Seminary trustees adopt divestment from profiteers of Israeli genocide
Al Mayadeen | May 10, 2024
The Union Theological Seminary announced, on Thursday, that its board of trustees had approved a policy endorsing the institution’s divestment from “companies substantially and intractably benefiting from the war in Palestine.”
The decision to adopt the divestment plan was made by the board’s investment committee, which had been working on its formulation since November 2023, as per the announcement.
As a partner of Columbia University, UTS is among the first institutions in the United States to publicly commit to divesting its endowment from companies associated with the Israeli genocide in Gaza.
While housing Columbia’s theology faculty, UTS maintains a separate endowment valued at approximately $110 million, according to a statement provided to The Spectator by a UTS spokesperson.
The announcement detailed concrete actions the institution will undertake to adjust its investment portfolios, such as amending the section on “responsible investing” in the investment policy statement to explicitly address the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
“Our investment policies will continue to adapt, guided by our values, to strengthen the resolve that undergirds our decision today,” the statement adds. “We do not take this step lightly, and we do so with all humility, recognizing that our work on the global stage is far from finished. Although our investments in the war in Palestine are small because our previous, strong anti-armament screens are robust, we hope that our action today will bring needed pressure to bear to stop the killing and find a peaceful future for all.”
The decision is in line with UTS’ tradition of embracing “socially responsible investment” practices. UTS’ existing investment policy already prohibits investments in armaments, weapons, defense manufacturers, and companies involved in human rights abuses, according to the announcement. Furthermore, in 2014, UTS made history as the first higher education institution to divest from fossil fuels.
UTS’ statement also emphasizes the institution’s “early divestment from the dehumanizing system of apartheid in South Africa” and its screening procedure to ward “against investing in for-profit prisons.”
In addition to divesting, UTS is “exploring investments that proactively support humanitarian and entrepreneurial companies doing positive work in the region,” the statement stressed.
The announcement further highlighted that in addition to creating additional screens to “determine a list” of companies profiting from the Israeli war, UTS will be “identifying resources to monitor changes to company activity over time.”
The big picture
Pro-Palestine protests have swept university campuses across the United States, with calls for the alienation from “Israel” or Israeli-affiliated institutions.
As student protests and movements increasingly gained momentum, hundreds of arrests were made as police tried to thwart their efforts, and the government mobilized to introduce legislation that would ultimately punish those participating.
Israeli lobbyists and the Israeli government are relentlessly pressuring US government officials to take more action against such movements in an effort to silence the criticism targeted toward “Israel” and demands to divest from the occupation.
Despite their efforts, the actions of lobbies and governments are proving futile as universities across the United States are beginning to divest from companies profiting from the Israeli genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
The movement reflects a growing trend among academic institutions to align their investment strategies with ethical considerations, particularly regarding human rights violations. By divesting from such companies, universities are taking a stand against perceived injustices and contributing to pressure for change in the ongoing Palestinian struggle.
UN: Over 100,000 Palestinians displaced from Rafah as Israel intensifies strikes
Press TV – May 10, 2024
The United Nations says more than 100,000 Palestinians have been forced to leave Rafah, amid intensified Israeli strikes on the southern city in Gaza.
“More than 100,000 people have fled Rafah,” Hamish Young, UNICEF’s senior emergency coordinator in the Gaza Strip, said at a briefing in Geneva via video-link from Rafah on Friday.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) also estimated that “around 110,000 people have now fled Rafah looking for safety.”
The agency, however, stressed that “nowhere is safe in the Gaza Strip & living conditions are atrocious,” reiterating its call for ceasefire.
“The only hope is an immediate ceasefire,” the UN agency said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
The UNRWA noted that the forced displacement comes as “Israeli Forces bombardment intensifies in Rafah.”
The regime has vowed for weeks to launch a wholesale ground incursion against the city of Rafah, where nearly more than half of Gaza’s population of 2.4 have sought shelter from Israeli strikes elsewhere in Gaza.
The Israeli military has already gone ahead with waging limited ground attacks against the city and seized control of Gaza’s side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, which is the main corridor for the transfer of aid into the besieged strip.
Israel launched the devastating war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.
Since the start of the offensive, the Tel Aviv regime has killed more than 34,900 Palestinians and injured more than 78,000 others.
Spanish universities plan to suspend cooperation with Israeli institutions
Press TV – May 10, 2024
Scores of Spanish universities plan to suspend cooperation with the Israeli universities that have not called for peace in the occupying regime’s ongoing genocidal war against the Gaza Strip.
The plan was announced in an open letter by the Conference of Rectors of Spanish Universities, which oversees 50 public and 26 private universities, on Thursday.
The universities, the letter read, planned to suspend collaborations with Israeli universities that “have not expressed a firm commitment to peace and compliance with international humanitarian law.”
In addition, the universities pledged to “intensify cooperation with the Palestinian scientific and higher education system and expand our cooperation, volunteering, and care programs for the refugee population.”
The schools said they were showing solidarity with “the feelings of our campuses and the demand that is spreading from them.”
They were referring to ongoing pro-Palestinian encampments and rallies that have been going on across many universities throughout the European country in protest at the Israeli war on Gaza.
At least 34,904 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed so far during the war, which began following al-Aqsa Storm, a retaliatory operation by the coastal sliver’s resistance groups.
The letter also called for a permanent ceasefire in the war and transfer of humanitarian aid into the Palestinian territory, which is enduring a simultaneous Israeli siege.
Over the past weeks, student protests have gained momentum across western Europe, with the participants raging against the brutal Israeli military onslaught and pressing their schools to divest from the Israeli companies that contribute to the genocide.
The demonstrators have taken their cue from pro-Palestinian student protests across the United States, which have spread across numerous of American colleges.
More than 1,000 people have reportedly been arrested on US campuses since April 18, when a pro-Palestinian encampment at Columbia University in New York was forcefully removed by the police.
Here’s Every Ceasefire Deal and Prisoner Exchange Hamas Has Offered Israel Since October 7th
BreakThrough News | May 8, 2024
Poles taking to the streets against EU Green Deal
By Olivier Bault | Remix News | May 9, 2024
On Friday, May 10, Poles will be taking to the street in a protest organized by the legendary Solidarity trade union. Solidarity, which was the main dissident social movement against communism in Eastern Europe in the 1980s, is now demanding a referendum on the EU Green Deal. Its current leader, Piotr Duda, has even called the EU Green Deal a new “red plague,” in reference to communism.
The protest is supported by Law and Justice (PiS), the main opposition party in Poland, and also by the other parties of its United Right coalition as well as by the Confederation, an alliance of Christian nationalists and libertarians to the right of the United Right. The trade union, however, makes “the whole political class” in Poland responsible for the EU’s climate policy and notes that it warned from the outset of the threats linked to that policy, which means it makes the United Right leaders responsible too, as the EU Green Deal was adopted during their eight years in power.
“The solutions implemented under the Green Deal in the future will translate into, among other things, increases in electricity and heating bills, new taxes on energy and fuel, a ban on heating with fossil fuels, as well as increases in food prices and the country’s food insecurity. NSZZ Solidarity has decided to loudly express its opposition to such policies,” Solidarity’s leaders wrote in a press release published in mid-March.
They also wrote:
“The Solidarity trade union, which won Poland’s freedom in the past and later used it many times for just causes, has again decided to reach for the highest form of direct democracy, which is a nationwide referendum in which citizens will be asked about the continuation of the implementation of the Green Deal. The referendum will be preceded by an information campaign. This will allow for a broad awareness-building public debate on the real effects of the EU’s climate policy so that every citizen of Poland will be able to express his or her opinion on the subject based on reliable knowledge. After all, EU policy should not be determined by officials in Brussels, but based on the consent of the citizens of member states.”
The May 10 protest will start at noon on the Plac Zamkowy Square in central Warsaw, when farmers are expected to turn up en masse as they did on March 6 when a large farmer protest was brutally repressed by Donald Tusk’s left-liberal government.
However, it is not only farmers who are going to be very negatively affected by the EU Green Deal. As the Ordo Iuris legal think tank stresses in an EU-wide petition against the Green Deal it has just launched, not only is European agriculture facing a catastrophe, but car drivers and homeowners will have to pay a high price for plans dictated not by reason and based not on consultations, but driven by ideology.
We can still “Stop the Green Deal” in its current form, we remind people in our petition, as it is a matter of the political decisions made by the heads of state and government in the European Council that can be later translated into new EU law processed through the EU Council (where ministers of the EU-27 meet) and the European Parliament.
This is why we demand not only that there should be a referendum in Poland on the Green Deal, but that an EU summit should be convened to work through the demands of farmers and other actors from across Europe.
We should all have in mind that under the current plans, the production of food and many intermediate and industrial goods will not stop, but will only be transferred outside the European Union, where the EU’s absurd climate regulations do not apply. This will only make matters worse for our planet and it will push millions of Europeans toward poverty and destroy the European Union’s economic competitiveness.
We encourage all citizens of EU countries to sign the petition against the EU Green Deal here.
US losing ground globally to Russia and China – report
RT | May 9, 2024
While both China and Russia have improved their standing in the world over the past year, the US has seen its approval rating deteriorate in the Middle East and even in Europe, according to respondents from 53 countries.
Dubbed Democracy Perception Index 2024, the survey was compiled by the German company Latana, on behalf of Alliance of Democracies, a NGO headed by former NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
Russia and China are now viewed as positively as the US in most of the surveyed countries in Asia and the Middle East/North Africa (MENA), as Washington’s approval plummeted due to the conflict in Gaza. Things aren’t looking up for the US in Europe, either.
“For the first time since the start of the Biden administration, many Western European countries have returned to net negative perceptions of the US,” according to Frederick DeVeaux, the senior researcher at Latana.
The reversal of previously positive attitudes has been “particularly stark in Germany, Austria, Ireland, Belgium and Switzerland,” DeVeaux said.
America’s global reputation took a beating since last year, in particular in Muslim-majority countries surveyed – Algeria, Egypt, Indonesia, Malaysia, Morocco, and Türkiye. The researchers attributed this to President Joe Biden’s unequivocal support to Israel’s war on Gaza.
Meanwhile, sentiments about Russia and China in every region except Europe are steadily getting more positive.
The European region is the only one besides the US that still supports cutting economic ties with Russia over the Ukraine conflict, while the rest of the world prefers to keep doing business with Moscow. The world is also divided “between the West and the rest” when it comes to possibly sanctioning Beijing if it were to “invade” the island of Taiwan.
The Democracy Perception Index is an annual survey carried out in 53 countries. This year’s research canvassed some 63,000 respondents for opinions about “democracy, geopolitics and global power players.”
Mass immigration has ‘utterly failed’ Britain as new report debunks myths of economic growth and fiscal benefits
By Thomas Brooke | Remix News | May 9, 2024
Mass immigration has not delivered the economic growth successive U.K. governments claimed it would and has contributed to rising pressure on public services, Britain’s former immigration minister, Robert Jenrick, has claimed in a report written in collaboration with a leading think tank.
The report by the Center for Policy Studies published this week offers several findings that challenge the Western liberal narrative that mass immigration fuels economic growth, provides a fiscal benefit, and is a force for good for European nations.
“The scale and composition of recent migration have failed to deliver the significant economic and fiscal benefits its advocates promised, while putting enormous pressure on housing, public services, and infrastructure,” it states.
The study found that net migration accounted for 89 percent of the 1.34 million increase in England’s housing deficit over the last decade, resulting in a housing shortage and pushing house prices to a record property-price-to-salary ratio.
It warned that Britain would have to build a home every five minutes night and day just to cope with the current levels of immigration. The 515,000 homes needed every year would be the equivalent of adding a city the size of Cardiff to the U.K. every year.
In an accompanying video, the co-authors explained that cumulative net migration in the 25 years leading up to former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair’s 1997 election victory had been just 68,000. In the 25 years to follow, cumulative net migration was at least 5.8 million.
“A total of 1.2 million people arrived in the U.K. last year. That means 1 in 60 people living in the U.K. today only arrived in the last 12 months,” the video states.
Non-EU migration to Britain has sky-rocketed following Brexit, but the overwhelming majority of new arrivals are not heading to the U.K. to work, and therefore pay taxes and boost the economy. Just 15 percent of those arriving from outside the European Union in the last 5 years came on a work visa.
The hard-hitting video also revealed that Britain’s population increased by 8 million people between 2001 and 2021, of which 7 million were due to mass immigration.
“That’s the equivalent of the combined populations of Birmingham, Manchester, Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Peterborough, Ipswich, Norwich, Luton, and Bradford,” it states.
The report found that mass immigration had “not delivered significant growth in GDP per capita,” and had increased pressures on critical infrastructure “from roads to GP surgeries.”
It also provided details on the difference in the quality of immigration around the world, highlighting that migrants from the Middle East, North Africa, and Turkey are “almost twice as likely to be economically inactive as someone born in the U.K.”
Similarly, migrants from Somalia and Pakistan typically pay between four and nine times less in income tax than those from Canada, Singapore, and Australia.
The report offered 30 recommended measures the government should implement to “take back control” of mass immigration, including stricter rules on the rights of overseas students to remain in Britain once they’ve finished their initial studies.
It also called for splitting up the Home Office, the U.K.’s interior ministry, and establishing a separate Department of Border Security and Immigration Control dedicated to the issue.
Other recommendations included the setting of an annual cap on visas in specific industries, namely health and social care, which typically offer lower wages and entice migrants to take these jobs in order to come to Britain; reaffirming a national commitment to return net migration to the historical norm of the tens of thousands; and scrapping the Shortage Occupation List, which exempts certain overseas applicants from meeting stricter criteria for visas.
Commenting on the report, Jenrick explained how he had resigned as an immigration minister in December last year because he “refused to be another politician who broke their promise to reduce immigration.”
At the time of his resignation, Jenrick cited the government’s Rwanda policy as the primary reason for his departure, insisting the legislation did not go far enough and would not be able to effectively reduce illegal immigration into Britain.
“Three decades of mass migration have utterly failed the British public. The costs have been covered up. Here is the truth that needs to be told,” Jenrick added.
MTG Says ‘Uniparty’ Win Saving Johnson’s Speakership Will Mean More Money for Foreign Wars
US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, speaks to reporters before a meeting with US Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, about a possible Motion to Vacate filing to remove him from the speakership, at the US Capitol on May 7, 2024, in Washington, DC.
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 09.05.2024
House Democrats and Republicans joined forces on Wednesday to shoot down the congresswoman’s motion to oust the speaker over his efforts to secure tens of billions of dollars for wars abroad while overlooking the crisis at the US southern border, and to reauthorize measures allowing for warrantless surveillance of US citizens by the state.
Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene took to X on Thursday to issue a scathing attack targeting her fellow Republicans who joined with Democrats to block her push to vacate the House and prompt the selection of a new Speaker to replace Mike Johnson.
“All the scary bad things they all told you would happen if I called the motion to vacate didn’t happen. They said ‘Democrats would take control of the House and [Minority Leader Hakeem] Jeffries would become speaker because Republicans only have the majority with one seat’. Didn’t happen. Instead, Democrats voted to save Johnson because they knew it was impossible to take control of the House and they want to keep Johnson because he’s given them everything they want,” Greene wrote.
“They said ‘we should be focused on more serious issues! None of this does anything for the American people!’ Doing things for the American people and focusing on serious issues didn’t happen because the Uniparty reared its ugly head and voted to protect their Uniparty leader and to keep the status quo which has done nothing for the American people or solved problems on serious issues,” the lawmaker added.
“And you know what else didn’t happen? Congress, which is paid by the American people and sent to represent them, didn’t stop the border crisis, didn’t stop funding foreign wars, didn’t protect America’s energy industry, didn’t cut spending to reduce inflation, didn’t defund the weaponized government. Instead Congress protected itself and kept the Uniparty control over the People’s House,” Greene wrote.
Greene, 49, is one of a handful a new breed of Republicans calling for a radical review of the America’s domestic and foreign priorities, calling for a halt to US support for foreign wars, measures to clamp down on illegal immigration, and efforts to deal with America’s gargantuan $34+ trillion federal debt.
43 House lawmakers voted against tabling Greene’s motion to vacate the House on Wednesday, among them ten Republicans, including Paul Gosar, Thomas Massie, Andy Biggs and Chip Roy. Nearly three dozen Democrats also voted against killing the motion, which would have opened the door to Johnson’s removal, among them several members of the so-called Congressional Progressive Caucus, including Jamaal Bowman, Pramila Jayapal, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Democratic support saved Johnson’s speakership, but potentially puts the politician in an electoral tight spot among conservatives as a speaker propped up by the opposition.
However, former president and presumptive GOP nominee for president Donald Trump – whose 2016 election gave rise to the anti-neocon Republican movement, and ultimately Greene’s election in 2020, rushed to Johnson’s defense in a Truth Social post on Wednesday.
“I absolutely love Marjorie Taylor Greene. She’s got Spirit, she’s got Fight, and I believe she’ll be around, and on our side, for a long time to come,” Trump wrote. “However, right now, Republicans have to be fighting the Radical Left Democrats, and all the Damage they have done to our Country. With a Majority of One, shortly growing to three or four, we’re not in a position of voting on a Motion to Vacate. At some point, we may very well be, but this is not the time.”
Emphasizing in all caps that a motion to vacate would show “DISUNITY” and “be portrayed as “CHAOS,” Trump said that Johnson was “good man who is trying very hard,” and that while he wished “certain things were done over the last period of two months… we will get them done, together.”
Trump, whose backdoor negotiations with House Republicans reportedly included the idea of turning new Ukraine aid into a ‘loan’ to earn GOP support last month, did not elaborate on what these “certain things” were.
Greene, Gosar, Massie, Biggs, Roy, Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, Andrew Clyde, Eli Crane, Bob Good, Troy Nehls, Ralph Norman and Matt Rosendale, all Republicans, were the only House lawmakers to vote against all the legislation put before the floor on April 20, including aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, a TikTok ban and new sanctions against Iran after its retaliatory April 14 attack on Israel.
Johnson is the second Republican House speaker to have been targeted by an effort to oust him from his conservative flank, with former Speaker Kevin McCarthy ousted in October 2023 over what Rep. Gaetz alleged was a “secret side deal on Ukraine” to provide Kiev with more funding. McCarthy’s ouster was made possible after conservative Republicans secured the support of Democrats to force him out, with the move resulting in the blockage of nearly $100 billion in US military and economic support for foreign wars for more than six months.
Malaysia tells US it doesn’t recognise sanctions imposed unilaterally
MEMO | May 9, 2024
Malaysia has told the US that it does not recognise sanctions imposed unilaterally by individual states, Interior Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said today.
“I emphasised that we will only recognise sanctions if they are imposed by the UN Security Council,” added Ismail at an event after meeting with Brian Nelson, the top sanctions official of the US Treasury Department, Free Malaysia Today has reported. “The delegation from the US respected our stance.”
Nelson is in Malaysia reportedly to discuss issues related to funds being moved to Iran and its proxies, and funding for the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas from within the Malaysian financial sector.
The minister pointed out that Kuala Lumpur is committed to combating terrorist financing with a “clear strategic plan in place to tackle illicit funding and money laundering.” Moreover, he said that Malaysia’s policies and strategies “comply with international standards.”
The meeting came as the US said it was trying to prevent Malaysia from becoming a jurisdiction where Hamas could both fundraise and then move money. Washington also said that Iran’s capacity to move its oil was due to service providers based in Malaysia.
The minister, however, described his meeting with Nelson as “productive” and said that Malaysia was “always open to engaging with the US.”
UK Fire Brigades Union calls on members not to help police remove pro-Palestine protesters
MEMO | May 9, 2024
The UK’s Fire Brigades Union has called on its members not to assist police in removing protesters calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
In a statement, the union said: “The FBU is aware that pro-Palestine protesters are holding further demonstrations in Leicester. Previously, firefighters have been asked to assist the police in removing protestors. The FBU advises all members not to be involved in law enforcement activities.”
FBU General-Secretary, Matt Wrack, added: “The role of a firefighter is to save lives and protect the community. There is no justification for firefighters being asked to assist the Police in the removal of protesters… We support the rights of the protesters and the call for peace and justice for Gaza.”
While FBU representative in Leicestershire, Kasy LeGall, added: “The Fire Brigades Union has a long and proud history of standing in solidarity with the people of Palestine. This solidarity extends to all those currently protesting for a cease-fire and an end to the supply of arms to Israel.”
‘Israel’ destroyed 53% of Gaza’s water treatment facilities: BBC
Al Mayadeen | May 9, 2024
A new BBC report based on obtained satellite images over Gaza showed that more than half of Gaza’s water sites have been destroyed and contaminated in targeted Israeli aggression.
Data revealed that 53% of the 603 examined water facilities were either destroyed or damaged. Water in the Gaza Strip was already a limited resource dependent on a network of water wells and desalination plants before “Israel” further exacerbated its scarcity.
The report further revealed that out of Gaza’s six wastewater treatment plants, which majorly contributed to the prevention of the accumulation of waste and contaminated waters to curb the spread of diseases, four were either damaged or completely destroyed.
The remaining two were forced to shut down due to the lack of supplies and fuel that kept operations running.
Most affected facilities, according to BBC, were located in northern Gaza, or the vicinity of southern Khan Younis.
It is worth noting that satellite images do not show the extent of Israeli damage and destruction of water facilities in Gaza, or those that stopped operating due to the lack of fuel amid the Israeli-imposed siege on the Strip.
Gaza is drinking unsafe, untreated water
In April, the Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed that the whole population of Gaza was drinking unsafe water “because of the closure of the public health laboratory and the inability to test drinking water… that puts their lives at risk.”
In its statement, the ministry attributed the disaster to “Israel’s” refusal to allow chlorine or any alternative for testing and treating drinking water.
In addition, the amount of waste accumulating is leading to the spread of disease, the ministry warned, as cases of meningitis and hepatitis have already been detected.
Will a Gaza ceasefire be as successful as the two-state solution?
By Paul Larudee | Dissident Voice | May 8, 2024
Who proposed a two-state solution? Not the Palestinians. Not Israel. It was conceived in the young United Nations, and proclaimed there in November, 1947. But it was never successfully implemented, despite on-and-off negotiations continuing for the better part of a century. The Zionist leadership briefly promoted it prior to the 1947 UN vote, but only to gain legitimacy for its intentions to implement Plan Dalet for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and its independent proclamation of the state of Israel six months after the UN vote. The closest the Palestinians came to accepting the solution was a “Roadmap,” that was never seriously pursued but which created the quisling Palestinian Authority.
Let’s be honest. The two-state solution was never proposed by either side, and never wanted by either of them. The Palestinians always wanted a single non-Zionist state from the river to the sea, and the Zionists wanted the river to the sea exclusively for their state. The two-state solution was a fantasy imposed by the colonial West to get the British off the hook and use the Zionists to their domestic advantage. Nevertheless, both the Zionists (Israel) and the Palestinians thought that they could best gain their ends by working through the post-colonial UN/Western power structure and its insistence – genuine or otherwise – on a two-state solution. It has been purposely deadlocked ever since, because the West continues to promote the two-state solution while the Palestinians and Israelis have little or no interest in actually implementing it. In fact, everyone seems to have a different idea about what the two-state solution should look like, which also changes over time.
A lot of the same applies to the idea of a ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian resistance, led by Hamas. True, they came to a brief, temporary agreement in November, 2023, but that was for very limited objectives and was neither intended nor expected to be permanent. The idea of a permanent ceasefire, promoted by peace groups and millions of demonstrators worldwide, as well as the UN, sounds like a great idea until you get to the details of what it entails and how to implement it. Everyone agrees (or will at least pay lip service) to stopping the killing of civilians, providing massive humanitarian aid and releasing captives. But then what? The ceasefire cannot be permanent without resolving questions of the status of Gaza and the rights it will enjoy.
Those questions place the aims of Israel and the Palestinian resistance completely at odds and largely irreconcilable. Prior to October 7th, Hamas had been preparing its strategic capability for years, creating the technology and resources for a sustained, effective resistance against the Israel occupation, not merely occasional actions. The decision to finally launch the operation was due to multiple factors, but a major one was the increasing marginalization of the Palestinian cause and its potential abandonment by former ostensible supporters, such as the Arab countries that concluded “normalization” agreements with Israel. The proximate prospect of just such an agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia plus the advanced state of readiness of the resistance forces may have been the deciding factors for the launching.
As for Israel, if its intelligence was not, in fact, taken by surprise but actually expecting the revolt, it had reasons for inviting it. First, the Zionist leadership had for many years been concerned that the Palestinian population was becoming greater in number than that of Jews in what it often calls “greater Israel”, including both Israel and the occupied territories under its control: the West Bank, Golan Heights and Gaza Strip, plus small bits of Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. This was intolerable to the Zionist leadership, and interfered with their intentions to annex those territories. They would therefore welcome a pretext to reduce that population, by whatever means necessary.
Second, while Israel has been gradually confiscating Palestinian lands and establishing Jewish settlements in the West Bank, no such effort is being made in Gaza. In fact, by evacuating the Jewish settlements in 2005 and making Gaza a sealed concentration camp of 2.3 million Palestinians, it guaranteed a ferment of Palestinian nationalism and resistance. Israel would prefer to simply be rid of it – but not the land, only the people. A revolt in Gaza would offer the opportunity to expel or exterminate the population while keeping the land.
Third, the discovery and partial mapping of a large natural gas field in Gaza waters became a powerful motive for creating a means for laying claim to both the land and its resources. From a strategic as well as economic point of view, the Israeli leadership felt unsurprisingly compelled to avoid allowing the prize to fall into Palestinian hands, and to keep it for themselves.
Finally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is highly motivated to remain in power, partly because he avoids prosecution for corruption by doing so, but also in order to become a national hero by “redeeming” another portion of “Eretz Israel” (land of Israel), through genocide and ethnic cleansing. The revolt by Hamas and the rest of the Palestinian resistance provides the pretext for implementing such a plan through genocide and ethnic cleansing, then annexation.
The potential motives of the two sides for a ceasefire are thus totally different, if they exist at all. For the resistance it is national liberation, freedom, independence and complete sovereignty, comparable to any other nation on earth. They are aware that it will require huge sacrifices for the Palestinian people, but neither the leaders of the resistance nor the people of Gaza will accept to return to the status quo ante (or worse). These aims are clear in the three-stage ceasefire proposal that Hamas accepted on May 6, 2024. That proposal culminates in a sovereign, independent Gaza, in total control of its economy, security and international relations.
Israel, on the other hand, requires the elimination of Hamas as a minimal condition for a ceasefire. But even if Hamas agreed to disband, many if not most of its adherents would refuse to do so, and continue, if only under a new name, which Israel would also seek to eliminate. It is a disingenuous requirement, because Israel merely wishes to block a ceasefire and get on with eliminating the population.
How will it end? I’m sorry to say that Israel may have its genocide, with the invasion of Rafah as the next phase, and even the trickle of food and relief supplies being closed. Other than Yemen, there is no evidence that any nation will intervene to stop the carnage or bring relief to the starving people of Gaza. But as I wrote four months ago, genocide will neither save Israel nor stop Hamas and the rest of the Palestinian resistance. Israel is a pariah state as never before, with countries abandoning it on a scale unseen since its founding. Even its support among diaspora Jews is withering, and Israeli Jews are fleeing the country by hundreds of thousands since October 7th. The settlements in the north and south have been evacuated, with many of the former inhabitants living in temporary housing in the larger Israeli cities or joining the exodus abroad. Many businesses have closed. Only the lifeline to the US keeps Israel afloat. But for how long?
Hamas, on the other hand, is at its most popular, enjoying unprecedented support in all of Palestine and beyond, and receiving more recruits than it can train. There is no sign that it is flagging, and every indication that it can carry on indefinitely.
It is unwise to underestimate either side, but if this is a fight to the finish, it may turn out to be Israel’s third defeat, after the ones in Lebanon in 2000 and 2006, and clearly more consequential. It is an open question who will be left standing at the end of Israel’s current struggle with Hamas, even if the victory is pyrrhic for the survivor.
Paul Larudee is a retired academic and current administrator of a nonprofit human rights and humanitarian aid organization.
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- As Gazans carry out mass burial, food insecurity is getting worse – Daily Update
- Israeli rabbi permits occupiers to steal Palestinian olive harvest in West Bank
- Netanyahu’s spin on latest settler attack is laughable – Daily Update
- No Tricks Zone
- Predictions Made By Renowned Climate Proifessor Over Past Decades Have Been Proven To Be Poor
- New Study Suggests Large Regions Of The Pacific Ocean Have Been Cooling For The Last 80 Years
- Germany’s Green Energy Debacle: High Energy Costs Force Kahla Porzellan to Close After 182 Years!
- New Study: 50 Years Of The Most Aggressive ‘Net Zero’ Policies Can Only Affect The Global Climate By 0.03°C
- US September “Heat” Was No Record…Many Records Set Decades Ago
- Latest European Green Energy Debacle; Portugal’s Largest Flagship Solar Park Insolvent!
- Green Energy Debacle: German Expert Professor Fritz Vahrenholt Warns Of Severe Economic And Social Consequences
- Two More Paleo Reconstructions Affirm Meters-Higher Sea Levels Across Ireland, Brazil 7000-6000 Years Ago
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
