The Future of UNRWA and Hamas in Gaza
By Rick Sterling | Dissident Voice | June 4, 2024
Peter Ford has an extensive career in the UK Diplomatic Service, including serving as UK Ambassador to Bahrein and then Syria. He then served for many years as Special Representative to the Commissioner General of UNRWA – the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. In this interview, he discusses the background, importance, and how Israel wants to “replace” UNRWA.
Rick Sterling: How did you come to work for UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency?
Peter Ford: Well, ever since I was a young cub Arabist, I have been exposed to the work of UNRWA. My first job was in Lebanon. I saw its work firsthand in the Palestinian camps there. Every exposure I had increased my admiration for the organization. As I approached retirement, I was attracted to the idea of working for UNRWA.
By chance, I read in The Economist magazine that UNRWA was looking to create a new post, a fundraiser in the Arab world. And the requirements were diplomatic experience and knowledge of the Arabic language. Wow, I thought, this is tailor-made for me. And so it proved. I think I was chosen from a shortlist of one.
Knowledge of Arabic was a great help. I didn’t benefit from any support from the British government, I have to say. And that is an issue with UNRWA. Many of the top jobs are earmarked for particular countries. So the Commissioner General, by custom, is always either a European or American. And the deputy head of UNRWA, Deputy Commissioner General, is also an American or a European.
RS: What does UNRWA do in Gaza and beyond? How big an organization is it?
PF: UNRWA began operations in 1950 in the aftermath of the conflict in Palestine that led to the creation of Israel and the expulsion of half of Palestine’s population. And the mandate given by the UN General Assembly to UNRWA was to look after these refugees and very significantly their children. The status of refugees was defined as people who were being helped by UNRWA and their descendants. And this became very important because most refugees around the world from other countries, the status of refugee is not handed on father to son or daughter. But in the case of Palestine refugees, because of the special circumstances where they lost their country, their homes and their livelihoods, they were accorded permanent refugee status for as long as they were unable to exercise their right of return.
As the years passed, this became very important politically. And as it became more difficult to envisage the right of return, the mere existence of UNRWA and its according refugee status to several million Palestinians perpetuated the right of return. And this became a major problem with Israel.
From 1950, UNRWA’s mandate has been to look after the relief and welfare of the refugee Palestinians in terms of education, healthcare, social services, the refugee camp infrastructure, houses, the social services for the vulnerable, and some microfinance and job creation in recent years.
The core activities are the schools. There is a huge network of UNRWA schools and medical centers. And these are spread across the Middle East in Palestine itself, in the occupied West Bank, in Gaza, in Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan.
Overall, there are almost 6 million Palestinians who qualify for UNRWA support. And of those, about 1.9 million are in Gaza, and about half a million are in Syria, and the rest are shared between Lebanon and Jordan. So it’s serving almost as a micro-state. Six million people is a big responsibility and one that requires a lot of coordination with the host authorities.
Of these, the most problematic by far is Israel as the occupying power in the West Bank and Gaza. Relations with other governments have by and large been cooperative. There is occasional friction, but on the whole there are very good relations. It’s often forgotten that Jordan and Lebanon and Syria give a lot of support in addition to the support that UNRWA gives. And they host these millions of refugees without complaint.
RS: Doesn’t UNRWA in some ways relieve Israel of responsibility for the people that it’s got under its control?
PF: Well, yes, it does. Under international law, the power that has physical control as the occupying power has responsibility to provide the basic services which UNRWA provides: healthcare, education, and housing. So this burden is taken off the shoulders of Israel. If UNRWA didn’t exist, the Israelis would have to carry the burden of looking after all those millions of refugees. But you’d be mistaken if you thought they were grateful at all.
RS: A few months ago, Israel made accusations and somehow persuaded several countries to stop their donations to UNRWA. What do you make of this?
PF: Well, this was a fabricated story the Israelis came up with about three months after the alleged events, they came up with a story that staff had been involved in the 7th October breakout and had carried out crimes. This was announced with great fanfare. Knee-jerk reactions followed on the part of the usual suspects. Americans, Europeans and Britain suspended their vital payments to UNRWA.
UNRWA is a beggar. It’s an international beggar. It receives almost nothing from central UN funds. The rest is voluntary, which makes life very difficult for UNRWA. It has to go cap in hand and cannot afford to upset any of its important donors. And that means the United States, the EU, and Britain.
In fact, my job, the reason I was recruited, was to try to diversify UNRWA’s funding so that it could be a little less dependent on the Western powers. And I had some success in that, garnering about half a billion dollars of contributions from mainly Gulf and North African countries.
But to go back to your question, Israel came up with this story. Just on the basis of the Israeli accusations, the Western powers cut the aid. Unwisely, to my mind, UNRWA immediately suspended the staff who were accused. This only tended to give credence to the Israeli claims. But this shows the weakness, the political weakness, of UNRWA. It finds it very difficult to stand up to bullying by these powerful countries, by the United States and Europe.
Eventually, about three weeks ago, an independent investigator, a former French foreign minister, carried out an investigation and concluded that there was no proof. The Israelis were unable to provide any proof to back up their allegations. And most countries are now going back or have already gone back to lift their suspension.
RS: I think even the original accusations were that some 12 or 13 individuals from a staff of 13,000 had participated in October 7. And now even that’s been discredited, you’re saying?
PF: Yes, that’s exactly what has happened. It would have been surprising, actually, if there hadn’t been some younger employees, but the Israelis couldn’t provide evidence for a single one.
RS: Yes. And I understand that UNRWA gives the names of all their employees to Israel every year for them to almost vet the list.
PF: That’s right. Israel has an amazing oversight of the activities of UNRWA, at least as far as the occupied territories are concerned. Over 90% of the employees of UNRWA are Palestinians, the vast majority of Palestinian refugees themselves. But the hierarchy is Western or non-Palestinian. Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, the top employees, the director general and immediate close staff are European or American, but over 90% of the staff are Palestinians. And that is something the Israelis don’t like either. The Palestinians have agency in the sense of some measure of control over their lives.
RS: I have the impression that UNRWA has done a very good job in the education field. And that, again, is something Israel doesn’t like.
PF: Yes, Israel doesn’t like the fact that so many Palestinians have received a good education under UNRWA’s supervision. Many Palestinians have gone on to higher education, to distinguished professorships having emerged from UNRWA schools in the camps over the years.
It’s a badge of honor for a Palestinian to have passed through an UNRWA school. In Syria, where I was, Syrians wanted to enroll in UNRWA schools. It was one of the bribes that we could use to leverage favors from the Syrian government. So that’s testimony to how good these schools are and their reputation.
A bone of contention with the Israelis concerns what’s taught in the schools. And again, the Israelis make lurid, unsupported claims about the pupils being taught Palestinian propaganda. And this is just fake news. In the UNRWA schools, they follow the curricula of the Arab country or authority where they are.
So UNRWA schools follow the curriculum of the Palestine Authority, which is vetted by Israel, of course. In Jordan, they follow the Jordanian curriculum, etcetera. But the Israelis love to make up any propaganda they can about UNRWA, and they try to limit UNRWA funding. They use any method to try to stymie, block, or make more difficult the operations of UNRWA. They really do want to bring an end to this agency.
In a way, you can understand it because the agency is synonymous with Palestinian rights and in particular with the right of return. This implies the Palestinians have a right to return to those towns and villages from which their forebears were expelled back in 1948.
So this is why UNRWA is a thorn in the side of Israel and one they would love to destroy completely. Their ambition has no limit. And we’ve seen this during the Gaza crisis. They have used this to try to exclude UNRWA, make propaganda against UNRWA, and create substitutes for UNRWA. Creating a substitute is the latest strategy. The organization that had some of its staff killed by the Israelis is one of these. In fact, that organization was particularly friendly to the Israelis and the Israelis facilitated its entry to Gaza. And it was a tragic irony that the Israelis ended up killing employees of this agency, World Central Kitchen. The Israelis aim to replace UNRWA with organizations they can control like this. That’s part of the plan with the port to be created by the Americans and the British in northern Gaza. It would be serviced by organizations other than UNRWA.
RS: What’s the status of UNRWA in Gaza now? Is is able to operate as in the past, or are they being restricted?
PF: UNRWA is very much restricted as far as traditional activities are concerned. The healthcare clinics, hospitals and schools have been either destroyed or badly damaged or they don’t have equipment or they don’t have medicines. So there’s no schooling going on except in home environments. But on the other hand, UNRWA is busier than ever on relief services. It’s more like 1950 when UNRWA was providing tents and the most basic water and food supplies. You’ll recall that UNRWA stands for UN Relief and Works. And by “works” was meant education, healthcare, and housing. Today UNRWA is doing far more relief than works.
RS: We’ve seen pictures of thousands of tents to temporarily house the hundreds of thousands and even more than a million refugees. Have those been set up by UNRWA?
PF: Yes, and temporary housing also happens in the UNRWA schools. These are now occupied by many thousands of families. The schools are being converted into accommodation. And the healthcare centers, to the extent it’s physically possible. And the hospitals, they’ve also been converted into temporary housing. There are other UN agencies involved. It wouldn’t be fair not to mention the UNICEF, the Children’s Agency, the food agency, all the international agencies are there.
RS: What do you think will be UNRWA s role in the future?
PF: In the future? Well, in a single sentence, its role will be to run Gaza alongside Hamas. Now, that’s controversial, obviously. But I think that the day after will look very much like the day before. I don’t think the Israelis will succeed in crushing Hamas.
Eventually the Israelis will be forced to withdraw as they have been forced to withdraw in the past. There will be vastly more reconstruction to do. But UNRWA has the experience and the workforce in place. Any outside agency would have to bring in thousands of workers.
And after the Israelis leave, of course, the authorities, which are bound to be the people with guns, the resistance, will be more than glad to go back to the old basis of effectively a condominium with the UN agencies. And this is as it should be.
RS: Some people think that October 7 and what’s happened since then has really changed things. Is that your perspective also?
PF: Wishful thinking is not a good basis for policy. And I’m afraid the Israelis, indulged by their Western backers, go in a lot for wishful thinking. Though in the last couple of months, one hears less about the day after. It seems the Israelis are focused on just how the hell can they get out, how can they extricate themselves without massive humiliation? There’s very little chatter now about bringing in an Arab defense force to police the Gaza Strip or any nonsense like that. So I believe there will be no alternative. The day after will look like the day before.
RS: What do you think of the latest (May 31) Biden plan?
PF: Better late than never. As much by what it omits as by what it says. The plan recognizes that Israel must withdraw with Hamas undefeated and set to resume control of Gaza. All fantasizing about ‘eliminating’ Hamas, about setting up a quisling regime, about an Arab peacekeeping force, about two states – all dropped. It is an unspeakable, unbearable tragedy that it took this amount of killing, maiming and mindless destruction with American bombs to come to this obvious realization.
Eight months into the Gaza war, a depleted Israeli military is on the brink of “collapse”
As Israel faces severe personnel shortages, fatigue and desertion, and political leadership focus on survival, a top general predicts the end of Israel is near.
By Dan Cohen | Uncaptured Media | June 3, 2024
On October 9, two days after the surprise Hamas military assault on Israeli bases and settlements surrounding Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to defeat Hamas.
However, eight months later, Israel has failed to achieve its stated goal. Instead, it is facing unprecedented international isolation, political instability, charges of genocide at the top world court, and arrest warrants for its leadership. With no end in sight as Netanyahu rejects ceasefire proposals, the Israeli military is now facing its most dire challenge yet: Personnel shortages, fatigue and desertion.
A series of articles in Israeli media reveal the depths of the challenge Israel is facing.
Amir Rapaport, a top Israeli journalist with close links to the military establishment, wrote that army brass are worried by “the physical and mental exhaustion and burnout of the soldiers, particularly those in regular service, alongside a severe shortage of commanders.”
He added that these shortages are “present throughout the ranks of the military, with the most severe shortage among field-grade commanders — platoon and company commanders, and even beyond that. Training each commander is a process that takes years, and the shortage is felt everywhere.”
The Israeli military admits to the deaths of 644 soldiers, and 3,703 injuries since October 7. However, that injury figure is almost certainly an undercount. In April, the Israeli outlet Calcalist reported that 7,200 soldiers were injured, nearly double what the government’s official statistics revealed. Those numbers have surely increased by now as the Palestinian resistance in Gaza has carried out numerous successful attacks on invading Israeli forces.
Those that continue to fight are tasked with operating in areas that the Israeli military declared were conquered months ago. On January 6, Israel claimed that Hamas had been defeated in Jabaliya refugee camp. However, soldiers returned there in May, waging a 20-day operation that many described as “Sisyphean” – a reference to the Greek myth about a king punished with the endless task of moving a boulder up a steep hill, only to watch it roll down again.
One company commander in the 196th Battalion complained, “It’s frustrating to see this, seven and a half months after the war began.”
Missing from mainstream accounts is that Israel committed heinous massacres in its second failed reconquest of Jabaliya, leaving decomposing bodies amid large swaths of rubble.
Meanwhile, an IDF Manpower Directorate survey published by the Israeli news site Ynet found that only 42% of Israeli military career officers indicated that they would like to continue serving in the military, compared to 49% in August 2023. This decrease shocked Israeli army brass, which had assumed that morale would increase in times of war.
“The long war is exhausting, family life is affected for both men and women who don’t see their spouses and children, and the compensation is inadequate given the long working hours alongside the stress and responsibility involved in some roles,” the article notes.
Beyond the personal aspects, Israel’s abject failure to defeat Hamas or bring back prisoners of war alive has affected their willingness to continue fighting.
“The sense of failure haunts the officers, and they don’t want to serve in a failed organization,” according to a senior officer quote in the article.
Indeed, some reserve soldiers have refused to fight. In April, 30 paratroopers from a reserve company informed their commanders that they would not show up for duty because of burnout. The company commander complained to Channel 12 that morale among the soldiers is “very low.”
‘The IDF and the state are going to collapse from within’
Major General Yitzhak Brik, the former military ombudsman who earned the nickname “Prophet of Wrath” for accurately predicting long before October 7 that Israel was totally unprepared for an imminent regional war, has penned a column warning that Israel has already lost the war against Hamas and the political and military leadership’s refusal to recognize this fact is driving Israel into an “abyss.”
“One fact is clear and certain, and I sign it knowing the facts – the IDF does not have the power to win this war against Hamas, and certainly not against Hezbollah. I think so not because we don’t want to win, but God simply does not have our hand to do so. Our army is tiny and worn out and has no surplus of forces. In this situation, every day that the war continues, our situation is getting worse,” Brik wrote.
If the war is not immediately stopped, Brik warns, the Israeli state will soon come to an end.
“The IDF and the state are going to collapse from within. The collapse of the state is only a matter of time because we may lose it if a complete regional war also breaks out. The ‘captains’ at the political and military levels, who are leading the war in Gaza, do not want to acknowledge the harsh facts for which they are responsible. They have only one agenda – to continue the fighting at any cost because it’s the only thing that guarantees them the continuation of holding their positions for another short period of time.”
While Israel struggles to make any achievement in Gaza beyond committing genocide, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich fantasizes about conquering the much stronger Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and conquering southern Lebanon “up to the Litani.”
“Many who heard his remarks raised questions about the IDF’s ability to carry out such a mission,” Rappaport commented on Smotrich’s statement.
Brik’s warning about the leadership is even more dire.
“They must be stopped, they are leading the people of Israel like sheep to the slaughter; This is a group that has gone completely and utterly out of its mind and ‘went off the rails’. Not saving the country stands before their eyes, but saving themselves and their survival in power.”
Brik compares Israel’s fate to the biblical Bar Kochva revolt, when Jewish zealots attempted to rise up against the Roman empire, but suffered a historic defeat and brought massive casualties to the Jewish population. While Jews see the failed uprising as a warning against false messiahs, Zionist ideologies did the opposite, taking inspiration and naming themselves after its central figures.
With the physically and morally depleted Israeli military treading water (more accurately, blood) in Gaza, and the Biden administration refusing to use its leverage to compel Netanyahu to sign a ceasefire agreement, it may be Israel’s closest allies that push Israel into the end times scenario Brik envisions.
The end of an era: pro-Palestine language exposes Israel and Zionism
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | June 4, 2024
If anyone was to argue that a top Spanish government official would one day declare that, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, it would have seemed ludicrous. But this is precisely how Yolanda Diaz, Spain’s Deputy Prime Minister, concluded a statement on 23 May, a few days before Spain officially recognised Palestine as a state.
The Spanish recognition of Palestine, along with that of Norway and Ireland, is important. Western Europe is finally catching up with the rest of the world regarding the significance of a strong international position in support of the Palestinian people and in rejection of Israel’s genocidal practices in occupied Palestine.
Equally important, though, is the changing political discourse regarding both Palestine and Israel in Europe and around the world.
Almost immediately after the start of the latest Israeli war on Gaza, some European countries imposed restrictions on pro-Palestinian protests; some even banned the Palestinian flag, which was perceived, through some twisted logic, as an “anti-Semitic” symbol.
The unprecedented solidarity with Israel at the start of the war, however, turned into an outright political, legal and moral liability for the pro-Israel western governments. Thus, a slow shift began, leading to a near-complete transformation in the position of some governments, and a partial but clear shift of the political discourse by others.
The early ban on pro-Palestinian protests was impossible to maintain in the face of millions of angry European citizens who took to the streets and called on their governments to end their blind support for the occupation state. On 30 May, the mere fact that private French broadcaster TF1 hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu led to large, spontaneous protests by French citizens, who called on their media to deny alleged war criminals the chance to address the public on air.
Failing to push back against the pro-Palestine narrative, on 31 May the French government decided to disinvite Israeli arms companies from participating in one of the world’s largest military expos, Eurosatory, scheduled for 17-21 June.
Even countries like Canada and Germany, which supported the Israeli genocide against Palestinians until very recently, also began to change their choice of language. Such a change is happening in Israel itself and among pro-Israel intellectuals and journalists in mainstream media. In a widely read column, New York Times writer Thomas Friedman attacked Netanyahu in March, accusing him of being the “worst leader in Jewish history, not just in Israeli history.”
Unpacking Friedman’s statement requires another column, for such language continues to feed on the persisting illusion, at least in his mind, that Israel serves as a representation, not simply of its own citizens, but also of all Jews, past and present.
As for the language used in Israel, it is coalescing into two major and competing discourses: one irrationally ruthless, represented by far-right Ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, and, in fact, by Netanyahu himself; and another which is more pragmatic, albeit equally militant and anti-Palestinian. While the first group would like to see Palestinians slaughtered in large numbers or wiped out by a nuclear bomb, the other realises that the military option, at least for now, is no longer viable.
“The Israeli army does not have the ability to win this war against Hamas, and certainly not against Hezbollah,” Israeli Army Reserve Major General Yitzhak Brik told Maariv on 30 May. Brik, one of Israel’s most respected military men, is but one of many such individuals who are now essentially repeating the same wisdom.
Strangely, when Israel’s Minister of Heritage Amihai Eliyahu suggested the “option” of dropping a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip, his words reeked of desperation, not confidence.
Prior to the war, the Israeli political discourse regarding Gaza revolved around specific terminology: “deterrence”, for example, represented in the occasional one-sided war, often referred to as “mowing the lawn”, “security” and “self-defence”.
Billions of dollars have been generated over the years by war profiteers in Israel, the US and Europe, all in the name of keeping Gaza besieged and subdued. Now the name of the game is all about existential wars, the future of the Jewish people, and the possible end of Israel, if not Zionism itself.
While it is true that Netanyahu fears that an end to the war will be a terrible conclusion to his supposedly triumphant legacy as the “protector” of Israel, there is more to the story. If the war ends without Israel restoring its so-called deterrence factor and security, it will be forced to contend with the fact that the Palestinian people cannot be relegated to the status of nonentities, and that their legitimate rights cannot be overlooked or otherwise violated.
For Israel, such a realisation would be an end to its settler-colonial project, which began more than a hundred years ago.
Moreover, the perceptions and language pertaining to Palestine and Israel are changing among ordinary people across the world. The misconception of the Palestinian “terrorist” is being replaced by the very accurate depiction of the Israeli as a war criminal, a categorisation that is now consistent with the views of the world’s main international legal institutions.
Israel now stands in near-complete isolation, due, in large part, to its genocide in Gaza, as well as the courage and steadfastness of the Palestinian people. To that must now be added global solidarity with the Palestinian cause. It really is the end of an era.
Experts warn of consequences of American universities divesting from Israeli companies
MEMO | June 3, 2024
Israeli economic and legal experts have warned that if the administrations of prestigious American universities meet the demands of the students who demonstrated and set up encampments on campuses in protest against the Israeli war on Gaza, this will have consequences on the Israeli economy, and on the high-tech field, in particular, according to quotes by The Globes newspaper on today, Monday.
Prestigious universities, including Harvard, Johns Hopkins and the University of Minnesota, pledged, during negotiations with the protesting students, to take into account and discuss the students’ demands regarding investments in Israel. A number of universities responded to these demands, although Israeli experts said that implementing this is not easy, according to the newspaper.
Prominent American universities have large investment funds, each containing billions of dollars in employee and retiree funds, in addition to funds accumulated over the years in a manner similar to private capital funds.
Some of this money is invested in shares of foreign companies, and about 20 per cent of it is invested in alternative investments, which include investments in real estate and goods, as well as in private capital funds and venture capital funds, many of which invest in Israel.
Harvard University announced that it does not rule out a discussion on divestment from Israel, “as in the past it divested from fossil fuels and South Africa” according to what some of the university’s leaders wrote in an article published by the New York Times.
Johns Hopkins University said that it will “examine the main questions of the protestors regarding divestment”, while the University of Washington decided to meet with representatives of the protest “on divestment demands”.
Rutgers, Minnesota and Wisconsin universities issued similar decisions, as well Toronto Metropolitan (TMU) and McMaster in Canada. Occidental College in Los Angeles and Brown University, Rhode Island decided to vote on the issue of divesting from Israel.
The newspaper reported that Harvard University invested $200 million directly in Israeli companies in 2020.
Protesting students at the University of Minnesota said that the University invested $2.4 million in Israeli tech companies and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.
The newspaper quoted economic expert, Zeev Holtzman, as saying, “since universities not only represent major investment institutions but also aspire to be a moral compass, the decision against Israel would cause severe harm.”
The newspaper believes that the main difficulty that would pose a challenge to divestment is that long-term investments include commitments that cannot be breached. The newspaper mentioned legislation being passed in the US against boycotting Israel.
According to the former Deputy Attorney General of the Israeli government, Roy Schondorf, “Universities that decide to withdraw investments may face sanctions and be considered as violating their duties of loyalty.”
US Battle-Test Anti-Drone Weapon for War with Russia in Gaza
M-LID on Gaza Pier
By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | June 4, 2024
The US has deployed a new combat vehicle designed to help Ukraine repel Russian drone attacks to Gaza to field-test the new weapon. Russian forces have made territorial gains in Ukraine, in part, by overwhelming Kiev’s air defenses.
The Pentagon has deployed two Mobile-Low, Slow, Small-Unmanned Aircraft Integrated Defeat Systems (M-LIDS) to Gaza, according to The Telegraph. The outlet reports, “The US Army sailed some of its coastal landing ships to Gaza as part of the US military’s humanitarian flotilla, the ships carried one of the initial M-LIDS vehicle sets.” It adds, “At least one M-LIDS vehicle rolled down the pier and took up station at the edge of the beach.”
The Telegraph described the operation as “A pre-war test, if you will. In Gaza.”
M-LIDS is an anti-drone weapon the US is designing in response to the war in Ukraine. It consists of a set of sensors and a 30-mm chain gun mounted on top of multiple mine-resistant vehicles that targets small drones. Moscow and Kiev have used hundreds of thousands of small drones during the war, and the UAVs played roles in both Ukraine and Russia’s successful offensives.
The M-LIDS were part of Biden’s $320 million aid pier for Gaza. While the President promised the pier would not see American boots on the ground, the M-LIDS were photographed in very shallow water.
Biden’s pier has so far proven to be a disaster. The costs have skyrocketed, three US troops have been injured, the pier was dislodged by mild weather, and it delivered a minimal amount of aid into Gaza during the few days it was active.
Additionally, the M-LIDS deployment to Gaza in coordination with the Israeli military adds to the case that the US is responsible for Israeli war crimes in Gaza. The ICJ has ruled that it is plausible Israel has conducted genocide in Gaza, and the ICC indicted the Israeli Prime Minister and Defense Minister for war crimes committed against the Palestinians.
Columbia Law Review website put offline to censor Palestinian scholar
The Cradle | June 4, 2024
The Columbia Law Review (CLR) board of directors has taken down the publication’s website in response to its editors publishing a lengthy article about the Nakba by a Palestinian legal scholar, The Intercept reported on 4 June.
The CLR publishes scholarly articles, essays, and student notes and is edited by Columbia Law School students.
Five months ago, editors of the CLR had reached out to Palestinian human rights lawyer Rabea Eghbariah, asking him to contribute an article establishing the “Nakba” as a formal legal concept. Palestinians use the word, which means “catastrophe” in Arabic, to refer to the expulsion and dispossession of 750,000 Palestinians by Zionist militias in 1948.
The Nakba cleansed Palestine of most of its indigenous Muslim and Christian inhabitants, paving the way for the establishment of the state of Israel for Jews from Europe and elsewhere.
Eghbariah is completing his doctoral studies at Harvard Law School and has tried landmark Palestinian civil rights cases before the Israeli Supreme Court. A previous article he prepared about the Nakba for the Harvard Law Review was also censored at the last minute.
He noted that in its current case charging Israel with genocide at the International Court of Justice, South Africa’s legal team referred to the Palestinian “ongoing Nakba” as the context for the current genocide case.
Eghbariah’s article for the CLR, which is more than 100 pages long, underwent a rigorous editorial process before publication, with input from 30 CLR members.
“Every single piece that we publish goes through an incredibly, incredibly rigorous publication process. We just have high publication standards,” said Jamie Jenkins, one of the main editors. Jenkins noted the piece was given even more scrutiny because of the controversial nature of the subject matter. “So there was some additional work put into it, but in general, it was the same steps of production.”
However, when the article was scheduled to be published in the May edition, members of the CLR board of directors insisted that publication be delayed and made the unusual request that the article be sent to the rest of the law review for additional scrutiny.
Fearing a draft of the article would be leaked, the editors finally published it on 3 June at 2:30 am.
In response, the board of directors contacted the editors again, requesting the entire May edition to be taken down. When the editorial leadership refused the request, the entire CLR website was taken down and remains offline as of 4 June.
Since the beginning of the war on Gaza, pro-Israel lobby groups and business elites in the US have sought to suppress the speech of Palestinians and those opposing Israel’s war on Gaza, including through police suppression of protests at universities, limiting the scope and reach of pro-Palestinian social media posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and by banning Tik Tok.
Despite this, the horrific images of Israeli bombs killing Palestinian women and children over the past seven months have made it difficult for pro-Israel interests to control the perception of events. Israel’s war on Gaza is now widely viewed as genocide.
The Intercept adds that both Eghbariah and numerous editors at the CLR remain committed to the importance of the legal scholarship concerning the Nakba.
“What we need to do is to acknowledge the Nakba as its own independent framework that intersects and overlaps with genocide and apartheid,” Eghbariah told The Intercept while adding that the Nakba also “stands as a distinct framework that can be understood as its own crime with a distinctive historical analytical foundation structure and purpose.”
Will the Gaza Genocide be the Beginning of The End of Israel & Zionism? (Miko Peled)
Afshin Rattansi | June 2, 2024
On this episode, we speak to Miko Peled, grandson of one of the signatories of Israel’s 1948 Declaration of Independence and Founder of the Palestine House of Freedom. He discusses the purpose of Palestine House of Freedom and the goal of shifting the pro-Zionist narratives in Washington, the effect of the mass student protests taking in the US against the genocide in Gaza, the Biden Administration’s continued arming and enabling of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, why the conversation must be shifted to ending Israeli apartheid and demanding a Free Palestine, whether the Gaza genocide marks the beginning of the end of Israel and Zionism, why the two-state solution is realistically impossible and morally wrong, the genocidal state of Israeli society and the political future of Benjamin Netanyahu, why the goal of Israel is the extermination of as many Palestinians as possible and not the defeat of the Palestinian resistance, the absurdity of the ICJ giving Israel time to end the genocide, and much more.
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The Maldives bans Israelis in solidarity with Palestine
Maldives, little island resorts © Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images
RT | June 3, 2024
The Maldives announced on Sunday that Israeli passport holders will be banned from visiting the small Muslim-majority island nation due to the war in Gaza. The country is one of the destinations of holidaymakers from the Jewish states.
“President Dr Mohamed Muizzu, following a recommendation from the Cabinet, has resolved to impose a ban on Israeli passports,” the president’s office said in a statement on its website. “The Cabinet decision includes amending necessary laws to prevent Israeli passport holders from entering the Maldives and establishing a Cabinet subcommittee to oversee these efforts.”
Muizzu’s office added that the president has decided to “appoint a special envoy to assess Palestinian needs,” launch a fundraising campaign, and hold a nationwide rally in support for Palestine.
The Indian Ocean archipelago, known for its white sand beaches, turquoise lagoons, and luxury resorts, is a popular destination among Israelis. Nearly 11,000 tourists from Israel visited the islands last year, which amounts to 0.6% of total arrivals. This year, however, the number dropped by more than 80%.
Following the announcement, Israel’s Foreign Ministry issued an advisory, recommending Israeli citizens to avoid traveling to the Maldives and urging those staying there to depart.
“For Israeli citizens already in the country, it is recommended to consider leaving, because if they find themselves in distress for any reason, it will be difficult for us to assist,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
The diplomatic relations between Israel and the Maldives have been suspended since 1974. Israeli tourists were allowed to visit the archipelago after the Maldives lifted the previous travel ban in the 1990s. The two countries moved to restore the diplomatic ties in 2010, but the normalization effort was abandoned two years later, following the toppling of President Mohamed Nasheed.
Several Muslim-majority countries, including Algeria, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, have banned Israeli travelers since the fighting between Israel and the Palestinian armed group Hamas broke out on October 7. More than 36,000 Palestinians have been killed during Israel’s operation in Gaza, which was triggered by a surprise Hamas raid into southern Israeli cities.
Belgium’s Ghent University cuts academic relationship with all Israeli universities
Press TV – June 1, 2024
One of the major universities in Belgium has broken off relationship with all Israeli universities and research institutions which it says no longer align with its human rights policy.
University of Ghent (UGent) said in a statement that an investigation by the public research center highlighted concerns regarding connections between Israeli academic institutions and the Israeli administration, military, or security services.
UGent had 18 ongoing partnerships with Israeli academic institutions, it added.
The investigation also referenced a recent World Court ruling which ordered Israel to halt its offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah and withdraw from the besieged territory, in a case brought by South Africa saying Israel is committing genocide in the narrow Strip.
The development comes two weeks after UGent announced in a statement that it was severing ties with three Israeli educational and research institutions.
The university’s rector, Rik Van de Walle, said at the time that ties were being cut with Holon Institute of Technology, MIGAL Galilee Research Institute and the Volcani Centre, which carries out agricultural research.
“We currently assess these three partners as (very) problematic according to the Ghent University human rights test, in contrast to the positive evaluation we gave these partners at the start of our collaboration,” Van de Walle said.
Partnerships with MIGAL Galilee Research Institute and the Volcani Centre “were no longer desirable” due to their affiliation with Israeli ministries, an investigation by the University of Ghent found, and collaboration with the Holon Institute “was problematic” because it provided material support to the army for actions in Gaza.
A spokesperson for the university said the move would affect four projects.
Pro-Palestinian protesters in Ghent have been demonstrating and occupying parts of the university campus since early May protesting against the Israeli regime’s military onslaught in Gaza killing nearly 36,400 Palestinians so far.
The protesters told Belgian broadcaster VRT they welcomed the decision, but want to see it extended to include the six non-academic Israeli institutions that UGent currently partners with.
Earlier this week, two other Belgian universities announced changes in their partnership with Israeli institutions.
The University of Antwerp said it would continue its ongoing research projects with Israeli educational institutions, but will put new projects on hold.
The Université Libre de Bruxelles announced that it will no longer initiate projects with Israeli partners.
America’s Ugly History with the International Criminal Court
By Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute | May 30, 2024
On May 20, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court announced that he was seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant as well as for Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh, and Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri.
Officials in Washington lashed out against the court and began preparations to pressure the ICC to back off on pursuing the arrests. Netanyahu and Gallant, the United States insisted, should be left alone or left to Israel’s courts.
The Hamas officials should be held accountable, according to the State Department, but not by the ICC. “The Israeli government should hold them accountable on the battlefield. And if not a battlefield, then a court of law,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said. “We absolutely believe that Hamas should be held accountable. That could either be through the prosecution of the war effort by Israel. It could be by being killed. It could be by being brought to justice in an Israeli court.”
Congress is looking to take the lead in punishing the ICC. House Speaker Mike Johnson said, “Congress is reviewing all options, including sanctions, to punish the ICC and ensure its leadership faces consequences if they proceed.”
During a Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State Antony Blinken was asked if the White House would cooperate on legislation that “includes the question of the ICC sticking its nose in the business of countries that have an independent, legitimate, democratic judicial system.” Blinken responded that he is “committed to doing that.” He added, “We want to work with you on a bipartisan basis to find an appropriate response” and that “there’s no question we have to look at the appropriate steps to take to deal with, again, what is a profoundly wrong-headed decision.”
Blinken also told the Senate Appropriations subcommittee he would “welcome” working on “bipartisan” sanctions against the ICC. However, the White House may be considering other steps to deal with the ICC that do not include sanctions.
On May 28, White House spokesperson John Kirby said that sanctions were “not the right answer” to deal with the ICC arrest warrants. It is not that the White House would not punish the ICC, but that “Sanctions on the ICC are not an effective or appropriate tool to address U.S. concerns,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, adding that the White House “will work with Congress on other options to address the ICC overreach.”
Still, the White House remains firmly committed to thwarting the ICC deliberation into issuing an arrest warrant for Netanyahu. “Let me be clear,” Biden said, “We reject the ICC’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders.”
Washington has centered its argument on the grounds that a democratic nation’s legal system should be given priority to act first. Marjorie Cohn, emerita professor of law at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and dean of the People’s Academy of International Law, told me that “the ICC operates under the principle of ‘complementarity.’ That means the Court will assume jurisdiction over a case only if the home country of the accused is unable or unwilling to hold him legally accountable.”
The White House also argued that Israel is not a member of the ICC, so the court lacks jurisdiction over Tel Aviv. Additionally, the Biden administration said that because the United States is not a member, it should not have to support or follow the court.
But, the U.S. fully supported the recent ICC arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin over actions taken in Ukraine. Russia and Ukraine are also not members of the ICC.
Biden endorsed the arrest warrant for Putin. “Well, I think it’s justified,” he said. “But the question is—[the ICC is] not recognized internationally by us either. But I think it makes a very strong point.” Blinken urged all member nations of the ICC to comply with Putin’s arrest warrant. Asked if European allies should “turn over” Putin, Blinken answered, “I think anyone who’s a party to the court and has obligations should fulfill their obligations.”
A reporter asked if the administration’s policy for Israel would impact the Defence Department’s work “with the ICC to provide evidence about Ukraine.” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin answered, “Regarding the question of whether or not we’ll continue to provide support to the ICC with respect to crimes that are committed in Ukraine, yes, we continue that work.”
The separate standard for friends and enemies has consequences beyond the ICC. It nourishes the perception of the global majority and the newly emerging multipolar world that the U.S. has abandoned the universal application of international law for the self-serving application of the rules-based order. In doing so, it further damages the United States’ standing in the world and its pursuit of hegemony.
The ICC had jurisdiction to issue an arrest warrant for Putin because Ukraine accepted ad hoc jurisdiction of the court in 2014, meaning that crimes against humanity or genocide, but not crimes of aggression, committed on Ukrainian territory can be tried by the ICC.
But Palestine is an observer state in the UN General Assembly and also granted the ICC jurisdiction over its territory, including Gaza. On February 5, 2021, the ICC ruled that it does have jurisdiction over Palestine. What’s more, unlike Ukraine, Palestine is a signatory to the ICC’s Rome Statute.
The United States does not recognize the ICC. In 1998, 160 countries attended a conference to formulate the Rome Statute. Many of those countries advocated for universal jurisdiction that would give the new court jurisdiction over crimes committed anywhere in the world. The U.S. blocked that universal jurisdiction and insisted that the ICC have jurisdiction only over crimes committed in countries that voluntarily signed the Rome Statute. This was a loophole the U.S. planted for future exploitation.
In 2000, President Bill Clinton signed the Rome Statute but did not send it to the Senate to be ratified. Two years later, President George W. Bush withdrew the signature. That ensured that the ICC could not prosecute Americans for war crimes.
That has always been an important concern for the United States. Current and former officials told The New York Times in 2023 that “American military leaders oppose helping the court investigate Russians because they fear setting a precedent that might help pave the way for it to prosecute Americans.” Following the decision to seek an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, Mike Johnson said, “If the ICC is allowed to threaten Israeli leaders, ours could be next.”
To ensure that never happens, in 2002, the Bush administration enacted the American Servicemembers’ Protection Act, or the “Hague Invasion Act,” as it came to be known. The act authorizes the U.S. to use “all means necessary… to bring about the release of covered U.S. persons and covered allied persons held captive by, on behalf, or at the request of the Court.”
To be doubly sure, the Act banned “the provision of U.S. military assistance… to the government of a country that is a party to the court.” That prohibition was extended in 2004 by the Nethercutt Amendment to include several other types of economic assistance. NATO countries and major non-NATO allies were exempt. For all other countries—unless the president deemed it important to the national security of the United States– there was only one route to exemption. That was by entering a Rome Statute Article 98 agreement with the United States, ensuring that they agree not to surrender Americans to the ICC, “preventing the International Criminal Court from proceeding against United States personnel present in such country.”
WikiLeaks revealed hundreds of cables that show how the U.S. used the threat of sanctions to force countries into Article 98 agreements. A confidential December 2002 U.S. cable from Honduras states, “The U.S. will help those countries that sign Article 98 agreements and cut aid to those that do not.”
The United States sought agreements from 77 countries who joined the ICC “to make extraditions of Americans to the Hague impossible.” They exerted significant pressure. Romania’s foreign minister said he “can’t remember anything they put so much weight or interest into.”
The European Union told member states that entering into an Article 98 agreement with the U.S. “would be inconsistent” with their ICC obligations. Human Rights Watch said the American goal was “to exempt U.S. military and civilian personnel from the jurisdiction of the ICC” and that signing the “impunity agreements… would breach their legal obligations under the Rome Statute.” In the end, at least one hundred countries signed Article 98 agreements with the United States.
The long list of sanctioned countries eventually boomeranged against the United States, leading countries to look to Russia and China for help and impeding the U.S. wars on terror and drugs. They were gradually dropped.
In 2020, when the ICC tried to investigate the American use of torture against terrorism detainees, the U.S. imposed sanctions on court officials. The Biden administration revoked the sanctions order in 2021. When the ICC resumed its investigation into Afghanistan, it decided to focus on the Taliban and the Islamic State in Khorasan Province and allow alleged U.S crimes to “take a back seat.”
Whatever the U.S. intent is—whether it is to protect its friend or itself—the hypocritically selective application of its policy undermines the universality of international law. It also reinforces the perception of the global majority and the newly emerging multipolar world that the U.S. is no longer a sponsor of international law but of a rules-based order that is invoked when it suits them or their friends and is not invoked when it doesn’t.
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From the Archives
Why Saudi Ties to 9/11 Mean U.S. Ties to 9/11
By Kevin Ryan | Dig Within | September 27, 2015
Media interest in Saudi Arabian connections to the crimes of 9/11 has centered on calls for the release of the 28 missing pages from the Joint Congressional Inquiry’s report. However, those calls focus on the question of hijacker financing and omit the most interesting links between the 9/11 attacks and Saudi Arabia—links that implicate powerful people in the United States. Here are twenty examples. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- EUROPE FEARS RUSSIA’S NEXT MOVE / Ian Proud
- Big tech hands in its DSA censorship reports to the EU
- ‘A Big Victory’ – Palestine Chronicle Wins Two-Year Legal Battle
- IAEA inspectors cannot return to Iran amid US threats: Russia
- Senate Rejects Iran War Powers Resolution Passed By House
- ‘We did not attack Pakistan with drones’: Afghan sources
- Iraqi Resistance faction links arms to sovereignty, questions US exit
- Cannon fodder no more… South Korea rejects Trump’s pressure to join his criminal war on Iran
- Neria Leiter Was A Legitimate Military Target
- Integrity Initiative: UK-funded network framed dissent as Russian disinformation for years
- If Americans Knew
- ‘This is where I live now, the back of a truck’: a day in the life of a grandmother in Gaza
- In UN Speech, Iran’s President Displays Pictures of Children Killed by US, Brings Attention to Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal
- Israel displaces hundreds of Palestinians amid wave of demolitions in West Bank
- Aid, reconstruction, and Israel’s history of obstruction in Gaza
- Trump administration digs an ever-deeper hole of complicity in genocide – Daily Update
- US-Israel $2.8 Billion Arms Deal, 40,000-Bomb Supply Faces New Gaza Complicity Accusations
- Caught on Tape: AIPAC CEO Boasted of Controlling Trump’s National Security Officials
- Why Hamas Attacked Israel in October 2023 – Israeli professor Ilan Pappé
- They see them, then kill them: Israeli quadcopters track, deliberately target civilians in Gaza
- Winter could turn Gaza’s treacherous, war-damaged buildings into deathtraps
- No Tricks Zone
- 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
- New Study: ‘Global Drought Shows No Detectable Recent Acceleration Under Climate Warming’
- Economic Masterminds: German Socialists Suggest Taxing Productivity Gains Stemming From Using AI
- The South China Sea Has Not Been Cooperating With The Climate Change Narrative
- Energy Crisis: Germany Enters Heating Season With Historically Low Gas Reserve Fill Levels
- New Study: The Antarctic Ice Sheet Gained Mass From 2020-2024 Due To Staggering Snow And Ice Accumulation
- Study: Ocean Heating Rates From Thousands Of Years Ago ‘Dwarf’ Modern Ocean Heating Rates
- Climate Extremists Target, Attack Large-Scale Power Grid Infrastructure In Germany!
- New Study: Antarctic Ice Melt Has Contributed Less Than 1 Centimeter To Sea Level Rise In The Last 30 Years
