Morning Star: The public want a better funded NHS – it’s politicians who stand in the way

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/editorial-public-want-better-funded-nhs-its-politicians-who-stand-way

BRITAIN is worried about the NHS. The latest Social Attitudes Survey shows less than a quarter of the population are satisfied with the health service. That represents a drop of 29 per cent in just three years — the fastest fall ever.

That’s hardly surprising. Waiting lists at over seven million represent months of pain for people waiting on procedures. Seeing a GP in a hurry is all but impossible in many areas. Waiting times in A&E are breaching targets wherever you look.

This suits private healthcare interests down to the ground.

The number of privatised medical procedures hit a record last year. People who can afford it are going private: people who can’t afford it, the vast majority, are suffering.

The degradation of the NHS, and the consequent pressure for “reform” in the form of ever-greater dependence on for-profit provision, follows a familiar playbook. US academic Noam Chomsky summed it up: “That’s the standard technique of privatisation: defund, make sure things don’t work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital.”

People are angry about the state of the NHS, but there is certainly no public enthusiasm, or even consent, to increasing the role of private capital.

The NHS’s founder Nye Bevan famously said the NHS would last as long as people had the faith to fight for it.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/editorial-public-want-better-funded-nhs-its-politicians-who-stand-way

Continue ReadingMorning Star: The public want a better funded NHS – it’s politicians who stand in the way

Fresh crisis for Thames Water as investors pull plug on £500m of funding

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/mar/28/fresh-crisis-for-thames-water-as-investors-pull-plug-on-500m-of-funding

In July, Thames Water had agreed £750m of funding, with the first payment expected to be made on 31 March. Photograph: Maureen McLean/Shutterstock

Decision raises concerns about financial future of UK’s biggest water company

Investors at Thames Water have pulled the plug on £500m of emergency funding, raising concerns about the financial future of the country’s largest water company.

The beleaguered utilities firm announced this morning that its shareholders had refused to provide the first tranche of £750m funding set to secure its short-term cashflow, after the company had failed to meet certain conditions.

The crisis for Thames Water comes after devastating data on the scale of raw sewage discharges into rivers and seas this week.

Thames Water, who admit in their business plan they have been “sweating assets”, oversaw a 163% [increase?] in the duration of sewage dumping into rivers as their creaking infrastructure failed to cope with rainfall levels.

Thames is also at the centre of a major investigation by the water regulator Ofwat into sewage dumping from its treatment works, which could lead to massive financial penalties being imposed on the company.

Thames Water said on Wednesday that investors believed the conditions of funding had not been met and the £500m of new equity would not be handed over in the coming days.

A statement on behalf of Thames’s shareholders appeared to blame Ofwat: “After more than a year of negotiations with the regulator, Ofwat has not been prepared to provide the necessary regulatory support for a business plan which ultimately addresses the issues that Thames Water faces. As a result, shareholders are not in a position to provide further funding to Thames Water.

“Shareholders will work constructively with Thames Water, Ofwat and government on how to address the consequences of Ofwat’s decision.”

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/mar/28/fresh-crisis-for-thames-water-as-investors-pull-plug-on-500m-of-funding

Continue ReadingFresh crisis for Thames Water as investors pull plug on £500m of funding

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

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

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

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

Argentina: Javier Milei’s government poses an urgent threat to human rights

Demonstrators carry pictures of missing people during a march for the Day of Remembrance for Truth and Justice in Buenos Aires, Argentina, March 24 2024. Juan Ignacio Roncoroni / EPA

Cara Levey, University College Cork

“Milei, you scumbag, you are the dictatorship.” This was among the defiant shouts that rang out across downtown Buenos Aires on Sunday March 24 as some 400,000 Argentinians filled the Plaza de Mayo, the iconic square that has borne witness to pivotal moments in Argentina’s history.

People flock to Buenos Aires – and other cities across Argentina – on this date each year for an annual march to commemorate the victims of the country’s last military dictatorship. Between 1976 and 1983, an estimated 30,000 people were killed, imprisoned, tortured or forcibly disappeared in a state-led campaign that still haunts the country.

But this year the march felt a little different. Activists showed their palpable outrage at President Javier Milei’s administration for seeking to downplay the brutal legacy of the dictatorship.

And on March 21, Milei’s defence minister, Luis Petri, reportedly met with the wives of military officers convicted of crimes against humanity. The meeting occurred amid rumours of pardons for human rights abuses that had been committed under the dictatorship.

Many human rights have been rolled back too. Activists have faced threats, funding for the country’s commemorative sites has been withdrawn and their staff laid off, and workers in the Secretariat of Human Rights have been sacked. Human rights, which have been hard won over decades in Argentina, are in danger.

A large crowd of people in a street holding banners and pictures aloft.
People gather in cities across Argentina on March 24, the anniversary of a coup that installed a brutal military dictatorship in Argentina.
AstridSinai/Shutterstock

Political violence

Milei is a self-professed anarcho-capitalist. His policies are at best, nebulous, and at worst, dangerously chaotic. Since he was elected in November 2023, Milei has made clear plans for sweeping liberal economic reforms, cuts to funding for public services, and has opposed equal marriage and legal abortion.

Milei’s human rights policy is worrying. A number of active and retired military personnel have been appointed to various government positions, including chief of staff and to the Ministry of Defence. However, there would be worse to come in the run up to this year’s March 24 commemorations – an outright assault on human rights.

In early March, Sabrina Bölke, a member of HIJOS (Sons and Daughters for Identity and Justice against Oblivion and Silence), was attacked and sexually assaulted in her home. HIJOS is an Argentinian organisation founded in 1995 to represent the children of people who had been murdered, disappeared or imprisoned by the country’s military dictatorship

Before leaving, her attackers wrote “VVLC [viva la libertad, carajo] ñoqui” on one of the walls. This is Milei’s catchphrase and loosely translates as “Long live freedom, dammit”. Ñoqui (gnocchi) is a derogatory term for state workers, equivalent to “jobsworth” in English.

This is a lesson in what happens when radical “outsiders” like Milei (or Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and Donald Trump in the US) come in from the shadows. They not only tolerate political violence, but actively encourage it. Lacking political experience, their leadership is founded on creating an “us v them” mentality which emboldens their supporters.

Revising history

The day of commemoration brought one more disturbing turn of events. The government released a video straight out of the denialist playbook, presenting a false, alternative portrayal of the military dictatorship’s crimes.

The video advocates for a “complete memory” that shifts the focus to those killed by armed left-wing organisations in the 1960s and 1970s and calls for the end of the pursuit of justice for military perpetrators. It stars Juan Bautista Yofre, the ex-chief of the Secretariat of Intelligence, and María Fernanda, the daughter of Captain Humberto Viola, who was killed in 1974 by the revolutionary left.

The video resurrects the “two demons” trope. This is a theory that equates systematic state terrorism with the violence committed by the revolutionary left. It justifies the disappearances as the result of a conflict between two warring factions.

It’s a viewpoint that had, in recent years, lost much credibility. In 2006, the prologue to the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons’ truth commission report, which was originally published in 1983 to detail the extent of forced disappearance across Argentina, was rewritten specifically to remove allusions to this myth.

Such rejection of historical facts is not surprising. During his presidential campaign debates, Milei disputed the number that had disappeared at the hands of the dictatorship.

His vice president, Victoria Villarruel, the niece of a member of the armed forces under judicial investigation, has gone even further. She has called for an end to human rights trials and has pushed for the closure of the memory museum on the grounds of what was once the notorious former Navy Mechanics School that became a clandestine detention centre during the dictatorship.

What happens next?

Milei and Villarruel may struggle to block human rights trials completely, certainly not without a stand-off with the Argentine courts. The opposition of congress to Milei’s “omnibus law” (the collective name for his package of liberal reforms) in February 2024 is a reminder that he will undoubtedly face legislative roadblocks.

The Argentine Court of Appeal, which is responsible for ruling on human rights cases, has also been clear that it will prevent perpetrators of human rights abuses benefitting from house arrest. However, we will probably see a gradual undermining of judicial processes via the release of defendants and the replacement of judges, accompanied by an emboldening of those who deny state terrorism.

It is still early days in Milei’s tenure. But human rights activists and international observers should be concerned about the future of human rights in Argentina.The Conversation

Cara Levey, Senior Lecturer in Latin American Studies, University College Cork

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Continue ReadingArgentina: Javier Milei’s government poses an urgent threat to human rights

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

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  

‘Heartbreaking’: Shocking decline in public satisfaction with NHS under Tories

https://leftfootforward.org/2024/03/heartbreaking-shocking-decline-in-public-satisfaction-with-nhs-under-tories/

‘The NHS isn’t failing, it’s being failed. What an appalling act of state vandalism’

Public satisfaction with the NHS is at its lowest ever level, plunging for the first time in the 41-year history of the survey to show less than a quarter of people are satisfied with the way the health service is currently running. 

Compared to 2010 when 70% of the public were satisfied with the NHS, the latest survey findings lay bare what 14 years of a Tory government stripping funds and resources from the NHS has had. 

Campaign group Keep Our NHS Public has called it “an appalling act of state vandalism” commenting that the NHS “isn’t failing, it’s being failed”. 

NHS workers have expressed heartbreak over the shocking decline in public satisfaction for the service under the Tories while unions have called for immediate action to address the staffing crisis.

One palliative care doctor wrote on X: “14 years of Tory government understaffing, underfunding & private sector outsourcing have trashed the NHS into a travesty of the service we want to give you.

“It is heartbreaking and so disgustingly wrong.”

https://leftfootforward.org/2024/03/heartbreaking-shocking-decline-in-public-satisfaction-with-nhs-under-tories/

Continue Reading‘Heartbreaking’: Shocking decline in public satisfaction with NHS under Tories

Another State Department Official Resigns Over Biden Gaza Policy

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