the sidelines. But make no mistake, as we speak, over on Capitol Hill, tensions are running high and fears are mounting that Israel’s war on Gaza could spiral into a regional war in which the US will be directly implicated.

    As Jason Burke writes this week in The Guardian, “Israeli defense officials and former senior intelligence officers have said they expect fighting in Gaza to continue for at least a year, raising the prospect of thousands more civilian casualties, a deepening humanitarian crisis, and a continuing grave threat to regional stability.”

    Even at The New York Times, whose reporting on this issue has been, let’s say, at times suspect, the concern is palpable. In a report published last week, Eric Schmitt, Julian E. Barnes, Helene Cooper and David E. Sanger write:

    “American, Israeli and Lebanese officials insist that few parties want Israel’s war in Gaza to become a wider conflict that engulfs the Middle East. But the assassination of Saleh al-Arouri, a top leader of Hamas in Lebanon on Tuesday, and the deaths of scores of people in mysterious twin explosions in Iran on Wednesday, threatened to bring the Middle East and the United States closer to the brink of a regional war, which the Biden administration has tried to stave off since Hamas’s deadly attacks against Israel on October 7th. Just hours after the bombs went off in Iran, the United States and 12 of its allies issued a written warning to another militia group in the region, the Houthis of Yemen, who have been mounting near-daily missile, drone and seaborne attacks on commercial vessels. So far, the United States has held back from retaliating against Houthi bases in Yemen, in large part because it does not want to undermine a fragile truce in Yemen’s civil war. Israeli officials would not comment on whether their forces had targeted Mr. al-Arouri, but Lebanese and American officials ascribed the attack to Israel.”

    So what are the chances of Israel’s war on Gaza spiraling into a larger regional war? And what position will that put the United States in? What would such a war look like and what are the global implications here? What are the guardrails, for lack of a better word, currently keeping that reality at bay? And how close are those guardrails from breaking down right now? To talk about all of this, I’m honored to be joined today by my Real News colleague and host of The Chris Hedges Report, the one and only Chris Hedges. Chris, thanks so much for joining me today, man.

    Well, I mean, first let me just say for the record, since we don’t often get to do this on The Real News where you and I get to chat to each other, I am just immensely proud and grateful of the incredible work that you’ve been doing on The Chris Hedges Report. And I’m grateful to the whole team in the back room, Kayla, the studio team, David, Cameron, Adam, everyone who’s made this show a reality. It’s really, really important, powerful, and we really appreciate the work you’re doing here, man. And I know that you’ve been running yourself ragged covering this, not just since October 7th, but for most of your adult life.

    And so I often find myself wondering what you think about these big issues that we’re trying to cover here at The Real News every week. And this is one that I really wanted to not just have us talk about by the coffee machine in between your recordings, I wanted us to sit down and talk for our audience about how likely a regional war is here. I mean, I don’t want us to try to predict the future. We can’t do that, things may change by the time this video gets released, but I wanted to just start by sort of getting your general thoughts on where we are right now. How concerned should regular people be that this war on Gaza, which is horrific in and of itself, that it is enough to want to stop this war on Gaza and it shouldn’t take a larger regional war for people to finally be concerned about what’s happening over there. But given where we are right now, I wanted to just ask you from your vantage point, how close are we to this war in Gaza spiraling into a larger regional conflict?

    Chris Hedges:

    At this particular moment, I don’t think we’re that close. And that’s because Iran, in particular, but also Hezbollah, do not want a conflict with Israel. They’re not logistically prepared, in particular Hezbollah. One of the reasons Israel has bombed more than once the airports in Damascus and Aleppo is because that’s the supply route to Hezbollah. Hezbollah, the Shiite militia in Lebanon, is funded and backed by Iran.

    But all that said, the longer the conflict goes on in Gaza, the more things can spiral out of control. If you go back and read Barbara Tuchman, for instance, most of the people, with maybe the exception of Kaiser Wilhelm, did not want World War I. But events, unfortunately, once you open that Pandora’s box of war, have the ability to drive you rather than you driving it. So the longer it goes on, the more we flirt with that possibility. I think striking the Houthis is probably… if they continue attacks on shipping, I think we will see US strikes on Houthi bases in Yemen. This is what was done when there was all that problem with pirating, Somali pirates, if you remember, they started striking the bases.

    But it could happen, and if it does, it will be absolutely catastrophic. Because a war with Iran, throughout the region, will not be interpreted as simply a war with Iran, it’ll be interpreted as a war against Shiism and 60% of Iraq is Shia, Bahrain, 3 million Shias in Saudi Arabia. So it will be interpreted by Shia, the Shiites, as a religious war and will immediately extend beyond the borders of Iran itself.

    The big question in Gaza, we know what the Israeli goal is, whether they can achieve it or not, is an unknown. They want to push the 2.2, 2.3 million Palestinians out. They want them ethnically cleansed. That’s why they’re destroying the infrastructure. That’s why they’re engineering a humanitarian crisis. 500,000 Gazans, Palestinians in Gaza, according to the UN, are literally starving. We are already seeing huge rates of intestinal diseases, especially among children. Pretty soon you’re going to see cholera. And many people are living in… it’s winter, so it’s cold, it’s rainy. So really, the goal of Israel is to offer the Palestinians a choice between death by bombs, bullets, infectious diseases or exposure, or leaving Gaza.

    Now, the problem that Israel has run into, although Anthony Blinken tried to run interference, is that none of the countries, especially Egypt which borders Gaza to the south, is willing to accept the Palestinians. And Blinken’s first trip throughout the Middle East, he was roundly rebuffed by King Abdullah in Jordan and everywhere else, because he apparently was carrying a kind of quota list, 1.1 million Palestinians in Egypt, 700,000 in Iraq, this kind of stuff, which was just rejected throughout the Arab world. And now we know, and this has been public, by the Netanyahu government, they are reaching out to countries in Africa and South America to take the Palestinians and offering them, reportedly, financial inducements to do so.

    Can that be achieved? I think we don’t know. At some point, despite the very, I would say, largely successful resistance put up by Hamas and other resistance groups, there’re actually 12 in Gaza, they’re going to run out of ammunition. I mean, they don’t have the logistical supply chain to continue this forever. And so that’s the big conundrum. I think that we will continue to see both Hezbollah and Iran act with considerable restraint. Of course, we hear about the Houthis as being Iranian-backed. That’s true up to a point. But I don’t think the Iranians are in any way directing the attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, which I’ve crossed in a dhow. It’s very big, it’s about the size of California. We’re talking about a very large water body.

    But yes, as with any of these conflicts, there are just so many ways it can spiral out of control so quickly despite whatever the intentions are within the region. But I think what you’re seeing with Israeli strikes against Hamas leaders, Hezbollah commanders, drone strikes, these targeted assassinations, Netanyahu and his government is counting on that restraint to prevent a wider conflict. I read The New York Times this morning, it was kind of a remarkable front page story about all of the provocations that were being carried out by Iran. In fact, it’s the complete opposite, the provocations are carried out by Israel. And the nation that has exercised, up until this point, considerable restraint is Iran.

    Maximillian Alvarez:

    I’m going to ask a question that’s going to sound very boilerplate and dumb, but it’s one that I know is on a lot of people’s minds, especially people who have been so underserved by corporate media for many years and not given the context to understand what we’re actually seeing right now.

    But I think for your average person, when you see, oh, Israel targeted a suburb in Lebanon and assassinate someone, doesn’t that start a war? How the hell does that not spiral over into something? And so you’re right, it’s bonkers to read places like The New York Times, who I cited in the introduction here, and have them talking about the provocations from Iran. I’m like, Israel’s assassinating people in their own countries. How is that not a provocation? And so, I guess, the very obvious question for people who are trying to understand this is, there’s been a lot of talk about the rest of the Arab world and why aren’t people coming to Palestinians’ aid or why aren’t these other countries willing to accept all of these displaced Palestinians from Gaza and beyond? And so that’s my question, is just from a basic general audience standpoint, where is that restraint coming from? What is keeping these other countries from getting more involved, even as Israel flagrantly violates international law, including in their own countries?

    Chris Hedges:

    Well, in the case of Iran and Hezbollah, it’s the fact that they don’t want to go into an open conflict with Israel because that will also probably, in the case of Iran, include a direct conflict with the United States. Netanyahu has long wanted to attack Iran, in particular the nuclear sites in Iran, and he has periodically made pushes to get the United States involved. That has been fiercely resisted by the Pentagon. Iran is not Lebanon. It’s a large country, 60 million people. It virtually controls Iraq, courtesy of our disastrous invasion and occupation. So it’s not an easy entity to take on. It has very sophisticated, apparently, very sophisticated aerial defense systems, and that’s why Israel is unable to attack Iran by itself. It would just bring down too many warplanes. So the push by Netanyahu is to get the United States to take out the aerial defense systems and then allow Israeli jets to bomb in particular nuclear sites. But if they bomb those sites, we’re talking about thousands and thousands of deaths, Iranian deaths.

    In terms of the other Arab countries, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, there’s a real hostility towards Hamas because Hamas comes out of the Muslim Brotherhood. And Sisi, of course, overthrew a Muslim Brotherhood government and has instituted very harsh measures, repression, against the Muslim Brotherhood, jailing thousands of them, carrying out assassinations itself, torture, along with the dissidents and all sorts. So in fact, the Egyptian government works fairly closely, especially Egyptian intelligence, with Israeli intelligence, and they don’t want Hamas, number one, to cross over the border into the Sinai. I mean, I will say for Sisi, the president of Egypt, he makes the point that if the Israelis want to move the Palestinians out of Gaza, which is being carpet bombed, into the desert instead of putting them in the Sinai, which is neither want to put them in the Negev, which is in Israel. But of course the idea is to push them out and they’ll never return.

    And the same is true with Jordan. The Jordanian regime is also very hostile to the Brotherhood and to Hamas. You’ve actually had the Jordanian army move up to the border with the West Bank to make sure the Israelis do not expel people into Jordan. Saudi Arabia is… So traditionally the Arab regimes have paid lip service to the plight of the Palestinians, but done very, very little to help them. That’s a long history going on for 75 years back to the founding of the state of Israel. That’s not changed.

    So the Palestinians… I mean, I will say, with the exception of the Houthis, who have actually been proactive in defense, both in terms of trying to fire missiles and make them, to Israel itself and attacking shipping, the Arab regimes have done nothing other than rhetorical calls for ceasefires. But there’s always been that hypocrisy within the Arab world towards the Palestinians.

    Maximillian Alvarez:

    Yeah. I mean, it’s like it is wild to see, out of all the people in all the countries in the region, knowing what Yemen has been through, that these are the guys who are out on these boats actually taking the most concerted steps to try to stop this genocidal violence and disrupt it however they can. I mean, I wanted to just kind of build on that for a second and ask the question that I brought up in the intro, which is what would it take for these sort of guardrails that you’ve laid out, these sort of reasons and justifications for avoiding at all costs this boiling over into a larger regional conflict in which Iran, US and others are implicated? What would it take for those guardrails to break down? I mean, if people are watching this and saying, how bad does it have to get for other countries to get involved, I guess, what would you say in response?

    Chris Hedges:

    Well, I would say constant provocations in a sense, repeated assassinations of Hezbollah leaders, a bombing of southern Lebanon. I mean, we already have artillery duels, but I mean severe Israeli strikes against either the leadership of Hezbollah or the use of Israeli warplanes to begin to, especially, target areas in Beirut.

    There would come a point in which Hezbollah would not have a choice, but it would clearly be driven by Israeli actions. Because Hezbollah, since the beginning of this conflict, has shown a deep reluctance to put… they have fired across the border, and there have been thousands of Israelis who have had to evacuate the northern part of Israel. But we have to remember that Hezbollah has about 150,000, people don’t know, 100, 150,000 serious rockets that could do tremendous damage if they landed in Tel Aviv and elsewhere. So if they wanted to truly do damage, they could, and they haven’t. They’ve been very, very restrained.

    But I think that the longer Israel carries out these kinds of strikes, the more those provocations take place, the closer we come… despite a reluctance on the part of Iran and Hezbollah, the closer we come to a regional conflict. Which, I mean, it probably would start with clashes with Hezbollah, Iran does supply Hezbollah. Does Israel and the United States attack those supply lines? Is that considered by Iran to be a direct strike on Iran? I mean, this could go bad in many, many ways, but I would say it would probably begin with Hezbollah just being pushed over the edge by Israel.

    Maximillian Alvarez:

    As a great poet once said, things fall apart, right? I mean, you could have all this restraint. You could have these different respective reasons for avoiding a larger regional conflict. But I think as you rightly pointed out, the more that this violence goes on, the more that these provocations, the more that Israel feels empowered to effectively do whatever the hell it wants without anyone stopping them, the more that that reckless evil of war that you’ve written about and documented over the course of your life. Like you said, the Pandora’s box is opened and no one necessarily knows where it’s going to go from there.

    And so like I said, I know we got to round out in a sec and I don’t want us to try to predict the future, which is very unpredictable at this point. But I think, again, another question that’s on folks’ mind that is being kind of prodded and poked by that sort of orgiastic mainstream coverage where they talk about like, here’s the scenario that will lead to nuclear arms being used or US forces being used. So we are getting questions from folks of what would happen, what would it take for more US troops to be involved in this? Or how possible are nuclear weapons? Things like that.

    So I guess I just wanted to ask if you had any final thoughts on that, for folks who are watching this, they’re scared, they’re being even more scared by mainstream media, I guess, about what that falling apart could look like in this case.

    Chris Hedges:

    Well, apparently the US has told Israel that if they carry out a ground incursion into southern Lebanon, they will not get involved. They said that if Hezbollah carried out a ground incursion into Israel, which is highly unlikely, that that would be a different matter. In terms of Iran, I think that Iran would have to be active, which it has not been, actively engaged in carrying out strikes, which I find unlikely, against either Israeli or US targets. And at that point then we’re in deep, deep trouble. So again, I think if the match is lit, it’s lit in Lebanon.

    And the Israeli leadership has talked about this as an axis of… they’ve stolen this Bush term, axis of evil, that it’s not just a war with the Palestinians, although I don’t know how you can have a war with the people that doesn’t have an army and navy and air force, artillery, mechanized units, anything else. So they’re already speaking in that apocalyptic rhetoric. And I think in the end, it’s really totally dependent on how far Israel goes. And if they do not show restraint, then I could see it beginning with Hezbollah. And once Hezbollah is actively engaged, especially if Israel does make a ground incursion into Lebanon, then you bring Iran a few steps closer to being involved in a conflict. And at that point, it becomes a regional conflict and very, very dangerous.

    Maximillian Alvarez:

    Well, and since you mentioned Bush, I just kind of want to close on this question. And this should be reserved for a larger discussion, but just a kind of rounding out question to, in terms of asking about the current guardrails that are keeping us from spiraling out into a larger regional war. I’m wondering what role internal pressure here in the United States and public sentiment against the war or for a ceasefire, and just the general lack of desire to get embroiled in such a regional war, what role, if any, that plays? Because I’ve been thinking a lot about this, and you and I were talking about this before we got recording, right? I’ve been very upfront on my show, on The Real News and elsewhere, that I grew up in many ways a typical first gen Mexican-American family. We were raised with that type of conservatism. We came, we did it the right way, we were in the land of opportunity, yada, yada, yada.

    And after 9/11, when I was still young and dumb, I bought in fully to the sort of jingoistic fervor. I remember when names like yours came up on Fox News, I’ll be like, “Oh, who are those nut jobs? Those guys, they’re unpatriotic.” And that was… I think a lot of people forget just how dominant that culture was, and that feeling was for so many people. It’s not to negate the tremendous outpourings of demonstrators and brave voices, like yours, speaking out against the disastrous war in Iraq and everything the Bush administration was doing.

    But I just keep thinking about how drastically the public mood has changed in 20 years, where you had so many families like mine, regular people, working people, who lived in the heart of empire and still felt that imperial hubris, like we had the right to go around telling the rest of the world how to run their countries, and that we were never going to suffer any consequences for that. And now you just have quite a sea change, at least in terms of the public opinion, about how involved the US should be in this or any other war.

    At the same time though, the resistance from the upper echelons of power, in the same way that Bush and Blair could look at these historic outpourings of people, and in the most cynical way use those as justifications for the war and say like, “Oh, you see all those people out there protesting? That’s why the terrorists want to attack us ’cause they hate our freedom. So that’s why we’re going to go and attack… we’re going to go and invade Iraq.” It was one of the most cynical things I’ve ever seen in my life.

    But again, right now, as far as Biden, Blinken and their administration are concerned, they seem just as willfully deaf to the opposition to Israel’s war on Gaza and the US getting involved in more foreign wars. Do you see that playing any real role in stopping this or at this point is power just found a way to successfully inoculate itself from the demos completely?

    Chris Hedges:

    Yeah. I mean, look, the Congress is bought and paid for by the Israel lobby. Biden is one of the largest recipients of Israel lobby aid. Both parties are completely wedded to Israel. Our intelligence services are integrated with the Israeli. Israel is the 10th largest arms exporter in the world. So it’s totally, it’s training our police forces. So I think, especially because it’s Israel, it doesn’t really matter what the public and all these demonstrations, which have been very heartening to people like myself, it doesn’t matter. Especially, it’s worse because it’s Israel. So if somehow there began to be a conflict between Iran and Israel, I have little doubt that we would intervene. And at that point, we’re at war with Iran.

    Maximillian Alvarez:

    Well, that is the great Chris Hedges, host of The Chris Hedges Report, which you can watch every week, every Friday, noon Eastern Time, right here on The Real News Network. You can also subscribe to Chris’ Substack, which I highly encourage everyone to do if you want early access to those episodes. Chris, thank you so much for talking to me about this, man, and thank you for all the incredible work that you’re doing.

    Chris Hedges:

    All right. Thanks, Max.

    Maximillian Alvarez:

    And thank you all so much for watching. Thank you for caring. Please take care of yourselves, take care of each other. Solidarity forever.

    Thank you so much for watching The Real News Network, where we lift up the voices, stories and struggles that you care about most, and we need your help to keep doing this work. So please tap your screen now, subscribe and donate to The Real News Network. Solidarity forever.

    This post was originally published on The Real News Network.

  • A Chance to Hold Israel and the US to Account for Genocide

    The International Court of Justice. Photo credit: ICJ

    On January 11th, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague is holding its first hearing in South Africa’s case against Israel under the Genocide Convention. The first provisional measure South Africa has asked of the court is to order an immediate end to this carnage, which has already killed more than 23,000 people, most of them women and children. Israel is trying  to bomb Gaza into oblivion and scatter the terrorized survivors across the Earth, meeting the Convention’s definition of genocide to the letter.

    Since countries engaged in genocide do not publicly declare their real goal, the greatest legal hurdle for any genocide prosecution is to prove the intention of genocide. But in the extraordinary case of Israel, whose cult of biblically ordained entitlement is backed to the hilt by unconditional U.S. complicity, its leaders have been uniquely brazen about their goal of destroying Gaza as a haven of Palestinian life, culture and resistance.

    South Africa’s 84-page application to the ICJ includes ten pages (starting on page 59) of statements by Israeli civilian and military officials that document their genocidal intentions in Gaza. They include statements by Prime Minister Netanyahu, President Herzog, Defense Minister Gallant, five other cabinet ministers, senior military officers and members of parliament. Reading these statements, it is hard to see how a fair and impartial court could fail to recognize the genocidal intent behind the death and devastation Israeli forces and American weapons are wreaking in Gaza.

    The Israeli magazine +972 talked to seven current and former Israeli intelligence officials involved in previous assaults on Gaza. They explained the systematic nature of Israel’s targeting practices and how the range of civilian infrastructure that Israel is targeting has been vastly expanded in the current onslaught. In particular, it has expanded the bombing of civilian infrastructure, or what it euphemistically defines as “power targets,” which have comprised half of its targets from the outset of this war.

    Israel’s “power targets” in Gaza include public buildings like hospitals, schools, banks, government offices, and high-rise apartment blocks. The public pretext for destroying Gaza’s civilian infrastructure is that civilians will blame Hamas for its destruction, and that this will undermine its civilian base of support. This kind of brutal logic has been proved wrong in U.S.-backed conflicts all over the world. In Gaza, it is no more than a grotesque fantasy. The Palestinians understand perfectly well who is bombing them – and who is supplying the bombs.

    Intelligence officials told +972 that Israel maintains extensive occupancy figures for every building in Gaza, and has precise estimates of how many civilians will be killed in each building it bombs. While Israeli and U.S. officials publicly disparage Palestinian casualty figures, intelligence sources told +972 that the Palestinian death counts are remarkably consistent with Israel’s own estimates of how many civilians it is killing. To make matters worse, Israel has started using artificial intelligence to generate targets with minimal human scrutiny, and is doing so faster than its forces can bomb them.

    Israeli officials claim that each of the high-rise apartment buildings it bombs contains some kind of Hamas presence, but an intelligence official explained, “Hamas is everywhere in Gaza; there is no building that does not have something of Hamas in it, so if you want to find a way to turn a high-rise into a target, you will be able to do so.” As Yuval Abraham of +972 summarized, “The sources understood, some explicitly and some implicitly, that damage to civilians is the real purpose of these attacks.”

    Two days after South Africa submitted its Genocide Convention application to the ICJ, Israeli Finance Minister Smotrich declared on New Year’s Eve that Israel should substantially empty the Gaza Strip of Palestinians and bring in Israeli settlers. “If we act in a strategically correct way and encourage emigration,” Smotrich said, “if there are 100,000 or 200,000 Arabs in Gaza, and not two million, the whole discourse on “the day after” will be completely different.”

    When reporters confronted U.S. State Department spokesman Matt Miller about Smotrich’s statement, and similar ones by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, Miller replied that Prime Minister Netanyahu and other Israeli officials have reassured the United States that those statements don’t reflect Israeli government policy.

    But Smotrich and Ben-Gvir’s statements followed a meeting of Likud Party leaders on Christmas Day where Netanyahu himself said that his plan was to continue the massacre until the people of Gaza have no choice but to leave or to die. “Regarding voluntary emigration, I have no problem with that,” he told former Israeli UN Ambassador Danny Danon. “Our problem is not allowing the exit, but a lack of countries that are ready to take Palestinians in. And we are working on it. This is the direction we are going in.”

    We should have learned from America’s lost wars that mass murder and ethnic cleansing rarely lead to political victory or success. More often they only feed deep resentment and desires for justice or revenge that make peace more elusive and conflict endemic.

    Although most of the martyrs in Gaza are women and children, Israel and the United States politically justify the massacre as a campaign to destroy Hamas by killing its senior leaders. Andrew Cockburn described in his book Kill Chain: the Rise of the High-Tech Assassins how, in 200 cases studied by U.S. military intelligence, the U.S. campaign to assassinate Iraqi resistance leaders in 2007 led in every single case to increased attacks on U.S. occupation forces. Every resistance leader they killed was replaced within 48 hours, invariably by new, more aggressive leaders determined to prove themselves by killing even more U.S. troops.

    But that is just another unlearned lesson, as Israel and the United States kill Islamic Resistance leaders in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Iran, risking a regional war and leaving themselves more isolated than ever.

    If the ICJ issues a provisional order for a ceasefire in Gaza, humanity must seize the moment to insist that Israel and the United States must finally end this genocide and accept that the rule of international law applies to all nations, including themselves.

    The post A Chance to Hold Israel and the US to Account for Genocide first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Tall Tales and Murderous Restraint: Blinken on Gaza and Israel

    The role of the US State Department regarding Israel’s continued obliteration of Gaza is becoming increasingly clear.  As the actions of the Israeli Defence Forces continue, the Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, is full of meaningless statements about restraint and control, the protection of civilians, the imperatives of humanitarianism in war.  As the war continues, so do those statements.

    As the new year began, an official from the White House expressed satisfaction at what appeared “to be the start of the gradual shift to lower-intensity operations in the north that we have been encouraging”.  But the revised Israeli approach did not “reflect any changes in the south”.  The monstrous death toll, in short, would continue to rise.

    As Washington feigns a reproachful attitude to the IDF’s grossly lethal tactics, claiming success in restraining them, another, failing front is also being pursued in the Arab world and beyond.  As Israel’s great defender, the US is attempting to hold back fury and consternation as the dirty deeds by their favourite ally in the Middle East are being executed.

    Blinken’s latest round of travelling has the flavour of swinging by tetchy neighbours to see how they are faring in the sea of blood and acrimony.  The itinerary includes Istanbul, Crete, Amman, Doha, Abu Dhabi, Al-’Ula, Tel Aviv, the West Bank, Manama and Cairo.  The State Department’s media release on January 4 outlines the obsolete agenda any sensible diplomat would do best to discard.  “Throughout his trip, the Secretary will underscore the importance of protecting civilian lives in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza; securing the release of all remaining hostages; our shared commitment to facilitating the increased, sustained delivery of life-saving humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza and the resumption of essential services; and ensuring that Palestinians are not forcibly displaced in Gaza.”

    So far, Palestinians are being massacred by the IDF in Gaza, forcibly deprived of life-saving humanitarian assistance and essential services in a sustained act of strangulation while being forcibly displaced.  They are being oppressed, harassed and murdered by vigilante Israeli settlers in the West Bank, even as the army looks the other way.

    It follows that Blinken is telling tall stories and hoping that legs carry them far.  They are also being told as proceedings before the International Court of Justice instituted by South Africa commence to determine whether Israel’s conduct in Gaza satisfies the definition of genocide in international law.

    The strategy becomes clearer in the second part of the disingenuous traveller’s agenda.  Blinken “will also discuss urgent mechanisms to stem violence, calm rhetoric, and reduce regional tensions, including deterring Houthi attacks on commercial shopping in the Red Sea and avoiding escalation in Lebanon.”

    The Houthi attacks and the increasingly violent situation in Lebanon serve as golden distractions for Washington, since they give the Biden administration room to simultaneously claim to be preventing a widening of the conflict while permitting Israel’s butchery to continue.

    Corking the conflict, however, is not proving such a success.  The war is widening, even if reporting on the subject remains sketchy in the negligently lazy news outlets of the Anglosphere.  In addition to the bold moves of the Houthis and escalating violence on the border between Israel and Lebanon come ongoing, harrying efforts from the Islamic Resistance in Iraq.  An Al-Mayadeen report on January 7 took note of an announcement from the group, also known as the Iraqi al-Najuba Movement, that it had fired an al-Arqab long-range cruise missile at Haifa “in support of our people in Gaza and in response to the massacres committed by the usurping entity against Palestinian civilians, including children, women, and the elderly.”

    A spokesperson for the Iraqi Resistance, Hussein al-Moussawi, was bullish in claiming that the group had the capacity to strike targets beyond Haifa.  Conditions to develop the group’s weapons had also been “favourable”.

    In a separate statement, the Islamic Resistance also revealed that its fighters had targeted an Israeli base on the occupied Golan Heights, usin drones.  To this can be added drone attacks on the US army base of Qasrok, located in the countryside of Hasakah in northeastern Syria, and the Ain al-Asad airbase in western Iraq.  The base continues to host US forces.

    Perhaps the greatest canard of all in this briefest of trips by Blinken is the continued, now absurd claim, that Washington is committed “to working with partners to set the conditions necessary for peace in the Middle East, which includes comprehensive, tangible steps towards the realization of a future Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel, with both living in peace and security.”

    In his remarks to President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, Blinken showed the hardened ignorance that will ensure the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will continue in some form.  In his mind, a “reformed” Palestinian Authority will take over the reins of a ruined Gaza (“effective responsibility”) whatever the residents of Gaza think.

    Palestinians will never, given current conditions, be permitted sovereignty and anything remotely resembling a thriving, viable state.  Israel, whose very existence is based on predation, dispossession and war, will never permit a Palestinian entity to be given equal standing at the diplomatic or security table.  The US, in the tatty drag of an independent broker, will go along with the pantomime, promoting, as Blinken is, a sham, counterfeit form of autonomy, one forever subject to conditions, demarcations and restraints.  And one thing is almost certain about any future rump Palestinian entity: it will be deprived of any right to defend itself.

    The post Tall Tales and Murderous Restraint: Blinken on Gaza and Israel first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Despite Pledge to Avoid Broad Conflict, Biden Is Pushing War Across Middle East

    The Biden administration is reportedly drafting plans to bomb Houthi targets in Yemen amid escalating fears of a wider war in the Middle East, where the U.S. is inflaming regional tensions by heavily arming Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip. Politico reported Thursday that U.S. officials are “increasingly concerned” that Israel’s devastating war on Gaza “could expand… to a wider…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Tensions Rise Across the Middle East in Wake of Deadly Bombing in Iran

    Twin explosions in the Iranian province of Kerman killed dozens and injured hundreds Wednesday at a memorial for top Revolutionary Guards general Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated in a U.S. drone strike four years ago in Iraq. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but Iran has placed blame on Israel and the U.S, while U.S. officials and regional experts have suggested ISIS as…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Iran gives the usual treatment to Mahsa Amini’s family: stopped at airport on way to collect award

    Mahsa Amini file pic
    Mahsa Amini

    It sounded familiar hearing the BBC News that the family of Mahsa Amini have been banned from flying to France to collect the 2023 EU’s Sakharov Prize [see https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2023/10/19/mahsa-amini-and-woman-life-and-freedom-movement-in-iran-awarded-eus-sakharov-prize/]. In 2009, as chairman of the MEA, I had to deal with the Martin Ennals Award laureate, Emad Baghi, who could not accept the prize in person due to travel restrictions. The same happened to other awards, including: the Civil Courage Prize (2004), the human rights award from France (2005), and the British Press Award (2008). https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/laureates/EA0410ED-BC5A-4436-A3D7-012EF3232C55

    Ms Amini’s parents and brother were stopped from boarding their flight and had their passports confiscated, their lawyer said. They were banned from leaving despite having valid visas.

    Speaking to the AFP news agency, the family’s lawyer, Chirinne Ardakani, said Ms Amini’s mother, father and brother had been “prohibited from boarding the flight that was to take them to France for the presentation of the Sakharov Prize”.

    The president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, called on Iran to “retract the decision” to ban the family from travelling. “Their place next Tuesday is at the European Parliament in Strasbourg to receive the Sakharov Prize, with the brave women of Iran,” she said on social media. “The truth cannot be silenced.”

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-67672565

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/10/iran-bans-mahsa-amini-family-travelling-receive-human-rights-prize

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

  • Iran stops Mahsa Amini’s family from travelling to receive human rights prize

    Ban comes as jailed Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi begins new hunger strike before award ceremony

    Iran has banned Mahsa Amini’s family from travelling to France to receive the EU’s top human rights prize on her behalf, as the family of the imprisoned Nobel peace prize winner Narges Mohammadi said she had begun a new hunger strike before Sunday’s award ceremony in Oslo.

    In Mohammadi’s absence, her 17-year-old twin children Ali and Kiani, will instead collect the award on her behalf, reading out a speech their mother smuggled out of her cell.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • UDHR@75: occasion for US, UK and Canada to put sanctions on human rights abusers

    The UK, US and Canada are announcing a sweeping package of sanctions targeting individuals linked to human rights abuses around the world, ahead of the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on 10 December. 

    UK targets forced labour operations in Southeast Asia, and government-linked officials in Belarus, Haiti, Iran, and Syria complicit in repressing individual freedoms.

    The first set targets 9 individuals and 5 entities for their involvement in trafficking people in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, forcing them to work for online ‘scam farms’ which enable large-scale fraud. Victims are promised well-paid jobs but are subject to torture or other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment…

    The second is aimed at a number of individuals linked to the governments, judiciaries and prosecuting authorities of Belarus, Haiti, Iran, and Syria, for their involvement in the repression of citizens solely for exercising fundamental freedoms in those countries.

    Included in the USA sanctions are two Afghanistan government ministers accused of repressing women and girls, by restricting access to secondary education; two Iranian intelligence officers who the Treasury says plot violence against Iranian regime opponents beyond the nation’s borders and two Chinese officials accused of torturing Uyghur ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang region of China.

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-and-allies-sanction-human-rights-abusers

    https://thehill.com/homenews/ap/ap-u-s-news/ap-u-s-sanctions-officials-from-afghanistan-to-china-on-declaration-of-human-rights-anniversary/

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

  • Panic-stricken Israel Lobby Shifts into Overdrive

    genocide

    At Westminster the other day the UK Secretary of State for Defence (Grant Shapps) made a statement on military deployments to the Middle East which included questions and answers about the situation in Gaza. It was an opportunity for Shapps with help of pro-Zionist MPs to distort the facts to ‘justify’ Israel’s appalling crimes.

    The following exchanges are taken from Hansard which, for those who don’t know, is the official and “substantially verbatim” report of what is said in the UK Parliament.

    Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP) commented: “It is important to repeat the denunciation of the death cult known as Hamas.”

    Shapps replied: “The hon. Gentleman is right to stress the abominable, disgraceful, disgusting behaviour of Hamas.” [Shapps is Jewish]

    Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con): “Those on both Front Benches seem to agree that Hamas must not remain in control in Gaza. Is any thought being given to how, once they have been removed, they can be prevented from coming back?” [Lewis is also Jewish]

    Shapps: The easiest way to bring this to an end, as I hinted earlier, would be for Hamas, a terrorist organisation, to release the hostages that they have, to stop firing rockets into Israel in a completely indiscriminate way, which I think the whole House should condemn.”

    Sir Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con): “The Houthis, who are attacking British and American cargo ships, and Hamas are basically two sides of the same coin. They are Iranian-funded, Iranian-trained and, of course, Iranian-guided terrorist groups that are publicly committed to the destruction of Israel…. I particularly welcome the UK’s deployment of drones to help locate hostages, including British hostages. In the days after 7 October, the Defence Secretary said: ‘No nation should stand alone in the face of such evil.’ Will he repeat that crucial support today and in the difficult days ahead? I thank him for his support. [Ellis is Jewish and also a member of Conservative Friends of Israel].

    Shapps: My right hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right that no nation should stand alone. It is easy to forget how this all began, when the Hamas terrorist group thought it was a plan to go into Israel to butcher men, women and children, cut off heads and rape people.

    Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con): “I applaud the decisive actions of my right hon. Friend and the Government to defend our strategic ally, Israel, against Hamas, but the grim reality on the ground right now is that Hamas continue to fire dozens of rockets at Israeli towns and cities. The Iran-backed terror group have fired more than 10,000 rockets since 7 October and show no sign of stopping their violent attacks against Israel. Will my right hon. Friend not only commit to continuing his support for Israel in defending itself against Hamas, but reassure the House that every possible step is being taken to counter Iran’s links across the region, which are causing instability?”

    Shapps: “My hon. Friend makes an excellent point that the conflict would be over immediately if hostages were released and Hamas stopped firing rockets into Israel—there would not be a cause for conflict. Indeed, that is the policy Israel followed for many years, hoping that, even though rocket attacks continued, Hamas would not take advantage of their own population by using them as human shields and building infrastructure under hospitals, schools and homes…. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to identify Iran as being behind this whole evil business.”

    Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD): “It was reassuring last week, in answer to my question, to hear the Minister for Armed Forces, the right hon. Member for Wells (James Heappey) telling us that UK surveillance flights would not involve the use of intelligence for target acquisition. I also welcome the Secretary of State talking today about how information that would be helpful to hostage recovery will be passed to the so-called appropriate authorities. We have now heard two questions about the International Criminal Court. Will the UK pass any evidence that it gathers of any breaches of international humanitarian law by combatants in Gaza to the ICC?“

    Shapps: “As the hon. Gentleman says, that question has been asked, and I have answered it a couple of times. The intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance – ISR – flights are to look for British hostages and indeed other hostages. That is the information that will be gathered from those flights. Of course, if we saw anything else, we would most certainly alert our partners“. [But do they include the ICC? I think not.]

    Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP): “Yesterday I asked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, the hon. Member for Aldershot (Leo Docherty), whether the UK Government were in a position to contribute to the International Criminal Court’s call for evidence in its investigation of potential breaches of international humanitarian law. He said: ‘Not at this stage, but we will continue to take note.’ Surely, if the UK Government are actively collecting drone and surveillance images of the war zone, the answer to that question should have been yes?”

    Shapps: “I would have thought that the No. 1 concern would be to locate the British hostages, and that is where the surveillance work will focus.”

    Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind): “The Secretary of State needs to be very clear with the House: 15,000 people have already died in Gaza, and 1,200 have died in Israel. Israel is clearly pushing the entire population southwards, if not out of the Gaza strip altogether. Is Britain involved in the military actions that Israel has taken, either physically or by providing information in support of those military activities? I think the House needs to be told. What is the long-term aim of British military involvement in Gaza?”

    Shapps: “The simple answer is no, and I hope that clears it up. I am surprised to hear the right hon. Gentleman talk just about people being killed. They were murdered. They were slaughtered. It was not just some coincidental thing. I understand and share the concerns about the requirement on Israel, on us and on everyone else to follow international humanitarian law. When Israel drops leaflets, when it drops what it calls a “knock” or a “tap” and does not bomb until afterwards, when it calls people to ask them to move, when it issues maps showing where Hamas have their tunnels and asks people to move away from them, that is a far cry from what Hamas did on 7 October, when they went after men, women and children.”

    Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab): “We have seen increased bombardment in southern Gaza after the pause. We are also seeing increased violence in the West Bank, supported by extremist settler Ministers. What talks is the Secretary of State having with Israel to stop the increase in settler violence in the West Bank?“

    Grant Shapps: “I certainly will not be pulling my punches when I speak to my Israeli counterparts. The violence in the West Bank is unacceptable and it must be controlled—stopped, in fact. None of that, in any way, shape or form, separates us from our utter condemnation of how this whole thing was started in the first place with Hamas, but the hon. Lady is right about that settler violence.”

    Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP): “Medical Aid for Palestinians has warned that Israel’s indiscriminate bombing and siege is making it impossible to sustain human life in Gaza. With 1.8 million civilians displaced and a lack of clean water and sanitation, it is just a matter of time before a cholera outbreak kills many thousands more. The Secretary of State has been unequivocal that the main purpose of surveillance is to help find hostages, which is fine, but for the fifth time of asking: if clear evidence is found of breaches of humanitarian law, will the UK Government share that evidence with the International Criminal Court?

    Shapps: “The simple answer is that we will always follow international humanitarian law and its requirements.”

    Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP): “It is absolutely right that those responsible for the crimes of Hamas are held to account in international law. But why is the Secretary of State so reluctant to give a clear, simple “yes” to the question whether the Government will provide any evidence of war crimes to the International Criminal Court? Is it because he has already seen such evidence? Is it because Israel has asked him to promise not to share such evidence? What is the reason?”

    Grant Shapps: “I have already said that the United Kingdom is bound by, and would always observe, international humanitarian law.

    The message we are supposed to swallow from this pantomime is that it’s all the fault of Hamas and Iran who “started the whole thing” on 7 October, and that Israel’s massacres, brutal occupation using military force, cruel blockade and clear intention of establishing Jewish sovereignty “from the river to the sea” over the last 75 years have nothing to do with it. It is clear that the UK will do everything to avoid upsetting Israel’s evil plan and calling the regime’s war criminals to account despite our solemn obligations under international law to do so.

    And it is pointless for the likes of Shapps to keep repeating that Israel “has to follow international humanitarian law” when Israel has been in permanent breach of nearly all aspects of law for decades and treats international norms with utter contempt. Only today the regime announced approval of 1700 more ‘settlement’ homes in East Jerusalem which is Palestinian territory. And it continues to defy international law, escalating its crimes to the most abhorrent of all – genocide – because it is given cover by the US and UK. Perhaps the rest of us should properly label Israel’s genocide in Gaza as ‘US and UK-backed’. And the UK itself ignores international law if it happens to be ‘inconvenient’.

    As for the constantly repeated claim the Israel has a right to defend itself, this is blatant misinformation. Israel is an illegal military occupier and aggressor committing never-ending war crimes on someone else’s sovereign territory. Its right to self-defence is practically zero in these circumstances. UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese has stated that “Israel cannot claim self-defence against a threat that emanates from the territory it occupies – from a territory that is kept under belligerent occupation”.

    And notice how everything the Israelis dislike, and everything that thwarts their lust for domination, is now labeled “Iranian-backed” or “Hamas controlled”. Shapps is evidently well versed in the 116-page propaganda manual produced by The Israel Project (TIP) and written specially for those “on the front lines of fighting the media war for Israel”. Its purpose is to help the worldwide Zionist movement win the propaganda war by persuading international audiences to accept the Israeli narrative and agree that the regime’s crimes are necessary for Israel’s security and in line with “shared values” between Israel and the West.

    This masterwork on deception attempts to justify Israel’s slaughter, ethnic cleansing, land-grabbing, cruelty and blatant disregard for international law and United Nations resolutions, and make it all smell sweeter with a liberal squirt of persuasive language. It also incites hatred, particularly towards Hamas and Iran, and is designed to hoodwink Americans and Europeans into believing we actually share values with the racist regime, and therefore ought to support and forgive its abominable behaviour.

    Readers are instructed to “clearly differentiate between the Palestinian people and Hamas” and to drive a wedge between them. The manual features “words that work” – i.e. carefully constructed language to deflect criticism and reframe all issues and arguments in Israel’s favour. We are seeing it at work here with great success.

    MPs who are Jewish are identified as such when it seems appropriate. Those, like Sir Michael Lewis mentioned above, who are signed-up Friends of Israel should, in my opinion, declare that interest in any debate on the subject. But I must emphasise that not all Jewish MPs are tools of the apartheid regime. We remember with admiration Sir Gerald Kaufman who was arguing for economic sanctions against Israel back in 2004. And during a debate on the Gaza war of 2008/9, he told the Commons: “The present Israeli government ruthlessly and cynically exploits the continuing guilt from Gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians… My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town of Staszow. A German soldier shot her dead in her bed. My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza”.

    He described Hamas as a “deeply nasty organisation” but said the UK Government’s boycott of Hamas had “dreadful consequences”, and he reminded the Commons that Israel had been created following acts of terrorism by the Irgun. He considered Iran a loathsome regime but, unlike Israel, “at least it keeps its totalitarian theocracy to within its own borders”.

    As to why there are so many Israel lackeys in Westminster Kaufman said: “It’s Jewish money, Jewish donations to the Conservative Party. There is now a big group of Conservative members of parliament who are pro-Israel…. whatever the Israeli government does.”

    Of course, it’s not just the Conservative Party. The corrupting influence of dodgy funding is also affecting Labour and the LibDems.

    Remembering the victims of genocide

    This week marks the 75th anniversary of the 1948 Genocide Convention. As explained on the United Nations website:

    Every 9 December the Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide marks the adoption of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide – a crucial global commitment that was made at the founding of the United Nations, immediately preceding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. By General Assembly Resolution A/RES/69/323 of 29 September 2015, that day also became the International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and of the Prevention of this Crime.

    At its landmark 75th anniversary this year, the Genocide Convention remains highly relevant. The 1948 Genocide Convention codified for the first time the crime of genocide in international law. Its preamble recognizes that “at all periods of history genocide has inflicted great losses on humanity” and that international cooperation is required to “liberate humankind from such an odious scourge”. To date, 153 States have ratified the Convention. Achieving universal ratification of the Convention, as well as ensuring its full implementation, remain essential for effectively advancing genocide prevention. The Genocide Convention includes the obligation not only to punish the crime of genocide but, crucially, to prevent it. In the 75 years since its adoption, the Genocide Convention has played an important role in the development of international criminal law, in holding perpetrators of this crime accountable, galvanizing prevention efforts, and in giving a voice to the victims of genocide.

    How many parliamentarians in Westminster and Washington who blindly support Israel’s attempts to exterminate the Palestinians in Gaza and turn their homeland into rubble will publicly show respect for those victims of the apartheid regime’s genocide?

    The post Panic-stricken Israel Lobby Shifts into Overdrive first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Face to Face With Hezbollah

    As part of a fact-finding mission to the Middle East in late 2007, one year after Hezbollah concluded a war with Israel, we spent a few days with Hezbollah. I knew that Hezbollah carried heavy baggage, could be threatening, and operated as a state within a state, but it never seemed, as bludgeoning reports insisted, an international terrorist organization. All of the few horrific actions involving Hezbollah have been tit-for-tat revenge attacks for Israeli murder of its cadres, such as the February 16, 1992, Israeli Apache AH64 helicopter missile attack on an automobile that killed Sheikh Abbas Musawi, the then secretary-general of Hezbollah, his wife, and five-year-old son.

    Face-to-face in November 2007 revealed an organized and thoughtful Hezbollah without traces of being fanatical.

    They speak English, carry I-pods, and listen to Santana and Guns and Roses. They don’t approach with anger and don’t behave overbearing. They are well-educated, mostly from Beirut’s American University, relaxed and alert to world happenings. They impress as being more secular than pious. They are spokespersons for Hezbollah – the Party of God.

    Maybe they are a selected group of well-trained talkers for foreigners; a subtle means to convince the unwary that Hezbollah’s followers are just everyday guys and gals. Maybe, but observations and events were inconsistent with the media’s drastic descriptions of the militant Lebanese Shiite movement.

    The Party of God has insufficient support for exercising political control of Lebanon and knows it doesn’t have the numbers or the strength to turn the Levant into an Islamic Republic. Hezbollah’s clerics don’t indicate they intend to force Shari’a upon their constituencies. More an amalgam of differing viewpoints – religious, social, political, and militant – Hezbollah is solidified by a common struggle for the dispossessed and a battle against corruption. Meetings with Hezbollah and Lebanese officials together with a trip to southern Lebanon, as a member of a Council for National Interest peace delegation, revealed much about the nature of the Party of God.

    The voyage started in Beirut, at a tenement building that is indistinguishable from the adjoining buildings in the Shiite district. Hezbollah followers crowd the sidewalk to greet and lead to a simple apartment on an upper floor. Sayyid Nawaf Al-Musawi, the head of Hezbollah’s International Relations, is dressed in conventional clothes.

    The only indication of religious fervor is the beads he rotates in his right hand. He sits relaxed but talks seriously and with conviction. The female translator’s minor errors and dubious translations of colloquial expressions are politely excused. The head of Hezbollah’s International Relations has a lot to say – about everything.

    Region

    In Iraq there is a severe humane problem – same as in Palestine. The West Bank is now a prison. The US gives no importance to the Iraqi people. US policy is based on Israeli safety and Middle East oil. America is creating chaos and the region is under its hegemony. The regime is increasing the problems rather than resolving them. Now they are talking about a new war in Iran. Iraq was weak, but Iran is strong and it will be a much harder war. A barrel of oil and a barrel of gunfire will create a catastrophe that is beyond comprehension. A disaster is happening and Americans are giving a story that is false. They were lying about WMDs in Iraq and now they are lying about nuclear issues in Iran. They told the people that the Iraqis would welcome them as liberators. This is an example of a delusion to the citizens of the US. American citizens deserve to know the truth. Colin Powell gave false information to the UN but he thought it was the truth. When someone tries to find the truth he is called a terrorist. America operates on misleading evidence.

    Governing Lebanon

    The one who rules must be accepted by all the others. Now the minority is ruling, but this is supported by the U.S. Why does the U.S. want this? For the benefit of the Israelis. We are a movement only against Israeli attack and Israeli occupation. We support unity. We encourage consensus. The Vatican, the Arabs want unity in Lebanon, but the American influences in Lebanon do not want this. We want a multi-ethnic nation and not as in Israel, which calls itself a Jewish country even though ¼ of its citizens are Christians and Muslims. We cannot have an election with 50% plus one because the text of the constitution is clear – there has to be a 2/3 majority. A person elected by 50% plus one is not the President and only an impostor.

    Israel

    Hezbollah will never recognize Israel. Israel (Palestine?) should be a democratic nation where all religions exist together and have equal freedom. In the 1919 Paris meeting, the Zionists presented a document which coveted South Lebanon and delineated four river basins they wanted to own.

    Sayyid Nawaf Al-Musawi ended his conversation with prophetic expressions.

    We don’t judge you on the basis of your stand on Israel. Do not judge us on that issue. There are natural ties between Shia Lebanon and Iran. They have the same source. The fifteenth century Iranian studies came from Lebanon. The geography of Lebanon enabled the Shia to stay. It is tough to conquer Southern Lebanon because of its geography.

    Leaving Beirut for the South of Lebanon is similar to leaving any metropolis – traffic jams, new expressways, and roadways that cut through residential areas. The Paris of the Middle East has lost much of its charm. It is heavy until the view of the blue-green Mediterranean waters calm the atmosphere. Banana groves, similar to those that camouflaged the Hezbollah rocket carriers during the 2006 summer war, are prominent. Also prominent are posters of Rafiq Hariri, the assassinated and previous Prime Minister. After the Sunni city of Sidon, the peaceful countryside of groves and orchards is marked with newly repaired bridges that cross ready-to-be-paved roads. The war-damaged roads lead to Tyre.

    The Shiite city has freshly sanded beaches and a picturesque seaside promenade. The posters have changed – they now feature Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s political leader, Tyre is the home of Sheik Nabil Kaook, Hezbollah commander of South Lebanon, who narrowly escaped death when Israeli warplanes bombed his home in the 2006 war.

    In his presence, women are not greeted with handshakes, but with hands respectfully placed over the heart. The women sit veiled and separate from the men. The cleric is well-groomed and well-tailored – his white turban shows his status and his brown cloak matches the brown chair on which he sits.

    Harsh and accusatory, interspersed with feelings for the dispossessed, the Hezbollah Sheik has one succinct message: “The United States took the decision to go to war and to continue the war. It treats Lebanon as just another occupation.”

    Tyre is also identified with the Al-Sadr Foundation, which manages an orphanage under the control of Rabab al-Sadr, sister of disappeared Shiite cleric Sayyid Musa al-Sadr. Shi’a clerics who have the title of Sayyid claim descent from Muhammad. Sayyid Musa al-Sadr is more famous than his designation. His life, a story of dedication, success, and an eventual mystery reveal strong links between Shiites from Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon.

    Born in Qom, Iran in 1928 to a Lebanese family of theologians, Musa al-Sadr studied theology in Najaf, Iraq. Being related to the father of Iraq’s Muqtada al-Sadr, Iraq was another home for him. In 1960 Musa al-Sadr moved to Tyre, his father’s birthplace. He soon became recognized as a strong advocate for the economically and politically disadvantaged Shi’ite population. His role in establishing schools and medical clinics throughout southern Lebanon led to the 1974 founding of the Movement of the Disinherited, whose armed wing became Amal, the other Shiite party in Lebanon.

    While successfully improving economic and social conditions for a disenfranchised Shiite population, Sayyid Musa al-Sadr made enemies of landlords, corrupt officials, political establishment, and members of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. His eventual disassociation with, what was then, a corrupt Amal, created other groups, some of whom later coalesced into Hezbollah. On February 16, 1985, an “Open Letter to the Downtrodden in Lebanon and the World,” alerted the world to Hezbollah’s formal existence. Musa al-Sadr was not present. In 1978, when attending a conference in Libya, Musa al-Sadr mysteriously vanished. No clue to his disappearance has surfaced.

    Elegant chalets grace the barren hills of southern Lebanon. Many of them are homes of expatriate Lebanese, who have always been principal contributors to Lebanon’s economy. Expatriates from Sierra Leone, the Gulf States, Dearborn, Michigan, and other U.S. cities send funds to their Lebanese relatives who purchase properties throughout Lebanon. Southern Lebanon has many retired Dearborns who have returned to their families and to a land they always cherished. But that’s not all, informed persons claim Southern Lebanon has diamond and drug smuggling that help finance Hezbollah and local communities.

    The elegant chalets emphasize the destruction of villages during the 2006 summer war. Bint Jbiel, “the daughter of the mountain,” rested in the path of the invading Israeli army. Israel’s military dropped leaflets that ordered the population to leave the village. The inhabitants obeyed the order and now the old city, not the new part, is 70% destroyed; a mound of rubble that includes the 600-year-old mosque.

    Homes along a nearby dirt road are pocked with shell and bullet holes, evidence of tanks having discharged random fire at empty houses for no apparent reason except they were close to the path of the tank. A total of eighteen Israeli tanks broke down, crashed, or were destroyed by Hezbollah ambushes during the Israeli invasion.

    From a hill close to the mined border with Israel, the deputy mayor of Marjayoun pointed to the verdant fields of Northern Israel. He claimed that in 1948 Israel seized one kilometer of Lebanese territory and that the houses in the distance are mainly empty.

    Damage-weary Lebanon is not confined to the border area. Timur Goksel, former senior advisor to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), who has been in Lebanon for twenty years, noted he had never witnessed so much wanton destruction. He said that Iran funds an Iranian Hezbollah that has no connections with Lebanese Hezbollah. Five hundred million dollars of these funds are being used to repair war-damaged southern Lebanon. In contrast, the U.S. is contributing 34 million dollars to repair a large bridge.

    Timor Goksel refutes the March 14 majority party charge that Hezbollah is obstructionist: “The Shiites (not all Hezbollah) are 30% of the country and cannot rule on their own. They want to have a role in the government and they want to be a mainstream party.” Principal leaders in the Lebanese government support Goksel’s evaluation. Former general Michel Aoun, Christian head of the Change and Reform parliamentary bloc, wants what Hezbollah wants; a new parliament where the new majority will be accepted. Aoun’s bloc has a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Hezbollah. He insisted the MOU is not an alliance but a strategy for integrating Hezbollah into a mutual defense of Lebanon. Former General and then Maronite President of Lebanon, Emil Lahoud, agreed with Hezbollah’s determination to follow constitutional law and only elect a president with a 2/3 quorum.

    The Lebanese president describes Hezbollah as “one hundred percent Lebanese. Hezbollah takes material assistance from Iran and would take it from the devil if necessary to protect their country. They are not terrorists.” Fawsi Salloukh, Lebanon’s Minister of Foreign Affairs talked from a prepared

    document that severely criticized Israel and the United States. He also wants a new election and not a litigious issue. He doesn’t believe Iran wants to dominate Hezbollah and stressed its natural for Shiites in Lebanon and Iran to establish good relations.

    Forgotten amidst the rhetoric, but mentioned by Michel Aoun and Emil Lahoud are simple facts: Hezbollah has had electoral alliances with Saad Hariri’s Future Movement, Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, and Noah Berri’s Amal. In 1999, Hezbollah members of Lebanon’s engineering syndicate formed a coalition with the Phalange Party, a rightist Christian group, and the National Liberal Party, both allies of Israel during the civil war.

    The Halifee restaurant in the Dahieh neighborhood is considered a popular dining place for Hezbollah followers; only two blocks from the Haret Hreil Hussineyeh mosque, whose senior cleric is Hezbollah religious leader Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah. Israeli bombers, during the July 2006 war, leveled the cleric’s home, as well as part of the surrounding area. The restaurant crowds with people enjoying the food, enjoying the elegant surroundings, enjoying the evening. There is no indication of a particular type of person; no sign of a distinctive Hezbollah character.

    La Terrase is a restaurant located on Hadi Nasrallah, a street, named after leader Hasan Nassrallah’s deceased son. Huge craters from Israeli bombing remain in the adjacent neighborhood. Enter la Terrase and first have a choice of a coffee bar. Go deeper and there is a cafeteria. Further in is a small restaurant. Climb the stairs and enter a huge restaurant surrounded by couches on which linger multitudes of young couples; drinking coffee, engaged in conversations and quiet embraces – not the ordinary media images of Hezbollah life.

    Innocent Americans were killed on September 11, 2001, by Al-Qaeda terrorists who considered the World Trade Center to be imperialist land – the center of the U.S. establishment. Innocent Lebanese were killed on July 15, 2006, one day of many bombardments that contributed to the vast destruction of the Dahieh district by Israeli military who considered Dahieh to be Hezbollah land – the center of the Hezbollah establishment.

    The U.S. and Hezbollah establishments still exist. Many innocents died in both places. The U.S. remembers the day 9/11 as a bitter memory. Lebanon had a mid-summer nightmare of smaller 9/11’s; angry memories the residents of Dahieh will forever retain. The Western world rightfully memorializes America’s tragedy but neglects Lebanon’s equal tragedies.

    It is that neglect which created Hezbollah, sustained Hezbollah, and made Hezbollah popular throughout the Arab world. Years of punishing emergencies in Lebanon — refugees from the Syrian civil war, Hezbollah’s attachment to the Syrian strife, the 4 August 2020 explosion of ammonium nitrate stored at the Port of Beirut that caused at least 218 deaths, 7,000 injuries, $15 billion in property damage, and left an estimated 300,000 people homeless, followed by economic collapse have polarized the Lebanese and may have affected contemporary Hezbollah’s operations and its acceptance by the Lebanese population.

    The post Face to Face With Hezbollah first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Life without Iranian activist Mohammadi ‘constant struggle’, says family

    Narges Mohammadi, who won peace prize for her activism against oppression of women in Iran, is in prison in Tehran

    The family of Narges Mohammadi has said the imprisonment of the Iranian women’s rights activist is a “constant and daily struggle” as they prepare to receive the Nobel peace prize in Oslo on her behalf.

    Her husband, Taghi Rahmani, who lives in exile in Paris with their two teenage children, said the only help comes from seeing her work internationally recognised and the solidarity she receives from around the world.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Iranian regime accused of raping and violating protesters as young as 12

    Amnesty International report details ‘harrowing’ testimonies of survivors at hands of security forces following nationwide protests

    Iranian security forces used rape and sexual violence to torture, punish and inflict lasting physical and psychological damage on protesters as young as 12 during the country’s nationwide protests last year, a report says.

    The report by Amnesty International is based on the testimonies of 12 women, 26 men, one girl and six boys who survived rape or other forms of sexual violence. Six survivors of rape were subjected to gang rapes by up to 10 male state agents, according to Amnesty.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Turbulent Winds of the Last Peace Conference: Annapolis

    For those interested, here is a previous article on a significant past event that gives a background to contemporary events. George W. Bush organized the Annapolis peace conference; predictions had it going nowhere and the last ”peace conference” went nowhere. While U.S. administrations warned Israel not to expand settlements, claimed they favored a two-state solution, and acted as the principal mediator in the crisis, Israel continued to expand settlements, made certain the Palestinians could never have a viable state, and eschewed all mediations. The day that the Annapolis conference failed is the day the Western world failed the Palestinians and the moment that inexorably led to the present destruction of the Palestinian people.

    Discussing the 2008 Annapolis Conference, in face-to-face talks with the prime ministers, foreign ministers, and non-government officials (NGOs) of Israel, Palestinian Authority, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, revealed how far we are from achieving peace in the Middle East, and how far Annapolis is from the Earth that others walk upon. As part of a delegation of six intrepid fact finders, supported by the Council for the National Interest (CNI), a Washington-based NGO that labors intensively to determine paths towards Middle East peace, I found a hopeful wind that moved Israelis and Palestinians to portray optimism. This hopeful wind slowly reduced in force in Jordan, quickly diminished when meeting Syrian vice-presidents, and turned to an ill wind in meetings with the then Lebanese president, prime minister, and foreign minister.

    The search for Middle East peace started on a discordant note at a meeting with Gush Shalom (peace bloc) spokesperson Uri Avnery, the most notable advocate for a just peace with the Palestinians. Uri used the words “unsure” and “window dressing” to describe the conference. He didn’t sense that Hamas, with whom he has close contacts, would agree to a piece of paper and voiced the opinion that Hamas would “only make a truce and not a peace pact.”

    Kadima’s Knesset member Amira Dotan spoke of “Annapolis as a symbol,” with its “success defined as starting a process.” Deputy Speaker Dr. Ahmed Tibi said: “The U.S. should create the conditions for making it a success. Its failure will strengthen Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Iranian/Syrian axis.” Other official sources were more open; expressing views that Israel is an army that has a state and Defense Minister Barak is the major culprit in preventing any peace initiative.

    The Ramallah landscape of enormous white brick housing developments against the brown dirt background disguises the actual despondency and poverty of the Palestinian people. Palestinian Authority (PA) officials, especially Foreign Minister Riad al-Maliki, tried to be optimistic about the Annapolis conference. Prime Minister Salam Fayed’s words were more cautious. “We want a complete agenda with final talks, but have become more motivated by fear of failure than promises of success, and are being forced into unwanted compromises just to justify a meeting.” President Abbas’ Chief of Staff Rafiq Husseini insisted that Israel must move the separation wall to the Green Line. Interior Minister Abdel Razzah al-Yahya reiterated that “there will be no two-state solution if Israel does not withdraw to the 1967 boundaries and does not give the Palestinians oxygen to breathe.”

    The lack of oxygen stifles the Palestinians, who are already torn by internecine warfare between Fatah and Hamas and by conflict with organizations in Nablus that are a combination of criminals, protesters against social and economic negligence, and militants against Israel’s occupation. The Palestinian Authority is powerless and it is not obvious how it can negotiate anything and receive approval from a majority of Palestinians, especially when they continue to experience Israel’s brutal occupation of the West Bank.

    Illegal settlements have destroyed Palestinian life in central Hebron. When the Israeli military attempted to evict the settlers, the settlers broke windows and ruined the Palestinian shops. For an incomprehensible reason, the settlers have returned to their illegal positions and Palestinian shops and houses are now empty. To enforce the settler presence, Israeli security checkpoints have been installed at all former entrances to the market.

    These settlers claim properties “taken” from Jews during riots against Hebron Jews back in 1929,” with a sign over emptied Palestinian shops, but do not display any rights of inheritance or deeds to any of the properties. Can this claim of a ‘collective right’ have a legal basis? Contrast the Hebron settlers’ illegal positions and false claims with Palestinians, who have legal deeds to properties in Israel, and are prevented from recovering their properties.

    A separation wall winds through West Bank territory and completely encircles West Bank cities, such as Qualqilya and Abu Dis. Residents are hindered from leaving these cities, going to schools, and cultivating lands. The wall has also caused accumulations of water and created puddles in Palestinian neighborhoods. The obstructive wall includes 580 fortified checkpoints, one occurring, on average, every five miles. There are also flying checkpoints, settler bypass roads, a planned super highway for Israelis only, blocked Palestinian village roads, and travel restrictions to Jerusalem. These restrictive conditions have separated Palestinian communities and families, choked the Palestinian economy, and obstructed daily exchanges between peoples. Highways slice through Palestinian lands and completely separate farm homes from agriculture. The inhumanity of all these installations and regulations is beyond belief. Chief of Staff, Rafiq Husseini, summed the PA attitude with a sigh and said, “Don’t worry, this is the land of miracles. What we need is a prayer meeting.”

    Jordan is also a land of miracles, its capital city Amman spanning hills with an advanced network of bridges, tunnels, and super highways. Traffic is horrific and only moves because there are few traffic lights in the entire city. Jordan’s increasing prosperity and touchy stability depends upon Western investment, special export privileges, and friendly relations with neighbors, especially Israel.

    Dependence upon foreign investment, coping with the 500,000 – 700,000 Iraq displaced persons, still contending with the integration of the massive Palestinian population within, and maintaining friendly relations with Israel guide Jordan’s foreign policies. Foreign Minister Abdelelah al-Khatib, similar in outlook to most Middle East leaders, considered the Israel/Palestinian conflict as the core issue to be resolved before peace and stability can arrive in the Middle East. He volunteered that Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s’ Russian immigrant hardliner, has become most influential in the “peace process.” A highly important Jordanian official was blunt. He was not positive on Annapolis, believes Israel does not want peace, does not have the political will to seek peace, and wants to shift the burden of more displaced Palestinians to Jordan. Minister of Planning Suhair al-Ali, as gracious as a woman can be, noted that deceased “King Hussein was into politics,” but the new King Abdullah “is more into development.” She had one plea: “No matter the results of Annapolis, don’t demonize Islam.”

    Damascus is a surprise. Expect a faded gray and ancient city, still struggling with the 20th century, and find a lively, advanced city with some sparkling new neighborhoods, highways that don’t interfere with the city’s appearance, and a population that is amicable and sympathetic; never a harsh look, never a bitter word, although Syria remains a totalitarian government that does not allow much free expression. To its credit, Syria has succored Palestinians forced from Israel, who have established their own neighborhoods, but still remain committed to return to their homeland. Added to its credit is the recent sacrifice in allowing an estimated 1.2 million Iraqi displaced persons (similar to Jordan, Syria refuses to call them refugees) to move among its population and secure housing, free education, and entry to the health system. Syria deserves commendation for acting as a safety valve to the calamities resulting from displaced Palestinians and Iraqis, innocent casualties from several wars.

    Not surprisingly, Syrian vice-president of Foreign Relations, Farouk Sharaa, didn’t have much expectation for the Annapolis conference, believes all Israel’s political parties fear peace, and senses that U.S. policies encouraged Israel to attack Lebanon and continue the conflict. “Israel is on a suicide path, and, if Israel is a decision-maker in the U.S. then the U.S. loses.” The vice president contradicted an accepted belief that Syria will not accept direct assistance for the Iraqi displaced persons. NGOs and the U.S. government are welcome to contribute their assistance. CNI made news by revealing to the U.S. Press a Syrian commitment to screen Iraqi displaced persons for entry into the U.S.

    The Vice president of Cultural Affairs, Najah al-Attar, exhibited welcoming smiles, and sensitivity and empathy for oppressed peoples. She spoke of “there not being peace without justice,” made references to the destruction of the Palestinians, and noted that Jews lived in peace in Syria, where they were prosperous and accepted members of the parliament. A small Jewish community survives in Northern Syria, and a Rabbi is flown in each week from Turkey to perform the rabbinical rites and assure the food is kosher.

    Not kosher was a clandestine trip to meet a “minor” Hamas official, who turned out to be Khalid Meshal, an official leader of Hamas, exiled in Damascus. The world became more aware of Meshal when Israel’s Mossad tried to assassinate him in Amman. Jordan’s King Abdullah forced Israel to immediately supply an antidote to the poison given to Meshal by threatening to publicly hang the Mossad agents who tried to kill the Hamas leader. Meshal does not fill the Western media description of a wild-eyed fanatic. On the contrary, he is a friendly, deliberate, and well-spoken person who makes sense to those who subscribe to similar positions.

    He said that Israel does not want peace and both negotiating parties aren’t strong enough to market their results to their people. Meshal doesn’t delineate Hamas’ position, but defers to a Palestinian position that accepts 1967 borders and an Arab position that has accepted the two-state solution. Since 2002, Bush has repeatedly spoken of support for a two-state solution, but where is it? The Hamas leader expects the region to be more explosive. Nevertheless, if the PA feels the Palestinian rights have been fulfilled, Hamas will welcome that. He has proposed a Hudna (truce), and if Israel responds positively, Hamas will not be an obstacle to peace. If the Right of Return is the only remaining problem, Hamas will compromise, and accept the will of the people. He claims Hamas does not encourage militancy, does not desire a theocratic state, is a national liberation movement, and will let the Palestinian people decide their own government.

    Lebanon greets the visitor with an ominous view of the famous Mdairej Bridge, the highest bridge in the Middle East, and the pride of Lebanon. The mid-section of its elegant span remains gone, destroyed by Israeli jets on the first day of the war.

    Beirut and Southern Lebanon still show scars of the war; destroyed bridges, damaged roads, and huge holes in Beirut sections. The old section of Bent Jabal (daughter of the mountain), which was invaded by Israeli troop, is completely damaged. It is now a rubble of ancient rocks.

    Lebanon was again in one of its perpetual crises; an inability to reach a parliamentary consensus and elect a new president. Although some are quick to blame Syria and Hezbollah for creating a climate of fear and for the lack of consensus, major Lebanese officials don’t agree that Hezbollah is the culprit for the impasse, just the opposite, the majority holds power by an archaic law and fears becoming a minority

    The majority is most represented by billionaire Member of Parliament (MP), Saad Hariri, son of assassinated former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri. Saad Hariri senses a significant negative shift in Israel’s attitude towards wanting peace after Rabin’s assassination. Nevertheless, he feels Abu Mazen wants peace and Annapolis, even if delayed, must still happen. “The two sides can reach an agreement.” He is less optimistic concerning his nation: “Money and arms are pouring into the arms of the allies of Syria.” Hariri had not moved about Beirut for 2 ½ years and had received death threats. Fifty of his fellow MPs were barricaded in the Phoenician hotel, fearful of their lives. Except for Prime Minister Siniora, who accuses Syria and Hezbollah of creating this fear, of being uncooperative and wanting to keep situations unresolved so that Hezbollah can maintain its arms, the other principal government officials support Hezbollah’s position.

    Former General and MP, Michael Aoun, described the year 2000 law that gerrymandered the nation so that the March 14 Party and its allies acquired a majority of 72 parliament seats, although receiving only 1/3 of the vote. This makes the 2007 government illegitimate and favors Hezbollah’s proposition that the only fair solution to the impasse is a new election law, followed by a new election that will award seats in proportion to yhe popular vote. President Emil Lahoud claims the present parliament majority has the backing of the major Western powers and is working against the constitution. For this reason, the opposition, meaning Hezbollah, has the right to avoid reaching consensus. Foreign Minister Fawzi Sallougkh read carefully from a prepared document. He doesn’t believe Iran wants to dominate Lebanon and believes the U.S. should establish good relations with Iran.

    Lebanese leaders were particularly angered with Israel’s aggressive attitude towards the Arab world and what they perceived as U.S. support for this attitude. They are most concerned with the negotiations that will decide the fate of the Palestinian refugees, the reason being that the refugees cannot receive citizenship in Lebanon and have created social and economic havoc for decades. Prime Minister Fouad Siniora was more sanguine and more universal in his characterization of what he termed to be an Arab/Israeli conflict. He considered Israel to be guilty of the situation and leading the world into a catastrophe that will affect all peoples. He allowed permission to quote him, and my notes show these remarks:

    “The Arab/Israel conflict is the maker of most problems and control of Jerusalem is a paramount issue. The conflict consumes most efforts in the region, is not restricted to the Middle East, and diverts attention from other meaningful issues in all regions. The conflict started from the Balfour Declaration, arose from the extent of injustice inflicted upon the Palestinian people, is leading to further frustration in the Arab world, and is generating extremism. The Israeli 1980 invasion created Hezbollah and a new set of problems. Now, Syria, and other parties (meaning Hezbollah), are not showing cooperation and want to keep issues unresolved. Nevertheless, President Bush has been unfair to Lebanon, Arab nations, and also to his own United States. The U.S. keeps preaching democracy but defends dictatorships.”

    Hezbollah, the Party of God, remains the contentious focus of Lebanon politics. Nevertheless, the Lebanese government has denominated Hezbollah as a resistance movement rather than a militia so that they can keep their arms, despite the truce agreement that banned militias. Hezbollah leaders are firm that they will never recognize Israel. Surprisingly, they favor a single democratic state where all peoples are equal and all religions can be practiced without interference. They claim to be politically secular and their government operations don’t contradict that thesis.

    Annapolis is 50 miles from the nation’s capital, but it is light years away from the hearts and minds of Arab peoples who want assurance of peace and stability in the Middle East. That is one observer’s conclusion from travels through the Middle East capitals.

    The post Turbulent Winds of the Last Peace Conference: Annapolis first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Can US Threats Prevent a Wider War in the Middle East?

    Protesters wave Palestinian, Lebanese, and Hezbollah flags and hold a picture of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah during a Palestine solidarity rally in Lebanon. (Credit: GETTY IMAGES)

    While Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has been frantically shuttling around the Middle East trying to stop the Israeli conflict in Gaza from exploding into a regional war, the United States has also sent two aircraft carrier strike groups, a Marine Expeditionary Unit and 1,200 extra troops to the Middle East as a “deterrent.” In plain language, the United States is threatening to attack any forces that come to the defense of the Palestinians from other countries in the region, reassuring Israel that it can keep killing with impunity in Gaza.

    But if Israel persists in this genocidal war, U.S. threats may be impotent to prevent others from intervening. From Lebanon to Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Iran, the possibilities of the conflict spreading are enormous. Even Algeria says it is ready to fight for a free Palestine, based on a unanimous vote in its parliament on November 1st.

    Middle Eastern governments and their people already see the United States as a party to Israel’s massacre in Gaza. So any direct U.S. military action will be seen as an escalation on the side of Israel and is more likely to provoke further escalation than to deter it.

    The United States already faces this predicament in Iraq. Despite years of Iraqi demands for the removal of U.S. forces, at least 2,500 U.S. troops remain at Al-Asad Airbase in western Anbar province, Al-Harir Airbase, north of Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan, and another small base at the airport in Erbil.  There are also “several hundred” NATO troops, including Americans, advising Iraqi forces in NATO Mission Iraq (NMI), based near Baghdad.

    For many years, U.S. forces in Iraq have been mired in a low-grade war against the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) that Iraq formed to fight ISIS, mainly from Shia militias. Despite their links to Iran, the armed groups Kata’ib Hezbollah, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq and other PMFs have often ignored Iranian calls to de-escalate attacks on U.S. forces. These Iraqi groups do not respect Iran Quds Force leader General Esmail Qaani as highly as they did General Soleimani, so Soleimani’s  assassination by the United States in 2020 has further reduced Iran’s ability to restrain the militias in Iraq.

    After a year-long truce between U.S. and Iraqi forces, the Israeli war on Gaza has triggered a new escalation of this conflict in both Iraq and Syria. Some militias rebranded themselves as the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, and began attacking U.S. bases on October 17. After 32 attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq, 34 more in Syria and 3 U.S. airstrikes in Syria, U.S. forces conducted airstrikes against two Kata’ib Hezbollah bases in Iraq, one in Anbar province and one in Jurf Al-Nasr, south of Baghdad, on November 21, killing at least nine militiamen.

    The U.S. airstrikes prompted a furious response from the Iraqi government spokesman Bassam al-Awadi. “We vehemently condemn the attack on Jurf Al-Nasr, executed without the knowledge of government agencies,” al-Awadi said. “This action is a blatant violation of sovereignty and an attempt to destabilize the security situation… The recent incident represents a clear violation of the coalition’s mission to combat Daesh (ISIS) on Iraqi soil. We call on all parties to avoid unilateral actions and to respect Iraq’s sovereignty…”

    As the Iraqi government feared, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq responded to the U.S. airstrikes with two attacks on Al-Harir airbase on November 22 and several more on November 23rd. They attacked Al-Asad airbase with several drones, launched another drone attack on the U.S. base at Erbil airport, and their allies in Syria attacked two U.S. bases across the border in northeastern Syria.

    Short of a ceasefire in Gaza or a full U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and Syria, there is no decisive action the U.S. can take that would put a stop to these attacks. So the level of violence in Iraq and Syria is likely to keep rising as long as the war on Gaza continues.

    Another formidable and experienced military force opposing Israel and the United States is the Houthi army in Yemen. On November 14, Abdul-Malek al-Houthi, the leader of the Houthi government in Yemen, asked neighboring countries to open a corridor through their territory for his army to go and fight Israel in Gaza.

    The Houthi Deputy Information Secretary Nasreddin Amer told Newsweek that if they had a way to enter Palestine, they would not hesitate to join the fight against Israel, ”We have fighters numbering hundreds of thousands who are brave, tough, trained and experienced in fighting,” Amer said. “They have a very strong belief, and their dream in life is to fight the Zionists and the Americans.”

    Transporting hundreds of thousands of Yemeni soldiers to fight in Gaza would be nearly impossible unless Saudi Arabia opened the way. That seems highly unlikely, but Iran or another ally could help to transport a smaller number by air or sea to join the fight.

    The Houthis have been waging an asymmetric war against Saudi-led invaders for many years, and they have developed weapons and tactics that they could bring to bear against Israel. Soon after al-Houthi’s statement, Yemeni forces in the Red Sea boarded a ship owned, via shell companies, by Israeli billionaire Abraham Ungar. The ship, which was on its way from Istanbul to India, was detained in a Yemeni port.

    The Houthis have also launched a series of drones and missiles towards Israel. While many members of Congress try to portray the Houthis as simply puppets of Iran, the Houthis are actually an independent, unpredictable force that other actors in the region cannot control.

    Even NATO ally Türkiye is finding it difficult to remain a bystander, given the widespread public support for Palestine. President Erdogan of Türkiye was among the first international leaders to speak out strongly against the Israeli war on Gaza, explicitly calling it a massacre and saying that it amounted to genocide.

    Turkish civil society groups are spearheading a campaign to send humanitarian aid to Gaza on cargo ships, braving a possible confrontation like the one that occurred in 2010 when the Israelis attacked the Freedom Flotilla, killing 10 people aboard the Mavi Marmara.

    On the Lebanese border, Israel and Hezbollah have conducted daily exchanges of fire since October 7, killing 97 combatants and 15 civilians in Lebanon and 9 soldiers and 3 civilians in Israel. Some 46,000 Lebanese civilians and 65,000 Israelis have been displaced from the border area. Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant warned on November 11, “What we’re doing in Gaza, we can also do in Beirut.”

    How will Hezbollah react if Israel resumes its brutal massacre in Gaza after the brief pause is over or if Israel expands the massacre to the West Bank, where it has already killed at least 237 more Palestinians since October 7?

    In a speech on November 3, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah held back from declaring a new war on Israel, but warned that “all options are on the table” if Israel does not end its war on Gaza.

    As Israel prepared to pause its bombing on November 23, Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian held meetings in Qatar, first with Nasrallah and Lebanese officials, and then with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

    In a public statement, Amirabdollahian said, “the continuation of the ceasefire can prevent further expansion of the scope of the war. In the meeting with the leaders of the resistance, I found out that if Israel’s war crimes and genocide continue, a tougher and more complicated scenario of the resistance will be implemented.”

    Amirabdollahian already warned on October 16 that, “The leaders of the resistance will not allow the Zionist regime to do whatever it wants in Gaza and then go to other fronts of the resistance.”

    In other words, if Iran and its allies believe that Israel really intends to continue its war on Gaza until it has removed Hamas from power, and then to turn its war machine loose on Lebanon or its other neighbors, they would prefer to fight a wider war now, forcing Israel to fight the Palestinians, Hezbollah and their allies at the same time, rather than waiting for Israel to attack them one by one.

    Tragically, the White House is not listening. The next day, President Biden continued to back Israel’s vow to resume the destruction of Gaza after its “humanitarian pause,” saying that attempting to eliminate Hamas is “a legitimate objective.”

    America’s unconditional support for Israel and endless supply of weapons have succeeded only in turning Israel into an out-of-control, genocidal, destabilizing force at the heart of a fragile region already shattered and traumatized by decades of U.S. war-making. The result is a country that refuses to recognize its own borders or those of its neighbors, and rejects any and all limits on its territorial ambitions and war crimes.

    If Israel’s actions lead to a wider war, the U.S. will find itself with few allies ready to jump into the fray. Even if a regional conflict is avoided, the U.S. support for Israel has already created tremendous damage to the U.S. reputation in the region and beyond, and direct U.S. involvement in the war would leave it more isolated and impotent than its previous misadventures in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.

    The United States can still avoid this fate by insisting on an immediate and permanent ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. If Israel will not agree to that, the U.S. must back up this position with an immediate suspension of arms deliveries, military aid, Israeli access to U.S. weapons stockpiles in Israel and diplomatic support for Israel’s war on Palestine.

    The priority of U.S. officials must be to stop Israel’s massacre, avoid a regional war, and get out of the way so that other nations can help negotiate a real solution to the occupation of Palestine.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • ECO announces Youth Award in art, culture, sports fields for member countries

    ISLAMABAD: The Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) has announced the ECO Youth Award in the fields of research projects including arts – preferably regional – culture and sports fields for the member states.

    The youths from the 10 member states will be eligible for the award including Iran, Pakistan, Turkiye, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, according to a message received from Pakistan Embassy in Tehran, where the ECO headquarters is also located, APP  reported.

    A total ten awards, one from each member state will be announced every year with a cash award of USD1,000 amongst the youth of 18-30 years of age, selected from the nominations made by each member state.

    The need for the expansion of relations among the peoples in the ECO region, along with the significant role of youth as a major driving force for the ECO countries development, has increased the importance of planning to maximize their optimal participation in the activities implemented by the ECO Cultural Institute (ECOCI).

    The Youth Award initiative has been proposed with the aim to discover young talent and to pave the way to further popularize ECO Cultural Institute.

    As there will be one winner from each member country, there will be no competition between countries.

    The award is presented annually to the winners selected from the nominations made by the ECO member countries on occasions such as the ECO Day.

    In order to identify the ECO top youth, call for nominations will be published on ECOCI website and the Ministry of Culture of each ECO member state will nominate up to a maximum of three persons.

    The Award Committee, comprising the Cultural Attachés of ECO member states in Tehran will judge and select one winner from each country.

    The ECO Award will be presented during a ceremony on the occasion of ECOCI Day/ECO Day.

    The post ECO announces Youth Award in art, culture, sports fields for member countries first appeared on VOSA.

    This post was originally published on VOSA.

  • NGO Statement on outcomes of the UNGA 78 Third Committee

    14 NGOs that closely follow and engage with the General Assembly Third Committee have published a joint statement on outcomes of this 78th sessionp

    The undersigned civil society organisations mark the conclusion of the UN General Assembly’s (GA) 78th Third Committee session with the following observations on both thematic and country-specific outcomes. We urge all States to implement the commitments they have made during this session to their full extent.

    We welcome the joint statement on reprisals, led by Ireland and Uruguay and joined by a cross-regional group of countries. The statement called on all States and the UN to prevent, respond to, and ensure accountability for cases of intimidation and reprisals against those who engage or seek to engage with the UN. Once again, 80 States signed on to the statement, and affirmed their commitment to freedom of expression and association; solidarity with defenders, civil society and victims of violations; and contributed to ensuring that UN bodies and processes are informed by, and respond effectively to, the needs of communities on the ground. We urge more States to sign on to future such statements. 

    We welcome the adoption of the biennial resolution on human rights defenders focusing on the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the 25th anniversary of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders. The resolution included strengthened language on women human rights defenders, defenders in conflict and post conflict situations and children defending human rights; as well as multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and defenders’ work to develop new human rights ideas. We welcome calls on States to refrain from internet shutdowns and restrictions including digital technologies, as well as on OHCHR to collect information on threats, attacks and cases of arbitrary detention. We now look to all States to implement these commitments and meaningfully progress the protection of human rights defenders.        

    We welcome the adoption of a strong resolution on the safety of journalists. This resolution adds new commitments for States on a wide range of issues, including on strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs), journalists covering protests, and gender-based harassment and abuse. The resolution also recognised the growing threat of generative artificial intelligence to the safety of journalists. We urge all States to translate these renewed international commitments into allocation of resources and political will at the national level to prevent, protect and remedy all human rights violations against journalists.

    A new resolution on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of digital technologies was adopted, advancing discussion on artificial intelligence at a critical time as the Global Digital Compact attempts a similarly comprehensive exercise. The text brings the omnibus coverage of the various Human Rights Council resolutions to the Third Committee, highlighting intersections of digital technologies, human rights, security and sustainable development, and crucially recognising that certain applications of digital technologies are incompatible with international human rights law. The text included language on racial and gender-based discrimination, business and human rights, privacy, targeted surveillance, data protection, freedom of expression, censorship and internet shutdowns. We hope to build on this broad foundation and strengthen elements on targeted surveillance, commercial spyware, biometric data in digital public infrastructure, and applications of artificial intelligence in future resolutions.

    The resolution on terrorism and human rights adopted by consensus underscores the importance of the promotion of human rights and meaningful participation of all of society in counter-terrorism efforts nationally and globally. This resolution offered an opportunity to reflect on changes in State violations in the name of counter-terrorism or national security, and to build on language on gender inclusivity, civil society engagement and the importance of international humanitarian law and humanitarian access included in the recent UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy and report by the Special Rapporteur on human rights and counter terrorism. However, as the resolution was a technical rollover from GA76, we regret that this opportunity was not seized this session and hope that future resolutions will build upon these advancements.

    We welcome the adoption of the resolution on strengthening the role of the UN in the promotion of democratization and enhancing periodic and genuine elections, focusing on media freedom and freedom of expression, presented by the US. The role of human rights defenders, as well as States’ obligation to ensure the right of all to participate in elections and to take steps to eliminate policies and practices discriminating on various grounds was maintained in the text. Critically, for the second time, the text recognised women and girls in all their diversity, and listed sexual orientation and gender identity as prohibited grounds of discrimination; despite votes being called to amend those references. Consensus was broken on the resolution for the first time, but was ultimately adopted by an overwhelming majority. 

    We welcome the adoption by consensus of the resolution on the rights of Indigenous Peoples. We specifically welcome calls on States to ensure the protection and safety of indigenous human rights defenders, and to prevent and investigate human rights violations, killings, reprisals and abuses against them.

    The rights of the Child resolution, focusing on the digital environment, was adopted by consensus. Despite the timeline precluding a full consideration of the lengthy text and risking an imbalanced update, we welcome the co-facilitators’ decision to open the full text for negotiation, to include updates related to the theme and references to General Comments 25 and 26 of the Committee on the Rights of the Child. We welcome retention of agreed language, and updates, including: bridging digital divides; protection from violence, harassment and abuse in the digital environment; access to information and impacts of digital acceleration on education access; sexual and reproductive health; multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination; and private sector responsibilities. We are disappointed however by decisions to delete agreed language on the full, equal and meaningful participation of girls, delete paragraphs on COVID-19 that resulted in lost language on children’s rights, to remove language on specific challenges facing girls, and to include new non-agreed language on the common responsibilities of parents.

    Gender related resolutions

    The resolution on policies and Programmes Involving Youth presented by Cabo Verde, Kazakhstan and Portugal, was adopted by consensus. The zero-draft was slimmed down in a streamlining exercise, leading to the exclusion of human rights frameworks and a focus on reinserting previously agreed language. We are pleased that references to multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination, sexual and gender based violence, sexual and reproductive health services, menstrual health, comprehensive education and human rights frameworks were retained.  However we regret that despite significant support from Member States, agreed language from the previous resolution on sexual and reproductive health and rights, menstrual hygiene management, marginalised persons and situations, comprehensive sexuality education, as well as references to adolescents were not included in the final text.

    We welcome the adoption by consensus of the resolution on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation (WASH), presented by Germany and Spain, that included new references to menstrual health and hygiene management, sexual and reproductive health-care services, and sexual and gender-based violence. Language was maintained on the stigmatising effect of lack of menstrual health and hygiene management on young women and girls; as well as inequalities caused by COVID-19 in accessing adequate WASH services especially for women, girls and persons in vulnerable situations, adversely impacting gender equality and women’s empowerment. We regret that, despite significant support, references to multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and sexual and gender-based violence were either omitted or diluted in the final text, neglecting the need to comprehensively address various forms of violence and discrimination women and girls face when accessing water and sanitation. 

    We welcome the adoption by consensus of the violence against women migrant workers resolution presented by Indonesia and the Philippines. The resolution includes new references to gender-based violence through digital technologies, particularly impacting women migrant workers in transit and in destination countries; as well as root causes of migration, including climate change, the availability of equitable work and inequitable ownership of local resources, which undermine women’s empowerment. Strengthened recognition of domestic and care migrant workers as a particularly vulnerable group who can face exploitation, violence, and abuse due to the informal nature of their employment was included. We regret that despite significant support, additional references to sexual and reproductive health, intimate partner violence, and multiple and intersection forms of discrimination were omitted in the final text. We echo the resolution’s call to all Member States to protect all migrant women from harassment and violence, regardless of migration status.

    The resolution on the Girl Child, presented by the Southern African Development Community (SADC), was adopted by consensus. We welcome the retention of agreed language, as well as the theme proposed for the Secretary General’s Report to the eightieth GA session on the impact of digital technologies on girls, and related language updates. However, we deeply regret   that the circulation of the text did not allow sufficient time for a comprehensive and substantive update. We are disappointed that the only other update to the text was the unprecedented inclusion of language on family-oriented and family-policies. In the absence of references to other policies that aim to realise the rights of girls in all their diversity, this new inclusion results in an imbalanced text that fails to fully recognize and address the challenges they face. Given the rapidly changing global landscape for girls and that last substantive revision of this text was in 2017, a comprehensive update to this resolution remains crucial.

    The resolution on rural women was adopted by consensus and co-sponsored by more than 60 Member States. We welcome the retention of agreed language that recognizes the impact of historical and structural power relations, gender stereotypes and negative social norms on the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls, particularly those living in rural areas. We also welcome that the resolution urges Member States to implement policies and programs that promote and protect the human rights of women and girls, address sexual and gender-based violence and multiple intersecting forms of discrimination, and strengthen measures to ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights. We, however, deeply regret that several proposals to further strengthen the resolution that were supported by many Member States were not retained in the final draft including on the particular challenges women and girls living in rural areas face in accessing sexual and reproductive health services, and references to women and girls in all their diversity. 

    The resolution on follow up to the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action presented by Bangladesh was adopted by consensus. We welcome the text, which includes new references to the high-level meeting on universal health coverage, the universality of the 2030 agenda and their role in achieving gender equality, and to the UN system-wide Knowledge Hub on addressing sexual harassment. It also calls for a high-level meeting at the 80th General Assembly to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women, and to accelerate the realisation of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls. We regret that proposed text on multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and on the importance of the realisation of sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights was not included in the final document. 

    COUNTRY SITUATIONS

    The joint statement on the human rights situation in Xinjiang, China delivered by the UK on behalf of a cross-regional group of 51 countries is a strong message to Chinese authorities regarding growing concerns about abuses against Turkic Muslim communities. This year, there are new signatories from several regional groups. The statement emphasises the serious human rights violations Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim communities continue to suffer in Xinjiang, and echoes the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights’ August 2022 report, which concluded that the abuses ‘may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity.’ The statement notes that a year has passed since the release of the OHCHR report, and China has yet to engage constructively with its findings. It urges China to end its human rights violations, engage constructively with the OHCHR, and fully implement the reports’ recommendations. With only one more State signature than the 2022 joint statement, work remains to be done to ensure broader support from Member States to hold China accountable for its human rights violations including from Muslim-majority countries.

    Resolutions 

    While we support the below resolutions that highlight violations of human rights in specific countries, we acknowledge the existence of human rights violations in many other countries that also merit the attention of the UN General Assembly and look forward to a time when they are also considered in the Third Committee.

    The resolution on the human rights situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran was adopted following a vote (80 in favour; 65 against; 29 abstentions). Initiated by Canada and a core group and cosponsored by 50 countries, this comprehensive resolution calls on Iran to uphold the rights of all citizens. It specifically calls on Iran to prohibit child, early and forced marriage, female genital mutilation, children being subject to the death penalty, torture and other inhuman treatment. It condemns fundamental rights violations, the frequent imposition of the death penalty, intensified and targeted repression of women and girls, the use of surveillance and force against non violent protesters, and poor prison conditions. It also calls for an end to all discrimination and violations against ethnic, linguistic and other minorities as well as recognized and unrecognised religious minorities, including Baha’is who continue to suffer various violations including persecution, mass arrests, lengthy prison sentences. 

    We welcome the adoption of the resolution on the situation of human rights in the Syrian Arab Republic. We particularly welcome new references to the victim- and survivor-centric Independent Institution on Missing Persons, a mechanism established by the UN General Assembly this June, to help clarify the fate and whereabouts of all missing persons in Syria. However, we are disappointed that the resolutions’ co-sponsors orally amended the text to remove a critical paragraph that would have mandated a regular report on humanitarian access in the country. Not only would this report have specifically highlighted instances where humanitarian access was not full, timely, unrestricted or sustained; it would have filled a gap left by the failure to renew the Security Council-mandated cross-border humanitarian mechanism earlier this year. 

    The consensus adoption of the resolution on the human rights situation in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) demonstrates that Member States remain deeply concerned about the appalling abuses committed by the DPRK authorities. We welcome in particular the inclusion of language on accountability. We also welcome language stressing the linkages between the human rights situation in the country, including with respect to the rights of women and girls, and the continuing diversion of DPRK’s resources to pursuing nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes over the welfare of its people. 

    The resolution on the situation of human rights of Rohingya Muslims and other minorities in Myanmar, which was adopted by consensus, once again does not reiterate key elements of the 2021 UNGA resolution which followed the military coup in February 2021. The resolution fails to comprehensively address ongoing and escalating human rights violations by the military, despite the Special Rapporteur on Myanmar’s warning that a ‘raging fire of brutality’ is engulfing the country. The resolution however recognizes the impacts of militarization aggravated by the continued access to arms from abroad, reiterates protection needs of the Rohingya and calls for all necessary measures to be taken to provide justice to victims and ensure accountability.

    The resolution on the situation of human rights in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, including the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol was adopted by vote. The resolution strongly condemns intensifying crackdowns against journalists and other media workers, human rights defenders and civil rights activists, as well as forcible transfers of Ukrainian children and other civilians to the temporarily controlled or occupied territories of Ukraine and their deportation to the Russian Federation. The resolution further calls on Russia to cease all violations and abuses, including discriminatory measures and practices, arbitrary detentions and arrests within the framework of the so-called filtration procedures, enforced disappearances, torture, sexual and gender-based violence, including compeling apprehended persons to self-incriminate or ‘cooperate” with law enforcement, ensure fair trial, and revoke all discriminatory legislation.

    CIVIL SOCIETY ACCESS While we welcome the action by some States to invite civil society organisations to join informals as observers this session, it was disappointing that only a few States extended this invitation. This year, once again, civil society encountered challenges in staying informed about informal negotiations. The schedule of these informal sessions, previously available in the UN journal until 2019, was once again absent from the said journal. Instead, it was exclusively published on the e-deleGATE platform, to which civil society does not have access.These critical barriers to civil society access to Third Committee negotiations deprive the Committee of civil society’s technical expertise and mean that its outcomes fail to leverage the contributions of a crucial stakeholder in promoting the implementation of human rights.

    SIGNATORIES

    Access Now 

    Amnesty International

    ARTICLE 19

    Association for Progressive Communications – APC

    Center for Reproductive Rights 

    CIVICUS

    Fòs Feminista

    Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect

    Human Rights in China

    Human Rights Watch

    International Center for Not-for-Profit Law

    International Service for Human Rights

    Outright International

    Women Deliver

    https://ishr.ch/latest-updates/joint-civil-society-statement-on-outcomes-of-the-unga-78-third-committee/

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

  • Iranian mother jailed for 13 years after denouncing death of son shot at protest

    Mahsa Yazdani convicted of blasphemy and ‘insulting supreme leader’ as Iran regime targets families of those killed in protests

    A mother in Iran, whose son was reportedly killed after being shot repeatedly at close range by security forces, has been sentenced to 13 years in prison by an Iranian court after she demanded justice for her child on social media.

    Mahsa Yazdani, whose 20-year-old son Mohammad Javad Zahedi was killed at an anti-regime protest in September 2022, was convicted on charges of blasphemy, incitement, insulting the supreme leader, and spreading anti-regime propaganda, according to human rights groups and family members. They say she will serve the first five years with no chance of parole.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Israel’s Lies and Deception

    We are won over by “words that work” from an Israeli training manual.

    Hasbara has become a dirty word, thanks to it’s dirt practitioners and the dirty job they are trained to do.

    It’s Hebrew for Israel’s sophisticated public relations machinery that’s set up to cynically justify the Jewish entity’s crimes and to create for Israel a “brand image” completely at odds with the ugly truth.

    Fiction and distortion are among hasbara’s standard propaganda tools used for spinning fairy tales and propagating disinformation. And it is very effective, up to a point. The reason why it will ultimately fail is that it has very poor material to work with. You cannot behave like psychopaths and disguise it forever. You cannot trample other peoples’ rights and freedoms, and destroy their property, and expect to be loved. You cannot keep your jackboot on your neighbour’s neck for 75 years and expect to call yourself civilised and in tune with Western values. You cannot steal his lands, water and livelihood at gunpoint and claim the moral high ground.

    And you certainly cannot create a wholesome brand image from bullshit.

    I wrote this 10 years ago, and nothing has changed, only got worse.

    Israel’s book of lies

    The great mystery is why Western politicians and media outlets, after 75 years of Israel’s existence, are still so ignorant about what’s been happening and the countless crimes committed in pursuit of Zionist ambitions.

    Israel’s propagandists have a training manual that teaches the art of hasbara – the sugarcoating techniques and downright lying to persuade the gullible to swallow their poison.

    Notice how everything Israelis dislike, and everything that thwarts their lust for domination, is now labelled “Iranian-backed” or “Hamas controlled”. They’d have us all believe we are in mortal danger from Iran and must huddle together in a collective act of aggression orchestrated by Tel Aviv, Washington and London.

    The 116-page instruction manual, called the 2009 Global Language Dictionary, was produced by The Israel Project (TIP), which says it is “devoted to educating the press and the public about Israel while promoting security, freedom and peace”. It was written specially for those “on the front lines of fighting the media war for Israel”.

    TIP provides journalists, leaders and opinion-formers with “accurate information about Israel”. Its purpose is to help the worldwide Zionist movement win the propaganda war by persuading international audiences to accept the Israeli narrative and agree that the regime’s crimes are necessary for Israel’s security and in line with “shared values” between Israel and the West. And because God gave them the keys to the Holy Land, their abominable behaviour is deserving of our support.

    I suspect Messrs Rishi Sunak, James Cleverly, Keir Starmer and the rest of Israel’s stooges in Westminster carry this training manual in their pocket, which accounts for the claptrap they constantly spout and their inexplicable infatuation with the rogue state.

    The manual teaches the propaganda tricks that Israel’s scribblers and drivelers use to try to justify the slaughter, the ethnic cleansing, the land-grabbing, the cruelty and its contempt for international law and UN resolutions, and make it all smell sweet.

    They tell us, for example, how many rockets are fired from Gaza into Israel but never how many bombs, rockets and shells (including the illegal and prohibited kind) Israel’s US-taxpayer-funded F-16s, tanks, armed drones and navy gunboats pour into the densely-packed humanity that is Gaza.

    And they are careful not to mention, for example, that Ben Gurion airport, which serves Tel Aviv, was formerly Lydda airport. Lydda was a major Arab town and communications hub during the British Mandate and designated Palestinian in the 1947 UN Partition Plan. In July 1948 Israeli terrorists seized the town, shot it up and drove out the population. Donald Neff reported how the Israelis massacred 426 men, women and children. Some 176 were slaughtered in the town’s main mosque.

    Out of a population of 19,000, only 1,052 were allowed to stay. Others who survived the killing spree were forced to walk into exile in the scalding July heat, leaving a trail of bodies – men, women and children – along the way. Israel has no right to Lydda at all – they stole it in a terror raid, just like Najd/Sderot and hundreds of other Palestinian cities, towns and villages.

    “Captain of Spin” returns

    I’m horrified to see Mark Regev making a comeback to our screens and being interviewed by British media. Regev (real name Freiberg) is an ace propagandist, master of disinformation, whitewasher extraordinaire and personal adviser and spokesman for the apartheid regime’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu.

    While he was ambassador to the UK one of his senior political officers, Shai Masot, plotted with stooges among British MPs and other maggots in the political woodwork to “take down” senior government figures, including Sir Alan Duncan at the Foreign Office. Masot’s hostile scheming was captured and revealed by an Al Jazeera undercover investigation and not, regrettably, by Britain’s own security services and press. “The UK has a strong relationship with Israel and we consider the matter closed,” said the British government afterwards.

    It should have resulted in Regev being kicked out, but he wasn’t.

    Regev is quoted several times in the Global Language Dictionary in its attempts to justify Israel’s slaughter, ethnic cleansing, land-grabbing, cruelty and blatant disregard for international law and United Nations resolutions, and to make it all smell sweeter with a liberal squirt of persuasive language. It also incites hatred, particularly towards Hamas and Iran, and is designed to hoodwink all us simple-minded Americans and Europeans into believing we actually share values with the racist regime, and therefore ought to support and forgive its abominable behaviour.

    Readers are instructed to “clearly differentiate between the Palestinian people and Hamas” and to drive a wedge between them. The manual features “Words that work” – that is to say, carefully constructed language to deflect criticism and reframe all issues and arguments in Israel’s favour. A statement at the very beginning sets the tone: “Remember, it’s not what you say that counts. It’s what people hear.”

    Here’s an example:

    Israel made painful sacrifices and took a risk to give peace a chance. They voluntarily removed over 9,000 settlers from Gaza and parts of the West Bank, abandoning homes, schools, businesses and places of worship in the hopes of renewing the peace process.

    Despite making an overture for peace by withdrawing from Gaza, Israel continues to face terrorist attacks, including rocket attacks and drive-by shootings of innocent Israelis. Israel knows that for a lasting peace, they must be free from terrorism and live with defensible borders.

    Actually, Israel made no sacrifices at all – Gaza wasn’t theirs to keep and staying was unsustainable. Although they removed their settlers and troops, they continued to occupy Gaza’s airspace and coastal waters and control all entrances and exits, thus keeping the population bottled up and provoking acts of resistance that give Israel a bogus excuse to turn Gaza into a prison.

    International law regards Israel as still the occupier.

    The manual also serves as a communications primer for the army of cyber-scribblers that Israel’s Ministry of Dirty Tricks recruited to spread Zionism’s poison across the internet. It uses some of Regev’s words to provide disinformation essential to the hasbara programme. We’re told, for example, that the most effective way to build support for Israel is to talk about “working toward a lasting peace” that “respects the rights of everyone in the region”.

    Here are a few more:

    We welcome and we support international efforts to help the Palestinians. So, once again, the Palestinian people are not our enemy. On the contrary, we want peace with the Palestinians.

    We’re interested in a historical reconciliation. Enough violence. Enough war. And we support international efforts to help the Palestinians both on the humanitarian level and to build a more successful democratic society. That’s in everyone’s interest.

    The central lie, of course, is that Israel wants peace. It doesn’t. It never has. Peace simply does not suit Israel’s purpose, which is endless expansion and control. That is why Israel has never declared its borders, maintains its brutal military occupation and continues its programme of illegal squats, or so-called “settlements”, deep inside Palestinian territory, intending to create sufficient “facts on the ground” to ensure permanent occupation and annexation.

    Q: Why did Israel use disproportionate force in Gaza?

    A: The devastation in Gaza is heartbreaking. So much suffering that was so unnecessary. And none of it had to happen.

    Israel left Gaza – uprooting 9,000 Israeli families, and turned it over, peacefully, to the Palestinians. They had every opportunity to succeed: support from the international community, financial aid from across the globe, and the aspirations of the people.

    Israel gave up Gaza with every hope that this was the first step towards peace with the Palestinians, and all they got was rockets in return. Not dozens. Not hundreds. Thousands of rockets. Not monthly. Not weekly. Literally daily. Even since the fighting in Gaza stopped, more than 160 rockets been fired from Gaza towards Israel since Israel stopped fighting.

    What would you have done – or wanted your government to do – if you and your family were under rocket attack every day? When will the terrorists in Gaza stop shooting rockets at Israeli civilians?

    You and I wouldn’t have been so stupid as to live on land we’d stolen from the Palestinians at gunpoint.

    It was the former UN secretary-general, Kofi Anan, that put four benchmarks on the table. And he said, speaking for the international community that

    If Hamas reforms itself…

    If Hamas recognises my country’s right to live in freedom…

    If Hamas renounces terrorism against innocent civilians…

    If Hamas supports international agreements that are being signed and agreed to concerning the peace process… then the door is open. But unfortunately – tragically – Hamas has failed to meet even one of those four benchmarks. And that’s why today Hamas is isolated internationally. Even the United Nations refuses to speak to Hamas.

    Which of those benchmarks has Israel met, Mr Regev?

    Iran must be demonised too, so Regev’s twisted wisdom is used again:

    Israel is very concerned about the Iranian nuclear programme. And for good reason.

    Iran’s president openly talks about wiping Israel off the map. We see them racing ahead on nuclear enrichment so they can have enough fissile material to build a bomb. We see them working on their ballistic missiles…. The Iranian nuclear programme is a threat, not just to my country, but to the entire region. And it’s incumbent upon us all to do what needs to be done to keep from proliferating.

    But how safe is the region under the threat of Israel’s nukes? Why is Israel the only state in the region not to have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty? Are we all supposed to believe that Israel’s 200 (or is it 400?) nuclear warheads pose no threat? And why hasn’t Israel signed the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, and why has it has signed but not ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, similarly the Chemical Weapons Convention?

    As for “wiping Israel off the map”, accurate translations of that remark by former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are: “This regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time” (The Guardian), or “This regime that is occupying Qods [Jerusalem] must be eliminated from the pages of history” (Middle East Media Research Institute). Ahmadinejad was actually repeating a statement once made by Ayatollah Khomeini.

    And one more:

    When asked a direct question, you don’t have to answer it directly. You are in control of what you say and how you say it. Remember, your goal in doing interviews is not only to answer questions—it is to bring persuadable members of the audience to Israel’s side in the conflict. Start by acknowledging their question and agreeing that both sides – Israelis and Palestinians – deserve a better future. Remind your audience that Israel wants peace. Then focus on shared values. Once you have done this you will have built enough support for you to say what Israel really wants: for the Palestinians to end the violence and the culture of hate so that fences and checkpoints are no longer needed and both sides can live in peace. And for Iran for Iran-backed terrorists in Gaza to stop shooting rockets into Israel so that both sides can have a better future.

    A simple rule of thumb is that once you get to the point of repeating the same message over and over again so many times that you think you might get sick – that is just about the time the public will wake up and say “Hey—this person just might be saying something interesting to me!

    Why is all this elaborate lying and misquoting necessary? It’s the good old Mossad motto “By deception we shall do war”, ingrained in the Israeli mindset.

    And I’m even more horrified to have just seen Trevor Phillips giving Tzipi Livni a platform. This vile woman, Israel’s former foreign minister, was largely responsible for the terror that brought death and destruction to Gaza’s civilians during the blitzkrieg known as Operation Cast Lead. Showing no remorse, and with the blood of 1,400 dead Gazans (including 320 children and 109 women) on her hands and thousands more horribly maimed, Livni’s office issued a statement saying she was proud of it. Speaking later at a conference at Tel Aviv’s Institute for Security Studies, she said: “I would today take the same decisions.”

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Israel’s Lies and Deception

    We are won over by “words that work” from an Israeli training manual.

    Hasbara has become a dirty word, thanks to it’s dirt practitioners and the dirty job they are trained to do.

    It’s Hebrew for Israel’s sophisticated public relations machinery that’s set up to cynically justify the Jewish entity’s crimes and to create for Israel a “brand image” completely at odds with the ugly truth.

    Fiction and distortion are among hasbara’s standard propaganda tools used for spinning fairy tales and propagating disinformation. And it is very effective, up to a point. The reason why it will ultimately fail is that it has very poor material to work with. You cannot behave like psychopaths and disguise it forever. You cannot trample other peoples’ rights and freedoms, and destroy their property, and expect to be loved. You cannot keep your jackboot on your neighbour’s neck for 75 years and expect to call yourself civilised and in tune with Western values. You cannot steal his lands, water and livelihood at gunpoint and claim the moral high ground.

    And you certainly cannot create a wholesome brand image from bullshit.

    I wrote this 10 years ago, and nothing has changed, only got worse.

    Israel’s book of lies

    The great mystery is why Western politicians and media outlets, after 75 years of Israel’s existence, are still so ignorant about what’s been happening and the countless crimes committed in pursuit of Zionist ambitions.

    Israel’s propagandists have a training manual that teaches the art of hasbara – the sugarcoating techniques and downright lying to persuade the gullible to swallow their poison.

    Notice how everything Israelis dislike, and everything that thwarts their lust for domination, is now labelled “Iranian-backed” or “Hamas controlled”. They’d have us all believe we are in mortal danger from Iran and must huddle together in a collective act of aggression orchestrated by Tel Aviv, Washington and London.

    The 116-page instruction manual, called the 2009 Global Language Dictionary, was produced by The Israel Project (TIP), which says it is “devoted to educating the press and the public about Israel while promoting security, freedom and peace”. It was written specially for those “on the front lines of fighting the media war for Israel”.

    TIP provides journalists, leaders and opinion-formers with “accurate information about Israel”. Its purpose is to help the worldwide Zionist movement win the propaganda war by persuading international audiences to accept the Israeli narrative and agree that the regime’s crimes are necessary for Israel’s security and in line with “shared values” between Israel and the West. And because God gave them the keys to the Holy Land, their abominable behaviour is deserving of our support.

    I suspect Messrs Rishi Sunak, James Cleverly, Keir Starmer and the rest of Israel’s stooges in Westminster carry this training manual in their pocket, which accounts for the claptrap they constantly spout and their inexplicable infatuation with the rogue state.

    The manual teaches the propaganda tricks that Israel’s scribblers and drivelers use to try to justify the slaughter, the ethnic cleansing, the land-grabbing, the cruelty and its contempt for international law and UN resolutions, and make it all smell sweet.

    They tell us, for example, how many rockets are fired from Gaza into Israel but never how many bombs, rockets and shells (including the illegal and prohibited kind) Israel’s US-taxpayer-funded F-16s, tanks, armed drones and navy gunboats pour into the densely-packed humanity that is Gaza.

    And they are careful not to mention, for example, that Ben Gurion airport, which serves Tel Aviv, was formerly Lydda airport. Lydda was a major Arab town and communications hub during the British Mandate and designated Palestinian in the 1947 UN Partition Plan. In July 1948 Israeli terrorists seized the town, shot it up and drove out the population. Donald Neff reported how the Israelis massacred 426 men, women and children. Some 176 were slaughtered in the town’s main mosque.

    Out of a population of 19,000, only 1,052 were allowed to stay. Others who survived the killing spree were forced to walk into exile in the scalding July heat, leaving a trail of bodies – men, women and children – along the way. Israel has no right to Lydda at all – they stole it in a terror raid, just like Najd/Sderot and hundreds of other Palestinian cities, towns and villages.

    “Captain of Spin” returns

    I’m horrified to see Mark Regev making a comeback to our screens and being interviewed by British media. Regev (real name Freiberg) is an ace propagandist, master of disinformation, whitewasher extraordinaire and personal adviser and spokesman for the apartheid regime’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu.

    While he was ambassador to the UK one of his senior political officers, Shai Masot, plotted with stooges among British MPs and other maggots in the political woodwork to “take down” senior government figures, including Sir Alan Duncan at the Foreign Office. Masot’s hostile scheming was captured and revealed by an Al Jazeera undercover investigation and not, regrettably, by Britain’s own security services and press. “The UK has a strong relationship with Israel and we consider the matter closed,” said the British government afterwards.

    It should have resulted in Regev being kicked out, but he wasn’t.

    Regev is quoted several times in the Global Language Dictionary in its attempts to justify Israel’s slaughter, ethnic cleansing, land-grabbing, cruelty and blatant disregard for international law and United Nations resolutions, and to make it all smell sweeter with a liberal squirt of persuasive language. It also incites hatred, particularly towards Hamas and Iran, and is designed to hoodwink all us simple-minded Americans and Europeans into believing we actually share values with the racist regime, and therefore ought to support and forgive its abominable behaviour.

    Readers are instructed to “clearly differentiate between the Palestinian people and Hamas” and to drive a wedge between them. The manual features “Words that work” – that is to say, carefully constructed language to deflect criticism and reframe all issues and arguments in Israel’s favour. A statement at the very beginning sets the tone: “Remember, it’s not what you say that counts. It’s what people hear.”

    Here’s an example:

    Israel made painful sacrifices and took a risk to give peace a chance. They voluntarily removed over 9,000 settlers from Gaza and parts of the West Bank, abandoning homes, schools, businesses and places of worship in the hopes of renewing the peace process.

    Despite making an overture for peace by withdrawing from Gaza, Israel continues to face terrorist attacks, including rocket attacks and drive-by shootings of innocent Israelis. Israel knows that for a lasting peace, they must be free from terrorism and live with defensible borders.

    Actually, Israel made no sacrifices at all – Gaza wasn’t theirs to keep and staying was unsustainable. Although they removed their settlers and troops, they continued to occupy Gaza’s airspace and coastal waters and control all entrances and exits, thus keeping the population bottled up and provoking acts of resistance that give Israel a bogus excuse to turn Gaza into a prison.

    International law regards Israel as still the occupier.

    The manual also serves as a communications primer for the army of cyber-scribblers that Israel’s Ministry of Dirty Tricks recruited to spread Zionism’s poison across the internet. It uses some of Regev’s words to provide disinformation essential to the hasbara programme. We’re told, for example, that the most effective way to build support for Israel is to talk about “working toward a lasting peace” that “respects the rights of everyone in the region”.

    Here are a few more:

    We welcome and we support international efforts to help the Palestinians. So, once again, the Palestinian people are not our enemy. On the contrary, we want peace with the Palestinians.

    We’re interested in a historical reconciliation. Enough violence. Enough war. And we support international efforts to help the Palestinians both on the humanitarian level and to build a more successful democratic society. That’s in everyone’s interest.

    The central lie, of course, is that Israel wants peace. It doesn’t. It never has. Peace simply does not suit Israel’s purpose, which is endless expansion and control. That is why Israel has never declared its borders, maintains its brutal military occupation and continues its programme of illegal squats, or so-called “settlements”, deep inside Palestinian territory, intending to create sufficient “facts on the ground” to ensure permanent occupation and annexation.

    Q: Why did Israel use disproportionate force in Gaza?

    A: The devastation in Gaza is heartbreaking. So much suffering that was so unnecessary. And none of it had to happen.

    Israel left Gaza – uprooting 9,000 Israeli families, and turned it over, peacefully, to the Palestinians. They had every opportunity to succeed: support from the international community, financial aid from across the globe, and the aspirations of the people.

    Israel gave up Gaza with every hope that this was the first step towards peace with the Palestinians, and all they got was rockets in return. Not dozens. Not hundreds. Thousands of rockets. Not monthly. Not weekly. Literally daily. Even since the fighting in Gaza stopped, more than 160 rockets been fired from Gaza towards Israel since Israel stopped fighting.

    What would you have done – or wanted your government to do – if you and your family were under rocket attack every day? When will the terrorists in Gaza stop shooting rockets at Israeli civilians?

    You and I wouldn’t have been so stupid as to live on land we’d stolen from the Palestinians at gunpoint.

    It was the former UN secretary-general, Kofi Anan, that put four benchmarks on the table. And he said, speaking for the international community that

    If Hamas reforms itself…

    If Hamas recognises my country’s right to live in freedom…

    If Hamas renounces terrorism against innocent civilians…

    If Hamas supports international agreements that are being signed and agreed to concerning the peace process… then the door is open. But unfortunately – tragically – Hamas has failed to meet even one of those four benchmarks. And that’s why today Hamas is isolated internationally. Even the United Nations refuses to speak to Hamas.

    Which of those benchmarks has Israel met, Mr Regev?

    Iran must be demonised too, so Regev’s twisted wisdom is used again:

    Israel is very concerned about the Iranian nuclear programme. And for good reason.

    Iran’s president openly talks about wiping Israel off the map. We see them racing ahead on nuclear enrichment so they can have enough fissile material to build a bomb. We see them working on their ballistic missiles…. The Iranian nuclear programme is a threat, not just to my country, but to the entire region. And it’s incumbent upon us all to do what needs to be done to keep from proliferating.

    But how safe is the region under the threat of Israel’s nukes? Why is Israel the only state in the region not to have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty? Are we all supposed to believe that Israel’s 200 (or is it 400?) nuclear warheads pose no threat? And why hasn’t Israel signed the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, and why has it has signed but not ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, similarly the Chemical Weapons Convention?

    As for “wiping Israel off the map”, accurate translations of that remark by former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are: “This regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time” (The Guardian), or “This regime that is occupying Qods [Jerusalem] must be eliminated from the pages of history” (Middle East Media Research Institute). Ahmadinejad was actually repeating a statement once made by Ayatollah Khomeini.

    And one more:

    When asked a direct question, you don’t have to answer it directly. You are in control of what you say and how you say it. Remember, your goal in doing interviews is not only to answer questions—it is to bring persuadable members of the audience to Israel’s side in the conflict. Start by acknowledging their question and agreeing that both sides – Israelis and Palestinians – deserve a better future. Remind your audience that Israel wants peace. Then focus on shared values. Once you have done this you will have built enough support for you to say what Israel really wants: for the Palestinians to end the violence and the culture of hate so that fences and checkpoints are no longer needed and both sides can live in peace. And for Iran for Iran-backed terrorists in Gaza to stop shooting rockets into Israel so that both sides can have a better future.

    A simple rule of thumb is that once you get to the point of repeating the same message over and over again so many times that you think you might get sick – that is just about the time the public will wake up and say “Hey—this person just might be saying something interesting to me!

    Why is all this elaborate lying and misquoting necessary? It’s the good old Mossad motto “By deception we shall do war”, ingrained in the Israeli mindset.

    And I’m even more horrified to have just seen Trevor Phillips giving Tzipi Livni a platform. This vile woman, Israel’s former foreign minister, was largely responsible for the terror that brought death and destruction to Gaza’s civilians during the blitzkrieg known as Operation Cast Lead. Showing no remorse, and with the blood of 1,400 dead Gazans (including 320 children and 109 women) on her hands and thousands more horribly maimed, Livni’s office issued a statement saying she was proud of it. Speaking later at a conference at Tel Aviv’s Institute for Security Studies, she said: “I would today take the same decisions.”

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Iran arrests lawyer at funeral of girl who died after metro incident

    Nasrin Sotoudeh arrested at funeral of Armita Garawand, who died after alleged encounter with morality police

    Iranian authorities have arrested a prominent lawyer and human rights defender as she attended the funeral of a teenage girl who died after a disputed metro incident, her husband has said.

    Nasrin Sotoudeh was arrested on Sunday in Tehran during the funeral of 16-year-old Armita Garawand, who died a day earlier after nearly a month in intensive care.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • US ‘deeply saddened’ by death of Iranian teenager after alleged hijab encounter

    Armita Geravand had been in a coma after alleged incident with Iran’s ‘morality police’ on Tehran metro

    The United States has spoken of its deep sadness over the death of a young Iranian girl, Armita Garawand, who had been in a coma after a controversial incident in Tehran’s metro.

    “I am deeply saddened to learn that Amita Geravand has died after being beaten by Iran’s morality police for not wearing a hijab in public,” US National Security advisor Jake Sullivan said on X. “Iran’s state sponsored violence against its own people is appalling and underscores the fragility of the regime.”

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Iranian teenager dies after alleged hijab encounter with officers, reports say

    Armita Geravand, 16, fell into coma on 1 October and was pronounced brain dead last week

    A 16-year-old Iranian girl has died after an alleged encounter with officers over violating the country’s hijab law, state media and activists have said.

    Iran has denied that Armita Geravand was hurt after a confrontation on 1 October with officers enforcing the mandatory Islamic dress code in the Tehran metro. She had been pronounced brain dead last week after falling into a coma on 1 October.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • US Bombs Syria Amid Escalating Fears of Wider Regional Conflagration

    The U.S. military early Friday carried out airstrikes on two sites in eastern Syria that the Pentagon claims are used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and allied groups, a move that came amid mounting fears that Israel’s ongoing, U.S.-backed assault on Gaza could spark a broader regional war in the Middle East. The strikes were carried out at the direction of U.S.

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Hamas uses N Korea, Iran arms in its Israel assault, military says

    Hamas has used weapons sourced from North Korea and Iran to target Israel, the Israeli military said, supporting Radio Free Asia’s earlier report on the alleged arms connection between the North and Hamas.

    Hamas used Iranian-made mortar rounds and North Korean rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) in its attack against Israel on Oct. 7, the Israeli military stated during an official media tour Thursday, as reported by AFP.

    “I think about five to 10 percent of the weapons here [were] made in Iran,” an Israeli military official, who asked for the condition of anonymity, was cited as saying. “And 10% [are] North Korean. The rest of it was made inside the Gaza Strip.”

    “I think the most surprising thing was the amount of weapons that they brought inside Israel,” the official added. 

    Earlier this month, RFA reported on the potential use of North Korean weapons by Hamas militants. RFA’s thorough analysis was based on a video that displayed a man holding what seemed to be North Korean-made rocket launchers.

    Following the report, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff confirmed the findings, with its intelligence indicating a military connection between North Korea and Hamas. 

    The latest confirmation from Israel followed as Pyongyang has been issuing statements, blaming the United States in the Middle East conflict. The conflict was a “tragedy created entirely by the United States,” North Korea’s official Korea Central News Agency said on Monday, claiming that Washington “has turned a blind eye to Israel, its illegal occupation of Palestinian territories, continuous armed assaults, civilian casualties, and the expansion of Jewish settlements.” 

    The move is widely seen as the North’s attempt to bolster its anti-American coalition, which could potentially strengthen its leverage against the U.S. and its allies. Over the past few weeks, North Korea’s foreign policy has shown signs of a larger strategy at play. From supporting Hamas to bolstering ties with Russia following its invasion of Ukraine, Pyongyang appears keen on crafting a united front against Washington.

    The strategy appears to bear results by aligning those opposed to U.S. policy. Last week, a portrait of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was displayed at an anti-U.S. protest in the West Bank, underscoring the deep sentiments of the Palestinian people against the U.S.

    The Oct. 7 attack, in which North Korean and Iranian weapons are used, killed over 1,400 individuals in Israel, primarily civilians, according to an official figure. In response, Israel has launched airstrikes that have led to approximately 7,000 deaths from the Palestine side, with the majority also being civilians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.

    Casualties are anticipated to increase on both sides as Israel’s military announced on Thursday that it had conducted a ground operation in the Gaza Strip. The Israel Defense Forces reported that its tanks and infantry units “struck numerous terrorist cells, infrastructure and anti-tank missile launch posts” before withdrawing to Israeli territory.

    Edited by Elaine Chan and Taejun Kang.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Lee Jeong-Ho for RFA.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Mahsa Amini and Woman, Life and Freedom Movement in Iran awarded EU’S Sakharov Prize

    Women attend a protest against the death of Mahsa Amini, a woman who died while in police custody in Iran, during a rally in Tel Aviv, Oct. 29, 2022.

     Euronews reported on 19 October 2023 that Mahsa Amini and the Woman, Life and Freedom Movement in Iran were awarded the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.

    “The 16 September 2022 is a date that will live in infamy and the brutal murder of 22-year-old Jina Mahsa Amini marked a turning point. It has triggered a women-led movement that is making history,” European Parliament President Roberta Metsola said after announcing the winner. 

    Two other nominees made it on the finalist shortlist: Women rights’ defenders and Nicaraguan activists. See: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2023/10/18/sakharov-prize-2023-finalists-announced/

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.