WHO Publishes Latest Draft of Pandemic Treaty To Combat “Misinformation”
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | November 2, 2023
The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) has published a new draft of its troubled pandemic agreement/accord/treaty – which the agency has complained is taking too long to finalize.
The latest draft of the negotiating text, released by the Bureau of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) on Monday must be considered until the INB session scheduled for November 6-10, when it should be formalized.
Some of the commitments contained in this version of the document have to do with combating “false, misleading, misinformation or disinformation, including through effective international collaboration and cooperation” – which skeptics might easily dub, “cross-border censorship.”
And then there’s surveillance, too: something called One Health approach for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, which the draft wants to see promoted and implemented. Meanwhile, One Health is a surveillance tool that is supposed to create new methods of disease control.
Yet another point from the proposal is to “develop and strengthen pandemic prevention and public health surveillance capacities.”
Critics have many concerns and misgivings about all of this, including WHO setting up what’s known as a conference of the parties – an international convention’s top governing body – around the pandemic accord.
The fear here is that it would be one more instrument taking agency and consent away from national governments and people and transferring the decision-making processes, in this case related to health, to the world organization, specifically, WHO.
However, the draft’s chapter on institutional arrangements envisages establishing just such a conference of the parties as part of the accord’s scope.
A number of advocacy organizations from around the world have already expressed their dissatisfaction with the draft from different points of view, including how the treaty, if adopted, would impact less developed countries, while the draft itself is seen as “unbalanced.”
This last objection stems from the origin of the proposal – namely the discussions between INB Bureau and Secretariat, rather than drawing from the meetings of the INB itself.
Ignoring proposals from all countries that are supposed to implement the treaty, and allowing those with the most clout (in the Bureau) to set the tone is seen as one-sided in this sense as well.
CHD Sues Philadelphia Over Law Allowing 11-Year-Olds to Consent to Vaccines Without Parents’ Consent
By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | November 1, 2023
Children’s Health Defense (CHD) and several parents today filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging a Philadelphia law that allows minors to consent to vaccination without their parents’ knowledge, saying the legislation violates the constitutionally protected doctrine of informed consent and fundamental parental rights.
The lawsuit alleges the City of Philadelphia engaged in a “wink and a nod” practice of vaccinating children behind parents backs without informed consent for the past 15 years, under the cover of the 2007 General Minor Consent Regulation.
That rule allows children 11 and older to consent to vaccination without parental knowledge as long as they receive a “vaccine information statement” (VIS) for the administered shot.
It also absolves the vaccine administrator of liability if the minor gives consent.
On May 14, 2021, the city’s Department of Public Health also enacted an additional COVID-19 Minor Consent Regulation, allowing children ages 11 and up to consent to the COVID-19 vaccine available under Emergency Use Authorization.
Under that regulation, children could give consent if they received the U.S. Food and Drug Administration fact sheet because a COVID-19 VIS did not exist at the time.
Tricia Lindsay, attorney for the plaintiffs, told The Defender the fundamental rights of parents to direct the upbringing of their children are at stake in the case:
“The only time that a parent loses rights to their children is by a strict showing that they are not capable of taking care of their child.
“But here the government of Philadelphia is issuing a blanket statement and taking away parental rights without due process, and that is one of the greatest violations ever.
“They are using emergency powers and the excuse of concerns over ‘health and safety’ to justify it. But it’s camouflage. It’s a Trojan horse. They are using these buzzwords to justify their tyranny … which is what you call it when you remove a person’s fundamental rights without due process.”
Seven Pennsylvania parents joined CHD in suing the City of Philadelphia, its Department of Public Health and City Health Commissioner Cheryl Bettigole, M.D., MPH, alleging the regulations violate their rights.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, said those regulations also “raise troubling issues of informed consent, freedom of religion, parental rights, and due process, implicating both the United States Constitution and the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and other federal and Commonwealth laws.”
The plaintiffs are asking the court to declare Philadelphia’s 2007 and 2021 Minor Consent Regulations illegal and to stop them from being enforced.
CHD President Mary Holland told The Defender :
“It’s absurd to imagine that it is safe or desirable for 11-year-olds to make potentially life-altering medical decisions on their own without parental guidance, knowledge or consent. Philadelphia’s so-called consent policies violate state, federal and constitutional laws. I am happy that CHD is able to help put an end to these policies that actually endanger children’s health.”
National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act and VISs
Plaintiffs allege that Philadelphia’s regulations conflict with the consent requirements of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 (NCVIA), the federal law that has primacy over conflicting local laws on such matters, according to the U.S. Constitution.
They also argue that the complicated requirements for seeking compensation — if someone is injured by a vaccine protected by the NCVIA — would be incomprehensible to most, if not all, children.
Under the NCVIA, vaccine manufacturers are protected from liability for a vaccine’s adverse effects if the vaccines are listed on its “Vaccine Injury Table.” The table lists covered vaccines, their recognized injuries and the timeframes within which those injuries must occur to be considered compensable.
Liability for injuries caused by vaccines listed on the table cannot be pursued in a regular court of law, but are instead compensated through the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP).
The VICP also can provide compensation for an injury by a covered vaccine, even if the injury isn’t listed as compensable on the Vaccine Injury Table. However, the legal and administrative process is more complicated.
Even for listed injuries, it can be difficult to obtain compensation from the VICP. The backlog of cases is substantial and the proceedings are often drawn out by contentious expert battles.
The NCVIA mandates that the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services create and publish VISs that detail the risks and potential adverse events associated with covered vaccines. Those sheets must be presented to children’s parents or legal guardians prior to vaccine administration.
The VIS is important, the complaint says, so that parents can recognize adverse events if and when they happen, and seek necessary medical treatment and also document such events in a timely manner, which is essential for seeking compensation through the VICP.
“If a parent is not aware of what their child has done,” Lindsay said, “then they don’t know what to look out for and they don’t know if the problem they are seeing is related to a vaccine.”
The NCVIA specifically mandated that VISs must be presented in a jargon-free and straightforward way that parents can understand.
The NCVIA doesn’t mention making them comprehensible to children, because the drafters of the NCVIA never imagined children would have to understand them on their own, the complaint alleges.
“The NCVIA simply does not contemplate that a child may be vaccinated without parental consent,” the complaint states. “Quite the opposite — the language of the NCVIA is clear that the VIS is provided to the parent who is able to offer informed consent on behalf of his or her child.”
But this law, the lawsuit alleges, removes parents from the equation altogether.
What about COVID vaccine injuries?
The COVID-19 vaccines are not covered by the NCVIA or the VICP.
Instead, under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act, people injured by a COVID-19 vaccine or “countermeasure” can seek compensation only under the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP).
Since 2010, when the CICP approved its first claim, the program has compensated a total of 36 claims for vaccine injuries — six of those awards were for COVID-19 vaccine-related injuries.
The complaint also noted that COVID-19 vaccines available for 11-year-olds are still investigational. “Children are not capable of understanding the risks associated with a novel vaccine and cannot appreciate that there are no long-term studies of the safety or effectiveness of these vaccines,” the complaint states.
Lindsay said it was particularly concerning that Philadelphia specifically included the COVID-19 vaccines in the regulations and that the regulations continue to stand even though the Biden administration ended the COVID-19 public health emergency in May.
She said:
“Why would we extend this risk further to a novel vaccine, which we now know has many more problems? Why would we be signing up children to a mass experiment and taking away their guardian, the person that stands on the frontline, that’s there to protect them, to cover them, to guide them?
“It has nothing to do with the benefits of children because if it did, you would approach the guardian of that child, the person that is given the authority and has the responsibility of that child to see that that child is safe and allow them to make an informed decision as to what they deem best for their child.”
Can 11-year-old children give informed consent for medical interventions?
The complaint cites a long list of activities that are typically restricted for minors or restricted without parental consent in Pennsylvania.
For example, minors under the age of 21 cannot purchase alcohol or tobacco or enter a casino. A person must be 18 to enter into a contract or to register for the selective services without parental consent. One must be 16 to donate blood and 14 to consent to mental health treatment.
It is also illegal, the complaint notes, for pharmacists to administer vaccines to children 5 and older without parental consent.
According to the complaint:
“Philadelphia’s Minor Consent Regulations turn these requirements on their head. Rather than protecting children, Philadelphia’s Minor Consent Regulations let any child walk into a temporary vaccine ‘pop-up clinic’ or elsewhere on a whim, roll up her sleeve and receive a vaccine without her parents’ knowledge and even more importantly, her parents’ protective veil of consent. …
“The Minor Consent Regulations are a house of cards built on the unsupported, unsupportable and preposterous presumption that every Philadelphia child aged eleven and up is capable of true informed consent, that every child knows her own medical history, her family’s medical history, and can truly ascertain the potential serious risks and alleged benefits of a treatment, and can read and understand any written information — written for adults — presented to her without further explanation.”
The lawsuit alleges children likely cannot fully comprehend the VISs, let alone consent to the vaccines. Philadelphia children, it notes, have very low reading proficiency scores — only 34% of elementary students and 43% of high school students tested at or above the proficient level for reading.
It also raises concerns that no concrete proof a child-provided consent is even required.
This, the plaintiffs say, is in conflict with both the federal NCVIA and Pennsylvania law. The latter requires the written informed consent of a parent before a physician is allowed to perform medical or surgical procedures on a child.
The complaint cited the Troxel v. Granville Supreme Court case and a series of other cases that found “the interest of parents in the care, custody, and control of their children” is a constitutionally protected right.
Other minor consent lawsuits and struggles
When the pandemic began, most states had existing laws mandating parental consent for vaccination, with a few limited exceptions. But once the vaccines became available, some states and localities attempted to lower the age at which children could consent to vaccination on their own.
During Tennessee’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign, the state’s Department of Health invoked the “mature minor’ doctrine” to allow minors 14 and older to be vaccinated without a parent’s consent.
But in response to grassroots mobilization and testimony by CHD, Tennessee lawmakers in April passed a law requiring healthcare providers to obtain consent from a parent or legal guardian before vaccinating a minor.
In March 2022, CHD prevailed in a lawsuit against Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser, the D.C. Department of Health (D.C. Health) and D.C. public schools after the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued an order granting a preliminary injunction prohibiting the schools from enforcing the D.C. Minor Consent for Vaccinations Amendment Act of 2020 — a law that would have allowed children as young as 11 to be vaccinated without the knowledge or consent of their parents.
In that lawsuit, the D.C. District Court ruled in favor of CHD’s argument that the NCVIA pre-empted D.C.’s law that attempted to lower the age of consent for vaccinations to 11, and prevented the mayor of the District of Columbia, the D.C. Department of Health and D.C. public schools from enforcing the law.
The court, in that case, commented specifically on the intended function of the VIS:
“If Congress did not mean for the legal representative of a child to receive a VIS when his child receives a vaccine, then the phrase ‘the legal representatives of any child’ would be superfluous. All Congress would have needed to say is that a healthcare provider should give a VIS ‘to any individual to whom such provider intends to administer such vaccine.’ But it did not do that.”
In June, New York legislators also attempted to pass Senate Bill S762A, which would have allowed minors to be vaccinated without parental knowledge or consent. But grassroots efforts, including those undertaken by CHD, prevented that from becoming codified into New York state law.
Brenda Baletti Ph.D. is a reporter for The Defender. She wrote and taught about capitalism and politics for 10 years in the writing program at Duke University. She holds a Ph.D. in human geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s from the University of Texas at Austin.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Putin changes Russia’s obligations on nuclear test ban
RT | November 2, 2023
Russia has downgraded its participation in the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) to the status of a signatory. President Vladimir Putin signed the change into law on Thursday, revoking Moscow’s ratification.
The bill was approved by both houses of parliament last month. Specifically, it changed a 2000 Russian law by removing any mention of ratification of the CTBT, while leaving the rest of the text intact.
The Kremlin stressed that the move was taken in response to US policies regarding the ban, and does not signal an intention to renew underground nuclear bomb tests.
“Among the states that have not ratified the Treaty, the most destructive position is that of the US, which has for many years declared that there would be no support for ratifying the Treaty in Congress,” Putin’s office said in a statement. “Thus, there was an imbalance between Russia and the US in terms of obligations under the Treaty, which is unacceptable in the current international situation”.
The CTBT has not entered force because its terms require ratification by all nations on a list of 44, which operated nuclear reactors in 1996. With Russia’s withdrawal, the treaty will be nine ratifications short of taking effect. The remaining seven absentees are China, North Korea, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, and Pakistan.
President Putin has suggested that the US may decide to break its de facto moratorium on live nuclear tests as part of the modernization of its arsenal. If this happens, he pledged, Russia will follow suit.
Last month, the US Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) conducted what it called an underground chemical explosion experiment at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS), a key nuclear test range. It was described as bolstering Washington’s capability to detect nuclear explosions.
The other mass displacement: while eyes are on Gaza, settlers advance on West Bank herders
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs | November 1, 2023
Shortly after armed Israeli settlers threatened to kill them if they did not leave, 24 Palestinian households totaling 141 people, half of whom are children, were displaced from Khirbat Zanuta in the southern West Bank.
On 28 October 2023, the families dismantled about 50 residential and animal structures and vacated the area with their 5,000 livestock. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has previously documented settler attacks in this community, most recently on 12, 21 and 26 October. About two thirds of the families that comprised this community are now displaced.
“On 26 October, settlers attacked us, destroying our homes, water tanks, solar panels, and cars,” said 43-year-old Abu Khaled from Khirbet Zanuta. “I felt the presence of death so tangibly as if I saw it with my own eyes. I was torn between staying in or leaving the place I love, where I belong, where I may die. On 28 October, I made the hardest decision in my life: to leave Zanuta and leave everything behind, as memories. I did this to protect my children.”
These experiences are not unique to Khirbat Zanuta. In 15 herding communities across the West Bank, at least 98 households comprising 828 people, including 313 children, have been displaced amid settler violence or increased movement restrictions since 7 October. Since then, Israeli settler violence has increased significantly, from an already high average of three incidents per day thus far in 2023 to a current average of seven per day.
In this period, OCHA has recorded 171 settler attacks against Palestinians, resulting in Palestinian casualties (26 incidents), damage to Palestinian properties (115 incidents), or both (30 incidents). Cases of harassment, trespass, and intimidation are not included in these statistics when they do not result in damage or casualties, although they too increase the pressure on Palestinians to leave.
On 9 October, 40 people were displaced from the herding community of Al Ganoub. Armed Israeli settlers had raided the community, threatening residents at gunpoint, saying they would kill them if they did not leave within an hour. Abu Jamal, 75, is one of those who were displaced. “Settlers set fire to our tent and stole my goats,” he told us. “They destroyed everything that had kept me here.” Another residential structure was also set on fire during this incident.Since 7 October, access restrictions, typically imposed by the Israeli occupation authorities, have intensified throughout the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. These are particularly severe in areas near illegal Israeli settlements and in the ‘Seam Zone,’ the Palestinian area isolated by Israel’s 712-kilometre-long illegal Separation Wall in the West Bank. Settlers too have imposed movement restrictions, blocking access roads to Palestinian communities. Such measures have limited Palestinians’ access to essential services and livelihoods. In some cases, settlers have also damaged water resources relied upon by herding communities, depriving them of a fundamental human necessity. Palestinian herding communities are often highly dependent on humanitarian assistance, including health and education services. However, since restrictions intensified, many of the services have had to stop.
On 12 October, eight households, comprising 51 people, were displaced from Shihda WaHamlan herding community in Nablus, after settlers threatened them at gunpoint, saying they would kill them and set their tents on fire during the night. One of the family members, 52-year-old Abu Ismail, stated: “I had no choice but to leave everything behind to protect my children.” More than one in every three settler-related incidents since 7 October has involved settlers using firearms to threaten Palestinians, including by opening fire. In almost half the cases, Israeli forces accompanied or actively supported the attackers. Many of the latter incidents were followed by confrontations between Israeli forces and Palestinians, where three Palestinians were killed, and dozens injured. Eight Palestinians were killed by settlers directly, as of the end of October. Damage or destruction was caused to 24 residential structures, 40 structures used for farming, 67 vehicles and more than 400 trees and saplings. Settlements are illegal under international humanitarian law and, compounded by settler violence, they have for many years resulted in increased risks and heightened humanitarian needs among Palestinians.
At the same time, concerns are high over families who have remained and continue to endure attacks by settlers. Mohamad Abu Seif (Abu Khalid), 90, has been living with his family in the herding community of Ein Shibli for over 40 years. While they have remained, they are exposed to repetitive threats and harassment by settlers. “They prevent us from grazing our sheep,” he told us.
He and his family are among five Palestinian households, comprising 33 people, who remain in this community. All of them are at risk of displacement as grazing areas diminish by the actions of Israeli settlers. Eight families, comprising 51 people, have already left this area since 7 October. While Abu Khalid is still there, he and his family have no assurances that they would be able to remain for much longer.
Why a global anti-Hamas coalition pushed by Macron is a bad idea
By Rachel Marsden | RT | November 2, 2023
Last week, standing beside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a visit to Jerusalem, French President Emmanuel Macron suggested recycling the global coalition of 86 nations against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) to focus on Hamas.
“Hamas is a terrorist group, whose objective is the destruction of the state of Israel. This is also the case of ISIS, of Al-Qaeda, of all those associated with them, either by actions or by intentions,” Macron said, betraying a short and selective memory. The stated goal of IS wasn’t to eradicate Israel – it was to establish a caliphate in Syria and Iraq, then broaden it into Arab countries. IS was first and foremost a threat to the stability of Syria – the same country whose government the US and its Western allies actively hindered in its fight against terrorism by making a failed attempt at overthrowing President Bashar Assad through Pentagon and CIA-backed training and equipping of “Syrian rebel” jihadists. As for Al-Qaeda, Israel was even reportedly at one point helping treat wounded militants from the group who were fighting their common enemy, the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, in Syria – in turn effectively hindering the fight against IS, as Syria and Hezbollah worked to destroy it.
The Global Coalition against Daesh (another name for IS), founded in 2014, explicitly excluded Russia, whose invitation by Damascus to help it eradicate the terrorist threat can be largely credited for Syria’s stabilization, and the fact that it’s rare to even hear any talk of IS anymore. Russia’s involvement in neutralizing the terrorist group, coupled with former US President Donald Trump’s refusal to continue funding Washington’s incursion into Syria, beyond hunkering down in the oil-rich Kurdish part, was the ultimate key to IS’ defeat. So with apparently little left for it to do now, Macron recommends that the coalition that mostly sat and watched – while Russia, Iran, and Syria did the heavy lifting – take on Hamas. Who does he think is going to do the work this time? Russia, which is still excluded from the coalition? Syria, which has recently taken incoming missile fire from Israel? Iran’s Hezbollah allies, who lost 1,000 men fighting IS in Syria – and whom Netanyahu has placed in the same basket as Hamas as an enemy of Israel? Good luck with that.
So with the most effective anti-IS fighters excluded from fighting Hamas, who’s left in Macron’s proposed coalition? There’s the Global South, including some African countries that just kicked out French troops for their own failed counterterrorism missions which had led to multiple coups and the flourishing of jihadism. It’s doubtful these nations will now be keen to embark on yet another counterterrorism mission alongside the same forces that they just expelled.
Then there are all those members of the international community who are quietly thinking what United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres dared to say aloud last week – that Hamas’ brutal attack on October 7, which left close to a thousand civilians and hundreds of military and security personnel dead, “did not happen in a vacuum.” He was, of course, hinting at Israel’s longstanding, UN-recognized oppression of civilians in Gaza. His statement begs yet another question: Is Hamas really a global threat? Or is it just Israel’s problem?
Anti-Israel unrest has reverberated outside of the immediate conflict zone, including in Western Europe and the US, but these protests have nothing to do with Hamas. Instead, citizens elsewhere in the world are merely reacting to perceived injustices, particularly in light of what they consider to be an overwhelmingly pro-Israel bias on the part of the Western establishment, which initially and drastically minimized concerns over the protection of Palestinian civilians. So any global action against Hamas seems futile.
The anti-IS coalition targeted the terror group’s propaganda, with its website stating that IS’ “use of social media tied to acts of terrorism is well-documented. In response, Coalition partners are working together to expose the falsehoods that lie at the heart” of its ideology. They’re free to do that, but why bother when there’s already open debate among those who have the opportunity to see reports from the ground and assess the situation for themselves? Governments can’t be trusted not to promote their own propaganda under the guise of combating it – all to secure an advantage for their preferred narrative.
Just consider the recent example of propaganda emitted by one of the self-styled gatekeepers of truth: European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. “Russia and Hamas are alike… their essence is the same,” she said. Nah, actually they aren’t the same at all. And not even Israel has been saying that, but still, “Vladimir Putin wants to wipe Ukraine from the map. Hamas, supported by Iran, wants to wipe Israel from the map,” von der Leyen explained. Besides the hot take on Putin’s intentions regarding Ukraine, that’s like saying that since Warren Buffet has a bank account, and I have a bank account, then I’m also a billionaire. This is exactly the kind of nonsense that Western anti-propaganda campaigns end up spewing.
The anti-IS coalition was made to tackle IS. If that’s no longer an issue, then just toss it in the trash. How many interventionist entities does the West need to spearhead, anyway? There are already more than enough vehicles and coordination mechanisms for intelligence sharing, propagandizing, and security operations. Besides, there’s no proof that better intelligence could have helped Israel when Egyptian and American officials have claimed that Netanyahu had warning of the impending Hamas attack. About the only thing that more useless Western-led bureaucracy would help is the West’s own hunger for more of it.
Rachel Marsden is a columnist, political strategist, and host of independently produced talk-shows in French and English.
Hamas holds strong in Gaza despite army’s best efforts: Israeli media
The Cradle | November 2, 2023
Hebrew newspaper Maariv reported on 2 November that the Israeli army is facing a difficult and complex situation the more it deepens its ground assault on the Gaza Strip.
“The fighting in the coming days is expected to be much more difficult … The officers describe how it is evident that Hamas prepared itself to fight against IDF forces,” Maariv reports.
At the current stage, Hamas “is very far from a breaking point or crisis,” it says, adding that it has managed to maintain an organized method of fighting that relies mainly on tunnel warfare,” in which the fighters regularly ascend from out of tunnels and ambush Israeli soldiers with anti-tank weaponry.
The Panther APC armored vehicle, which Hamas ambushed on 28 October, proved to be the “most difficult event for the IDF so far,” Maariv wrote.
Fighters emerged out of a tunnel and struck the armored vehicle with anti-tank missiles, killing at least 11 soldiers and wounding several more. Israel has announced an investigation to determine the military failures that led to the incident.
Since then, several more Israeli soldiers have been killed as a result of intense clashes and anti-tank missile ambushes carried out by the resistance.
Eighteen Israeli soldiers have been killed inside the Gaza Strip since Tuesday, among them a senior officer. Intense fighting continues to rage on.
The Qassam Brigades announced on 2 November that its forces destroyed an Israeli tank and an armored personnel carrier with Al-Yassin 105 rockets.
Israel’s army also announced the killing of dozens of Hamas militants and breaching the group’s first defensive line.
The military has also allegedly begun an operation to destroy Hamas’ tunnels, Walla news outlet reported.
“Under no circumstances” should Israeli forces attempt to enter the tunnels; an ex-military chief was quoted as saying.
According to an Israeli officer cited by Walla, the Israeli army aims “to collapse the entrances and the tunnels” on Hamas and turn the underground network into a “death zone.”
However, as Maariv notes, Hamas has continued to use tunnels that the army had claimed to have destroyed in previous wars.
After Operation Guardian of the Walls in 2021, the army “greatly exaggerated and arrogantly overestimated the intensity of the damage to the tunnels” and the “psychological effect” that was meant to scare Hamas into fighting above ground out of fear that the tunnels would become “death traps.”
This assessment was “disconnected from reality on the ground,” Maariv said, adding that Hamas “will fight hard … and will not surrender easily.”
Israel has vowed to completely eradicate Hamas and dismantle its vast underground network of tunnels.
Between Iraq and a hard place: Sudani’s US dilemma over Gaza
By Khalil Harb | The Cradle | November 1, 2023
The Yamamah Palace, the epicenter of Saudi Arabia’s royal authority in Riyadh, is known for its deliberate and measured decision-making, particularly in the face of significant regional events.
But Israel’s genocidal war against Gaza proved an exception, warranting a rapid dispatch of Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan to Baghdad within a mere 48 hours after the Hamas-led resistance operation Al-Aqsa Flood was launched. This is far from a coincidence; a large subset of Iraqis belong to the regional Axis of Resistance.
Likewise, it is noteworthy that Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani revealed a discussion point that was visibly absent from the White House statement on his 16 October phone call with US President Joe Biden. Specifically, the part where the Iraqi leader expresses that “the continued aggression in Gaza stirs outrage among people in the region and globally.”
These two incidents lay bare Iraq’s state of confusion. The Persian Gulf state’s inner turmoil became even more evident in the way it voted on the Arab draft resolution presented by Jordan at the UN General Assembly.
War in West Asia
Although Baghdad had a hand in sponsoring the draft calling for a “sustained humanitarian truce,” the electronic vote initially showed that it had abstained. The Iraqi delegation in New York later scrambled to amend its vote in support of the resolution, blaming the mishap on “technical issues.”
Geographically, Baghdad may seem distant from occupied Palestine, but for many Iraqis and Palestinians, the legacy of Iraqi soldiers who helped prevent the Zionist occupation of Jenin in 1948 remains a powerful memory, with the cemetery of Iraqi martyrs standing as a solemn tribute.
However, Prime Minister Sudani faces challenges far more treacherous than reviving the heroic legacy of the Palestinian cause. Over the past week, at the Trebil border crossing with Jordan, large crowds of Iraqi protesters have camped out, and Iraqi oil shipments offered to Jordan at favorable prices are being hindered.
Chants of “Give me the fatwa, and see with your eyes” reflect the Iraqi street’s desire for a fatwa from the supreme Shia authority in Najaf, calling for defensive “jihad” against Israel. Sudani is also dealing with almost daily attacks on US military bases since 17 October.
While there are no “official” military fronts opened against Israel by the Arab states, the intensity of the political scene in Baghdad makes it almost impossible for Iraq to remain immune from the ripple effects of the “Unity of Fronts” that brings together the forces of the Axis of Resistance in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen.
The Resistance’s ‘red lines’
If Israel has shown little concern – at least so far – about the extent to which its brutal assault on Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank affects the passive Arab governments near and far, it is the US that should actually be most anxious.
The relentless Israeli onslaught on Gaza, which has so far claimed over 8,000 civilian lives and left more than 20,000 people injured, poses a significant threat to one of the few accomplishments the US could still claim from its illegal 2003 invasion of Iraq. Back then, Washington boasted it was establishing a democratic system to replace an authoritarian Iraqi regime.
However, even the staunchest American ideologues who defended and justified the invasion are lost for words today, as the Gaza war undermines any noble goals attributed to their intervention. This genocide being committed in Gaza before the eyes of the world is eroding the last remnants of respect and prestige associated with the US.
Indeed, the urgent visit of Prince Faisal bin Farhan to Baghdad underscores Saudi awareness, traditionally aligned with US interests, of the sensitivity of the situation in Iraq. It signals a growing conviction that Iraq may not stay neutral in the ongoing conflict, especially now that Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has announced that Israel has crossed certain “red lines” set by the Axis of Resistance.
These red lines include the much-delayed ground invasion of Gaza, an attempt to completely uproot Hamas and other Palestinian resistance factions, and the Israeli government stepping up its acts of aggression against other fronts.
Checking US moves
For Sudani, being Iraq’s prime minister without a solid party, parliamentary support, or political base to weather the looming regional war is a daunting challenge. Diplomatically, Baghdad is also in an uneasy position.
Incidents such as the one at the UN, where Iraq supported a ceasefire resolution but balked over references to the defunct “two-state solution” – given Iraqi legal stances against normalization with Israel – and concerns about placing Palestinian civilians on the same footing as their occupying overlords.
Sudani’s biggest fear is being pulled into Iraq’s messy domestic politics over this issue. Observers believe that the “Coordination Framework” forces, which played a pivotal role in bringing him to power, won’t stand idle if the US allows Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu to bring about another nakba.
Among these Framework forces, there are Iraqi factions that align themselves with the Resistance Axis, maintain close ties with Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah, and consider the Palestinian cause a central issue in their political discourse.
Hadi al-Amiri, leader of the Badr Organization, was among the first to escalate the rhetoric a day after Washington announced it would ramp up arms supplies to Israel, warning that: “If they intervene, we would intervene… if the Americans intervened openly in this conflict… we will consider all American targets legitimate … and we will not hesitate to target it.”
Three weeks into the current conflict, the extent of US involvement becomes clearer, including implicit and overt threats to prevent any regional party from intervening against US and Israeli interests. Calls and letters from western leaders to Baghdad have also been on the rise.
Jaafar al-Husseini, spokesman for the prominent Iraqi resistance faction Kataib Hezbollah, said that “the resistance in Iraq achieved its first attacks … and will continue at a higher pace,” adding that “The Americans are essential partners in killing the people of Gaza and therefore they must bear the consequences.”
US Proxy or Protector of Palestine?
The west, particularly the US, is employing intimidation tactics through messages conveyed to Baghdad. They are trying to push the Sudani government to act as their proxy within the “containment front,” which will potentially spark internal conflict.
This would jeopardize the relative calm that marked the first year of Sudani’s premiership. It will further undermine efforts to promote Iraq’s regional integration and distance it from Iran in exchange for closer ties with Arab states like Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.
Iraqi sources say that the status-of-forces agreement known as “SOFA” between Baghdad and Washington may be one of the first “victims” of the Israeli escalation in Gaza and the destabilizing US military involvement in the war.
If Iraqis cancel the agreement regulating US military presence in their country, it would render the US mission and presence illegitimate, effectively pushing Iraq out of the Atlanticist orbit two decades after the invasion.
Another potential casualty of Al-Aqsa Flood is the third Baghdad Conference backed by Paris – Its convening is now in doubt, especially if the region becomes further inflamed. This would be a setback for France’s influence and its role in Iraq, including a lucrative deal worth over $27 billion with French conglomerate Total Energy.
The “hands on the trigger,” as the Iranians have stressed repeatedly, are not just a threat but also a form of pressure to compel the US to rein in the Israeli government’s genocidal actions. Baghdad has conveyed a message from Washington to Tehran that calm is needed, and the Iraqis have also relayed to the Americans the importance of not provoking Lebanese Hezbollah if the US truly wants to contain the situation regionally.
The real question here isn’t whether Iraqi factions will engage in a major war, but whether Washington is so beholden to Israel that it will overlook the potential repercussions of the growing outrage within Iraq and the rest of West Asia, which will eventually engulf the US’s remaining overt colonial outpost in the region.
At General Assembly, Russia calls for immediate halt to bloodshed in Gaza Strip
Press TV – November 2, 2023
Russia’s Ambassador to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya has called for an immediate end to the bloodshed in the Gaza Strip, as the Israeli regime continues its deadly bombing campaign in the besieged enclave.
Nebenzya made the appeal during the General Assembly special session on Palestine on Thursday, stressing that the bloodshed must be stopped in order to prevent the ongoing crisis from spreading to the entire.
“First of all, it is necessary to stop the bloodshed and to prevent the crisis from engulfing the entire region. Otherwise, the conflict will never be stopped,” he said.
Nebenzya also demanded that the mediators be allowed to work on a diplomatic solution, including the release of hostages.
“One will have to walk down this path sooner or later; the only question is how many innocent people will die in the meantime,” he said.
The Russian envoy said Israel is an occupying regime and therefore it does not have the right to defend itself in the current conflict as it claims.
On Tuesday, Nebenzya blamed the United States for the ongoing atrocities committed by Israel against Palestinians, after Washington opposed a UN Security Council resolution calling for an urgent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
The envoy also slammed Western countries that abstained at the vote on Russia-proposed draft resolutions that called for a ceasefire.
A week earlier, Nebenzya said Moscow has for years been warning about the soaring tensions in West Asia and that the ongoing crisis in the region results from longstanding “destructive” policies of the United States.
Israel has been heavily bombing Gaza since October 7 when the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas launched a surprise operation in the occupied territories in response to the Israeli regime’s intensified crimes against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
The aggression has so far killed 8,800 Palestinians and left more than 23,000 wounded.
Tel Aviv has also blocked water, food, and electricity to Gaza, plunging the coastal strip into a humanitarian crisis.