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Global South rallies behind South Africa’s genocide case against Israel

The Cradle | January 11, 2024

Nations across the Global South have thrown their support behind South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), as the hearings are set to begin on 11 January.

On Wednesday, Brazil and Colombia joined other Latin American nations like Bolivia, Venezuela, and Nicaragua publicly endorsing the South African case.

“In light of the flagrant violations of international humanitarian law, the president expressed his support for the initiative of South Africa to ask the International Court of Justice to determine that Israel immediately cease all acts and measures that could constitute genocide or related crimes,” the statement from Brasilia reads.

“South Africa’s lawsuit is a brave step in the right direction,” a statement from the Colombian government stressed.

The 22-member Arab League bloc also confirmed its backing for the South African case on Wednesday in a social media post made by Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul-Gheit.

“It is natural and logical for the Arab League to fully support the lawsuit filed by South Africa against Israel … We look forward to a just and bold ruling that will stop this aggressive war and put an end to the shedding of Palestinian blood,” Aboul-Gheit said.

Iran issued a similar statement on the same day, backing South Africa and saying the Islamic Republic “strongly denounces the apartheid Zionist regime’s war crimes and genocide against the Palestinian nation, and expresses its support for resistance as a liberation move and legitimate right recognized by international law for the Palestinian nation in the struggle against occupation.”

The Maldives, Namibia, and Pakistan also announced their support for the South Africa case this week.

Pakistan’s deputy permanent representative to the UN, Usman Jadadoon, on Tuesday called Israel’s war in Gaza “a brutal, veritable genocide” and said his country “looks forward to the Advisory Opinion of the ICJ on the legal consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.”

Turkiye, Jordan, and Malaysia had previously supported the case. Similarly, the 54-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) – including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Morocco – was among the first to back South Africa’s case.

Furthermore, over 1,000 popular movements, political parties, unions, and other organizations worldwide issued a joint statement this week calling on all signatories to the 1948 Genocide Convention to stand by South Africa.

“We urge national governments to immediately file a Declaration of Intervention in support of the South African case against Israel at the International Court of Justice to stop the killing in the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” the statement reads.

Other nations like France and Costa Rica stopped short of supporting the case against Israel but nonetheless reiterated their trust in the ICJ, with Paris saying it would support “whatever decision the court reaches.” Mexico also called on states to refrain from using their veto power should they oppose the court’s findings.

In spite of growing global support for Palestine, the US and the UK have refused to support the case, with Washington explicitly saying they have seen “no evidence” of genocide in Gaza.

In the same vein, on Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a video statement claiming that “Israel has no intention of permanently occupying Gaza or displacing its civilian population,” in a complete U-turn from the dozens of documented statements he and other senior officials have made over the past three months.

South Africa filed the lawsuit against Israel at the end of December, accusing Tel Aviv of genocide and seeking a halt to the brutal military assault that has killed about 25,000 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them women and children.

The 84-page filing accuses Israel of violating the 1948 Genocide Convention, drawn up in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust.

January 11, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Iraq’s anti-terror Kata’ib Hezbollah warns US, Israel against attacks on Lebanon, Yemen

Press TV – January 9, 2024

Iraq’s anti-terror group Kata’ib Hezbollah has underscored the unity of the resistance front in the face of US-Israeli plots in West Asia, warning against any attacks on Yemen, Lebanon and other Muslim countries across the region.

Jafar al-Hussaini, spokesman for Kata’ib Hezbollah movement, made the remark in an interview with Lebanon’s al-Mayadeen television network on Tuesday as he pointed to the enhanced unity and cohesion among the Axis of Resistance in the wake of October 7 Operation al-Aqsa Storm, the largest military operation by Palestinian resistance groups against Israel in decades.

“After the al-Aqsa Storm, the Zionist-American enemy will no longer be able to fight alone against a country or a group. The Axis of Resistance is very coherent and has a clear vision and a clear role,” Hussaini said.

“If the enemy thinks of any foolishness against Lebanon, the Iraqis will be present on the field in numbers and equipment,” he added. “We will not allow Israel or others to attack any country from the Axis of Resistance or Islamic countries. In case of any attack on Yemen, the attacks on Americans and their allies will be unlimited.”

Referring to the months-long resistance of Palestinians against Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, the spokesman for Kata’ib Hezbollah warned that the anti-terror Iraqi group would continue with its strikes on the occupied territories.

“What is important for us now is to stop the occupying regime’s massacres against our brothers in Palestine and to lift their siege. The destruction of the enemy’s strongholds and interests in the region will not stop if the aggression does not stop in Gaza,” Hussaini said.

The spokesman also pointed to the major Iraqi resistance group’s combat readiness and its support for Palestinians in the besieged territory since the Israeli aggression started more than three months ago.

“After the Al-Aqsa storm, the relationship with the Palestinian resistance deepened. The capabilities of the Islamic resistance in Iraq are far beyond the imagination of the enemy,” he said.

“Iraq’s Islamic Resistance has targeted critical targets in the occupying regime with drones. The resistance used a cruise missile that was built for the first time and hit a vital target in Haifa,” he added, pointing to the weekend Iraqi attacks on the port city in the northwestern part of the occupied Palestinian territories.

During his interview with al-Mayadeen, Hussaini also announced the expansion of the resistance front to other areas across the region and the world.

“During the coming years and decade, the scope of this axis will expand and reach East Asia and some Caucasus countries,” he said. “Our battle with the Americans continues and will not stop after the end of al-Aqsa Storm.”

The Israeli regime waged the war on Gaza on October 7 after Hamas-led Palestinian resistance groups carried out the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s atrocities against Palestinians.

The relentless military campaign has killed more than 23,000 people, most of them children and women. Nearly 59,000 Palestinians have also been wounded.

The Tel Aviv regime has imposed a “complete siege” on the territory, cutting off fuel, electricity, food and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.

January 9, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Pro-Palestine activists set global day of action to stop Israel’s Gaza genocide

Press TV – January 8, 2024

Activists in a number of countries worldwide have signed up to a global day of action that will see marches take place on January 13 demanding an end to Israel’s genocidal campaign in the besieged Gaza Strip.

The demonstrations will be held a day before the 100th day of Israel’s hostilities.

Four percent of the population in Gaza have been either killed, injured or gone missing since early October.

UK-based advocacy groups organizing the initiative say the marches seek to mobilize people to demand a permanent ceasefire.

Events are planned in dozens of cities across countries including the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Japan, Indonesia, South Korea, Australia, Brazil, Jordan, and Turkey, among others.

The Palestinian Forum, one of several British groups organizing the move, said the growing number of cities joining the global action “reflects a shared commitment to ending the violence in Gaza.”

“Together, we stand united in the #GazaGlobalAction campaign, sending a resounding message that the world demands change, justice, and a future free from violence.”

The Palestinian Forum said the “grim reality” in Gaza “underscores the urgent need for international attention, humanitarian aid, and a concerted effort towards achieving a just and lasting resolution to the conflict.”

Calls to join the global day of action have been shared widely on social media using the hashtags #CeasefireNow #EndTheSiege and #FreePalestine.

Ismail Patel, the chair of the pro-Palestine Friends of Al-Aqsa group, has said the demonstrations principally seek to “empower the international community to challenge Israel’s allies.”

“The global day of action hopes to highlight the worldwide condemnation of Israel’s relentless bombing and siege of Gaza, which is claiming around 300 lives daily, the ongoing ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, the discrimination against Palestinians within Israel, the dehumanizing of Palestinians by Israeli leaders, and Israel’s provocative attacks targeting Syria and Lebanon,” Patel said.

The groups that have organized the pro-Palestine day of action spearheaded protests against the US war on Iraq on February 15, 2003. Those demonstrations were held in more than 600 cities worldwide and drew in millions of people.

Since October 7, 2023, Washington has already vetoed two UN Security Council resolutions calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

In a last-ditch effort in December, South Africa filed a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, accusing the regime of genocide in Gaza. The hearing is scheduled for January 11 and 12.

Israel has been bombing hospitals, schools, supply vehicles and even UN-run facilities in Gaza since October 7. The regime has also killed more than 23,000 people, most of them women and children.

January 8, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , | Leave a comment

Haifa missile strike by Iraqi resistance shows how fragile Israeli regime is

By Wesam Bahrani | Press TV | January 8, 2024

In yet another significant act of solidarity with the people of Gaza, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq on Sunday struck “a vital target in occupied Haifa” with an advanced long-range cruise missile, grabbing headlines and taking the embattled regime in Tel Aviv by another surprise.

In a statement, the Iraqi resistance emphasized that the operation was carried out because of “our ongoing support for people in Gaza,” who have been reeling under the Israeli aggression since Oct. 7.

The statement added that the operation was “in response to the massacres committed by the usurping entity against Palestinian civilians, including children, women, and the elderly.”

The Iraqi resistance, which has in recent months launched a string of attacks on US military bases in Iraq and Syria, said it will continue to hit enemy strongholds, warning that “more is yet to come”.

The concluding part of the statement was the most attention-grabbing.

Such is the stringent Israeli media censorship of the occupying regime’s war on the besieged Gaza Strip; it is difficult to speculate what vital infrastructure has been hit.

The Iraqi resistance struck Haifa with a long-range cruise missile, named al-Arqab, from Iraqi territory. The distance from Baghdad to Haifa is almost 1,000 kilometers.

According to sources, the launch of the missile took place closer to the Western Iraqi deserts. That is still roughly 600 kilometers away, or perhaps more, depending on the launch site.

It essentially means that Haifa, which is located in the northern part of the occupied territories, can expect attacks again from the Iraqi soil, the timing of which will be decided by the resistance.

More importantly, the long-range cruise missile traveled the same distance‌ that can put Tel Aviv and all other Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories within the range of Iraqi fire.

On Monday, Iraq’s Harakat al-Nujaba resistance movement claimed responsibility for the strike, warning that Israel should await more crippling attacks in retaliation for its bloody war on Gaza.

“The Axis of Resistance is determined to disrupt US scenarios in the region and thwart the occupying Israeli regime’s schemes in Gaza,” Hussein al-Moussawi, spokesman for the group, said.

Should we be surprised that the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU)‌, under which the Islamic Resistance in Iraq operates, possesses such world-class military technology?

The short answer is no.

The Iraqi government itself armed the PMU with the most capable military equipment from Baghdad’s weapons depots because it plays the most fundamental role of all the Iraqi armed forces.

The attack on Haifa points to the start of a new chapter by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, in what is expected to be an even stronger show of support for the Palestinian resistance in Gaza and its people.

In this latest phase, we must expect an escalation in attacks on crucial Israeli infrastructure inside the occupied Palestinian territories, facilitated by the utilization of sophisticated long-range cruise missiles.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq has made no secret of its iron-clad support and solidarity with the oppressed people of Gaza amid the Israeli regime’s indiscriminate bombings and inhumane siege.

It had also made no secret of its military operations against the Zionist regime and its Western backers, which has been completely evident in the past few weeks.

Shortly after the Israeli regime launched its war on Gaza on October 7, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq carried out a number of operations against Israeli interests and its main backer, the United States.

In late December, the Iraqi Resistance struck a vital target in the Eli-ad settlement, in the southern Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights with drones.

Before targeting Eli-ad, the resistance also pounded the regime’s main offshore (occupied) Karish gas field in the eastern Mediterranean Sea with a direct hit, inflicting heavy damage.

That came after the Iraqi resistance struck a target in occupied Umm al-Rashrash (Eilat) with appropriate weapons and released images of the operation for the public.

The regime evacuated the settlers of Eilat, transforming the area into a military garrison. It made the site an ideal target for Iraq as well as Yemen, another Arab country that has upped the ante recently.

Yemen, Iraq and Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement have carried out a series of operations against Israeli interests with a barrage of long-range drones and missiles.

At times, the goal has simply been to fire a barrage of missiles and drones to preoccupy the Israeli Iron Dome and Patriot Missiles. These calculated efforts have proven successful.

They effectively ease the pressure on the Palestinian resistance while at the same time drain out Israeli military resources, which have in recent months become extremely depleted.

The regime has killed more than 22,000 Palestinians since Oct. 7, the majority of whom have been women and children. Thousands more are missing, presumably dead under the rubble.

Among the countries and movements taking the lead in militarily pressuring the U.S. and its apartheid regime to end its inhumane attacks on Gaza, Iraqis have played a courageous role.

In Iraq, the resistance has targeted illegal American military bases on its territory as well as in Syria more than 110 times since the Israeli war against Gaza began three months ago‌.

Rockets, mortar shells, drones, and short and long-range ballistic missiles have all been used in these operations, leading to scores of casualties among US troops and collateral damage.

Now, the question that everyone is asking is: Why has the Iraqi resistance opened a new chapter?

Lately, the illegal US military occupation on Iraqi soil made a costly mistake by attacking sites belonging to the PMU, which means Washington and Tel Aviv have to pay the price.

Recent US attacks against affiliates of the PMU, including Kataib Hezbollah, and the recent deadly strike on the headquarters of Harakat al-Nujaba, which led to the assassination of one of its leaders in Baghdad, Haj Mishtaq, means the time is ripe for the resistance to expand its operations.

For context: In the eyes of the Iraqi resistance, there is no difference between the US military occupation of Iraqi soil and the Israeli occupation of Palestine. The liberation of the Palestinian territories begins with the expulsion of American troops from Iraq and the rest of the region.

While the Israeli regime commits horrendous crimes against humanity in Gaza, America is shielding, arming‌, funding and facilitating this madness of death and destruction campaign in the coastal strip.

Taking a closer look at the events unfolding in Gaza, it is‌, in essence, an American war on Gaza.

This direct complicity means that Washington has to pay the same price as the Israeli regime is paying for its massacres of civilians in Gaza. They are two sides of the same coin.

Whilst illegal US bases in Iraq and Syria are closer to the line of fire for the resistance, the indiscriminate Israeli attacks against women and children in Gaza have seen the PMU increasingly target the Israeli regime, the latest being Haifa.

What the Al-Aqsa Storm (or Al-Aqsa Flood) operation provided was an opportunity for the Iraqi resistance to strike at Israeli interests for the first time in history.

As pressure grows on the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Mohammad Shia’ al-Sudani to expel the illegal US forces, it has also opened a new window for the PMU to end the American occupation and avenge Washington’s assassination of its deputy leader Abu Mehdi al-Muhandis.

For the moment, the main goal of the resistance is to expand its scope of attacks against the Israeli regime in order to mount pressure on the apartheid occupation as well as the US.

And, as the Iraqi resistance warned after the Haifa attack, “more is yet to come”.

Wesam Bahrani is an Iraqi journalist and commentator.

January 8, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

China’s COSCO halts shipping to Israeli ports: Israeli media

The Cradle | January 7, 2024

Chinese state-owned shipping company COSCO, the fourth largest in the world, has halted sailing to Israeli ports, Israeli media outlet Globes reported on 7 January, in the wake of attacks and attempted seizures of vessels heading to Israel via the Red Sea by Yemeni armed forces.

The Israeli report indicated that the Chinese firm did not disclose a reason for the policy change. COSCO’s offices in Israel have refused to comment on the development.

The Globes report attributed the decision to the close ties between China and Iran, which sells 90 percent of its crude oil exports to Beijing. Iran is a supporter of the Yemeni government and opposes Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza.

In a similar development, the Hong Kong-based OOCL halted all cargo deliveries to Israel last month, citing “operational problems.”

In the same month, other major shipping firms, including the Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) and CMA CGM, announced their decision to halt shipments to Israel one day after the Yemeni Armed Forces attacked two Israel-bound vessels.

Yemeni forces have been attacking Israeli-bound vessels in the Red Sea in response to Israel’s war on Gaza, which the Sanaa government views as genocide.

Washington and its allies in turn formed the Prosperity Guardian naval coalition and issued an ultimatum to Yemen’s Ansarallah-led government to stop their Red Sea operations or suffer the “consequences.”

Yemen’s actions have forced numerous leading shipping companies to instead travel around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa to reach Europe, extending the shipping times by two weeks and increasing costs.

On 31 December, US naval forces sank three Yemeni boats in the Red Sea, killing ten Yemeni naval soldiers.

From the onset of the Gaza conflict on 7 October, Yemeni military forces have targeted a minimum of 15 merchant vessels either bound for Israeli harbors or owned by entities associated with Israel.

January 7, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

So You’re a Professor? Here’s What You Can Do to Oppose Genocide

By Steve Salaita | January 7, 2024

College instructors, particularly those in Europe and North America, are generally limited when it comes to meaningful intervention in imperialist horrors afflicting the Global South. Nevertheless, it is usually their governments either orchestrating or abetting the horror. They ought to do something, then, even if it seems pyrrhic or inadequate.

People around the world are now witnessing a particularly gruesome event as the Zionist entity, armed by its U.S. sponsor and enjoying the support of capitalist institutions across the globe, commits one atrocity after the other in the Gaza Strip (along with the West Bank and at times further afield). The atrocities, anyone with a modicum of integrity agrees, add up to genocide. The depth of grief and suffering Palestinians now experience is indescribable, immeasurable.

Do professors and other campus workers have any ability to mitigate the grief and suffering? Not really. But we’re not entirely powerless, either. Higher education is an important sector for information and activism and an industry where participants like to contemplate the role of both exceptional and ordinary people in making a better world. Like anybody else, teachers and researchers can be most effective in their own communities, which are not inoculated from the genocide. Zionist groups have organized hundreds of defamation campaigns against Palestinian students and faculty, often resulting in employment termination and other serious forms of recrimination. These campaigns don’t exist in a vacuum.  Targeting Palestinians and anti-Zionists is an extension of the genocide, or at least one of its attendant tactics. And then, of course, many of the campuses are somehow invested in the Zionist entity—financially, politically, or logistically.  It does no good to say that “we” aren’t affected by what happens “there.”

The following is a list of suggestions for Western academics, with the understanding that not all professors are equal and each campus is different in terms of its cultural and economic composition. In turn, I have tried to be comprehensive, offering comments that I hope will be useful to everyone from contingent faculty whose employment is precarious to senior scholars with big platforms at elite institutions. (The latter are much more likely to be facilitating the genocide, either obliquely or explicitly, but nevertheless.)

One thing is clear:  the world is now experiencing a moral crisis whose enormity will reshape political attitudes and alliances for generations to come. Pretending that life, no matter how sheltered or comfortable, can simply continue as normal is its own kind of moral crisis.

Try one or more of the following if you can:

Defend Palestinian Students: Be it from forces on or off campus, or be it individuals you know or don’t know personally, it is reprehensible that students should suffer doxing and harassment, whether it is orchestrated by skeezy has-beens like Michael Rapaport or hysterical faculty on their own campus. Speak on behalf of your students. It can be done publicly through the usual channels or in private communication with chairs, deans, and other administrators. Or keep it simpler: reach out to the students and offer yourself as a resource.

Defend Palestinian Colleagues: The same idea holds, but with a quick addendum. Being a Palestinian in Western academe can be deeply alienating, in no small part because shitting on Palestinians is a reliable method of upward mobility. I’m sure some of your Palestinian colleagues will appreciate any gesture that might make them feel slightly less alone.

Boycott: Up to this point, academic boycott of Israeli universities has been controversial, even in supposedly progressive quarters of the industry. The facts, however, are clear.  Israel has destroyed every institution of higher learning in the Gaza Strip. It has murdered dozens of faculty and administrators, including university presidents, and an untold number of students. There is no academic freedom in Palestine. There is no academe at all in Gaza. Reluctance to boycott is no longer acceptable. It is the baseline of political decency. Anybody who continues to oppose or dissemble about academic boycott should be regarded as untrustworthy on everything else.

Divest:  Start or join a local campaign to force your university to divest any holdings from the Zionist entity. Divestment can include study abroad programs in Israel, which inherently discriminate against Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students.  In the past decade, students have successfully passed divestment resolutions at numerous universities, but management simply ignores them.  Faculty voices will help these efforts.

Invite People from Gaza: Surely the rank-and-file in academe are tired of the same few dozen big-name professors and celebrity activists saying the same three or four things in the lucrative lecture economy. Decisionmakers on campus invite speakers for prestige, for the brand, or else to network or be in the presence of fame. The habit needs to die and there’s no better time than now. Instead of summoning the usual Endowed Chair of Gobbledygook at Wealthy Private University to deliver radical affectations at a cost of multiple thousands, reach out to scholars and journalists from Gaza (and for God’s sake give them a proper honorarium). They will assuredly be more insightful than warmed-over relics of the pre-millennial theory craze. Likewise:  recruit graduate students from Palestine. You can also look into bringing Palestinians as visiting writers/scholars or as researchers/consultants in any effort to document the genocide. Start with people who are currently outside of Gaza; when conditions are better, reach out to those still inside the territory. Gaza is filled with individuals of remarkable talent. You will be better off for having sought it.

Organize or Attend a Demonstration: You don’t need to be a seasoned organizer to raise hell about the abomination that is the Zionist entity.

Direct Action: Why should students always be the ones to shut down administrative offices or gum up the machinery of genocide? Professors can participate, as well. I’m not saying you need to do it. I just want you to bear in mind that nobody, no matter how urbane or well-published, is too good to get fired or sit in jail for a few hours in solidarity with a people whose heroism is known and admired around the world.

Teach Palestine: Hundreds of Palestinian poets, novelists, and essayists write in English or are available in translation. Consider including them on your syllabus. So what if your courses don’t focus on Palestine or the surrounding region? If you’re a modernist, then assign Fadwa Tuqan or Mahmoud Darwish. If you’re in gender studies, look up Fatima Bernawi or Rasmea Odeh. If you teach novels, try Susan Abulhawa, Susan Muaddi Darraj, Sahar Mustafah… on goes the list.  If you’re an Americanist, there are numerous options.  Same for Latin Americanists. A critical theorist? No problem: there’s Elias Sanbar and Bassel Al-Araj and Ghassan Kanafani. And if you’re, say, a medievalist?  That’s no problem, either.

Stop Pandering to Customs of Civility: You don’t need to condemn “Hamas.” You don’t need to “affirm Israel’s right to exist.” You don’t need to bang on about “democratic values.” You don’t need to be “nuanced.” You need to defend the people suffering a genocide. Not a single one of them is asking for anything else. (“Who is my audience?” keep asking yourself. If the answer is anything other than “the dispossessed,” then recalibrate your ethics and try again.)

Shun the Genocidaires: Those rationalizing or cheering on the genocide are personae non grata from here on out.  No co-authoring articles with them. No sitting together on conference panels. No buddy-buddy bullshit on the networking circuit. Sure, sometimes circumstance will force you onto the same committee or whatever, but, if the association is voluntary, then decline the opportunity and find colleagues who don’t celebrate mass murder.

Speak: [speak]

Or better still: Listen.

January 7, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

US military buildup in Red Sea ‘serious’ threat to intl. shipping: Yemen

Press TV – January 5, 2024

Yemen’s Ansarullah resistance movement has cautioned that the US militarization of the Red Sea in an attempt to serve the Israeli regime will pose a serious threat to international shipping in the strategic waterway.

Ansarullah made the statement on Friday after the United States, which has over the past weeks been spearheading a maritime coalition in the Red Sea under the pretext of safeguarding the transit of vessels in the area, claimed that the Yemeni forces and the popular resistance movement were targeting international ships and jeopardizing the security of the Red Sea.

The United States and the coalition members warned Yemen’s Armed Forces of “consequences” if they continued their missile and drone attacks against ships en route to Israeli ports in support of Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Ansarullah said the Yemeni armed forces never attacked international ships and that the security and safety of international maritime transport in the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait was guaranteed by them.

“The US claim and the statement of 12 countries regarding the [Yemeni] threat to international shipping is not true. This threat stems from the militarization of the Red Sea by the United States to serve the Israeli regime and encourage the regime to continue its crimes against Gaza,” the resistance movement said in a statement.

“The Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip and its genocidal crimes against Palestinians, which has entered the fourth consecutive month, should have forced the so-called international community or the UN Security Council to stop such massacres by the Israeli regime,” it added.

Ansarullah categorically censured the Israeli aggression against the besieged territory and said it has so far killed more than 22,000 Palestinians, injured tens of thousands of others, and “destroyed everything in Gaza.”

“The bloody events that have been taking place in Gaza for the past three consecutive months would not have been possible without the support of the United States and the complicity of Western countries with the criminal Zionist regime and encouraging it to continue its crimes against civilians in the Gaza Strip,” Ansarullah said.

Underlining that the regional countries cannot remain idle in the face of Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza and its suffocating siege on the Palestinian territory, the resistance movement said, “The Yemeni armed forces have carried out their missile, drone and naval operations to target the ships of the Israeli regime or the ships that move towards the ports of occupied Palestine.”

The statement said the US and its allies should know that their “evil alliance” will not prevent Yemen from continuing to support the oppressed people of Gaza by carrying out military operations against the ships of the Israeli regime or the ships that move towards the occupied Palestinian ports.

“Any attack on Yemen calls for a large-scale response, and Yemen does not accept any threat to its security and stability, and rejects the claim of the United States and its allies that Yemen is a threat to international shipping in the Red Sea,” Ansarullah said.

“The alliance of the United States and its allies was formed to support the Israeli regime and protect the ships of this regime, which is a real threat to the security and safety of international shipping and the security of the entire region,” the movement added, stressing that the coalition should bear the consequences of its escalation in the strategic waterway.

Yemenis have declared their open support for Palestine’s struggle against the Israeli occupation since the regime launched a devastating war on Gaza on October 7 after the territory’s Palestinian resistance movements carried out a surprise retaliatory attack, dubbed Operation Al-Aqsa Storm, against the occupying entity.

The relentless Israeli military campaign against Gaza has killed at least 22,438 people, most of them women and children. More than 57,614 individuals have been wounded.

Reports revealed that Israeli shipping companies have already decided to reroute their vessels in fear of attacks by Yemeni forces.

Yemeni forces have also launched missile and drone attacks on targets in the Israeli-occupied territories after the regime’s aggression on Gaza.

January 5, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Gaza destroys western divide-and-rule narratives

By Sharmine Narwani | The Cradle | January 4, 2024

It could be a clean sweep. Decades of western-led narratives crafted to exploit differences throughout West Asia, create strife amid the region’s myriad communities, and advance western foreign policy objectives over the heads of bickering natives are now in ruins.

The war in Gaza, it transpires, has blown a mile-wide hole in the falsehoods and fairytales that have kept West Asia distracted with internecine conflicts since at least the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran.

Shia versus Sunni, Iran versus Arabs, secular versus Islamist: these are three of the west’s most nefarious narrative ploys that sought to control and redirect the region and its populations, and have even drawn Arab rulers into an ungodly alliance with Israel.

Facts are destroying the fiction

It took a rare conflict – uncooked and uncontrolled by Washington – to liberate West Asian masses from their narrative trance. Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza also brought instant clarity to the question of which Arabs and Muslims actually support Palestinian liberation – and which do not.

Iran, Hezbollah, Iraqi resistance factions, and Yemen’s Ansarallah – maligned by these western narratives – are now visibly the only regional players prepared to buttress the Gaza frontline, whether through funds, weapons, or armed clashes that aim to dilute and disperse Israeli military resources.

The so-called ‘moderate Arabs,’ a misnomer for the western-centric, authoritarian Arab dictatorships subservient to Washington’s interests, have offered little more than lip service to the carnage in Gaza.

The Saudis called for support by hosting Arab and Islamic summits that were allowed to do and say nothing. The Emiratis and Jordanians trucked supplies to Israel that Ansarallah blockaded by sea. The mighty Egypt hosted delegations when all it needed to have done was to open the Rafah Crossing so Palestinians can eat. Qatar – once a major Hamas donor – now negotiates for the freedom of Israeli captives, while hosting Hamas ‘moderates,’ who are at odds with Gaza’s freedom fighters. And Turkiye’s trade with the Israeli occupation state continues to skyrocket (exports increased 35 percent from November to December 2023).

Palestine, for the pro-west ‘moderate Arabs,’ is a carefully handled flag they occasionally wave publicly, but sabotage privately. So, they watch, transfixed and horrified today, at what social media and tens of millions of protesters have made crystal clear: Palestine remains the essential Arab and Muslim cause; it may ebb and flow, but nothing has the power to inflame the region’s masses like this particular fight between right and wrong.

The shift toward resistance

It is early days yet in the battle unfolding between the region’s Axis of Resistance and Israel’s alliances, but the polls already show a notable shift in public sentiment toward the former.

An Arab barometer poll taken over a six-week period – three weeks before and three weeks after the Al-Aqsa Flood operation – provides the first indication of shifting Arab perceptions. Although the survey was restricted to Tunisia, the pollsters argue that the country is “as close to a bellwether as one could imagine” and that it represents views similar to other Arab countries:

“Analysts and officials can safely assume that people’s views elsewhere in the region have shifted in ways similar to the recent changes that have taken place in Tunisia.”

The survey results should be of paramount concern to meddling western policymakers: “Since October 7, every country in the survey with positive or warming relations with Israel saw its favorability ratings decline among Tunisians.”

The US saw its favorability numbers plummet the most, followed by West Asian allies that have normalized relations with Israel. Russia and China, both neutral states, experienced little change, but Iran’s leadership saw its favorability figures rise. According to the Arab barometer:

“Three weeks after the attacks, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has approval ratings that matched or even exceeded those of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Emirati President Mohammed bin Zayed.”

Before 7 October, just 29 percent of Tunisians held a favorable view of Khamenei’s foreign policies. This figure rose to 41 percent according to the conclusion of the survey, with Tunisian support most notable in the days following the Iranian leader’s 17 October reference to Israel’s actions in Gaza as a “genocide.”

The Saudi shift

Prior to the 7 October operation by the Palestinian resistance to destroy the Israeli army’s Gaza Division and take captives as leverage for a mass prisoner swap, the region’s main geopolitical focus was on the prospects of a groundbreaking Saudi normalization deal with Tel Aviv. The administration of US President Joe Biden flogged this horse at every opportunity; it was seen as a golden ticket for his upcoming presidential election.

But Operation Al-Aqsa Flood ruined any chance for Saudi Arabia – home to Islam’s holiest sites – to seal that political deal. And with Israeli airstrikes raining down daily on Palestinian civilians in Gaza, Riyadh’s options continue to shrink.

A Washington Institute poll conducted between 14 November and 6 December measures the seismic shift in Saudi public sentiment:

A whopping 96 percent agree with the statement that “Arab countries should immediately break all diplomatic, political, economic, and any other contacts with Israel, in protest against its military action in Gaza.”

Meanwhile, 91 percent believe that “despite the destruction and loss of life, this war in Gaza is a win for Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims.” This is a shockingly unifying statement for a country that has adhered closely to western narratives that seek to divide Palestinians from Arabs, Arabs among themselves, and Muslims along sectarian lines – geographically, culturally, and politically.

Although Saudi Arabia constitutes one of the few Arab states to have designated Hamas as a terrorist organization, favorable views of Hamas have increased by 30 percent, from 10 percent in August to 40 percent in November, while most – 95 percent – do not believe the Palestinian resistance group killed civilians on 7 October.

Meanwhile, 87 percent of Saudis agree with the idea that “recent events show that Israel is so weak and internally divided that it can be defeated some day.” Ironically, this is a long-stated Resistance Axis refrain. Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah was famously quoted as saying “Israel is weaker than a spider’s web,” upon its defeat by the Lebanese resistance on 25 May, 2000.

Prior to 7 October, Saudis had strongly favored economic ties with Israel, but even that number dropped dramatically from 47 percent last year to 17 percent today. And while Saudi attitudes toward the Resistance Axis remain negative – Saudi Arabia, after all, has been the regional epicenter for anti-Iran and anti-Shia propaganda since the 1979 revolution – that may be largely because their media is heavily controlled.

Contrary to the observations of the Arab masses, 81 percent of Saudis still believe that the Axis is “reluctant to help Palestinians.”

The Palestinian shift

Equally important to the discussion of Arab perceptions is the shift seen among Palestinians themselves since 7 October. A poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) in both the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip between 22 November and 2 December mirrors Arab views, but with some nuances.

Gazan respondents, understandably, displayed more skepticism for the ‘correctness’ of Hamas’ Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, which triggered Israel’s genocidal assault on the Strip in which over 22,000 civilians – mostly women and children – have so far been brutally killed. While support for Hamas increased only slightly in the Gaza Strip, it tripled in the West Bank, with both Palestinian territories expressing near equal disdain for the western-backed Palestinian Authority (PA), which governs from Ramallah.

Support for acting PA President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah party was hit hard. Demands for his resignation are at nearly 90 percent, while almost 60 percent (the highest number recorded in a PSR poll to date in relation to this matter) of those surveyed want a dissolution of the PA.

Over 60 percent of Palestinians polled (closer to 70 percent in the West Bank) believe armed struggle is the best means to end the occupation, with 72 percent agreeing with the statement that Hamas made a correct decision to launch its 7 October operation, and 70 percent agreeing that Israel will fail to eradicate the Palestinian resistance in Gaza.

Palestinians have strong views about regional and international players, who they largely feel have left Gaza unprotected from Israel’s unprecedented violations of international law.

By far the country most supported by respondents is Yemen, with approval ratings of 80 percent, followed by Qatar (56 percent), Hezbollah (49 percent), Iran (35 percent), Turkiye (34 percent), Jordan (24 percent), Egypt (23 percent), the UAE (8 percent), and Saudi Arabia (5 percent).

In this poll, the region’s Axis of Resistance dominates the favorability ratings, while pro-US Arab and Muslim nations with some degree of relations with Israel, fare poorly. It is notable that of the four most favorable countries and groups for mostly-Sunni Palestinians, three are core members of the “Shia” Axis, while five Sunni-led states rank lowest.

This Palestinian view extends to non-regional international states, with respondents most satisfied with Resistance Axis allies Russia (22 percent) and China (20 percent), while Israeli allies Germany (7 percent), France (5 percent), the UK (4 percent), and the US (1 percent) struggle to maintain traction among Palestinians.

 

 

The numbers depend on the war ahead

Three separate polls show that Arab perceptions have shifted dramatically over Israel’s war on Gaza, with popular sentiment gravitating to those states and actors perceived to be actively supporting Palestinian goals, and away from those who are perceived to support Israel.

The new year starts with two major events. The first is the drawdown of Israeli reservists from Gaza, whether because Washington demands it, or due to unsustainable loss of life and injury to occupation troops. The second is the shocking assassination of Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri and six others in Beirut, Lebanon, on 2 January.

All indications are that Israel’s war will not only continue, but will expand regionally. The new US maritime construct in the Red Sea has drawn other international actors into the mix, and Tel Aviv has provoked Lebanon’s Hezbollah in a major way.

But if the confrontation between the two axes escalates, Arab perceptions will almost certainly continue to tilt away from the old hegemons toward those who are willing to resist this US-Israeli assault on the region.

There will be no relief for Washington and its allies as the war expands. The more they work to defeat Hamas and destroy Gaza, and the more they lob missiles at Yemen, Iraq, and Syria, and besiege the Resistance Axis, the more likely Arab populations are to shrug off the Sunni-versus-Shia, Iran-versus-Arab, and secular-versus-Islamist narratives that have kept the region divided and at odds for decades.

The swell of support that is mobilizing due to a righteous confrontation against the region’s biggest oppressors is unstoppable. Western decline is now a given in the region, but western discourse has been the first casualty of this war.

January 5, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

McDonald’s latest business titan to face impact of pro-Israel stance

The Cradle | January 5, 2024

The CEO of McDonald’s, Chris Kempczinski, said on 4 January that several markets in West Asia and some outside of the region were facing a “meaningful business impact” due to the war between the Palestinian resistance and Israel. 

Kempczinski also said that “associated misinformation” about the company has been a reason for the financial issues the brand is facing, and that the misinformation surrounding McDonald’s was “disheartening and ill-founded.”

Western Israeli-linked fast food chains, including McDonald’s and Starbucks, have seen large grassroots boycott campaigns emerge over pro-Israel stances and alleged financial ties with Israel. 

“In every country where we operate, including in Muslim countries, McDonald’s is proudly represented by local owner-operators who work tirelessly to serve and support their communities while employing thousands of their fellow citizens,” Kempczinski said in a social media post. “That local community connection is the genius of the McDonald’s system.”

West Asian locations of McDonald’s are part of the company’s international developmental licensed markets division, a section that generates around 10 percent of the company’s revenue. 

McDonald’s franchisee in Malaysia, owned by Saudi Arabia’s Lionhorn Pte Ltd, filed a lawsuit against BDS Malaysia, accusing the group of “defamation,” and is seeking damages of over $1 million. Meanwhile, the Israel franchisee has supported the Israeli army by supplying its forces with free meals, according to BDS, “during the ongoing genocide of 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza.”

Starbucks, another Western, Israeli-linked company, has also come out to say that the negative views brought upon the brand have been “influenced by misrepresentation on social media of what we stand for.”

In December 2023, the losses of Starbucks, a Seattle-based company, stood at $11 billion in value during the last quarter, due to Palestinian solidarity boycotts and employee strikes. 

The company tried to bounce back on losses by implementing a scheme during the holiday season that would allow consumers to receive a free holiday cup with every purchase. 

When announcing the gimmick in mid-November last year, the company’s market share crashed by 8.96 percent, accounting for billions in losses, the lowest the company has experienced since 1992.

January 5, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Elbit 8’: Palestine Action activists conclude legal fight for disrupting Israeli arms trade

By Reza Javadi | Press TV | December 27, 2023

In a significant development, a group of Palestine Action activists, known as the ‘Elbit Eight’, have been acquitted for their role in shutting down UK Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms producer, whose lethal weapons are being used against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Elbit Systems’ weaponry prompted the Palestine Action activists to face a total of 12 charges, including criminal damage, burglary, blackmail, and encouraging criminal damage.

The charges were related to anti-Israel protests held between July 2020 and January 2021, immediately after the pro-Palestinian network was founded in early 2020.

The trial, which commenced on November 13, saw the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) amending the indictment, eventually bringing thirteen counts against the activists: seven counts of damaging property (criminal damage), three counts of burglary with intent to commit criminal damage, one count of possessing articles with intent to damage property, one count of threatening to damage property, and one count of encouraging others to commit the offense of criminal damage.

Since the group’s inception in 2020, and in protest against the Israeli regime’s atrocities against the Palestinians, they have led several mobilizations in the UK as well as in the US, targeting the factories and offices of firms that supply munitions used in Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

Their protest methods have included sit-ins, blockades and paint jobs.

The group’s actions, including occupying Elbit Systems’ drone and weaponry factories in Shenstone and Oldham, aimed to challenge Elbit’s operations in Britain and prevent the manufacturing of weapons destined for the Israeli regime.

The defense case

At the beginning of the trial that lasted six weeks, the eight activists received a plea deal: if Huda Ammori and Richard Barnard pleaded guilty, others would be acquitted.

Rejecting the plea deal, the activists spent six weeks in Snaresbrook Crown Court pleading not guilty, asserting that Elbit and Israel bear responsibility for the offenses, not Palestine Action.

Echoing the defense’s narrative presented during the trial, Richard Barnard, co-founder of Palestine Action, underscored the group’s primary goal to terminate British complicity in the Israeli apartheid regime’s crimes against Palestinians.

Barnard was convicted by a 10-2 majority of one count of criminal damage, for an action at the now-closed Elbit Ferranti factory in Oldham. The jury failed to reach a majority decision regarding the remaining 23 charges.

“The idea was – and the idea still is – to end the British complicity in the Israeli apartheid regime,” he told the jury. “I am trying to prevent war crimes … I am trying to stop bombings and trying to stop drones [in Palestine].”

Meanwhile, two of the Elbit Eight activists, Genevieve Scherer and Jocelyn Cooney, were unanimously acquitted on all charges faced.

Other activists highlighted their personal experiences and the urgency driving their direct actions, contending that conventional means, such as divestment campaigns, were insufficient in addressing the ongoing human rights violations in Gaza.

Huda Ammori, charged with six counts including damaging property and burglary, stressed her Palestinian-Iraqi background, narrating formative experiences such as the Iraq War and the ongoing ethnic cleansing of native Palestinians in Gaza.

She stressed that direct action was the only viable solution to end such atrocities perpetrated by the occupying regime, given the ineffectiveness of legal avenues and divestment campaigns.

“All other attempts fell short. Our exports to Israel are against our own license rules and against international law, but they can’t be stopped by the courts,” Ammori said.

“Divestment campaigns, after years of work, were taking way too long; it wasn’t matching the reality of the urgency of the situation. Every day, Palestinians were being killed, imprisoned – surveilled under these drones 24/7.”

Direct action is the only option

Ammori, a co-founder of the Palestine Action network, hastened to add that if the UK government continues to ignore facts and violate rules, then the only option is “direct action”, which means to “stop weapons from going there.”

“After pushing back our case for two years, the state has failed again to deter an ever-growing global direct-action movement. Every day we’ve been on trial, more Palestinians have been massacred using Elbit’s weaponry,” she asserted.

“The duty of the people is clear – to take all direct action possible to Shut Elbit Down wherever you are. Justice will be complete when Palestine is free.”

Robin Refualu, another activist of the group, charged with burglary and damaging the drone factory UAV Engines, shared his experiences from Palestine and spoke of the direct action he was involved in there to stop home demolitions and illegal settlements and emphasizing the trial’s relevance to the broader Palestinian struggle over the past 75 years.

“This trial is not about us, it’s not even about Palestine Action, in my opinion,” Refualu said. “It’s about what’s happening in Gaza at the moment and what’s been happening in Palestine for the last 75 years.”

Genevieve Scherer, drawing on her upbringing in Uganda, criticized the futility of criminal damage charges when Elbit Systems and those they arm cause havoc in Gaza.

She underscored how British law prioritizes property over human lives.

Caroline Brouard emphasized the obligation to prevent an ongoing genocide and stated that when governments fail to uphold duties, it falls on the people to act. She believed that actions at UAV Engines in Shenstone could immediately impact stopping bombings in Gaza.

“The drones malfunction all the time, needing replacement parts, and UAV Engines has a 24hr dispatch policy – we stopped these engines getting to Israel and so stopped the drones from flying,” Brouard asserted.

Urgency of stopping crimes

Jocelyn Cooney, a frontline social worker, joined Palestine Action to address the urgency of stopping crimes. She referred to Elbit Systems as the “muscle” enabling genocide in Palestine.

“So I think we all have a responsibility as humans to step up and take direct action to stop this company from producing weapons to murder people,” she said.

Emily Arnott, charged with damaging property and burglary, spoke about her time in Palestine, highlighting the impact of apartheid and the Israeli regime’s brutal domination over Palestinian lives.

Nicola Stickells, charged with criminal damage, emphasized the necessity of action when other efforts were ineffective. She pointed to ongoing war crimes in Gaza and questioned why activists faced legal consequences while those responsible for genocide profited freely.

The Israeli regime forces are “rounding up men.. and taking them to undisclosed places, stripped, kneeling blindfolded, this genocide is occurring as we speak,” said Stickells, a mother of two who was raised in a working-class family in the English county of Kent.

“How can we be the criminals when the perpetrators of… [what] we now know is a genocide … are free to profit and we have to spend weeks and weeks in court for an action that we took three years ago?” she asked.

“When you try and stand for human rights, you become the criminal. This is not right.”

Palestine Action UK has escalated actions against Elbit Systems since October 7, including activists climbing factory roofs in various cities.

“Palestine Action activists occupy the roof of the Israeli weapons factory Elbit Systems in the town of Shenstone, England, in protest of its production of equipment used in Israel’s murder of innocent Palestinians,” Palestine Action UK said in a statement on October 31.

UK complicity in Israeli crimes

The trial comes on the heels of nationwide protests in the UK in solidarity with the Palestinian people and against the genocide in Gaza. These demonstrations have been met with intensive state monitoring, harassment, and muzzling of pro-Palestinian voices and actions.

The trial also draws attention to the broader issue of the UK’s arms sales to the Israeli regime, given Elbit Systems’ significant role as a major supplier to the Israeli military.

The weapons company is Israel’s largest private arms company in the UK that supplies the Israeli military with 85 percent of the drones used against Palestinians. The British government has been criticized for being “complicit in Israeli crimes” due to its relations with this company.

Two of Israel’s biggest weapons factories, Elbit and Rafael, both have operations in the UK.

Declassified UK recently revealed that the British government has approved at least £472m in arms sales to the Israeli regime in the past eight years, ignoring the genocide in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

December 27, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Bahrain jails dissident for blasting Manama’s role in US-led anti-Yemen coalition

The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Cole (DDG 67)
Press TV | December 21, 2023

Bahraini authorities have ordered the seven-day detention of a leading opposition figure after he denounced the Al Khalifah regime’s participation in the US-led coalition against Yemen in the Red Sea.

Bahrain’s office of public prosecution ordered Ebrahim Sharif’s detention pending investigation for “spreading false news during wartime,” his family and lawyer said on Thursday.

Sharif, who heads the Wa’ad organization, in a series of posts criticized authorities in Manama for joining the coalition “without any consideration of the position of the Bahraini people who strongly support our besieged Palestinian people in Gaza.”

He was arrested on Wednesday. When asked about his case, the Bahraini government said “an individual” was being held for “allegedly supporting a proscribed terrorist organization.”

The charge against Sharif, a pro-democracy campaigner, can hold a prison sentence of up to 10 years.

Bahrain is the only state in the Persian Gulf region that has joined the US-led coalition established this week in response to Yemeni attacks on ships bound to the occupied Palestinian territories in the Red Sea.

Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, advocacy director at the UK-based Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD), said the Bahraini regime “wants to make an example of Sharif who is not alone in his criticism of Bahrain’s decision to the join the Americans.”

“Failure of the US administration to publicly denounce his arrest and push for his immediate release gives the green light to the Bahrain government to continue his detention,” Alwadaei said.

The Pentagon has announced a military coalition of 10 countries, including Britain and Spain, to counter the Yemeni forces that targeted ships bound for Israel in solidarity with the people of Gaza.

A series of strikes attributed to the Yemeni forces have been conducted in solidarity with the Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip. Yemen has already warned it will prevent the passage of all ships in the Red Sea bound to the occupied territories.

The leader of Yemen’s Ansarullah movement said in a televised speech broadcast live Wednesday that the armed forces will not hesitate to target US military warships in the Red Sea if Washington and its allies carry out military strikes against Yemen.

Bahrain’s main opposition group al-Wefaq National Islamic Society recently denounced human rights violations in the country.

Al-Wefaq has denounced Manama’s normalization of relations with Israel as “a crime.”

The opposition party has underlined that the normalization is in flagrant contradiction to Bahrain’s history and Islamic identity.

Bahrain and the Israeli regime established diplomatic relations in 2020 as part of the United States-brokered Abraham Accords.

Last month, the deputy speaker of Bahrain’s National Assembly said members of the legislative body were pressing to reverse the normalization following the regime’s devastating war in Gaza.

Abdulnabi Salman said Bahraini lawmakers were demanding an end to diplomatic relations with Israel.

The Persian Gulf country has witnessed numerous protests ever since the rapprochement.

The United States and Britain refrain from the criticism of human rights violations across Bahrain.

In July, British legislators were pressing the government to provide clear explanations why Bahrain has been removed from its list of human rights priority countries, accusing the government of putting its principles “up for auction” after sealing a billion-pound investment deal with the Persian Gulf state.

December 21, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Journalist: The US and Israel are in a quagmire, and the end is clear for everybody to see

By Fantine Gardinier – Sputnik – 20.12.2023

If the US decides to launch direct attacks on Yemeni forces imposing a blockade against Israeli shipping in the Red Sea, it will only make Washington’s tenuous situation in the Middle East worse and expand the conflict across the region at a time when the US public is increasingly opposed to such wars, a journalist told Sputnik.

Several major global shipping companies announced that they are to seek alternate routes from the Red Sea after the Yemeni militant group Ansarallah, better known as the Houthi movement, closed it to Israeli cargo traffic, throwing global trade into chaos. In response, the US has mobilized an international task force dubbed Operation Prosperity Guardian to keep the sea lanes open.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon is weighing whether its patrols will be purely defensive in nature or will also include offensive strikes against Ansarallah targets in Yemen, which the group mostly controls after eight years of brutal civil war and Saudi-led military intervention.

Ansarallah’s actions, which include capturing several Israel-linked vessels in the area in recent weeks, are in response to Tel Aviv’s invasion of Gaza, which has killed nearly 20,000 people and displaced almost the entire population of 2.3 million. The group has also fired ballistic missiles at the southern Israeli port of Eilat on the Gulf of Aqaba in the northern Red Sea.

Beirut-based broadcaster and journalist Laith Marouf told Sputnik that the multinational task force assembled by the US includes several European allies but also Bahrain, a small Persian Gulf state that hosts a massive US Navy base, and the Seychelles, an island nation in the Indian Ocean with a coast guard composed of nine small patrol boats used to combat piracy and illegal fishing.

“This is the alliance that the United States is going to face Yemen with to try to allow shipping to go through to the Zionist colony and not make it feel the pain that the Palestinians are feeling with the blockade in Gaza,” he said.

“The [recent] attack that the government in Sana’a did on the two ships in the Red Sea was the first attack recorded in any military of a ballistic missile hitting a naval target that is moving at 60-somewhat knots, which was [the speed at which] these ships were moving. So we see now that the Yemenis have actually some of the most advanced land-to-sea missiles in the world.

“Knowing that the American aircraft carrier is now parked on the shorelines of Somalia facing Yemen, they are in the range of these missiles. Probably the Yemenis will not need to hit this aircraft carrier if the United States actually attacks Yemen or any of the sites of launching these missiles from Yemen. The Yemeni forces, all they have to do is sink a few destroyers and that aircraft carrier will scurry running back home because it wouldn’t have any protection.”

“This is now a dangerous game that the United States is playing, all to defend this Zionist colony. And the American people hearing us right now must understand that the deaths of any American soldiers that are going to come in the next few days will be because the United States is defending the Zionist colony and is not defending itself. They will be dying for the sake of Israel,” he said.

“Canadian, French, British and American ships will be sinking if the United States or this coalition dares to attack Yemen. Yemen has been under attack for a decade by the United States and its vassals in the region, and even the vassals that were co-operating in the attacks on Yemen – namely the Saudi government and the United Arab Emirates government – have refused to join this coalition. Why? Because their assets will be fried if the United States attacks Yemen. And this is why we’re seeing right now: these vassals are each one of them being given a role.”

“The Emirates and the Saudis are continuing to allow trade to come through their ports on trucks to Jordan to the Zionist colony, and they’re all going to be kept out of this war. In this situation, it’s not only that their assets, their oilfields, would be attacked if they join this coalition, but also because they need to continue to be the lifeline of the Zionist colony in terms of trade in the future as this rolls out,” Marouf said.

Marouf added that “we will be entering a new stage of this war” if Yemen fires back on the coalition ships because it will trigger wider attacks on US bases in Iraq and Syria by allied militia forces, which have been happening at a somewhat low intensity since early October.

The Axis of Resistance’s regional coordination against Israel and its allies “is going to be taught in military schools and strategists’ schools for decades to come,” Marouf told Sputnik.

“What has been rolling out for the last two and a half months, clearly, the Resistance Axis that includes all these groups in Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Yemen and Iran are very coordinated,” he said.

“They have all now shared all their capabilities in terms of military and training. So we see units of each one of these components that fought in the different battlefields across the last 15 years in the region. And the technology knowledge on building capabilities has been passed along across this whole region. So now we have a more kind of homogeneous coalition between these groups.

“They all have one thing that they agree on, which is ending American presence in the region and then sovereignty for the peoples. So to see them, how they are playing out right now, each one of them, their own role separately is a brilliant thing to watch. And the United States and Israel are in a quagmire, and the end is clear for everybody to see.”

Growing US Public Opposition

He likewise noted that opposition to the Israeli attack on Gaza has continued to grow in the United States, where new protests are happening daily in hundreds of cities and towns, and constituents are pressuring politicians to take a stand against the war.

“For the American voters, it’s becoming problematic as we come closer and closer to the elections in the United States. Both parties are championing genocide and the Zionist colony, and the vast majority of Americans do not want to be associated with this genocide and do not want their country to carry the brunt of financing and weaponizing this genocide,” he said.

“So what happens in the next election? I think Palestine, just like Vietnam in the 1970s, is going to be one of the decisive things that drive this election and actually the conversation of the United States as a whole. And I hope people of all walks of life take advantage of how Palestine now has exposed all the true lines of power and the limitations of the so-called ‘democracy and freedoms’ that were touted to be given to them and figure out something before the next election. Maybe to push for a third party, if that’s even possible at this moment.”

“But if the United States is in a regional war that is spilling into a global war before this election, it may be that this election will never happen in the United States. I’m maybe too pessimistic, but I see things from now till next year, if this war keeps on going in the stages that are and how long these stages are taking us, as we see it now, it’s taking us two and a half months to get to the stage of real possibility of a regional war. And once this a regional war, how long is it going to take for it to become a global world war? Those are things that may be indicating that all this experiment of democracy in the West is dead.”

Israel’s Economy in Dire Straits

Marouf noted that Israel was suffering severe economic repercussions due to the war, not just from the recently imposed Yemeni blockade, but also due to the constant bombardments from Gaza, the simmering border war with Hezbollah, and simply due to having mobilized hundreds of thousands of citizens into the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).

“There are 7 million ‘Jewish colonists’ in Palestine and already close to a million of them have left. And you know, many of them already have second citizenships, and we heard countries like Portugal all talk about 10,000 Israeli families applying for citizenship. These are the ones that don’t have citizenship that are already applying to European countries. And so we have an exit from the Zionist colony on a scale that we haven’t seen ever since 1948. And now we also, of course, all the economy of the state is at a total standstill because they have mobilized so many people into the military.”

“Ansarullah, the government in Yemen, has been able to shut down all trade, almost 88% of trade has stopped into the [Israeli] ports, even the ones in the Mediterranean. Because remember now, although all the ones that were supposed to go to the Red Sea port in the Aqaba Gulf had to turn around.

“So now there’s a delay in an empty space in Israeli ports for the next two weeks. So, the country is in a total standstill and it’s now living off the handouts coming from the West. And the American public has an ability to make a difference if they cut these handouts, because this country cannot continue to exist at this moment without that.”

December 20, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment