Gaza

‘The Opposite of Leadership’: US Vetoes Palestine’s UN Membership

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

Robert A. Wood, deputy permanent representative of the United States to the United Nations, vetoes Palestine’s U.N. membership during the Security Council meeting on April 18, 2024. (Photo: Manuel Elías/United Nations)

Palestine’s permanent observer at the United Nations said the resolution’s failure “will not break our will, and it will not defeat our determination.”

U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration on Thursday used the country’s veto power at the United Nations Security Council to block Palestine’s bid to become a full member of the U.N.

While 12 nations voted in favor of Palestinian membership and two abstained, the United States is one of five countries—along with China, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom—who have veto authority at the Security Council.

Since Israel launched what the International Court of Justice has said is a “plausibly” genocidal assault of the Gaza Strip in response to a Hamas-led October attack, the Biden administration has blocked three cease-fire resolutions at the Security Council. Under mounting global pressure, the U.S. finally abstained last month, allowing a cease-fire measure to pass.

In the lead-up to Thursday’s vote, the Biden administration was pressuring other countries to oppose the Palestinian Authority’s renewed membership effort so it could possibly avoid a veto, according to leaked cables obtained by The Intercept.

“Take a moment to ponder how isolated Biden has made the U.S.,” said Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, after the veto. “Biden lobbied Japan, South Korea, and Ecuador HARD to oppose the Palestine resolution so that the U.S. wouldn’t have to veto. They refused. So Biden cast his fourth veto in seven months (!!) This is the opposite of leadership.”

In addition to the nations Parsi highlighted, Algeria, China, France, Guyana, Malta, Mozambique, Russia, Sierra Leone, and Slovenia voted for giving Palestine full U.N. membership while Switzerland and the United Kingdom abstained.

After the vote, U.N. News reported on remarks from Riyad Mansour, a U.N. permanent observer for the state of Palestine:

“We came to the Security Council today as an important historic moment, regionally and internationally, so that we could salvage what can be saved. We place you before a historic responsibility to establish the foundations of a just and comprehensive peace in our region.”

Council members were given the opportunity “to revive the hope that has been lost among our people” and to translate their commitment towards a two-state solution into firm action “that cannot be maneuvered or retracted,” and the majority of council members “have risen to the level of this historic moment, and they have stood on the side of justice and freedom and hope, in line with the ethical and humanitarian and legal principles that must govern our world and in line with simple logic.”

“The fact that this resolution did not pass will not break our will, and it will not defeat our determination,” Mansour added. “We will not stop in our effort. The state of Palestine is inevitable. It is real. Perhaps they see it as far away, but we see it as near, and we are the faithful.”

Parsi said that “a Western-friendly senior Global South diplomat” told him of Biden’s veto: “Whatever agonizing claim the U.S. had to lead a self-appointed free world has died a very loud public death on the Security Council horseshoe tonight. YOU CAN’T LEAD IF YOU CAN’T LISTEN.”

Biden, a Democrat seeking reelection in November, has faced fierce criticism in the United States and around the world for U.S. complicity in Israel’s war on Gaza—which Hamas, not the Palestinian Authority, has controlled for nearly two decades. In under seven months, Israeli forces have killed 33,970 Palestinians, injured another 76,770, displaced most of the besieged enclave’s 2.3 million population, devastated civilian infrastructure, and severely limited the flow of lifesaving humanitarian assistance.

Israel—which already got $3.8 billion in annual U.S. military aid before October 7—continues to receive weapons support from the Biden administration, even as a growing chorus of critics, including some Democrats in Congress, argues that the arms transfers violate U.S. and international law.

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

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‘McCarthyism Is Alive and Well’: Google Fires 28 for Protesting Israel Contract

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

Google employees demand the company terminate its contract with the Israeli government at a protest on April 16, 2024. 
(Photo: No Tech for Apartheid/Medium)

“These mass, illegal firings will not stop us,” said organizers. “Make no mistake, we will continue organizing until the company drops Project Nimbus and stops powering this genocide.”

The peace coalition No Tech for Apartheid accused Google of a “flagrant act of retaliation” late Wednesday night as the Silicon Valley giant announced it had fired 28 workers over protests against its cloud services contract with the Israeli government.

The firings came after Google organizers held two 10-hour sit-ins at the company’s offices in Sunnyvale, California and New York City, demanding the termination of Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract under which Google and Amazon provide cloud infrastructure and data services for Israel—without any oversight regarding whether the Israel Defense Forces uses the services in its occupation of Palestinian territories and bombardment of Gaza.

Workers have denounced Project Nimbus since it was announced in 2021, but Israel’s killing of at least 33,970 Palestinians in Gaza since October and its intentional starvation of civilians led employees to escalate their protests.

No Tech for Apartheid said in a statement that Google officials called the police to both offices to arrest nine protesters—dubbed the Nimbus Nine—on Tuesday morning, before utilizing “a dragnet of in-office surveillance” to fire nearly two dozen other employees on Wednesday.

“They punished all of the workers they could associate with this action in wholesale firings,” said the coalition, which includes Jewish Voice for Peace and MPower Change, a Muslim-led anti-war group.

Google accused the workers of “bullying,” “harassment,” defacing property, and physically impeding other employees—allegations No Tech for Apartheid rejected as it noted organizers “have yet to hear from a single executive about” their concerns over Google’s collaboration with Israel.

“This excuse to avoid confronting us and our concerns directly, and attempt to justify its illegal, retaliatory firings, is a lie,” said the workers. “Even the workers who were participating in a peaceful sit-in and refusing to leave did not damage property or threaten other workers. Instead they received an overwhelmingly positive response and shows of support.”

The organizers staged the sit-ins on the heels of reporting in Time magazine about new negotiations between Google and the Israeli government regarding further potential tech contracts.

Kate J. Sim, a child safety policy adviser at Google who said she was among those fired this week, said the terminations show “how terrified [executives] are of worker power.”

Google employees have a history of harnessing worker power to change policies at the company. In 2018, Google terminated a deal with the U.S. Defense Department to develop drone and artificial intelligence (AI) technology through a contract called Project Maven. The decision followed the resignations of several employees and the condemnation of thousands of workers.

Calling Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian “genocide profiteers,” No Tech for Apartheid said Wednesday that they will not stop demonstrating against Project Nimbus until they get a similar result.

“The truth is clear: Google is terrified of us,” said the group. “They are terrified of workers coming together and calling for accountability and transparency from our bosses… The corporation is trying to downplay and discredit our power.

“These mass, illegal firings will not stop us,” No Tech for Apartheid added. “On the contrary, they only serve as further fuel for the growth of this movement. Make no mistake, we will continue organizing until the company drops Project Nimbus and stops powering this genocide.”

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

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UN appeals for £2.2bn for Gaza to help Palestinians in desperate need of food and other aid

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/un-appeals-ps22bn-gaza-help-palestinians-desperate-need-food-and-other-aid

THE United Nations has appealed for $2.8 billion (£2.2bn) to provide desperately needed aid to three million Palestinians, stressing that tackling looming famine in the devastated Gaza Strip requires not only food but sanitation, water and health facilities.

Andrea De Domenico, the head of the UN humanitarian office for Gaza and the West Bank, told reporters on Tuesday night that massive operations are required to restore those services and meet minimum standards — and this can’t be done during military operations.

He pointed to the destruction of hospitals, water and sanitation facilities, homes, roads and schools by Israeli forces, adding that “there is not a single university that is standing in Gaza.”

Mr De Domenico said Israel’s recently ended so-called military operation at Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest medical facility, was so destructive the facility has been forced to shut down.

…

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/un-appeals-ps22bn-gaza-help-palestinians-desperate-need-food-and-other-aid

Continue ReadingUN appeals for £2.2bn for Gaza to help Palestinians in desperate need of food and other aid

Google employees lead sit-ins protesting company’s complicity in genocide

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

Google workers stage sit-in to end Project Nimbus (Photo: No Tech for Apartheid)

Tech workers are joining the Palestine solidarity movement in leading coast-to-coast sit ins at Google offices across the country

On April 16, Google workers led sit-ins at the office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian in Sunnyvale, California, and Google’s New York City headquarters in protest against Google’s complicity in the Israeli genocide of the Gaza Strip, through Project Nimbus, the tech giant’s contract with the Israeli government and military.

Tech workers at both Amazon and Google have been organizing for years to end Project Nimbus, which is Google and Amazon’s USD 1.2 million contract with the Israeli government and military. Despite retaliation from Google including the firing of workers, the movement against Project Nimbus has only grown. 

“Google is enabling and profiting from Israel’s AI-powered genocide through Project Nimbus, their USD 1 billion cloud contract with Israel. The Israeli military is also using Google Photos as part of a facial recognition dragnet across Gaza, which has led to the arrest, imprisonment, and torture of thousands of Palestinians with little to no evidence. It’s clear that the Israeli military will use any technology available to them for genocidal means,” say the Amazon and Google workers, organized in the group No Tech for Apartheid, in a recent statement. “Google workers do not want their labor to power Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.”

This action comes days after Time Magazine reporting confirmed that Google is providing direct cloud computing services to the Israeli occupation forces, despite the company stating the contrary. 

“We have been very clear that the Nimbus contract is for workloads running on our commercial platform by Israeli government ministries such as finance, healthcare, transportation, and education,” a Google spokesperson previously told Time Magazine. “Our work is not directed at highly sensitive or classified military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services.” Time reporting revealed that the Israeli Ministry of Defense has its own secure entry point into the Google Cloud.

Tech workers staging the sit-ins in California and New York are demanding that the company end Project Nimbus, stop “the harassment, intimidation, bullying, silencing, and censorship of Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim Googlers,” and address health and safety issues in the workplace, which arise from the “mental health consequences of working at a company that is using their labor to enable a genocide,” workers say.

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

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International coordinated actions shut it down for Gaza

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

Across the United States, Australia, and the UK, Palestine solidarity activists took action on April 15 as part of global call to strike for Gaza

Protesters blockade the entrance to O’Hare International Airport in Chicago (Photo: Dissenters)

April 15 marked yet another global day of solidarity with Palestine, in which activists across the globe in countries such as the United States, Australia, and the UK took action for Gaza. Activists were responding to a global call to strike for Gaza, which originated within Palestinian civil society.

In the United States, the global strike for Gaza also coincided with the day that taxes are due in the country (Tax Day). Activists used this as an opportunity to highlight how much of taxpayer money goes to the weapons industry.

In several cities, activists strategically targeted sectors of the war machine, including the offices of Lockheed Martin in Arlington, Virginia, the largest weapons manufacturer in the world. Activists who occupied the Arlington office highlighted that Lockheed Martin receives billions of dollars in taxpayer money each year, which is used to produce the arms that Israel uses to kill Palestinians.

While activists occupied the building, protesters outside marched up to the office doors, staging a rally and shouting at employees inside the building to quit their jobs. 

Activists also blockaded the entrance to a facility belonging to Boeing, another massive weapons manufacturer that supplies Israel, in St. Charles, Missouri.

A facility of weapons manufacturer Pratt and Whitney was also targeted in Connecticut, where organizers blocked the entrance to the factory to impede production. 

On the same day, several activists blockaded the road going to the Chicago O’Hare International Airport, blocking Terminals 1 through 3. Over 40 protesters were arrested after taking this action, who have as of now all been released.

Several bridge blockades took place in the Bay Area. Protesters first stopped traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge, holding banners that read “Stop the world for Gaza” and “End the siege on Gaza now!”

Protesters later took further action and shut down the Interstate 880 in Oakland. Altogether, the California Highway Patrol announced the arrests of 38 people. 

In London, activists with Palestine Action targeted the office of BNY Mellon, demanding that the bank divest with Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons company. BNY Mellon offices in Manchester were also targeted. 

In Adelaide, Australia, pro-Palestine activists occupied the office of Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s office. Activists said this action had been undertaken to “protest the government’s ongoing complicity in, and facilitation of, the genocide occurring in Gaza—a genocide which has been enabled by international forces, like Australia, to continue for over six months.”

In Melbourne, hundreds gathered in front of the parliament building, demanding that the Australian government stop cutting deals with Elbit systems. 

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

Continue ReadingInternational coordinated actions shut it down for Gaza