In the northern Jordan Valley last week, Israeli forces destroyed a 1,000 metre pipeline built to provide water to Palestinian communities. In East Jerusalem, tens of thousands of Palestinians have been cut off from a regular supply of running water for nearly a year. In Gaza, the water infrastructure has been decimated and in the homes that do receive water it is still undrinkable. Water and who controls it has become a key part of Israel’s occupation, with the Palestinian territories; West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, in a constant struggle for the vital resource.
Before the birth of Israel, Chaim Weizmann, who would become the country’s first president, said in 1919: “[It is] of vital importance not only to secure all water resources already feeding the country, but also to control them at their source.” Rafael Eitan, chief of staff and minister of agriculture and environment, said some years later: “Israel must hold on to the West Bank to make sure that Tel Aviv’s taps don’t run dry.”
Current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in 1998: “And when I talk about the importance to Israel’s security… It means that a housewife in Tel Aviv can open the tap and there’s water running to it, and it’s not been dried up because of a rash decision that handed over control of our aquifers to the wrong hands.”
In 1967, the year the occupation began, Israel put the plan Weizmann had talked about as early as 1919 into action. All Palestinian water resources were declared Israeli State Property and Palestinians had to apply for permits to develop their water resources. After nearly 30 years, the Oslo Accords were signed, supposedly bringing an end to the situation. Another 20 years on, it is apparent that they instead formalised and legitimised an existing discriminatory arrangement – an arrangement still in place today.
In the West Bank, the Jordan River, one of the main water sources, has been diverted upstream into Lake Kinneret/Tiberias/Sea of Galilee – lakes inside Israel, while Palestinians are physically barred from accessing its river banks. Palestinians have access to one fifth of the mountain aquifer, the other main source, while Israel abstracts the balance, and in addition overdraws by more than 50 per cent, up to 1.8 times its share under Oslo.
The Separation Wall, roadblocks, checkpoints and other Israeli ‘security measures’ further restrict Palestinian communities’ access to water resources and filling points. Meanwhile Israeli settlers living in the same territory are supplied with an abundance of water; the consumption of more than 500,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank is about six times higher than that of 2.6 million Palestinians in the West Bank.
To boost insufficient supplies, the Palestinians must buy water from Israel’s national water company “Mekorot” – the same water that Israel extracts from the mountain aquifer and which the Palestinians should be able to extract for themselves.
Jamal Juma, coordinator of the Stop the Wall campaign, an organisation which is part of a network of groups challenging Mekorot, said: “The real water problem in Palestine is not about scarcity of water. There is more annual rainfall in Ramallah than in London and per capita consumption of water in Israel is higher than the average consumption in Europe. The water problem in Palestine is created by Israel, through systematic theft of water and denial of access to water. Mekorot is the core player in implementing what we call Israel’s water apartheid.”
For East Jerusalem residents the situation is slightly different. East Jerusalem fell under Israeli jurisdiction after Israel annexed the whole of the city. The Jerusalemite Palestinians pay taxes to Israel and also technically qualify for Israeli healthcare, social benefits and services – including running water. However, the neighbourhoods of Ras Shehada, Ras Khamis, Dahyat A’salam and the Shuafat refugee camp have been suffering from a severe water crisis since last March when residents went three weeks without any water supply. They have been forced to buy water bottles at a high cost, and must limit their consumption by using electric pumps and industrial containers.
In Gaza, the water infrastructure is in pieces as a result of repeated wars and a blockade which has prevented repairs and maintenance. By the end of the latest bombardment over the summer, around 26 water wells had been completely or partially destroyed, while 46 kilometres of the water supply networks had been damaged, according to a statement by the Palestinian Water Authority. The water distribution network suffered an estimated $34.4 million worth of damage.
Waste water treatment is another longstanding problem in Gaza. Many residents are not connected to a sewage system and domestic waste flows into cesspits, contaminating groundwater. Electricity shortages and damages to waste water treatment facilities during “Operation Cast Lead”, Israel’s 2008-2009 military offensive, made the situation worse – some 90 million litres of untreated sewage flows into the Mediterranean daily.
Prior to the recent attack, 97 per cent of residents in Gaza were connected to a public water system. However, 90 per cent of this was undrinkable and so residents were forced to buy water treated in governmental or private factories, or factories run by charities. The public water system means households can have running water; however electricity and fuel shortages prevent the water from being pumped through the system.
Access to water is a highly politicised and manipulated resource in Palestine. As Palestinian communities suffer – albeit through the destruction of their wells, through water that doesn’t come through the taps, or sewage that flows into the street – it is clear that, in Palestine, water is not a right.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has just published its 25th annual report. World Report 2015 runs 644 pages, reviewing human rights situation in over 90 countries.
HRW’s Executive Director Kenneth Roth laments what the organization labels as a “circle-the-wagon approach to human rights.” According to Roth, “Human rights violations played a major role in spawning or aggravating many of today’s crises,” highlighting that “[p]rotecting human rights and ensuring democratic accountability are key to resolving them.”
Fine. Considering the report’s analysis on the human rights climate in the Middle East, however, one cannot but notice how HRW is quite careful in dealing with the subtleties of advocating for respect for human rights, on one hand, yet conveniently dismissing the issue of U.S. power in the region, on the other.
Although its clout is in decline, the U.S. is the most influential external power operating in the Middle East. Besides the immensely destructive U.S. invasion of Iraq, the military footprint of the U.S. in the Middle East is substantial. The U.S. has a permanent deployment of its military personnel in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Saudi-Arabia, Turkey and Egypt.
For an American NGO seeking to raise the profile of human rights, one obvious question regarding the U.S. and the Middle East could be, for starters: How much is there room for improvement in the region’s human rights climate if the U.S. continues to back states that it deems sympathetic to U.S. foreign policy interests — such as Saudi-Arabia, Israel and Egypt — and which happen to be among the worst human rights violators in the world?
The question of the legitimacy of U.S. power in the Middle East is of primary importance. Here are some basic factors to consider.
First of all, as far as one can tell from the available data and research on public opinion in Middle Eastern countries, there is little popular support for, and quite a bit of opposition to, U.S. hegemony. Secondly, economic wealth and political power are highly concentrated and the degree of militarization and the number of armed conflicts is exceptionally high in the Middle East. Thirdly, most of the regional powers are close U.S. allies which are able to continue to breach human rights partly due to massive U.S. backing.
This might lead to the conclusion that the U.S. influence in the region is not a bed of roses. But despite its startling simplicity, this equation is nowhere to be seen in the domestic U.S. political discourse, not even in the human rights camp. HRW is indeed able to criticize particular aspects of U.S. foreign policy, including its foreign policy in the Middle East, but HRW avoids touching the overriding issue of the legitimacy of U.S. clout in the region. Nonetheless, given the realities outlined above, it is a no-brainer that the U.S. cannot under any stretch of the imagination maintain such clout without being in fundamental conflict with realization of human rights and democratic principles.
No state has been able — nor probably willing — to exercise power in an area outside of its borders against the will of the area’s population while simultaneously respecting and enforcing human rights. This should be obvious. Hence, an American human rights organization that merely demands that U.S. adheres to the principles of human rights ends up lacking credibility, for such a demand rings hollow if the broader question of U.S.-imposed influence is not addressed.
After the Second Intifada had erupted, I became one of Amnesty International’s (AI) country coordinators on Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territories. Before I joined the AI team, I had come to the conclusion that conventional human rights work would serve the cause of Palestinian self-determination. I was wrong.
Our group, and AI as a whole, was calling on Israel to abide by international law. I still agree with that. But the Israel-Palestine conflict is a political conflict and highly political topics may or may not be resolvable by the mere enforcement of human rights and international law. To illustrate, rather than demanding an immediate end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, AI simply asks Israel to respect human rights in the territories. But to ask a state which maintains a military occupation of an area against the will of the people in that area to merely respect human rights seems absurd — somewhat as useful as asking a mugger to be polite.
I still tried to make it work. Everything will be fine if we all just adhere to the law, respect human rights and never breach anything that the Fourth Geneva Convention states.
Then I began to notice stumbling blocks that were completely unjustifiable. AI would be quite willing to accuse Palestinian armed groups of crimes against humanity, yet letting Israel off the hook with just the “excessive use of force” accusation. Observing this was a turning point.
In 2004, for example, AI’s press release stated on attacks carried out by armed Palestinian groups:
“Such deliberate attacks against civilians, which have been widespread, systematic and in furtherance of a stated policy to attack the civilian population, constitute crimes against humanity, as defined by Article 7 (1) and (2)(a) of the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal.”
How come AI was so reluctant to use the same terminology when describing Israel’s conduct? To this day, no satisfactory answer has been provided since no satisfactory answer exists.
Since I left the AI country coordinator team, not much has changed. AI and HRW still produce top-notch research on human rights violations and legal aspects of various wars and conflicts, yet their political analysis remains as inadequate as it was back in the days when I was at AI.
To conclude, here is what HRW’s Kenneth Roth wrote about U.S. invasion of Iraq:
“Human Rights Watch ordinarily takes no position on whether a state should go to war. The issues involved usually extend beyond our mandate, and a position of neutrality maximizes our ability to press all parties to a conflict to avoid harming noncombatants. — Because the Iraq war was not mainly about saving the Iraqi people from mass slaughter, and because no such slaughter was then ongoing or imminent, Human Rights Watch at the time took no position for or against the war.”
After decades of impunity, those responsible for the wave of political violence that swept Latin America under the dictatorships of 1970s and 1980s will be tried in court this week in Rome, Italy.
Thirty-three people have been formally charged for their links to the operation, which left 50,000 people dead, 30,000 disappeared, and 400,000 jailed.
Among those killed were 23 Italian citizens, which is why Italy’s justice system is now ruling on the case, opened in 1999.
Operation Condor was a coordinated political assassination and persecution plan drafted in the 1970s by South American military dictatorships, with the help of foreign governments. It sought to eliminate any resistance or political rivals, mostly targeting left-wing groups.
The military chiefs of participating countries were provided with a command center by the United States, located in Panama, through which they could communicate and share intelligence on their victims. Declassified U.S. documents show the government knew about the operation but still continued to back the military dictatorships.
Evidence suggests that the beginning of the operation coincided with a visit made by Manuel Contreras – then Chile’s intelligence chief – to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Several researchers believe that U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was involved in the assassination scheme.
French intelligence agents were also part of the operation and helped the South American military chiefs to implement many of the counterinsurgency tactics that France had used against the Algerian resistance.
The Italian court is not expecting the former military chiefs and politicians to attend the hearing, although it has given them the possibility to do so through a video conference.
Among the people charged are 11 former military junta members from Chile, 16 from Uruguay, four from Peru, and one from Bolivia.
Former Bolivian President Luis Garcia Meza has also been accused by the Attorney Giancarlo Capaldo, however he has not been charged given that he has not yet responded to the formal notification against him.
The trial will take place inside Rebbibia prison and will be presided over by Judge Evelina Canale and Judge Paolo Colella.
The cross-party group also highlighted the use of anti-Semitic terms online.
Last week, a Community Security Trust report said UK anti-Semitic incidents more than doubled to 1,168 in 2014. […]
The report said: “There is an allowance in the law for banning or blocking individuals from certain aspects of internet communication in relation to sexual offences.
“Informal feedback we have received from policy experts indicates that this is a potential area of exploration for prosecutors in relation to hate crime.
“If it can be proven in a detailed way that someone has made a considered and determined view to exploit various online networks to harm and perpetrate hate crimes against others then the accepted principles, rules and restrictions that are relevant to sex offences must surely apply.”
The report also said there was an “unacceptable rise in anti-Semitic incidents” in July and August last year.
It added: “It is for non-Jews to speak out and lead the fight against anti-Semitism with strong action.”
It also called for:
A government fund to be set up to cover the costs of security at synagogues
Fresh research on identifying and explaining anti-Semitic language
Guidance for teachers on how to handle the Middle East conflict in the classroom
A recent article in The Jewish Chronicle (29 March 2007) reports that “concern over increasing Anti-Semitism in Britain is reflected in the government’s broad acceptance of the grim conclusions of last year’s Parliamentary inquiry into hatred directed at the Jewish community”. It goes on to say that “In a 20-page command paper that will be presented to Parliament, ministers have backed action on the majority of the inquiry’s recommendations and expressed understanding of communal anxieties” […]
Unfortunately, The All Party Inquiry into anti-Semitism and the Government’s follow-up recommendations fail to recognize that a multi-racial and multi-faith society ought to have a coordinated and consistent policy whereby no ethnic or, religious, group, should be considered in isolation from other such groups. Thus, an inquiry into anti-Semitism which singles out one particular religion may constitute an unwelcome precedent that may lead to undesirable, if not harmful, effects. Moreover, the follow-up report takes a dangerous step by stating that rhetoric about Israel and Zionism, “from the far right to the far left and Islamic extremists alike, employs anti-Semitic motifs that are consistent with ancient forms of hatred towards Jews”
This seems to suggest that peace organizations and activists who criticize Israel may be under the danger of being subjected to a witch hunt reminiscent of McCarthyism and the un-American activities campaign of the 50s. A similar danger equally applies to universities where the report points out that anti-Semitic activities are “all the more regrettable for occurring in places where [Jewish students] should be free to study unhindered by prejudice and harassment”.
The above statement is clearly inflammatory and opens the way to accusations and counter- accusations against any political and social activity on the campus which is deemed to be undesirable by Jewish students or the Union of Jewish Students. This may also legitimize the imposition of pressure on academic lecturers who seem to criticize Israel’s policies. Such an example could be seen by the recent pronouncements of the UJS and the Jewish Board of Deputies against the appointment of the reputable Israeli historian -Ilan Pappe – to the Chair of the History Department at Exeter University. The Chief Executive of the Board has recently told TotalyJewish.com that “after taking full advantage of all the freedoms accorded to him in Israel, a country he has so shamelessly attacked, Pappe has decided to set up shop here. …. the uncomfortable fact is that in the lecture theatres and seminar rooms at Exeter, many impressionable young minds will be exposed to his partial and biased views.”
Similar, though more harsh and dangerous, precedents take place in USA where academics who express critical views of Israel’s policies are hounded and, on occasion, lose their posts due to unacceptable pressure from the Jewish lobby there. The vile campaign and attempts by the pro-Israeli lobby to prevent the granting of tenure to Professor Norman Finkelstein – who is a staunch critic of Israel’s constant violation of human rights – is a case in point.
Sadly, various forms of harassment by Israel’s apologists are quite wide-spread in Britain. In the course of my work with peace organisations in Britain I encountered, along with my colleagues, the phenomenon of “reverse anti-Semitism”- namely, being claimed to be anti-Semite by Jewish groups and individuals who could not tolerate the fact that a Jew, or an Israeli like myself, is prepared to criticize Israel’s policies and its treatment of the Palestinians. […]
If the Government chooses to ignore the political and social marginalization of the Muslim community, and to regard the views of Israel’s critics as being an implicit form of anti-Semitism, it may face the danger of engendering a perilous and inexcusable rift in Britain’s pluralist society. Such a policy may stand in a stark contrast to the Government’s declared efforts of “wining the hearts and minds” of disaffected communities and their members. – Full article
The leader of France’s rightwing Front National (FN), Marine Le Pen, has called Brussels “American lackeys” over the EU’s Ukraine policy. She further accused Washington of attempting to start a “war in Europe” and expand NATO towards Russia’s borders.
“European capitals do not have the wisdom to refuse to be dependent on US positions on Ukraine,” Le Pen told French journalists on Sunday.
“Regarding Ukraine, we behave like American lackeys,” she said, before warning that “the aim of the Americans is to start a war in Europe to push NATO to the Russian border.”
She went on to accuse European leaders of turning a blind eye to the Ukrainian government’s “bombing of civilians,” adding that both those in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine believed the country should be federalized.
Le Pen has regularly criticized the EU for its policy on Ukraine and its alleged lack of independence from Washington.
In September, she told Le Monde that the ongoing crisis in Ukraine is “all the European Union’s fault,” saying Brussels had “blackmailed the country to choose between Europe and Russia.”
In June, she similarly told RT’s Sophie Shevardnadze that there were “no independent states left in Europe,” saying many of their foreign policy mistakes in recent times had been made “under Washington’s influence.”
Her words echoed statements by former French Prime minister Francois Fillon, who told the public broadcaster France 5 on Sunday that the United States was attempting to “unleash a war in Europe, which would end in catastrophe.” He added that once a war broke out, the US would attempt to distance itself from it.
“Total war caused [by the] Ukrainian conflict is absolutely unacceptable. And really there is no reason for it,” he said.
Fillon accused the US of suffering from “blindness” and an oversimplified approach to reality, which saw them constantly attempting to “solve all problems by force.”
He further said Washington was always attempting to force others to join its camp, a mistaken approach given that a country like Ukraine has ties to both Europe and Russia.
“The Americans have made one mistake after another and today they have simply been discredited,” said Fillon.
He added that attempting to punish Russia with sanctions was like trying to intimidate a bear with a pin prick. He further commended recent efforts by French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to open a dialogue with Moscow.
“The West is trying to imagine today Russia as a threat to the whole world, while deliberately forgetting that Russia is a large and truly a great country, not to mention a nuclear power,” he said.
“Humiliating Russia is simply unacceptable.”
Also on Saturday, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that Europe was part of “a common civilization with Russia,” saying they needed to avoid conflict on the continent.
“The interests of the Americans with the Russians are not the interests of Europe and Russia,” he said, adding that “we do not want the revival of a Cold War between Europe and Russia.”
Windows were shattered and homes shaken in Donetsk after a huge blast rocked the vicinity of a city chemical plant which was under rebel control. Kiev and the militants accuse each other of causing the blast.
The powerful explosion took place at 10:50pm local time on Sunday. Local militia reported that a military chemical plant DKZHI was the target of Kiev’s artillery shelling.
Witnesses saw the sky lit up by the explosion, some nearby living residents had their windows broken by the blast’s shockwave and many others felt the ground shake, RIA Novosti reported. Even those living in nearby towns said they felt the tremor.
“The center of the blast was near DKZHI,” co-chairman of the anti-Kiev People’s Front Konstantin Dolgov said on his Facebook page. The factory is known for producing chemical products used for industrial explosives, ammunition and equipment artillery bombs. This is not the first time the plant has been the target of a Kiev attack. It was also hit with artillery rockets in September and November.
The militia forces would not immediately confirm if there were casualties, either among militiamen or civilians. But they said the fire, which started after the explosion, poses no threat of a chemical spill, which is a cause of great concern at the plant, as it handles toxic compounds in producing explosives.
“The fire has been contained. There is not threat of chemical spill… Most likely it was a high-caliber artillery shell,” said an official from the Donetsk People’s Republic.
The spokesman for Kiev’s Anti-Terrorist Operation said that rebels were at fault for the accident.
“This was caused by a dropped cigarette butt,” Andrey Lysenko told the media on Monday.
“Accidents often happen in factories where no one is responsible for fire safety. Well, it’s chaos, and they are barbarians.”
Not all pro-Kiev officials agreed.
The Ukrainian military deployed a Smerch (the BM-30 Tornado) multiple rocket system to shell the area in the city, Boris Filatov, former deputy head of the industrial Dnepropetrovsk Region and a member of the Ukrainian parliament (Verkhovna Rada), said on his Facebook page.
According to Filatov, the men who fired the missiles “do not know what they hit because they were shooting based on coordinates.”
Earlier, Ukrainian far-right politician and paramilitary commander Dmitry Yarosh, who is involved in the Kiev military action in southeastern Ukraine, confirmed on his Facebook page that the explosion was caused by Ukrainian artillery. … Full article
At last the Armageddon nightmare which is the existence of nuclear arsenals is exploding into the UK’s political consciousness. At last the magical word ‘deterrent’ which is supposed to automatically kill dissent is being examined and unmasked as the delusion by which the paranoid silence that still small voice, the voice which says it is a crime against humanity to prepare to incinerate a large part of the world’s population and risk triggering a global nuclear war.
It started with the Scottish Independence movement and now the abhorrence of these vile instruments of genocide is manifesting in Wales. In England the reckless imperial posture in the Westminster bubble has not yet been overthrown. Both Conservatives and Labour want a like-for-like replacement when the existing nuclear fleet ends its working life in the late 2020s, while the Liberal Democrats want to downsize to three submarines! But more and more of the public have other ideas. They want a world ban as has been achieved for the other weapons of mass destruction, chemical and biological.
Scotland
On September 18th, 2014 the Scottish people voted on whether to remain as part of the United Kingdom of Britain. The prospect of Scotland going its own way caused a panic among the power elites of Westminster. A prime driving force in Scotland was the people’s loathing of nuclear weapons and their anger at having the Westminster government’s nuclear submarines dumped in the river Clyde near Glasgow. The Scottish government has pledged to remove and permanently ban nuclear weapons from Scottish territory within the first term of an independent parliament.
The Ministry of Defence had no backup plan and removing the submarines to England would be a financial and logistical nightmare. Even if it were possible to move them to the estuary of the Mersey, Tyne or Wear it seems unlikely that the local English people would greet them with open arms. The prospect of the Scottish people ridding themselves of this ‘Sword of Damocles’1 caused panic in other establishment quarters besides the political. Vice-Admiral McAnally, a former commandant of the Royal College of Defence Studies, said there is “every possibility” Britain could be forced into unilateral nuclear disarmament. Good! The UK would then be honouring its commitment under the Nuclear Non-proliferation treaty and become an example to the nuclear states of the world. Although the Admiral did not see it this way!
On this occasion the majority of the people of Scotland decided not to split with England. However, since then the membership of the Scottish National Party has massively increased. The matter of a split with England will be back. There is a limit to what people will tolerate, and it is intolerable that the Scottish people have these foul instruments of Armageddon dumped in their territory by a fearful and deluded elite in Westminster.
Wales
It was rumoured that the Westminster nuclear government will get themselves off the hook by moving their arsenal from Scotland to Wales. They got a rude awakening. Speaking the day after the world marked 70 years since the end of the holocaust, a senior peer in the Welsh Plaid Cymru government, Lord Wigley, declared that the Welsh government would be ‘tremendously opposed’ to shifting Westminster’s nuclear arsenal from Faslane in Scotland to Pembrokeshire in Wales. In an effort to emphasise the horror of what was being proposed, he compared the effects of a Trident submarine to those of a Nazi death camp. When it was suggested that the move would have the benefit of bringing jobs to Wales he pointed out that “No doubt there were many jobs provided at Auschwitz’ but ‘..you have to consider the nature of the work and not just that a job exists.” Quite so. There are 5000 people employed at the UK’s Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston. Surely they would be happier building machines for sustainable energy than for Armageddon. He was unequivocal about the Welsh position saying, “We believe that Trident shouldn’t be renewed and we most certainly don’t want that renewal to happen in …Wales’.
England
A vast number of citizens in England as well as in Scotland and Wales want no truck with threatening the world with genocidal weapons if our ‘vital interests’ are threatened. And in England, too, many are organising to ensure that finally sanity will prevail.
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and Action AWE organised the knitting of a seven miles long peace scarf which was first stretched between Aldermaston and Burghfield, the government’s two nuclear weapons-building factories then used to wrap the Ministry of Defense building in London.
In spite of the vast resistance to spending 100 billion pounds of citizens money on the instruments of Armageddon, the House of Commons (containing the purported ‘Representatives of the people’), on January 20th, 2015, in its Pied Piper, follow the leader, whip-obeying habit, voted 364 to 37 to obey their power elite bosses and replace the UK government’s nuclear arsenal (250 MPs, including the Labour leader Mr Milliband, abstained).
Trident renewal will be a big issue at the forthcoming election in May. Citizens are sick of being told there is not enough money for the National Health Service, schools, decent housing, and social services when the Westminster bubble is spending 36 billion pounds a year on the arms services, building billion pound aircraft carries and already spending billions of the 100 billion they will spend for Trident in spite of the fact that the final go-ahead is not to be given till 2016. At the same time The Bulletin of Atomic Scientist has just moved the hands of the ‘doomsday clock’ to 3 minutes to midnight. Only three minutes left of 24 hours to step back from the nuclear brink.
The Churches
On July 7th, 2014, the World Council of Churches issued a ‘Statement towards a Nuclear-Free World’. Included in the statement are the following paragraphs:
Nuclear weapons cannot … be reconciled with real peace. They inflict unspeakable suffering with blast, heat and radiation…. Their power is indiscriminate ….As long as nuclear weapons exist, they pose a threat to humanity.
Nuclear strategy… demands an unequivocal commitment to use the weapons and nuclear history is rife with accidents, miscalculations and near-disasters…. even one nuclear detonation would overwhelm the emergency services of any country in the world. The only way to ensure that nuclear weapons are never used again is to eliminate the weapons themselves.
The pope sent a message to a recent conference in Vienna, attended by more than 150 governments. The purpose of the conference was to advance public understanding of what is now called the “catastrophic humanitarian consequences” of any use of the 16,300 nuclear weapons possessed by nine countries. Pope Francis declared: “Nuclear deterrence and the threat of mutually assured destruction cannot be the basis for an ethics of fraternity and peaceful coexistence.” He called for a worldwide dialogue, “to ensure that nuclear weapons are banned once and for all to the benefit of our common home.”
On May 2010, The Church of England Ethical Investment Advisory Group, published its Defence investment policy. Its recommendations included that national investing bodies should exclude from their investments:
Any company involved in the production or supply of indiscriminate weaponry (defined as nuclear weapons, anti-personnel mines, cluster munitions, chemical weapons or biological weapons),..
Any company involved in the production, processing, supply or storage of weapons-grade nuclear fissile materials, with no turnover threshold to be applied.
In September 2014, Baptists Together, the Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church, reiterated their call for the abolition of Trident.
The Quakers have always opposed Trident. They urge citizens to persuade the government to abandon the replacement of Trident and promote a nuclear weapons-free UK.
The Quaker position was made clear at their Meeting for Sufferings, 1955, “Quaker faith and practice” as follows:
We believe that no one has the right to use [nuclear] weapons in his defence or to ask another person to use them on his behalf. To rely on the possession of nuclear weapons as a deterrent is faithless; to use them is a sin.
The Way Ahead
As ever more citizens wake up to the way they are disempowered by the present power elite system the more they will realise that our democracy needs to be, and can be, updated from 19th century thinking to 21st century possibilities. We vote about every four years and thereafter we are in the hands of a small group of individuals for the decisions which govern our life. With modern technology every citizen could be given an electronic vote on every important issue and decision. This is the way forward. The software has already been developed (See Democracy OS). It only remains for citizens to ensure it is adopted. Democracy means rule by the people. With each citizen given the opportunity to vote on each vital issue democracy will truly have arrived.
In the meantime to rid ourselves of this curse, each of us can work alone by lobbying government and helping to inform the public, join one of the very many open membership organisations like the Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons (CND), or express our support for such think tanks as The British American Security Information Council (BASIC) whose primary aim is identifying opportunities for all states to take credible, stabilizing steps towards sustainable nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.
Do not be discouraged by the power of vested interests and governments with their own agenda. The American anthropologist Margaret Mead famously declared:
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.
President JF Kennedy declared “Today, every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be habitable. Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles…’
~
Jim McCluskey is the author of The Nuclear Threat.
Iran has criticized the United Nations Security Council for failing to take action against the Israeli regime over its recent deadly airstrike on the occupied Golan Heights in Syria, Press TV reports.
“The Security Council remains indifferent in making any position on condemning the aggressor while it was a clear violation of international law,” Iran’s Ambassador to the UN Gholam Hossein Dehqani told Press TV.
“Once again the Security Council allowed that regime to get away with the crime it committed and failed to condemn the aggression which was done by Israel,” he added.
The Iranian envoy said the Israeli regime’s impunity does not serve peace and security in the world and would lead to the deaths of more innocent people.
Dehqani’s comments come in the wake of an Israeli airstrike in Syria on January 18 that claimed the lives of six Hezbollah members, including 25-year-old Jihad Mughniyeh, the son of slain top Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh, and a general of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).
Media reports that Israel carried out the terror attack in the strategic southwestern city of Quneitra in Golan Heights with the help of Takfiri terrorists, particularly the al-Nusra Front.
Israel has carried out numerous airstrikes in Syria over the past couple of years. The Syrian army has repeatedly seized huge quantities of Israeli-made weapons and advanced military equipment from the foreign-backed militants inside Syria.
However, the UN has so far failed to take any action over the attacks, which have been condemned by Damascus as violation of its sovereignty.
The Golan Heights have been under the Israeli occupation since the 1960s. The Tel Aviv regime captured the Syrian territory during the Six-Day War of 1967 and annexed the region in 1981.
At every stage of the Ukrainian crisis Washington has been taking steps that “only promoted further aggravation of the situation,” Russian FM Sergey Lavrov said at the Munich Security Conference.
The West connives to justify Kiev’s military operation in eastern Ukraine, which involves the use of internationally prohibited munitions, such as cluster weapons, the head of the Russian delegation in Munich pointed out.
“We cannot understand why in Afghanistan, Yemen and Mali the West is calling on the governments to hold talks with the opposition, in some cases even with extremists, whereas in regard to the Ukrainian crisis, the West is indulging Kiev in its military operation,” Lavrov said.
However, there is every chance the peace talks in Moscow could unravel the conflict in Ukraine, he added, saying that Russia will persist in pursuing the peace process.
“Russia is set to promote the peace process in Ukraine.We consistently stand against further warring, we advocate withdrawal of heavy weapons and initiating direct talks between Kiev and the militia in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions,” Russia’s Foreign Minister stressed.
Russia, Germany and France are ready to become guarantors of the agreements that could be achieved between the protagonists in the Ukraine crisis, Sergey Lavrov believes.
“If the main participants of the Minsk peace process, the Ukrainian authorities and the representatives of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, come to an understanding on every article of the Minsk agreements, I’m absolutely sure that Russia will be there to secure the guarantees of these agreements,” he said.
“No matter where: in the OSCE or the UN Security Council, I’m certain that both Germany and France are also ready to provide such guarantees, too.”
The Russian Foreign Minister once again stressed there is no military solution to the Ukrainian crisis.
“This was proved last summer when the situation on the battlefield forced [Kiev] to sign the Minsk agreement. It is being proved now that another attempt to gain a military victory is withering away.”
Moscow needs a normal relationship with the EU and the US, yet the strategic partnership with EU has “failed the test of durability,” Lavrov stated. In turn, the US is “always trying to shoulder the blame on Russia in complicated situations created by themselves.”
Sergey Lavrov told the 51st Munich Security Conference on Saturday that Moscow is well aware of the US’s real role in the Ukrainian crisis.
“The US made it public it brokered the transit of power in Ukraine. But we know perfectly well what exactly happened, who discussed candidates for the future Ukrainian government on the phone, who was at Maidan, and what is going on (in Ukraine) right now,” Lavrov said.
No Russian military or other experts participated in those events, Lavrov said, noting that Moscow would like to see “the people of Ukraine restoring unity on the basis of national dialogue.”
As for the re-unification of the Crimea Peninsula with Russia, Lavrov pointed out that this happened through the self-determination of the Crimean population.
“In Crimea what happened complies with the UN Charter on self-determination,” the minister said. “The UN Charter has several principles, and the right of a nation for self-determination has a key position.”
The structure of European security has been undermined by the actions of the US and its allies, the head of Russian diplomacy said.
“European security is based on the UN Charter and Helsinki Declaration principles, long sabotaged by the actions of the US and its allies.”
He added that the US and Europe should answer a question whether they are they going to maintain European security with Russia or without it.
On September 11, 2013, hundreds of thousands of Chileans solemnly marked the 40th anniversary of their nation’s 9/11 terrorist event. It was on that date in 1973 that the Chilean military, armed with a generous supply of funds and weapons from the United States, and assisted by the CIA and other operatives, overthrew the democratically-elected government of the moderate socialist Salvador Allende. Sixteen years of repression, torture and death followed under the fascist Augusto Pinochet, while the flow of hefty profits to US multinationals – IT&T, Anaconda Copper and the like – resumed. Profits, along with concern that people in other nations might get ideas about independence, were the very reason for the coup and even the partial moves toward nationalization instituted by Allende could not be tolerated by the US business class.
Henry Kissinger was national security advisor and one of the principal architects – perhaps the principal architect – of the coup in Chile. US-instigated coups were nothing new in 1973, certainly not in Latin America, and Kissinger and his boss Richard Nixon were carrying on a violent tradition that spanned the breadth of the 20th century and continues in the 21st – see, for example, Venezuela in 2002 (failed) and Honduras in 2009 (successful). Where possible, such as in Guatemala in 1954 and Brazil in 1964, coups were the preferred method for dealing with popular insurgencies. In other instances, direct invasion by US forces such as happened on numerous occasions in Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and many other places, was the fallback option.
The coup in Santiago occurred as US aggression in Indochina was finally winding down after more than a decade. From 1969 through 1973, it was Kissinger again, along with Nixon, who oversaw the slaughter in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. It is impossible to know with precision how many were killed during those four years; all the victims were considered enemies, including the vast majority who were non-combatants, and the US has never been much interested in calculating the deaths of enemies. Estimates of Indochinese killed by the US for the war as a whole start at four million and are likely more, perhaps far more. It can thus be reasonably extrapolated that probably more than a million, and certainly hundreds of thousands, were killed while Kissinger and Nixon were in power.
In addition, countless thousands of Indochinese have died in the years since from the affects of the massive doses of Agent Orange and other Chemical Weapons of Mass Destruction unleashed by the US. Many of us here know (or, sadly, knew) soldiers who suffered from exposure to such chemicals; multiply their numbers by 1,000 or 10,000 or 50,000 – again, it’s impossible to know with accuracy – and we can begin to understand the impact on those who live in and on the land that was so thoroughly poisoned as a matter of US policy.
Studies by a variety of organizations including the United Nations also indicate that at least 25,000 people have died in Indochina since war’s end from unexploded US bombs that pocket the countryside, with an equivalent number maimed. As with Agent Orange, deaths and ruined lives from such explosions continue to this day. So 40 years on, the war quite literally goes on for the people of Indochina, and it is likely it will go on for decades more.
Near the end of his time in office, Kissinger and his new boss Gerald Ford pre-approved the Indonesian dictator Suharto’s invasion of East Timor in 1975, an illegal act of aggression again carried out with weapons made in and furnished by the US. Suharto had a long history as a bagman for US business interests; he ascended to power in a 1965 coup, also with decisive support and weapons from Washington, and undertook a year-long reign of terror in which security forces and the army killed more than a million people (Amnesty International, which rarely has much to say about the crimes of US imperialism, put the number at 1.5 million).
In addition to providing the essential on-the-ground support, Kissinger and Ford blocked efforts by the global community to stop the bloodshed when the terrible scale of Indonesian violence became known, something UN ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan openly bragged about. Again, the guiding principle of empire, one that Kissinger and his kind accept as naturally as breathing, is that independence cannot be allowed. That’s true even in a country as small as East Timor where investment opportunities are slight, for independence is contagious and can spread to places where far more is at stake, like resource-rich Indonesia. By the time the Indonesian occupation finally ended in 1999, 200,000 Timorese – 30 percent of the population – had been wiped out. Such is Kissinger’s legacy and it is a legacy well understood by residents of the global South no matter the denial, ignorance or obfuscation of the intelligentsia here.
If the United States is ever to become a democratic society, and if we are ever to enter the international community as a responsible party willing to wage peace instead of war, to foster cooperation and mutual aid rather than domination, we will have to account for the crimes of those who claim to act in our names like Kissinger. Our outrage at the crimes of murderous thugs who are official enemies like Pol Pot is not enough. A cabal of American mis-leaders from Kennedy on caused far more Indochinese deaths than the Khmer Rouge, after all, and those responsible should be judged and treated accordingly.
The urgency of the task is underscored as US aggression proliferates at an alarming rate. Millions of people around the world, most notably in an invigorated Latin America, are working to end the “might makes right” ethos the US has lived by since its inception. The 99 percent of us here who have no vested interest in empire would do well to join them.
There are recent encouraging signs along those lines, with the successful prevention of a US attack on Syria particularly noteworthy. In addition, individuals from various levels of empire have had their lives disrupted to varying degrees. David Petraeus, for example, has been hounded by demonstrators since being hired by CUNY earlier this year to teach an honors course; in 2010, Dick Cheney had to cancel a planned trip to Canada because the clamor for his arrest had grown quite loud; long after his reign ended, Pinochet was arrested by order of a Spanish magistrate for human right violations and held in England for 18 months before being released because of health problems; and earlier this year, Efrain Rios Montt, one of Washington’s past henchmen in Guatemala, was convicted of genocide, though accomplices of his still in power have since intervened on his behalf to obstruct justice. And Condoleeza Rice was forced to cancel her commencement appearance at Rutgers this past spring because of student outrage over her involvement in war crimes.
More pressure is needed, and allies of the US engaged in war crimes like Paul Kagame should be dealt with as Pinochet was. More important perhaps for those of us in the US is that we hound Rumsfeld, both Clintons, Rice, Albright and Powell, to name a few, for their crimes against humanity every time they show themselves in public just as Petraeus has been. That holds especially for our two most recent War-Criminals-in-Chief, Barack Bush and George W. Obama.
Andy Piascik can be reached at andypiascik@yahoo.com.
Israel Aerospace Industries is one of Israel’s biggest arms companies. Founded in 1953 as Bedek, IAI has long been at the forefront of Israel’s arms production and export. It also develops systems for commercial aircraft. In 2013, 73% of IAI’s sales revenues came from exports.
IAI and Israel’s drone wars
IAI was one of the earliest developers of drone technology and launched its first surveillance drone, the IAI Scout, in 1979. Since then the company has launched a number of drone models (see below). Drone development is handled by IAIs MALAT divisions. IAI describes its unmanned aerial systems as ‘combat proven’ and writes on its website of its drones’ “unsurpassed track record of over 1,200,000 operational flight hours for over 50 users on five continents”. According to Drone Wars UK, IAI has exported their UAVs, sometimes through joint venture agreements, to various European countries as well as South America, Australia, Canada and India and the company has a growing market in Africa.
IAI and Gaza
Most of IAI’s unmanned aerial vehicle (UAVs) are surveillance drones, but the Heron 1 and Heron TP both have strike capabilities and have been used in Gaza. According to Human Rights Watch (HRW),i the Heron can fly up to 40 hours and can carry four Spike missiles. It is also used for surveillance and to identify targets on the ground.
Drone Wars UKii reports that Israel was deploying armed Heron 1 drones during the Operation Summer Rains attack in Gaza in 2006.
The IAI Heron TP is Israel’s biggest drone, with a wing span of 26 metres. It was first used during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza during 2008-2009.iii When the Heron TP is marketed as ‘combat proven’ it means that it has been tried out on the people of Gaza with fatal consequences.
Attacks on Lebanon:
IAI’s Searcher and Scout drones were both used for surveillance in Israel’s attacks on Lebanon in the 1990s and early 2000s. It is believed that armed Heron drones were used in the assault on Lebanon in 2006iv
IAI and the US:v
During the first Gulf War, IAI Pioneer drones were used by the US navy to guide shells fired from battleships.
Industry:
A ‘defence’ company which develops and produces a variety of products for both military and commercial markets in Israel and around the world, including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), fighter jets and naval and ground defence systems. In 2013, military equipment accounted for 73% of the company’s sales, with only 27% going to commercial markets.vi
Revenues/Assets/Sales: In 2013 the company reported an operating income of $84 million, the company recorded total assets of over $5 billion and net sales of over $3.5 billion – to view the company accounts click here.
Head quarters: Ben Gurion International Airport, 70100, Israel. Phone: 00972-3-9353111 Email: corpmkg@iai.co.il
Representatives: The company has representatives around the world, including in Asia, Australia, Brazil, Colombia, Korea, North America and Russia.
Ownership: IAI is fully owned by the Israeli state. It is the largest state owned defence and aerospace company in Israel.
Drones manufactured by IAIvii
IAI Scout, Bird Eye 400, Mini Panther, Mosquito 1, Mosquito 1.5, Panther, Harpy, Searcher I, I-View-150, Searcher II, Searcher III, B-Hunter, Heron 1 (Shoval), Heron TP (Eitan).
Countries IAI has exported to:viii
Angola, Australia, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Ecuador, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, United States, UK.
Resistance:
In 2011 a Palestinian civil society call demanded a two way embargo on arms sales to and from the Israeli state and Israeli companies.
In October 2014, activists from London Palestine Action occupied the London offices of Airbus over its involvement with IAI. The two companies are working together on the Harfang drone for the French Air Force. The Harfang drone is based on the IAI Heron.
Background
The battlefields of Israel’s militarism and occupation have proved effective testing grounds for new types of weaponry. Israel’s constant state of warfare has ensured a reliable marketplace for Israeli arms manufacturers. According to Drone Wars UK, surveillance drones were first used in Egypt in the lead up to the Yom Kippur War. The first recorded use of an Israeli drone to help piloted warplanes bomb targets (target acquisition) was in 1982 in the run up to the Israeli invasion and occupation of Lebanon. According to the Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights, the first recorded use of an armed drone by Israel was in 2004. The experience gleaned during years of military repression has made Israel the largest exporter of drone technology in the world. Israeli arms companies have sold drones to over 50 countries.
According to Human Rights Watch (HRW): “the missile fired from a drone has its own cameras that allow the operator to observe the target from the moment of firing. The optics on both the drone and missiles include imaging infrared cameras that allow operators to see individuals at night as well as during the day. With these visual capabilities, drone operators should have been able to tell the difference between fighters and others directly participating in hostilities, who are legitimate targets, and civilians, who are immune from attack, and to hold fire if that determination could not be made. If a last-second doubt arises about a target, the drone operator can use the missile’s remote guidance system to divert the fired missile, steering the missile away from the target with a joystick.”
Despite this, the number of deaths (as a proportion of total deaths) caused by drone strikes has been increasing. During our 2013 visit to Gaza, Corporate Watch interviewed several survivors of Israeli drone attacks who had not involved in any fighting before they were targeted, many of those killed by drone attacks are children. The Gaza based Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights provided Corporate Watch with these shocking figures for the years 2000-2012:
Year
Total recorded number of people killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza
Number of people killed by Israeli drones in Gaza (% of total)
2000
123
0 (0%)
2001
243
0 (0%)
2002
472
0 (0%)
2003
398
0 (0%)
2004
646
2 (0.3%)
2005
99
0 (0%)
2006
534
91 (17%)
2007
281
98 (34.9%)
2008
769
172 (22.4%)
2009
1058
461 (43.6%)
2010
72
19 (26.4%)
2011
112
58 (51.8%)
2012
255
201 (78.8%)
Israeli drone strikes are carried out from the Palmachin and Tel Nof air force bases.xxii Endnotes:
“You want to forget Israel, do so. We cannot do it. You want to forget Palestinian People? Go ahead. We Won’t.” – Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah
Predictably, Hamas is back: stronger than ever.
On Jan 14, 2015, Hamas suddenly convened a session of the Gaza parliament, suspended since a unity deal between Fatah and Hamas was agreed upon, this past April. There was no attendance by, or invitation to, Fatah. Thanks to illegitimate president Mahmoud Abbas’ leadership, Gazans were left to rot in the post-war depths of Israeli created misery compounded with a bitter winter living amongst Israeli produced rubble. Deliberate delays in reconstruction, materials and funding; the ongoing, unchanged and crippling Israeli siege; and the Palestinian Authority’s withholding of tens-of-millions of dollars to pay monthly salaries to Gaza’s civil servants, have created a need for the return of an Hamas government, for the Gazan people in Gaza.
In a speech before the re-activated parliament, Deputy Speaker of the Gaza parliament, Ahmad Bahar, warned, “A blowup is at a distance of two-bow lengths or less if the international community does not take action to end the suffering of the people of Gaza.”
An interesting choice of metaphor. At the top of Hamas’ agenda is opening Gaza’s one sea port to travel and commerce, i.e., imports of goods and passengers, whether Israel likes it or not. As reported by Ma’an News Agency, “On Sunday, a ministerial committee in blockaded Gaza announced plans to take necessary measures to prepare the coastal enclave’s sole port.” Young Palestinian children have been taking part in activities aimed at making the seaport into a better looking place for visitors.
The port in Gaza City is currently restricted, by Israel, to fishermen. Israel, however, only allows them to fish up to a maximum of six nautical miles from the shore. Opening the port and allowing fishermen access to all Palestinian waters were two main Palestinian demands during negotiations with Israel which ended the 50-day war in July and August. So, to prove the point, yesterday Israeli gun boats opened fire on fishermen that were inside that six-mile limit: just because they can. A similar incident was reported near Gaza City on January 31.
A border, a truce or a treaty with Gaza means nothing to Israel. This was highlighted this past Sunday morning when Israeli soldiers opened fire at unarmed Palestinian protesters marching near the border fence on their land, in their Gaza. This aggression came within days of Israel lifting quasi-restrictions on arresting, for maximum horror, Palestinian children at night (an average of 197 children are held in military detention every month, 13 per cent of whom are under the age of sixteen) and approving two-hundred-and-fifty more illegal settlement units after killing a Bedouin teenager audacious enough to protest this new Israeli land-grab on his ancestral lands. And, all the while, unchecked Israeli settlers were chopping down hundreds more olive trees: making sure that any future branch, offered in peace, would never survive, much less prosper.
Was this summer’s five week long nightly-news-reel review of the day’s grizzly carnage in Gaza not enough for the world to recognize the heinous mind-set that is fundamental to Israeli foreign policy? Did 2,129 Gazans, including 530 children, die uselessly in vain merely for the morbid titillation of a world momentarily distracted from their equally violent video games? Review of the divisive “progress” for peace in Gaza over the past six months shows that the answer is, oh, so shamefully, “yes.”
A newly bolstered Hamas is required. As the only sincere force for political and social good in Palestine this growing movement follows in the mold of Hezbollah’s effective example of leadership in Lebanon. Hamas leadership also provides badly needed social services and programs, and the only effective deterrent that the Israeli oppressors understand: armed resistance.
Hamas recruiting, reportedly, has increased dramatically in the post-war period. Training of all recruits and renewed preparedness for battle goes on daily. Of course. Likely, each and every Palestinian knows someone who was killed by targeted Israeli atrocity: perhaps a family member, perhaps a whole family. Remember: in Gaza, losing one’s whole family likely means having all your infant nieces and nephews, younger brothers or older sisters, your sons, your daughters, your father, mother, grandmother, grandfather, disappear, forever, in a cloud of collapsing concrete dust and Israeli gun powder smoke. Just six months ago, whole families were destroyed. Many times over.
A world of witnesses may have short memories: a Hamas recruit does not.
When the conditions for the truce with Hamas were agreed to by Israel, upon close examination of the troika selected to sit at the peace table (Egypt, Fatah, and Israel) without Hamas, only the disaffected, apathetic and myopic, would have bet a shekel on an actual peace treaty. Thanks to the skullduggery and complicity of this scheming troika, Gaza suffers worse than ever before. The three are in league in serving Israel’s goal of assimilating Palestinian territory via illegal settlements, walls and genocide, while all-the-time avoiding peace in order to continue their usual inhumane treatment, war crimes, violations of UN resolutions and inhumane immorality.
Israel wants conflict in Gaza and, again, war. As General of the People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine Ahmad Jibril accurately and historically stated, “When someone approaches you through force and drives you out (from your land), you should confront it only with force as that enemy understands. No language, but force.” All observations indicate that Hamas is preparing to take up the sword and, again, defend Gaza.
The first garrison will likely be the Gaza seaport.
Solely due to their quest for international recognition and justice, this past month has been exemplary of Gaza’s plight. To start the New Year, on Jan 2., after repeated and vicious public encouragement from Hamas, Mahmoud Abbas reluctantly joined the International Criminal Court (ICC), despite Netanyahu’s constant warnings. The court is headed by international lawyer and sincere champion of true humanity, Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court; Mrs. Fatou Bensouda of Gambia. So, Israel is furious at the prospect of a fair trial, which it will lose, sending a pack of Zionists running, finally, from international warrants. Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said in a statement that, “this step will be a spark of hope that Palestinians will be able to see the Israeli leadership prosecuted and held accountable for their crimes.”
The cunning tactics employed by this troika ever since shows why the rise in Hamas’ renewed political strength is now required and that its upcoming use of the al-Qassam brigades will not be surprising.
This week, due to Israeli pressure on the Head of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) William Schabas, a Canadian academic who was tasked in August with leading a separate United Nations backed group examining war crimes during the Israeli regime’s military offensive in Gaza, has resigned. He wrote in a letter “My views on Israel and Palestine, as well as on many other issues, were well known and very public,” adding, “This work in defense of human rights appears to have made me a huge target for malicious attacks.” Hamas spokesman in Gaza, Fawzi Barhoum, said on Tuesday, “This clearly displays the organized Israeli state terrorism that targets anyone who tries to unveil the truth and bring Israeli leaders to account in the international forums.”
Of Course.
Fresh from massacring, last week, at least twenty-three Egyptians in clashes between police and protesters on the fourth anniversary of the uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak, current president-for-life, General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who is playing host to the supposed Gaza peace talks, had his pet Supreme Court, on Saturday, ban Hamas’s military wing, the al-Qassam brigades and list it as a “terrorist” organization.
This is the same court that, as previously ordered by el-Sisi, outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood after having already changed the constitution in order to legally legitimize the coup that jailed Mohamed Morsi and, hence, his unopposed election as president, last year. An Hamas political official told Reuters, “We reject the Egyptian court’s decision against Qassam Brigades. It is a political, dangerous decision that serves only the Zionist occupation. After the court’s decision, Egypt is no longer a mediator in Palestinian-Israeli matters.”
As part of the cease-fire, Egypt guaranteed that its Rafah border crossing would open regularly. This has actually meant infrequent, unannounced openings of no more than three days, creating chaos. On the Egyptian side trucks full of goods were halted to a trickle and perishable goods allowed to rot, just like the Gazans, on the other side of the fence. As few as 300 people a day have managed to cross.
Previously, el-Sisi, as peace broker, had shown his sincerity to his task by finding and closing all tunnels across the Egyptian-Gaza border, further starving Gaza from its last lifeline of desperately needed goods. Then he ordered his military to shoot-to-kill any Gazans approaching his imposed 400 meter de-militarized zone on the Gaza side of the border fence. Gazan Health Ministry Spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra told the AFP news agency on Friday that a youth was shot “in the back and the bullet settled in the heart. He died on the spot”. He was identified as Palestinian, Zaki Houbi. He was 17 years old.
Far- a-field, arch-villain, Bibi Netanyahu, was busy influencing a change of heart in his paid-for minions in the EU parliament. Before leaving for Europe in a lather, after the Jan. 2nd ICC disaster, he had already re-arrested all the Palestinian prisoners who had been released, per the cease-fire, from illegal detention in Israeli jails, including the duly-elected Hamas officials from the 2006 election. He next reacted by furiously, yet again, illegally freezing $127 million in tax revenues that by law must be transferred to the Palestinian Authority so that tens of thousands of public sector workers will finally be paid, as promised. For BiBi, that was just a warm-up. Israeli forces on Thursday destroyed a water network which feeds Palestinian villages and Bedouin dwellings in the northern Jordan Valley.
Suddenly, despite the ruling by the General Court of the European Union, on Dec. 17, that said correctly, “the blacklisting of Hamas in 2001 was based not on sound legal judgments but on conclusions derived from the media and the Internet,” all twenty-eight EU member states decided to appeal the court’s decision.
Now, the United Nations has stopped rebuilding homes in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip amid freezing temperatures, citing lack of funds from pledged donors.
Said a UNHRW spokesman, “$5.4 billion was pledged at the Cairo (aid) conference last October and virtually none of it has reached Gaza. This is distressing and unacceptable.”
Now, Israeli politicians are calling on the 122 member states of the International Criminal Court to cut all its funding in response to the beginning of its inquiry into probable war crimes in Gaza last year. Obviously, “[this] provides it (Israel) with the cover for its crimes against the Palestinian people,” said Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri.
Such is Zionist influence. Just like that.
As for Mr. Abbas, the recent cancelation of the Swedish ambassador’s visit said all that was needed. With his PA storm troopers, dressed in American made, black-on-black, riot gear, in daily battle with West Bank citizens, a meeting was apparently too risky in Ramallah. As the first EU member nation to formally recognize Palestine, this past October, Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom was set to meet with Abbas and Israeli officials in Israel instead. This week, she indefinitely postponed a planned trip to Israel, reportedly in response to Israeli Minister for Foreign Affairs Avigdor Liberman’s refusal to meet with her when she came. Now, Mahmoud Abbas will fly to Stockholm on Feb. 10, fresh from serving up an obviously mushy UN draft resolution for Palestinian statehood that, as designed, failed to overcome the expected veto.
Hamas has been busy shoring up preparations, which also means foreign political support, new funding sources, besides stocks of munitions. A senior Hamas official on Thursday demanded that a seaport be fully opened in Gaza, warning of an “explosion” if Israel’s siege and the Egyptian closure of Rafah continue. He called on the “free people of the world’ to send ships to break the blockade, and urged the Arab League, the OIC, and Arab nations to uphold their responsibilities to Gaza.
Senior Hamas leader Dr. Mahmoud Zahhar said that his Movement gave the consensus government the chance to bear its responsibilities towards Gaza Strip. The results are obvious.
The stage appears to be set for another direct conflict between Israel and Hamas. Gaza cannot continue to suffer, after already suffering one of the most barbaric attacks in modern history. The people will not stand for it. Hamas will not stand for it. With more troops in training, new and replenished weaponry, increased sources of funding, and Palestinians from the West Bank to Gaza hungry for real national leadership, Hamas is ready. The only Government ever properly elected in Palestine is back.
With the re-opening of parliament the intention will be to open the Gaza City port, and therefore Gaza, to the world. Israel be damned. A port is a necessary lifeline, but also a statement of sovereignty for Gaza. Like the flag, a port is also a symbol of freedom: for Palestine. It will be defended. The prognostication now becomes: How many people will Israel kill when Hamas and a sympathetic world apply the cease-fire agreement; using Gaza’s territorial waters to bring promised relief via Gaza’s port.
As Mao famously, and accurately observed long ago,” Without An Army For The People: There is nothing for the people.”
Sadly, Israel has given this army for the people of Gaza no other alternative but death. Hamas prepares to fight.
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