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Lies, the Bethlehem Doctrine, and the Illegal Murder of Soleimani

By Craig Murray | January 4, 2020

In one of the series of blatant lies the USA has told to justify the assassination of Soleimani, Mike Pompeo said that Soleimani was killed because he was planning “Imminent attacks” on US citizens. It is a careful choice of word. Pompeo is specifically referring to the Bethlehem Doctrine of Pre-Emptive Self Defence.

Developed by Daniel Bethlehem when Legal Adviser to first Netanyahu’s government and then Blair’s, the Bethlehem Doctrine is that states have a right of “pre-emptive self-defence” against “imminent” attack. That is something most people, and most international law experts and judges, would accept. Including me.

What very few people, and almost no international lawyers, accept is the key to the Bethlehem Doctrine – that here “Imminent” – the word used so carefully by Pompeo – does not need to have its normal meanings of either “soon” or “about to happen”. An attack may be deemed “imminent”, according to the Bethlehem Doctrine, even if you know no details of it or when it might occur. So you may be assassinated by a drone or bomb strike – and the doctrine was specifically developed to justify such strikes – because of “intelligence” you are engaged in a plot, when that intelligence neither says what the plot is nor when it might occur. Or even more tenuous, because there is intelligence you have engaged in a plot before, so it is reasonable to kill you in case you do so again.

I am not inventing the Bethlehem Doctrine. It has been the formal legal justification for drone strikes and targeted assassinations by the Israeli, US and UK governments for a decade. Here it is in academic paper form, published by Bethlehem after he left government service (the form in which it is adopted by the US, UK and Israeli Governments is classified information).

So when Pompeo says attacks by Soleimani were “imminent” he is not using the word in the normal sense in the English language. It is no use asking him what, where or when these “imminent” attacks were planned to be. He is referencing the Bethlehem Doctrine under which you can kill people on the basis of a feeling that they may have been about to do something.

The idea that killing an individual who you have received information is going to attack you, but you do not know when, where or how, can be justified as self-defence, has not gained widespread acceptance – or indeed virtually any acceptance – in legal circles outside the ranks of the most extreme devoted neo-conservatives and zionists. Daniel Bethlehem became the FCO’s Chief Legal Adviser, brought in by Jack Straw, precisely because every single one of the FCO’s existing Legal Advisers believed the Iraq War to be illegal. In 2004, when the House of Commons was considering the legality of the war on Iraq, Bethlehem produced a remarkable paper for consideration which said that it was legal because the courts and existing law were wrong, a defence which has seldom succeeded in court.

(b)
following this line, I am also of the view that the wider principles of the law on self-defence also require closer scrutiny. I am not persuaded that the approach of doctrinal purity reflected in the Judgments of the International Court of Justice in this area provide a helpful edifice on which a coherent legal regime, able to address the exigencies of contemporary international life and discourage resort to unilateral action, is easily crafted;

In the absence of a respectable international lawyer willing to argue this kind of tosh, Blair brought in Bethlehem as Chief Legal Adviser, the man who advised Netanyahu on Israel’s security wall and who was willing to say that attacking Iraq was legal on the basis of Saddam’s “imminent threat” to the UK, which proved to be non-existent. It says everything about Bethlehem’s eagerness for killing that the formulation of the Bethlehem Doctrine on extrajudicial execution by drone came after the Iraq War, and he still gave not one second’s thought to the fact that the intelligence on the “imminent threat” can be wrong. Assassinating people on the basis of faulty intelligence is not addressed by Bethlehem in setting out his doctrine. The bloodlust is strong in this one.

There are literally scores of academic articles, in every respected journal of international law, taking down the Bethlehem Doctrine for its obvious absurdities and revolting special pleading. My favourite is this one by Bethlehem’s predecessor as the FCO Chief Legal Adviser, Sir Michael Wood and his ex-Deputy Elizabeth Wilmshurst.

I addressed the Bethlehem Doctrine as part of my contribution to a book reflecting on Chomsky‘s essay “On the Responsibility of Intellectuals”

In the UK recently, the Attorney
General gave a speech in defence of the UK’s drone policy, the assassination
of people – including British nationals – abroad. This execution
without a hearing is based on several criteria, he reassured us. His
speech was repeated slavishly in the British media. In fact, the Guardian
newspaper simply republished the government press release absolutely
verbatim, and stuck a reporter’s byline at the top.
The media have no interest in a critical appraisal of the process
by which the British government regularly executes without trial. Yet
in fact it is extremely interesting. The genesis of the policy lay in the
appointment of Daniel Bethlehem as the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office’s Chief Legal Adviser. Jack Straw made the appointment, and for
the first time ever it was external, and not from the Foreign Office’s own
large team of world-renowned international lawyers. The reason for that
is not in dispute. Every single one of the FCO’s legal advisers had advised
that the invasion of Iraq was illegal, and Straw wished to find a new head
of the department more in tune with the neo-conservative world view.
Straw went to extremes. He appointed Daniel Bethlehem, the legal
‘expert’ who provided the legal advice to Benjamin Netanyahu on the
‘legality’ of building the great wall hemming in the Palestinians away
from their land and water resources. Bethlehem was an enthusiastic
proponent of the invasion of Iraq. He was also the most enthusiastic
proponent in the world of drone strikes.
Bethlehem provided an opinion on the legality of drone strikes
which is, to say the least, controversial. To give one example, Bethlehem
accepts that established principles of international law dictate that
lethal force may be used only to prevent an attack which is ‘imminent’.
Bethlehem argues that for an attack to be ‘imminent’ does not require it
to be ‘soon’. Indeed you can kill to avert an ‘imminent attack’ even if you
have no information on when and where it will be. You can instead rely
on your target’s ‘pattern of behaviour’; that is, if he has attacked before,
it is reasonable to assume he will attack again and that such an attack is
‘imminent’.
There is a much deeper problem: that the evidence against the
target is often extremely dubious. Yet even allowing the evidence to
be perfect, it is beyond me that the state can kill in such circumstances
without it being considered a death penalty imposed without trial for
past crimes, rather than to frustrate another ‘imminent’ one.
You would think that background would make an interesting
story. Yet the entire ‘serious’ British media published the government
line, without a single journalist, not one, writing about the fact that
Bethlehem’s proposed definition of ‘imminent’ has been widely rejected
by the international law community. The public knows none of this. They
just ‘know’ that drone strikes are keeping us safe from deadly attack by
terrorists, because the government says so, and nobody has attempted to
give them other information

So that is lie one. When Pompeo says Soleimani was planning “imminent” attacks, he is using the Bethlehem definition under which “imminent” means neither “soon” nor “definitely going to happen”. To twist a word that far from its normal English usage is to lie. To do so to justify killing people is obscene. That is why, if I finish up in the bottom-most pit of hell, the worst thing about the experience will be the company of Daniel Bethlehem.

Let us now move on to the next lie, which is being widely repeated, this time originated by Donald Trump, that Soleimani was responsible for the “deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of Americans”. This lie has been parroted by everybody, Republicans and Democrats alike.

Really? Who were they? When and where? While the Bethlehem Doctrine allows you to kill somebody because they might be going to attack someone, sometime, but you don’t know who or when, there is a reasonable expectation that if you are claiming people have already been killed you should be able to say who and when.

The truth of the matter is that if you take every American killed including and since 9/11, in the resultant Middle East related wars, conflicts and terrorist acts, well over 90% of them have been killed by Sunni Muslims financed and supported out of Saudi Arabia and its gulf satellites, and less than 10% of those Americans have been killed by Shia Muslims tied to Iran.

This is a horribly inconvenient fact for US administrations which, regardless of party, are beholden to Saudi Arabia and its money. It is, the USA affirms, the Sunnis who are the allies and the Shias who are the enemy. Yet every journalist or aid worker hostage who has been horribly beheaded or otherwise executed has been murdered by a Sunni, every jihadist terrorist attack in the USA itself, including 9/11 [sic], has been exclusively Sunni, the Benghazi attack was by Sunnis, ISIL are Sunni, Al Nusra are Sunni, the Taliban are Sunni and the vast majority of US troops killed in the region are killed by Sunnis.

Precisely which are these hundreds of deaths for which Soleimani was responsible? Is there a list? It is of course a simple lie. Its tenuous connection with truth relates to the Pentagon’s estimate – suspiciously upped repeatedly since Iran became the designated enemy – that back during the invasion of Iraq itself, 83% of US troop deaths were at the hands of Sunni resistance and 17% of of US troop deaths were at the hands of Shia resistance, that is 603 troops. All the latter are now lain at the door of Soleimani, remarkably.

Those were US troops killed in combat during an invasion. The Iraqi Shia militias – whether Iran backed or not – had every legal right to fight the US invasion. The idea that the killing of invading American troops was somehow illegal or illegitimate is risible. Plainly the US propaganda that Soleimani was “responsible for hundreds of American deaths” is intended, as part of the justification for his murder, to give the impression he was involved in terrorism, not legitimate combat against invading forces. The idea that the US has the right to execute those who fight it when it invades is an absolutely stinking abnegation of the laws of war.

As I understand it, there is very little evidence that Soleimani had active operational command of Shia militias during the invasion, and in any case to credit him personally with every American soldier killed is plainly a nonsense. But even if Soleimani had personally supervised every combat success, these were legitimate acts of war. You cannot simply assassinate opposing generals who fought you, years after you invade.

The final, and perhaps silliest lie, is Vice President Mike Pence’s attempt to link Soleimani to 9/11. There is absolutely no link between Soleimani and 9/11, and the most strenuous efforts by the Bush regime to find evidence that would link either Iran or Iraq to 9/11 (and thus take the heat off their pals the al-Saud who were actually responsible) failed. Yes, it is true that some of the hijackers at one point transited Iran to Afghanistan. But there is zero evidence, as the 9/11 report specifically stated, that the Iranians knew what they were planning, or that Soleimani personally was involved. This is total bullshit. 9/11 was Sunni and Saudi led, nothing to do with Iran.

Soleimani actually was involved in intelligence and logistical cooperation with the United States in Afghanistan post 9/11 (the Taliban were his enemies too, the shia Tajiks being a key part of the US aligned Northern Alliance). He was in Iraq to fight ISIL.

The final aggravating factor in the Soleimani murder is that he was an accredited combatant general of a foreign state which the world – including the USA – recognises. The Bethlehem Doctrine specifically applies to “non-state actors”. Unlike all of the foregoing, this next is speculation, but I suspect that the legal argument in the Pentagon ran that Soleimani is a non-state actor when in Iraq, where the Shia militias have a semi-official status.

But that does not wash. Soleimani is a high official in Iran who was present in Iraq as a guest of the Iraqi government, to which the US government is allied. This greatly exacerbates the illegality of his assassination still further.

The political world in the UK is so cowed by the power of the neo-conservative Establishment and media, that the assassination of Soleimani is not being called out for the act of blatant illegality that it is. It was an act of state terrorism by the USA, pure and simple.

January 4, 2020 Posted by | Deception, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Iran Hawk Leaves US NSC Amid Escalation of Tensions After IRGC Commander’s Killing – Report

By Oleg Burunov – Sputnik – 04.01.2020

On Friday, Qasem Soleimani, the commander who led Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Quds Force, was killed in a US drone strike near the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

US National Security Council (NSC)’s Director for countering Iranian weapons of mass destruction Richard Goldberg is quitting for personal reasons, Bloomberg quoted an unnamed source as saying on Saturday.

The source claimed that Goldberg is due to return to the Foundation for Defence of Democracies (FDD), a Washington-based think tank where he served as a senior advisor before joining the NSC in early January 2019.

Goldberg’s role at the NSC was endorsed by former US National Security Adviser John Bolton in a bid to contain “what Bolton saw as a desire at the departments of State and Treasury to weaken the ‘maximum pressure’ campaign against Iran,” according to Bloomberg. The news outlet referred to exacerbating tensions last March, when the White House considered extending waivers to allow Iran to sell a limited amount of oil in the face of US sanctions against the Islamic Republic that were reinstated following the US’ unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

Goldberg’s reported departure from the NSC comes amid fresh US-Iranian tensions which escalated after Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Quds Force, was killed in an airstrike near the Iraqi capital Baghdad on 3 January.

The US Department of Defence said that the strike was authorised by US President Donald Trump who said that his administration took preemptive action against Soleimani to “stop a war”.

An advisor to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the US had crossed a “red line” after the Friday airstrike, with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stating that a “harsh retaliation is waiting” for Washington.

January 4, 2020 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

US assassination of Soleimani will lead to expulsion of US troops from Iraq: Experts

Press TV – January 4, 2020

The assassination of Iranian Lieutenant General Qassem Soleiman in Iraq by US forces will likely lead to the expulsion of American troops on Iraqi soil and strengthen Iran’s allies in the country, according to Western analysts.

The assassination of Iranian Lieutenant General Qassem Soleiman in Iraq by US forces will likely lead to the expulsion of American troops on Iraqi soil and strengthen Iran’s allies in the country, according to Western analysts.

Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), were killed in US airstrikes in the Iraqi capital Baghdad early on Friday.

The Pentagon confirmed the strike, saying it came “at the direction” of President Donald Trump.

Iraq’s Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi condemned the US assassination, calling it an attack on his nation’s sovereignty.

Iraq’s government will come under mounting pressure to expel the 5,200 American troops stationed in the country following the attack, The Associated Press said in a report, citing international experts.

That would push Iraq closer to Iran, alongside Syria and Lebanon, the AP said in its analysis.

Restricting or expelling US troops from Iraq is a likely immediate impact option, said Renad Mansour, a research fellow at the London-based international affairs think tank Chatham House.

“I think it would be hard for any Iraqi government official making a claim to keep American troops after this,” Mansour told the AP.

The US has ordered all citizens to leave Iraq and closed its embassy in Baghdad following the strike.

“There will be for sure a reaction from Iran’s side and the axis of resistance, but the question is where, when and how,” said Ibrahim Bayram, an analyst with Lebanon’s daily An-Nahar. “I think the Iranians are precise and know how to direct the hit.”

US legal experts say Soleimani assassination violated international law

The assassination of Soleimani in Iraq violated American and international laws, according to US legal experts and a senior UN rights investigator.

The Trump administration on Friday sought to justify its killing as an act of self-defense, using baseless claims to deflect accusations that it violated international law.

But some US legal experts argued Trump lacked the legal authority to kill Soleimani on Iraqi soil without the permission of Iraq’s government, and said the attack was unlawful under international and US law.

Oona Hathaway, an international law expert and law professor at Yale University, said the available facts “do not seem to support” the assertion that the strike was an act of self-defense, and concluded it was “legally tenuous under both domestic and international law.”

The UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, Agnes Callamard, said the US assassination was outside the context of active hostilities.

“The targeted killings of Qassem Soleiman and Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis are most likely unlawful and violate international human rights law: Outside the context of active hostilities, the use of drones or other means for targeted killing is almost never likely to be legal,” she wrote on Twitter.

US Democratic lawmakers and presidential candidates on Friday condemned Trump for ordering the air strike, saying the president’s decision was reckless and could lead the US to another war in the Middle East.

Soleimani had survived several assassination attempts against him by Western, Israeli and Arab agencies over the past years. In November 2018, The New York Times revealed a March 2017 meeting in the Saudi capital of Riyadh regarding assassination of Iranian officials, namely Soleimani.

January 4, 2020 Posted by | War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Soleimani murder SITREP: reactions from around the world

By Chris Faure | The Saker Blog | January 4, 2020

This previous sitrep is still valid as to the actions of Mr Trump and Mr Pomeo.

Mr Pompeo’s twitter continues to contain just one statement after the other of calls that he is making around the world stressing that the US is committed to de-escalation and that this was defensive action. It is quite a masterful performance of bluster containing nothing.

Mr Trump added a line to his ‘shtick’ saying that he did this to stop a war, not to start a war. This is on the face of it idiotic, as Americans have been warned to leave Iraq as well as anything between 3,000 and 6,000 (conflicting reports) are being sent to the ME, so wanting to ‘stop a war’ is clearly not working out for him.

– Twitter Hashtags #WorldWar3 and #WWIII are trending.

– Iran considers the assassination of Qassem Soleimani to be an act of war as well as blatant violation of Iraq’s sovereignty.

– We are waiting for Iraq as according to reports, they would be voting as we speak whether to ask the US to leave Iraq or not.  Information still outstanding.

– A senior Iran analyst for the International Crisis Group (ICG) Ali Vaez stated: “Iran is a very powerful country. It has a network of proxies and partners around the region. It can go after US and US allies’ foreign interests all the way from Yemen to Saudi Arabia, to the UAE, to Iraq, to Lebanon, to Syria and Afghanistan.” He also stated to Euronews that an all-out war between the US and Iran would make the conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq look like a walk in the park and that in this event, the US would likely be alone if it were to go to war with Iran.

– Syria condemned the “treacherous American criminal aggression” that will only strengthen the resolve to continue down the path set “by the martyred leaders of the resistance against American interference in the affairs of the countries of the region.”

– Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Trump “deserves all the credit for acting swiftly, forcefully and decisively.”

– Russia’s Foreign Ministry has condemned the killing and said it will increase tensions throughout the Middle East.

– China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said that they are highly concerned and calls for all sides, especially the United States, to exercise “calm and restraint.” This did not stop the impish Editor-in-chief of Chinese and English editions of the Global Times, Hu Xijin to state the following:

“The US humiliating Iran this way sent such a message to North Korea: If it were not for your nuclear weapons, we would be more brutal on you. Now North Koreans are probably thinking: We can lose anything, but not nuclear weapons.”

and

“US’ Middle East policy has largely failed. It paid costly price of life and money in Iraq and Afghanistan. But a pro-Iran regime has emerged in Iraq, Taliban has recaptured influence in Afghanistan. Eliminating Qassem Soleimani won’t solve US’ dilemma in the Middle East.”

– France – Macron wants to avoid a new dangerous escalation and called for restraint.

– Britain – Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab stated that the UK has “always recognised the aggressive threat posed by the Iranian Quds force led by Qasem Soleimani” but the statement did not endorse or condemn the actions of the U.S. though he stated: “further conflict is in none of our interests.”

– Germany – calls for diplomacy and states that the situation has reached a “a dangerous escalation point”.

What seems to be filtering through from these reactions, is that the US will indeed be alone if it chooses to take any further action but it is early days and it is still the time to watch and analyze.

January 4, 2020 Posted by | War Crimes | | Leave a comment

US Asked Iran for ‘Proportionate Response’ to Suleimani Assassination: IRGC

Rear-Admiral Ali Fadavi
Al-Manar | January 4, 2020

The deputy commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said Washington has asked Tehran to respond in proportion after US killed Commander of IRGC’s Quds Force General Qassem Suleimani.

The Americans “resorted to diplomatic measures… on Friday morning”, a few hours after the strike, the Guard’s Rear-Admiral Ali Fadavi said on Iranian state television Friday night.

They “even said that if you want to get revenge, get revenge in proportion to what we did”, he said, as quoted on the broadcaster’s website.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in separate television interview on Friday night that “Switzerland’s envoy transmitted a foolish message from the Americans this morning”.

The Swiss official “was summoned in the evening and received a decisive response in writing… to the Americans’ audacious letter,” Zarif added.

The Swiss foreign ministry confirmed Saturday that its charge d’affaires had handed over a letter from Washington to the Iranians when he was summoned to the foreign ministry on Friday morning.

Switzerland’s embassy in Tehran has represented US interests in the Islamic republic since ties were cut in 1980.

Fadavi, meanwhile, said the United States was not in a position “to determine” Iran’s response.

“The Americans must await severe revenge. This revenge will not be limited to Iran,” he said.

“The Resistance Front, with a vast geography, is ready to materialize this revenge,” he added.

Suleimani, Deputy Commander of Iraq’s Hashd Shaabi Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis and other Iraqi and Iranian commanders were martyred in a US strike at Baghdad international airport early on Friday. The strike was ordered by US President Donald Trump, both the Pentagon and Trump said.

January 4, 2020 Posted by | War Crimes | | Leave a comment

US Long-Planned Assassination of Soleimani Lacks Legal, Strategic Justification – Ex-Envoy

Sputnik – 04.01.2020

WASHINGTON – The Trump administration’s unlawful execution of Iranian Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani is a strategic blunder of mammoth proportions that has now turned every American military official into a target, former US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Chas Freeman told Sputnik.

Soleimani, considered the second most powerful person in Iran’s leadership structure, was killed in a US drone strike in Baghdad on Thursday in the wake of attacks on the American embassy in Iraq. Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy head of the Iran-backed Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), was also killed in the strike.

“This was not retaliation as claimed, but the pre-planned exploitation of a pretext to assassinate a foreign official designated as an enemy,” Freeman said on Friday. “It was an act of war that will inevitably evoke reprisal.”

President Donald Trump claims he ordered the strike because Soleimani and the militia chief had allegedly been plotting “imminent” attacks against US interests.

Freeman, who also served as US Assistant Secretary of Defence for International Security Affairs, said there is no concrete evidence to corroborate Trump’s claims or justify preemptive action.

“The charge that these two were planning attacks on American soldiers and officials could equally well be leveled at US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, White House officials, and US military commanders at all echelons,” he said.

Freeman called the attack an “extrajudicial execution” and further departure from the rule of law in the United States.

The former diplomat observed how the escalation began Sunday with suspicious US strikes against Iranian-backed militia groups in Iraq, which sparked the attacks against the embassy in Baghdad.

“[Soleimani’s death] was preceded by three airstrikes on elements of Kataeb Hezbollah for the death of a civilian contractor in Kirkuk. None of these [US] airstrikes was anywhere near Kirkuk,” Freeman said. “They bore the marks of a pre-planned operation looking for a pretext to launch.

“Meanwhile, Iran has already promised to exact “savage” retribution, he noted.

“Soleimani was the equivalent of the US national security adviser or the commanders of CENTCOM, SOCOM, and SOCCENT. All are now potential Iranian targets,” Freeman warned.

Meanwhile, Kataeb Hezbollah is likely to be joined in its campaign against US forces and officials in Iraq by other patriotic militias including some historically hostile to Iran, the former envoy added.

Although likely a welcome distraction to the impeachment proceedings, in foreign policy terms Trump’s decision “makes no sense at all,” he said.

“It is not a deterrent to Iran so much as a provocation. It pushes Iraq further into the arms of Iran and invites the humiliating expulsion of US forces from Iraq. It makes every American in Iraq a target for murder or hostage taking,” Freeman said.

Trump’s “strategy-free” decision is tantamount to beginning a game of chess with only an opening move in mind, he said.

“It is thus a reminder to the word of the witless hubris and violence with which the United States now conducts its international relations,” Freeman concluded.

January 4, 2020 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

US Military ‘Despised Across the Region’ as Iran, Iraq View Strikes as Acts of War

Sputnik – 04.01.2020

US President Donald Trump argued Friday that the killing of Qasem Soleimani, head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, was to “stop a war” from breaking out. However, the governments of both Iraq and Iran regard the act as the opposite, and one analyst tells Sputnik that the US has actually united the Middle Eastern countries.

Mohammad Marandi, an expert on American studies and postcolonial literature who teaches at the University of Tehran, joined Radio Sputnik’s Loud and Clear on Friday to discuss the motivation behind the US’ attacks in the Middle East and express his thoughts on what’s to come.

Marandi explained to hosts Brian Becker and John Kiriakou that it’s not only the Iranian government who considers the killing of Soleimani to be an act of war, but Baghdad as well.

“The Iraqis consider this to be an act of war because the United States also murdered Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy head of the … Popular Mobilization Forces that spearheaded the fight against [Daesh] in Iraq,” he said, adding that al-Muhandis and Soleimani “were the ones who saved Iraq from [Daesh].”

“The United States has been acting with impunity in Iraq from day one of occupation,” Marandi asserted.

However, the US’ recent strikes against Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces that resulted in the deaths of at least 25 fighters and injured dozens, were particularly sinister, the academic noted.

He highlighted that not only did the strikes take place on the frontlines of the battle against the Daesh on the Iraqi-Syrian border, but the area targeted was hundreds of kilometers away from the nearest US base in the region.

“They did that … to weaken the fight against [Daesh] because the Americans would like to see [Daesh] regain the border between Iraq and Syria, so that Syria would not be able to trade with Iraq,” Marandi argued.

“The Americans ignore the sovereignty of Iraq; they ignore [Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi]; they ignore the will of the Iraqi people; they murder the heroes of the war against [Daesh]; and they wonder why they are so widely despised across the region.”

He went on to say that Washington has gotten to a point where they believe their own propaganda and continue to perpetuate the idea that there is nothing but hatred between Iranians and Iraqis.

“The Western media does not show the huge crowds in Iraqi cities that are protesting against this US act of aggression,” Marandi said, speaking of the strike which killed Soleimani and al-Muhandis.

“The Western media propagates a narrative, then they believe their own narrative, and then they make calculations based on that false narrative,” Marandi noted, saying the US is confronted with repeated setbacks “because their calculations are based on illusions.”

In keeping with this trend of Washington damaging its own goals, “the murder of General Soleimani … served to unite the Iranian population against the United States,” according to Marandi. “And the murder of [Soleimani and al-Muhandis] served to turn the bulk of the Iraqi population against the United States, and it outraged those 400,000 armed forces that led the fight against [Daesh] in Iraq.”

January 4, 2020 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Tehran University’s Mohammed Marandi comments on the murder of Soleimani

January 3, 2020 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

US killing of Iranian commander on Iraqi soil violates terms of US stationing troops in the country – Iraqi PM

RT | January 3, 2020

The interim prime minister of Iraq has condemned the US assassination of a senior Iranian commander, calling it an act of aggression against his country. Qassem Soleimani was killed at Baghdad airport.

Soleimani, the commander of the elite Quds Force, was killed after his convoy was hit by US missiles. A deputy commander of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), the Iraqi militia collective backed by Iran, was killed in the same airstrike.

In a statement on Friday, the caretaker leader of Iraq’s protest-challenged government, Adil Abdul Mahdi, said the US assassination operation was a “flagrant violation of Iraqi sovereignty” and an insult to the dignity of his country.

He stressed that the US had violated the terms under which American troops are allowed to stay in Iraq with the purpose of training Iraqi troops and fighting the jihadist organization Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS). He added that the killing may trigger a major escalation of violence and result in “a devastating war in Iraq” that will spill out into the region.

The Iraqi government has called on the parliament to hold an emergency session to discuss an appropriate response, Mahdi said.

The killing of Soleimani marks a significant escalation in US confrontation with Iran. Washington considers the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), to which Quds belongs, a terrorist organization and claimed the slain commander was plotting attacks on American citizens.

Tehran said the Quds commander was targeted for his personal contribution to defeating IS in Iraq and Syria. Soleimani drove Iran’s support for militias in both countries that fought against the terrorist force.

January 3, 2020 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Palestinian Factions Denounce Suleimani Assassination, Stress Unity of Resistance Front

Al-Manar | January 3, 2020

Palestinian factions on Friday firmly denounced assassination of Quds Force Commander General Qassem Suleimani and Iraq’s Hashd Shaabi deputy commander Abu Mahdi AL-Muhandis in a US strike on Baghdad airport early Friday.

Islamic Jihad resistance movement offered condolences to Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution in Iran Imam Sayyed Ali Khamenei, and Iraqi leadership on the martyrdom of the two commanders.

“The (Muslim) nation raises its flag against this aggression, announcing that there is no retreat in the path towards liberation,” the Islamic Jihad said in a statement, stressing on the unity of the Axis of Resistance.

“Suleimani was targeted as he was on the frontlines of the confrontation.”

For its part, Spokesman of Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of Islamic Jihad, praised Suleimani noting that he played a major role throughout two decades in offering military support to the Palestinian resistance.

“Axis of Resistance won’t be defeated and will grow more powerful in face of the Zio-American scheme,” Abu Hamza, Al-Quds Brigades spokesman said.

Meanwhile, Hamas offered condolences to both Iranian and Iraqi leaderships over the martyrdom of Suleimani and Al-Muhandis.

In a statement, Hamas said Suleimani was one of the prominent Iranian military commanders who offered different kinds of support to the Palestinian resistance.

The Palestinian group held the US fully responsible for the bloodshed in the region, denouncing Washington’s “arrogance” in sowing discord and sedition in the region.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, meanwhile, noted that the assassination of Suleimani and Al-Muhandis requires an “all-out retaliation.”

January 3, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Trump’s Fatal Mistake in Iraq and Beginning of End for US Occupation

Iraqi PMU commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in Baghdad following their defeat of ISIS in 2017 (Photo: Patrick Henningsen 2017©)
By Patrick Henningsen | 21st Century Wire | January 3, 2020

The United States may have just worn out its welcome in Iraq. Whatever comes next will be laid at the feet of the Trump Presidency.

As a result of a series of disastrous moves by US central command, the region now faces the very real prospect of another multinational conflagration in the Middle East, which could include a direct military confrontation between the US and Iran.

How It Began

This past Sunday December 29th, just before the New Year rang in, President Donald Trump gave the order to bomb an Iraqi military base, killing and wounding a number of Iraqi military personnel, including Iraqi Army officers, Iraqi police, as well as soldiers belonging to the People’s Mobilization Unit (PMUs). US Air Force F-15E fighters struck five targets located in Iraq and along the Syria-Iraq border, all said to be controlled by an ‘Iranian-backed paramilitary group,’ according to the Pentagon.

According to Washington defense spokespersons, Sunday’s US airstrike was supposedly in response to a rocket attack which struck the “K1” joint US-Iraqi military base located in Kirkuk in north Iraq, which happened just two days before on Friday December 27th, killing one U.S. defense contractor, and one Iraqi police officer, as well as wounding a further 4 US defense contractors, and 3 Iraqi Army officers. US officials claim they had intelligence which confirmed  that Friday’s rocket attack near Kirkuk was the work of “Iranian militia,” therefore holding the Islamic Republic of Iran responsible. However, no evidence was presented by the US in relation to the claim.

In response to the US bombing its facility on Sunday, Iraqi protesters, including friends and family of fallen soldiers killed in the US bombing raid, and led by Iraqi PMU members and their supporters, stormed the outer perimeter of the US embassy in Baghdad located inside the infamous US-controlled Green Zone. Many US embassy staff were evacuated or airlifted from the compound, and an additional detachment of 100 US Marines were called in as reinforcements, along with an additional 750 troops from fast battalion 82nd Airborne Division sent to Kuwait preparing to go into Iraq. US combat helicopters circled overhead, as well as around the entire Green Zone and over civilians neighborhoods in Baghdad. This move was not received well by the Iraqi government who forbid such US military patrols as part of their status of forces agreement for the country. The siege lasted until News Years Eve on December 31st, before the Iraqi Army and Iraqi Mukhabarat internal security eventually arrived to disperse the angry crowds.

Following the embarrassing scenes at the US embassy on New Years Eve, Washington promised retribution. What followed could very well be the trigger for a renewed war in Iraq, and which may likely result in US forces and personnel eventually being asked (or forced) to leave the country. On Wednesday January 2, 2020, the US launched another airstrike, targeting an access road leading to Baghdad International Airport, and reportedly killed Iranian Quds Force leader, General Qasem Soleimani, as well as senior Iraqi PMU commander, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, according to reports by Iraqi TV.

Both Soleimani and al-Muhandis are considered to be among Iran and Iraq’s most revered military figures, and their targeted assassinations by the US government will certainly be viewed as an act of war by a large portion of the Iraqi and Iranian populations, as well as their respective military and security apparatuses. In particular, al-Muhandis is regarded by many a hero in Iraqi’s hard-fought victory over ISIS in 2017.

Iraqi cabinet officials and parliamentarians have been meeting over the last 48 hours to discuss reviewing the status of their cooperation agreement with the United States which allows for intelligence sharing and US training and technical assistance for Iraqi military divisions. Whether this escalates into officials calling for the US military and its 20,000 troops and defense personnel to pack up and leave the country – remains to be seen.

It should go without saying that this provocative military action by the United States means that US troops and personnel may no longer be safe operating in Iraq.

Questioning US ‘Intelligence’

In order to grasp the full gravity of what the Trump Administration has just done, it’s essential to consider these events in historical context, as the latest reckless move in a long line of US failures in Iraq.

According to veteran Middle East correspondent Elijah Magnier, “The United States of America has fallen into the trap of its own disinformation policy, as exemplified by the work of one of its leading strategic study centres, a neocon think tank promoting war on Iran.”

Magnier adds, “Analysts’ wishful thinking overwhelmed their sense of reality, notably the possibility of realities invisible to them. They fell into the same trap of misinformation and ignorance that has shaped western opinion since the occupation of Iraq in 2003. The invasion of Iraq was justified by the presence of ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ which never existed.”

According to Iraqi officials, at the time of the initial rocket attack on Dec 27th, it was not clear who had actually fired on the K1 joint base. Regardless, a number of data points strongly indicate that the US had already decided who it would be targeting.

According to the New York Times, “President Trump was briefed by Defense Department leaders on Saturday, and allowed the strikes to proceed. Senior officials including Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo traveled to Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Sunday for discussions with the president, American officials said.”

The US had already taken the decision to bomb Iraq before any joint investigation could be conducted between the Iraqi Ministry of Defense and the US authorities. Soon after the Mar-a-lago meeting, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper called acting Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi to inform him the US was not interested in working with Baghdad to find out what happened and who had fired the rockets. Esper told the Iraqi PM that Washington had already received “intelligence” from its trusted sources which said the rocket attack was carried out by a branch of the Iraqi PMUs known as Katiab Hezbollah (no relation to Lebanon’s Hezbollah defense force). It should be noted that these PMU brigades are composed of Iraqi citizens who serve under the official Iraqi military command headquartered in Baghdad. Because this PMU division’s membership is composed of Shia Muslims, United States officials and the US mainstream media have taken the liberty of labeling them as “Iranian militia” – a blatant falsehood, but one which has been disseminated by US officials in order to infer these are somehow ‘Iranian proxies’ and proceeded to pin the alleged responsibility of the initial rocket attack on Iran, in effect, justifying the heavy-handed US retaliation on Sunday, and Washington’s targeted assassinations of Qasem Soleimani, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis on January 2nd.

To date, US officials have provided no evidence to support their claim that the rocket attack on Dec 27th was carried out by Katiab Hezbollah PMUs, nor has the US given any specifics as to the provenance of its ‘intelligence’ which attributed blame to PMUs. If this was indeed a rush to judgement, it would not be the first time the US has perpetrated an act of war against a sovereign state based on faulty, and less than credible intelligence. The recent OPCW leaks have demonstrated beyond any doubt that the US-led airstrikes against Syria in April of 2018 were based on misinformation of a supposed ‘chemical attack’ just days earlier in Douma, Syria on April 7, 2018.

Upon closer review, it’s now clear that what the US claimed it was doing, does not actually match the actions which it had undertaken on Dec 29th. In addition, the US bombing raid on Dec 29th will also have aided ISIS. Magnier explains the obvious US disconnect here:

Mr Abdel Mahdi asked Esper if the US has “proof against Kataeb Hezbollah to share so Iraq can arrest those responsible for the attack on K1”. No response: Esper told Abdel Mahdi that the US was “well-informed” and that the attack would take place “in a few hours”.

In less than half an hour, US jets bombed five Iraqi security forces’ positions deployed along the Iraqi-Syrian borders, in the zone of Akashat, 538 kilometres from the K1 military base (that had been bombed by perpetrators still unknown). The US announced the attack but omitted the fact that in these positions there were not only Kataeb Hezbollah but also Iraqi Army and Federal Police officers. Most victims of the US attack were Iraqi army and police officers. Only 9 officers of Kataeb Hezbollah – who joined the Iraqi Security Forces in 2017 – were killed. These five positions had the task of intercepting and hunting down ISIS and preventing the group’s militants from crossing the borders from the Anbar desert. The closest city to these bombed positions is al-Qaem, 150 km away.

Interestingly, this is not the first time that the US and allies have targeted an Iraqi PMU facility and tried to label it as “Iranian.” Back in September, 21WIRE reported how Israel and Saudi Arabia were reported to have launched supposed ‘retaliatory’ airstrikes against “pro-Iranian militias” stationed along the border between Syria and Iraq. This was reported by the Jerusalem Post at the time:

“Saudis, Israel attack pro-Iran militias on Syria-Iraq border,” and adding that,“Saudi fighter jets have been spotted along with other fighter jets that have attacked facilities and positions belonging to Iranian militias.”

21WIRE also noted how the Jerusalem Post had compiled their report citing multiple sources, including pieces of information from the Independent Arabia, Lebanese outlet Al Mayadeen and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. They reported air strikes hitting targets over the course of that week, killing 31, after hitting what they called “Iranian-backed” Iraqi Hash’d Shaabi (PMUs) positions along the Iraqi-Syria border.

“On Wednesday, five people were killed and another nine were wounded in an airstrike carried out by unidentified aircraft that targeted positions of the Iranian-backed Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces militia in Albukamal, according to Sky News Arabia.”

Why this is crucial, is because it demonstrates previous form by Israel and Saudi Arabia – against near identical targets which the US bombed on Dec 29. It stands to reason then, that the ‘intelligence’ source for both attacks, on Sept 19th, and Dec 29th, seem to be related, deriving from either Israel or Saudi Arabia – both of which are heavily biased against Iran, and viewed it as an existential threat to their own regional geopolitical and military hegemony. In the case of Israel, it has played a visible role in directing US policy regarding Iran since the onset of the Trump Administration. It was Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu who boasted about his role in convincing the White House to unilaterally withdrawal from the JCPOA Iran nuclear deal in May 2018.

It’s also important to note with the US bombing raid on Sunday Dec 29th, the Iraqi bases hit along the Syrian-Iraqi border are located approximately 540km from Kirkuk, far away from where the US claim that Kaitab Hezbollah PMUs had fired the initial rocket attack on Dec 27th – which means that those US targets played no role in Friday’s rocket attack on K1, and more likely had already been selected in advance of Dec 27th, and the US was simply waiting for the right ‘incident’ to green-light a military attack on what it claims to be “Iranian” military targets.

Again, the fact that the US insists on mislabeling its supposed enemy means that nothing productive can come out of the latest series of events – unless Washington considers another full-scale war in Iraq a productive endeavor – a proposition which many would not find that far-flung considering America’s tawdry record in the region.

Iraqi PMUs Defeated ISIS in 2017

In order to properly understand the Iraqi military and PMU’s reaction to this ham-fisted US attack on Iraqi soil, it is important to understand who are the Iraqi People’s Mobilization Units (PMUs), aka the Hash’d al-Shabbi, or ‘Hasheed’ for short. This is the new national militia of Iraq and are the very same soldiers who have fought and died against ISIS for ultimately defeating their terrorist occupation in late 2017. The PMUs were formed in response to the emergence of ISIS and the fall of Mosul in June 2014. The Grand Ayatollah Sistani issued a fatwa in the summer of 2014, which called on all able-bodied men of fighting age to form a coalition of national militias, roughly 130,000 strong, to fight back against ISIS after it had routed the Iraq Army during ISIS’s summer blitzkrieg which saw several key cities taken by the terrorist army, as they headed dangerously close to the capital city Baghdad.

Based on the rhetoric and media coverage we are seeing this week, it’s painfully obvious that few, if any, within the ranks of American foreign policy ‘experts’ and national security journalists, are really aware of this reality on the ground in Iraq. It is widely acknowledged in Iraq, and in the region, that the PMUs played the decisive role in defeating ISIS and securing liberated communities in the latter stages of the country’s terrorist ordeal. It’s important to note also that tens of thousands of Iraqis, including Iraqi Army, Police, Iraqi civilians, and Iraqi PMUs – including these very same PMU units who the US has killed this week – have all died, sacrificing their lives for their country in the fight against the foreign-backed terrorist menace. For the United States political leadership and mainstream media to crassly label them as “Iranian militias,” is to rob Iraqis of an important national victory and strip them of their agency.

As we can now see from the incredible scenes at the US embassy on Tuesday, Washington’s ignorance of the reality on the ground in Iraq has come at a heavy price.

Since its opening in 2008, the new US embassy has not faced any serious challenge to its structural integrity. It is not just any embassy either – it is the world’s largest and most expensive embassy ever constructed, covering a total of 104 acres which is roughly the size of Vatican City, and houses 5,000 embassy staff, military and intelligence personnel. Iraqi protesters breached its outer security walls and main gate, and proceeded to lay waste the embassy’s periphery structures, before pinning down US Marines guarding the compound inside the foyer of one of the outer reception buildings. Now that this facility has been compromised, it can no longer be relied on as the ‘fortress America’ and forward operating station it has been for the past decade.

Trump and Washington’s Fundamental Error

Another important takeaway from all of this is for Americans to realize that Iran posed no national security threat to the United States, but Washington’s insistence on framing every incident in the region as “the work of the Iranian regime” means that forces in Washington desperately want war, and now they can’t hide their agenda. This drive is most certainly being spurred on by US allies in the region, Israel and Saudi Arabia. From an imperialist standpoint, the US and its allies do benefit geopolitically by keeping Iraq divided and weak – ensuring that it can never get back on its feet economically or politically to become influential in the region, and can never become close partners with its two most important neighbors Syria and Iran.

For Washington and Tel Aviv, the road to Tehran has always been through Baghdad, only we’re not in 2003 anymore, and the Middle East playing field has changed dramatically since that time, mostly as a direct consequence of US military and proxy aggression in the region.

Besides this, Iraqis are well aware by now that it is the United States and not Iran, who has already ruined their country for generations to come.

If Washington continues down this path, it could also lead to Trump’s downfall politically.

Unfortunately, Iraq is set again to become the pitch for another ugly geopolitical grudge match between the West and Iran. By showing its ugly hand, Washington has left its adversaries with little choice but to fight back this time.

***

Author Patrick Henningsen is an American writer and global affairs analyst and founder of independent news and analysis site 21st Century Wire, and is host of the SUNDAY WIRE weekly radio show broadcast globally over the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR). He has written for a number of international publications and has done extensive on-the-ground reporting in the Middle East including work in Syria and Iraq. See his archive here.

January 3, 2020 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel is systematically poisoning one million Palestinian children

By Robert Inlakesh | Press TV | January 2, 2019

We have now entered 2020, the year in which experts at the United Nations (UN) once predicted Gaza would become unlivable. But the sad reality is not only that those same experts said that Gaza was already unlivable in 2017, but that now the population of 2 million residing in Gaza are under the real threat of genocide.

Sara Roy of Harvard University’s Centre for Middle Eastern studies, who is considered the leading scholar on Gaza’s economy, has written that “innocent human beings, most of them young, are slowly being poisoned in Gaza by the water that they drink and likely by the soil in which they plant.” So let us break down that statement, based upon the data available to us.

The population of the Gaza Strip is over 2 million strong, more than 50% of which are children (18 and under). Ninety-seven percent of Gaza’s water is undrinkable with only the upper 10% of Gaza’s population having access to clean water according to the UN. If we take these statistics and we look at them critically that would mean that according to conservative estimates only 40% of Gaza’s children are consuming water that is fit for human consumption. This means that parents in the Gaza Strip are forced to make the decision to allow their children to drink contaminated water in order for them to survive.

Israel which has enforced its illegal blockade of Gaza since 2006 – although Zionist propagandists claim it started in June of 2007, which is incorrect – is under international law required to provide Gaza with the ability to sustain itself. Gaza is not a State; it is not a sovereign territory in of itself. According to the UN Gaza constitutes part of what is called the Palestinian occupied territories, with the focus here being on the word “occupied.”

According to the 4th Geneva Convention, Israel is required under International Law to provide the ability for Gaza and the West Bank to sustain an environment of livability. Israel will argue, however, that Gaza specifically is not occupied; that it withdrew in 2005. However it still controls the population registry, the entries and exits, all imports and exports, the electromagnetic sphere, the armistice lines (what Israel calls the border), the territorial waters, airspace as well as having a monopoly on the electricity in Gaza. Israel controls Gaza through and through; meaning that if Israel does not declare an occupation, it is a de facto annexation of the territory.

In excess of 108,000 cubic meters of untreated sewage water flows into the Mediterranean Sea from Gaza. This is due to a lack of power for Gaza’s desalination plant and the lack of building material required to expand, both of which are due to Israel’s policies towards the besieged coastal enclave. The situation is so bad that not only is Gaza’s sea water heavily contaminated, leading to deaths as recently as last year, but also Israel’s Askalan (Ashkelon) based desalination plant periodically halts operations due to the pollution, showing that Israel is willing to put the purification of 20% of its own water at jeopardy in order to punish the Gaza Strip.

Rising from the problem of water contamination is also disease. Gidon Grumberg, the founder and director of Israel’s ‘Ecopeace’, told the Jerusalem post in 2016 that Gaza is a ticking time bomb for cholera and typhoid epidemics. Since then there have been repeated calls for a change to be made to Gaza’s lack of clean water by various experts. If a change is not made in 2020 then Gaza could become a hotbed for disease the way that Yemen has, again due to an illegally imposed blockade.

Beyond the water problem are also numerous other issues plaguing Gaza, all of which are again due to Israel’s illegally imposed – for nearly 15 years now – siege. Upwards of 80% of Gaza’s population are reliant upon international food aid in order to survive, with Israel enforcing a policy of “putting the people of Gaza on a diet,” entailing that Israel counts the minimum caloric intake for the Gazan population to stay alive. Israel of course controls the food aid coming into the Gaza Strip and even makes a profit off of it. The restrictions Israel applies to food coming into Gaza is also used as a political tool in order to punish the Palestinians for their acts of resistance against Israel.

The conservative estimates, according to the United Nations, also indicate that Gaza’s youth unemployment rate is close to hitting 70% with an overall unemployment rate recorded to be at around 50%. Israel also has repeatedly blocked Palestinian cancer patients from entering Israel in order to receive life-saving treatment. Not only this, but due to the lack of power in Gaza, cardiac monitors and X-ray machines become unreliable. In the first half of 2019, the Gaza Health Ministry, which has a regular budget of $40 million a year, had only 10 million dollars worth of supplies available to them and in July (2019) declared a warning of an unprecedented shortage of medicine and medical supplies. According to the World Health Organization 39% of Gaza applications for cancer patients to exit the blockaded Strip were “unsuccessful” in 2018.

Gaza’s population is subjected to sewage regularly flooding, after rainfall, into the streets and causing sickness, especially amongst the poorer population. Even the more well-off, financially, of Gaza’s population, whom of which reside in areas such as Gaza City (North East Gaza), are losing their wealth. Specifically the residents of the al-Rimal area, who are viewed by many as living in an area of prestige are having to flee to places like Istanbul, or become refugees abroad and are losing their families’ assets due to an absence of income.

Gaza currently survives on a few hours of electricity per day, this is due to the fact that Israel put a cap on the amount of electricity it allows into Gaza, as well as the fact that Israel has bombarded and destroyed Gaza’s electrical grid and power plants, on various occasions. The sole, partially destroyed by bombardment, power plant in Gaza is also in a semi-operational state due to the cutting of diesel fuel from the Strip in early 2018, after the Palestinian Authority stopped paying for the fuel.

As of February 2018, the Gaza Strip has been in a “state of emergency.” Enduring, since the beginning of the siege, eight large-scale military offensive massacres by Israel, with hundreds of smaller bombardments coming in between.

A 17 year old in Gaza would have experienced Israeli internal occupation, a 15 year long ever tightening siege, 8 large scale massacres, hundreds of other attacks, three wars, the constant buzzing of drones, the deaths of friends and family, temporary or permanent displacement and the list goes on and on.

To top this all off, when the people of Gaza rose up in their hundreds of thousands non-violently, beginning on the 30th March (2018), they were ignored by the world which has done nothing to stop Israel for its murder of 330+ unarmed demonstrators and the injuring of approximately 40,000. Until now, the demonstrations are still ongoing on a weekly basis and no Israeli soldiers have been killed or sustained any serious injuries.

According to International Law, the people of Gaza have every right to use armed force in order to struggle for self determination and to end the siege. Israel has no claim to a “right of self defence”, just as a rapist would have no claim to a right of self defence against their rape victim, and the next time we hear of Israel’s “right” in anyway to use force, we must know that whoever repeats this is contradicting the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Aviv Kochavi said recently in a speech pertaining to a future war against Gaza, that Israel will target electrical, agricultural and other structural components, which according to Israel contribute to keeping Hamas – Gaza’s governing Party – afloat. This means that if Israel does begin a new massacre (war) against Gaza – or Hamas as they will claim – then it will mean that all the statistics listed off above will accelerate to unprecedented numbers and that Gaza will become even more uninhabitable.

The only questions now left to be answered are, what will stop Israel from completely genociding the people of Gaza? and how will the worlds future generations look at us today for allowing this holocaust to occur against the people of Palestine. One million Palestinian children are being systematically poisoned by Israel and there is nothing but deafening silence.

Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer and political analyst, who has lived in and reported from the occupied Palestinian West Bank. He has written for publications such as Mint Press, Mondoweiss, MEMO, and various other outlets. He specializes in analysis of the Middle East, in particular Palestine-Israel. He also works for Press TV as a European correspondent.

January 2, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

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