Stop arming Israel, MPs demand

Spread the love

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/stop-arming-israel-mps-demand

Palestinians carry the body of a woman found under the rubble of a destroyed building following an Israeli airstrike in Rafah, Gaza Strip, March 27, 2024

‘It is utterly unconscionable for arms sales to continue’ when Israel has plausibly breached the Genocide Convention, a letter coordinated by Zarah Sultana MP tells the government

MORE than 100 MPs demanded the government halt all arms sales to Israel today because of its genocidal assault on Gaza.

The 108 MPs backed the call in a letter co-ordinated by Coventry South MP Zarah Sultana, which was also signed by 27 members of the House of Lords.

It comes as pressure mounts on the British government to give effect to the United Nations security council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza passed earlier this week.

Israel has rejected the resolution and continues its assault. MPs expressed concerns earlier this week that continuing to arm Israel would make Britain complicit in war crimes and other breaches of international law.

Signatories include ex-Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn, former Labour Middle East minister Lord Peter Hain, SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn and former Labour shadow minister Jess Phillips, who resigned from the front-bench in November over the party’s refusal to back a Gaza ceasefire.

Ms Sultana said that “when Israel is ‘plausibly’ in breach of the Genocide Convention and flagrantly violates international law on a daily basis, it is utterly unconscionable for arms sales to Israel to continue.

“But the UK government is refusing to act, making it complicit in this atrocity.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/stop-arming-israel-mps-demand

Response to Rishi Sunak's extremism speech at Downing Street 1 March 2024. Second version of this image with text slightly altered.
Response to Rishi Sunak’s extremism speech at Downing Street 1 March 2024. Second version of this image with text slightly altered.
Continue ReadingStop arming Israel, MPs demand

What’s really behind Germany’s unshakeable support of Israel?

Spread the love

Original article by Matthew Read republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. Photo: Chancellor’s office

To understand Germany’s unconditional support for the Israeli genocide, one must understand the origins of the German state

The extent of the German government’s support for Israel during its ongoing offensive in Gaza has taken many by surprise. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has been even more restrained in his criticisms of Tel Aviv than US President Joe Biden. A central point of reference for German politicians is the notion of Staatsräson (“state reason”). This was a term first coined in an essay by Germany’s former ambassador to Israel, Rudolf Dreßler, in the early 2000s and repeated by Angela Merkel in a speech before the Knesset in 2008. It has since become a centerpiece of German public statements and an ideological tool to legitimize Israel’s “right to self-defense”. As Scholz said on 12 October 2023: “At this moment there is only one place for Germany. We stand with Israel. …This is what we mean when we say, Israel’s security is Germany’s Staatsräson.

In this context, a growing number of nations from the Global South have begun to challenge Germany for whitewashing and even justifying the genocide of the Palestinians. In January 2024, Namibia’s late president Hage Geingob released a statement strongly criticizing Germany for its uncritical defense of Israel and emphasizing that the German government was now actively supporting a genocide in Palestine whilst it has still not atoned for its genocide against the Herero and Nama in Namibia (1904-1908). For similar reasons, the Nicaraguan government is now taking Germany to the International Court of Justice for aiding and abetting the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

To understand what lies behind Germany’s Staatsräson and its bilateral relationship with Israel, it is necessary to understand the origins of the current German state and the tradition in which it stands.

The historical context

The Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, commonly referred to as “West Germany” during the Cold War) was founded in May 1949. In a similar way to South Korea and Taiwan, the FRG was created after the Second World War under the wing of the USA to act as a bulwark against socialism. As a central actor in the West’s “containment” and “rollback” strategies, the West German state had to be both aggressive towards the socialist East and docile towards the capitalist West. The influence of the corporations that had funded Hitler was thus intentionally restored and the businessmen with ties to the Nazi party were unofficially pardoned for their role in fascist Germany’s crimes against humanity, despite often directly profiting from forced labor during the Third Reich (e.g., Daimler, Siemens, Rheinmetall, etc.). At the same time, the FRG was tightly bound into the US-led order through the Marshall Plan and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which to this day includes the stationing of tens of thousands of US troops in Germany.

The leaders of the young FRG were immediately confronted with the problem of how to publicly address the Holocaust. Pictures of concentration camp inmates sent shock waves around the world and gave rise to the international call: Never again! Yet domestically, West Germany could not afford a thorough denazification of society, for this would destabilize the capitalist basis of the FRG as it had done in East Germany, where Nazi war criminals and businessmen had been rigorously expropriated. Thus, rather than addressing the economic roots of fascism and prosecuting sections of the ruling class for abetting Hitler, conservatives and liberals in the FRG fostered a narrative of collective German guilt that all citizens would have to atone for. It was not capitalism and the liberal system of the Weimar Republic (1918-1933) that had enabled the rise of fascism, but the cultural propensities of the German people.

In this election poster from 1949, the Liberal Democratic party (FDP) – today a member of the governing coalition in Germany – lists an “End to Denazification” as its first demand.

This political strategy has been evident in West Germany’s support for the state of Israel, which had been founded one year prior to the FRG. The first West German chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, had publicly described the FRG’s first reparation agreement with Israel in 1952 as being “based on a compelling moral obligation”. In the face of domestic criticism over the three-billion-marks agreement – particularly from the Liberal Democratic party (FDP) and from his own Christian Democratic Union party (CDU) – Adenauer announced that “there are higher values than good business.” Yet, recently uncovered documents from the German Foreign Office reveal that Adenauer was in fact only “willing to negotiate reparations [with Israel] due to pressure from the USA”. The chancellor had referred to West Germany’s relationship with the USA and said that “breaking off negotiations with Israel without results would create the most serious political and economic dangers for the Federal Republic”.

In other words, it was stipulated by the USA that if the FRG wanted to become a powerful player in European politics again, it would have to provide significant political, economic, and military support to the state of Israel. While there was considerable domestic discontent over this precondition in the beginning, the leaders of the FRG have come to appreciate relations with Israel as conducive to their own interests, both in terms of geopolitical strategy and profitable ventures for German industries.

For instance, arms sales to Israel have skyrocketed in recent years; Siemens regularly profits from Israeli contracts, such as the 2018 tender by Israel Railways that was worth roughly one billion euros; and German drugmaker Merck (the founding family of which were staunch Nazis) also maintains research sites and projects worth millions across Israel. In the face of horrific images coming out of Palestine, the German media will justify the export of arms and capital to Israel by uncritically repeating the official government line: “In the past, Germany has above all supplied submarines to Israel and also subsidized exports with taxpayers’ money. The background to this is that Germany has declared Israel’s security to be Staatsräson in view of the murder of six million Jews by Nazi Germany.”

Concepts such as Staatsräson and collective German guilt have thus been developed as ideological instruments to both deflect responsibility from the German capitalist class for Nazi war crimes in the past and disguise the brutal pursuit of their economic and political interests in West Asia in the present day. This helps the German government to create extremely narrow confines for the public debate around these policies. Since October 7, Staatsräson has also been employed to drastically intensify anti-migrant measures. The most brazen of these is perhaps a new decree in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, where applicants for German citizenship will now have to pledge allegiance to Israel’s “right to exist”.

The Global South challenges German hypocrisy

While the FRG’s unconditional support for Israel is nothing new, it has come into the limelight as an increasing number of states from the Global South are speaking out against the Israeli genocide.

In the German press, commentators scrambled to delegitimize South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) as “blatantly one-sided”. Responding to South Africa’s case, German Minister for Economic Affairs Robert Habeck (Greens) simply brushed it aside: “Accusing Israel of genocide, in my view, is a complete reversal of victims and perpetrators, and is just wrong.” Here, again, the role of the German capitalist class in fueling Nazism is conflated with a “special historical responsibility” that all Germans share towards Israel: “Due to the darkest chapters of our history, Germany has to live with the terrible responsibility for genocide perpetrated in its name. […] Nazi Germany committed one of the worst crimes in human history, the Holocaust against Jews in Europe. Bearing all of this in mind, we think that self-defense against a terrorist regime that hides behind the civilian population as human shields to maximize suffering and to render defense against its actions impossible, is not genocidal intent.”

Such arguments continue to sway a large section of the German population, but leaders in the Global South are less susceptible and have begun to challenge the German government’s hypocrisy. The first serious accusation came at the beginning of 2024, when Namibia’s then president Hage Geingob published a statement reminding the world that Germany had “committed the first genocide of the 20th century in 1904-1908, in which tens of thousands of innocent Namibians died in the most inhumane and brutal conditions.” Implicitly turning German Staaträson on its head, Geingob argued that by intervening at the ICJ “in defense and support of the genocidal acts of Israel”, the FRG has in fact revealed its “inability to draw lessons from its horrific history”.

In early March 2024 the next public challenge from the Global South came: Nicaragua filed a new case in the ICJ, this time directly against Germany, accusing Berlin of violating its obligations to the “Genocide Convention” of 1949. Through its political, financial, and military support to Israel and by defunding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), “Germany is facilitating the commission of genocide and, in any case has failed in its obligation to do everything possible to prevent the commission of genocide”. German liberals were quick to write this case off as “a cheap diversionary tactic […] by a dictatorship that denies its own citizens any guarantees under the rule of law”.

Yet just several weeks later, the German government was once again publicly condemned, and this time it did not come from the “autocratic, left-wing governments” in Latin America, but from a hitherto close ally, Malaysia. At a joint press conference in Berlin, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim responded to Scholz’s continued insistence on Israel’s right to self-defense by provocatively asking, “Where have we thrown away our humanity? Why this hypocrisy? Why this selective and ambivalent attitude towards one race?”

These developments are the latest signs that the West’s ideological and economic hegemony is faltering. Concepts such as the “rules-based international order” and Germany’s Staatsräson no longer hold enough weight to silence dissent internationally. An expression of the “new mood” in the Global South is the struggle over the ownership of international bodies such as the ICJ.

The west undermining its own ideological hegemony

The Federal Republic of Germany stands in the tradition of German capitalism, with all of the skeletons hiding in its closet. Its unconditional support for Israel is the product of, on the one hand, self-seeking economic and geopolitical interests in the region and, on the other, the effort to deflect responsibility for the holocaust and the unwillingness to denazify West German society. The other Germany – the German Democratic Republic (GDR) – stood in a very different tradition. It was governed by the communists and social democrats that had languished in exile or Hitler’s concentration camps during the Third Reich. There, the demand “Never again!” was understood not as collective guilt to be carried by all Germans, but as a militant duty to combat fascism and racism, regardless of the specific form they took. As such, the GDR was a staunch support for the Palestinian’s right to self-determination and resistance to occupation.

In Germany today, the space for public debate on this issue is becoming increasingly narrow. Support for Palestine is being censored or outright banned. Yet the German government cannot so easily silence Global South states. As it continues to travel from country to country, incessantly justifying the Israeli genocide in Gaza while propagating the notion of “feminist foreign policy”, the German government is rapidly undermining the West’s ideological hegemony and exposing its own hypocrisy to the world.

Matthew Read is a researcher with the Zetkin Forum based out of Berlin.

Original article by Matthew Read republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Continue ReadingWhat’s really behind Germany’s unshakeable support of Israel?

‘Enough Is Enough’: Ireland Joins ICJ Genocide Case Against Israel

Spread the love

Original article byBRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Palestinian and South African flags are seen at a January 13, 2024 protest for Gaza in Dublin, Ireland.  (Photo: Stringer/Andalou via Getty Images)

“What we saw on October 7 in Israel, and what we are seeing in Gaza now, represents the blatant violation of international humanitarian law on a mass scale,” said one top Irish official.

Citing Israel’s “blatant” human rights violations in Gaza, Ireland’s second-highest-ranking official said Wednesday that the country will join the South Africa-led genocide case before the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

Irish Tánaiste Micheál Martin—the equivalent of a deputy prime minister in other parliamentary nations—said that Ireland decided to intervene in the case after analyzing the “legal and policy issues” pertaining to the case under review by the United Nations’ top court.

“It is for the court to determine whether genocide is being committed,” Martin—who also serves as Ireland’s foreign and defense minister—said in a statement. “But I want to be clear in reiterating what I have said many times in the last few months; what we saw on October 7 in Israel, and what we are seeing in Gaza now, represents the blatant violation of international humanitarian law on a mass scale.”

Martin continued:

The taking of hostages. The purposeful withholding of humanitarian assistance to civilians. The targeting of civilians and of civilian infrastructure. The indiscriminate use of explosive weapons in populated areas. The use of civilian objects for military purposes. The collective punishment of an entire population.

The list goes on. It has to stop. The view of the international community is clear. Enough is enough. The U.N. Security Council has demanded an immediate cease-fire, the unconditional release of hostages, and the lifting of all barriers to the provision of humanitarian assistance at scale. The European Council has echoed this call.

South Africa’s case—which is supported by over 30 countries, the Arab League, African Union, and others—incisively details Israel’s conduct in the war, including the killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians, mostly women and children; the wounding of tens of thousands more; the forcible displacement of 90% of the besieged enclave’s 2.3 million people; and the inflicting of conditions leading to widespread starvation and disease. The filing also cited numerous genocidal statements by Israeli officials.

On January 26, the ICJ issued a preliminary ruling that Israel is plausibly committing genocide in Gaza and ordered its government and military to prevent genocidal acts. Palestinian and international human rights defenders say Israel has ignored the order.

A draft report released this week by the U.N.’s Human Rights Council found “reasonable grounds to believe” that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, a move that came on the same day as the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire in the ongoing war.

“The situation could not be more stark; half the population of Gaza face imminent famine and 100% of the population face acute food insecurity,” said Martin. “As the U.N. secretary-general said as he inspected long lines of blocked relief trucks waiting to enter Gaza during his visit to Rafah at the weekend: ‘It is time to truly flood Gaza with lifesaving aid. The choice is clear: surge or starvation.’ I echo his words today.”

In a St. Partick’s Day White House meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden—a staunch supporter of Israel—Irish Toaiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar, who announced earlier this month that he would soon step down, said that “the Irish people are deeply troubled about the catastrophe that’s unfolding before our eyes in Gaza.”

“And when I travel the world, leaders often ask me why the Irish have such empathy for the Palestinian people,” he added. “And the answer is simple: We see our history in their eyes—a story of displacement, of dispossession and national identity questioned and denied, forced emigration, discrimination, and now hunger.”

Original article byBRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue Reading‘Enough Is Enough’: Ireland Joins ICJ Genocide Case Against Israel

Support for Israel’s War on Gaza Plummeting Among Key Biden Voters: Poll

Spread the love

Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Hundreds of demonstrators demanding an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip march in Washington D.C. on March 7, 2024. 
(Photo: Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“Given these numbers,” said one progressive campaigner, “I don’t know how President Biden can reconcile his stalwart support for Israel with the clear preference that his core constituents have for an end to this war.”

A Gallup survey released Wednesday shows that U.S. public support for Israel’s military assault on Gaza has plummeted since November, with the decline particularly sharp among Democratic voters whom President Joe Biden will need to turn out to win reelection against presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump.

Just 18% of Democratic voters currently approve of “the military action Israel has taken in Gaza” and 75% disapprove, according to the new poll, which was conducted between March 1-20. In November, 36% of Democratic respondents expressed approval of Israel’s war and 63% disapproved.

“The crosstabs are even more striking—nearly two-thirds of people under 54, people of color, and women disapprove of the military action in Gaza,” Sam Rosenthal, political director of the progressive advocacy group RootsAction, told Common Dreams in response to the new poll. “That is effectively the Democratic Party’s base.”

“Given these numbers,” Rosenthal added, “I don’t know how President Biden can reconcile his stalwart support for Israel with the clear preference that his core constituents have for an end to this war.”

Overall, Gallup found that 55% of the American public—including 60% of Independents and 30% of Republicans—disapproves of Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip, up from 45% in November. Just 36% of the U.S. public approves, down from 50% four months ago.

“Biden is risking his second term and our democracy by continuing to support the kind of violence and cruelty that is being perpetrated in Gaza right now.”

Observers noted that Gallup’s new poll was conducted after the Israeli military’s February 29 massacre of Palestinians seeking food aid. Since October, according to one human rights monitor, Israeli forces have killed more than 560 people waiting for humanitarian aid, the delivery of which Israel’s government has intentionally hindered—fueling the spread of famine across the territory.

The Biden administration has backed Israel’s assault from the beginning, providing the Netanyahu government with billions of dollars worth of weapons and diplomatic cover despite widespread and growing protests at home and abroad. Gallup’s survey found that 74% of U.S. adults say they are following developments in Gaza “closely.”

Political analyst Yousef Munayyer wrote on social media that “Biden’s policy of continued support for Israel’s war on Gaza is in line with the views of the right-wing Republicans,” noting that 64% of GOP voters still approve of the Israeli assault—down slightly from 71% in November.

“Just to emphasize how extreme his position is and out of line with his voters,” he added, “more Republicans disapprove of the war than Democrats who approve.”

Growing Democratic opposition to Israel’s military action in Gaza has fueled grassroots campaigns across the country urging voters to mark “uncommitted” on their Democratic primary ballots to pressure Biden to change course ahead of the general election against Trump, who has voiced support for Israel’s devastating assault on Gaza.

“Uncommitted” campaigns won 11 Democratic National Convention (DNC) delegates in Minnesota and two in both Michigan and Washington state.

“Biden is risking his second term and our democracy by continuing to support the kind of violence and cruelty that is being perpetrated in Gaza right now,” Faheem Khan, president of the American Muslim Advancement Council and a lead organizer of Uncommitted WA, said earlier this week.

Rosenthal of RootsAction told Common Dreams on Wednesday that the U.S. decision to abstain and allow the U.N. Security Council to pass a cease-fire resolution earlier this week was “a step in the right direction, and a clear indication that domestic pressure from campaigns like Listen to Michigan and other uncommitted voting efforts is working.”

“However, actual policy towards Israel has changed very little,” said Rosenthal. “Biden is still clamoring for more military aid to be sent, and the U.S. still largely supports Israel’s line, i.e., that military operations in Gaza are solely aimed at rooting out Hamas. What is manifestly obvious to the rest of the world, that Israel is committed to the wanton destruction of the Gaza Strip, is somehow escaping the administration’s notice.”

“President Biden should decide quickly whether he wants to continue to uphold policy that is increasingly associated with the opposition party,” Rosenthal added.

Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Another State Department Official Resigns Over Biden Gaza Policy

Democratic Insider Rips ‘Shocking’ US Claim That Israel Is Following International Law

US Under Fire for Downplaying Security Council Resolution as ‘Nonbinding’

Continue ReadingSupport for Israel’s War on Gaza Plummeting Among Key Biden Voters: Poll

Foreign Office faces legal challenge over pause in UNRWA funding for Gaza  

Spread the love

https://leftfootforward.org/2024/03/foreign-office-faces-legal-challenge-over-pause-in-unrwa-funding-for-gaza/

UK could be sued over decision to stop funding a key UN agency delivering aid to Gaza

A legal challenge is to be launched against the Foreign Office over its decision to pause funding for the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency. 

On behalf of a British-Palestinian man with family in Gaza, Bindmans LLP has issued a pre-action letter to the government department warning, if funding is not reinstated by Tuesday 2, April, the client will issue judicial review proceedings in the High Court. 

The legal challenge claims that the government’s decision to withdraw funds from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) on 27, January was decided, “illogically and without due consideration of evidence, of international obligations, or of FCDO decision-making frameworks”.

Funding was paused by 10 governments including Australia, the United States and Canada following allegations by the Israeli authorities that several UNRWA staff were involved in the October 7 Hamas attacks. 

https://leftfootforward.org/2024/03/foreign-office-faces-legal-challenge-over-pause-in-unrwa-funding-for-gaza/

‘Death Sentence for Thousands’: Israel Bars UNRWA Food Aid to Northern Gaza

Continue ReadingForeign Office faces legal challenge over pause in UNRWA funding for Gaza  

Another State Department Official Resigns Over Biden Gaza Policy

Spread the love
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken (L) and U.S. President Joe Biden (top C) listen as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) reads a statements before their meeting in Tel Aviv on October 18, 2023.  (Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

Original article by JULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

“I wasn’t able to really do my job anymore,” said Annelle Sheline. “Trying to advocate for human rights just became impossible.”

Saying her job at a State Department office that advocates for human rights in the Middle East has become “impossible” as the Biden administration continues to back Israel’s assault on civilians in Gaza, foreign affairs officer Annelle Sheline resigned from her position on Wednesday in protest of President Joe Biden’s policy in the region.

Sheline noted in an interview with The Washington Post that quitting her job in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor was not something she took lightly, with “a daughter and a mortgage”—but said her day-to-day work on human rights had become ineffectual “as long as the U.S. continues to send a steady stream of weapons to Israel.”

Despite the fact that U.S. law prohibits the government from arming countries that violate human rights—as Israel has long been accused by the United Nations of doing in its policy toward the occupied Palestinian territories—the Biden administration has approved the transfer of bombs and other weapons to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) since the military began its relentless bombardment of Gaza and blockade on nearly all humanitarian aid.

Sheline told the Post that as the news out of Gaza has grown more dire since October—with at least 32,490 Palestinians killed, at least 74,889 wounded, and parts of northern Gaza now facing famine conditions due to Israel’s blocking of aid—some of her bureau’s partners in the Middle East have stopped engaging with the State Department.

“If they are willing to engage, they mostly want to talk about Gaza rather than the fact that they are also dealing with extreme repression or threats of imprisonment,” Sheline told the Post of the activists and civil society groups her office routinely worked with to further human rights in the region before Israel’s assault began. “The first point they bring up is: How is this happening?”

“I wasn’t able to really do my job anymore,” Sheline added. “Trying to advocate for human rights just became impossible.”

Sheline is just the latest official to resign in protest of Biden’s approach to Israel and Gaza.

In October Josh Paul resigned from his position as director of congressional and public affairs for the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, where he oversaw weapons transfers to U.S. allies.

Paul told the Post that Sheline’s decision “speaks volumes about the Biden administration’s disregard for the laws, policies and basic humanity of American foreign policy that the bureau exists to advance.”

A policy adviser in the Education Department, Tariq Habash, also stepped down from his role in January, saying he could no longer be “quietly complicit” in the killing of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians.

The State Department’s internal dissent channel has also been used by numerous officials to voice outrage over the Biden administration’s continued defense of Israel’s actions.

Stephen Walt, professor of international affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School, called Sheline’s resignation “courageous.”

Feds United for Peace, a group of government workers across nearly two dozen federal agencies which organized a daylong fast in January to protest the U.S.-backed slaughter of Palestinians, expressed solidarity with Sheline.

“That decision comes at a personal and real cost to her, and is a loss of a patriotic and deeply qualified employee for the Department of State,” said the group in a statement. “Every arms shipment to Israel by the Biden administration and every one of the three vetoes of U.N. cease-fire resolutions has enabled Israeli impunity in its rampage across Gaza… Thousands of innocent lives are in President Biden’s hands; the time has come to translate gentle requests for the protection of civilians into concrete action to stop the killing.”

Original article by JULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Feds United For PeaceGazaHuman RightsIsrael-Gaza WarJoe BidenPalestinePalestiniansU.S. State DepartmentIsrael

Continue ReadingAnother State Department Official Resigns Over Biden Gaza Policy

‘Crucial’ UN Report on Gaza Genocide Must Spur Global Action, Says Amnesty

Spread the love

Original article by JULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

A wounded person receives treatment at a local hospital in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah on March 24, 2024.
 (Photo: Khaled Omar/Xinhua via Getty Images

U.N. member states must “use their influence” to push Israel to halt its bombardment of Gaza and blocking of humanitarian aid, said the group’s secretary general.

“The time to act to prevent genocide is now,” Amnesty International’s secretary general said Tuesday, a day after the United Nations Human Rights Council released a draft report detailing how the panel found that there are “reasonable grounds to believe” that Israel is already committing genocidal violence in Gaza.

Amnesty’s Agnes Callamard called the 25-page report a “crucial body of work that must serve as a vital call to action to states,” many of which have called for a cease-fire in Gaza for several months.

After the U.N. report found that “the overwhelming nature and scale of Israel’s assault on Gaza… reveal an intent to physically destroy Palestinians as a group,” Callamard said “states must now focus their efforts on making these calls a reality.”

“Third states must apply political pressure on the warring parties to implement the U.N. Security Council resolution adopted yesterday demanding an immediate cease-fire, use their influence to insist that Israel abides by the resolution, including by stopping the shelling and lifting restrictions on humanitarian aid,” said Callamard. “They must impose a comprehensive arms embargo against all parties to the conflict. They must also pressure Hamas and other armed groups to free all civilian hostages.”

The U.N. report was released the same day that the U.N Security Council adopted a resolution demanding an immediate, temporary cease-fire for the remainder of the month of Ramadan—the first cease-fire resolution to pass at the council following three that failed due to the U.S. vetoing the measures.

The U.S., which gives Israel $3.8 billion in annual military aid and has continued to provide support throughout the bombardment, abstained from voting on Monday’s resolution and infuriated human rights experts by baselessly claiming the vote was “nonbinding.”

The U.N. report, titled Anatomy of a Genocide, detailed actions Israel has taken since beginning its bombardment of Gaza in October that could violate Article II of the Genocide Convention, including killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction, and imposing measures intended to prevent births.

Along with killing at least 32,414 Palestinians in Gaza—73% of whom have been women and children, and the remaining 27% were not proven to have been Hamas members—Israel has also imposed mass starvation on the population, killing “10 children daily,” according to the report. Israel has detained thousands of Palestinian men and boys in undisclosed locations; injured 70,000 people; forced medical personnel to perform “hazardous health procedures, such as amputations without anesthetics, including on children”; and “destroyed or severely damaged most life-sustaining infrastructure.”

Callamard noted on Tuesday that the report came two months after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) announced an interim ruling that Israel is “plausibly” committing a genocide in Gaza and ordered the country to take action to prevent genocidal violence by its forces.

“In that time, the situation in Gaza has grown exponentially worse, with thousands more Palestinians killed and Israel continuing to refuse to comply with the ICJ ruling to ensure provision of sufficient humanitarian aid to Palestinians as human-made famine edges closer each day and more people starve to death,” said Callamard.

The secretary general echoed a call in the report, which was compiled by Francesca Albanese, special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, for the full funding of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

Israel said Sunday it will no longer permit UNRWA aid trucks to deliver humanitarian relief in northern Gaza, where one-third of children under age 2 are now suffering from acute malnutrition. The U.S. officially suspended UNRWA funding through March 2025 on Monday after President Joe Biden signed a new spending package into law.

The U.S. led several countries in cutting funding to the agency in January after Israel claimed 12 of UNRWA’s 13,000 employees in Gaza had been involved in the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel in October. Countries including Finland, Canada, and Australia have since reinstated funding.

Callamard also called on all states, particularly powerful Western countries that are allied with Israel, including the U.S., to support international authorities as they try to hold Israeli officials to account for the mass killing and starving of civilians in Gaza. Israel has refused to allow U.N. experts and other independent human rights monitors access to Gaza.

“Helping to prevent genocide also means supporting accountability efforts including the ongoing investigation by the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and exercising universal jurisdiction to bring those suspected of crimes under international law to justice,” said Callamard.

The secretary general noted that momentum has grown in recent days around international calls for a cease-fire, but said a desperately needed halt in fighting requires a concerted push by influential states to become a reality.

“An enduring cease-fire,” said Callamard, “remains the best way to enforce the ICJ’s provisional measures to prevent genocide and further crimes and civilian suffering.”

Original article by JULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue Reading‘Crucial’ UN Report on Gaza Genocide Must Spur Global Action, Says Amnesty

US Under Fire for Downplaying Security Council Resolution as ‘Nonbinding’

Spread the love

Oriignal article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller speaks to reporters during a press briefing on March 25, 2024. 
(Photo: Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu via Getty Images)

One expert accused the U.S. of working to “undermine and sabotage the U.N. Security Council, the ‘rules-based order,’ and international law.”

Biden administration officials attempted Monday to downplay the significance of a newly passed United Nations Security Council resolution, drawing ire from human rights advocates who said the U.S. is undercutting international law and stonewalling attempts to bring Israel’s devastating military assault on Gaza to an end.

The resolution “demands an immediate cease-fire for the month of Ramadan respected by all parties, leading to a lasting sustainable cease-fire.” The U.S., which previously vetoed several cease-fire resolutions, opted to abstain on Monday, allowing the measure to pass.

Shortly after the resolution’s approval, several administration officials—including State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, and U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield—falsely characterized the measure as “nonbinding.”

“It’s a nonbinding resolution,” Kirby told reporters. “So, there’s no impact at all on Israel and Israel’s ability to continue to go after Hamas.”

Josh Ruebner, an adjunct lecturer at Georgetown University and former policy director of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, wrote in response that “there is no such thing as a ‘nonbinding’ Security Council resolution.”

“Israel’s failure to abide by this resolution must open the door to the immediate imposition of Chapter VII sanctions,” Ruebner wrote.

Beatrice Fihn, the director of Lex International and former executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, condemned what she called the Biden administration’s “appalling behavior” in the wake of the resolution’s passage. Fihn said the administration’s downplaying of the resolution shows how the U.S. works to “openly undermine and sabotage the U.N. Security Council, the ‘rules-based order,’ and international law.”

In a Monday op-ed for Common Dreams, Phyllis Bennis, a senior fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, warned that administration officials’ claim that the resolution was “nonbinding” should be seen as “setting the stage for the U.S. government to violate the U.N. Charter by refusing to be bound by the resolution’s terms.”

While all U.N. Security Council resolutions are legally binding, they’re difficult to enforce and regularly ignored by the Israeli government, which responded with outrage to the latest resolution and canceled an Israeli delegation’s planned visit to the U.S.

Israel Katz, Israel’s foreign minister, wrote on social media Monday that “Israel will not cease fire.”

The resolution passed amid growing global alarm over the humanitarian crisis that Israel has inflicted on the Gaza Strip, where most of the population of around 2.2 million is displaced and at increasingly dire risk of starvation.

Amnesty International secretary-general Agnes Callamard said Monday that it was “just plain irresponsible” of U.S. officials to “suggest that a resolution meant to save lives and address massive devastation and suffering can be disregarded.”

In addition to demanding an immediate cease-fire, the Security Council resolution calls for the unconditional release of all remaining hostages and “emphasizes the urgent need to expand the flow of humanitarian assistance.”

Israel has systematically obstructed aid deliveries to Gaza, including U.S.-funded flour shipments.

Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for the U.N. secretary-general, stressed during a briefing Monday that “all the resolutions of the Security Council are international law.”

“They are as binding as international laws,” Haq said.

Oriignal article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

12 Palestinians Drown Trying to Retrieve Airdropped Gaza Aid From Sea

‘Crucial’ UN Report on Gaza Genocide Must Spur Global Action, Says Amnesty

Sanders Rips ‘Absurd’ US Claim That Israel Is Not Violating International Law

Continue ReadingUS Under Fire for Downplaying Security Council Resolution as ‘Nonbinding’

Sanders Rips ‘Absurd’ US Claim That Israel Is Not Violating International Law

Spread the love

Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Children in Rafah, Gaza gather to receive food distributed by aid organizations on March 15, 2024.
 (Photo: Jehad Alshrafi/Anadolu via Getty Images

“The State Department’s position makes a mockery of U.S. law and assurances provided to Congress,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday said the U.S. State Department’s determination that Israel is not violating international law with its assault on the Gaza Strip is “absurd on its face,” pointing to the mass death, destruction, and starvation that Israeli forces have inflicted on the territory’s population over the past six months.

“Thirty-two thousand Palestinians in Gaza have been killed and almost 75,000 injured, two-thirds of whom are women and children,” Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a statement. “Some 60% of the housing units have been damaged or destroyed, and almost all medical facilities have been made inoperable. Today, hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children are facing starvation because [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu won’t let in sufficient humanitarian aid, while thousands of trucks are waiting to get into Gaza.”

“The State Department’s position,” said Sanders, “makes a mockery of U.S. law and assurances provided to Congress.”

The senator’s statement came after State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters during a press briefing earlier Monday that the Biden administration has not found Israel “to be in violation of international humanitarian law, either when it comes to the conduct of the war or when it comes to the provision of humanitarian assistance.”

Miller was responding to a question about assurances the administration has received from the Israeli government that its use of American weaponry has complied with international law and that it has permitted U.S. humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, where the entire population is facing acute hunger.

Under a new Biden administration policy known as NSM-20, recipients of American military aid are required to provide the U.S. government with “credible and reliable” written assurances that they are using such assistance “in a manner consistent with all applicable international and domestic law and policy.”

Late last week, a group of U.S. senators—including Sanders—warned the Biden administration that deeming Israeli assurances credible would “be inconsistent with the letter and spirit of NSM-20” and “establish an unacceptable precedent” for the application of the policy “in other situations around the world.”

“Until Biden is ready to impose real policy consequences on Netanyahu’s government, the famine will continue.”

It is a violation of U.S. law to continue sending military assistance to a country that is obstructing the delivery of American humanitarian aid. Last month, far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich blocked a U.S.-funded flour shipment from entering the Gaza Strip, and Israeli forces have repeatedly fired on convoys attempting to deliver aid to desperate Gazans.

Prominent human rights groups have been calling on the U.S. to impose an arms embargo on Israel for months, pointing to documented examples of the Israeli military using American weaponry to commit atrocities in Gaza.

But the Biden administration has refused to even apply concrete restrictions on American military aid. Over the weekend, U.S. President Joe Biden signed into law a measure that approves $3.8 billion in unconditional military assistance for the Israeli government and imposes a one-year ban on funding for the primary humanitarian aid organization in Gaza.

Jeremy Konyndyk, the president of Refugees International and a former USAID official, said Monday that Israel’s assurances to the U.S. are “not remotely credible” and argued the Biden administration is undermining efforts to combat the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza by accepting the Israeli government’s claims.

The U.S., he said, is “talking a big game about fighting the famine that its bombs and diplomatic cover have helped create.” Resorting to “gimmicky” efforts such as airdrops and temporary ports while a U.S. ally obstructs humanitarian aid “is not how you fight a famine,” Konyndyk argued.

“Fundamentally Biden must choose: between continuing to enable Netanyahu, or ending the famine. There’s no way to split the difference,” said Konyndyk. “Until Biden is ready to impose real policy consequences on Netanyahu’s government, the famine will continue.”

Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

‘Crucial’ UN Report on Gaza Genocide Must Spur Global Action, Says Amnesty

US Under Fire for Downplaying Security Council Resolution as ‘Nonbinding’

‘Outrageous’: US Accepts Israeli Assurances on Legal Use of Weapons in Gaza

Draft UN Report Finds Israel Has Met Threshold for Genocide

Continue ReadingSanders Rips ‘Absurd’ US Claim That Israel Is Not Violating International Law

Greens call for end to arms exports alongside boycotts, divestment and sanctions in wake of Security Council vote

Spread the love
Image of the Green Party's Carla Denyer on BBC Question Time.
Image of the Green Party’s Carla Denyer on BBC Question Time.

Reacting to news that the UN Security Council has called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, without the US using its veto to block the resolution, co-leader of the Green Party Carla Denyer, said: 

“The Green Party has been calling for a ceasefire since last October, so this vote is hugely welcome if long overdue. With Israel’s greatest ally the United States abstaining, the Netanyahu regime is more isolated than ever – and rightly so.  

“This Security Council resolution comes too late for hundreds of thousands of people who have seen their families and friends killed, maimed, or seriously injured and their homes, hospitals and schools destroyed. Nonetheless, it ramps up international pressure on Israel to end its deadly assault on Gaza. 

“However, Netanyahu is not listening – the attacks continue. The UK government must now further pressurise the Netanyahu regime by immediately suspending export licenses for arms to Israel. The Green Party also calls for further leverage through boycotts, divestment and sanctions. This means withdrawing all public money from funds with investments in Israel and suspending beneficial trade arrangements with the country.  

“Only a full bilateral ceasefire and release of all hostages can stop more people dying. Israel must immediately stop blocking humanitarian aid to Gaza, where their blockade on aid is causing famine and intolerable suffering. And only a ceasefire can allow talks to begin on the long-term political solutions that will bring peace and security to everyone in the region.” 

Continue ReadingGreens call for end to arms exports alongside boycotts, divestment and sanctions in wake of Security Council vote