In the wake of a series of retaliatory attacks launched by Iran on Saturday after Israel killed 16 people in a bombing of Iran’s embassy in Syria earlier this month, progressive lawmakers in the U.S. are warning fellow lawmakers against calling for a war against Iran — and instead are calling for an immediate ceasefire “on all sides” as Israel’s aggression in Palestine and beyond is causing…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Israel is “clearly” in violation of U.S. foreign assistance laws that bar military aid from being used to commit human rights atrocities, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) said in an op-ed this week calling for the U.S. to end its “complicity” in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. “Blocking desperately needed U.S. humanitarian aid to Palestinians is obscene and unacceptable. It is also a violation of…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Israel is “clearly” in violation of U.S. foreign assistance laws that bar military aid from being used to commit human rights atrocities, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) said in an op-ed this week calling for the U.S. to end its “complicity” in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. “Blocking desperately needed U.S. humanitarian aid to Palestinians is obscene and unacceptable. It is also a violation of…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Walking stiffly, largely distracted, and struggling to focus on the bare essentials, US President Joe Biden was keeping company with his Japanese counterpart, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, when asked the question. It concerned what he was doing regarding Australia’s request that the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange be returned to Australia.
Assange, who has spent five tormenting years in Belmarsh Prison in London, is battling extradition to the US on 18 charges, 17 tenuously and dangerously based on the US Espionage Act of 1917.
The words that followed from the near mummified defender of the Free World were short, yet bright enough for the publisher’s supporters. “We’re considering it.” No details were supplied.
To these barest of crumbs came this reaction from from Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on ABC’s News Breakfast: “We have raised on behalf of Mr Assange, Australia’s national interest, that enough is enough, that this needs to be brought to a conclusion, and we’ve raised it at each level of government in every possible way.” When pressed on whether this was merely an afterthought from the president, Albanese responded with the usual acknowledgments: the case was complex, and responsibility lay with the US Department of Justice.
One of Assange’s lawyers, the relentless Jennifer Robinson, told Sky News Australia of her encouragement at Biden’s “response, this is what we have been asking for over five years. Since 2010 we’ve been saying this is a dangerous precedent that’s being set. So, we certainly hope it was a serious remark and the US will act on it.” Assange’s brother, Gabriel Shipton, also told Sky News that the statement was significant while WikiLeaks editor-in-chief, Kristinn Hrafnsson thought the utterance “extraordinary”, cautiously hoping “to see in the coming days” whether “clarification of what this means” would be offered by “those in power” and the press corps.
The campaign to free Assange has burgeoned with admirable ferocity. The transformation of the WikiLeaks founder from eccentric, renegade cyber thief deserving punishment to prosecuted and persecuted scribbler and political prisoner has been astonishing.
The boggling legal process has also been shown up as woefully inadequate and scandalous, a form of long-term torture via judicial torment and deprivation. The current ludicrous pitstop entails waiting for a UK Court of Appeal decision as to whether Assange will be granted leave for a full reconsideration of his case, including the merits of the extradition order itself.
The March 26 Court of Appeal decision refused to entertain the glaringly obvious features of the case: that Assange is being prosecuted for his political views, that due process is bound to be denied in a country whose authorities have contemplated his abduction and murder, and that he risks being sentenced for conduct he is not charged with “based on evidence he will not see and which may have been unlawfully obtained.” The refusal to entertain such material as the Yahoo News article from September 2021 outlining the views of intelligence officials on kidnapping and assassination options again cast the entire affair in a poor light.
Even if Assange is granted a full hearing, it is not clear whether the court will go so far as to accept the arguments. The judges have already nobbled the case by offering US prosecutors the chance to offer undertakings, none of which would or could be binding on the DOJ or any US judge hearing the case. Extradition, in other words, is likely to be approved if Assange is “permitted to rely on the First Amendment”, “is not prejudiced at trial (including sentence) by reason of his nationality” and that he “is afforded the same First Amendment protection as a United States citizen, and that the death penalty not be imposed”. These conditions, on the face of it, look absurd in their naïve presumption.
Whether Biden’s latest casual spray lends any credibility to a change of heart remains to be seen. In December 2010, when Vice President in the Obama administration, Biden described Assange as a “high-tech terrorist” for disclosing State Department cables. He failed to identify any parallels with previous cases of disclosures such as the Pentagon papers.
Craig Murray, former British diplomat and Assange confidant, adds a note of cautious sobriety to the recent offering from the president: “I’m not going to get too hopeful immediately on a few words out of the mouth of Biden, because there has been no previous indication, nothing from the Justice Department so far to indicate any easing up.”
For all that, it may well be that the current administration, facing a relentless publicity campaign from human rights organisations, newspapers, legal and medical professionals, not to mention pressure from both his own party in Congress and Republicans, is finally yielding. Caution, however, is the order of the day, and nothing should be read or considered in earnest till signatures are inked and dried. We are quite a way off from that.
The post Flicker of Hope: Biden’s Throwaway Lines on Assange first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
A top Biden administration official working on international affairs acknowledged on Wednesday that famine is unfolding in Gaza — the first time that a senior member of President Joe Biden’s government has recognized the consequences of Israel’s U.S.-backed starvation campaign in Gaza. In a hearing in front of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday, U.S.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The State Department is seeing a potentially historic amount of internal defection over the Biden administration’s policies on Gaza, with at least nine dissent memos and two high-profile resignations since October. According to a report published this week by The Independent, over the course of just two months of Israel’s genocidal assault of Gaza, State Department staff sent at least eight…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
No one ever announced that the “war on terror” was over. But the rushed withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan in 2021 was the closest the U.S. came to an official end point. There was no release of prisoners of war; instead “enemy combatants” continued to be caged at the military prison in Guantánamo Bay. Nor was the geographical spread of the U.S.’s counterterrorism operations much reduced…
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Debt activists are urging the Biden administration to end its contracts with student debt servicer MOHELA ahead of a hearing for the servicer that was central to the Supreme Court decision that struck down President Joe Biden’s broad-based student debt relief plan, saying that the contracts are still threatening Biden’s current debt cancellation efforts. In a statement released Tuesday…
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In a tepid condemnation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s genocidal assault of Gaza, President Joe Biden said in an interview that aired Tuesday that Netanyahu’s approach is a “mistake” — even as he has refused to make changes to U.S. policy or the unconditional arms transfers that Israel is using to slaughter Palestinians. “I think what he’s doing is a mistake. I don’t agree with his…
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In a recent interview with Spanish-language cable network Univision that aired on Tuesday, President Joe Biden suggested that he would soon issue an executive order using the same authority former President Donald Trump used to enact racist immigration policies. Lamenting that thousands of migrants are seeking asylum in the U.S. daily under current policy, Biden said during the interview that he…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
After six months – and many tens of thousands of dead and maimed Palestinian women and children later – western commentators are finally wondering whether something may be amiss with Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Israel apparently crossed a red line when it killed a handful of foreign aid workers on 1 April, including three British security contractors.
Three missiles, fired over several minutes, struck vehicles in a World Central Kitchen (WCK) aid convoy heading up Gaza’s coast on one of the few roads still passable after Israel turned the enclave’s homes and streets into rubble. All the vehicles were clearly marked. All were on an approved, safe passage. And the Israeli military had been given the coordinates to track the convoy’s location.
With precise missile holes through the vehicle roofs making it impossible to blame Hamas for the strike, Israel was forced to admit responsibility. Its spokespeople claimed an armed figure had been seen entering the storage area from which the aid convoy had departed.
But even that feeble, formulaic response could not explain why the Israeli military hit cars in which it was known there were aid workers. So Israel hurriedly promised to investigate what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described as a “tragic incident”.
Israel deeply regrets the tragic incident which claimed the lives of seven humanitarian aid workers.
Our hearts go out to their families and to their home countries.
The IDF is conducting a swift and transparent investigation and we will make our findings public.
Israel…
— Benjamin Netanyahu – ?????? ?????? (@netanyahu) April 2, 2024
Presumably, it was a “tragic incident” just like the 15,000-plus other “tragic incidents” – the ones we know about – that Israel has committed against Palestinian children day after day for six months.
In those cases, of course, western commentators always managed to produce some rationalisation for the slaughter.
Not this time.
Half a year too late, with Gaza’s entire medical infrastructure wrecked by Israel and a population on the brink of starvation, Britain’s Independent newspaper suddenly found its voice to declare decisively on its front page: “Enough.”
Richard Madeley, host of Good Morning Britain, finally felt compelled to opine that Israel had carried out an “execution” of the foreign aid workers. Presumably, 15,000 Palestinian children were not executed, they simply “died”.
When it came to the killing of WCK staff, popular LBC talk-show host Nick Ferrari concluded that Israel’s actions were“indefensible”. Did he think it defensible for Israel to bomb and starve Gaza’s children month after month?
'It could've been our missiles that killed them.'
@NickFerrariLBC calls for the suspension of arms sales to Israel after an Israeli airstrike on Gaza killed seven aid workers, including three Brits. pic.twitter.com/HK4PfHy2JU— LBC (@LBC) April 3, 2024
Like the Independent, he too proclaimed: “This has to stop.”
The attack on the WCK convoy briefly changed the equation for the western media. Seven dead aid workers were a wake-up call when many tens of thousands of dead, maimed and orphaned Palestinian children had not been.
A salutary equation indeed.
British politicians reassured the public that Israel would carry out an “independent investigation” into the killings. That is, the same Israel that never punishes its soldiers even when their atrocities are televised. The same Israel whose military courts find almost every Palestinian guilty of whatever crime Israel chooses to accuse them of, if it allows them a trial.
But at least the foreign aid workers merited an investigation, however much of a foregone conclusion the verdict. That is more than the dead children of Gaza will ever get.
British commentators appeared startled by the thought that Israel had chosen to kill the foreigners working for World Central Kitchen – even if those same journalists still treat tens of thousands of dead Palestinians as unfortunate “collateral damage” in a “war” to “eradicate Hamas”.
But had they been paying closer attention, these pundits would understand that the murder of foreigners is not exceptional. It has been central to Israel’s occupation playbook for decades – and helps explain what Israel hopes to achieve with its current slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza.
Back in the early 2000s, Israel was on another of its rampages, wrecking Gaza and the West Bank supposedly in “retaliation” for Palestinians having had the temerity to rise up against decades of military occupation.
Shocked by the brutality, a group of foreign volunteers, a significant number of them Jewish, ventured into these areas to witness and document the Israeli military’s crimes and act as human shields to protect Palestinians from the violence.
They arrived under the mantle of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a Palestinian-led initiative. They were keen to use what were then new technologies such as digital cameras, email and blogs to focus attention on the Israeli military’s atrocities.
Some became a new breed of activist journalist, embedded in Palestinian communities to report the story western establishment journalists, embedded in Israel, never managed to cover.
Israel presented the ISM as a terrorist group and dismissed its filmed documentation as “Pallywood” – a supposedly fiction-producing industry equated to a Palestinian Hollywood.
But the ISM’s evidence increasingly exposed the “most moral army in the world” for what it really was: a criminal enterprise there to enforce land thefts and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
Israel needed to take firmer action.
The evidence suggests soldiers received authorisation to execute foreigners in the occupied territories. That included young activists such as Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall; James Miller, an independent filmmaker who ventured into Gaza; and even a United Nations official, Iain Hook, based in the West Bank.
This rapid spate of killings – and the maiming of many other activists – had the intended effect. The ISM largely withdrew from the region to protect its volunteers, while Israel formally banned the group from accessing the occupied territories.
Meanwhile, Israel denied press credentials to any journalist not sponsored by a state or a billionaire-owned outlet, kicking them out of the region.
Al Jazeera, the one critical Arab channel whose coverage reached western audiences, found its journalists regularly banned or killed, and its offices bombed.
The battle to isolate the Palestinians, freeing Israel to commit atrocities unmonitored, culminated in Israel’s now 17-year blockade of Gaza. It was sealed off.
With the enclave completely besieged by land, human rights activists focused their efforts on breaking the blockade via the high seas. A series of “freedom flotillas” tried to reach Gaza’s coast from 2008 onwards. Israel soon managed to stop most of them.
The largest was led by the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish vessel laden with aid and medicine. Israeli naval commandos stormed the ship illegally in international waters in 2010, killing 10 foreign aid workers and human rights activists on board and injuring another 30.
The western media soft-pedalled Israel’s preposterous characterisation of the flotillas as a terrorist enterprise. The initiative gradually petered out.
That is the proper context for understanding the latest attack on the WCK aid convoy.
Israel has always had four prongs to its strategy towards the Palestinians. Taken together, they have allowed Israel to refine its apartheid-style rule, and are now allowing it to implement its genocidal policies undisturbed.
The first is to incrementally isolate the Palestinians from the international community.
The second is to make the Palestinians entirely dependent on the Israeli military’s goodwill, and create conditions that are so precarious and unpredictable that most Palestinians try to vacate their historic homeland, leaving it free to be “Judaised”.
Third, Israel has crushed any attempt by outsiders – especially the media and human rights monitors – to scrutinise its activities in real-time or hold it to account.
And fourth, to achieve all this, Israel has needed to erode piece by piece the humanitarian protections that were enshrined in international law to stop a repeat of the common-place atrocities against civilians during the Second World War.
This process, which had been taking place over years and decades, was rapidly accelerated after Hamas’ attack on 7 October. Israel had the pretext to transform apartheid into genocide.
Unrwa, the main United Nations refugee agency, which is mandated to supply aid to the Palestinians, had long been in Israel’s sights, especially in Gaza. It has allowed the international community to keep its foot in the door of the enclave, maintaining a lifeline to the population there independent of Israel, and creating an authoritative framework for judging Israel’s human rights abuses. Worse, for Israel, Unrwa has kept alive the right of return – enshrined in international law – of Palestinian refugees expelled from their original lands so a self-declared Jewish state could be built in their place.
Israel leapt at the chance to accuse Unrwa of being implicated in the 7 October attack, even though it produced zero evidence for the claim. Almost as enthusiastically, western states turned off the funding tap to the UN agency.
The Biden administration appears keen to end UN oversight of Gaza by hiving off its main aid role to private firms. It has been one of the key sponsors of WCK, led by a celebrity Spanish chef with ties to the US State Department.
WCK, which has also been building a pier off Gaza’s coast, was expected to be an adjunct to Washington’s plan to eventually ship in aid from Cyprus – to help those Palestinians who, over the next few weeks, do not starve to death.
Until, that is, Israel struck the aid convoy, killing its staff. WCK has pulled out of Gaza for the time being, and other private aid contractors are backing off, fearful for their workers’ safety.
Goal one has been achieved. The people of Gaza are on their own. The West, rather than their saviour, is now fully complicit not only in Israel’s blockade of Gaza but in its starvation too.
Next, Israel has demonstrated beyond doubt that it regards every Palestinian in Gaza, even its children, as an enemy.
The fact that most of the enclave’s homes are now rubble should serve as proof enough, as should the fact that many tens of thousands there have been violently killed. Only a fraction of the death toll is likely to have been recorded, given Israel’s destruction of the enclave’s health sector.
Israel’s levelling of hospitals, including al-Shifa – as well as the kidnapping and torture of medical staff – has left Palestinians in Gaza completely exposed. The eradication of meaningful healthcare means births, serious injuries and chronic and acute illnesses are quickly becoming a death sentence.
Israel has intentionally been turning life in Gaza into a lottery, with nowhere safe.
According to a new investigation, Israel’s bombing campaign has relied heavily on experimental AI systems that largely automate the killing of Palestinians. That means there is no need for human oversight – and the potential limitations imposed by a human conscience.
Israeli website 972 found that tens of thousands of Palestinians had been put on “kill lists” generated by a program called Lavender, using loose definitions of “terrorist” and with an error rate estimated even by the Israeli military at one in 10.
Another programme called “Where’s Daddy?” tracked many of these “targets” to their family homes, where they – and potentially dozens of other Palestinians unlucky enough to be inside – were killed by air strikes.
An Israeli intelligence official told 972: “The IDF bombed them in homes without hesitation, as a first option. It’s much easier to bomb a family’s home. The system is built to look for them in these situations.”
As so many of these targets were considered to be “junior” operatives, of little military value, Israel preferred to use unguided, imprecise munitions – “dumb bombs” – increasing dramatically the likelihood of large numbers of other Palestinians being killed too.
Or, as another Israeli intelligence official observed: “You don’t want to waste expensive bombs on unimportant people – it’s very expensive for the country and there’s a shortage [of smart bombs].”
That explains how entire extended families, comprising dozens of members, have been so regularly slaughtered.
Separately, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported on 31 March that the Israeli military has been operating unmarked “kill zones” in which anyone moving – man, woman or child – is in danger of being shot dead.
Or, as a reserve officer who has been serving in Gaza told the paper: “In practice, a terrorist is anyone the IDF has killed in the areas in which its forces operate.”
This, Haaretz reports, is the likely reason why soldiers gunned down three escaped Israeli hostages who were trying to surrender to them.
Palestinians, of course, rarely know where these kill zones are as they desperately scour ever larger areas in the hope of finding food.
If they are fortunate enough to avoid death from the skies or expiring from starvation, they risk being seized by Israeli soldiers and taken off to one of Israel’s black sites. There, as a whistleblowing Israeli doctor admitted last week, unspeakable, Abu Ghraib-style horrors are being inflicted on the inmates.
Goal two has been achieved, leaving Palestinians terrified of the Israeli military’s largely random violence and desperate to find an escape from the Russian roulette Israel is playing with their lives.
Long ago, Israel barred UN human rights monitors from accessing the occupied territories. That has left scrutiny of its crimes largely in the hands of the media.
Independent foreign reporters have been barred from the region for some 15 years, leaving the field to establishment journalists serving state and corporate media, where there are strong pressures to present Israel’s actions in the best possible light.
That is why the most important stories about 7 October and the Israeli military’s actions in Gaza and treatment of Palestinian prisoners in Israel have been broken by Israeli-based media – as well as small, independent western outlets that have highlighted its coverage.
Since 7 October, Israel has barred all foreign journalists from Gaza, and western reporters have meekly complied. None have been alerting their audience to this major assault on their supposed role as watchdogs.
Israeli spokespeople, well-practised in the dark arts of deception and misdirection, have been allowed to fill the void in London studios.
What on-the-ground information from Gaza has been reaching western publics – when it is not suppressed by media outlets either because it would be too distressing or because its inclusion would enrage Israel – comes via Palestinian journalists. They have been showing the genocide unfolding in real-time.
But for that reason, Israel has been picking them off one by one – just as it did earlier with Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall – as well as murdering their extended families as a warning to others.
The one international channel that has many journalists on the ground in Gaza and is in a position to present its reporting in high-quality English is Al Jazeera.
The list of its journalists killed by Israel has grown steadily longer since 7 October. Gaza bureau chief Wael al-Dahdouh has had most of his family executed, as well as being injured himself.
His counterpart in the West Bank, Shireen Abu Akhleh, was shot dead by an Israeli army sniper two years ago.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Israel rushed a law through its parliament last week to ban Al Jazeera from broadcasting from the region. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it a “terror channel”, claiming it participated in Hamas’ 7 October attack.
Al Jazeera had just aired a documentary revisiting the events of 7 October. It showed that Hamas did not commit the most barbaric crimes Israel accuses it of, and that, in fact, in some cases Israel was responsible for the most horrifying atrocities against its own citizens that it had attributed to Hamas.
Al Jazeera and human rights groups are understandably worried about what further actions Israel is likely to take against the channel’s journalists to snuff out its reporting.
Palestinians in Gaza, meanwhile, fear that they are about to lose the only channel that connects them to the outside world, both telling their stories and keeping them informed about what the watching world knows of their plight.
Goal three has been achieved. The lights are being turned off. Israel can carry out in the dark the potentially ugliest phase of its genocide, as Palestinian children emaciate and starve to death.
And finally, Israel has torn up the rulebook on international humanitarian law intended to protect civilians from atrocities, as well as the infrastructure they rely on.
Israel has destroyed universities, government buildings, mosques, churches and bakeries, as well as, most critically, medical facilities.
Over the past six months, hospitals, once sacrosanct, have slowly become legitimate targets, as have the patients inside.
Collective punishment, absolutely prohibited as a war crime, has become the norm in Gaza since 2007, when the West stood mutely by as Israel besieged the enclave for 17 years.
Now, as Palestinians are starved to death, as children turn to skin and bones, and as aid convoys are bombed and aid seekers are shot dead, there is still apparently room for debate among the western media-political class about whether this all constitutes a violation of international law.
Even after six months of Israel bombing Gaza, treating its people as “human animals” and denying them food, water and power – the very definition of collective punishment – Britain’s deputy prime minister, Oliver Dowden, apparently believes Israel is, unfairly, being held to “incredibly high standards”. David Lammy, shadow foreign secretary for the supposedly opposition Labour party, still has no more than “serious concerns” that international law may have been breached.
Neither party yet proposes banning the sale of British arms to Israel, arms that are being used to commit precisely these violations of international law. Neither is referencing the International Court of Justice’s ruling that Israel is “plausibly” committing genocide.
Meanwhile, the main political conversation in the West is still mired in delusional talk about how to revive the fabled “two-state solution”, rather than how to stop an accelerating genocide.
The reality is that Israel has ripped up the most fundamental of the principles in international law: “distinction” – differentiating between combatants and civilians – and “proportionality” – using only the minimum amount of force needed to achieve legitimate military goals.
The rules of war are in tatters. The system of international humanitarian law is not under threat, it has collapsed.
Every Palestinian in Gaza now faces a death sentence. And with good reason, Israel assumes it is untouchable.
Despite the background noise of endlessly expressed “concerns” from the White House, and of rumours of growing “tensions” between allies, the US and Europe have indicated that the genocide can continue – but must be carried out more discreetly, more unobtrusively.
The killing of the World Central Kitchen staff is a setback. But the destruction of Gaza – Israel’s plan of nearly two decades’ duration – is far from over.
• First published in Middle East Eye
The post Israel’s killing of aid workers is no accident. It’s part of the plan to destroy Gaza first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
A new campaign ad from President Joe Biden highlights the devastating effects of Texas’s draconian abortion ban, tying the overturn of Roe v. Wade directly to GOP candidate for president Donald Trump. The ad features couple Amanda and Josh Zurawski, who begin the commercial by going through a box of keepsakes meant for their child, Willow, whom Amanda lost in a miscarriage in 2022 — shortly after…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
In June 1967 Israel launched surprise attacks on its Arab neighbors and captured Gaza, the West Bank, Jerusalem and the Golan. With military and intelligence support from Lyndon Johnson’s administration, Israel shocked and overwhelmed its neighbors, largely destroying Egypt’s air force on the ground. Israel not only seized possession of these territories, they humiliated their adversaries. It only took six days.
This assault was pivotal in three respects. First, it cemented hard core Zionism including unrepentant violence at the core of the country. This is shown not only by the atrocities committed against their Arab neighbors. It is shown in the attempt to sink the USS Liberty and kill all its US navy personnel. Second, it created the myth of Israeli military and intelligence superiority. Third, it generated huge support for the Zionist state internationally. As they say, “Everybody loves a winner”, and Israel was the undisputed winner in 1967. Anti-Zionist sentiment in the US and international Jewish community, previously quite strong, declined significantly. Western support for Israel increased dramatically. Due to effective propaganda, public support also increased.
The decades since then have seen a consistent Israeli refusal to compromise with the people whose land they took and whose livelihoods they control. Gaza has been under siege for decades and a concentration camp since 2007. The West Bank and Jerusalem are not much better with ever tightening restrictions, checkpoints and arrests.
The Al Aqsa Flood Operation
On 7 October 2023 it was the Israeli military that was shocked. Hamas and other Palestinian resistance forces broke out of the concentration camp, seized Israeli military posts, entered Israeli towns and kibbutzes. They killed about 400 Israeli military and police and took about 250 military and civilians hostage. About 800 civilians died either from Hamas gunfire or Israeli tanks or Apache gunship helicopters. Hundreds of cars containing both Palestinians and Israelis were demolished by the latter.
The Israeli assumptions of military, intelligence and ethnic superiority were exploded that day. In rage, Israeli military and political officials vowed to avenge the embarrassment and military setback. Ministry of Defense Yoav Galant said Palestinians were “human animals” and vowed to kill through military means and starvation. They vowed to “destroy Hamas” and immediately launched wave after wave of bombing attacks. After about a month of bombing, the Israeli military entered Gaza . They are still there.
Steeped in belief in Jewish supremacy, much of the Israeli public supports the ongoing massacre. Now, after six months of relentless attacks, the belief in Israeli superiority has fallen apart. The Israeli military has not been able to “destroy” Hamas or weaken Palestinian resolve. On the contrary, support for Hamas and the other resistance forces has increased both in Gaza and the West Bank. Israeli leaders thought they could easily conquer and “destroy” Hamas but they have not been able to do that despite billions in US and western supplied armaments.
Hamas and the other Palestinian militants have survived and still inflict significant losses on the Israeli military. Yesterday, four more Israeli soldiers were killed in Khan Younis.
Israel has destroyed United Nations schools and shelters, churches and mosques, universities and even hospitals. They have killed over 100 reporters and thousands of health workers, ambulance drivers, doctors and university professors. The recent killing of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers was only exceptional because the victims were from the West. Israel has been committing atrocities like this against Palestinians for six months. .
1967 vs Today
As Israel’s international stature grew after the Six Day War, it is collapsing after the Six Month Siege and Massacre in Gaza. In 1967 many American Jews embraced Israel. Now, rapidly growing numbers condemn Israel’s atrocities and want nothing to do with the country. They correctly perceive the difference between a state (Israel) and ideology (Zionism) on the one hand, and a faith and ethnicity on the other. They are proud to wear T-shirts saying “Jewish Voice for Peace” and “If Not Now”.
The Global Majority of nations are fervently opposed to Israel and what it is doing. The UN General Assembly has condemned the Zionist state and numerous countries have withdrawn their ambassadors.
Even western states closely allied with Israel, such as Canada, are changing their tune. Canada has suspended arms shipments to Israel and restored funding to UNRWA.
The International Court of Justice has recently ordered Israel to allow food and aid into Gaza. The Australian ICJ judge confirmed they have ordered Israel to suspend military operations in Gaza. If Israel refuses to comply, it will only increase the global condemnation.
As another sign of how much geopolitics are changing, Nicaragua has filed a case at the International Court of Justice charging Germany with complicity in Israel’s genocide.
The US Congress and Administration continues to support Israel’s genocide but is now shifting due to popular pressure, protests and demands. Even Democratic Party leader Nancy Pelosi is now urging Biden to cease arms shipments to Israel.
The Six Month Failure
Israel’s Six Month Failure has fueled the contradictions inherent in the state. Political and religious contradictions are escalating with bigger and bigger demonstrations against Netanyahu and his refusal to end the war and bring home the hostages. Demonstrations inside Israel are getting bigger and more volatile. Last Saturday, five protesters were purposely hit by a car.
We have passed the tipping point. The unrelenting slaughter of Palestinian civilians over the past six months has forever changed the perception of Israel in the West.
Israel is now widely seen internationally as a “bad guy” similar to how the US was seen in the late 60’s in Vietnam. Just as the Tet Offensive cost the lives of tens of thousands of Vietnamese but was a crucial turning point, the October 7 Al Aqsa Flood operation marks a crucial turning point for Palestine.
The post Israeli Milestones: From Six Day Victory to Six Month Failure first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D) has said that President Joe Biden must change course on his policies toward Israel if he wants to stop alienating crucial parts of the Democratic and progressive voter base, citing last week’s significant protest vote turnout in Wisconsin as a warning sign for the campaign. In an interview on MSNBC on Sunday, Bowman said that Biden and the Democratic Party’s backing of…
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President Joe Biden is slated to travel to Madison, Wisconsin, on Monday to announce a new student loan relief plan that could benefit over 30 million borrowers. The plan would cancel debt for borrowers experiencing economic hardship that hinders them from making loan payments and those who qualify but have not enrolled in existing forgiveness programs for public servants, lower- and middle-income…
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The American public awaits the coming presidential election…. with trepidation. Democrat assertion that the Republicans colluded with Russia to interfere in the 2016 election on the side of Donald Trump and Republican assertion that the Democrats stole the 2020 election from Donald Trump remain bitter memories for the two political Parties. Both assertions are illusions, easily proven false, and still have growling followers.
The fabricated illusions that muddled the past elections remain; Trump constructs illusion as his principal political tool and Biden proceeds with perpetrated illusions that he is in total command and apartheid Israel is worth defending. Include presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the crowd, a candidate whose illusions are his main appeal. Illusion has replaced reality and guided domestic policy, foreign policy, and politics. Before examining the present, demolish the illusions perpetrated in the previous elections and ask why they remain when reality proves they did not exist.
The Russians interfered in the 2016 election
The calculating and repetitious forces that implanted the accusation of Russian interference in the American psyche made it difficult to refute the charge. Debate on Russian interference was not accepted and was silenced with derision. Reality shows it was an illusion.
The most quoted proof of Russian interference in the 2106 presidential election contained several elements:
Seventeen United States (US) intelligence agencies certified Russian interference.
Acceptance of the charges came from the belief that 17 US intelligence agencies concluded that Russia interfered in the US election. Former Director of National Intelligence Chief, James Clapper, testified to a Senate Judiciary subcommittee that no US intelligence agency researched the supposed interference. Clapper revealed that the Russia-hacking claim came from a “special intelligence community assessment” (ICA) produced by selected analysts from the CIA, NSA, and FBI, “a coordinated product from the three agencies and not by all 17 components of the intelligence community.” There was no specific intelligence agency involved. A few analysts from various agencies made an assessment far from definite proof, and 17 intelligence agencies accepted the assessment without adding any of their intelligence.
The Mueller report described the Russian government’s interference.
Employees of Internet Research Agency (IRA), a dubious Russian public relations company, were indicted, but no Russian officials were cited for election interference. Soviet intelligence officers were indicted for illegal phishing and cyber-attacks, “with intention to interfere,” and not directly for election interference.
Eleven Russian intelligence personnel have been indicted.
What do intelligence agencies do? They gather intelligence 24 hours each day and by any means. Cyber warfare is a favored means for all intelligence agencies to gather information and confuse the adversary with misinformation. At campaign election time, when computers buzz with finger tapping from wide-eyed volunteers, eager idealists, and networking individuals, the campaigners become big fish for the “phishers.” Russia’s military intelligence dumped all its findings into contrived websites and WikiLeaks and let the American public digest the information. (1) The Democratic National Committee Chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, framed activities to assist Hillary Clinton and undermine Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign; (2) DNC fundraising staff discussed and compiled a list of people (mainly donors) who might be appointed to federal boards and commission; and (3) Former aide to President Bill Clinton, Sidney Blumenthal, claimed France was concerned that Libya’s large gold reserves might pose a threat to the value of the Central African Franc and displace French influence in Africa.
Revealing that the DNC, which should be an impartial arm of the Democratic Party and not committed to assisting any candidate, was helping Hillary Clinton’s candidacy and deriding Bernie Sanders’ campaign is a worthwhile exposure of corrupt practices and distortion of the political process. The DNC is the culprit that interfered in the Democratic process.
The Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA) has been indicted.
For what reason and with what proof was the IRA indicted? Election Interference was only a supposition; there might have been other reasons for IRA’s operations. The only Russian organization involved in the US election activity does the same activities worldwide, mostly in Russia, and has done it for years. Why conclude that its activities were meant to interfere in the election? Isn’t that a conspiracy theory? Being a public relations company, is it more likely that it was data mining – placing ads, and learning by feedback their effectiveness and the public pulse, data that could be useful for other activities in Russia, which might include minor information for the Russian government? Widely predicted, and even conceded, that Hillary Clinton would win the election, why would any foreign entity support wasting resources and leave itself open to criticism in a futile effort?
The Russians engaged in a massive interference operation.
Despite the intention to inflate figures and characterize the “interference” as massive, the activity was trivial and had trivial impact. According to New York Magazine, about 3,000 ads were purchased on Facebook for $100,000. Compare this to a Facebook audience in the United States of 214 million users, and more than 1.8 billion monthly active users, millions of electioneering Twitter accounts, hundreds of mass demonstrations in the United States, and spending for the 2016 elections (presidential and congressional) estimated at $6.5 billion by campaign finance watchdog OpenSecrets.org. At a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, Facebook’s General Counsel, Colin Stretch stated that Clinton and Trump spent $81 million on pre-election day Facebook ads. IRA’s efforts could not compete for eyeballs of the American electorate.
From USA Today:
We read every one of the 3,517 Facebook ads bought by Russians (ED: Not Russian government and only 3,517 of many millions by others during the election). Here’s what we found. Only about 100 of the ads overtly mentioned support for Donald Trump or opposition to Hillary Clinton. A few dozen referenced questions about the U.S. election process and voting integrity, while a handful mentioned other candidates like Bernie Sanders, Ted Cruz or Jeb Bush.
Accusing the Russian government of a massive conspiracy of interference in the 2016 US election, in which only one private agency, the Internet Research Agency, spent a trivial amount of money ($100,000) and did nothing to influence the election, is an illusion.
Democrats stole the election
Two features of the election certified the implausibility of Trump’s charges.
(1) Polls indicated a decisive Biden victory by several percentage points, Why would Democrats, expecting victory, jeopardize themselves and the anticipated election result by engaging in nefarious activities and risk being caught?
(2) Some irregularities and attempted fraud may have occurred, but It is impossible to fix a national election. A conspiracy to fix a national election requires an organization with a central administration and hundreds of people in key states who work in several well-coordinated actions. It is difficult to gain hundreds of adherents, have them agree to a central authority, and for them to be able to operate without disclosure. Can these activities — printing millions of false ballots, posting and mailing these false ballots, forging signatures, researching obituaries and voter registration lists — be performed without notice and remain hidden from extensive intelligent investigation?
Only one ballot can be obtained by a registered voter. Using false names and dead people gathers few ballots. Collecting a multitude of ballots requires counterfeiting, which is a difficult task, logistically and artistically. Ballots feature particular design elements that are difficult to copy. “They are printed on special card stock, with exact page size, color, and thickness varying by state, or even county or town.”
Let a host of geniuses manage to print the ballots with names of real or deceased people who would not be voting. How does the conspirator get the fraudulent ballots past the signature identification? Even if there were not 100 percent accurate signature identification, well-trained signature analysts will spot an unusual number of dubious ballots and, afterward, every ballot will be rigorously analyzed.
To bypass signature recognition, conspirators would have had to improvise devious means to bring fraudulent ballots into the secure center, navigate past security personnel, and hope the 360-degree cameras did not spot their illegal entries. Once inside, they would need co-conspirators to stow the ballots in a known location, and, at an opportune moment, have the co-conspirators retrieve and scan them.
Media should have confronted Trump and his followers on Day 1 and shown that it was impossible to fix the national election. This “election fraud killer” is still not publicized. No rational person can believe the 2020 election was rigged, and, weirdly, a huge component of the population embraces the illusion.
The new illusion
Because truths do not serve him and illusions preserve him, Trump prefers creating outlandish illusions rather than reciting basic truths. His principal defense in the criminal trial of his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results is that he honestly believed the illusion that he won and the election was stolen.
Knowing he has no issues that will shake the electorate and defeat Biden, Trump has made Illegal immigration the inflammatory and principal issue. Rather than regarding immigration from the legal, economic, and statistical approach, Trump reaches for illusory images that captivate the mind, such as accusing Biden of “causing a border ‘bloodbath.’” He has also accused migrants of “poisoning the blood of the country” and vowed to launch the largest domestic deportation operation in the nation’s history if he wins a second term. In Grand Rapids, Michigan, Trump said:
Under Crooked Joe Biden, every state is now a border state. Every town is now a border town because Joe Biden has brought the carnage and chaos and killing from all over world and dumped it straight into our backyards.
How many times a day, and in how many different presentations, has Donald Trump departed from script to exclaim, “This was the greatest economy we ever had, the greatest in the world, the greatest ever, and it all went down because of a pandemic?” Time to burst the bubble he has created around himself and let him know his ego-building statement is an illusion.
Trump does not describe the criteria by which he created the illusion that his economy was the greatest ever. He mentions the words GDP, stock market, and employment. Research the U.S. economy and learn that since 1891, the United States (US) has always had, except for some recessions, the best economy in the world. During the Roaring Twenties, the US had half of world production and had only 1/8 of the same during the Trump administration.
Almost every one of the U.S. presidents has seen a substantial rise in the stock market and GDP during their administration. The Trump administration only added to an existing trend — nothing unusual or extraordinary. Real GDP grew at a paltry average of 2-3 %/annum during his administration, so what is he talking about? He should not be talking; the more accepted ratings of economic power are GDP/PPP, the GDP that includes purchasing parity between nations, and industrial production. In the former, during Trump’s term in office, China led the United States by $27.3 trillion to $21.4 trillion. In industrial production, China produced $5.652 trillion in goods and the US. produced $3.436 trillion in goods.
Trump behaves as if he commands the world theater. He imagines seducing Kim Jung Un into halting nuclear and missile developments while Kim developed nuclear weapons and missile delivery systems, claims he would have prevented Putin from waging war in the Ukraine, insists he has disoriented Iran that glides ahead with its nuclear developments and finds means to overcome the sanctions, blames Biden for a rash withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan after he had ordered a rapid withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Afghanistan and Somalia in the wake of his 2020 election loss, and maintains he solved a Middle East crisis that has exploded into its most aggressive since the world’s leading statesman made his utterances. All Illusions.
Biden
The present U.S. president is an illusion ─ is he the scrappy, thoughtful, and vital person he portrays or is he an aged and worn warrior dependent upon others for voice and conviction? Will the real Joe Biden, please not be propped up, and stand up? Biden is not the worn and withered character of Trump’s exaggeration but he is undoubtedly more frail in body and mind than presented before the camera and, from his appearance, might rapidly decline.
Joe’s most prominent illusion is his belief he can fool the electorate into thinking he is tough on Israel and can move Israel into a conciliatory position. Xios reports the president laid out an ultimatum to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” If Israel doesn’t change course in Gaza, we won’t be able to support you.” Changing course means not making it obvious that Israel is committing genocide and better to pause and go slower. Joe is fooling many but he does not realize he is still a “war criminal” and a sufficient number of voters recognize his hypocrisy and they will not vote for him.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Robert F. Kennedy is an unknown to most of the electorate and an unknown in his effect on the presidential race. His agenda consists entirely of contradicting standard beliefs, which resonates with Trump followers or maybe, with those who approve of the Trump maverick and not of the Trump person, those who would have preferred to vote for the successful businessman and won’t vote for a man perceived as lying, swindling, and only interested in himself.
RFKjr. subscribes to Mark Twain’s advice, “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.” He does not exactly convey illusions; some of his conspiracy theories, of which there are many, emerge as illusions, but within their frameworks are rational thoughts.
Briefly, he is allied with one of the country’s largest anti-vaccination advocacy groups; claims that a variety of childhood illnesses are being caused by the ingredients in vaccines; proposes that the 2004 election had been stolen from John Kerry; asserts that the CIA played a role in the killing of his uncle (JFK) and his father (RFK); charges that 5G has been set up “to harvest data and control behavior,” accuses Anthony Fauci’s actions during the Covid-19 crisis of orchestrating “a historic coup d’état against Western democracy,” and cites the presence of atrazine in the water supply as a contributor to “depression and gender dysphoria among boys since atrazine is known to clinically castrate frogs when dumped into their tanks.”
There may be partial truths in some of RFK jr’s ramblings but there are only illusions in several of them and these illusions attract voters.
Each of the candidates may have attributes that attract the electorate; each of the candidates has attributes that contradict their ability to hold the highest office in the land. Each professes illusions; each fails from the illusions.
Having three unwanted individuals competing for president of the United States of America exposes the most serious illusion, that the USA is a thriving democracy with a free press, where the people have a voice and a choice, a choice of choosing between illusions.
The post A Presidential Race Guided by Illusions first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
The Biden administration on Sunday faced calls to demand the immediate release of Ecuador’s former vice president after Ecuadorian police stormed Mexico’s embassy in Quito and forcibly seized the ex-official, a flagrant breach of the 1961 Vienna Convention. “Ecuador’s government has committed a very serious crime, one that threatens the security of embassies and diplomats throughout the world…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Protesters gathered outside of the U.S. embassies in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on Friday to demand an end to the U.S. and Israel’s genocide in Gaza, marking six months since Israel began the siege that has killed at least 33,000 Palestinians so far. The “Say Their Names” gatherings, which doubled as both vigil and protest, were arranged by Israeli and Jewish activists, including members of left-wing…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
For the first time since Israel launched its devastating offensive on Gaza six months ago, President Joe Biden appears to have convinced right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to change policy. The Israeli government’s decision to open up the Erez crossing to allow more relief supplies came after a phone call between the two on Thursday, in which for the first time Biden appeared to…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
This week the White House canceled a planned Ramadan dinner after many Muslim American leaders refused to attend as the Biden administration indicates it plans to continue arming Israel. Instead, Biden held a scaled-back meeting Tuesday with Muslim American community figures. The curtailed meeting was itself met with protests, including from Palestinian American emergency room physician Dr.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
On the same day as Israeli forces carried out a hugely controversial and horrific killing of seven international aid workers for food charity World Central Kitchen in Gaza, the Biden administration approved yet another transfer of thousands of bombs to Israel, new reporting reveals, undermining U.S. officials’ public statements lamenting the workers’ killings. The Washington Post reported Thursday…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Prices for prescription drugs in America average almost three times as much as in other major nations around the world. Even more, the companies that set those prices are doing everything they can to make sure they stay in the stratosphere: they filed suit to overturn an upcoming reform, having Medicare negotiate the prices of some of the costliest and most commonly used drugs. While the suit has already been dismissed, other challenges are certain to follow.
The makers don’t think they need to explain themselves, either. If they hadn’t been threatened with subpoenas, their CEOs would never have showed up to waffle their way through a Senate hearing on drug pricing earlier this year.
Lastly, the companies argue that critics of high prices should instead be praising the industry for all the research it carries out to make the drugs available in the first place—failing to mention, of course, the critical role that government funding regularly plays in the development of new drugs.
A big contributor to insane drug prices is the billions spent on those incessant drug commercials. Hour after hour, eyes glazing over, TV watchers are bombarded with happy-time ads for Rinvoq, Skyrizi, Dupixent, Sanofi, Jardiance, on and on and then some.
Thank heaven for mute buttons; more to the point, thank heaven that the Biden Administration is leading the way to somewhat less insanity.
The President’s Inflation Reduction Act contained several provisions affecting drug prices, including three that began to take effect in 2023. The bill capped the price of insulin at $35 a month, made some vaccines free, and required drug companies that raised prices faster than the rate of inflation to pay rebates to Medicare.
Here’s Biden taking a victory lap during his State of the Union address: “That’s not just saving seniors money, it’s saving taxpayers money. We cut the federal deficit by $160 billion because Medicare will no longer have to pay those exorbitant prices…”
Other cost-saving provisions are coming as well. Starting in 2025, out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for retirees covered under Medicare Part D will be capped at $2,000. Annual limits after 2025 will be adjusted based on inflation rates. Medicare-negotiated drug prices, mentioned earlier, have an effective date of 2026 (unless, of course, they get derailed by Big Pharma). Negotiations between Medicare and the makers are already underway for the first 10 covered drugs; all by themselves, those 10 accounted for over $3.4 billion in out-of-pocket costs in 2022.
Drug prices could fall even more sharply under the terms of the proposed 2025 budget for the Department of Health and Human Services. Instead of Medicare-negotiated prices for 10 drugs, the number would rise to 50 per-year.
Presidents also have the power to make things happen without Congressional legislation, and a Biden executive order could result in allowing states to import lower-cost drugs in bulk from Canada. The Food and Drug Administration approved Florida’s request early this year, and other states are hoping to follow. (Full disclosure: Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis and former president Trump also pushed for FDA’s approval.)
Drug companies reflexively oppose lower drug prices, so, of course, they reflexively oppose imports from Canada. A statement from their trade association said they were “considering all options for preventing this policy from harming patients.”
If you wonder how patients could be harmed by lower drug prices, feel free to ask the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. Another question too: Ask if they could please, please, please cut down on those commercials (or better yet, just end them).
The post Drugmakers OD on Insane Prices, Incessant Commercials first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
Palestine advocates on Wednesday slammed the Biden administration as it pushes Congress to approve the sale of $18 billion worth of F-15 fighter jets to Israel, despite public pronouncements of anger over ongoing Israeli atrocities in Gaza and a federal ban on the U.S. arms transfers to human rights violators. The New York Times reported that the U.S. State Department has informally asked two…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
New polling finds that the majority of the American public now say that they disapprove of Israel’s genocidal siege of Gaza. Approval of the assault has plummeted over the course of a few months as Israel slaughtered at least 33,000 Palestinians and continues its destruction of Gaza with impunity. According to a Gallup survey conducted last month, 55 percent of Americans say that they disapprove…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Despite some tough odds pitted against them, the campaign team for President Joe Biden believes they can “flip” Florida to his win column in the 2024 presidential election, due to a number of issues they think will resonate with voters in that state, particularly abortion rights. In the two presidential campaigns he’s run, former President Donald Trump has won Florida twice…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Janine Jackson interviewed IPS’s Phyllis Bennis about the Gaza ceasefire resolution for the March 29, 2024, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.
Reuters (3/22/24)
Janine Jackson: Reuters reported on March 22 that the United Nations Security Council had rejected a resolution, proposed by the US, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, and a hostage deal between the Israeli government and Hamas. Russia and China vetoed the measure, readers were told, while Algeria also voted no and Guyana abstained on a measure that “called for an immediate and sustained ceasefire lasting roughly six weeks that would protect civilians and allow for the delivery of humanitarian assistance.”
US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield, cited in AP, said that the US had been “working on a hostage deal for months” that would call for a “six-week period of calm,” from which, she said, “we could then take the time and the steps to build a more enduring peace.” Well, what does that wording mean, and what do UN resolutions generally mean, if politicians and news media interpret them variously?
So helping us to sift through these attempts to respond to the violence of Israel’s ongoing war on Palestinians in Gaza is Phyllis Bennis; she’s senior fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and international advisor to Jewish Voice for Peace, as well as author of, among other titles, Understanding the Palestinian/Israeli Conflict: A Primer.
She joins us now by phone. Welcome back to CounterSpin, Phyllis Bennis.
Phyllis Bennis: Great to be with you, Janine.
JJ: So the US introduced a resolution at the UN, nominally calling for a ceasefire, but also vetoed another resolution calling for a ceasefire, because, Thomas-Greenfield said, it would interfere with negotiations around freeing Israeli hostages. And then there’s this effort to portray the current decision as non-binding. It’s very confusing, especially for laypeople. Does the US want a real ceasefire or not? What’s happening here?
Al Jazeera (5/19/21)
PB: You raise all the right questions, Janine. The real issue has to do with the US view of the United Nations, which is that it’s annoying at best and a threat to US domination at worst, from Washington’s vantage point. So that earlier veto by Russia and China and opposition by Algeria, the abstention by Guyana, of the US resolution came after a history, a long history that goes back years, in fact, of the US vetoing calls for a ceasefire in situations when Israel is attacking, mostly Gaza, on occasion Lebanon, and the Security Council calls for a ceasefire, and the US says, “No, we don’t need a ceasefire yet.” Always meaning, “We haven’t killed enough people yet.” So there’s a long history of that. We don’t really have time to go into that.
But the US did it twice in a row on the Gaza question, where there were proposals for a ceasefire that the US vetoed, which would’ve passed. The US refused. Then the US comes up with its own resolution, which was a very, very sneaky one, because that quote that you read about what it says, those words were indeed in the resolution, but it did not call for them. The resolution did not call for an immediate ceasefire. There was a recognition by the Security Council, according to this resolution, that a ceasefire would be a good idea, and then went on to say and therefore the Security Council should go on cheerleading—they didn’t use that word—but saying should support the US-controlled negotiations that are already underway in Qatar.
So it was a fake resolution. That’s why others did not like it, and weren’t willing to accept it as if it were an actual call. In international law, which is very complicated in a lot of ways, but certain parts of it are pretty clear. One of the parts that’s pretty clear, Article 25 of the UN Charter, says that all decisions, all resolutions, passed by the Security Council are international law. They’re all binding. That’s what the real world of international law says.
So when a resolution is passed, it needs to say the Security Council demands a ceasefire, period, full stop. If it talks about how the Security Council recognizes that such and such would be a good idea, that’s nothing to be binding on, right? That’s just a statement of what we think is nice.
Common Dreams (3/25/24)
So that’s what was distinctive, the new resolution that was passed just a few days ago that the United States was willing to allow to be passed, 14-to-0, with one abstention—the US abstained rather than vetoing it; that was a great step forward. And that one, crucially, did call for an immediate ceasefire, and it also called for release of all the hostages and compliance with international law in the treatment of all those detained by all sides, which is a clear reference to the Palestinian prisoners that Israel is holding. And it also, crucially, demanded lifting all barriers to the massive amount of humanitarian assistance that’s desperately needed as famine is moving across Gaza. So that was a huge shift.
At the same time, the US had weakened it in many ways. It removed the word “permanent” from the description of the ceasefire it was demanding, and said, “We just want a ‘lasting’ ceasefire”; nobody knows what that means. And, crucially, the other weakness was that the ceasefire is only called for for two weeks. It said that the ceasefire should last for the month of Ramadan, but it was passed two weeks into Ramadan, so there’s only about two weeks left, so that’s way too short. And there’s other limitations as well. But it was a very significant shift in the US position, and it really speaks to how the Biden administration is hearing, if not yet fully responding to, but feeling like they have to answer, the demands of this rising movement that is so powerful across the United States and now globally, saying we need a ceasefire now, and we need access for massive amounts of humanitarian aid, without any of the barriers that Israel is putting up.
Those things are desperately needed, and what we’re looking at now is a question of how that movement is rising, what the impact could be on the elections, that’s one of the biggest pressure points for the Biden administration. If they want to win this election, they have to be seeing that the only way to do it is to change their policy on what has been, up until now, unconditional support for Israel.
With all the language about criticisms of Netanyahu, and the massive amount of press about how there’s this big divide between Biden and Netanyahu, between the US and Israel, that’s true only on the level of talking. On the level of acting, the US hasn’t changed a thing. $4 billion a year as a starting point of military aid; all the additional weapons that Israel wants, Israel gets.
Al Jazeera (3/6/24)
There’s just been no shift in the reality that the US is arming and financing a genocide, and as long as that’s underway, there’s people across this country that are mobilizing this “uncommitted” campaign, in places like Michigan and Minnesota, where those votes really matter, and it’s spreading. It’s about to happen in Wisconsin.
And at the end of the day, this isn’t just about the election, this is about what has to happen to stop this genocide. And I think what has to happen is that there has to be a way of convincing Joe Biden personally, not just others in his administration.
And right now, the pressure is rising, and the issue is going to be, how much longer can he keep up the political credibility, when he has people in his own administration resigning in protest of his policies? He has the staff of his own Biden/Harris campaign committee coming out with a public letter saying, “Mr. President, we can’t do our job. We can’t get you reelected with this policy.”
You have the White House interns. This is my personal favorite of all these protests. These are the most ambitious kids in the country. They all want to be president, right? And yet they’re willing to come out and say, “Mr. President, we are not leaders today, but we aspire to lead in the future, and we can’t do it with this kind of a model, when there is a genocide underway.”
So the US can do all it wants to say that this is a non-binding resolution, but that’s just not true. They can go out of their way to say that the South African initiative at the International Court of Justice, that led to a finding that Israel is plausibly committing genocide right now, or is moving towards a genocide, that that extraordinary brief prepared by the South African legal team somehow is “meritless.” They can claim that, but the rest of the world isn’t buying it, and increasingly US voters aren’t buying it.
JJ: Let me just ask you, finally, I do see also just a lot of regular folks reading things like US Deputy Ambassador Robert Wood calling for a “lengthy pause to this conflict” and saying, “Well, we’re not calling for a pause to the conflict. We’re calling for a resolution. We’re calling for a way forward.” And then you see with concerns about a wider war, we have folks like John Kirby, White House National Security Council, on the Today Show saying, “Well, we don’t want a wider war in the region, but we got to do what we have to do.”
This is terrifying, but I also feel like folks are seeing through it. And so maybe let’s end on that note, that folks are figuring out that this politics-speak, they’re seeing it for what it is—and, more importantly, for what it isn’t.
Phyllis Bennis: “What we need is a real ceasefire. That doesn’t mean two weeks to release all the hostages, and then we go back to war.”
PB: That’s exactly right, Janine, and I think the good news, if there is any in this extraordinarily devastating time of real genocide in real time in front of our eyes on an hourly basis, the good news is exactly as you say: More and more people in this country and globally are seeing through those false claims.
It’s a false claim that the UN resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire is not binding. It is binding. It’s a false claim that the South African charges at the International Court of Justice were meritless. They had all the merit in the world.
All of these claims are designed to distract us. It’s all a distraction. The change in language is a distraction.
What we need is a real ceasefire. That doesn’t mean two weeks to release all the hostages, and then we go back to war. That’s not the point here. The point is to stop the fighting, stop the slaughter, stop the denial of food and water and medicine, which is deliberately causing massive starvation on a level that all of the experts in international humanitarian crises admit is the worst they have ever seen—not in terms of ultimate numbers, because the population in Gaza is not very big, but in terms of the percentage of people. Never have we seen 100% of a population facing extreme hunger, with 55% facing immediate famine. This has never happened before, as long as the international humanitarian organizations have been tracking famines. It’s shocking.
And the fact that it is going on while we watch, with weapons we provide, that we pay for with our tax money, is finally reaching everybody in this country. More and more people are saying no, not in our name, not with our tax money, not anymore.
JJ: We’ve been speaking with Phyllis Bennis. You can find her recent work on UN resolutions on Gaza on CommonDreams.org, as well as ips-dc.org.
Phyllis Bennis, we have to end it here for today, but of course we’ll stay in conversation. Thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.
PB: Thank you, Janine.
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Voters head to the polls today in several states for the U.S. presidential primaries, including New York, where a growing campaign is hoping that many people will submit blank ballots in the state’s Democratic presidential primary to protest Joe Biden’s continued support for Israel’s months-long assault on Gaza. “Leave It Blank” is a statewide effort, backed by dozens of grassroots organizations…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Inflation is a scourge on those cursed with living under the capitalist order. It especially punishes those least able to weather the pain of constantly falling behind rising prices and expanding debt.
Inflation harms nearly all working people whose income growth trails the rise in prices, including those with union contracts that bridge periods of rapid price increases.
Small businesses suffer because of their inability to match supplier increases with price hikes of their own. Also, they are more likely to be locked into a cycle of incurring greater and greater debt and ever-higher interest rates.
The pain of inflation is intensified by the customary antidote prescribed by mainstream economists: interest-rate hikes designed to slow economic activity and force pricing restraint. While some decry the harshness of government anti-inflation policies, they can offer no other solution under capitalism. Erdoğan, President of Türkiye, recently experimented with defying anti-inflation orthodoxy with disastrous results.
Higher interest rates add higher interest charges that banks attach to already bloated prices through credit-card usage, mortgages, student debt, and other private borrowing.
In the post-war period, we have known one period of extended, intractable inflation, and that came after a long period of government military-related spending and an unanticipated economic shock — the oil crisis — in the 1970s. As I wrote in 2021:
The enormous costs of the US’s long, costly Asian war produced great debt and pressure on the gold-backed US dollar. The imperialist alliance with Israel brought a disruptive, unprecedented boycott on the part of the oil-producing nations resisting Israel’s occupation of Arab territories. Intense competition between the dominant US economy and the resurgent Euro-Asian economies was shrinking profit margins.
I thought there were common features with that earlier period and the emergence of high inflation in 2021:
The pandemic, like the oil crisis, has shocked the global economy. The US economy and subordinate economies have been running on the fumes of fiat money and central bank stimulation, exposing remedies that are losing their effectiveness. Despite the lack of even phantom existential threats, the US has conjured costly foreign adventures and an extraordinarily wasteful and large military budget and “security” spending, crowding out social spending and amplifying national indebtedness. Commodity scarcity generates rising prices. And both slow growth and inflation are now reappearing and promise to continue.
This was not a popular view in 2021.
And it is not popular today, though wars in Ukraine and Gaza are adding even more limitless demand for weapons and more inflationary pressure.
In 2021, economists, government officials, and pundits scoffed at inflation, assuring us that inflation would subside as soon as income support from the pandemic was exhausted and damaged and broken supply chains were repaired. In sharp contrast, I pointed out:
Despite the admonitions of the central bankers and financial gurus, inflation seldom self-corrects. It rarely runs its course. Instead, inflation tends to gather momentum because all the economic actors attempt to catch up and get ahead of it… And it is important to recognize that this profit-taking has and will continue to fuel inflation. Once again, the commanding heights of the US economy– the monopoly corporations– are using the excuse of catching-up to profit-up.
With Wall Street and its minions still clinging to the illusion that inflation was going away and that there was no need for the braking effect of high interest rates, the January and February inflation reports came as a shock. The media likes to jump from one measure of inflation to another to promote the best perception of inflationary trends. Thus, from report to report, they may feature the CPI or the core CPI, or the PCE, computed on a month-to-month or annualized basis, depending on which shows the most optimistic results. But manipulation and wishful thinking cannot hide the bare facts: December to January month-to-month CPI rose .6% and January to February month-to-month CPI by .4%, alarmingly high increases after three straight months of month-to-month decline. Inflation is still with us.
Conformation for the relationship between higher prices and profit-taking comes from an unexpected source. Conservative economist Greg Ip writes of the Big Profits, High Prices: There Is a Link: “Since the end of 2019, prices are up 17%, outpacing both labor and nonlabor costs. The result: Profits grew by 41%. If profits had grown at the same, slower rate as costs, that would have translated to a cumulative price increase of only 12.5%, and an average annual inflation rate roughly 1 percentage point lower.”
So, the monopoly corporations effectively robbed the consumer and small businesses of 1% more of the price of goods and services in each of the last four years, on top of their usual rate of exploitation. During this period, profits reached a rate unseen in the twenty-first century.
In this election year, is anyone in either of the two major parties addressing the pain of inflation and its cause located in the insatiable thirst for profit on the part of monopoly capital? The monopoly corporations impose a unilateral 1% tariff on all goods and services for four years in a row with no outcry from the mainstream press? This is what the pundits mean by “our democracy”?
The Biden administration answers that, despite inflation, we are doing better. The economy is doing fine.
Consider the facts:
● The New York Federal Reserve reports that “serious” credit-card delinquencies have risen from 4.01% to 6.36% in the year through the fourth quarter of 2023, an increase of more than 50% in one year and indicative of “increased financial stress.” For many workers, the credit card is the mechanism used to address income shortfalls, but with interest on credit debt rising from pre-pandemic 14.9% to 21.5%, the average of the last quarter of 2023, credit cards are exacting a harsh toll. Credit-card usage now constitutes a vicious trap and not an answer.
● Mortgage and auto-loan delinquencies are also on the rise.
● Fox News reports: ”A record-breaking number of Americans are making emergency withdrawals from their 401(k) retirement plans in order to cover a financial hardship amid the ongoing inflation crisis, according to new data from Vanguard Group… Nearly 3.6% of workers participating in employer-sponsored 401(k) plans made a so-called “hardship” withdrawal in 2023, according to Vanguard, which tracks about 5 million accounts. That marks a major increase from the 2.8% rate recorded in 2022 and the pre-pandemic average of about 2%. It marks the highest level since Vanguard began tracking the data in 2004.”
● The Wall Street Journal explains: “Inflation experienced by the poorest fifth of society was 1.6% higher than for the richest fifth from March 2020 to June 2023…”
● Also: “Pandemic savings have run down. The Federal Reserve concluded at the end of last year that ‘excess’ savings accumulated during the pandemic have been run down, and depending on the method used have either run out altogether or are close to it. Low-income consumers spent their excess-cash cushion earlier, according to other studies, which helps explain why they are struggling more with debt.”
● Consumers are pulling back on purchases. January’s revised 1.1% drop in retail sales has alarmed economists. While February’s numbers increased, they fell below consensus predictions.
● Burger chain McDonald’s, a bellwether for middle- and lower-strata discretionary spending, reports more customers are turning to grocery purchases and dining at home to save money.
● In a January 2024 Pew poll, 31% of respondents say that US economic conditions are “poor” and 41% say that they are “only fair.”
These facts present a formidable case that inflation is continuing and doing great harm to US citizens, especially the working class. Sadly, there is no — and likely will be no — political answer to this scourge expressed in the forthcoming elections. To properly address inflation without advocating the painful remedies now in place would require a critical challenge to the economic system that frequently spawns inflation. That system is capitalism and neither mainstream political party will dare make that challenge.
The US working class needs organizations — unions, political parties — that will actually fight against inflation or risk another lost decade of economic stagnation and declining living standards.
This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Greg Godels.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Despite growing worldwide calls for an arms embargo, the Biden administration in recent days has approved the transfer of billions of dollars worth of new weapons shipments to Israel, including warplanes and 2,000-pound bombs that have been dropped on densely populated areas of Gaza with devastating results. The Washington Post reported Friday that the administration has “quietly” authorized arms…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Joe Biden and other Democrat politicians portray the upcoming Presidential election as a choice between fascism and democracy. But Genocide Joe and most Congressional Democrats, like most Congressional Republicans, operate with an unadmitted mindset: that democratic rights are only for some people, and that oppressive fascistic rule is appropriate for certain others.
Biden et al evade the facts of Israeli persecution of Palestinians. For them: Israeli lives (seen as white) matter, Palestinian lives (seen as other) don’t. In fact, the Zionist state entitles Jewish Israelis to liberal civil rights such that they generally cannot be jailed without a fair hearing in a court of law. Meanwhile, although Biden et al will not acknowledge it, any Palestinian in the West Bank or Gaza can be imprisoned and routinely tortured by Israel (nearly 10,000 at last report): for any, or no, reason with no court hearing whatsoever; or, if they do receive a hearing, it is in a military court where the conviction rate is over 99%. Israelis elect their government; Palestinians are not permitted to do likewise. Zionist Israelis can and do rob Palestinians of their homes and properties and/or murder them with impunity. The Zionist state expels Palestinians from their homeland and bars their return. Biden, notwithstanding his lip-service concern for suffering Palestinians, vetoes UN Security Council resolutions condemning Israeli crimes against Palestinian humanity, crimes which include the current genocidal mass murder in Gaza. As a staunch defender of the Jewish-supremacist state, Biden (along with most Congress people of both Parties) obviously believes that democracy and rule of law are good for some people and that fascist-like apartheid and genocidal mass murder (until it becomes an electoral liability) are acceptable for others. (For relevant background facts regarding Zionism, Hamas, and the current war in Gaza, see here!)
Whereas Trump panders to xenophobic racism, “humanitarian” Biden pretends to oppose it. But Biden summarily deported some 20,000 Haitians in his first year despite the horrific conditions in Haiti and his authority to grant “temporary protective status”. That 20,000 is more than Trump and his 2 predecessors deported in their cumulative 20 years. More recently, Biden has agreed to proposed immigration and asylum restrictions nearly as onerous as those demanded by MAGA Republicans, restrictions which violate international humanitarian law, notwithstanding that the migrants are fleeing the economic and political havoc wreaked by Western imperialism upon the countries from which they come. Biden also continues Trump’s economic sieges which are designed to starve and otherwise punish the peoples of Cuba and Venezuela, actions which also violate international humanitarian law (as well as driving even more international migration). Evidently, Biden’s humanitarian sympathies are no more than minimally, if at all, better than Trump’s when it comes to Cubans, Venezuelans, Haitians, and desperate immigrant people of color.
Trump panders openly to xenophobic racism and every other form of bigotry which will appeal to his MAGA base. But let us not forget: that Biden, pandering to racist white constituents, joined with segregationists in opposition to court ordered bussing for school desegregation; and that he, finding that Reagan’s tough-on-crime policies were popular with many of his white voters, spent a decade pressing for legislation culminating in the 1994 crime bill which has given the US the world’s largest per capita prison population (which is disproportionately racial minority).
Biden pretends to be pro-environment, but he prioritizes those projects which create jobs with income for capitalists. Meanwhile, he defied the environmental community by acquiesced to pressure from the fossil fuel industry with his approval of drilling on the Willow Project in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve. Biden also demands massive military spending plus weapons deliveries to fuel ongoing wars, both of which add considerably to global warming as well as being extremely wasteful and destructive.
Biden pretends to be pro-labor, but he stopped the rail workers from exercising their right to strike over oppressive attendance requirements and safety violations.
Trump and his MAGA Republicans oppose (for their partisan and ideological reasons) more billions for Biden’s proxy war (using Ukrainians as cannon fodder) against Russia. Trump lacks any firm commitment to the imperial NATO alliance, whereas Biden acts to consolidate its hold upon Europe and to expand its purview to the Asia-Pacific. But for overwhelming opposition within the bipartisan US foreign policy establishment, then-President Trump may well have negotiated a long overdue peace treaty with North Korea; Biden clearly would never do so. For thoroughgoing imperialist militarist Biden, the US’ 38% share of all of the world’s military spending, compared to Russia’s 3.1%, is not enough. Trump pursued a trade war with China, and so has Biden; but Biden (despite the longstanding US commitment to the one-China principle) threatens a real war, if the independence faction in Taiwan secedes (which Biden and many Congressional Democrats are actually encouraging), and if China then responds with military action to stop it.
If returned to the Presidency, Trump can be expected to openly abuse (within practical limits) the powers of that Office; whereas Biden’s abuses are mostly with Congressional acquiescence. Trump may be an aspiring autocrat; but, narcissist and opportunist demagogue that he is, Trump is no Hitlerian fanatic. In pursuit of voters, he panders to Zionist Jews and also to Judeophobe racists. He panders to bigotry for political gain, not to create a thousand-year Reich. Trump wants another 4 years in the Presidency so that he can: personally profit from it, boost his ego, and escape accountability for his many partisan political crimes. Meanwhile, red-state Republicans have been imposing marginal infringements of democratic liberties in their states; while Biden and Congressional Democrats, even when they had both houses of Congress, lacked the will to take decisive action on crucial rights legislation (police accountability, gun regulation, abortion rights, labor rights, voting rights, removal of rogue Supreme Court Justices, et cetera). If Biden and his centrist Democrats deliver some limited progressive reforms (when under sufficient pressure and they can obtain bipartisan agreement); it is, out of necessity, in order to get the usual Democratic Party constituencies to vote for them. Essentially, both Biden and Trump are agents of the rule of capital.
Liberal Democrat assertion, that a Trump Presidency will impose full-blown fascism, is a dubious proposition, which they are using as a campaign scare tactic. Their assertion, that Democrat control of Congress and the Oval Office will preserve civil and human rights in the US, is belied by their records. Moreover, what Americans would experience under another 4 years of Trump in the Oval Office is nowhere nearly comparable to what Palestinians are experiencing under Biden-backed Israel.
What of Trump’s fascist-minded associates who would retain some political influence beyond a second Trump Presidential term? Whether Trump again or another 4 years of Biden, the real answer is the same. Reliance upon politicians of the centrist-dominated Democratic Party is a recipe for failure, one which enables said Dems to mislead and use social-justice voters while persisting with their policies of militarism, imperialism, supremacy of capital, and political perfidy, and yet remain largely ineffective against MAGA-Republican abuses and obstructions. Our real need is to build a social-justice activist movement which is truly independent of both major US Parties:
Both Trump and Biden are racist promoters of mass murder. Neither is capable of earning the votes of activists for comprehensive social justice. Unless we (like Biden and most Congressional Democrats) devalue the humanity and lives of Palestinians, Haitians, et cetera; how can we accept liberal “left” assertions, that Biden is any savior of humanity and democracy and must therefore be reelected?
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