Australia jails whistleblowers for telling the truth
By Maryanne Demasi, PhD and Magdalene L. D’Silva, BA/LLB, LLM, MA | May 15, 2024
On May 14, 2024, David McBride, a 60-year-old former military lawyer, was sentenced to five years and eight months in prison with a non-parole period of 27 months, for ultimately blowing the whistle on alleged war crimes committed by other Australian soldiers in 2013.
McBride initially tried to raise his concerns internally with the Australian Defence Force (ADF), but became unsatisfied with the process, so he set up a website and uploaded a trove of secret documents.
Former military lawyer David McBride
When ADF officials found the website containing classified material, they wrote to McBride reminding him of his duty not to disclose it, prompting him to take it down. No action was taken against McBride for his website leak and the Court noted in sentencing that those leaks gave rise to very little risk.
It was only after McBride leaked the material to ABC journalists who aired them in the ‘Afghan Files’ story alleging Australian soldiers did ‘kill people unnecessarily’ that McBride was arrested, interviewed and charged.
Federal police raided the ABC’s Sydney headquarters in 2019, searching for evidence of a leak, but decided against charging the journalists.
In 2023, McBride pleaded guilty to several charges, including stealing secret classified military documents and leaking them to journalists. However McBride couldn’t rely on those documents in his legal defence when the Australian government stopped them from being adduced as evidence on national security grounds.
McBride argued there was a “culture of cover-up” at the command level of the Australian Army. While most soldiers acted ethically, he said some were needlessly investigated and others were protected after allegedly, “put(ting) a gun to someone’s head and blow(ing) their head away” even if they were unarmed or handcuffed.
McBride says he felt a moral obligation to bring these issues to light, believing the Australian public deserved to know the truth about their country’s military actions.
The years-long legal battle which has now landed McBride in prison, has sparked acrimonious debates about the need for an independent Whistleblower Protection Authority in Australia, and the media’s vital role in making powerful institutions accountable.
Human rights whistleblower lawyers said McBride’s punishment sends a chilling message to potential whistleblowers. They contend the Australian government should protect those who expose wrongdoing, not punish them.
Critics argued, however, that McBride was entitled and self-interested. Prosecutors suggested McBride had abandoned the internal investigation he initiated without waiting for the result, violated his signed confidentiality acknowledgments as a military lawyer, and compromised the lives of soldiers and their families while potentially harming Australia’s national security and international relations.
The Brereton Inquiry, commenced by the ADF before McBride’s whistleblowing leaks, found credible information that Australian Special Forces had unlawfully killed people in Afghanistan.
It also appears no harm has been demonstrated because of McBride’s actions, though the ACT Supreme Court said in sentencing, that potential harm to Australia’s defence personnel, their families, Australia’s national security and international relations, still exists.
In sentencing McBride, ACT Supreme Court Justice David Mossop said that while he was a person of good character strongly devoted to duty, from his time in Afghanistan he was unable to accept that his opinions about the ADF may be incorrect.
Justice Mossop considered McBride knew he was committing a criminal offence when disclosing the information but hoped he would have a (public interest) defence. McBride had legal duties and constraints as a soldier and lawyer serving the Army, but no specific duty to disclose the secret information to outsiders when there were other legitimate ways he could have raised his concerns.
ACT Supreme Court Justice David Mossop
Justice Mossop also said McBride had no remorse and still believed he did the right thing, so he sentenced McBride to prison to deter him from disclosing anymore military information and to deter other people ‘with strong opinions’ who are also under a legal duty not to disclose information, from doing so.
McBride abandoned his defence of a higher duty to act in the public interest even if it involves disobeying orders, when the Court ruled this out. Yet he remained defiant, justifying his actions saying, “I served my country. I stand tall and I believe I did my duty and I see this as a beginning to a better Australia.”
In the lead up to his sentencing, he added “So long as people believe I stood up for what I believed in, I can go to jail with my head held high.”
Independent MP Andrew Wilkie was outraged by McBride’s prison sentence, saying that governments “hate people shining a light on official misconduct.”
He added, “They consistently want to punish the whistleblower, and they consistently want to send a signal to would be whistleblowers to shut up, to not break ranks, to not cause problems for governments.”
AAP: Independent MP Andrew Wilkie
Daniela Gavshon, Australian Director of Human Rights Watch, said McBride’s sentencing shows that Australia’s whistleblowing laws need exemptions in the public interest.
“It is a stain on Australia’s reputation that some of its soldiers have been accused of war crimes in Afghanistan, and yet the first person convicted in relation to these crimes is a whistleblower not the abusers,” Gavshon said in a statement.
Many regard whistleblowing as morally courageous, especially when done in the public interest, as McBride claimed he did. But whistleblowing is a dangerous endeavour in Australia because of the significant legal and personal risks.
Compared to the US, where whistleblower protections are considered more robust, McBride’s case demonstrates the protracted and costly legal battles faced by whistleblowers in Australia, when up against institutions with unlimited resources.
It’s now feared McBride’s prosecution and sentencing will deter other whistleblowers from disclosing information because Australia’s laws arguably do not protect whistleblowers like McBride, who try internal reporting channels first but then find them inadequate.
While there must be a balance between national security concerns and the public’s right to know about the actions of their government and military, McBride’s case means other Australians thinking about whistleblowing, risk imprisonment too, especially where there is low trust in internal reporting channels and no alternative external reporting channel.
Australia’s Government has already announced plans to bolster public whistleblowing protections. But that won’t help McBride whose imprisonment highlights the urgent need for clear guidance and protection when disclosing information to prevent more serious harms, and the vital need for a free press if and when internal whistleblowing channels, fail.
Prior to being imprisoned, McBride recorded the following video:
Harvard agrees to discuss divestment from ‘Israel’ following protests
Al Mayadeen | May 15, 2024
After Harvard agreed to discuss student concerns on the university’s endowment concerning “Israel”, protesters against the Israeli war on Gaza took down their tents in the university yard on May 14.
Harvard oversees the biggest academic endowment in the world, amounting to around $50 billion, and invests part of it in funds and companies, some of which are linked to “Israel”.
In a statement on Instagram, the student protest group Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine (HOOP coalition) said that after surviving beyond the student move-out, the encampment has come to an end, however, “the struggle for Palestinian liberation goes on.”
They added that they built the “Liberated Zone in Harvard Yard as a model of the world we want to see: one that proudly affirms Palestinian liberation rather than elimination.”
The students highlighted how every day they sustained their encampment, their organizing capacity was strengthened, adding that they forced the “question of Palestine on an institution that has historically refused it.”
HOOP: Harvard turned Yard into ‘surveillance state’
HOOP went on to describe how Harvard attempted to quietly “choke” them out from closing its gates to the public, to even turning Harvard Yard into a “surveillance state.”
According to the students, a pre-condition of the decamping is that the administration would take back student suspensions, adding that it has also offered them meetings regarding disclosure and divestment with members of the Harvard Management Company, alongside talks about the launch of a Center for Palestine Studies at Harvard.
HOOP emphasized that they are “under no illusions,” as they know that these meetings are not divestment wins but are rather attempts to “pacify” them from full disclosure and divestment, however, that will not work.
They ended their statement by saying “Harvard beware: the Liberated Zone is everywhere.”
Harvard University Interim President Alan Garber agreed to meet with the students and answer their questions.
Protests in support of Gaza are ongoing
The director of Al Mayadeen‘s office in Geneva reported that student protests at Swiss universities are still taking place in support of Gaza and condemnation of Israeli crimes.
In addition, Herald Square in New York City has witnessed a massive demonstration in support of Palestine.
Harvard Law student gov. urged university to divest from ‘Israel’
The Harvard Law School (HLS) Student Government passed a resolution on March 29 urging the university to completely divest from any organization that supports the Israeli war on Gaza.
The measure urged the Harvard Management Company (HMC), which manages the school’s $50 billion endowment, “to divest completely from weapons manufacturers, firms, academic programs, corporations, and all other institutions that aid the ongoing occupation of Palestine and the genocide of Palestinians.”
The HLS Student Government alludes to Harvard’s commitment of nearly $200 million in businesses linked to the Israeli occupation military and illegal settlements in Palestine, similar to HMC’s prior divestment from South African apartheid and the tobacco industry in 1990.
The resolution’s author, Swap Agrawal, expressed that some Palestinian students at the school have “lost dozens of family members in the ongoing genocide,” noting that students reported feeling strongly that it was “necessary to put pressure on things to change.”
He added that students are deeply concerned that money held in trust may be funding this genocide, emphasizing that the resolution was affected by the International Court of Justice’s statement in January, which found it “plausible” that “Israel” had violated the Genocide Convention.
After the resolution vote, which had 12 supporters, four opponents, and three abstentions, two board members resigned, stating that they did so because they “strongly disagree” with it.
Ukraine desperate to receive more Western aid
By Lucas Leiroz | May 15, 2024
The Kiev regime still appears not to have understood its proxy role in the war with Russia. The country’s officials continue to demand constant assistance from the West, as if supporting Ukraine were an “obligation” of Western states. Now, the Ukrainians even want “unrestricted aid”, demanding from their partners that the costs of the war be included in the permanent expenses of NATO countries.
In a recent statement, the head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Andrey Yermak, one of the officials closest to Vladimir Zelensky, demanded from all Western countries, in addition to increased financial aid, unlimited access to their war arsenals and frozen Russian funds. His words were spoken during the Copenhagen Democracy Summit, where pro-Ukrainian organizations, led by the NGO “Alliance of Democracies”, met to discuss cooperation projects with Kiev.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen himself, former secretary general of NATO, participated in the event, supporting Yermak’s demands. Both officials signed a joint document at the summit endorsing the systematic increase in support for Kiev. Other relevant former authorities also participated in the event, such as Boris Johson, Sanna Marin and Hillary Clinton. The massive attendance of former officers shows that current Western politicians are not paying too much attention to the event, which is a consequence of the growing lack of interest in continuing to support Ukraine after so many military losses.
Yermak also commented on what he expects Western aid to look like from now on. According to him, at least 0.25% of the GDP of each NATO country must be sent to Kiev. Some countries have already spent much more than this percentage of their GDP on Ukraine, but what Yermak wants is for these expenses to become permanent, creating a kind of “obligation” on the part of Western countries towards Kiev. Latvia, for example, has already promised to continue spending more than 0.25% of its GDP on the war for at least the next three years. Yermak praises this initiative and calls on other European countries to act in the same way.
Furthermore, he emphasized the need for Kiev to receive at least 300 million dollars from Russian assets frozen in the West. According to Yermak, investing in the Ukrainian military is the correct way to use this money as it would be possible to try to reverse the damage caused by the so-called “Russian invasion”. The request reveals how Ukraine and the West are jointly desperate to establish new military assistance plans. Unable to spend more of their own funds, Western countries have frozen Russian assets so they have something to send to Ukraine – and, for its part, Kiev is in a rush to receive those funds as soon as possible, fearing that its “partners” will use the money for other priorities in their countries and abandon Ukraine.
Yermak and Rasmussen particularly emphasized the “need” to lift any restrictions on arms shipments to Ukraine. For them, it is unacceptable that some NATO countries continue to limit what can be sent to the Ukrainian battlefield. Furthermore, they called for restrictions on arms use to be revoked as well – which, in practice, means public authorization for the Ukrainian armed forces to kill civilians with NATO weapons.
The warmongers who attended the summit also called on NATO authorities to organize a conference in Washington with Ukrainian participation. The objective would be to establish a “clear timeline” for Kiev’s accession to the alliance, as well as new assistance goals in the current war. As a result, the summit’s participants tried in vain to put pressure for the neo-Nazi regime to enter the bloc, even though NATO had already indicated its intention to keep Ukraine as a mere proxy.
In fact, all the requests made at the summit seem impossible to fulfill. Yermak practically called for Ukraine to become a permanent state concern for Western countries. This may work in countries engaged in anti-Russian paranoia, such as the Baltics, but it is absolutely unfeasible for the military alliance as a whole. Western countries are simply exhausting their resources, leaving them unable to maintain constant support, which is why it will not be possible, even if there is a desire, to maintain a significant portion of the national GDP restricted to the war.
The summit seems to have brought together the most desperate sectors among Western and Ukrainian warmongers. Faced with the inevitable decline in support for Kiev, pro-war activists want to reestablish the anti-Russian agenda and prevent any possibility of peace.
Lucas Leiroz, member of the BRICS Journalists Association, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert.
You can follow Lucas on X (former Twitter) and Telegram.
Israel Stopping All Aid To Gaza, Journalist Tells Sputnik
By Ian DeMartino – Sputnik – 13.05.2024
Last week, Israel seized the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing, the only entry point into Gaza not controlled by Israel and where the largest amount of aid was entering the Gaza Strip. Israel has halted all shipments entering through the Rafah border crossings and the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing, citing nearby fighting.
Israel has completely stopped all aid shipments going into Gaza, Lebanon-based journalist and geopolitical analyst Leila Hatoum told Sputnik’s Fault Lines on Monday.
“They control the whole area and… they have shut down all border crossings. Nothing has entered Rafah or Gaza for the past eight days. Israelis have shut down all borders,” Hatoum explained, citing her sources on the ground in Gaza.
“Nothing has entered Gaza, not even water, flour, medicine, children’s needs, baby formula, hygienic products. Nothing. Nothing whatsoever,” she emphasized.
On Monday, videos emerged on social media showing Israeli citizens destroying aid intended for Gaza on trucks waiting to cross the Tarqumiya checkpoint. There doesn’t appear to be any police presence attempting to stop the looters in the videos. According to media reports, four individuals were arrested at the scene.
“The aid that the State of Israel transfers goes directly into the hands of Hamas,” the organization that organized the blockade, Order 9, said in a statement.
It was only the latest in a string of videos showing Israelis sabotaging aid trucks on their way to Gaza, another video released late last month showed Israelis destroying bags of flour, again without visible police resistance.
Israelis destroying the flour that was meant to feed starving people in Gaza.
Also on Monday, Israeli forces opened fire on an officially marked UN vehicle, killing one UN employee and injuring another. Later in the day, according to Israeli Rights group HaMoked, a group of young Israelis set fire to the perimeter of the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) headquarters in East Jerusalem. It was the second incident of arson at the headquarters this week.
UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres called for an investigation and condemned the attack on the UN vehicle. As of May 1, at least 182 UNRWA employees have been killed in Gaza.
At least 370,000 Palestinians have fled Rafah ahead of Israel’s promised ground war and continued bombardment of the last remaining refuge in Gaza, but many complain that there is no safe place to go.
“Every single place in Gaza, across [the] north all the way down to the south, is being bombarded by the Israelis,” Hatoum relayed. “Back in January and February we were warning that famine is going to hit north Gaza, people will die of starvation and nobody believed us, and then we started seeing people dying of starvation – children first and then others.”
At least 35,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 7, though that number is presumed to be a low-count as thousands of bodies are believed to remain under the rubble of destroyed buildings.
Shameless
By Craig Murray | May 13, 2024
Incredibly the Israeli genocide in Gaza is now reaching new heights of violence. Casualty figures are not coming in, as the attacks are so bad that bodies cannot be recovered, medics cannot travel and there are almost no medical facilities operational now anyway.
We now see that the Western injunctions not to attack Rafah were a smokescreen of lies to mask complicity. The final pocket of Gaza is being ruthlessly ethnically cleansed and its infrastructure will be destroyed like all the rest.
It is striking that this is accompanied by an absolutely shameless doubling down of support for Israel by the Western political and media classes. Any thought that their isolation from the vast breadth of public opinion would give them pause, must be abandoned. Their Zionist lobby paymasters have jerked the chain, and rather than rowing back, we are seeing a redoubling of their efforts to suppress dissent and obscure the truth.
Some of this shameless distortion is so dissonant with the alleged norms of Western society it is almost impossible to believe it is happening. Here are a few examples.
1) Dr Ghassan Abu Sitta is a highly respected reconstructive surgeon who continued to work heroically and tirelessly in Al Shifa hospital, carrying out operation after operation, mostly on women and children, as the hospital was shelled, strafed and machine gunned around him.
He was already a surgeon of great distinction, based in Glasgow where he is now Rector of Glasgow University.
When Germany banned him from entering to address the conference on Palestine from which Yanis Varoufakis and others were also barred, it appeared perhaps as a one-off action as part of Germany’s extreme and panicked reaction to pro-Palestinian expression.
We have come to understand that Germany has a vicious hatred of Palestinians, remarkably based on the psychological trauma of inherited guilt from the Holocaust. While this is a muddled national psychosis that is plainly immoral and wrongheaded, at least it is possible to have some understanding of how it occurred.
But it then turned out that the travel ban slapped on Dr Abu Sitta by Germany has a Schengen-wide effect as he was also banned from France. That appeared again something that was almost a technical accident as regards the rest of Europe.
But the Western political establishment has now doubled down again by banning him from the Netherlands, and this time the Dutch government has made it clear that it supports the ban, and is not just caught by a Schengen restriction.
So the major governments of the European Union are forbidding a distinguished surgeon from giving first-hand medical evidence of the genocide taking place. I cannot think of anything that more sharply exposes the willingness of the Western political class to abandon the most basic tenets of supposed “Western democracy” in the interests of Israel.
2) The willingness of the United States to use extreme violence against pro-Palestinian students on college campuses is another demonstration of the same abandonment of the pretence of democracy when it comes to Israel. It also illustrates what has come to be a serious generational divide in Western public opinion, with young people very strongly motivated to oppose the genocide (which is not to say that older people are pro-genocide, just that they are more split, particularly in the USA).
This is being followed up with yet more crazed pro-Israeli legislation in the United States, seeking to designate anti-genocide and pro-Palestinian expression on campuses as anti-semitic and thus illegal.
In many ways this typifies the reaction of the ruling class across the West. Their reaction to suddenly being exposed as the paid servants of an Israel which no longer has popular support and now causes public revulsion, is simply to attempt to ban free expression and make it specifically illegal to disagree with them.
3) The British Labour Party has gone even madder. Keir Starmer’s Genocide Party is an outstanding example of the success of the Israeli lobby in buying up both sides of the aisle and controlling the entire neoliberal uniparty that poses as the repository of democratic “choice” in the West.
Starmer had been doing his best to conceal his explicitly expressed “unequivocal support for Israel” lately, and to row back from his straightforward assertion that Israel has the right to cut off food and water from the population of Gaza. There had been a fake shift, from refusing to countenance the word “ceasefire” to supporting a temporary ceasefire or a “sustainable” ceasefire – the latter being code for a ceasefire after Israel had achieved all its ethnic cleansing objectives.
But then David Lammy blew this out of the water with an address to US Republican senators in which he made the totally bonkers assertion that Nelson Mandela would have opposed the college protests for Palestine. Lammy is a truly despicable individual, one of the ultimate examples of the corrupt politician whose voice is bought. But this was a move far beyond the pale.
4) Even today, the Western media continues to spout out Israeli propaganda at mains pressure. The Guardian, despite the thousands and thousands of dead women and children we have seen on our mobile phones this past seven months, continues to pretend that the genocidal attack is on “Hamas militants”.
The bombing and shelling of civilians in tents is still described as “clashes”. This propaganda really does not wash any more, though it may reinforce the morale of hardened Zionists. Everybody else has seen through it months ago. Yet still they persist.
5) The endgame is becoming very apparent. The United States is completing its floating harbour for Gaza, and Israel has gained control of the Rafah crossing into Egypt, giving the US and Israel total control of entry points into Gaza. Israel has announced that the Rafah crossing is to be handed over to a US mercenary force. The US can then say it is complying with Biden’s pledge not to put US forces’ boots on the ground in Gaza, while actually taking control.
The Israeli attack on Rafah has been justified by the USA as a “limited military operation”, thus claiming it does not violate Biden’s purported “red line”, even though Israel has ordered over a million displaced people in Rafah to evacuate again, to nowhere.
Conclusion:
The only possible conclusion from all of the above is to reinforce my analysis that the Zionist political and media classes in the West, including Biden, Blinken, Trudeau, Macron, Sunak, Starmer, Scholtz, von der Leyen and all, are active and willing participants in a programme of genocide.
They had numerous opportunities to turn back. We all saw what is happening months ago. They did not take the opportunities.
The endgame remains the processing of the remaining Palestinian population out of Gaza through the US-controlled points of the Rafah crossing and the floating harbour, primarily into camps in the Sinai desert. The Western powers are doubling down on their genocide and on their colonial project.
I see nothing whatsoever that indicates they can have any other long-term objective in mind than the complete Israeli annexation of Gaza minus its civilian population. What do you see?
Only one power could stop Israel’s Rafah invasion – but it dropped the ball
By Robert Inlakesh | RT | May 13, 2024
Israel has been threatening a full-scale invasion of the Gazan city of Rafah for months, with the US government belatedly warning against the move and calling for a ceasefire. However, the Biden administration has consistently flip-flopped on the issue and refused to take serious measures to pressure Israel into reaching a deal.
On May 6, Hamas publicly announced that it had accepted a ceasefire proposal, triggering celebrations throughout Gaza. The rejoicing was short-lived though, as the Israeli government reiterated its refusal to accept a deal and pledged instead to launch a ground operation in Gaza’s southernmost city, despite US government objections.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even stated that “the day after is the day after Hamas. All of Hamas,” meaning there is no ceasefire deal he will accept.
Despite the Israeli military capturing the Rafah Crossing between Gaza and Egypt, in addition to killing dozens of civilians after bombing 100 targets throughout Rafah, Israel announced that a delegation had been sent to Cairo to “exhaust” all possibilities of reaching a ceasefire. As it would later turn out, the ceasefire proposal that Hamas accepted was almost identical to one drafted by the CIA and Israeli intelligence, and lauded by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken as a “strong proposal”.
Meanwhile, in cities like Haifa and Tel Aviv, Israeli protesters – led by the families of captives held in Gaza – had taken to the streets to demand their government accept the ceasefire terms, which included the release of all Israeli prisoners. Clashing with the police and labeling the Netanyahu government liars, the demonstrators threatened to burn the country if their prisoners were not freed.
The US response the very next day was to gaslight reporters by telling them that the whole world was wrong and that Hamas had not accepted any ceasefire proposal. It was not long before US President Joe Biden was to sit down for an interview with CNN and state that he would not supply Israel with offensive weaponry to be used in a “major invasion” of Rafah. What he refused to do, however, was define what a major invasion means – and where the red line is.
This unclear approach comes after the Israeli military violated the terms of the 1979 Camp David agreement, which normalized ties between Egypt and Israel, by invading what is known as the Philadelphi Corridor in southern Gaza. Not only did the Israeli army send in its Givati Brigades, who published videos of themselves recklessly crushing the border crossing for fun, they also sealed off the key aid route to Gaza’s civilian population, who are on the brink of famine.
A weak and confusing American approach
The Israeli government has been threatening to invade Rafah since the start of the year, with Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly asserting, since the beginning of February, that Israel will “lose the war” if there is no invasion. it’s a move that the US not only says will mean defeat militarily, but more importantly, threatens the lives of over a million civilians, most of whom have nowhere else to go.
In early March, Biden gave a confusing interview to MSNBC, where he repeatedly contradicted himself when addressing the issue of an Israeli invasion of Rafah.
While claiming that entering Rafah is a “red line,” he then said that “there’s no red line [where] I’m going to cut off all weapons… but there’s red lines that if he crosses them”, before he seemed to lose his train of thought.
The sudden changes in the stance of policymakers in Washington are not limited to Biden’s MSNBC interview. In early February, the US said it would oppose an invasion of Rafah, calling it a “disaster,” to which the Israeli prime minister responded that he was preparing his forces to invade – and ramped up aerial attacks on the area. Yet, in mid-February the US government prepared a $14 billion military aid package for Israel and would go on to say that it could only support a limited invasion of Rafah.
Then there were reports that emerged, citing unnamed US officials, alleging that Biden was growing frustrated with Netanyahu and that he had even sworn at him. There was then the American push towards a “six-week ceasefire” in March, which the US president publicly said he hoped would happen prior to the Muslim Holy month of Ramadan. Even now, the Biden administration is still talking about an alleged “six-week ceasefire”, despite its own proposal to Hamas being a detailed agreement designed to end the war or at least to last for several months.
Silently, the US approved over 100 weapons transfers to assist the war effort against Gaza, in which they used loopholes to avoid Washington’s own new laws on weapons sales. Then, with two weeks left until the end of Ramadan, the US finally abstained in a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) vote, which called on Israel to implement a ceasefire until the end of the Muslim Holy month. In response, Israel immediately canceled the pre-planned visit of a high-level American delegation to Tel Aviv.
However, the very next morning, following the passing of the UN Security Council resolution, the US State Department announced that the resolution was non-binding. This not only meant that Washington was denying the reality of the internationally understood consensus that all UNSC votes are by their nature binding, but also that it would allow Israel to violate the resolution. So, even though Washington technically took a measure to pressure its ally temporarily, the very next day it gave an informal veto of the resolution, signaling to the Israeli government that it would retain American support no matter what.
While admitting that an invasion of Rafah will inevitably lead to the mass killing of Palestinian civilians, and block humanitarian aid transfers during an impending famine, and that it will not lead to the collapse of Hamas or the return of Israeli prisoners, the US government is effectively twiddling its thumbs.
The US has had nearly seven months to formulate a coherent policy when it comes to its goals and red lines in the Gaza-Israel war, yet it cannot articulate what its red lines are – and what ceasefire it even desires – without constantly contradicting itself. Western corporate media are now pointing to the postponing of a singular weapons shipment to Israel by the Biden administration, as if this constitutes pressure. But the US has done nothing to force Israel to allow aid to pass through the Rafah Crossing, which it immediately called upon Israel to do.
At this point, the US government is not helping to achieve Israel’s publicly stated war aims, it is not helping the families of Israeli prisoners, and it has failed to achieve a ceasefire or the sufficient transfer of humanitarian aid into Gaza. Instead, Joe Biden appears to be doing one thing – helping Benjamin Netanyahu prolong the conflict, with no end goal, no exit strategy, and no political solution or even the most basic idea of a post-war situation on the horizon. If anything, the US government has proven itself to be incapable of playing any constructive role to any side’s benefit. In fact, it is detrimental to the situation. If there were any people of conscience left in Washington, they would be urging their colleagues to step aside and hand the issue over to nations with coherent foreign policy platforms and intelligent diplomats.
Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the Palestinian territories and currently works with Quds News. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’.
Israelis use Palestinian kids as human shields: Rights group
Press TV – May 12, 2024
A Geneva-based rights group has condemned the Israeli regime forces for using children as human shields in their assaults on Palestinians.
The Defense for Children International (DCI) said it heard testimonies of three children who described how they were used as human shields by occupying Israeli forces during a recent search and assault operation in the West Bank’s Tulkarm refugee camp, the Middle East Eye on Sunday reported.
The DCI said the Palestinian children said on May 5 and May 6 Israeli soldiers had forced them to walk ahead of them as they searched through the refugee camp, describing two instances in which the Israeli regime forces had placed their rifles on their shoulders.
One teen named Kareem recounted how Israeli forces stormed his family’s apartment on May 6 and then forced him to lead them through the apartment block as they carried out a search operation in the building. The teen said the soldiers had placed a loaded rifle on his shoulders and fired two shots toward one of the apartment’s entrances.
Another child, Mohammad, said during a raid on his home, he was forcibly separated from his family by the Israeli forces.
“I remained alone with the soldiers after they instructed my mother and siblings to climb to the fourth floor of the building. I started crying and trembling with fear because I didn’t know what they would do to me. They were armed, masked, and their appearance was terrifying, accompanied by a large police dog making frightening noises,” Mohammad said.
He said they told him to knock on each apartment door in the building and tell the residents in the apartments to leave their homes.
Mohammad said if an apartment was empty and no one answered, the armed men would enter by force.
“When we reached the door of one of the apartments and found it empty, the soldiers blew up the door and forced me to enter alone to inspect it,” said the Palestinian child.
Ibrahim, another Palestinian teen, recounted how on the morning of May 6, Israeli forces stormed his family’s home in the Tulkarm refugee camp in a “brutal and terrifying manner,” searching and vandalizing their belongings.
He said, “A group of soldiers took me to one of the rooms and began interrogating me. When I told them I knew nothing, one of them threatened me in Arabic and said (I’ll smash you if you don’t talk). Then he physically assaulted me for several minutes before handcuffing my hands behind my back with a plastic tie. They then took me outside and asked me to walk in front of the soldiers.”
“I was trembling with fear and terror. At first, I thought they wanted to arrest me, but they asked me to walk in front of them in the alleys of the Al-Sawalme neighborhood in the camp. They would hide in the alley and ask me to show the way. After that, they released my hands, and every time we passed by a house or building, they would ask me to enter and ask the residents to leave and head towards the soldiers, after which they would raid those homes. During the raids, they would ask me to open the internal doors of the houses and apartments.”
Ibrahim said after about two hours of searching the camp, the Israelis took him to a house in the camp where he was detained alongside others until the Israeli forces withdrew from the camp.
In the meantime, the use of Palestinians as human shields by Israeli regime forces in numerous cases has been well documented by multiple human rights organizations.
Israeli regime forces put Palestinian civilians in front of them or otherwise put civilians in the line of fire, and force them to open doors that could be booby-trapped or remove suspicious objects that might be bombs. They also force them to walk through suspected booby-trapped buildings.
The Zionist forces also often employ the “neighbor procedure” in which Palestinian civilians are forced to attempt to persuade individuals to leave or surrender themselves.
“International law is explicit and absolutely prohibits the use of children as human shields by armed forces or armed groups,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, Accountability Program director at the DCIP, adding, “Israeli forces intentionally putting a child in grave danger in order to shield themselves constitutes a war crime.”
For decades, both Palestinian children as well as adults have been used by the Israeli forces during operations as human shields.
The use of civilians as human shields is one of many war crimes committed by the Israeli regime forces.
Unremarkable peer recruited by Zionist lobby to stop Palestine Action
By Yvonne Ridley | MEMO | May 13, 2024
Despite posing as an “independent” government advisor, Woodcock is affiliated with the pro-Israel lobby and the arms industry. He is also the chair of the Defence Purpose Coalition, which brings together senior figures within the arms industry to promote its deadly products. Since 2011, he’s travelled to Israel on numerous occasions on trips paid for by the Israeli government and pro-Israel lobby groups, according to a recent investigation by Declassified UK.
Calling out UK for its brazen protection of pro-occupation forces
By Hannan Hussain | Al Mayadeen | May 12, 2024
The protests are spreading.
From Oxford University to Edinburgh, students in considerable numbers are pushing academic institutions in the United Kingdom to end ties to the Israeli occupation. As the genocide reaches devastating highs in Gaza, many faculty and staff members are on-board to push for divestment demands and are calling out the Israeli systemic campaign of mass slaughter and starvation.
But that same sense of aversion to Israeli genocide and war crimes appears absent among UK policymakers, who quietly cheerlead Israeli belligerence. According to damning new revelations, the Conservative Party of the UK has consistently catered to the pro-genocide occupation by protecting Israeli politicians, spy agents, and other officials from glaring war crimes. These developments reveal the extent of London’s complicity in the Israeli-led genocide, and illustrate the use of “special” immunity to protect war criminals that have Palestinian blood on their hands.
Consider Israeli war criminal General Herzi Halevi, among the chief architects of a planned Israeli onslaught on Rafah. Rather than joining international momentum to support prosecution of Halevi and his allies, the UK granted the war criminal a visiting permit without fear of arrest. These are glaring examples of Britain deluding the public on legal rights, and twisting its own laws to enable support and protections for a genocidal regime.
London is thus unqualified to offer rhetoric against Israeli offensives when it consciously sustains its partisan support for the same occupation. Andrew Mitchell, the UK’s deputy foreign minister, put on a false show of morality this week, claiming that an Israeli ground invasion of Rafah would ‘break international humanitarian law.’ Lets be clear: the UK doesn’t care about international law or the astounding scale of Palestinian suffering and mayhem. Mitchell even refused to spell out any meaningful consequences for the occupation in the event of a full-scale invasion, exposing the cosmetic nature of British rhetoric on Gaza.
The British government is also wrong to give the benefit of the doubt to a genocidal regime by claiming that international humanitarian law was about to come under threat. Britain’s stance on Gaza should be condemned for deluding the public because “Israel” has been breaking international law from the outset and for decades. It is evident in a process of systemic Israeli annihilation, mass slaughter and glaring war crimes that London’s own diplomacy justifies in practice.
At a time when the International Criminal Court (ICC) has occupation premier Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies fearing arrests and isolation, Britain appears determined to obstruct justice and do “Israel’s” pro-genocide bidding. After all, it is a country that Amnesty International has declared a “deliberately destabilising” force for human rights on the world stage, and proves that point by allowing Israeli war criminals to visit without fearing arrest. Make no mistake: Britain is seriously unqualified to speak to any semblance of democratic values because its pro-occupation tilt signals violation of British commitments to universal jurisdiction laws. That includes the Rome Statute which holds that the most serious crimes are tried regardless of where they occurred.
Palestinian rights groups are absolutely correct to turn the heat on London and hold it accountable for its own breaches of international law in Gaza. This includes the West Bank-based Al-Haq, which is taking Britain to court over arms exports funding the genocide. As UK’s diplomatic “immunity” becomes the latest weapon to shield Israeli war criminals, it is in the interests of Britain-based activists and their international counterparts to form a legal challenge of their own. This is imperative to hold the government accountable for sponsoring pro-genocidal forces under the garb of diplomacy.
London’s denial would carry zero weight because its support for Israeli war criminals is rooted in history. Look back to 2011 when Labour chief Keir Starmer blocked arrest warrant prospects for occupation foreign minister and suspected war criminal Tzipi Livni. A government so deeply in cahoots with a decades-old Israeli military occupation cannot be trusted to drive accountability from within. London’s contribution to more Palestinian bloodshed thus demands that the government is tried with the full force of the law.
There is also a common thread that binds escalating anti-genocide protests across Britain: the truly urgent situation for besieged Palestinians in Gaza. The Israeli occupation continues to launch airstrikes in Rafah and pursues a systemic campaign of civilian massacres that is now centered around the southernmost Gaza city. And yet, Britain played a principal role in aiding “Israel’s” genocide capacities on the intelligence front ahead of time. That includes 50 British espionage missions that were conducted since the start of December with the principal goal of aiding the occupation.
With these realities in mind, how can Britain even stand up to the international community and tout the occupation’s so-called “truce” proposal as generous? There are striking double standards in the way UK plays up public rhetoric on peace and prosperity over Gaza, while profiting from its bloodshed.
Its broader occupation support through information-gathering, espionage, diplomatic immunity, and weapon supplies firmly establish complicity in the ongoing genocide.
The Declassified UK revelations are only the tip of the iceberg.
Israel carpet bombs Gaza with no goal in sight
The Cradle | May 12, 2024
Dozens of Palestinian civilians have been killed and injured over the past 24 hours by intense Israeli bombardment across the Gaza Strip.
Israeli airstrikes have continued to relentlessly bomb northern, central, and southern Gaza.
“18 martyrs and six wounded were admitted to the Kuwait Hospital” in the southern city of Rafah, medical sources told WAFA news agency on 12 May. Children were among those killed by Israeli strikes on Rafah.
“Israeli tanks opened fire on civilian homes in the eastern areas of Deir al-Balah and Maghazi,” WAFA added.
Israeli artillery shelling pounded Gaza City’s Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, in the north. Over a dozen civilians remain trapped under the rubble there, according to WAFA. Several civilians were also killed in bombing of northern Gaza’s Jabalia.
An Israeli quadcopter opened fire at UNRWA clinic in the Jabalia refugee camp.
“Our emergency crews are receiving many calls for help,” said civil defense spokesman, Mahmoud Basal, adding that it is “gravely difficult and dangerous for the civil defense crews to aid civilians because they themselves have no immunity and are targeted by Israeli occupation forces.”
The intensified bombardment comes as Israeli troops are engaged in fierce clashes with the Palestinian resistance in northern Gaza.
Hamas’ Qassam Brigades struck Israeli forces with heavy-caliber mortar shells in Al-Zaytoun neighborhood on 12 May, the group said in a statement.
On 11 May, intense clashes reignited in Al-Zaytoun, months after Tel Aviv claimed Hamas had been defeated in the north of the enclave. The Israeli army has also deployed to the city of Jabalia north of Gaza City, where it now says fighters from Hamas’ armed wing have regrouped.
The Qassam Brigades have also continued to fiercely confront Israeli forces operating in the southern city of Rafah, where the army launched a recent operation to seize the border crossing with Egypt. Tel Aviv had been claiming for months that Rafah is Hamas’ final stronghold, despite its continued presence, along with other factions, across the strip.
Rocket barrages have been flying out of Rafah toward the positions of Tel Aviv’s forces and nearby settlements over the past two days.
“Hamas has military capability and it will remain, and we will not end it if we continue fighting,” former head of Israel’s National Security Council, Giora Eiland, said on Saturday.
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New Book
New Book: No Autoimmunity The Body Doesn’t Attack Itself
Lies are Unbekoming | September 24, 2026
The label for Humira, once the best-selling drug in the world, lists its risks in plain print. One of them, in the label’s own words, is new “autoimmune” disease.
A drug prescribed for a condition labelled autoimmune carries a warning that it can cause a condition labelled autoimmune. That contradiction sits in every box, on a folded paper almost nobody reads.
My new book starts there.
No Autoimmunity: The Body Doesn’t Attack Itself
For seventy years, “your body is attacking itself, and we don’t know why” has ended the conversation for people diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, Hashimoto’s, Type 1 diabetes, Crohn’s and psoriasis. More than eighty conditions now carry the autoimmune label. The diagnosis comes with a prescription for life. It almost never comes with a question about cause.
This book asks the question and answers it from the framework’s own records: its drug labels, its journals, its regulatory filings, and its own experiments. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- DEATH SPIKES & RISING CANCER IN OUR YOUTH EXPLAINED
- Iran offers Trump deal before US election
- Merz regime wants ‘secret police’ – opposition
- Israeli settlers terrorize West Bank Palestinians with state-provided drones: Report
- They see them, then kill them: Israeli quadcopters track, deliberately target civilians in Gaza
- Debunked: Trump’s egregious UNGA claims on war against Iran crumble under scrutiny
- Europe was part of the infrastructure of US aggression against Iran: Deputy FM
- New evidence on the Bucha Massacre
- Italy and France debunk reports CIA issued ‘Russian drone threat’ warning
- How Russia is Rewiring the Global South
- If Americans Knew
- Trump betrayed voters with his campaign lies and prioritized a foreign country once he took office
- Netanyahu calls Israel’s war in Gaza ‘opposite of genocide’ in UN speech to near-empty hall
- Settler Kidnappings: Torture, Sexual Abuse and Terrorisation of Palestinian Abductees as Israel Deepens Annexation of West Bank
- Gaza winter nears as 162,000 tents become unusable, raising fears of humanitarian crisis
- Netanyahu says, “It’s the opposite of genocide”; UN says Gaza economy is world’s ‘most severe crisis on record’ – Daily Update
- Israel’s US-Backed Assault on Gaza Has Created the ‘World’s Most Severe Economic Crisis on Record’: UN
- ‘Protecting U.S. Citizens’… From Israel
- ‘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
- 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
