Israeli Minister: ‘Voluntary Emigration’ of Palestinians Is an Opportunity During Trump Presidency
By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | November 25, 2024
Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich declared his intention to exploit the Donald Trump presidency to conduct an ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. He believes he can cut the population of Gaza in half in two year’s time.
“It is possible to create a situation where Gaza’s population in two years will be less than half its current size. Encouraging voluntary emigration is an opportunity that arises with the new administration,” Smotrich, who heads the Religious Zionist Party, said.
The Finance Minister, who himself is a settler in the West Bank and has promoted building Jewish settlements in Gaza, made the remarks while speaking at the Yesha Council, the umbrella organization for settlement authorities in the West Bank
“It is possible and necessary to take civilian responsibility for Gaza.” Smotrich continues, “The IDF will need to be there to maintain security, prevent Gaza from rearming and becoming a threat to Israeli citizens again, and in the process, oversee civilian [affairs].”
Following the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, Tel Aviv unleashed a devastating military campaign in Gaza that American doctors estimate killed well over 100,000 people in its first year.
Much of the infrastructure in Gaza is being leveled with bombs, with Haaretz reporting earlier this week that the Jabalia Refugee Camp has been nearly eliminated. Israel civilians have begun entering Gaza to scout locations for potential future settlements.
Israel used American weapons in ‘deliberate’ strike on journalists in Lebanon: Report
Press TV – November 25, 2024
An Israeli airstrike using American weapons that killed three journalists in southern Lebanon in October is likely to have been deliberate, amounting to a potential war crime, an investigation has shown.
The Guardian reported on Monday that experts in international humanitarian law have encouraged further investigation.
“All the indications show that this would have been a deliberate targeting of journalists: a war crime,” said Nadim Houry, a human rights lawyer and executive director of the Arab Reform Initiative.
“This was clearly delineated as a place where journalists were staying.”
During the early hours of October 25, an Israeli warplane dropped two bombs on a chalet hosting journalists.
The victims included cameraman Ghassan Najjar and technician Mohammad Reda from Lebanon-based al-Mayadeen network as well as cameraman Wissam Qassem from the al-Manar channel. They were killed in their sleep.
There was no fighting in the area before or at the time of the strike.
The Guardian found no evidence of the presence of Hezbollah military infrastructure at the site.
After the strike, the Israeli military claimed it had struck a “Hezbollah military structure.”
A few hours later, the regime said the incident was “under review” following reports that journalists were hit.
A day after Israel began its ground aggression inside Lebanon, a group of about 18 journalists arrived at a guest house resort in the southern village resort of Hasbaya.
The journalists drove cars marked with “Press” and wore flak jackets and helmets emblazoned with press symbols.
They said the presence of Israeli reconnaissance drones was “constant” over both the live location and the guest house during their 23-day stay.
“On the night of the attack, we were sitting in front of the chalets and the drone was flying super low on top of us,” said Fatima Ftouni, a journalist at al-Mayadeen who was staying a few chalets down from her colleagues when they were struck.
The resort is owned by Lebanese-American Anoir Ghaida, who said he searched the chalet and car of the targeted journalists after the strike “like you would search for a needle in a haystack” but found “nothing suspicious” about the journalists.
Based on interviews with survivors and available evidence, Israel used “an air-dropped bomb equipped with a United States-produced” Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) guidance kit.
The JDAM is piece of equipment that turns unguided bombs into precision-guided munitions.
Sana Najjar, Ghassan Najjar’s wife, said in an interview with the Guardian that Ghassan left behind a three-and-a-half-year-old son.
“Ghassan was not a member of Hezbollah, he was a member of the press. He never had a gun, not even for hunting. His weapon was his camera.”
Regardless of their political affiliation, killing journalists is illegal under international humanitarian law unless they are actively participating in military activities.
Janina Dill, co-director of the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict, said, “It is a dangerous trend already witnessed in Gaza that journalists are linked to military operations in virtue of their assumed affiliation or political leanings, then seemingly become targets of attack. This is not compatible with international law.”
Six Simple Steps to Pharma Reform
By Clayton J. Baker, MD | Brownstone Institute | November 20, 2024
The recent United States elections may have finally produced an administration that is willing – even eager – to reform the Big Pharma juggernaut that has thoroughly dominated life in the United States since Covid. But how might we achieve meaningful, definitive Pharma reform?
Simple.
Before we continue, please allow me to highlight the difference between “simple” and “easy.” Just because something is simple doesn’t make it easy. Lifting a 10-ton weight is no more complicated than lifting a 10-pound weight. But it’s a lot harder to do.
The task of reforming Big Pharma will not be easy. Talk about a heavy lift! Consider that before the 2020 election, the pharmaceutical industry donated funds to 72 senators and 302 members of the House of Representatives. Pfizer alone contributed to 228 lawmakers. At this moment, Big Pharma may be down, but it’s not out. The industry has too much power, money, and influence to be brought under control without a major struggle.
While not easy, should the political will be mustered, the process of breaking the stranglehold Big Pharma has on us would be surprisingly simple. Six changes in Federal law – four repeals of existing law, and two new pieces of legislation – would go a long way toward reining in and even reforming Big Pharma.
From the 1970s onward, US Federal policy consistently trended toward the empowerment and enrichment of the pharmaceutical industry. Since 1980, a series of Federal laws were enacted that created perverse incentives and promoted the rapacious behavior that has characterized Big Pharma over the past several decades, climaxing with the pandemic totalitarianism of the Covid era.
Four of the most problematic of these laws are ripe for repeal. Doing so would constitute vital steps toward reining in Big Pharma. The two other steps proposed here would require new legislation, but fairly simple legislation at that.
The six simple steps are:
- Repeal the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act
- Repeal the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act
- Repeal the 2004 Project Bioshield Act
- Repeal the 2005 PREP Act
- Outlaw Direct-to-Consumer Pharmaceutical Advertising
- Encode Medical Freedom into Federal Law
Repeal the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act
The Patent and Trademark Law Amendments Act (Public Law 96-517), better known as the Bayh-Dole Act, was signed into law by Jimmy Carter in 1980.
The Bayh-Dole Act made 2 major changes: it allowed private entities (such as universities and small businesses) to routinely keep ownership and patent rights to inventions made during government-funded research. It also allowed Federal agencies to grant exclusive licenses for use of Federally-owned patents and intellectual property.
The Bayh-Dole Act was intended to encourage innovation within government research. As researchers could now profit directly from their work, it was thought they would make better use of taxpayer support. However, as economist Toby Rogers has argued, this ill-conceived law had the opposite effect.
The ability for government contracted workers to patent their discoveries created a disincentive to share them with other researchers, who might beat them to market. Close guarding of intellectual property and lack of open collaboration had a chilling effect on rapid innovation – hardly what taxpayers would have wanted from their investments.
More importantly, endowing Federal agencies such as the NIH with the power to effectively pick “winners and losers” with whom Federal intellectual property would be granted for commercial use, created a tremendous potential for corruption within these agencies.
The Act did contain a provision for “march-in-rights,” whereby the relevant government agency (such as the NIH) could step in and allow other entities use of the intellectual property if the original patent-holder failed to meet specific requirements to make proper use of them for the public good. However, according to the US Chamber of Commerce, in 44 years since the Act was made law, march-in-rights have never been successfully invoked, despite numerous attempts.
The Bayh-Dole Act itself, coupled with the refusal of agencies such as the NIH to ever invoke march-in-rights, has been frequently implicated in the massive price-gouging problems in US pharmaceuticals. In one remarkable exchange in 2016 between Senator Dick Durbin and then NIH Director Francis Collins, Durbin refuted Collins’ prevaricating defense of never invoking march-in-rights, stating:
… if you cannot find one egregious example where you could apply this [march-in-rights], I would be surprised. And applying it even in one, sends at least the message to the pharmaceutical companies, that patients need to have access to drugs that were developed with taxpayer’s expenses and the research that went into it. I think that doing nothing sends the opposite message, that it’s fair game, open season, for whatever price increases they wish.
By allowing the NIH authority to assign publicly funded intellectual property rights and statutory power to protect exclusive use of them, the Bayh-Dole Act opened the door widely for massive corruption between industry and regulators and greatly enabled the extreme degree of agency capture now present at the NIH and other Federal Agencies.
Bayh-Dole has been a failure. It should be repealed and replaced.
Repeal the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act
The toxicity of vaccines was so well-established even decades ago, that a Federal law – the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA) of 1986 (42 U.S.C. §§ 300aa-1 to 300aa-34) was passed to specifically exempt vaccine manufacturers from product liability, based on the legal principle that vaccines are “unavoidably unsafe” products.
Since Ronald Reagan signed the 1986 NCVIA Act protecting vaccine manufacturers from liability, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of vaccines on the market, as well as the number of vaccines added to the CDC vaccine schedules, with the number of vaccines on the CDC Child and Adolescent schedule rising from 7 in 1986 to 21 in 2023.
Furthermore, this special protection afforded to vaccines has prompted Big Pharma to attempt to sneak other types of therapeutics under the “vaccine” designation to provide them with blanket liability they would not otherwise enjoy.
For example, the Pfizer and Moderna Covid mRNA injections, while commonly called vaccines, are not true vaccines, but rather a type of mRNA-based gene therapy. In effect, they are what I refer to as Vaccines-In-Name-Only, or “VINOs.” As pointed out by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and others, the CDC’s definition of “vaccination” was altered during Covid to allow new types of drugs to be labeled as vaccines.
We have now reached the previously unimaginable state where Big Pharma is touting potential “vaccines” for cancer. As the National Cancer Institute admits on its website, these are actually immunotherapies. The purpose of employing this misleading nomenclature is clear: to slide even more therapies under the tort-protected “vaccine” umbrella.
The bloom is off the rose for vaccines. The alarming toxicity of the Covid vaccines caused a worldwide reexamination of this entire class of medicines. Multiple Covid vaccines, including the Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca products, once brazenly touted as “safe and effective,” have now been pulled from the market. And the literally millions of VAERS reports implicating the mRNA Covid products have not gone away.
The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA) of 1986 should be repealed, returning vaccines to the same tort liability status as other drugs.
Repeal the Project Bioshield Act of 2004
The Project Bioshield Act, signed into law by George W. Bush in 2004, introduced the Emergency Use Authorization avenue for pharmaceutical products to be brought to market. Among other things, this law empowered the FDA to authorize unapproved products for emergency use, in the event of a public health emergency as declared by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
By its very design, this law is ripe for abuse. It places immense power in the hands of the unelected Director of HHS, who can declare an emergency activating the law, and who simultaneously oversees the FDA.
This power was egregiously misused during Covid. Shockingly, the FDA issued nearly 400 EUAs related to Covid for pharmaceutical and medical products, the Covid “vaccines” being only the best known. The FDA even went so far as to grant “umbrella” EUAs for entire categories of Covid products such as test kits, often without reviewing specific products at all. The immense amounts of fraud related to test kits and other Covid-era medical products should come as no surprise.
With regard to Covid-related pharmaceuticals, to this day EUAs continue to be misused to the benefit of Big Pharma and to the detriment of citizens. For example, when the FDA announced the “new” formulations of the Covid boosters for 2024-25, they still released these new products under Emergency Use Authorization. In other words, a full four-and-one-half years after the start of the Covid pandemic, these products are still rushed to market after ludicrously inadequate safety and efficacy trials, based on a purported “emergency” now approaching a half decade in length.
The 2004 Project Bioshield Act should be repealed and the EUA designation it created should be eliminated.
Repeal the PREP Act of 2005
The NCVIA already provided vaccine manufacturers with a blanket tort liability shield beyond the wildest dreams of other industries, but apparently that was not enough. In 2005, at the height of the “War on Terror,” George W. Bush signed the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (42 U.S.C. § 247d-6d), better known as the PREP Act.
The PREP Act, which was heavily lobbied for by vaccine manufacturers, provides an unprecedented level of blanket tort liability to Big Pharma and other medical-related industries in the event of declared bioterrorism events, pandemics, and other emergencies. Again, tremendous power is placed in the hands of the Director of HHS, who has broad discretion to declare such an emergency.
The PREP Act was controversial from the outset – any act that can spark vigorous, simultaneous opposition from both Phyllis Schlafly’s conservative Eagle Forum and Ralph Nader’s left-wing Public Citizen for its unconstitutional nature is surely pushing the envelope.
In effect, the PREP Act has allowed Big Pharma and its captured regulatory friends to completely circumvent routine FDA standards for safety and efficacy under the guise of an emergency, which as noted above, can conveniently last half a decade or more.
Furthermore, in the aftermath of Covid, the PREP Act has been broadly invoked in the legal defense of countless defendants now sued for the excesses, harms, and violations of human rights perpetrated at all levels of government and society. It will take decades in the courts to sort out where the PREP Act’s broad protections begin and end.
This is both absurd and insane. At its inception, the PREP Act was broadly recognized as one of the most overreaching and unconstitutional Federal laws in modern times. The Covid era has tragically revealed the PREP Act to be a murderous failure. The PREP Act must be repealed.
During Covid, government at nearly every level used the specter of a pandemic to blatantly suspend, deny, and even attempt to permanently eliminate numerous fundamental civil rights that are clearly encoded in the Constitution. Furthermore, the well-established and time-honored pillars of Medical Ethics were dismissed wholesale in the name of public safety.
In addition to repealing the deeply flawed laws discussed above, two pieces of straightforward legislation are needed to limit Big Pharma’s undue influence on society.
Outlaw Direct-to-Consumer Pharmaceutical Advertising
The United States is one of only 2 countries in the world that allows direct-to-consumer advertising of pharmaceuticals. The scale of this advertising is monumental. Total Pharma advertising spending topped $6.58 billion in 2020. The dangers of this are multiple.
First, as we can all see by turning on the television, Big Pharma abuses this privilege by aggressively hawking almost any product it feels it can profit from. The “pill for every ill” mindset shifts into hyperdrive on TV, with an expensive, proprietary, pharmacological cure for everything from your morbid obesity to your “bent carrot.”
Direct-to-consumer television advertisements heavily target the elderly. This is an important component of Big Pharma’s push to promote the Covid and RSV vaccines as routine shots, piggybacking on the wide acceptance of influenza vaccines. Not content to profit off the traditional fall flu vaccine, Big Pharma seeks to create a subscription model for a bevy of seasonal shots against numerous, generally mild, viral respiratory infections.
Even more importantly, direct-to-consumer advertising provides Big Pharma with a legal way to capture media. Pharma was the second-largest television advertising industry in 2021, spending $5.6 billion on TV ads. No legacy media outlet dares to speak out against the interests of entities providing that level of funding. This muzzles dissenting voices and eliminates open discussion about safety issues in mainstream media.
In short, through direct-to-consumer advertising, Big Pharma has bought the media’s silence.
A free society requires freedom of the press and media. The Covid era has demonstrated that direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising stifles freedom of the press and media to a dangerous and unacceptable degree.
Somehow, the rest of the world has managed to survive without direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising. In fact, many countries do better with respect to health measures than the Pharma-ad-riddled USA. In 2019, just before Covid, the United States ranked only 35th in terms of overall health in the Bloomberg National Health Rankings. Meanwhile, the United States pays more for its middling health rankings than any other nation on Earth.
Encode Medical Freedom into American law
The Founding Fathers would be scandalized to find that the United States needs explicit laws stating that the Bill of Rights is not null and void in the event of a “pandemic,” (or during other emergencies, for that matter), but here we are.
The Founders were well acquainted with episodic infectious disease. In fact, they faced epidemics at a level we cannot imagine. George Washington survived smallpox. Thomas Jefferson lost a child to whooping cough. Dr. Benjamin Rush, signer of the Declaration of Independence and surgeon general of the Continental Army, promoted inoculation of the troops against smallpox.
Despite those experiences, the Founders inserted no health-emergency-based escape clauses in the Constitution permitting government to deny citizens the inalienable rights protected therein.
As I have written previously, the excesses of the Covid era have sparked a movement toward encoding “medical freedom” into law, to protect our civil rights against medical and public health overreach. (To be fully effective, this may need to be expanded to include any declared emergency – e.g. “climate” emergencies – although that is beyond the scope of this essay.)
Given the excesses of the Covid era, many of which have now been demonstrated to have been pre-planned and deliberate, and given rapid technological advancement of both medicine and surveillance, it is advisable to encode into law assertions regarding medical freedom. While the exact wording may vary, the 2 key points of focus would be explicitly protecting bodily autonomy and limiting the power of public health declarations. Here are two examples:
- Citizens shall not be deprived of any rights protected in the US Constitution, or of their ability to fully participate in society, on the basis of their acceptance or refusal of any medical treatment(s) or procedure(s).
- Citizens shall not be deprived of any rights protected in the US Constitution, or of their ability to fully participate in society, on the basis of a medical or public health emergency.
Encoding such statements into law would accomplish two goals. First, it would substantially rein in the power-seeking element of the public health industry that became such a menace to human freedom during Covid, and which incidentally is tightly entwined with Big Pharma. Second, it would significantly thwart the efforts of Big Pharma to push their wares through a herd-based and mandate-driven approach.
Should someone oppose such explicit statements of our God-given rights, on the basis of “But what if there is another pandemic?”, I would reply as follows: Only once in human history did the world lock itself down due to a disease. It turned out to have been done mostly under false pretenses, and it turned out to be a deadly and disastrous mistake. We are not doing that again.
Conclusion
Big Pharma is a Leviathan, in both the biblical and Hobbesian senses of the word. To truly control it, other measures will surely be necessary. Other needful actions are beyond the scope of this article. Some of these may be very complicated. For example, it is imperative that the gain-of-function bioweapons research be halted. However, this is a worldwide issue, so outlawing it in the US alone will not solve the problem.
However, these six simple steps are an important start. Members of the incoming administration have already spoken about some of them. Success breeds success, and successfully implementing these solutions will help free ourselves from the tentacles of the monstrosity that Big Pharma has become.
Clayton J. Baker, MD is an internal medicine physician with a quarter century in clinical practice. He has held numerous academic medical appointments, and his work has appeared in many journals, including the Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine. From 2012 to 2018 he was Clinical Associate Professor of Medical Humanities and Bioethics at the University of Rochester.
Israel assassinates liberated prisoner deported to Gaza
Palestinian Information Center – November 22, 2024
GAZA – Israeli occupation forces assassinated Murad al-Rajoub, a liberated prisoner, in Gaza at noon Friday.
Murad al-Rajoub was released from Israeli prison and deported from his hometown Dura in al-Khalil in the West Bank to the Gaza Strip 13 years ago in the Wafa al-Ahrar prisoner exchange deal with Israel.
His family said an Israeli drone targeted Murad while walking in An-Nasr street, to the west of Gaza City, killing him instantly along with three other citizens.
Murad, who was serving a 38-year sentence in Israeli prisons was released in 2011 after spending ten years in Israeli jails. He was a member of the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas.
The Israeli occupation forces killed dozens of liberated prisoners, who were deported after their release from the West Bank to Gaza Strip in the same prisoners’ exchange deal, since the start of its aggression on the enclave in October 2023.
A Week from Hell
By Philip Giraldi | Unz Review | November 22, 2024
Unfortunately, a machine has not yet been developed that can take one back in time and undo terrible mistakes being made due to lack of appreciation of possible downstream consequences of certain actions. If Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary had been somewhere else other than in Sarajevo back in June 1914 Serbian Gavrilo Princip might never have been able to assassinate him and the European system of military alliances might never have been triggered to start World War I. Going through the subsequent history of wars since the Great War, there are certainly any number of historical mistakes or omissions that might have been rectified to stop those wars from starting in the first place.
Unfortunately, one must concede that many of the wars without any raison d’etre were initiated or expanded by the United States of America, which came into being as a constitutional republic in part to overturn the tendency of Europe’s monarchs to go to war for any or no reason. With that in mind, one must consider the truly awful decision-making being initiated by the current governing regime of Democratic Party President Joe Biden now that the November 5th election is over and Republican Party candidate Donald Trump has won convincingly. Now comes the reaction by Biden and his cohorts, where farce becomes tragedy, as Biden seeks to do whatever he can to limit the foreign policy and national security options that Trump will be able to exercise when he assumes office on January 20th. It is politics at its most sordid in addition to being a formula for disaster with consequences that might easily lead to a nuclear World War 3 erupting both in Eastern Europe and in the Middle East.
Let’s examine for a moment what Biden has done, as well as the exacerbating factors linked to Trump’s actions that could produce an abrupt escalation of hostilities both in Ukraine and in Palestine/Israel. Biden has enhanced his presumed “war powers” and done so in spite of the fact that he has no constitutional authority for starting or sustaining wars at all except in the case of an imminent attack. Authorizing war is a responsibility relegated to Congress by the Constitution though America’s many wars since World War 2 have all been fought without any declaration of war. Biden has served as an instigator from the beginning, acting as an enabler and escalator of both conflicts currently taking place, supplying Israel and Ukraine with weapons and money. Most international law authorities consider the US active role to be that of a belligerent in those wars, which has included the stationing of US military in both Israel and Ukraine, a fact that is denied regularly in the case of Ukraine. US troops are openly present in Israel, possibly to serve as a trip wire if Iran should attack to create a pretext for a US war against the Mullahs.
Biden’s moves concerning Ukraine/Russia might rightly be regarded as bizarre. In spite of the fact that nearly all military authorities consider that there is a high probability that Ukraine will have to surrender, possibly before Biden leaves office, the White House has, on November 17th, dropped objections to the Ukrainian use of state-of-the art ATACMS missiles provided by and to a certain extent manned and controlled by the US, that are capable of striking two hundred miles into Russia. Russia has declared that such action has “qualitatively” altered the nature of the conflict, making it indisputably an act of war, crossing a red line that would trigger the Kremlin’s use of all resources available to it to counter the threat. “All resources” clearly includes nuclear as well as missile attacks on the United States itself as well as on NATO states. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky quickly took advantage of the newly available weapon by launching an attack against the Bryansk region in Russia on November 19th in which six missiles were launched, five of which were intercepted. Russia retaliated on November 21st by destroying a Ukrainian military base near Dnipro apparently using an RS-26 Ruzhek advanced medium-range hypersonic ballistic missile, described by Kiev as an “ICBM,” which was carrying a conventional warhead, though capable also of being fitted with a nuclear device.
Only one brave congressman, Tom Massie of Kentucky, has objected to Biden’s action, posting on X that “By authorizing long range missiles to strike inside Russia, Biden is committing an unconstitutional Act of War that endangers the lives of all US citizens. This is an impeachable offense, but the reality is he’s an emasculated puppet of a deep state.” Indeed, did Joe Biden seriously consider whether his move, which will not alter the outcome of the war in Ukraine, is supportive of the interests of the American people? I think it has been demonstrated that the hobbled and befuddled thinker currently in the White House would be incapable of such a consideration. Biden followed up on his folly by allowing the Ukrainians to deploy US supplied land mines, a weapon whose use has been condemned as a war crime by more than 140 nations worldwide, and he also gave the green light to British supply of their own version of the upgraded Storm Shadow missile to Ukrainian forces. Biden has also authorized the Treasury Department to support Ukraine with the $7 billion that is still sitting in the US government coffers as Ukrainian aid after being budgeted. Biden appears to want to make sure that it is all gone by the time Trump is in power. In other words, he is making sure that the war will go on after he is gone, but the tragic end result could be that a containable conflict has now become something quite different, particularly if other NATO countries follow the British lead and get into the fight. The expanded war will have the potential to go global and nuclear.
And then there is Israel. It was, of course, a Biden decision in mid-October to send US Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense antiaircraft missiles (THAAD) plus their US military crews to Israel. And there was also a warning by Biden made on October 13th, giving Israel 30 days to take steps to remedy the starvation policies in Gaza or the US would consider cutting back on arms shipments. Well, the 30 days have come and gone and, if anything, Israel has tightened its grip on food and medicines going into Gaza, yet and predictably Biden and the criminal gang that he leads have done nothing but lie about what Israel is up to. In fact, they have further protected Israel by vetoing a UN Security Council resolution on November 20th regarding Gaza that demanded “an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire to be respected by all parties, and further” repeats a “demand for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.” American negotiators had previously indicated that Israel had supported the resolution, but that was not the case, hence the flip-flop US vote in support of Netanyahu. The voting was 14 in favor and only the United States opposed, demonstrating once again how the US has shot itself in the foot vis-à-vis its standing in the world due to its support of what is an openly declared and carried out genocide. Biden’s veto comes in spite of the fact that he and his accomplices keep whining how they want the fighting to stop by way of a ceasefire. It demonstrates both the basic dishonesty of Biden and also tells one who is in charge, that when Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu says “No”, Biden can be expected to jump to his feet and salute the force majeure.
The other unfortunate thing about the one-sided relationship between Israel and the US is that the pander to the Jewish state is likely to continue, as is evident from the strongly pro-Israeli cabinet that President-elect Trump has been assembling. Trump accepted a $100 million political donation from casino magnate Miriam Adelson and in exchange will likely support Israeli annexation of all what is left of historic Palestine on the West Bank. He has also been encouraging the Israelis to “finish the job” on the Palestinians. He has committed himself to making sure the weapons procurement system will no longer experience any delays or restrictions when it comes to Israel. That means that the remaining Palestinians will either be killed or driven from their homes into exile in some undesignated location, if they are lucky, and Trump will likely look the other way.
So there’s plenty of bad news, but there was one item of good news on November 20th, when the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague issued arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and his recently removed Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over the clearly demonstrated issue of Israel’s deliberate starving the Gazans. That means that if either of them travels to any one of the 124 countries that recognize the jurisdiction of the court (the US and Israel do not) there is an obligation on the part of those nations to have the accused arrested. Several European countries have already indicated that they will act on the warrant. Two Hamas leaders, one of whom is dead, also were indicted. Netanyahu has already denounced the decision as based on “antisemitism.” Republicans predictably also reacted sharply to the news. Florida Congressman and incoming Trump National Security Advisor Mike Waltz slammed the issuance of the warrants on the following day, saying the international court has “no credibility… These allegations have been refuted by the US government. Israel has lawfully defended its people & borders from genocidal terrorists. You can expect a strong response to the antisemitic bias of the ICC & UN come January.” Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton called the ICC a “kangaroo court” and called Prosecutor Karim Khan “… a deranged fanatic. Woe to him and anyone who tries to enforce these outlaw warrants. Let me give them all a friendly reminder: the American law on the ICC is known as The Hague Invasion Act for a reason. Think about it.”
I applaud the court for its courage to go after these war criminals in spite of threats from folks like Cotton and Senator Lindsay Graham to go after the court members’ families as well as a warning of sanctions against the court itself coming from the new Republican Speaker of the Senate John Thune. Personally speaking, I am disappointed only because I want to to make the story even better. I long to see an ICC investigation, indictment, arrest, conviction and imprisonment of Joe Biden, Antony Blinken, Lloyd Austin and Jake Sullivan for their warmongering and material support for and complicity in Israel’s crimes against humanity. I would also like the American public and media to understand that what those individuals have done might well be considered to be treason since they swore an oath to uphold the US Constitution, a document that they have deliberately trashed.
Nearly 400 Civil Defense personnel killed, wounded in the Gaza Strip
Al Mayadeen | November 21, 2024
The Civil Defense in Gaza announced that the number of martyrs among its crews has risen to 87 since the outset of the Israeli war on the Strip, due to direct targeting by the occupation forces.
In a statistical report detailing the toll on its personnel, it revealed that 304 members were injured, while 21 were arrested by the occupation.
The total number of Civil Defense centers and headquarters destroyed or damaged has reached 17, including 14 destroyed and three partially damaged.
Additionally, 56 vehicles were destroyed or damaged. The occupation forces directly targeted Civil Defense centers six times and attacked crews 18 times during field missions. It also confirmed that the occupation destroyed its stock of firefighting, rescue, and ambulance equipment, valued at $1.3 million.
It is worth stressing that the Civil Defense in Gaza Governorate is facing a severe crisis, with most of its vehicles out of service for the 15th consecutive day due to a lack of fuel needed to operate them. The Israeli occupation continues to prevent its system from working and detain its vehicles in the northern Gaza Strip for the 30th day.
The Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip continues to deliberately target Civil Defense teams.
On Wednesday, Al Mayadeen’s correspondent in the Gaza Strip reported that 12 Palestinians were massacred and more than 10 others are missing after Israeli occupation forces bombed a house in Jabalia town, located in the northern Gaza Strip.
As Civil Defense teams worked to rescue survivors, retrieve the martyrs, and search for the missing under the rubble in the al-Sabra neighborhood, they became targets themselves.
Israeli airstrikes hit their teams during rescue operations, resulting in the martyrdom of one paramedic and injuries to three others.
The Civil Defense confirmed that its personnel were directly targeted by Israeli warplanes in the early morning hours. They emphasized that the IOF are deliberately obstructing efforts to rescue trapped civilians, contributing to the increasing death toll.
Heart-wrenching videos have emerged from Gaza, one of which shows a paramedic holding the amputated arm of his colleague, who was killed in a deliberate Israeli airstrike. The harrowing footage captures the emotional moment as the first responder mourns his fallen comrade.
Brits will have to die defending Israel in war with Iran, says UK envoy to Tel-Aviv
MEMO | November 21, 2024
‘Israel’ destroyed huge Gaza areas for crops; 90% of cattle killed: UN
Al Mayadeen | November 21, 2024
More than 90% of livestock in Gaza have perished, and around 70% of cropland has been destroyed or damaged since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza, according to a UN study of satellite images.
Over half of the sheep and goat herds have been killed and more than three-quarters of the territory’s famed orchards have been destroyed or damaged, according to a September study.
Last week, Rein Paulsen, head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Office of Emergencies and Resilience, stated that local food production in Gaza has been “decimated”, telling the UNSC that vehicle tracks, razing, and shelling have caused significant damage to farmland, infrastructure, wells, and other productive infrastructure, increasing the risk of famine.
Before the outset of the war last year, farms covered around 40% of Gaza, producing enough vegetables, eggs, fresh milk, poultry, and fish to supply roughly one-third of local demand. Many families owned their own olive or fruit trees.
Faraj Jarudat, who was forced to evacuate his farm in northern Gaza, said his three cows and 60 sheep had perished, either due to Israeli bombing or a shortage of feed.
According to Jarudat, friends and former neighbors who visited the site informed him that his trees and houses once stood were uprooted and destroyed by Israeli soldiers. The region near Beit Lahia, where he lived, has seen intense violence in recent weeks.
“The farm and all of our homes – my home and homes of my children – were bulldozed,” he expressed.
Ismael al-Rahal, 49, a farmer from northern Gaza, said only a few of his 65 sheep survived, explaining how he had to move them with him each time he had to flee. He explained to the UN how food prices were extremely high, forcing his family to cut back on their food to feed the sheep.
According to Paulsen, in some areas of Gaza, farmers, fishermen, and livestock owners are risking their lives to continue producing. He told the UN how “the significant levels of damage … are exacerbating the humanitarian and hunger crisis on the ground and increasing the risk of famine. Food supply across [Gaza] has sharply deteriorated while food availability is at an all-time low.”
The humanitarian situation in Gaza has reached catastrophic levels, with widespread displacement and destruction, UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Tor Wennesland warned on Monday.
Speaking at a UN Security Council meeting on the Middle East, Wennesland sounded the alarm on the dire conditions in Gaza, particularly in the north, describing the situation as marked by a “disturbing disregard for international humanitarian law.”
“As this Council has been briefed repeatedly, the humanitarian situation in Gaza, as winter begins, is catastrophic, particularly developments in the north of Gaza with a large-scale and near-total displacement of the population and widespread destruction and clearing of land, amidst what looks like a disturbing disregard for international humanitarian law,” Wennesland said.
Wennesland highlighted the difficulties faced by humanitarian agencies in Gaza, citing a dangerous operational environment and access restrictions that hinder aid efforts. He stressed the need for unrestricted access to deliver aid and emphasized the importance of a political solution to address the root causes of the violence, warning that without it, the humanitarian situation will not improve.
Abusing its veto power, the US is undoubtedly ‘humanitarian disaster creator’ in Gaza
Global Times | November 21, 2024
Once again, the US has positioned itself in opposition to the international community. On Wednesday, the US vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for a cease-fire in Gaza. This marks the fourth time the US has used its veto power on this issue, even as the death toll in Gaza now stands at around 44,000. The draft, put forward by the Security Council’s 10 non-permanent members, demanded an immediate, unconditional and permanent cease-fire, as well as the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages. Among the 15 members of the Security Council, the US was the sole opposing vote.
This US action once again raises the question: How many more innocent lives in Gaza must be lost to awaken Washington’s conscience? Now, nearly 44,000 people have been killed in Gaza, and the US still does not hesitate to use its veto.
Nearly all of Gaza’s 2.4 million residents have been displaced by the war, creating an unmeasurable humanitarian crisis. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, the US is expected to shoulder the responsibility of maintaining global peace and stability. However, its actions – marked by the abuse of veto power – blatantly contradict global efforts to promote a peaceful resolution to the conflict.
The US’ approach to the Palestine-Israel conflict has left it isolated on the international stage. Even the US media outlet The New York Times has acknowledged that this underlines Washington’s diplomatic isolation on the issue. France and the UK’s UN ambassadors have also openly expressed dissatisfaction with the US veto. Nicolas de Riviere, France’s UN representative, stated unequivocally: “There is an obvious urgency to implement an immediate and unconditional cease-fire. This is the only way to guarantee the protection of all civilians and the massive and unhindered delivery of emergency aid.”
Niu Xinchun, executive director of the China-Arab Research Institute of Ningxia University, told the Global Times that there is no doubt that the US’ unwavering support for Israel has not only caused domestic divisions but also created rifts with its allies on the international stage, leaving the US increasingly isolated in the UN.
Washington repeatedly claims to defend human rights; yet, it appears indifferent to the situation in Gaza. While the international community agrees on the need for the unconditional release of all hostages and an immediate cease-fire, the US continues to insist on preconditions for a cease-fire – even as Israel’s military operations in Gaza have long exceeded the scope of rescuing hostages. This stance effectively gives the green light to prolong the war and condone the continued killing.
The US’ repeated vetoes are not only the greatest obstacle to achieving a cease-fire but also the root cause of the dysfunction within the UN Security Council. As the world’s most authoritative international body, the Security Council is expected to speak on behalf of the global community and push for resolutions that pressure both parties to end the conflict. However, the US’ abuse of veto power has left the Council unable to act effectively. This has become a recurring issue that not only severely undermines the credibility and effectiveness of the UN, but also further erodes global confidence in the US.
In the face of death, poverty, and a profound humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the US continues to turn a blind eye to the lives of these people. In the future, when history reflects on this period, questions will inevitably arise: Where are the “human rights” and “humanitarian values” that the US so often proclaims? Is it really that “Palestinian Lives Don’t Matter”? In this tragedy, the US has not only forfeited its leadership and credibility but also plunged its international image into ruin.
Borrell’s symbolic parting gesture is mired in hypocrisy
By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | November 20, 2024
Diplomats and parting gestures are nothing new. As the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell comes close to ending his tenure, he has called for EU member states to stop political dialogue with Israel. “After a year of unheeded pleas, we cannot continue with business as usual,” said Borrell. Make that a year of doing nothing but upholding Israel’s security narrative, thus becoming complicit in genocide.
The EU is neither blameless nor naïve. Borrell’s last ditch attempt at steering EU diplomacy towards at least a veneer of abiding by international law is meaningless, especially when Israel’s atrocities are still not described as genocide by the bloc. Furthermore, proposing an import ban on illegal settlement products is hardly going to dent or end Israel’s genocidal intent and actions in Gaza.
Borrell’s stance has been weak throughout the genocide, and the end of his term as the EU’s high representative was never going to see him leaving an honourable legacy in this respect. In his blog which detailed a timeline of events and EU involvement since Israel’s genocide began (although the g-word is not mentioned once), Borrell makes the case for Israel’s security more than he does for protecting the Palestinians.
“When self-defence started looking more and more like revenge, our appeals grew louder, but we doubled down on our commitment to Israel’s security,” he wrote. The EU’s primary concern, therefore, was to protect Israel’s security narrative at the expense of Palestinians in Gaza. Borrell also described ethnic cleansing and genocide as “some of these illegal and immoral ideas”.
Predictably, the EU foreign ministers rejected Borrell’s proposal. Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski declared that, “We know that there are tragic events in Gaza, huge civilian casualties, but we do not forget who started the current cycle of violence.”
Does Sikorsky remember who started the settler-colonialism in Palestine and who started the genocide, though? Clue: It wasn’t the Palestinians.
Cause and effect are clear, so let’s not forget the initial cause: the creation of the Zionist state of Israel in Palestine.
However, it was not just Sikorski who clearly believes that history began on 7 October 2023, and so uses the shortest timeframe to justify his stance; Borrell did the same. “Looking back, we need to acknowledge that the approach we have used for over a year with the Israeli government has failed,” he wrote. Look back even further, and see how many times the EU failed in terms of upholding international law, because the profits reaped by maintaining ties with Israel are too considerable to lose. Every time, Palestinians were forced to suffer the consequences of international diplomacy with Israel. And let’s not forget the EU’s obsession with maintaining the two-state paradigm’s relevance in rhetoric only.
Business as usual should never have happened. The EU knows it is dealing with a colonial enterprise and that it made human rights secondary to any deals between the bloc and Israel, despite the association agreements actually stipulating otherwise. Borrell’s weak stance is just a symbolic departure trinket, of purportedly having realised too late what was at stake.
The EU – Borrell included – prioritised pleading with Israel as its first diplomatic overture, and ongoing genocide is the result. Even if the EU foreign ministers decided to heed Borrell’s proposals of suspending dialogue and banning settlement products, neither are anywhere near being a tool to bring about an end to the genocide in which Europe and the US are complicit, and which most EU countries are still refusing to acknowledge, never mind stop.
US vetoes UNSC resolution calling for ‘unconditional, permanent’ ceasefire in Gaza
Press TV – November 20, 2024
The United States has vetoed another draft resolution at the United Nations Security Council calling for an “immediate, unconditional and permanent” ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
Fourteen member states voted in favor of the draft resolution on Wednesday, but it was blocked by the US, the Israeli regime’s main ally.
The resolution had been put forward by the Security Council’s 10 non-permanent members.
The resolution called for “safe and unhindered entry of humanitarian assistance” including in the besieged northern Gaza. It denounced any attempt to starve the Palestinians.
The Palestinian delegation at the United Nations suggested the text did not go far enough.
“Gaza’s fate will haunt the world for generations to come,” Ambassador Riyad Mansour warned.
The Palestinian diplomat said the only course of action for the Security Council is to call for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter.
Since the beginning of the Israeli campaign of death and destruction in October 7, 2023, the Security Council has struggled to speak with one voice, as the United States used its veto power multiple times.
The few resolutions that the United States did allow to pass by abstaining stopped short of calling for an unconditional and permanent ceasefire.
In March, the Council called for a temporary end to the hostilities during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, but this appeal was ignored by the Tel Aviv regime.
In June, the 15-member body pledged to support a resolution that laid out a multi-stage ceasefire that ultimately went nowhere.
Some diplomats had expressed optimism that President Joe Biden might be more flexible in his few remaining weeks in power.
They hope for a repeat of December 2016, when then President Barack Obama’s second term was finishing and the Council passed a resolution calling for a halt to the Israeli settlement building in the occupied territories.
The United States refrained from using its veto then, something seen as a departure from the unqualified support for the Israeli regime.
China’s UN Ambassador Fu Cong said each time the United States had exercised its veto to protect Israel, the number of people killed in Gaza had steadily risen.
“How many more people have to die before they wake up from their pretend slumber?”
“Insistence on setting a precondition for ceasefire is tantamount to giving the green light to continue the war and condoning the continued killing.”
“Shocking but not surprising”
Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vassily Nebenzia said, “It is shocking that the US has vetoed an effort to save the lives of Palestinians and Israelis.”
“Though perhaps we should not be surprised about it.”
EU will continue to block €19.2 billion in funds for Hungary
Remix News | November 20, 2024
In a new report from the EU Observer entitled, “Billions of EU funds to remain frozen as Hungary fails to reform,” top EU officials stated that Hungary will continue to be blocked from the €19.2 billion in EU funds owed to the country.
The outgoing European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, while speaking to the outlet, confirmed that Hungary’s funds will remain frozen. He stated that concerns about Hungary still exist because the draft texts submitted by Budapest do not address what he vaguely refers to as “conflicts of interest.”
“The current state of play of relevant developments in Hungary demonstrate that important concerns still persist,” he said.
The EU Observer report also notes that the Child Protection Act from Hungary is a factor in blocking funds. The act stops LGBT topics from being taught in public schools and blocks gender reassignment surgeries to safeguard children.
The outlet notes that on Tuesday, “a hearing at the Court of Justice in Luxembourg saw 16 member states and the European Commission confront Hungary over its anti-LGBTQ law.”
“This is a frontal and serious attack on the rule of law, and more generally on European society,” a lawyer representing the European Commission told the court, according to AFP.
As European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen outlined in a speech in January of this year, Hungary’s €20 billion would remain frozen until the country opens its borders. It was one of the clearest references to the fact that Hungary’s strict border policy, which is now increasingly mainstream in Europe, is one of the sole reasons behind the frozen money. However, other issues such as LGBT also remain at the top of the agenda for the EU.
Once the government in Poland was changed and the left-liberal Donald Tusk became prime minister, the country’s money was quickly unfrozen. The EU is now wielding EU funds as a powerful tool to attack governments Brussels deems to be political enemies.
Von der Leyen stated once Tusk came to power, that she was “impressed” by his efforts to “restore the rule of law.”
Tusk has taken over public television stations in violation of Polish law, imprisoned political opponents, and completely ignored court orders.
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Sam Husseini: The entire US establishment helped lie their way into the Iraq war
By Slava Zilber | American Herald Tribune | October 14, 2019
Sam Husseini is a senior analyst with the Institute for Public Accuracy, independent journalist and contributor to The Nation and FAIR.
Slava Zilber: Sam, three years ago, you appeared on Talk Nation Radio with David Swanson and spoke about the case of the GCHQ whistleblower Katharine Gun. You pointed out that the people involved in the spying on the UN and the people authorizing the Iraq War were not held accountable:
“Virtually everybody who went along with the war, whether it is Kerry or Clinton, of course, the Bush administration themselves has falsified their own records in terms of why, what they did, when they did, why they did it, to the extent that they’ve been scrutinised at all.”
You also address it in a recent article. And recently, Joe Biden has been lying about his position on the Iraq War. How can such an important issue escape meaningful scrutiny? … continue
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