A reading in Joe Biden’s letter to Hertzel

Posted on May 20, 2024 by uprootedpalestinians

May 20, 2024

Source: Al Mayadeen English

Biden’s unwavering support for “Israel” vs. the students’ support for Palestine (Illustrated by Hady Dbouk; Al Mayadeen English)

By Al Mayadeen English

Arab Intellectual

Bouthaina Shaaban

The students of over 70 American universities expressed in their graduation ceremony the noblest feelings of the conscience of the American people.

But what Biden doesn’t know is that he and his entire system will not be able in the near future to guarantee the security of “Israel”, because he and the Zionist entity will not be able to kill the growing consciousness among American and Western young men and women toward the rights of the Palestinian people in their homeland and of the gross injustices committed against these people during the last eight decades. These young students of men and women in American and Western universities who are taking noble stands in support of helpless Palestinians are going to be the rulers in the future when Biden and his like-minded people will no longer be there and when the innocent blood of all these martyrs of children, women, journalists, scientists, doctors, and others will come to fruition in restoring the just and inalienable rights of the Palestinians, which were undermined by tyrants, occupiers, and terrorists, as well as their supporters for decades. 

In his letter to the head of the Zionist entity on the 76th occasion of Nakbah (which they call “Independence Day”), Biden said, “My commitment to the security of Israel is solid and it is necessary that we work together,” adding, “The commitment of the United States to the security of Israel is unshaken.” This statement renders all of Biden’s alleged efforts in the course of working for peace in the region and creating a better future for all its people meaningless. After all, the absolute commitment of the United States to the security of “Israel”, drowning it with money and armaments to perpetrate genocide, and using the VETO in the Security Council to prevent anyone from taking it to task is the most important factor that enabled this entity to perpetrate horrendous genocide against the Palestinian people that has no parallel in modern history. 

There is no doubt that Biden and his aides, who are not even embarrassed to say, “We found no evidence of Israel committing genocide” and who give shameful, illogical, and contradictory statements… there is no doubt that they are basing their hopes on conspiratorial partners who are prepared to cooperate with them to inflict more injustice on these great Palestinian people and to complement other unlawful accords that they historically seek in their desperate attempts to silence those people who truly belong to their homeland and who are prepared to pay sacrifices to keep their rights on it. 

But what Biden and his followers are going to discover is that the Palestinian cause is no longer reliant on their will and they are no longer able to trade the rights of the Palestinian people with some short-sighted personal advantages. The Palestinian cause has reached today a very crucial juncture in which it has transcended from being a regional, Arab, or even Islamic cause to being a human cause that moves and influences free consciences everywhere in the world. It also plants awareness in the minds of the youth, which will certainly be translated into action that ends the occupation and Western tyranny and inspires a new future not only for Palestinians but for humanity at large. The Palestinian cause will liberate the international will from injustice and tyranny and will contribute to the emergence of a multipolar world system in which neither the US nor its Western partners will be able to facilitate the perpetration of all these crimes against humanity under the sight and hearing of the entire world.

The students of the Faculty of Liberal Arts at Minnesota University, along with the students of Colombia University and 70 other American universities expressed in their graduation ceremony the noblest feelings of the conscience of American people. Each one of them carried a board greeting Gaza, calling for an end to the genocide, chanting: “Palestine is free from the river to the sea,” Each one of them held the board in front of them so that it could be seen before they walked to receive their degrees. There is no doubt that their brave and noble stand in support of people who are facing the most heinous types of injustice is more important than the degree they were awarded. The degrees do not define them; they define the degrees, define themselves, and give merit to the best traits of the American people. As the degrees prove their academic capabilities and performance, their courageous and noble stand in support of a people who suffer today from horrifying injustice is a very honorable stand, which they and their children would be proud of. Those young men and women are going to be the governors in the future, and they will undoubtedly absolve themselves from the shameful legacy of successive American administrations, especially Biden’s, and open a new page that represents acclaimed American values. In every domain in the US, the first thing they stress is the principle of a “win-win” situation, except with regard to the Arab cause, in which they commit themselves to the security of the Zionist entity at the expense of the lands, lives, and the very existence of the Arabs in their homeland. 

From this perspective, we can understand the statement of Josep Borrell, the high representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs, when he said that the United States is showing fatigue in its Middle East diplomacy in seeking a solution. The principal cause for this fatigue is that American diplomacy seeks to abrogate Palestinian rights in their homeland and is bent on calling that a solution. That is why all Western media promoted the Israeli maxim of “eliminating Hamas”, while the true intention or plan was to wage a war of genocide against all Palestinians. That is also why the Zionists refused every version submitted by mediators because they are bent on this genocide against all Palestinian people and all their resistance to occupation. The genocide was perpetrated against all Palestinian people and all their institutions, schools, universities, hospitals, mosques, churches, bakeries, and anything that helps to make life possible. 

That is why what the Zionists had perpetrated in Gaza and Palestine, in general, is an international issue and no longer only an Arab or Islamic one. Just as the struggle to liberate South Africa from Apartheid was an international cause, so is Palestine today. South Africa honored its history by submitting a case to the International Court of Justice to take punitive measures against “Israel” and shed light on the danger of what was committed against Palestinian civilians. Leaders in Latin America also took honorable stands in support of the Palestinians, and 143 countries in the General Assembly voted to grant Palestine full UN membership. 

What is required today from all sectors and all international syndicates and professional unions is action, each in their domain to bring “Israel” to task, expel it from international forums, register the names of those who were victims of this genocide, and lead a legal case in international courts against “Israel”. The Israelis have killed athletes and their trainers and referees. They killed over a 100 academicians, professors, and researchers. They killed hundreds of doctors and medical staff. International organizations in all these fields and other fields should boycott the Israeli entity, isolate it, and drag it to the International Court of Justice for all these crimes. 

There is no doubt that the US and Western countries in general have morally fallen to the abyss during this horrifying aggression on Gaza. The only ones who restored some of the hope in our hearts are those brave and noble university students, as well as the officials and Jewish people who resigned from their posts in protest of the genocide and in defense of the Palestinian people and of what is left of their countries’ credibility. 

When real names and numbers of those killed in Gaza are released, world forces will move on guided by the experience and example of South Africa. By then, Biden and his aides will be in the dark pages of history, and only those who fought, resisted, and persisted in defending their homelands and those who supported them will shine in history pages forever. That is when the world would have moved beyond the ugly imperialist, Zionist system to a much safer and happier multipolar world.

The opinions mentioned in this article do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Al mayadeen, but rather express the opinion of its writer exclusively.

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عن فكرة الاعتراف الأممي بدولة فلسطينية

Posted on April 26, 2024 by Amro Allan عمرو علان

2024 أبريل 24


عمرو علان

أعاد طرح قضية الاعتراف الأممي بدولة فلسطينية فتح النقاش بين الأوساط الفلسطينية والعربية حول ما إذا كان هذا الأمر يخدم النضال الفلسطيني من أجل التحرير، فماذا يمكن القول في هذا المقام؟

عاد إلى الواجهة في الأسابيع القليلة الماضية الحديث عن منح دولة فلسطين العضوية الكاملة في الأمم المتحدة، فعلى وقع عملية “طوفان الأقصى” وما أحدثته تلك العملية المجيدة من تغيير في عموم مشهد الصراع العربي-الإسلامي الصهيوني لمصلحة الحق الفلسطيني، بدأت بعض الدوائر الغربية وغير الغربية بتداول هذه القضية بصورة أكثر جدية من ذي قَبْل، إذ نشأ في إثر ذلك حراك دبلوماسي نشط حولها، كانت ذروته تقديم الجزائر، الخميس 18 نيسان 2024، مشروع قرار لمجلس الأمن يدعو إلى قبول عضوية فلسطين الكاملة في الأمم المتحدة.

وقد حظي مشروع القرار بتأييد 12 عضواً من أصل 15، وامتناع كل من بريطانيا وسويسرا عن التصويت، فيما عارضته الولايات المتحدة مستخدمةً حق النقض “الفيتو”، ليسقط بذلك مشروع القرار كما سقطت مشاريع قرارات كثيرة من قبله.

مهما كان الحال، فقد أعاد طرح قضية الاعتراف الأممي بدولة فلسطينية فتح النقاش بين الأوساط الفلسطينية والعربية حول ما إذا كان هذا الأمر يخدم النضال الفلسطيني من أجل التحرير، فماذا يمكن القول في هذا المقام؟

قَبْل كل شيء، يجب تسجيل أن نحو 3 عقود من مسار “أسلو” الذي اتخذته منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية، وأن التنازلات عن الثوابت الوطنية التي قدمتها، وأن الاستجداء المتكرر لمحمود عباس وتنسيقه الأمني الذي بات يرقى إلى مستوى العمالة الوطنية، لم يؤدِ إلى تحقيق مطلب السلطة بطرح قضية قبول عضوية فلسطين الكاملة في الأمم المتحدة، فيما أفضى فعل المقاومة الفلسطينية المسلحة الميداني في 7 تشرين الأول إلى تحريك هذه القضية في مجلس الأمن، من دون أن يكون ذلك حتى أحد مطالب المقاومة!

لقد تركزت النقاشات قبيل جلسة مجلس الأمن، في الغالب الأعم، حول المفاضلة بين احتمالين: أن يصدر قرار أممي يعترف بالدولة الفلسطينية من دون تحديد حدودها، ويترك هذه القضية للتفاوض، وأن يصدر اعتراف أممي بالدولة الفلسطينية يحدد بوضوح حدودها بحسب القرار الأممي 242، أي على حدود الأراضي المحتلة 1967. وقد تبنى البعض وجهة نظر تقول إنَّ هذا الخيار الثاني هو الأفضل، لكونه يحسم قضية الجدل القانوني حول الترجمة الدقيقة للعبارة التي وردت في القرارات الأممية ذات الشأن، فيما إذا كانت “أراضي متنازعاً عليها” أم “الأراضي المتنازع عليها”، ويضيف أصحاب هذه الرؤية بأن لا معنى لاعتراف أممي بدولة فلسطينية لا ينص على حدود الأراضي التي تقع تحت سيادتها.

من الواضح أن هذا النقاش برمته يصلح أن يكون بين مَن كانت حدود مطالباته سقف “أوسلو”، ومَن قد تنازَل بالفعل، أو رضي بالتنازل عن نحو 80% من الأراضي العربية الفلسطينية المحتلة، لا بين مَن يتمسك بالثوابت الإسلامية والعربية والفلسطينية في فلسطين التاريخية بصفتها وقفاً إسلامياً لا يجوز بحال التفريط بحبة تراب واحدة منه، ومَن يقرأ المشروع الصهيوني في فلسطين على حقيقته بصفته امتداداً للهيمنة الاستعمارية القديمة على عموم أوطاننا، وبكونه مشروعاً استيطانياً توسعياً إحلالياً.

وإذا كان النقاش المتعلق باللجوء للأمم المتحدة ينصب على الطعن بأصل مشروعية وجود الكيان الصهيوني، وصلاحية عضويته في الأمم المتحدة، بناءً على عدم تلبيته الشروط التي قرنها قرار الجمعية العامة 181 بالاعتراف به، أو يقتصر على مطالبة مجلس الأمن بإجبار الاحتلال على إنهاء احتلاله الأراضي المحتلة 1967 من دون قيد أو شرط، ومن دون التطرق إلى موضوع الدولة وحدودها، لكان يمكن التعاطي مع هذه الأفكار من حيث المبدأ. أما ما دون ذلك، فيعد أفكاراً مبنيةً بالأساس على التفريط في الثوابت، ودعوةً للسير مجدداً في مسارات “أوسلوية” تم تجريبها وثبت عقمها، بل ثبتت كارثيتها على مشروع التحرر الفلسطيني.

لقد جاء “الفيتو” الأميركي الأخير ليؤكد أنَّ مسار التحرر الوطني واستعادة الحقوق لا يمر من خلال ما يسمى “المجتمع الدولي”، وليعيد تثبيت فكرة أن النظام العالمي بصورته الراهنة منحاز كلياً إلى الغرب الاستعماري، وليس معداً لإحقاق الحق ولا لنصرة الشعوب المستضعفة، فكيف إذاً يقوم الأميركي بإسقاط مشروع يدعو إلى الاعتراف بدولة فلسطينية رغم حديثه الجديد القديم عن حل الدولتين؟

يخوض اليوم الشعب الفلسطيني، مدعوماً بحلفاء إقليميين، ملحمة “طوفان الأقصى” التي لن يكون بعدها كما قبلها، والتي بدأت برسم معالم مشرق عربي مختلف وتبديل ملموس لتوازنات المنطقة بين محورين؛ محور قوى التحرر العربي والإسلامي ومحور صهيوأميركي. 

لذا، الأجدى أن تنصب كل الجهود الممكنة على كسب المعركة المحتدمة على مستوى الإقليم حالياً، لا الدخول في متاهات سياسية، الأرجح أن الغرض منها هو تفريغ 7 تشرين الأول من مفاعيله عبر إيهام الفلسطينيين بمشاريع لا تختلف في جوهرها عن مسار “أوسلو” ولن يكون مصيرها بأفضل منه، بعدما فشل العدو حتى اللحظة في إحباط آثار “طوفان الأقصى” ميدانياً.

إن الآراء المذكورة في هذه المقالة تعبّر عن رأي صاحبها حصراً

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Day 196: Death Toll Nears 34,000 as ‘Israel’ Goes Ahead with Brutal War

Posted on April 20, 2024 by martyrashrakat

April 19, 2024

Live News – Middle East – News – Palestine – Top

Death toll of the Israeli aggression on Gaza neared 34,000 on Friday as the Zionist enemy went ahead with brutal war against the besieged enclave on day 196.

Israeli occupation carried out several strikes on Gaza’s Shati refugee camp, the Sheikh Radwan area north of Gaza City, and Nuseirat in the central area of the Palestinian territory.

Health Ministry in Gaza announced that at least 33,970 people have been martyred and 76,770 others have been wounded in the Israeli aggression on Gaza since October 7.

Nearly one-third of people martyred in the Gaza war – at least 10,000 people – have been women, according to the agency, UN Women.

Out of these women, 6,000 are mothers, whose deaths have left 19,000 orphans, according to UN Women.

Potential Attack on Rafah

Meanwhile, media reports said there were more signs on the horizon of a potential Israeli military incursion into Rafah.

According to the reports, the occupation military has deployed more troops in all areas that are adjacent to Rafah district.

“Since the early hours of this morning, they have been pounding the majority of the agricultural land in the eastern areas of Rafah,” Al-Jazeera reported on Friday, quoting sources.

US Veto

Earlier on Thursday, the United States blocked a United Nations Security Council resolution that would have recognized a Palestinian state.

Twelve members of the Security Council had voted in favor of the resolution, while two countries – the UK and Switzerland – abstained. The US vetoed it.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said the US veto was “blatant aggression … which pushes the region ever further to the edge of the abyss”.

Hamas said it condemned the US’s “biased” position “in the strongest terms”.

Egypt expressed “deep regret” over the move, saying the US was violating its “legal and historical responsibility” by denying Palestinian statehood.

Russia said the US had demonstrated that it only considers the “the interest of Israel”.

Source: Agencies

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The Second Round of Retaliation Between Israel and Iran Has Just Begun

Posted on April 20, 2024 by uprootedpalestinians

Joe Biden is caught in a trap caused by his own weakness

APRIL 19, 2024

PHILIP GIRALDI

Given the lying and fact twisting that have routinely been part and parcel of accounts of what is occurring in the Middle East, the past several weeks have nevertheless been shocking in terms of how an abysmally low standard of truth can be reduced even farther. Looking at developments objectively, one comes up with a series of facts. First of all, Israel was not at war with either Syria or Iran during the first weeks in April. Iran had never attacked Israel prior to that point and Syria last fought Israel in 1973, over fifty years ago. Israel, however, has regularly been assassinating Iranian officials and scientists and it has been frequently been bombing Syria since 2017, increasing the pace to weekly and sometimes even daily attacks over the past six months paralleling the Gaza fighting. A particularly devastating attack took place on March 29th when the Israeli military launched massive strikes against a weapons storage depot in Syria’s northern province of Aleppo which killed at least 40 people, most of them Syrian soldiers. The air strikes produced a series of explosions that also killed six Lebanese Hezbollah fighters.

But three days later on April 1st a very damaging and unprovoked attack was directed against the Iranian Embassy’s Consulate General, which was located in an upscale neighborhood in Damascus, Syria’s capital. The building was completely destroyed by missiles fired from F-35 fighter planes that had crossed over the Syrian border from Israel, killing Iranian diplomats as well as Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi and Zahedi’s deputy, General Haji Rahimi, and also Brigadier General Hossein Amirollah, the chief of general staff for the al-Quds force in Syria and Lebanon. Syria subsequently confirmed that a total of 13 people were killed in the attack, including six Syrians and a Lebanese Hezbollah militiaman. Both Iran and Hezbollah vowed revenge.

Attacking a diplomatic mission is considered a major war crime according to the Vienna Convention, but there was no condemnation of the incident coming from the US and the usual suspects in Western Europe. Instead of doing what was right by pressuring Israel to stop attacking its neighbors and thereby possibly preventing a major war in the Middle East, President Joe Biden repeated his pledge that the United States would regard as “ironclad” its commitment to guarantee Israel’s security if Iran were to strike back. This guaranteed to Israel that any action taken by it would be supported by Washington. The Biden Administration also predictably voted against a Russian and Chinese drafted UN Security Council resolution to condemn the Israeli attack on the Iranian Consulate, which was a clear violation of international law and an act of war committed by Israel. The US reportedly cast its veto vote “no” after “Diplomats said the US told council colleagues that many of the facts of what happened on Monday in Damascus remained unclear.” What was actually unclear was the fog that generally surrounds the Biden foreign policy and national security team since it was pretty transparent who was the aggressor in terms of means, motive and outcome.

When Iran did retaliate on April 13th, it carried out a carefully calibrated moderate strike against military targets intended to do damage but not cause a large number of casualties. It reportedly hit several airbases from which the Israeli fighter bombers had begun their attack on Damascus as well as an Israeli Air Force intelligence center in the formerly Syrian Golan Heights. No one was killed in spite of the 300 estimated drones and missiles that were launched, most being intercepted by Israel and its allies. But the attack nevertheless sent a message from Tehran that next time it could be much worse, both immediate in timing and “considerably more severe” than its response on Saturday night had been. Iran also claims that it attempted to prevent an escalation by warning the US about their plans, which would be passed on to Israel, that a “controlled” retaliation was coming. The Pentagon denied that it had been told anything, which may mean that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was asleep at his desk once again.

Not content with the outcome, Israel inevitably struck back on Friday, hitting a major airbase near Isfahan, and, to make sure no one was missed, targets in both Iraq and Syria. Iranian military sources advise however that the loud explosions heard by local residents were Iranian air defenses shooting at some flying objects, presumably drones. Per the New York Times and other accommodating media, the strike was a warning that Israel could penetrate Iranian airspace and not intended to do serious damage. The Pentagon was apparently informed shortly before the Israeli action. Iran’s counter-counter retaliation is now pending, but it is clear that Netanyahu will not be deterred by electoral considerations in the United States to stay his hand in his own counter-counter response.

And how does the United States fit into the story? The White House response to the Iranian attack on Israeli territory was inevitably completely unlike the previous uncritical response to Israel’s Consulate General attack, namely condemnation of Iran and the repetition of the usual tripe about “Israel has a right to defend itself” and the sanctity of the “ironclad” defense arrangement. Biden also attempted to cover himself against political blowback due to his licking Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s shoes in the upcoming November election by making it known that he had spoken with and advised Netanyahu, recommending not carrying out a reprisal of the reprisal, which Washington would be unable to support as it could/would lead to major escalation. Netanyahu, not fearing Biden’s displeasure, blew the advice off and he and his war cabinet made clear that they were working on a response as well as setting a timetable for invading Rafah in south Gaza, which Biden had also recommended against.

The White House completed its groveling to Netanyahu by vetoing a UN Security Council resolution on April 18th that would have advocated full UN membership status for the state of Palestine, demonstrating that kicking the Palestinians is always a good way to maintain Israeli favor! The vote was 12 (including France, Japan and South Korea) in favor, two abstentions (the shameless United Kingdom and, surprisingly, Switzerland) and an American veto. The US insisted that elevation of Palestine’s diplomatic status can only be obtained after negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield absurdly raised another objection: “Right now, the Palestinians don’t have control over a significant portion of what is supposed to be their state. It’s being controlled by a terrorist organization.” She was referring to Hamas but the comment actually more correctly is applicable to Israel. In any event, a leaked White House memo had previously revealed that Biden opposes full UN membership and statehood for the Palestinians without Israel’s approval, which, of course, will not be forthcoming.

So we have Israel as the aggressor against two countries that were not declared enemies and had not attacked the Jewish state in any way in many, many years. But when Israel attacked them, committing a major war crime Joe Biden and company preferred to sit on their hands and mumble, saving their vituperation for when Iran staged a deliberately mild counter-attack as a warning. That is called hypocrisy, to turn things on their head to provide the answer that one wants to see and it applies equally to Biden accusing the Russians of “illegal occupation” in Ukraine while Israel’s theft of Syria’s Golan Heights and ongoing seizure of the West Bank goes unchallenged by Washington. And the pushback against Iran is unlikely to diminish very soon as the Jewish controlled US Congress also has the bit between its teeth to demonstrate how much it loves Israel. Congressman Steve Scalise, GOP House Majority Leader, has announced that “In light of Iran’s unjustified attack on Israel, the House will move from its previously announced legislative schedule next week to instead consider legislation that supports our ally Israel and holds Iran and its terrorist proxies accountable. The House of Representatives stands strongly with Israel, and there must be consequences for this unprovoked attack.” Over at the Senate Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas is advocating punishing Iran by beating on its possible friends in the US, physically attacking folks who are demonstrating in support of the Palestinians. Cotton said that the “pro-Hamas criminals” should be confronted by angry citizens who “take matters into [their] own hands” and confront the offenders, endorsing the use of force against peaceful demonstrators.

But there is also the back story behind why Israel likely attacked the Iranians in Syria in the first place. I and a number of other observers immediately after the Israeli attack assumed that the Jewish state had staged a deliberate over-the-top provocation to draw Washington into its wars. Just as in the case of the October 7th Gaza attack by Hamas, which Israel had full knowledge of and let happen, Netanyahu sought to create a situation in which it would goad Iran into being forced to retaliate to force an “ironclad” Biden to protect its “ally” by taking on Iran directly.

Why did Israel do it beyond the obvious desire to destroy Iran just like it is destroying the Palestinians? It was done because Israel has likely become aware that it is viewed as the world’s greatest pariah state due to its genocide in Gaza, to include the recent horrific killing of hundreds of Palestinians in the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza as well as the targeted assassination of seven employees of a charity that was bringing in food to those starving due to Israel’s blocking the entry of relief supplies. And also because Israel is actually not winning its war against Hamas, it needed to shift the narrative to something different. That would be using its time-honored technique of making itself once again the “victim” in confronting a powerful new enemy, Iran, which would make the problem of bad public relations with the world over Gaza be in part mitigated.

A shift in the story would also presumably bring with it the expected help from the United States and its European allies to do the hard work in killing Iranians. And the trick seems to have worked, predictably. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain has been recently facing demands to cut off arms shipments to Israel because of the devastating death toll in Gaza, but on the following Monday, he was able to salute the British warplanes that had shot down some Iranian drones sent by Iran to attack Israel. It was a telling example of how Israel has been able to scramble the equation in the Middle East. Faced with a intensively publicized barrage of Iranian missiles, Britain, the United States, France and others rushed to help the Israelis who had in fact started the conflict. The United States is also currently planning on increasing the pressure on Iran through a series of tough new sanctions being prepared by Treasury Secretary Janice Yellen, saying “Treasury will not hesitate to work with our allies to use our sanctions authority to continue disrupting the Iranian regime’s malign and destabilizing activity.” Yellen notably did nothing when Israel committed a major war crime in its attack on the Iranian Consulate General in Damascus, nor has she supported sanctions over the Israeli Gaza genocide. She is, of course, Jewish. More aid for the Jewish state is also still waiting for a congressional vote to approve the $14 billion currently in the pipeline, with Washington Report claiming that this year’s total US aid to Netanyahu will likely exceed $25 billion “in direct costs related to its fervent support for Israel.”

Right now, the dilemma for the US government will be that it must pull out all the stops in supporting Israel or face inter alia retaliation by the Israel Lobby working through its donors and media resources to defeat Biden in November. And there hovers in the peripheries of one’s mind the worse grim possibility that Israel, if rebuffed by its “allies,” will use its secret nuclear arsenal to blow up the Middle East and presumably a large chunk of adjacent areas in Europe and Asia as well. There are stories already circulating suggesting that the Israeli nuclear reactor at Dimona might have been an Iranian target and that Israel is right now preparing to take out Iranian nuclear research sites. Netanyahu is calling the shots while a befuddled White House looks on. Israel has baited a trap and Joe Biden has stepped right into it.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

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BRICS member South Africa takes Zionism to court

Posted on January 11, 2024 by fada1

JAN 10, 2024

Photo Credit: The Cradle

Pretoria’s genocide case against Israel is crucial, not just to stop Tel Aviv’s carnage in Gaza, but to plant the first flag of multipolarism in the globe’s courtrooms: this is the first case of many that will seek to halt western impunity and restore international law as envisioned in the UN Charter.

Pepe Escobar

Nothing less than the full concept of international law will be on trial this week in The Hague. The whole world is watching. 

It took an African nation, not an Arab or Muslim nation, but significantly a BRICS member, to try to break the iron chains deployed by Zionism via fear, financial might, and non-stop threats, enslaving not only Palestine but substantial swathes of the planet.    

By a twist of historical poetic justice, South Africa, a nation that knows one or two things about apartheid, had to take the moral high ground and be the first to file a suit against apartheid Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).  

The 84-page lawsuit, exhaustively argued, fully documented, and filed on 29 December 2023, details all the ongoing horrors perpetrated in the occupied Gaza Strip and followed by everyone with a smartphone around the planet. 

South Africa asks the ICJ – a UN mechanism – something quite straightforward: Declare that the state of Israel has breached all its responsibilities under international law since 7 October. 

And that, crucially, includes a violation of the 1948 Genocide Convention, according to which genocide consists of “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”

South Africa is supported by Jordan,  Bolivia, Turkiye, Malaysia, and significantly the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which combines the lands of Islam, and constitutes 57 member states, 48 of these harboring a Muslim majority. It’s as if these nations were representing the overwhelming majority of the Global South. 

Whatever happens at The Hague could go way beyond a possible condemnation of Israeli for genocide. Both Pretoria and Tel Aviv are members of the ICJ – so the rulings are binding. The ICJ, in theory, carries more weight than the UN Security Council, where the US vetoes any hard facts that tarnish Israel’s carefully constructed self-image. 

The only problem is that the ICJ does not have enforcement power. 

What South Africa, in practical terms, is aiming to achieve is to have the ICJ impose on Israel an order to stop the invasion – and the genocide – right away. That should be the first priority.   

A specific intent to destroy 

Reading the full South African application is a horrifying exercise. This is literally history in the making, right in front of us living in the young, tech-addicted, 21st century, and not a science fiction account of a genocide taking place in some distant universe.    

Pretoria’s application carries the merit of drawing The Big Picture, “in the broader context of Israel’s conduct towards Palestinians during its 75-year-long apartheid, its 56-year-long belligerent occupation of Palestinian territory, and its 16-year-long blockade of Gaza.”  

Cause, effect, and intent are clearly delineated, transcending the horrors that have been perpetrated since the Palestinian resistance’s Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October, 2023. 

Then there are “acts and omissions by Israel which are capable of amounting to other violations of international law.” South Africa lists them as “genocidal in character, as they are committed with the requisite specific intent (dolus specialis) to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as a part of the broader Palestinian national, racial and ethnic group.”

‘The Facts,’ introduced from page 9 of the application, are brutal – ranging from the indiscriminate massacre of civilians to mass expulsion: “It is estimated that over 1.9 million Palestinians out of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people – approximately 85 percent of the population – have been forced from their homes. There is nowhere safe for them to flee to, those who cannot leave or refuse to be displaced have been killed or are at extreme risk of being killed in their homes.”

And there will be no turning back: “As noted by the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons, Gaza’s housing and civilian infrastructure have been razed to the ground, frustrating any realistic prospects for displaced Gazans to return home, repeating a long history of mass forced displacement of Palestinians by Israel.”

The complicit Hegemon 

Item 142 of the application may encapsulate the whole drama: “The entire population is facing starvation: 93 percent of the population in Gaza is facing crisis levels of hunger, with more than one in four facing catastrophic condition” – with death imminent. 

Against this backdrop, on 25 December – Christmas day – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doubled down on his genocidal rhetoric, promising: ‘We are not stopping, we are continuing to fight and we are deepening the fighting in the coming days, and this will be a long battle and it is not close to being over.” 

So, “as a matter of extreme urgency,” and “pending the Court’s determination of this case on the merits,” South Africa is asking for provisional measures, the first of which will be for “the state of Israel to immediately suspend its military operations in and against Gaza.”

This amounts to a permanent ceasefire. Every grain of sand from the Negev to Arabia knows that the neocon psychos in charge of US foreign policy, including their pet, remote-controlled, senile occupant of the White House are not only complicit in the Israeli genocide but oppose any possibility of a ceasefire. 

Incidentally, such complicity is also punishable by law, according to the Genocide Convention.   

Hence, it is a given that Washington and Tel Aviv will go no-holds-barred to block a fair trial by the ICJ, using every means of pressure and threat available. That dovetails with the extremely limited power exercised by any international court to impose the rule of international law on the exceptionalist Washington–Tel Aviv combo. 

While an alarmed Global South is moved to action against Israel’s unprecedented military assault on Gaza, where over 1 percent of the population has been murdered in less than three months, the Israeli Foreign Ministry has regimented its embassies to arm-twist host country diplomats and politicians to swiftly issue an “immediate and unequivocal statement along the following lines: To publicly and clearly state that your country rejects the outrageous, absurd, and baseless allegations made against Israel.” 

It will be quite enlightening to see which nations will abide by the order. 

Whether Pretoria’s current efforts succeed or not, this case is likely to be only the first of its kind filed in courts around the world in the months and even years ahead. The BRICS – of which South Africa is a crucial member state – are part of the new swell of international organizations challenging western hegemony and its ‘rules-based order.’ These rules mean nothing; nobody has even seen them. 

In part, multipolarism has emerged to redress the decades-long shift away from the UN Charter and rush toward the lawlessness embodied in these illusory ‘rules.’ The nation-state system that underpins the global order cannot function without the international law that secures it. Without the law, we face war, war, and more war; the Hegemon’s ideal universe of endless war, in fact.

South Africa’s genocide case against Israel is blatantly necessary to reverse these flagrant violations of the international system, and will almost certainly be the first of many such litigations against both Israel and its allies to shift the world back to stability, security, and common sense.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.

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